The Glade 4.0

Hey all,
I may have an oppy with a company in the Plano area - curious as to if any Gladers live 'round there, and what it's like: cultural, schools, religious, political?
We have 2 kids - 14 (girl) and 10 (boy). She'll be in HS next year and he'll be 5th grade.

We're kinda looking in the NW corner of Plano right now, because of good school ratings at greatschools.com(org?) We'd be coming out of a fantastic school district in metro Detroit (Birmingham - and yeah, they do exist!). Wanna keep a similar level of education for the kids - and they're both really smart.

What's it like there, besides hot & dry?

Any and all opinions are welcome. Please - no flaming.

Muchos gracias.

It's definitely hot and dry. It's a nice city. Toyota broke ground on it's new headquarters in January here, State farm is building a large facility in Richardson, so a lot of expansion going on. Short drive to Dallas for the Dallas Zoo, Aquarium, etc, but Plano has a lot of local entertainment stuff too.

Overall it's pretty inclusive, populous ranges from extremely wealthy to relatively poor. Politics seem to run the gamut from staunch conservative all the way to hippie liberal, and everything in between. Religion is the same, pretty much every faith represented in the area.

Personally, I like that there's a lot of old-style pubs on main street, live plays/music to go see when you're in the mood, really excellent movie theaters. Also like that there's a lot of family owned/local chain restaurants that aren't the large national chains, I pretty much avoid them now.

My kids are younger (oldest is 4) so we haven't gotten into the public system yet, although I hear great things about the elementary school. Overall from friends who have older kids, they seem relatively happy with the public school system in the city.

I used to live in North Dallas. Flower Mound to be exact, which is a little north and west of Plano. Here are my memories of living there around 1999-2000.

- Plano is the rich white suburb of Dallas. Polo shirts and khaki shorts is backyard casual. Women put on makeup and jewelry to shop at the grocerty store.

- The Dallas area in general is quite religious. LOTS of baptists and christians.

- Because of the above, you have silly things like Wet, Dry and Damp counties. Wet means you can buy any alcohol at a liquor store. Dry means there are no liquor stores. Damp means you can only buy beer/wine. Blame the baptists.

- It's hot in the summer. Mostly dry. Spring is in March, usually lasting 2 weeks. Falls happens sometime in Oct, also about 2 weeks. Summer is hot, dry, no wind and the smell of rotting grass. Winter is 40's and rain. Except for the 1-2 ice storms, when most everyone think it's the rapture and lose their minds and/or try and drive 80mph while losing their minds.

- You can get a LOT of house for your money

- There will be 3-5 churches within 5 blocks of you at essentially any point.

- There's a really good Mustang STV Cobra club in Frisco.

- Ft. Worth has probably one of THE best Japanese Gardens I've seen anywhere.

- Christina's Mexican is amazing.

- The Londoner is an amazing English Pub and apparently the only restaurant in Dallas that doesn't play country music.

- Some of the best highways and roads in a city I've lived in.

- The Kennedy assassination museum is quite interesting.

- All the decent Chinese/Japanese/Korean restaurants are in Richardson. Really. ALL of them. Don't even try anywhere else, you have been warned.

- Deep Ellum is the trendy "liberal" area. Good for clubs, tattoos and people watching.

- Dallas is one of the most segregated cities I've ever lived in. The imports (like you) live in the north suburbs. The locals live in Mesquite. The blacks live south of the loop. The mexicans live in the west suburbs. The asians in Richardson.

- There are 2 types of grass in Dallas. One type does well in the "winter" the other in the summer. So neighborhoods can be checkerboard depending on the time of the year.

- Christmas lights are places on the ground as well as on the house, lining the grass. It's weird.

- There's a really good Lotus car club, meets regularly at the Londoner.

- If you are allergic to sage, you will hate life. It's an ornamental plant down there.

- There are spiders EVERYWHERE. They are your friends because there are even MORE bugs. We kept spiders as "pets" under the kickboard in our kitchen as they kept the pill bugs under control.

- Fire ants are common, and their bites hurt in ways you probably haven't imagined.

- You have to water your house slab/foundation.

- There are no basements.

- The furnace is in the attic. Water heater is in the garage.

- The garage is for all your **** that normally goes in the basement, not for your cars.

I had a serious culture shock with this when I moved to California. So when you buy a house, it's like you're getting robbed of a significant chunk of square footage. (Come to think of it, I don't even know if basement square footage is normally counted in house size back east. I just don't even think of having a basement anymore, even though that's where I spent most of my childhood back in the day.)

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

only if its furnished and has an exit to the outside. (a half-height window that could be climbed out is sufficient)

Ah, thanks.

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge