It's been one of those years

Well, I'm still waiting for the New Year to stop shitting on me. Really, any time now would be nice.



Tuesday night I went to my Erin and Travis' place for some delicious soup and beer and fun board games (isn't that redundant? I've rarely played any un-fun board games) and some PS2. Good times, with some good people. I stayed there, since they live in North Liberty, and I was meeting up with my mom the next day in Iowa City (for those of you unfamiliar with the area, North Liberty is between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, closer to IC than CR by about 10 miles, so instead of backtracking to CR and then back to IC, I just made it easier on myself. So I thought). Plus, I was a little drunk. The plan was that I would get up the next day, hang out a little bit, then meet up with my mom.

Here's the thing about plans: they're nice to have and all, but when one little thing throws everything off, I get pissy. That one little thing yesterday was a flat tire. Flat flat.

Travis was kind enough to drive me to Iowa City where he joined us for the lunch buffet at Old Chicago. Then he took me back, helped me take my tire off (since he had coveralls, I wasn't going to get my jeans and sweater dirty!) in the snow (did I mention it was snowing and balls cold?? It was) and then drove me to the tire shop. They said that they'd call me if there was a problem with the tire that they couldn't repair, otherwise I could pick it up sometime before 5.

Of course you know they called me about 20 minutes later. We had barely finished the front 9 on our game. Tire ruined. Bad. They could get a new one, but it wouldn't be there until the next morning. Plus, there's the whole thing about paying for it ($100 for the tire alone), and, as some of you more dedicated readers may know, I have no job, just moved, and ergo, have no money. Like none.

After some calls were made, the plan was to put on the spare, drive to Muscatine where my mom would help me out with a tire, and I would stay for the weekend. I was going to be coming down anyways to help watch the dogs, so it kind of worked out.

Apparently I should stop making plans, because they just give me flat tires.

As I was leaving North Liberty, after picking up my rim and old tire, I noticed that my car was feeling a little funny as I was driving. I pulled off into a shopping center, and wouldn't you know it, my spare was a little low on air. Since there were a few gas stations in the area, I figured I'd try to make it to on and then air it up. After 3 gas stations with no air pumps, I found one in working order, and started pumping. With no results. My spare was absolutely flat by this time, and not taking any air. Yeah.

More calls were made, this time I found a place that had one of my tires in stock (p205/55 R 16 tires aren't easily accessible, I guess, and expensive. Also, I will not say the name of the place that I got them, because I don't want to admit to spending money there. But it was cheap, so I don't feel too bad. And it wasn't my money). Then I called upon my gracious, amazing sister to pick me up, take me to the place, pay for the tire until she can be paid back, drive me back to my car, then stand outside with a flashlight while I changed out the flat spare with the brand new tire. At least it wasn't 0 degrees out. It was 6. And dark.

Finally back on the road, I head towards Muscatine, to sort of collect myself and lick my wounds. While driving, I realized that I didn't really have anything with me for my weekend. No phone charger, no clothes, no toothbrush, no deodorant. I had picked a car charger for my phone when I was waiting for the tire, but it was missing a part, and was useless. Did you expect any different?

Today, though, I'm a little bit back on track. Still in Muscatine (I'll give you a call soon, KP), I got a new car charger so my phone is functional after dying last night at a very inopportune moment, my tires are looking good, I'm warm, I'm well-fed, and only a little stinky. It turns out I had some clothes in my car, so those are being washed and soon enough, I'll have something to change into after a shower. I even had a pair of underwear in there! Don't ask me why.

Thanks for putting up with all of this bitching. I promise I'll be back soon, this time with some interesting and entertaining posts. A couple of landmark posts will be coming in the near future, so don't miss out on those!

Nothing like getting drunk with Pops

Like I had mentioned before, I went to Wal-Mart a little before midnight on Monday to get the new Madden game for the Wii. I went probably 15 minutes early, and showed up with a line of 8 people already waiting. So I joined them, and made some idle chit-chat with the other members of the line as it grew. When 12 rolled around (it was actually more like 12:03 or 12:04), the employees started handing out the games. I asked for one for the Wii. The guy said "huh?" And I repeated that I wanted the Wii version of Madden '08. He looked around, then said, "uhh, we don't have it."

I replied, "what? Why not?"

"I don't know. It's supposed to be here right now, but we can't find it."

"Well when do you expect to get it?"

"I don't know. . . Either today or tomorrow."

And with that I walked off. I did pick up a copy of Zelda: The Twilight Princess (after waiting about 20 minutes for someone to find the keys to open the case) and a movie for my mom. I'm hoping that those will be my last purchases ever at a Wal-Mart. I try to avoid them as much as possible, but living in Muscatine for the time being doesn't give me much options. For a town of around 23,000 people could have something else. Guess not. Anyways, I'll go someplace next time I'm in Iowa City or Cedar Rapids and get Madden eventually. But I'm having an awesome time with Zelda.

