One other big issue I should mention to you about Omaha - driving in the snow. I can’t comment about weather in central Jersey but I hope you have developed snow skills that are at least average and a good set of tires. Most winters, we will have two or three snowfalls that really don’t amount to very much, two inches or less. When these occur, it’s not unusual for the plow/salt trucks to not even make an appearance. Maybe the main roads get serviced the morning after the snow hits and maybe they don’t. Side roads are completely ignored after such a snowfall. Once the snow changes from annoyance to genuine danger though, they’re pretty good. I’ve never experienced this but I’m told that there is a great variation from neighborhood to neighborhood in how effectively the plow trucks clean the roads. I can’t advise you on this but you make wish to research this.
Good warning, we seem to get about the same amount of snow, we’re just not as cold here. I’ve had snow issues in the past and this year broke down and got a all wheel drive Rav4. It is far better in snowy conditions then any car I ever drove. Started with a Cuda with bad tires, 2 different Camaros and then a bunch of box kites like the Hyundai Excel and the last car was a Prius.
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You’ll have to change your nom de Dope.
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New Jersey to Nebraska. Just changing channels in Hell to me.
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Say goodbye to pizza.
I’ll keep the name, I’ve lived in Jersey for 44 years of my life, I think I deserve to keep it. And of the other 8; 4 were the Bronx and 4 were Navy.
Already accepted the pizza part.
I think you proved silenus’ point.
I was being facetious. Growing up in the midwest, I thought Godfathers was “pretty good” in comparison to Pizza Hut, Little Caesar’s, and ShowBiz (ugh!), but then I discovered was pizza is supposed to be and never looked at a “Classic Combo” the same way again. But get a good thick pizza stone and a used copy of Angeli Caffè: Pizza Pasta Panini and learn to make your own from scratch; I had to since Angeli closed several years ago, and it’s not that hard, especially if you have a mixer to knead the dough.
Stranger
What does the “N” on their helmets stand for?
they have a real big insurance company there:D
I’ve lived in Omaha since 1998. Originally from the St.Louis area and got here via Mississippi and Florida thanks to the USAF.
The snow is every type of snow. Sometimes it’s heavy, sometimes it’s not. Probably lean towards the not because it’s so freaking cold so often.
I’ve never seen a tornado or even been that close to one. Pay attention to warnings and have a place to go and you’ll be fine. Since 1956 there have 21 of them inside the city and they’ve cause all of 5 deaths. cite
Lots of people have pools, not sure if they are worth it or not. There is plenty of time to use it though.
It’s easy to avoid living in areas that can flood if you’re worried about it. In fact, you’d probably have to look to find a place that might flood.
There are plenty of bars:corner, single, “da club”, gay, cowboy, punk, rock, sports, cultural.
Bad areas, sure. Like the flooding, easy to avoid. North O is poor and black, south O is poor and Hispanic (with some older pockets of Greeks, Croats, Czechs and Italians) and the poor white people are around the airport (northeast of downtown) and in the northwest part of town. The crime is mostly kept to those areas, and even then, it’s not that bad.
The zoo is great, and the new stadium for the AAA Royals is good, cheap fun. If you like baseball for the sake of baseball, it’s a great way to watch the game. There is a nice gardens, a museum, a decent art and music scene (they say, I don’t know).
Car insurance seems cheap to me, but I would have no way of knowing how it compares to other places. Traffic isn’t bad, you can generally get from any point in town to any other point in town in less than 30 minutes. I drive up from the Air Force Base at 7am and the drive north kind of sucks, and the highways slow down at rush hour (and occasionally turn into parking lots if there is an accident or weather), but it doesn’t really last that long.
I like Omaha and chose to stay here when I got out. It’s got most of the benefits of a “big city” without most of the worst parts of a big city…or at least a much lesser, easy to avoid version of them.
To address the other comments.
It doesn’t smell. Sometimes I catch a whiff of the industry just south of I-80, but it’s Kellogs so it smells like fake chocolate or fake strawberries or whatever they’re making that day. There is a dog food factory south of the base that smells pretty bad (well, it smells like dog food), but it never makes it’s way up to Omaha proper.
senoy isn’t wrong, Omaha is probably best described as “inoffensive”.
Omaha bars got an exemption from the state a few years ago, they close at 2am now, just like across the river.
There are good, local pizza places.
If you have a job you HAVE to show up for, you’ll need to know how to drive in snow. Many places of employment have late starts or close on the occasional super bad day though.
As for having a swimming pool: if the OP has experience with them and the time-consuming/cost aspect, and goes into it assured that he and the family will spend a lot of time in/around the pool, then go for it. We once bought a house in Texas with a pool, and the ratio of time spent maintaining it compared to using it was at least 10:1.
I’ve lived in or traveled to many Iowa cities and towns without encountering “wretched” odors from farming or otherwise. If you live out in the country near a feedlot that might be different.
Thank you dead0man, great info dump.
Jackmannii, I had a pool for 8 years, it was a lot of work and money for what amounted to a 3 month season of use. At least in Texas you probably have 6 months or more for use. I suspect Omaha is also only 3 months max. I guess that is what I am really asking. I should have been more specific.
There are some/plenty of days in May and September where one could use a pool. We were in the mid 80s last week. I just checked and it reached 80 15 times in Sep and it got into the 90s 8 times. It hit 82 on May 1st and it somehow got over 100 in late May but that was very unusual. We had a very early and hot Summer this year.
We used the outdoor hotel pool in Caldwell Idaho in mid-January, because it was set up for winter use. There was a small enclosed wading area that allowed access to the outdoor section, which was covered with peanuts (packing foam). Using a pool year round may not be as impractical as you might think, but it would take motivation and effort.
That is good news.
What are the supermarket chains like? It occurred to me that these are regional and Omaha won’t have any that I use here.
We like Hyvee which is employ owned and out of Des Moines. They tend to be clean and cheap…it helps that it’s the closest one. There is, of course, the ubiquitous Wal Marts and we have a few Super Targets too, not sure if they are wide spread or not. There are a few Bakers (Krogers in most places), but they seem to be slowly closing.
I’ve always assumed our grocery store situation was pretty typical.
Looks like there’s quite a selection of supermarkets in Omaha, including Trader Joe’s and Whole Paycheck.
My main memory of HyVee is that they only carried two kinds of spaghetti - American Beauty and Budget brand. American Beauty was almost edible, but Budget stuck together in horrible glutinous clumps no matter how carefully you stirred the pot.
Of course that was back in the 1970s, so they probably carry at least three or four brands now. 
Hyvee is a pleasure and they can have some very nice specials but I’ve always thought they were one of the medium to high priced stores. They have a wonderful selection with good staffing and bathrooms clean enough for neurosurgery but for a bulk grocery run for everyday kitchen staple, there’s better (or cheaper at least) options, IMHO.
I laughed!
Cool downtown pedestrian bridge. Good zoo.