East Coast Recap

Today is the first Sunday in a while where I've had nothing to do, no where to go, and some time on my own. It's nice. The new (to me) laptop that I got last weekend allows me to write this post from bed, which makes it doubly nice.

Yes, I got a new, three-year-old laptop from my stepdad, because it sometimes likes to shut down on its own, probably due to overheating. It doesn't really do it that often even, I think it's happened maybe 3 times since I've brought it here. So that's pretty sweet.

The past few weeks have been busy ones, with a trip out east (that rocked in every way), a trip to Iowa for the first Hawkeye home game (also a high level of rockage), a few Royals games (of course), a performance by my "band," five fantasy football drafts, all mixed in with some occasional laziness. It happens.

My east coast trip went down almost exactly as I had outlined it in my last post, only I didn't get to see my friend in Baltimore because she was in the midst of moving to New Jersey. It was a packed weekend, with a lot of driving, but definitely worth it. The Phillies game was fun, even if we showed up 4 innings late. We still got to see Greg Maddux pitch (and get rocked), and Chase Utley hit a home run (Ryan Howard had homered earlier, but we missed it). We didn't spend a lot of time in Philadelphia, but it seemed like a pretty cool city.

Vermont was beautiful. I really really loved it there, the air was so fresh, the rolling hills provided some nice scenery, and the wedding and reception were a blast. It's an area where I wouldn't mind living, if only there were an easy way to get there. There's not. But I did pick up some amazing maple syrup!

The wedding and reception were both held at the same place, at the home of a member of the bride's family. It was outdoors, in perfect weather, with some really great people, and good food (amazing corn bread, and some homemade chocolate truffles were my favorites). I even danced! That very very rarely happens.

On Sunday, we used the North Jersey Shore as a resting point in the long drive, spending a couple hours sitting by the ocean. Such a good choice. We relaxed, soaked in the sun and sounds, and played in the ocean. Not too far in, since the waves were getting pretty huge, but enough to enjoy it.

We made it back to DC in time to watch some of the Olympics' Closing Ceremonies, then hit the hay. The next morning I caught the train back to Baltimore, making it with a whole 2 minutes to spare (I made the train to DC by 4 minutes, so the timing on this whole trip was almost spot-on), and flew back to the Midwest. I didn't want to come back, but I guess that's the norm on vacations.

My birthday trip out east, part 2 (DC and food)

I've decided to combine these two, to keep myself from writing about every little thing I did, no matter how insignificant, and to talk about the food, which was amazing.

When we got back to DC on Saturday night, we just took it easy. We found out that the Hawkeyes beat #6 Michigan State, played some Mastermind (a birthday present for Marin), made Scotcheroos, and just sort of hung out. It was a good night.

The next morning I met up with one of my friends from Muscatine and her boyfriend, and the 4 of us went out to for a delicious brunch (more below), and a little catching up. I had just seen her around Christmastime, but a lot, as you know, has happened since then. It was nice to see friends, though.


More friends came by later that evening, for my (soon to be) World Famous Pizza. I make a mean pizza, my friends. We played some Settlers of Catan (awesome game, for anyone who likes fun and has a few friends that like fun, and have like an hour, get this game and play it!!). Good times!



The next day was a Chris day, since Marin was at work. I went to a few museums, including the postal museum (more interesting than you'd think!), the Air and Space Museum (always fun for me, I like planes), the National American Indian Museum (my favorite, the architecture is beautiful, I have a little Cherokee blood so I've always loved learning about them, and the cafeteria is amazing. Seriously, if you're in DC, on the Mall and looking for food, go there), and the Holocaust Museum (very good, but sobering). I felt good about how I spent my day.

Later, Marin and I had reservations at Ceiba, as part of DC's restaurant week. Two weeks a year, a bunch of nice restaurants offer a smaller menu for a little cheaper price, $20 for lunch, and $30 for dinner, including an appetizer, a main dish, and a dessert. And it usually happens that it occurs during my twice a year visits. It's like I planned it or something. Again, this will be covered in the food section.

