US's best small cities - # 6 Norman, Sucklahoma

soonertuf, so based on your explanation, you prefer ok to tx b/c of the reduction in crime and other social issues? texas has everything else you mentioned, just better and more of it.

 

Sooner-Tuf

Western Oklahoma, opportunities? beauty?? Are you joking?

Ok, I had written a rather long soap box speech about Oklahoma but I'll save you all the reading and just summarize..

Tech field dark ages.
Morbidly obese stupid @#@#$ are everywhere.
No pride in themselves, their houses, or their state.
Sucky educational system (that includes most of OU)
Simple closed minded socially and mentally repressed..

Most days I'm ashamed I'm raising my kids here. And I live in a town far better than Norman.

 

Sooner-Tuf, you do realize that everything you said only reinforces my point?

Oklahoma is stuck in time. There is nothing wrong with ranching or oil/gas, but that's pretty much all there is here. For all the talk of diversification here, the educational and social system just can't support it.

And I live here because I'm stuck. I do high tech work. Things like make it so you can post on this website and pay your bills online. I get paid well and it's stable but I'm looking to leave, I'm just being picky where I go.

 

Ok_Longhorn I respect what you are saying and I am trying to understand your point of view. But I don't see your point.

I am assuming you came to Oklahoma from someplace else. As did I. I came to Oklahoma BECAUSE it is a good place to ranch and the oil and gas industry is good here for smaller companies. It has been a good decision to this point for me.

I know almost nothing about the high tech industry but I would guess you are right in that Oklahoma is probably not in the top 10 or 49 states to be in if that is your field.

At face value I would say your decision to come here was a bad one. But if you are a young man and are making a good living at what you want to do you are ahead of the game compared to most people. I would be very careful throwing out a stable situation if you have children at home.

On the other hand if you are not happy and just about everywhere else is going to be better for you you really have very little to lose by leaving. Especially since you have children you are wise to be picky where you take them.

I think the education system just about everywhere is terrible these days. But like most things in life it is what you make of it. My kids spent alot of years hating me for putting them in a small rural school. I had to pony up at times to make sure the school had the things they needed to give my kids the education I felt they needed to start out in life with. I don't think this would have been different somewhere else, except I don't believe a big urban school would have been so receptive to me "butting in". I don't know this however.

My children got good enough public school educations that one graduated from Princeton and is currently at Princeton Law, one attended and graduated from The University of Texas and is doing well, and one enrolled and was accepted (completed exactly nothing) to just about every good school in the southwest is currently brightening the days/nights of every tattoed/pierced loser in Houston she runs across. So two out of three isn't bad.

What I am saying is that life in Oklahoma isn't bad for everyone just like life in <name anywhere> isn't good for everyone. Life is what you make of it. No more, no less.

Now where I disagree with you is where you say you are stuck. You are obviously a bright young man with a good job. You are hardly stuck.

Count your blessings a little more often and dwell less on the things you think you don't like. If your dream is somewhere else go there and work your butt off. Make it happen. Realize though that things you have accomplished in Oklahoma are a part of who you are and the successes you have in the future. No matter where you chose to make your mark.

I wish you well and I hope to hear you do great things wherever you go. We need more people doing things in a big way today.

 

Sooner-Tuf, my point is that Norman shouldn't be listed as #6 as great places to live. There are other parts of Oklahoma much better but even they shouldn't probably break top 25 or so.

BTW, I actually didn't make the decision to move here, my parents did. I then meant to leave but there was this girl.. I made the right choice as she's 1 in a million.

Also please don't take my response though that I'm unhappy here. I'd rather be in Austin but there are a ton of places I'm glad I'm not. One of those places is Norman however... (trying to get back on topic..) To be fair, you couldn't pay me enough to live near Dallas either but..

BTW, why can't I run into more people like you when I'm out? I've had to stop wearing anything with Texas on it as the things sometimes said to me, I didn't want my kids to be subjected to.

 

I'll say this, from what I've seen, Austin seems to be hospitable or at least indifferent to rival fans, even sooners and aggy. My buddy wore a UT hat at the Dixie Chicken one day. They burned his CFS and told him if he wants a good one, he'd take off that hat.

And we've all heard what happens when you wear Texas gear in an Oklahoma bar.

 

sooner tuf, is that an entirely different story? I was thinking of the guy who had his nuts crushed or whatever.

 

So Saturday night a buddy calls and says some friends are getting together to celebrate his birthday at that bar. I seriously thought about wearing my Texas shirt but sanity prevailed. Should have found some Texas earplugs as that place had the WORST karaoke performers I've ever heard. But that's besides the point.

BTW, I like how they keep mentioning that the OU fan in the bar fight is a church deacon. So you got this church deacon drinking and smoking (almost everyone there smoked) in a bar, drunkenly shooting off his mouth. They never do name the church however..

I just wish this was an isolated incident. It's so bad that almost any time we are in the city, in public, and I or my wife have a Texas hat or shirt on, some OU fan will mouth off. My 9 year old daughter has come to the conclusion that people wearing OU gear have mental problems (I told her about Torrets Syndrome one day) or at least should be treated as such until proven otherwise.

 

It's not Chili's with a sports theme, it's a bar. No one under 21 allowed. And I assume he was drinking as that is usually why you go to a bar. And I'm assuming he was smoking as statistically, in that bar, I'd be right. But I can't prove anything. Of course, they never have said what church this upstanding guy is deacon of so..

But you're right. We really don't know what was said or done. There where obviously some words exchanged and it ended with one of the guys grabbing the other guy's crotch. Both stories sound fishy and I bet the truth is somewhere in the middle.

And the place you live really shouldn't dictate your happiness, and it doesn't mine. When traveling though, I'm not exactly proud to tell people I'm from Oklahoma. You can't tell me that every time you hear the words "Oklahoma" on the national news, you don't cringe and wonder what some idiot did now..

Torrets Syndrome == Tourettes Syndrome (I thought I'd fixed that but obvious hadn't had enough coffee yet.)

 

i was told by a tech student (i was wearing my UT gameday shirt burnt orange polo in lubbock after UT lost back in the late 90's sometime and I was at an alabama concert at their basketball gym) that he'd kill me if I ever showed my face back in lubbock. turns out this guy was an assistant minister at one of the chapels (can't remember) in town but my friend knew him. this was lubbock, not norman. i imagine norman much worse.

did the 50 somethign year old okie minister provoke the texas fan? who knows. none of us were there. however, based on the time of day (as you mentioned lunch or early afternoon) i'd either have to think i was going to die, or drunk to rip a dude's nut sack open. call me crazy, but i doubt the "minister" felt truely threatended...being in norman and all...in a bar...with collegiate support behind him. i imagine words were thrown around by both parties, but to think the minister was helpless and his only option was to grab hold and rip is pretty far-fetched. probably not too many horn fans testified either.....