I lived in Dallas and that town is the worst when it comes to snobbery and people who only seemed concerned with designer labels and Mercedes cars. I lived in Newport Beach and it was similiar, but Dallas had this 'tude on such a wide scale. It's those snobs that tend to come to Vail and act like they own the mtn. They also send their spoiled kids to ski here for college. They dope out, drop out, and then blame it on Boulder coulter..... I know that 99% of Texans are solid, but it's the 1% that come here and make the biggest spectacle possible.....
Dallas has a value system of excess, just like Hollywood. But gone is the proximity to pesky beachfronts, postcard views of palm trees, mountains, or a comfortable climate. Here in LA East, err Dallas, shopping is how free time is spent. When it comes to plastic surgery and appearance, the motto is, "If it can be fixed, then you should do it." This is a town that strives to keep up with the (Jerry) Jones. Dallas is the ONLY major city in the US that does not have a four year college within it's city boundaries. (SMU is in an enclave called Vail South, University Park). This is Cherry Creek on steroids. Consider that the neighborhood where W is moving is an executive ghetto for the leaders of Exxon/Mobile, headquartered in neighboring Las Collinas. If you are a senior leader at Exxon/Mobile, and your company has made 20 billion in quarterly profits, you are going to get a fat bonus that will buy a nice house not so far from the office. Then the executives from EDS, TI, AT&T, JC Penney, and all of the law firms and adverising executives who support them need somewhere to live. This is where they go.
Their trustafarian kids who have been spending christmas in Beaver Creek since they were little just might want to go to CU instead of an Ivy League school. Imagine that.
It is a mistake, however, to equate the excesses of Dallas (or Houston) with the whole state of Texas. Outside of Dallas, Harris, Travis, Tarrent, and Collins counties, you will not find many Lamborginis, Lotus, Bentleys, Mercs or Beemers. These exotic fruits of outrageous discretionary spending are greated with disdane around the Farm to Market roads of the other two hundred some odd counties of Texas.
Most Texans are too strapped to ever make it to Colorado, even if they wanted to. Hell, a lot of people from Dallas have never even visited downtown Ft. Worth, which is only 30 miles away. Many are scraping by, just like everywhere else.
When there is an ice storm in Dallas, maybe 2 or 3 days every five years, the entire city grinds to a halt. Schools are cancelled. People stay home. The concept of driving when it is snowing is foreign, scarry, and impossible. Ice storms glaze the roads with ice. Texans naturally assume any frozen percipitation is ice, and therefore Texans don't know how to drive in what Coloradoans consider relatively mild winter conditions. With very few exceptions, the roads in Texas are flat and dry. The combination of ice and winding mountain roads conspire to reinforce the stereotype that Texans are stupid, because if you see a Texas plate in front of you on a mountain pass, you are guaranteed to get pissed off by someone who drives like grandpa on the way to Denny's after church. When you see them pile out of the car wearing a brand new ski outfit with color coordinated boots and poles, this only adds fuel to the fire.
Kids from rural communities in Texas tend to prefer A&M over UT because it is more of a Salt of the Earth kind of place that Sarah Palin might call "Real Texas" if she were to campaign there. The city and suburb kids will often aspire to UT, and settle for A&M or Tech, or North Texas if they don't get in to UT. Many more will go to AT-Arlington or Stephen F Austin, or St Mary's or one of the many small colleges. So basically, in Colorado terms, an Aggie is what you get when you crossbread CSU with the AFA. This is a place with a chip on it's shoulder that happens when rural kids clash with city kids. And they compensate through tradition steeped in love of country and military-style hierarchies.
lol