I left on Tuesday, and spent A LOT of time in airports. I took the MARC back up to BWI, and got there a few hours early. No problem, I started reading Love is a Mixtape (excellent!) and napped a little bit. The flight was on time, and trouble-free. Then I arrived in Detroit. For 3 hours. I ate a chili dog (and accidentally forgot to leave a tip. I felt pretty bad about that), finished Love is a Mixtape, and read a few short stories from books I had. And still had some time. My flight was delayed about 45 minutes for whatever reason. Tends to happen to me. Oh well!


Now, onto the food.


First night (Thursday), we went to some place that had Burrito in the name. I don't remember. Anyways, I got some Mexican dish. It was alright, but as you can tell, it didn't make a big impression on me. Especially compared to the meal that we had Friday night.

John's Pizzeria was amazing. It could have been because we hadn't eaten since the expensive Burger King, but it was seriously some of the best pizza I've ever had. It was a simple sausage and mushroom pizza, but everything tasted so fresh and delicious. Plus, while we were waiting for a table, we sat at the bar and I got the most delicious gin and tonic I've ever had. I don't know what they did, but it was amazing. Marin even thought so, and she doesn't like that drink normally. Same thing with her and sausage. She normally doesn't go out of her way to eat it, but she enjoyed the pizza. The building is an old cathedral, so they have a pretty awesome stained-glass ceiling. Check out some photos on their website. The prices were pretty good, too!


Breakfast the next morning was provided by the hotel, and like I mentioned in the last post, it was good. I'm a sucker for waffles, so that may have put it up a couple of notches in my book. We had a snack in Little Italy at a coffee shop, that was probably about the Starbucks equivalent of coffee shops in Little Italy, but it was still good. I had an espresso, Marin had a hazelnut coffee (that didn't really taste that hazelnutty), and we split an eclair. It was sweet and good. Our lunch on Saturday was the prosciutto and fresh mozzerella sandwich, assembled in meat shop in Little Italy, and eaten at Central Park. One of my favorite meals, it was so simple and so delicious, and in a wonderful setting. Dinner was back in DC, and was leftovers. A couple slices of pizza from Friday, and some tacos that Marin had made a few days earlier. Yum!

Brunch at the Banana Cafe was good, very tasty, and came with unlimited mimosas for just $4 more. What a deal! They had the usual eggs and potatoes and some great pound cake, as well as some rice and chicken, and beef. I liked it all a lot. Maybe the mimosas had something to do with it. That night we made my pizza, with Canadian bacon, mushrooms, and onions. I was very proud of how it turned out!

Monday I had some leftover pizza, and a Mexican hot chocolate at the American Indian museum. DE-licious! Dinner at Ceiba was good, but for me it peaked with my appetizer - a Cuban black bean soup. It had some ham and manchego cheese, mmm mmm. The main dish was pretty good, grilled shrimp, but there's not a whole lot that can be done with it. And I was jealous of Marin's dish, pork shank with black beans. For dessert I got flan, which was good, but not overly impressive. I would still recommend the restaurant. They had an amazing sangria, and the food was very, very good!

So that's my trip! It was a great time, I'm glad I was able to do it, and very glad I have such great friends! I really like having friends to visit in different places. I'll visit anyone that wants me!

the politics of lonely will return to its regular posting soon. Oh, and pictures will be shown when they arrive.

My birthday trip out east, part 1

My trip to DC started pleasantly, with a trip to the coffee shop on the way to the airport, courtesy of my step-mom. I got there in plenty of time, sat and did some crossword puzzles, and just relaxed. Both of my flights were on time, no problems, no rushing through airports to get to the right gate or anything. It was nice. I had made a (slight) mistake when purchasing tickets, I had been slightly tipsy and bought tickets into Baltimore instead of DC. I seem to remember there being a large difference in price, though, so of course I went with the cheaper option. Plus, there's a train that goes from BWI to Union Station, which is about 5 blocks from where Marin lives. And at $6, it was a bargain!

I made it into DC with some time to kill before Marin got off of work, so I just sat around and finished up What is the What by Dave Eggers (very excellent book, I'll get around to talking about it sometime in the future). Marin got off work, we met up, went for some dinner, then hung out the rest of the night.

The next day we left for New York. Of course it rained on us most of the way, and there were a few navigational errors, but we made it in pretty good time, even with stopping for the most expensive "cheap" burger I've ever eaten (here's a tip: if you're ever driving on the New Jersey Turnpike, don't stop for food whlie still on the turnpike. It's like airport prices. I think it was $7 for 2 cheeseburgers, a small fry, and a small drink between the two of us at a Burger King.) Our hotel was in Jersey, an excellent find by Marin. I highly recommend the Comfort Suites in North Bergen, New Jersey. Our room had a bedroom area with a large bed and tv, then a sitting area with a pull-out sofa, and a lot of extra space. And the breakfast was pretty good - eggs, ham, and a waffle iron to make your own waffles, in addition to the normal continental breakfast fare.

By the time we got unloaded and headed to the park-and-ride for the bus, I was getting stressed that we wouldn't make it in time to see the screening of Conan. I had pictured our bus ride to Manhattan taking much longer, like maybe an hour or more, but it ended up being around 10 minutes. Amazing! Of course, I had forgotten to look up directions from Port Authority to the NBC Studios, but a police officer pointed us in (basically) the right direction. He was off by a couple blocks, but once I knew where we were, I figured it out.

We made it with plenty of time, and then began the process of getting into the studio for the taping. It was a long process. And a hot process. First, we got a wristband and a ticket, both of which had to be displayed for most of the time. Then we were told to meet at a certain place at exactly 4:15, no earlier, no later. After we all gathered at the precise time and place, were taken through a metal detector, then to a hallway, then sorted out by numbers and letters that they had given us, and then counted, and recounted, and recounted again. Then we stood there for about half an hour. That was a fun time, especially listening to the douches in the line near us. We finally were taken into the studio after that, and seated by some dudes.

The studio was nice. Smaller than it appears on TV, but pretty cozy, with some nice HD TVs spread throughout, which were playing old clips from the show, and were also used during the taping to show any of the clips that they cut to during the show. A warm-up comedian came on for a few minutes, then the man himself, Conan O'Brien came out and talked a little bit (maybe a couple minutes), then went right into the taping. The guests for the show were Brian Williams from NBC Nightly News, a dude who wrote books on and studied cocktails, and Doyle and Debbie, a country-parody duo. (If you missed the show, you can watch it here (ok, if that doesn't take you there, the address is http://www.nbc.com/Late_Night_with_Conan_O'Brien/video/episodes.shtml, just copy and paste the whole thing. I don't know why that's not working. Oh well)! Just select the January 11th episode.) It was pretty fun to see how everything is done, and see how things are run during the commercials and whatnot. My favorite parts, actually, were during the commercials. The band plays the whole time, and Conan sits at the desk. You know how the host is always talking with the guest when they go to commerical? Well, that lasts about 3 seconds after the camera goes off, then they sit there awkwardly for the next 2 minutes. I thought it was hilarious. All-in-all, though, it was an awesome experience.

After the show, we wandered around a little while, and found a pizza place that I had seen featured on a Travel Channel show just a few days earlier. It was amazing. But again, that's for another post, when I tackle the foods of the trip.

That was it for night one in NYC. We headed back to our room, and fell asleep watching TV, until Conan came on that night, and of course, we had to watch. It was kind of a strange feeling, watching an episode that I where I was in attendance.

Day 2 in New York was spent just checking things out. We went to Chinatown and Little Italy, got a prosciutto and fresh mozzarella sandwich made at a shop in Little Italy, then went to Central Park and ate. An awesome day. We left for DC later in the afternoon, but still had a wonderful, albeit short time in Manhattan. And once I get the pictures from Marin, I'll put them up here!

