DON'T GO TO TEXAS!

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Partially-Hydrogenated

Mr. Tibbs lives there (in one of the East Dallas suburbs). I understand he still lurks here and may respond to a PM.

It's not a job as a mathematician is it? ; )

 
I knew that was coming. Fortunately for me and the good people of Dallas -- no math.

Oh man, a Dallas deconstruction by the celebrated Mr. Tibbs! That'd be the highlight of my week. Here's hoping.

Excellent. Good luck man !!!!

I used to say we don't have hurricanes, but can tsay that now.

If you have a "sweet gig" your money goes a long way in Dallas. Hoepfully you are not married, it is a fun town to play in.

Yes, for the most part you can train year round. We have tons of organized runs,rides, and open water swims.

The worst part is traffic and bad roads. Not bad because the have potholes, but bad because every road has curbs, no bike lane, and Bubba's in pick ups that like to buzz you. Can be dangerous sometimes.

Did I mention it is a great own to have fun in! Most aggressive, best looking women in the country. If you have a "sweet gig"

I grew up there, and moved to Denver from Dallas last year.

QOL is very good. Money goes pretty far in the real estate market. Here in Denver, a house that is similar in size to the one we had in Dallas, in a similar neighborhood, is nearly 1.5X as expensive as in Dallas. We had a house in Dallas, just south of North Dallas/Richardson, and about a mile or so east of US 75 (maybe 5 miles or so from downtown Dallas). House was 3000 sq ft, and we sold it last year for $285,000. That's a LOT of house for the money. If you live further out, you can do even better.

Art, music and culture is certainly not on the same level as say, New York, SF and some of those types of areas, but it's there. The Kimball Art Museum in Ft. Worth is world class, and there is a great music scene in Deep Ellum (just east of downtown Dallas) and also in Ft. Worth.

You'll have a plethora of dining opportunities that run the gamut. You could go to a different restaurant every day for years and not sample all of them. You won't find a lot of some kinds of food. Took us forever to find an Indian restaurant we liked, and most Italian food will be like Maggiano's or Buca di Beppo, not the authentic dive type places you can find in places like NY or Chicago.

Weather is HOT in the summer. Expect many days 100+ with high humidity (although, if you're from FL, it may seem less humid to you). January and February are the coldest months. You'll find an extreme low in the upper teen, to twenties. Ususally, it's not colder than upper twenties to lower thirties. You MIGHT see snow/ice once a year. You can ride outside year round.

Day trips: Austin is 3 hrs away. Ft. Worth is 1 hour away. Houston is 4-5 hours away. San Antonio is 3.5-4 hours away. East Texas (Longview, Tyler) have some great rides through the piney forests, and some pretty decent hills.

Schools: Stay out of Dallas ISD, and stick to places like Richardson, Plano, McKinney, Allen (north) or Coppell, Grapevine, Southlake (west).

If you have any specific questions, PM or email me.

EDIT

Oh yeah... no state income tax, but your property taxes will be astronomical.

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Steve Perkins

 
screamin,

thanks. Yea, it's a sweet gig and I also have a sweet wife. So, no playing for me. But I've lived in South Beach for years, I've had my fun.

How long a drive is it to get out of town to rideable roads? I saw the recent thread about rides but it didn't really say how long it takes to get there -- say from a office building in downtown. I realize the time of day will make a huge difference.

I lived in Dallas as a youngster, never really liked it, left as soon as I graduated from high school. So I don't really know what it's like to live there as an adult but I've gone back at least once a year for the last 15 years. Most of my family still lives there so I guess they like it. I live in Chicago now. I've lived here for 13 years.

One thing I don't like about it is that it's not really much of a city. It's more like a bunch of suburbs connected by expressways. There are several office buildings in the downtown area but I don't think many people live there. I've been downtown on a weekend day and you don't see many people and most of the stores and restaurants are closed. What I really don't like is that living there means you're married to your car. It seems like it is difficult, unpleasent to walk anywhere so everything you do involves driving. Maybe this won't bother you.

David Crosby, upon being released from a Texas prison, said something to the effect that if you want to do drugs, do drugs. If you want to go to Texas, go to Texas. But don't do drugs in Texas. Good enough for me.

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I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'

 
I hate cars.

Depends where you live. If you live up in North Dallas, Plano, Mckinney ,Allen area, you can get to farm roads pretty quick, even though they are getting harder to find. If you live inside the loop i-635/i-20, the only place to ride besides the weekley organzied rides is White Rock Lake. After about 2 months you will be tired of that.

We have a pretty large Tri community, tons of coaches, plenty of training facilities.

We hit the teens only a couple of times a year. Your Saturday morning ride during the winter will be 40 at the start ( that is cold for us ) and will warm up to high 50's to 60's by the end. The hard part is not to overdress.

