Our move to Texas

Plano Pilot said:
When I was a kid, I stepped on a scorpion more than once in Texas. Years later we had friends visiting us, from San Antonio, on our boat in Bonaire. They got in late, and we left their luggage in the cockpit for the night. Next morning there was a female scorpion in the cockpit. We know it was female because after we killed it eggs squirted out.

I have lived almost all of my 62 years in Texas and do not currently own a cowboy hat or boots.
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The only cowboy hat I ever had (family is in Dallas, I did 12 years Austin/Houston) was my white UT Longhorn Band cowboy hat.
 
murphey said:
Don't forget to get a rifle rack for the back window of your pickup. Don't need to put a rifle or 2 in the rack, you just need the rack.
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That's like 30 years ago. Pretty much not a thing these days. Might get your truck broken into, as well in some places.
 
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Plano Pilot said:
I have lived almost all of my 62 years in Texas and do not currently own a cowboy hat or boots.
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That hat thing I could give a pass, but there are so many things that are practical about boots, and they are cooler than dress shoes, too.
 
The antidote to Scorpions is a Leatherman... also useful for removing sticker burrs.
 
It was over 100 degrees outside today. Spend almost all day outside and loved every second of it. That's the kinda heat I came down here for. Too bad we'll have to wait six months to get this kinda heat again but this winter, if I ever complain about how "cold" it is, I'll just pull up Toronto on my weather app and feel better about the Texas winter lol.
 
Don't fret over the scorpions too much. The fire ants will be eating you up long before the scorpions will find you.

Chrisgoesflying said:
That's the kinda heat I came down here for.
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If you wanted heat you shoulda moved to Phoenix. I flew there one night and landed somewhere around midnight. As I taxied up to Cutter, the flashing sign outside said, ''Welcome To Cutter Aviation. The wind chill is 109''. :hairraise:

Another time I had a meeting in Phoenix. It was 24 degrees when I left Gallup. It was 95 when I got to Phoenix. It was 105 when I left Phoenix and 31 when I got home to Gallup.

Not to worry though, it is a dry heat in PHX. So dry that when you burst into flames due to the heat, it will be dry flames.

The talk is about making climate change illegal. Well, lets start by making summer temps over 100f anywhere illegal...
 
Chrisgoesflying said:
It was over 100 degrees outside today. Spend almost all day outside and loved every second of it. That's the kinda heat I came down here for. Too bad we'll have to wait six months to get this kinda heat again but this winter, if I ever complain about how "cold" it is, I'll just pull up Toronto on my weather app and feel better about the Texas winter lol.
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You need to see a mental health professional
 
murphey said:
Don't forget to get a rifle rack for the back window of your pickup. Don't need to put a rifle or 2 in the rack, you just need the rack.
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You gotta put an axe handle in it if it’s empty.
 
RyanShort1 said:
Some of us are tough like our ancestors that moved here before air conditioning was a thing.
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Not as tough as them though. Went to the Fort Worth Stockyards and they gave a small presentation on how they drove cattle from south Texas to Kansas back in the day - those were some tough cowboys back then!
 
Chrisgoesflying said:
Not as tough as them though. Went to the Fort Worth Stockyards and they gave a small presentation on how they drove cattle from south Texas to Kansas back in the day - those were some tough cowboys back then!
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Maybe, but if you ever feel inferior, remember that it took hundreds of Texas Rangers 40 years to master the Comanche, and you did it in a couple months.
 
murphey said:
Don't forget to get a rifle rack for the back window of your pickup. Don't need to put a rifle or 2 in the rack, you just need the rack.
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I can’t remember the last time I saw a gun rack in a pickup. The world has definitely changed. When I was in high school, there were several guys who drove pickups with a shotgun, and a rifle of some description in the back window. Those trucks were parked all day long in the school parking lot with unlocked doors, and if the weather dictated, the windows were rolled down. At that time we had never heard of a school shooting.

When I was in the sixth grade, I remember a boy putting a .22 in the cloak room several times because he was squirrel hunting in the morning before school. Either he wasn’t successful or he was cleaning and storing his game somewhere else at school.
 