Come back soon, when I'll go into the DC part of my trip. I promise it'll be informative, if not entertaining. I'll work on that a little bit too.

Just to let you know (or - I'm 27 now, but I won't be for long)

I am, in fact, still alive. Things have been kind of hectic around me, lots of changes. But for now, I'm in DC for another hour or so, then we make the trip to NYC to see my identical twin. When I head back to the Central Time Zone, I'll fill everyone in on the stuff going on. It's a doozy!

should old acquaintance be forgot, yada yada yada

I hope everyone had a good holiday season, and that the New Year is treating them well so far. After a little bit of a rocky end to 2007, I'm ready for the new year. I always liked even-numbered years better anyways.

New Year's Eve was less than great. I got back to Austin around 5:30, then had to wait for my luggage, then took a bus home. After walking for nearly a mile from the last stop to my place, I made it into the apartment around 8:30. I was a grumpy Flenker. I actually ended up going to be at like 11:15, then woke up when my brother called at 12:05, then I got a couple of text messages, and another phone call at 2. Happy New Year. Had I actually known anyone in Austin, I'm sure I would've enjoyed it more. But I've never been a big fan of the holiday. You would think I would be, seeing as how it's basically an excuse to stay up late and drink, then do nothing but watch football the next day, but for some reason, it just doesn't do it for me. Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that I've only had a midnight kiss once ever. Who knows.

My trip home was excellent, though, I got to see a couple of decent snowfalls, and was lucky enough to get go shovel and use the snow blower!

The view of my house from the back, during one of the periods of snow. It was great. Also, this was the only picture I took the whole time I was home. Oops.

Christmas treated me well, I got some clothes, lots of books, and, maybe best of all, XM Radio. I'm way pumped for it, I just installed it into my car today, and drove around for a little while, just to listen to it. (Something I didn't get was a laptop. I wasn't really expecting one, seeing as how I didn't really ask for one. But, I thought that it could be a good gift for my loyal readers to all chip in to get for me! I don't want a fancy one, just one in the $300-400 range for now. So if every loyal reader chipped in, it would probably only be about $100/person! What a deal!)

It was so nice to be back in Iowa, even if I felt like I needed another week to do everything and see everyone that I wanted. I was able to make it to a Hawkeye basketball game, against Southeastern Louisiana University, a team which features two players at 5'5". That entertained me, even while the Hawks were losing. They ended up coming back and taking control of the game, but it was a little frustrating for a while there. Of course I forgot my camera, so I don't have any pictures. But our (Marin accompanied me) seats were awesome, right at center court, row 14. Maybe the best seats I've ever had for a game at good old Carver-Hawkeye. Afterwards, we met up witha couple of my friends at the Fieldhouse. Now, if I had to make a list of bars I would go to if I had one night to go out in Iowa City, the Fieldhouse wouldn't be last, but it'd probably find its way into the bottom 5. (off the top of my head, Vito's and the Summit would be fighting it out for the last spot, with Old Capitol Brew Works possibly taking the top spot.) But, since my friends were there, with free beer, I felt alright going there.

The rest of my time was basically spent with family. KP stopped over for a little while, with beers in tow, which was nice. And any time that was not spent talking or traveling was spent eating. I ate a lot of food. A lot. It was awesome. But now I'm pretty sure I've gained a few pounds, so now it's back to not eating a lot. Which is not awesome. Oh well.

My flights all went smoothly, if sitting around waiting for a pilot for 3 hours can be considered smooth. I don't quite understand how we can sit there for that long with the plane sitting just outside the window, looking in, mocking us, while there's no pilot to take it. Then, once that flight left (going from Dallas to Moline), I had the worst trouble with my ears not popping. Or not popping. I don't remember, but whichever it was, sucked. I've never had a problem with it before, but I think since I was in the middle stages of a cold, it made things worse.

