Confession: I used to live in Texas

I was young. Dallas seemed cool from a distance, and there were a lot of companies hiring. So I moved there after graduating from Arkansas.

It was fun, for a bit. Then the realization sets in that the city's most redeeming feature is that you can get cheap direct flights to many other places which are much more enjoyable.

You can dine, drink and shop. But you can do that most anywhere.

In every direction, you are surrounded by flat, black-clay prairies and strip-malled suburbs, for miles upon miles. To get to any nature worth exploring, you either settle for the Hill Country and fight crowds, drive a few hours up to Arkansas, or catch a cheap flight to Colorado. People hunt deer and other game on ranches, behind tall fences. Like the wealthy terrorists probably do in shitty Middle Eastern hell-holes.

In the summer, it is often 100 degrees plus, for weeks on end. You wind up drenched in sweat, walking from your truck to the office, every morning and every afternoon.

Even at night, it stays in the 90s. You get used to sitting on patios, sweating, drinking Shiner and eating chips and salsa and telling yourself that it doesn't suck, and that there's something cool about it. But in the end, you realize there isn't.