MBDiagMan said:
I can’t remember the last time I saw a gun rack in a pickup. The world has definitely changed. When I was in high school, there were several guys who drove pickups with a shotgun, and a rifle of some description in the back window. Those trucks were parked all day long in the school parking lot with unlocked doors, and if the weather dictated, the windows were rolled down. At that time we had never heard of a school shooting.

When I was in the sixth grade, I remember a boy putting a .22 in the cloak room several times because he was squirrel hunting in the morning before school. Either he wasn’t successful or he was cleaning and storing his game somewhere else at school.
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Yep, pretty much the same here. Heck, my high school had a marksmanship team. I wonder whether any schools still do.
 
Yes, my Grandson is on the high school Trap Shooting team and one of his team mates was the state champion.
 
Zeldman said:
Don't fret over the scorpions too much. The fire ants will be eating you up long before the scorpions will find you.


If you wanted heat you shoulda moved to Phoenix. I flew there one night and landed somewhere around midnight. As I taxied up to Cutter, the flashing sign outside said, ''Welcome To Cutter Aviation. The wind chill is 109''. :hairraise:

Another time I had a meeting in Phoenix. It was 24 degrees when I left Gallup. It was 95 when I got to Phoenix. It was 105 when I left Phoenix and 31 when I got home to Gallup.

Not to worry though, it is a dry heat in PHX. So dry that when you burst into flames due to the heat, it will be dry flames.

The talk is about making climate change illegal. Well, lets start by making summer temps over 100f anywhere illegal...
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There was a time, about 10 yrs ago or so, that one of the airlines called Boeing for details. One of their aircraft was on the ramp at PHX and the air temp was over 100 and the DA was over 120, and the airline didn't have takeoff data for temps that high.
 
Usually delays in summer at PHX are for brake temps. The turnaround times don't allow the brakes to cool enough. I've heard, but haven't seen it that there are large ducted blowers they can aim at the brakes to get them low enough to taxi and then take off. Apparently there's a brake temp takeoff spec on many Boeing and Airbus alum tubes.:cool:

As for heat in TX, it's such a wide state we have several different weather patterns. El Paso is > 800 miles from Beaumont which is humid and sticky. El Paso is just plain hot and dusty, very low humidity. N TX has wind and cold, it's quite uncomfortable sometimes.
 
MBDiagMan said:
I can’t remember the last time I saw a gun rack in a pickup.
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The few I have seen lately mount under the rear seat.

Which brings up 4 door pickups. Back when I was young only oil companies had enough money to fritter away on 4 door pickups. As kids and teenagers we made do sitting in the bed.
 
Zeldman said:
The few I have seen lately mount under the rear seat.

Which brings up 4 door pickups. Back when I was young only oil companies had enough money to fritter away on 4 door pickups. As kids and teenagers we made do sitting in the bed.
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I seem to recall a small pickup that came from the factory with 2 seats in the bed. Subaru, maybe?
 
StraightnLevel said:
I seem to recall a small pickup that came from the factory with 2 seats in the bed. Subaru, maybe?
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Zeldman said:
The few I have seen lately mount under the rear seat.

Which brings up 4 door pickups. Back when I was young only oil companies had enough money to fritter away on 4 door pickups. As kids and teenagers we made do sitting in the bed.
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In the old days before center consoles you could ride 3 people in a regular cab pickup—4 if they had skinny butts or were friendly.
 