All in all, though, it was an awesome trip. I'm back in Texas for the time being, but a week from Thursday I'm taking off again, this time for the east coast. I'll be going to DC to meet up with Marin, then we'll be taking a bus to New York City on the 11th, which just happens to be my birthday. I will be celebrating the 27th anniversary of my birth by going to a taping of Conan O'Brien. I am super excited for this. Then, it happens to work out that I'll be in DC for their "Restaurant Week," a biannual event where all sorts of fancy restaurants have special menus made up for those who go, where a 3-course meal can be had for $30 a person. Not a bad deal. I'm really excited for the whole trip.

That's all I got for now. As you can probably tell, I'm still a little disjointed from the past week, and haven't gotten my thoughts straight, but I felt like I should do some sort of summary of the goings on around Flenker. More (potentially big) news will come soon. Until then, I'll be out enjoying the perfect weather here. And watching USC absolutely throttle Illinois in the Rose Bowl.

A (non-baseball) recap of Flenkerfest from the depths of the mess

I must give credit to Marin for coming up with the title for this post. Although her room is not exactly a mess. I've seen messes before, I've lived in them. This is more of a "cluttered" room than a "messy" one. But I digress.

Thursday I arrived after an uneventful afternoon of flying, getting into town around 6. Marin picked me up and headed off for dinner, an ill-advised meal at IHOP. Some pretty terrible service, and a poor meal choice on my part didn't get the trip started on the right notes. The iced tea was pretty good, though. I tried to talk her into going over to Best Buy so I could see if they had a Wii, but probably for the best, Marin wouldn't take me. Had I bought one, I think that's all I would've done over the weekend. Not that it's a bad thing.

The rest of Thursday was pretty much spent relaxing at her lovely house.

Friday had a lazy start, with breakfast at a little place called "Bagels and Baguettes," then a trip to the grocery store. (We planned for many meals, 3 or 4, and ended up actually making one. But, we did make Scotcheroos! They turned out delicious, something I'm very proud of.) After the store, we met up with a couple of our friends, AJ and Matt, and had an early dinner at Bread & Chocolate, home of what I remember as one of the best glasses of iced tea I've ever had. This time the tea wasn't quite as good as I remembered it, still good, but not enough to classify it as "best ever." I probably would've been better off not going and having the mental image of the best glass stay with me. Oh well.

We hurried off to the game after the dinner, eating a hot dog while we were there, of course. After the game we went home, made the Scotcheroos, then headed to bed.

Saturday morning brought some amazingly delicious pancakes, courtesy of Marin. Very very tasty! Most of the rest of the day into the afternoon was spent at the National American Indian Museum, probably my favorite museum, architecture-wise. The exhibits themselves are incredible, too. As is the food. They had an eating area where you can choose foods based on the cultures of many different areas in the US and South America, we went with the buffalo chili with some fried flatbread. Very delicious!

That evening we made our one meal that we planned, tacos! They ended up being more like over-stuffed burritos, but everything was so good, I had to put it all on my tortilla at once.

Sunday we had a nice breakfast of omelets and cinnamon rolls before we headed out to our second game of the weekend. And second hot dog at the ballpark for the weekend. AJ went with us, I'm pretty sure mostly due to the Family Pack that was being offered at the game: $10 got a ticket, a Pepsi, a hot dog, and a bag of chips. Heckuva deal!

Later that night, we went to La Loma for a wonderful Mexican meal, then spent another relaxing night in.

Today I went Thaiphoon, one of my favorite area restaurants. If anyone makes it out to DC, I would strongly recommend a visit here, and get the "drunken noodle" dish. It's amazing. And the iced tea was delicious.

