Deep in the Heart of Texas

As the Singer mentioned, I'm in Texas this week. Those of you with statcounter will notice that I haven't really been checking the blogs much. It's pretty much what I figured an onsite visit would be; long days and not much to see other than the customer site and the hotel room.

Well, that's not entirely true. There are our daily forays for lunch, when we venture out from the server room into the bright blue sunshine that is Texas. I'm fortunate in that I came down with a coworker who'd been here before, and could show me all the highlights (and low lights).

I've been to Paris, London, Barcelona, Madrid, Charlottetown, Quebec City, Vancouver, Philadelphia and even remote parts of Indiana. Never, ever, have I experienced the culture shock that I'm encountering here in Southlake TX. Everything is BIG, and I don't mean tall, I mean complete and absolute hommage to consumerism at this finest. The storefronts are huge; there really is a sense of scale that is defies description.

And then they try to bring it all down to something smaller by creating an open air mall, with tight, narrow streets and the post office is the centre of it all.

The other thing that strikes me is how geniunely friendly everybody is. I can't walk into a store, or a restaurant or within 5 feet of someone without them saying hi, how ya'll doin? It's a little disconcerting really, and I long for the polite indifference of home.

Lastly, the amount of salt used in everything is starting to fry my brain. I stopped at the grocery store the other night, and got some brie, apples, cold meat and crackers. I have to say, it tasted like home. Also, I have to ammoritze a 65 dollar steak dinner, but to be fair, my partner in crime said it was steak night. What could I do? When in Texas...