No Go Houston

I've been dodging writing about this one, because my life has been in chaos around it all spring. The short of it is that at the end of March I went on vacation expecting to come home to a new position I'd applied for at The Seattle Times. When I got back, the company had laid off 130+ people and frozen any open head count. Meanwhile, a former boss of mine had been growing a new team for Hearst Communications down in Houston and asked me to come down and interview. Of course it was an honor to be considered by her, but it meant moving to Texas! Could a west coast natural survive in hot conservative Houston?

The opportunity to work with my former boss was one I could not simply refuse, I needed to be really sure that Houston was not for me or my wife before I declined. So, we took a trip down there to meet the team and get some exposure. Houston was much more than I ever could have anticipated.

For one, people in Houston city aren't all that conservative - most of the political propaganda I saw was pro-Obama and the Montrose is a pretty open gay/lesbian neighborhood. Also, despite being the hub of big energy, there is a tremendous adoption of solar power, hybrid vehicles, and they even have a major park built using sustainable materials. The arts are very well supported in Houston. Sculpture is everywhere, they host all of the performing arts (ballet,opera,theater,etc.), and the Menil is the most amazing free museum I've ever been to, containing Picasso, Ernst, and Magritte.

Houston is also very unassuming. If you see a strip mall, think again, it's probably got a great Thai restaurant, a fashion boutique, or an independent bookstore. If you think you see a simple house in a little neighborhood, it might actually be a bar, coffee shop, or radio station. You definitely need a guide when you're there as we did or you'll think there isn't anything going on in that town.

My biggest takeaway was that people are people no matter where you go. Bringing your stereotypes with you is always a bad idea, because it limits your perspective on what is really going on around you. Of course the stereotypes exist, but you can't define a person by it. Houston wasn't any of the things I'd been warned about, except for the heat. I'll definitely return again one day.