Big D, little a, double L -a-s
Dec. 17th, 2002 12:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eggwardsTo while away my trip to the apartment complex’s “Clothes Care Center”. I thought I’d write down some thoughts about my weekend.
I visited my sister, Laura and her boyfriend Ed in Dallas. Dallas in a way is home for me, it’s familiar, mainly due to the fact that my family is from there, and I’ve visited several times. I know the town and can get around well there. Still, I call Houston home, not Dallas. There’s a big difference between the two.
Dallas is order, while Houston is chaos. Dallas is zoned. Things have a proper place. Some areas around Dallas are so fanatical about this that they regulate the bricks you can have on your house, and the Christmas decorations you put up. Houston has no zoning, and it looks like it never will. Every time the referendum comes up, it gets voted down. In Houston, a bar can be next to two houses, a strip mall and a twenty-story hi-rise. The bar just can’t be close to a school. My apartment complex is surrounded by a 30-screen theater, a Wal-mart, the mini storage and Walgreens. Beyond that is a housing subdivision and some restaurants. It does make it easy to get to everything, because they’re in your neighborhood, not zoned away in some other part of town.
Houston has an interesting sense of – style – just about anything’s good, and we don’t care what the others say. It’s not a city concerned about tourists; it’s all about living. Houston’s a fine place to live. It has its problems – no rail, horrible heat and humidity (solution, air condition everything) and a smog problem that’s second in the US to LA’s.
Don’t tell me that Dallas doesn’t have its air quality problems. They do have light rail, but we have more trees. Older parts of Dallas have lots of live oaks, because city planners chose to plant them there. The area is prairie, pure and simple. Look at all the new homes going in, and you’ll see that there’s one tree per house if they are lucky – and it’s a little sapling. I grew up on the north side of town were the end of the great southern thicket ends. Pine trees everywhere.
Dallas has better shopping, and when combined with Ft. Worth, more choices in just about anything. Houston does have the Galleria – which is bigger than Dallas’, and still growing. Dallas has attitude and perhaps savoir fare. Houston is a workingman’s city. It is industrial, with shipping and refining. Houston boasts the worlds’ largest medical center. Dallas is Texas’ financial capital. Houston is the World’s energy capital.
Another thing. It is the 16th of December and I’m doing laundry in a small shack that’s open to the elements in shorts and a t-shirt with no problems. It’s about 68 degrees here tonight.
Alright, enough with the chamber of commerce stuff.
My sister is an architect. She still has to take her boards, and that’s coming up soon, but she’s in the practice, and has been for almost 5 years now. Mostly, she works on hospitals for a Dallas firm. As of late, she has been doing a lot of oversight and project management. She has done much better than I in really being able to find your career doing something you love. She’s lived on her own for a few years now, and since she’s in Dallas while I’m here in Houston, and my parent’s are in the suburbs, she has had to take care of many of the family issues. As my grandmothers passed away, she was often there late nights, when the rest of us couldn’t. It was a big toll on her, and possible put her behind in getting her AIA license.
Her boyfriend, Ed is a nice guy. He tries too hard sometimes. It’s all right Ed, people like you. (I’m pretty sure he’ll read this. Calm down and be yourself. I believe he loves my sister, and that’s great. I think he treats her very well. Ed has a job that he doesn’t like – which isn’t too far from what I do for a living. He evaluates people’s quality in a phone center environment. It’s nothing to build a career on, and he knows it. He’s working on getting back to school at UT – Arlington, but finances aren’t there to do it. I can give all of the advice in the world (and I’m quite known to try too), but you need to find your path, either into another job, or back to school. Yes, if you go back, you’ll still have to work, but it’s the positive motion that’s important. It doesn’t matter how long it takes to get your degree. Hell, it took me 10 years!
I enjoyed my visit, though I didn’t get to see Star Trek, and since I had laundry, couldn’t do it tonight either. Perhaps I’ll get to try tomorrow. The theater’s pretty close – but like any good Houstonian, I’ll drive there.
I visited my sister, Laura and her boyfriend Ed in Dallas. Dallas in a way is home for me, it’s familiar, mainly due to the fact that my family is from there, and I’ve visited several times. I know the town and can get around well there. Still, I call Houston home, not Dallas. There’s a big difference between the two.
