Wednesday, January 16, 2008

It's like the song "Two Of Us," only by myself - or - I'm on my way home

So I'm back. Back in Iowa. Yes, Iowa. Things sort of fell apart in Texas, I ended up unemployed and homeless. Basically the place where I worked didn't let me have the days off that I needed for going home over the holidays, and didn't tell me about it until I had already missed a day, which they took as a no call, no show type of thing. Which was awesome. I went and talked with them and explained things, so they got over it. But then I wasn't going to be able to get the days off for my trip that I took this past weekend, so I had enough and just left. The best part is that I told them about both trips when I was hired, they said it wouldn't be a problem. Good business practices. It's no wonder they constantly have signs up looking for new hires. So, that was a determining factor in my move back north. There were other things, too, but not having a job and being really frustrated with things there anyways made up my mind.



I drove back in a couple of days, with a car full of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff.




I stopped along the way a few times. First, this rest-stop to call Captain Crab and tell him my sails were taking me north:


All I know is that this was somewhere in Kansas. I drove through Oklahoma while it was dark, so I didn't have many opportunities to take pictures. I was afraid I had taken a wrong turn when I came across this watertower:



I walked around a while to try to find Jad, but apparently, there's a different Ottawa!

I made it to Kansas City in the afternoon, where I stayed with Charczuk and Rhiannon. There will soon be video evidence of this. Should be exciting stuff!

The next morning I got back on my way, but not before stopping for a delicious breakfast:


And in case you were wondering, yes, that is my passenger seat, full of stuff. The XM Radio reciever, shown in the bottom right corner of the photo, was a life-saver on this trip. I heard so much good music, but that's a post for another time. It saved me the trouble of digging for CDs every hour, especially since the CD cases were somewhere on the passenger side floor area.

I made good time, made it back to the Iowa City area right in time for my mom's shift meeting (a.k.a. a bunch of paramedics get off of work and go get drunk). I stayed a night or two in Muscatine, before heading up to Cedar Rapids, where I'll be staying with my brother for the time being. I knew it was a good place to be when I saw this off of the front porch the first morning I was there:

Such a pretty sight. Then, later in the day, I was searching for something to eat for lunch, when I came across the ultra-rare cabinet dwelling cat!

I only had a few days at home before I left for my trip out east, but it was definitely a huge improvement in attitude (and lattitude, ha!) for me. And my trip was wonderful, but that'll wait for another day. Or later today. We'll see. I think I'll break it into a few parts: NYC/Conan, DC, and food (which includes the best gin and tonic I've ever had). It was a good time.

8 comments:

Christa said...

welcome back to snowy parts. my car always looks like that, even when i only travel four miles a day. what's next on the flenker world tour? duluth minnesota has an interesting music scene. i have a cat and an apartment waiting for you.

Jack said...

Great to have you back dude!
Just today it started to snow.
A very rare site in Atlanta.

Hannita said...

Wow. That's a lot over the holidays. I'm glad you are in a safe place now. Sad that things ended so... not the way you wanted them to go. And that you're back up here where it's so f'ing cold this weekend.

charczuk said...

No joke about it being f'ing cold hannita.

Flenker, I'm almost done with the video editing (makes it sound like I spent a ton of time on it, which I didn't). Point is: it's nearing completion. All I have to do is make an account on youtube and post away...

Erin said...

Welcome home flenker...now when do we go to old chicago to really celebrate?

Whiskeymarie said...

I'm glad you're back. You need to be in the great white North, with the rest of us hardy folk.

Think of Texas as an "extended vacation".

Jad said...

It's good you had a nice place to go back to. I've often been tempted to uproot and start fresh in a new city, and, funny enough, one of the things that encouraged me was that I'd have somewhere to come back to no matter what happened.

You'll have to come up to the real Ottawa at some point. :)

Flenker said...

christina - Duluth does sound enticing. . . Now if you could get me a job there, I'd be set!

jack - I heard about the snow down there, I can only imagine what people are doing on the roads!

hannita - yeah, the weather sure knew how to welcome me home

charczuk - let me know when the "video editing" is done!

erin - we need to go soon

jad - I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Garden State, but the idea of "home" is a big theme in it. The redeeming part of the movie for me. And I will definitely make it up to the real Ottawa some time.