KR, I will officially disown you as a Pittsburgher if you EVER cheer for the Cowboys. No proper yinzer would! However, you are allowed to cheer for Antonio Bryant, since he's from Pitt

I know these are common mall names, but you have a Galleria mall in Pittsburgh and there's a North Park too!

I think you should just move back to Pittsburgh so we can go drink at Peter's Pub and molest the SAE lion some more!

:D

Don't worry, kddani... if she does move to the Big D she doesn't hafta root automatically for the sainted Cowpukes. (Overrated and overpaid... lessee what the Tuna (Bill Parcells) can do for what used to be America's team. But then in Dallas during football season all they talk about is the Cowboys and how they're gonna win the next Stupor Bowl and then we watch 'em fall on their a** midway through the season! :)

I grew up in Duncanville/Cedar Hill...worked at Midway/Alpha Road and then Downtown. Never thought twice about driving downtown or to Arlington to go out to dinner...all my friends migrated to Plano/Frisco/Grapevine-Colleyville. I never tell people I am originally from D'ville...I just say Dallas...technically, it's true, since it's in Dallas County!

Hahaha! Everytime I hear 'Duncanville' I warp back to a time when I still didn't know where *anything* was... missed my exits and ended up lost in Duncanville!!! It was hilarious.. I got so lost, I just called my boyfriend and told him "I'm parked here", gave him an intersection and just waited for him to pick me up.

It was funny!!! But the folks there were so sweet and helped me find my way back to I-20.. I should have listened to my parents when they told me to buy a map for my car :p

I don't really have a lot to add to this topic but my dad did live in Dallas for a few years so I just thought I'd throw in my opinion. He lived in Highland Park, which is a GORGEOUS neighborhood, and he lived in a really pretty house that I loved going to stay at b/c it had all sorts of cool rooms and furniture plus a beautiful swimming pool and guest house. I usually went to see him in the winter or spring though so the weather was never very hot.

I hated going to the malls there though b/c I felt like I wasn't pretty enough or dressed right, but then again I never lived there so my perceptions were probably totally off!

However, I think it could be fun to live there if you like the fast paced living enviornment. There is SO much to do there and so much yummy food there!

Good luck with the desicion! :)

Highland Park? The "bubble" of Dallas? (Highland Park and University Park, collectively known as the 'Park Cities' are the bastions of old money and zero-lot length mansions (giant houses (pocket mansions) that take up most of the lot, leaving very little room for a front or back yard.). And the only independent cities completely surrounded by the City of Dallas.

Legend has it that the rivalry between Highland Park Senior High (the 'Scots') and Lewisville High School ('the Fighting Farmers') degenerated into the infamous 'Trash vs. Cash' football game, replete with stories of HP parents and boosters throwing cash on the field.

Don't forget that every fall, the Church of the Holy Gridiron (Archdiocese of Texas) has services every Friday night (high school football), Saturday afternoon (college football) and Sunday afternoon (pro football), with special pro services on Monday and Thursday night! :D

I forgot to add a bit about the traffic. I'm not going to get into all the highways. I try to avoid them as much as possible. But one of my pet peeves is that the city of Dallas does not seem to like to number their buildings. It really sucks at night trying to find something. If they don't number the building, they put the address in a spot where you would never find it

Saturday for example, I had to go to a sorority meeting. The address was 123 Main St. Anyway, I got in the vicinity of where I was suppose to be. Of course when I actually got the place where meeting was suppose to be, the building was not marked 123 Main St. So I ended up driving around till I found out where it was.

If you live in certain counties in the metro area of Dallas-Fort Worth (Dallas, Collin, Tarrant, Denton, Rockwall) they now require your car to pass an emissions inspection along with the safety inspection. Total cost including state inspection is now about $40.

Whoa! Hold on a minute... before you can even submit your car for a safety and emissions inspection you will need to show proof that your vehicle is insured to the minimum requirements of the State of Texas; proof of this is by presenting a current Texas insurance card issued by your insurer. You can't even get your car inspected, registered, nor get a driver's license until you have that card!

The green sheet merely verifies the mileage, VIN number and that your car meets the safety and emissions requirements.

To register your vehicle you'll need to go to the county tax assessor's office (usually at the county courthouse, or other designated location). If you're registering a car from out of state, you'll need to pay a one-time tax (about $75-100) along with the registration and license tag fees. In total, you'll probably pay around $150; renewals are MUCH cheaper (around $50-60).

Getting your Texas drivers license is another story; as soon as you enter the facility you will be met by a DPS officer who will check to see if you have ALL the required paperwork (insurance, registration) before proceeding further. No problem surrendering an unexpired out of state D/L but you may be required to take a vision and/or a road rules test. Interesting little secret: if you have had a Texas driver license issued before and it has not expired (they're generally good for four years; safe driver renewals are good for six years) you can apply for a duplicate license. (It also depends on if you remember the drivers license number: mine's easy to remember because it is all odd numbers.)

You'll get your tags immediately at the tax assessor, while you may have to wait for about two weeks before you get your driver's license (you'll get a temporary slip in the meantime) in the mail from Austin.

Useful websites for Texas driver licensing and registration:

http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/vi/ (vehicle inspection)
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/adminis...ol/dlindex.htm (drivers license)
http://www.txdot.state.tx.us/vtr/vtrreginfo.htm (vehicle registration)

New to Texas brochure (requires Adobe Acrobat): ftp://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-...tr450forms.pdf