Depends on where you go. From downtown, it'll take 45 minutes to get to McKinney (north). Much less time to go south to places like Ennis (although, I've never ridden there). West will take a while, because you have to get through all of the mid cities between Dallas and Ft. Worth, and get to the west side of Ft. Worth. I'm guessing 1.5 hours. East is a little easier, too, although, I'm guessing it'd take 45 minutes to get to an area where you'd want to ride (i.e., little traffic, etc.).

Popular places are White Rock Lake (9 mile loop), which is 10 minutes from downtown Dallas and Joe Pool Lake (southwest, closer to Ft. Worth), which is about 30 minutes or so from downtown Dallas.

DISCLAIMER - Those suggested time frames are for light traffic. As has been said, traffic sucks, especially during rush hour.

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Steve Perkins

thay'll mak yew tawlk rell funny-like

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If you're in the outskirts of Miami, you'll have no problem adjusting. It will be very much the same. Very large and spread out and flat. Having a car is critical as freeway travel is used to go just about anywhere. Climate adjustment will be not be a problem. It gets colder in the winter, but the air is dryer. Good nightlife and sports, etc. Crowds are not as diverse as Miami Beach. (That's actually a good thing.) Also, you know the guys they call ranchers or rednecks in Florida, well in Texas, they hold a little more respect from the general population. Takes a while to get used to that.

Great strip clubs, I mean gentlemens clubs.

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hmm, this does not sound good. I'm smack dowtown Miami, which is where I like to be -- in an urban setting. And, call me crazy, I'm a big fan of diversity in all it's forms. Rednecks I'm less a fan of.

It's gonna be a rocky marriage.

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I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'

Due to geography, gets a bit hotter than Miami from recollection, and quite cold for a month or two. Dallas and Houston are paved for miles and miles and miles in all directions. Real estate can be relatively cheap in Texas compared to other states as people often keep building outward from existing cities, contributing to a sprawl/commute mess tradeoff. If you could get the same job in Austin, that would be a better deal for your non work pursuits as weather is a bit milder..

Born in Dallas (third generation North Texan on both sides) left after High School, lived in several cities for 10 years and then back to Dallas for the last 13 years.

Public schools are out of the question, unless you live in one of the suburbs. I'd rank the schools in the suburbs in the following, unofficial order:

Highland Park (not really a suburb, its a township 100% within the city of Dallas): one of the best schools (public or private) in the entire state. But homes in HP go for around $250-$400/sq. ft., so its an enclave for the rich.

Coppell/Southlake: solid school systems, reasonably priced homes, long drive from the Dallas CBD, with lots of traffic.

Allen/Frisco: same as Coppell/Southlake, just a slightly different direction.

Richardson: solid schools, probably just a notch lower than the above, but Richardson is much closer to town.

Plano: solid schools in their prime, but I think they've dropped down a few notches in the past decade or so.

If you want to live IN Dallas, expect to send your kids to private schools. The market is beginning to respond to the white flight out of the DISD, so there are more and more choices for private education.

There are PLENTY of places to ride/train. As another poster said, the most popular is White Rock Lake, but most serious riders just use the lake as their launch pad for some of the longer loops. I have half a dozen maps of good 60-140 mile routes.

Arts/culture scene in Dallas is getting much better, but still laging behind other cities of our size. I'd put our restaurants up against any cities. We've definitely got some good eatin'.

What is the sweet gig?

As mentioned, most people don't live in down town. There are group rides all over though. There are rides from the local bike shops (Richardson Bike Mart has stores in Frisco, Richardson, and Dallas all with Saturday rides. Plano Cycle and Fitness has rides on Sat. There is a tri club out of coppell with rides on Wed, Sat, and Sunday (www.dallasathletes.com). There is also a group called fit to train, but I can't find their website. You will find plenty of opportunities for training all over the metroplex.

It is not nearly as humid as FL, but you will deal with more of a winter and we actually have a few hills (not many, but there are always a couple).

Can't talk too much to the culture as I have little children and we don't get out often :) The schools are good north of Dallas (Plano, Frisco, and Richardson). You pretty much want to be near the more expensive homes :)

Josh

I live just a couple of miles outside of downtown Dallas and I almost never drive my car to ride my bike. I leave right out of my garage or right out of my office (in downtown). As I said in my earlier posts, I've got a dozen of fantastic rides (from scenic, hilly LSD rides to Joe Pool Lake, to hammerfest group rides out to Terrell/Sunnyvale) that start from one of those two locations.

This, coming from someone whom lives in Chicago....Hrmmmmmmm

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Nine out of Ten Scientists agree that
Out of Ten Scientists
One will disagree with the other Nine

Exactly. I have a car tucked safely in my garage that I haven't driven in almost a month. My wife drove it yesterday but I'm pretty sure that's the only time either of us has used it since we drove to Indianapolis for a race in August.
I either ride my bike or take public transportation to work. Chicago is a great walking city with tree lined and quiet side streets. There are streets near my mom's place in Dallas that don't even have a sidewalk.

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I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'