Of course the weather was pretty hot today, and of course I walked about 6 blocks in the wrong direction heading to lunch. But I needed the exercise, because I found a Krispy Kreme with the hot light on. I ordered 3 glazed. Unfortunately, they didn't have any hot ones ready, but I was told if I wanted to wait a minute or two, there would be some right up. Since I was in no hurry and had just purchased a new book (Why We are Hungry by Dave Eggers), I told the lady I could wait for some warm deliciousness. After waiting for about 8-10 minutes, I decided to see what the hold up was. Apparently I was forgotten about, and the machine was turned back off. The lady at the counter felt bad and wanted to know if I wanted her to fire it up again to get some hot donuts since the others had cooled, but I didn't really want her to go through the trouble, I just took what they had. And she gave me 6 donuts! O glorious day! I headed home on the Metro with donuts and book in tow, feeling great.

Now I'm all packed up and ready to head back home, even though there are so many more things I want to do while out here. 4+ days is not enough time anywhere, let alone a place with as much going on as DC. This is my 3rd trip out here, and I feel like I've just scratched the surface.

Anyways, the next post will be from Iowa, and the very special post that I promised last week will be here soon. . . What could it be. . . ?

Greetings from the East Coast

This is my last day out in the DC area! Right now I have a little free time while I'm waiting for a friend to call, so I thought I'd write something in the meantime.

First off, a pretty monumental weekend in baseball, with Alex Rodriguez hitting his 500th home run, Barry Bonds getting his 755th, and Tom Glavine picking up with 300th win. Congratulations to all, we won't see another 300-game winner in a long time, and it'll be a few years before A-Rod catches up to Bonds, if he's able.

Speaking of baseball, I made it out to a couple of Washington Nationals games, seeing them win twice against the Cardinals! Awesome! The Friday game started with a nice diving catch by Nats' centerfielder Nook Logan, and Austin Kearns made an impressive diving catch on Sunday to end that game. Ryan Zimmerman is a stud, a Cardinal-killer. He had a large weekend at the plate, hitting a walk-off single on Friday night, then 2 HR's on Saturday, and then driving in the tie-breaking run in the 8th on Sunday, going 3-for-5 in the two games that we saw.

Here are a few pictures from the games:

it was "Negro Leagues Tribute Night" at RFK on Friday, so the teams went by old Negro League names and wore the corresponding jerseys. This makes my 2nd Negro Leagues tribute game this season!


The view from our seats on Friday (this was still during batting practice, the place filled up more)


It was nice that the Cardinals let a 14-year-old play shortstop for them.


The Nats have the presidents from Mt. Rushmore race and dance. Fun, but not quite as entertaining as Milwaukee's sausage race. Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared to take a picture of the president race on either day.


Our view for Sunday's game


Poo-Holes


My favorite picture from the games, this is a broken-bat single by Nook Logan. You can see the barrel of the bat, and the ball in the air and everything! I should become a professional.


Chico was the starting picture for Washington. This made my day.

There were other activities, including a trip to the National American Indian Museum and some delicious food, but that'll wait until I'm back home.

My weekend in pictures

The first phase of my move is now complete! As I'm typing from Muscatine with my car parked out front with a lot of crap in it, my bed, futon, and lots more crap are all sitting in the basement of my brother's current place of residence in Iowa City. On Saturday, Travis will be moving into his new house, one that he's actually buying. (Ridiculous stuff, right? My younger brother is buying a house and starts his full-time job on Monday. In the meantime, I'll be "temporarily homeless" for the next month, surfing from couch to couch. And I'm fine with that.) Hopefully a majority of my stuff will be moving up there with him this weekend, at least the larger items (bed, futon, tv) that I can't get with my car. The best part about it? I will not be around to help out, as I will be invading DC for Flenkerfest 2007 (apparently my first 2007 trip that way wasn't the "official" Flenkerfest. That one might have been Birthday Bash). I feel bad about not being able to help out, I mean it's my brother's first house and all, but the timing on everything just didn't work out. And besides, he only helped me a little bit, while he was extremely drunk, around 3:00 Tuesday morning. Yes, I was up, moving at 3 am yesterday. I didn't really sleep between 9 am Monday and 11 pm Tuesday. Poor planning on my part. Not packing early was a poor choice. But, my room went from looking like this:

To looking like this:

(that brown spot was on the floor when I moved in, I swear. It was under my bed the whole time, how could it have gotten there with my bed over it???)

