Relocating Maybe - Texas?

Oh Amanda...I didn't know you moved to Austin!  I LOVE Austin.  I moved to Georgetown for my first year of college and fell in love with Austin.  If I were willing to move to any other city in Texas it would be Austin.  For now though I just visit a couple times a year.  My cousin lives there so I get my fill that way.  Fort Worth I find has a lot of the same cool stuff as Austin, but the atmosphere in general is a little more laid back in Austin.  Texas really is a great state!

Okami

Omg. I am so amazed at the prices of houses in America..

*sigh* 

I think I should move to the us.

That's not the price of homes in America ... it's just the price of homes in Texas. In California, $200,000 "might" get you a 1 bedroom condo.  The median price of a home here is now well over $500,000 in most cities, although because of the current foreclosure mess the prices have come down a bit in a lot of areas.

Joyce

Well, theres a few other states I looked at.. but still, maybe I should rephrase.. maybe I should move to Texas.

I can't believe those houses go for that. They'd sell at like 500,000 here

Liesje

Perhaps *I* shall move to TX.... 

With ya'll talking about moving to Texas, maybe we should have a barbecue, Texas style. Smoked brisket or chicken on a charcoal grill, covered in homemade sweet barbecue sauce. German style potatos. Cole slaw. Baked beans. Shiner Bock, if you drink beer. Iced tea, if you prefer non-alcoholic or non-carbonated.

Another thing you guys may have to get used to is a slower cadence of speech. The big cities, like Dallas, you will run into many people transplanted from the north who still carry their fast speech. But smaller towns and more laid back towns like Ft. Worth or Austin, the speech is slower. Also, a Texas accent is more subtle than some southern accents. If you want to hear a classic, quintessential and true Texas accent, listen to the actors Tommy Lee Jones and Bill Paxton. Both are from Texas. So are Shelley and Robert Duvall.

 Even us over here in Oz are up for a Texan BBQ, Ron! It's about the first thing on our list to buy after we move into our new place, right after a dishwasher, and even before a puppy . Unfortunately, an Australian's idea of barbequeing involves throwing whatever meat they can get their hands on onto a hot plate and charring it to a crisp. Having experienced the Amercian way, the BF and I are converts. We just have to find a butcher that sells brisket.

On the topic of AC, I'm of the opinion that in some cases it's better not to have it. I lived in the tropics for a month coming into the wet season without air conditioning with typically 80% humidity or more and I think I adapted to the climate a lot faster. I was also working outdoors everyday, of course. The humidity comes to feel like a nice, warm blanket. As long as you've got a fan and keep your fluids up, you're better off without the AC, I reckon.

Of course, a hot and dry climate is a different matter. I've done that one as well, and the summers could be pretty brutal. We didn't have AC there, either, but you get used to it. Most summers even here on the coast are too hot to go out in after 10am anyway. Having said that, I've wished we had AC at this apartment because it has no ventilation and the morning sun hits the balcony like a furnace. 

The new place has AC and a pool! I don't know what I'm going to do with myself come summer. Air conditioning gives me headaches, though. 

corvus

Even us over here in Oz are up for a Texan BBQ, Ron! It's about the first thing on our list to buy after we move into our new place, right after a dishwasher, and even before a puppy . Unfortunately, an Australian's idea of barbequeing involves throwing whatever meat they can get their hands on onto a hot plate and charring it to a crisp. Having experienced the Amercian way, the BF and I are converts. We just have to find a butcher that sells brisket

If you can't find brisket, you can use a roast with some fat on it. You may have to shorten the cooking time. The trick to smoking a brisket is low heat for a long time. Usually averaging 150 F (65 C) for at least 6 to 7 hours. Some restaraunts put the meat on the day before, cooking it anywhere from 10 to 24 hours. The type of wood determines the smoked flavor. Hickory and Mesquite are popular around here. Or one can buy smoking chips. The heat is indirect. The fire is one spot and the meat in another, arranged so that the smoke from the fire swirls around the meat on its way out. Also, a container of liquid should be present as it is the desired intention to not have the meat char or dry out.

Ron's secret to grilled steaks. Aside from using rubs or marinades (always important) attention to the time is key. Steaks cook quickly and the fire is generally hotter (200 + F). But what is important is to flip the steaks often, not allowing charring on either side. Plus, with fast cooking, you want to trim off any possible fat, as fat gristles in higher heat. Also, of the bugs in meat, E. Coli dies the quickest and easiest. So, if the steak still has a little pink in it, it's still fine to eat. Chicken and pork, however, with the chance of Salmonella and Trichinosis, must be cooked thoroughly. With chicken and pork, I still flip often to ensure even cooking but I make sure the fire is hot and I give the chicken and pork more time on the grill.

One of the other things I like to do is grill vegetables. Zucchini, Yellow Squash (my favorite), Green and Red Bell Pepper, sliced large and long. Cook directly on the grates or place in aluminum foil that is open to the smoke. The advantage I have with cooking with charcoal is that I get smoke, even if I don't put in smoking wood or pellets.

And just for you, the next time I grill, I'm going to have to dig out my Aussie hat. "Right, Mate. I'll put another steak on the barbe..."

I'm somewhat acclimated to heat and humidity since I have to work in it. I have to say that July, with hotter temperatures, can be more comfortable than early May with humidity in the 70 percent range.

Our seasons here are driven by changes in the jet stream and trade winds. Texas and Oklahoma get such active weather because of the varying geography. The western part of the states are desert and the eastern parts are nearly sub-tropical. Here, we get a meeting of dry line, cold fronts, and humid, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico. Where these three things meet is what weather people call the golden triangle and it is the most likely spot for a tornado to happen, primarily because of the wind shear aloft creating a "hole" and warm humid air rising up through that hole. Hence, a tornado is a rotary ascending colum of air. The area on the ground right in front of it is a vacuum. You can see debris get drawn into the tornado, there. Inside the tornado is the "bear cage." EF 0 is generally winds below or around 100 mph. EF 5 is winds that can reach over 300 mph. The EF 5 that hit Moore and Oklahoma City on May 3, 1999 had winds clocked at 318+ mph. The largest, fastest tornado on record. It was 1.5 miles wide and was moving along as a system at between 30 and 40 mph, about the speed of a car in a city. Normally, the weather guy there would give the standard advice. Get in a small room on the leeward side of the house and cover yourself with a blanket. With this one, he said, "you need to be underground." It flattened everything in it's path. Tornados that big have pulled smaller roadways of the earth. Greensburg (?), Kansas got wiped off the face of the earth with a fast tornado.

In the movie "Twister", people are describing the effects of the different scale tornados to Paxton's fiance. She asks what they call an EF 5. The preacher man answers, "We call that the Finger of God." A fitting description, regardless of religious affiliation.