***

Last night was spent at a going away party for a girl that I used to work with here in town, who was currently a pharmacy tech at Hy-Vee with my dad. (the Hy-Vee I worked at in Muscatine, not to be confused with the Hy-Vee I worked at in Iowa City.) My dad was all excited since the place where the party was held had $3 pitchers of beer until 6, so we had to hurry down, and made it just in time. He ordered two, handed one to me, and took one for himself. Now, a pitcher of beer is no problem for me, but it's probably more beer than I've seen my dad drink, ever. He's not a huge drinker, as far as I know. He'll have the occasional glass of wine, sometimes a cocktail, and a wine cooler every now and then, but I don't know if I've ever seen a can of beer in his fridge. So I finish mine up, and he's a little less than 1/3 of the way through his. So, like any good son would do, I helped him out. I was feeling a little buzz, and I'm pretty sure my dad was too. What a lightweight. It was a good time, I met a guy that's going golfing with a few guys that I used to work and occasionally hang out with here in town, so I may join them. Then I was looking forward to making a drunk post here, but by the time I got home (my dad put off leaving for a little while, I'm pretty sure so he could sober up. But we were having a good time, so why leave?), I was basically sober, but tired. And I needed to play Zelda. So sorry about that. Maybe next time.

Hopefully today it won't rain so I can move my stuff up to my bro's place for storing. If I do go, I'll try to take some pictures of my brother's place, or maybe some more of "Chico", or maybe an updated "Brothers Flenker" photo. Until then, I need to go save Hyrule. (And yes, there will be a post in the future about how much the Legend of Zelda video game franchise means to me.)

Kickin' it in Muscatine

Sorry for the little lack of updates recently, I've been busy doing, well, not much of anything. (Plus, I wanted to make sure that everyone had a chance to read Jad's most excellent post! If anyone else ever wants to do a guest post here, let me know, I'm always up for new and exciting ventures!) I've been helping out around the house a little, watching some TV (it's been a long long time since I've done that), hanging out and watching baseball with KP, and just enjoying the air-conditioning. (I've been thinking that I need to write stuff down as it happens, because I feel like there were some funny/good thoughts, etc. that would have been good to put up here, but by the time I get around to doing anything about it, I forget what the hell it was that I thought was clever or whatever.) I drove a motorcycle for the first time yesterday, my mom and step-dad took me out to an empty parking lot yesterday and I tried out my mom's Harley! It was a ton of fun, and I think for it being my first time ever on a bike I did alright. Definitely something that I want to do more of in the future.

My big excitement recently was purchasing a Nintendo Wii! This was the only one I've ever seen at a retail store; I had to stop by 5 different places before I found one in stock. Muscatine only have one store that sells stuff like this, as far as I know (Wal-Mart, gross), but I was in Iowa City to take care of some things, and had nothing but time on my hands. It's a little present to myself, a done with school/moving away gift, if you will. I'm very pumped for it. I didn't get any extra games yet, just the Wii Sports that comes with it, but those are hell of fun as it is! I think I'm going to be picking up Madden '08 on Tuesday. And of course I'll have to get Zelda for it very soon. I've done some stuff online with it, like reading sports, news, and weather, and am thinking about spending the $5 to be able to actually surf the internet with it. I'm also going to look into buying some points for it, which will allow me to download old Nintendo/Sega/Turbografix 16 games and play them on the Wii. Most excellent stuff. If anyone out there reading this has one and wants to be Wii friends, let me know, I'll send you my Wii number.

Later this afternoon I'll be heading up to Cedar Rapids with my dad and step-mom to see my brother's new place. He seems pretty happy with it, from what I understand there was already a little garden there with grape tomatoes and jalapeño peppers and asparagus growing. Maybe onions too, I'm not sure. He called me up yesterday to find out what goes into salsa, so today I'll have to judge it and find out if he did a good job. And apparently, his girlfriend gave him a cat. I'm going to get him to name it Chico.

One good thing (among many good things) about being home is the food. I haven't gone out to eat once since being here, and the food that my mom has in stock is usually pretty healthy stuff, which is nice. I've grilled out a lot (turkey brats, chicken sausage, veggies, etc.), including one of my favorite foods, fresh sweet corn. Last night I was talked into eating 4 ears of it! (We made 6 ears, my mom and step-dad each ate one, and I was told that I should eat as much as I wanted, since they don't usually eat corn. So it didn't take too much convincing.) Plus, they get Schwann's food delivered here, so there are some good things with there, like frozen loaves of bread you just pop in the oven, or chicken breasts, or best of all, butter pecan frozen yogurt. mmm.... Also, there is a lot of beer here. Good beers. In the past few days, I've had the following: a Rogue Brewery chipotle brew and a Rogue hazelnut brew, a couple of the new Michelob Ultra flavors (Pomegranate raspberry and Cactus lime - both amazing!), Sam Adams Brown Ale, Miller Chill (like water with a hint of lime) and some others. I'll devote an entire post to these beers soon, I promise.