Back to Texas:
Janet and I still laugh about my first visit to Texas; College Station in 1991 - a solo visit to meet her parents and do my state boards.
At one point in the weekend, we went into a restaurant and our meal proceeded.
The waitress was I thought, unusually attentive: 'Fill your drink, sir? More napkins? What else can I get for you, sir?' With a big smile and eager demeanor.
Where I was from in Ontario, our experience was you had to plead with the staff to notice you, to bring you food or drinks.
Don't pzz them off or they will disappear. Don't be asking for unusual things like salt or ketchup or napkins - basically a starvation sentence for a diner in our area.
It was not so, but the contrasting experience made me think she as hitting on me, in front of my in-laws.
It was just the great staff training at Texas restaurants compared to the dismal situation 'back home'.
No, she wasn't hitting on you!
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Back to Texas:
Janet and I still laugh about my first visit to Texas; College Station in 1991 - a solo visit to meet her parents and do my state boards.
At one point in the weekend, we went into a restaurant and our meal proceeded.
The waitress was I thought, unusually attentive: 'Fill your drink, sir? More napkins? What else can I get for you, sir?' With a big smile and eager demeanor.
Where I was from in Ontario, our experience was you had to plead with the staff to notice you, to bring you food or drinks.
Don't pzz them off or they will disappear. Don't be asking for unusual things like salt or ketchup or napkins - basically a starvation sentence for a diner in our area.
It was not so, but the contrasting experience made me think she as hitting on me, in front of my in-laws.
It was just the great staff training at Texas restaurants compared to the dismal situation 'back home'.
No, she wasn't hitting on you!
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That's a great story. I just told my wife this story and she completely agrees. I lived here before and I'm used to mostly great service (there are exceptions even in Texas but they're rare) when going to service based businesses. My wife was always doubtful when service was sh** in Canada or in Europe (or even some places in the U.S. e.g. California or Florida) and I would always make comments about how this would never happen in Texas. She always rolled her eyes. Now we're here, she's gone to a few places over the last two weeks, just regular stuff like getting food, going to a spa, smoothies, that kind of stuff and yesterday she was like "I see what you kept saying to me about Texas". It's day and night. Hard to believe unless you really experience it for a while yourself.
 
mooneyflyfast said:
In the old days before center consoles you could ride 3 people in a regular cab pickup
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Shotgun.!!

I was the guy in the middle once. I had my left hand on the dash to steady myself during the ride. No one wore seatbelts back then. We were coming up to a right curve in the road, so not thinking, I braced myself by putting my left elbow against the steering wheel.

Suddenly the driver screams out...''The steering won't work.!!'' And yanks the steering wheel to the right, ripping the hide off my elbow in the process. The truck goes off the road and in to the ditch, where at that point the driver slams on the brakes, thereby planting me and the shotgun rider face first into the windshield.

It was on a dirt road, so the speed was only 35-40 mph, and no damage to the truck. However the occupants suffered 2 bloody noses and one bloody elbow missing its skin.

We get to our destination, which was to help a rancher move hay from the field to the barn. Well, he was going to be in the air conditioned truck to make sure it worked properly while we were outside making sure the bales get on the trailer. He took one look at us and exclaimed, ''WTH happened to y'all.!!'' We told him and he just shook his head...

Aaaah, the good ole' days.!!
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Back to Texas:
Janet and I still laugh about my first visit to Texas; College Station in 1991 - a solo visit to meet her parents and do my state boards.
At one point in the weekend, we went into a restaurant and our meal proceeded.
The waitress was I thought, unusually attentive: 'Fill your drink, sir? More napkins? What else can I get for you, sir?' With a big smile and eager demeanor.
Where I was from in Ontario, our experience was you had to plead with the staff to notice you, to bring you food or drinks.
Don't pzz them off or they will disappear. Don't be asking for unusual things like salt or ketchup or napkins - basically a starvation sentence for a diner in our area.
It was not so, but the contrasting experience made me think she as hitting on me, in front of my in-laws.
It was just the great staff training at Texas restaurants compared to the dismal situation 'back home'.
No, she wasn't hitting on you!
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We like to call it Southern Hospitality. Much of it is because we are in the “Bible Belt.”
 
I don't know if it's so much bible belt, as it is growing up in small towns and being smart. You treat people nice, you get treated nice, generally speaking. Everybody knows everybody, and information about people travels faster than on the Internet.

Or it could just be because people are generally happier, because the food is better and there's no sunshine. The "you'd be grouchy like a NYC person if you lived in a crowded dirty city where you've only seen actual sunshine 3 days in your life" theory. :)
 
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