The Annoyed Man
Member
I left California 2 years ago and moved to Texas with my job. It was both a fortunate and unfortunate move.
On the minus side:
On the plus side:
The facts that guns are more easily available here and that CHLs are available to any law-abiding citizen of good character who wants one are merely products of that more prevalent common sense, but that common sense pervades so many other areas of life here besides gun rights, and gun rights had little or nothing to do with our decision to move at that particular time in our lives.
Other parts of California are probably still nicer, but I had to go back to L.A. for a week on business last November, and I couldn't believe how dirty everything is. The streets were dirty. The sidewalks were grimy. The air was dirty. There was graffiti everywhere. The traffic was even worse than I remembered it. There was trash, large and small, all along the freeways. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that you could never get me to move back there.
On the minus side:
- My brothers and mother still live in California. I haven't seen my mom in a little over a year. I haven't seen my brothers in 2 years.
- The owner of the company, which I moved with to the DFW area, committed suicide late last year, and I found myself out of work.
- I miss my best friends in California.
- I miss my church in Pasadena.
- I pay property taxes in Texas at 2-3 times the rate I did in California.
- California is a more beautiful state than Texas.
On the plus side:
- I live 10 minutes from DFW airport, and I can get out to California and visit my family members this summer.
- I started a business of my own a month ago, and the business climate here in Texas - particularly for small businesses - is much better than in California.
- Even though California is beautiful, I love the North Texas plains and the big sky.
- I have made some good friends here.
- I have a great church here in Grapevine.
- I don't have to pay state income taxes in Texas.
- I own a much better home now than I did in Pasadena, by a huge factor, paid for entirely out of the equity of my California home - with money left over.
- My son (whose last day of high school was today), has done much better in school here in Texas than he did in California, and the public schools here seem to be generally better.
- I have purchased more guns in the two years I've been here than I had in the previous 15. I have acquired a Texas CHL, which would have been unthinkable in California.
The facts that guns are more easily available here and that CHLs are available to any law-abiding citizen of good character who wants one are merely products of that more prevalent common sense, but that common sense pervades so many other areas of life here besides gun rights, and gun rights had little or nothing to do with our decision to move at that particular time in our lives.
Other parts of California are probably still nicer, but I had to go back to L.A. for a week on business last November, and I couldn't believe how dirty everything is. The streets were dirty. The sidewalks were grimy. The air was dirty. There was graffiti everywhere. The traffic was even worse than I remembered it. There was trash, large and small, all along the freeways. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that you could never get me to move back there.