I went to graduate school in the University of Texas at Austin, which in fact is the place I first met David. Texas is a strange and wonderful place, and despite appearances a fairly normal locale (as long as you stay in Austin). If you have not lived there for any period of time, you probably cannot appreciate how totally different it is from any other place on earth. Sure, you probably have an image of cowboys driving pick up trucks loaded with shotguns, and country singers whining all over the radio airwaves, or TV preachers preparing for the Last Days apocalypse in late night infomercials. Those familiar images are just the surface of something much more lively and interesting and unique, if at times completely insane.
All this crossed my mind when I ran into the following gem at the NY Times today. Continuing David’s link extravaganza, take a look at this good advice. If you are at all familiar with the Texas landscape, even just a little bit, you may become nostalgic, just like me.