Nigel:

Up here at the NE corner of ca. its $2.09 at present, lowest its been in 6 months...Pose

Al....this may sound stupid but....couldn't you do what you do from anywhere in the world on your computer from your home or small office????? Why do you need to find somewhere that has work in the "TECH" field?

Austin has grown like a mushroom in the past 20 years. It's no longer a smallish city. It's a big city now. Bad traffic problems sometimes. I'll put it this way. If I were chucking it all and moving to be somewhere more laid back, it wouldn't be Austin or Dallas or Houston. Traffic is just too much a PITA. Austin does have a lot going for it. It makes a lot of sense for me to move there, as I write a lot of songs in the Texas music genre.

Cost of living would be much less in a smaller city. And then are MANy in Texas. That's a damn big state. Hey, I wrote a song, I've fogotten, need to dig it up... "Texas Is Big."

About anywhere in the south, you will find the standard of living WAY WAY WAY less than NYC. Carolinas are nice.

And, uh, pennywise, a $300,000 house in Texas is a friggin mansion. Well, not a mansion but a darn big house. Very few people even need to live in a $300,000 house. That's way much overkill for what most people need. You can find tons of very nice homes in the south for $100k to $180k. In small towns, HUGE lots. Like acres. Seriously.

That's actually pretty good. I'm paying about $2.53 a gallon for Premium around LA at the moment. Unfortunately my Camaro Z28 only likes to drink Premium.