Dallas is order, while Houston is chaos. Dallas is zoned. Things have a proper place. Some areas around Dallas are so fanatical about this that they regulate the bricks you can have on your house, and the Christmas decorations you put up. Houston has no zoning, and it looks like it never will. Every time the referendum comes up, it gets voted down. In Houston, a bar can be next to two houses, a strip mall and a twenty-story hi-rise. The bar just can’t be close to a school. My apartment complex is surrounded by a 30-screen theater, a Wal-mart, the mini storage and Walgreens. Beyond that is a housing subdivision and some restaurants. It does make it easy to get to everything, because they’re in your neighborhood, not zoned away in some other part of town.
Houston has an interesting sense of – style – just about anything’s good, and we don’t care what the others say. It’s not a city concerned about tourists; it’s all about living. Houston’s a fine place to live. It has its problems – no rail, horrible heat and humidity (solution, air condition everything) and a smog problem that’s second in the US to LA’s.
Don’t tell me that Dallas doesn’t have its air quality problems. They do have light rail, but we have more trees. Older parts of Dallas have lots of live oaks, because city planners chose to plant them there. The area is prairie, pure and simple. Look at all the new homes going in, and you’ll see that there’s one tree per house if they are lucky – and it’s a little sapling. I grew up on the north side of town were the end of the great southern thicket ends. Pine trees everywhere.
Dallas has better shopping, and when combined with Ft. Worth, more choices in just about anything. Houston does have the Galleria – which is bigger than Dallas’, and still growing. Dallas has attitude and perhaps savoir fare. Houston is a workingman’s city. It is industrial, with shipping and refining. Houston boasts the worlds’ largest medical center. Dallas is Texas’ financial capital. Houston is the World’s energy capital.
Another thing. It is the 16th of December and I’m doing laundry in a small shack that’s open to the elements in shorts and a t-shirt with no problems. It’s about 68 degrees here tonight.
Alright, enough with the chamber of commerce stuff.
My sister is an architect. She still has to take her boards, and that’s coming up soon, but she’s in the practice, and has been for almost 5 years now. Mostly, she works on hospitals for a Dallas firm. As of late, she has been doing a lot of oversight and project management. She has done much better than I in really being able to find your career doing something you love. She’s lived on her own for a few years now, and since she’s in Dallas while I’m here in Houston, and my parent’s are in the suburbs, she has had to take care of many of the family issues. As my grandmothers passed away, she was often there late nights, when the rest of us couldn’t. It was a big toll on her, and possible put her behind in getting her AIA license.
Her boyfriend, Ed is a nice guy. He tries too hard sometimes. It’s all right Ed, people like you. (I’m pretty sure he’ll read this. Calm down and be yourself. I believe he loves my sister, and that’s great. I think he treats her very well. Ed has a job that he doesn’t like – which isn’t too far from what I do for a living. He evaluates people’s quality in a phone center environment. It’s nothing to build a career on, and he knows it. He’s working on getting back to school at UT – Arlington, but finances aren’t there to do it. I can give all of the advice in the world (and I’m quite known to try too), but you need to find your path, either into another job, or back to school. Yes, if you go back, you’ll still have to work, but it’s the positive motion that’s important. It doesn’t matter how long it takes to get your degree. Hell, it took me 10 years!
I enjoyed my visit, though I didn’t get to see Star Trek, and since I had laundry, couldn’t do it tonight either. Perhaps I’ll get to try tomorrow. The theater’s pretty close – but like any good Houstonian, I’ll drive there.
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no subject
Date: 2002-12-17 09:49 pm (UTC)Dallas and Houston are rivals, but it's like a sibling rivalry Both are Texans in the end. It's different from New York vs. Boston, or Chicago vs. LA or other rivalries. (I hae no Idea who's Atlanta's rival)
Dallas' holier-than-thou attitude bugs me, though (including the buckle of the Bible belt mentality)
Feeder roads don't make for great views, but you can usually find Target.
The job market's better here than in Dallas, which was to Telecom heavy, but your best bets in Houston are Energy or Medicine. Both are pretty strong.
Come on back here sometime, we still have that hospitallity.