Many thanks to my friends Travis (not to be confused with my brother Travis) and Erin for helping with my move by providing a truck and moral support!

To keep the theme of some recent-Flenker pictures, here are a few from the Bix weekend festivities!

This is LeClaire Park, one of 3 or 4 venues hosting jazz bands during the weekend, right on the Mississippi River.


Every year a building on the Illinois side of the Quad-Cities turns on the lights in some offices to spell out "Bix". I think it's pretty neat.


This is the Centennial Bridge, right near LeClaire Park, a nice site when it's all lit up. It's even better in person or in a photo taken by a good photographer.


And this is the only photo that's been posted so far of me from the run. I'm hoping that there will be a couple more, but this one will do for now!

Now I really should be getting to bed, I've got a long day of travel ahead of me. I'll try to check in from the east coast while I'm there, but be sure to be on your best behavior if I'm not around.

fare thee well, IC

Well, this is looking like it'll be my last past as a resident of Iowa City. I'm going to be spending the rest of the night and (hopefully) all day tomorrow packing and moving, so my time needs to be spent on not blogging.

I just wanted to thank Iowa City for everything, it's been a great place to live for the past 4 years, a city that I know and love.

There will be a more reflective post later, but I just thought I'd make a quick little post, acknowledging my departure from one great city.

This means that most likely, there's going to be a little lull here around TPoL. Don't fret, I'll have plenty of free time in about a week. Between now and then, I'll be pretty busy, including a Neil Hamburger performance and a trip to our nation's capitol. I'll check in when I can, and there will be a very, very special post coming in the near future.

Until then, enjoy yourselves!

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Well now, I've been in and out for a bit here, and my poor little blog has been ignored. Sorry blog. I do have to warn you, that could happen again, at any moment, without warning. It all depends on how ambitious I'm feeling (which, at the moment, may be at an all-time low) and how good of a connection I can get (also very low lately). I apologize in advance. Hopefully after this next week or so, things will be a little more reliable for me.

What have I been up to in the past few days? For starters, today was my last day of work here in town. That was nice, although uneventful. The only thing I really have to do right now is pack pack pack. I'm moving out of my current location on the 31st, back home to Muscatine for a month. But that month will be spent on the go go go, with stops in DC, long layovers in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids (where my brother now owns a house!!!), and possibly a trip to the Ames area and maybe even Minneapolis, if I can swing it. Also, I'll be up in Chicago on Labor Day weekend, there's going to be a Hawkeye invasion as Iowa takes on Northern Illinois in Soldier Field on September 1. I'll be there on the 31st of August for the Cubs game, then hanging out that night and hitting up the game the next day. I'm very excited for it! And maybe if some of my Chicago-land blog friends are lucky, we could work something out to meet up.

Also, the Bix is coming up this weekend, on Saturday to be exact. Mentally, I feel ready. Physically, I'm hoping my mental readiness will carry me. At least this year I won't have to move the very next day. I at least have a day off in between now. yay

I promised some photos of my haircut the other day, and I'm not one to break promises. I just hope you are all ready for it.

First is Flenker on Friday

The shaggy do that everyone has known and loved. But now, it's time for a change. A new phase of my life is coming up, so a new style was needed. So may I introduce to you, ushering in a new era, the New Flenker!!

At first I wasn't quite sure of the new look, but I'm starting to come around to it. It needs to grow out just a tiny bit, but I think I'll enjoy it. I haven't had my hair this short in quite some time (possibly years), so it was time to go back.

I think that's going to be it for now. I have a post started about this past weekend that I'll try to have up some time soon, hopefully tomorrow.

It's a celebration bitches!

