Odessa/Midland area? Comments Please! (Dallas, Austin: homes, theater, construction)

[Lucidus]

Originally Posted by lifertexan

If making money without concern for the quality of life is what you are after,then M/O might be what you want.

Well yeah. That is what it is all about right? The dollar bill. With enough of those you don't really need to worry about the local environment or social scene. You can fly down to Cozumel to hang out on the beach, or out to Aspen if you want to ski, Las Vegas is only a short direct flight away from M/O if you just want to play.

Mossirg

[lifertexan]

Well yeah. That is what it is all about right? The dollar bill. With enough of those you don't really need to worry about the local environment or social scene.

Not really.I'd rather live in a place that I enjoy and provides a good all around quality of life 365 days a year than spend 350 days a year in a hellhole and only get to go off somewhere nice a couple of weeks a year.Money isn't everything,especially if you have to live in or around M/O to make it.

[Lucidus]

Originally Posted by lifertexan

Not really.I'd rather live in a place that I enjoy and provides a good all around quality of life 365 days a year than spend 350 days a year in a hellhole and only get to go off somewhere nice a couple of weeks a year.Money isn't everything,especially if you have to live in or around M/O to make it.

I understand. Just depends on how you look at it I guess. Right here on this very forum you will see people complain about just about everywhere, even if the environment is pretty and there is alot to do. For example the girl who was complaining about Florida because she is bored of walking on the beach.

The way I look at is that I will be spending most of my time working, so even if there was nice scenery around I would just have to drive past it on my way to work. And I find plenty of social activities to do locally in between trips.

So maybe I am just a boring person, but the low cost of living and strong economy mean alot more to me. M/O is a fine place to work and make money. Even uneducated laborers can pull down over $100,000 a year! With the money you make you can have a mini-mansion out here for the price of a modest home in some of the larger markets in the country.

[conanS]

And then your mini mansion gets repossessed when the next oil bust comes, and it WILL come

[Lucidus]

Originally Posted by conanS

And then your mini mansion gets repossessed when the next oil bust comes, and it WILL come

You're half right. The next bust will come, but I know its coming and have planned for it. I am ready, even if it happens tomorrow.

[Six Foot Three]

Was out there for a week back in 1999 and we went to a Texas Steakhouse and it looked like a barn outside and inside and they gave you trays with wax paper as your plates and had a great time there and the food was fantastic...but what really got our attention was when we paid at the register the female ''owner'' gave all of us a ''Hug'' and lets us know that she appreciate our busines and to come on back whenever we liked too.. If she had done that here in Albuquerque she'd probably been sued for sexual harrassment..

If only there were more people like her in this world. I'll never forget that as long as i live..Way to go Midland...

[conanS]

Lucidus, then you are smarter than most in that area!!

Harry O, she must have been drunk!!

[starfields]

I find Midland clean, progressive, and unhurried. I don't play golf, but I think Midland has 5 or 6 golf courses. Midland strikes me as being something like a cross between Fort Worth and Palm Springs. I think Midland's motto is "The Sky's the Limit". The stars are certainly beautiful at night. Midland is a sort of undiscovered paradise, at least to me. I have not felt uncomfortable in any part of Midland. Midland needs a university/ 4 year college. There is a sense of prosperity, worldy sophistication, and cleanliness about Midland which I have not found in similarly sized Texas cities [Lubbock, Abilene, San Angelo, Tyler, etc.]. The high income, better travelled, country club Republican types in Midland set a more coridal and tolerant mood for the city [think the elder President Bush] perhaps. Midland seems to be a bit behind San Angelo and Abilene in the area of main street type improvements. I suppose this is so because Midland has been all BUSINESS for so long. Progress is being attempted in downtown Midland, and the Bush Childhood Home historic preservation effort should be commended. I have heard that there are serious cross-town school rivalries which, peculiarly, extend beyond high school into adult years, though I have not personally experienced/witnessed this. Before you cross Midland off your list of prospects, I suggest you visit.

[The Gribbler]

I can't think of any worse places to live than Midland/Odessa, and I've grown up in Texas my whole life.

[starfields]

If one doesn't like Palm Springs and/or Fort Worth, I can imagine that one would not find too Midland enchanting. I appreciate the open spaces and big sky. Midland's atmosphere feels different* than other similarly sized Texas towns--at least to me. Fundamentalist Christian types may be kept more in check by more socially moderate country club Republicans, is my guess. Lubbock and Abilene, for instance, have had, or still have, restrictive ordinances re the sale of liquor in their city limits. I believe a fiscally conservative, socially moderate entrepreneur of an other than Christian faith would be accepted in Midland, while in other Texas cities, said person might be shunned. I'm speaking of other Texas cities somewhat removed from the 'citifying' influences of DFW/ Austin/ San Antonio/ Houston. Again, these are my impressions. I'm not trying to get Midland haters to relocate, just as I hope Abilene-, Lubbock-, Tyler-, and Amarillo- (, Etc.-) "philes" won't be injured by my absolute rejection of their locales of choice as good places for me to live. Fort Worth and Austin are the larger cities in Texas which appeal to me. Fort Worth and its downtown revitalization, museums, opportunity, altitude, and trees. Austin and its University, Whole Foods climate***, altitude, tolerant attitudes... Satellites of the metro areas are not to be overlooked, but I have no time to go on about them in this post. Midland then San Angelo Kerville for smaller cities. Alpine, Marfa, and then the likes of Fredricksberg...these are my humble, self-limited suggestions. Laugh, learn, and love as you like.


http://www.wadsworthmedia.com/market...80815_ch18.pdf [see map on page 596 (18 0f 30) of this .pdf]


Midland has a polo club. It appears Tyler, Abilene, Amarillo, and others do not. Someone with an interest in quality of life issues, I think, should wonder why. http://www.us-polo.org/clubs.htm#tx (broken link)


*
www.bushwatch.com/ed.htm
Bush Midland Fantasy Plays Buckingham Palace
"If those of us born after 1960 have at times doubted whether the dull, conformist culture of the fifties could have existed in the monochromatic form given to us in books, Midland suggests that it did, and maybe still does. Poppy Bush once called it "Yuppieland West" in a letter, while in 1969 D. W. Meinig, a scholar of geography and culture, called the city's unbearable whiteness of seeming perhaps the purest example of the "native white Ango-Saxon Protestant" culture in Texas..."

** Although Midland doesn't have a Whole Foods Market, or an HEB Central Market, it does have a population appropriate Natural Foods Market which reminds me of the Broady Oaks Whole Foods Market of the mid-late 1980s. Midland's Natural Foods Market has a beautiful, antiseptically clean restaurant, Strawberry Fields.