Happy 4th of July, my fellow Americans! I hope everyone's weather is as beautiful in their cities as it is here. I just finished up grilling some sweet corn and a few Johnsonville brats (hot and spicy ones, if you're a fan of food you should try them), and have the whole afternoon ahead of me. I'm really looking forward to the fireworks tonight. I don't know why, but I love me some fireworks. I'm like a little kid when it comes to these sort of things. Last year, I was in Washington DC for the 4th, and, as you may imagine, they put on a pretty decent show. Watching the fireworks from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as they are being shot off over the Washington Monument is almost overwhelming. Especially with an estimated 500,000 people watching in the Mall. It's quite the scene, if you ever have the chance to go, do it!

(this is footage from last year's fireworks in DC. Not taken by me, this guy's a little closer than we were, but it was still impressive)

Apologies to my Canadian readers for not wishing them a joyous Canada Day, I hope all went well!

Speaking of Canadians, congratulations to Jad for surpassing 10,000 hits! I know I've supplied my fair share of those ticks on the counter, but that is a rather impressive stat! Keep it up man, and everyone keep his counter rolling!

And also a hearty congrats to Joey Chestnut, winner of this year's Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Competition. Chestnut ate an astounding 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes. 66! He takes the crown from Takeru Kobayashi, who had won the past 6 years' competitions. Mad props Joey, mad props.

Well, that's it for me! I hope everyone has a fun and safe celebration, we don't need any missing fingers or eyes put out or parts of thumbs cut off, and we don't want anyone to try to tackle 67 hot dogs in 12 minutes. That would not end well.

Happy 4th everybody!

4th of June?

Why does the 4th of July have to fall on a Wednesday this year? Doesn't it know that having a holiday in the middle of the week just makes it that much harder to make plans with people who have "real jobs"?

You see, almost every year for the past 6 or 7 years or so, some of my friends from my days at Iowa State get together for a few days of having fun. Last year it didn't happen, because I went to DC during that week. (And let me tell you, if you ever have the chance, to go the fireworks in DC. Marin and I watched them being shot off over the Washington Monument from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Pretty incredible scene.) We also play home run derby every year, and last time we played the Trivial Pursuit game that I referred to in the last paragraph here. (It was also when Heinricy came up with the line "We're sleeping in teams!" about our sleeping arrangements. Good times!) This year I'm going to have to figure out when we're getting together, either the weekend before or the weekend after. The weekend before has the Iowa City Jazz Festival. Both weekends have home games by the Swing of the Quad Cities. I guess we'll have to see which works out better for everyone. H has already said that she and Bill won't be able to make it the weekend before, so that may necessitate a move to the weekend after the 4th. It all depends on Jimbo and Charczuk. We'll have to start planning this now, though, since people will be traveling from all around. Hopefully it'll all come together and we'll have a good time. I'm optimistic.

Another restaurant off the list

Tonight I had dinner at Guido's Deli & Market for the first time, and I must say I was impressed. While the service left a little to be desired, the food more than made up for it. W started off with an artichoke dip that my dad and step-mom had ordered, served with some toasted bread. Very garlicky, very good. Then I had a cup of black bean soup, which had a little spice and an excellent flavor. For the main course, I had "The Naturalist," a panini on whole wheat bread, with portabello mushrooms, caramelized onions, roasted red peppers, and tomatoes, and I had them throw on some Monterrey Jack cheese. It was amazing. I cannot emphasize enough the quality of this sandwich. The flavors all added together to create a wonderful experience in my mouth.

My brother had an Italian sandwich and creamy potato soup, my dad a half of an Italian roast beef sandwich with the potato soup, and my step-mom the other half of my dad's sandwich with a salad. Everyone loved what they ate, I wish I could've had a bite of each. And to top it all off, the iced tea was very good, fresh brewed, none of that powdered mix stuff. (it was not the best iced tea I've ever had, though. That distinction belongs to Bread & Chocolate in DC. Damn, that was some fine tea. It came with a sprig of mint in the glass!)

It feels good to cross another eatery off of my list. Hopefully I'll be visiting another new place soon. It's always exciting!

Now, off to watch some playoff basketball action. Go Golden State Warriors!