Well, I'm going to see what baseball games are on right now. For some reason I started watching a NASCAR race today and haven't been able to turn the channel. I actually kind of enjoy it. Although in my defense, it is a road course, so it's not just driving in a circle. But also I've catching some of the Little League World Series games, and love them. Those kids love the game, which makes it so enjoyable to watch. Also now that I'm somewhere that has cable, I can watch like 3 or 4 MLB games almost every day, whilst eating delicious frozen yogurt. Incredible!

I'll try to get some pictures from my next adventures on a bike, or maybe some exciting Wii shots, or just photos of whatever the hell I can find around Muscatine. I gotta say, though, sometimes it's nice to be able to lay around and watch TV.

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.

Milwaukee's Best

Well I made it back from Wisconsin all in one piece, in spite of my best efforts. Actually, there were only a few shenanigans, my only injury came from laying awkwardly on my arm while sleeping on a hotel room floor, causing my wrist and arm to feel just a little off.

KP and I left the rainy weather of Iowa and trekked north to the warm, sunny skies of Milwaukee, our directions ready to lead us. At least, they were supposed to lead us, but a combination of me being confused and hell of construction on a major interstate interchange led to a slight detour and missed turns. Luckily, we were able to find our way and made it to Miller Park. Little did we know that this would just be a microcosm of the whole trip. More on this later.

The game was fun, it was a night honoring the Negro Leagues, so hats from the Milwaukee Bears (not to be confused with the Milwaukee Beers of Baseketball fame) were given away, about 4 or 5 former Negro League players were in attendance, which was pretty awesome, and a traveling exhibit from the Negro League Baseball Hall of Fame was at the park. Unfortunately the line was too long, so we didn't check it out.

Once we got in and settled, we headed to the food stands to accomplish one of our goals: to eat a chorizo sausage. Of course, this couldn't be a simply task. We went to one of the main concession stands and noticed chorizo wasn't listed on their menu, so we asked a lady at the counter where this elusive meat could be found. After a little runaround (at one point someone told us that it was not sold at the park), we found the stand, about 30 feet from where we were standing. We ate a chorizo. I thought it was delicious.

A few innings and a few beers later, we decide to walk around a little, to hit the john and check out the park (the Royals were not playing well, and were on their way to a 7-1 defeat). On our walk, we noticed an intoxicated girl who was in the middle of saying something to her friends, but was looking right at KP and me, and all we heard was "Oh fuck me." We didn't know what that meant, or how it was intended, but we both heard the same thing. Later, while we were walking, we saw the same girl, KP mentioned something to me, the girl heard, and then started following us around, asking me what KP said. I was not sure how to respond at all, but I'm pretty sure I made something up, and then walked away from her. We headed back to our seats, a little confused, and upset that we missed Bill Hall hitting a home run. I was not going to miss the sausage race, though. I was sticking with chorizo, since his cousins had tasted so delicious. Bratwurst had other plans, though, and my chorizo came in a distant 4th, only beating Italian sausage. Pretty soon after that, we decided to hit the road to beat traffic and to head to the wedding reception. But let me tell you one thing: if you ever get the opportunity, go to a baseball game at Miller Park in Milwaukee. The park is beautiful, almost as nice as Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. More importantly, you can watch the sausage race. It's just something you have to witness first-hand.



Our next misadventure was going to the reception. KP had planned ahead and printed out directions from the ballpark to the hotel. Yet again, the construction foiled our plans. We were looking for exit 1H, but there was not a 1H to be found. We took some random exit, and then started driving towards downtown. After driving for a while, we parked in a ramp and asked the attendant for directions to the Hilton. Miraculously, we were only about 2 blocks away.

The reception was a usual reception, but was still a good time. Any time that I can get free beer is a good time. Especially if it leads to me doing a feet-first baseball "pop-up" slide across the dance floor. Twice. And playing a piano in the lobby a little bit. I was able to talk to some friends, and got me and KP a place to sleep, on the floor of one of the rooms that my friends were renting. It was a little uncomfortable, but the price was right.

Today we got up and about, went to the local casino for a few minutes (I ended up winning $5) and decided that we were both too wiped out to go to the game. It wouldn't have been worth it, we were both a little hungover, and just exhausted. So we headed back for Muscatine, listening to the Royals/Brewers game and flipping to the Cubs/White Sox game on occasion.

And then I found $20.

I'm leaving a ton out right now, but really, I need to get to bed. It was a long few days, and I'm feeling like I may pass out on the computer. I'll tell more of the story in a day or two. but for now, I'll leave you with what I have. And, tomorrow is a special day here, it will bring my 200th post, and a week-long celebration. What could I possibly have in mind??? Just wait and see.

Fight Night

Yesterday was a long, but rather uneventful day for me. I worked 7-3, which is always nice, it goes by so quickly. After work, I went to Muscatine to take care of my mom's dog for a few hours. While in Mtine, I hung out with KP for a while, switching back and forth between baseball, the Bulls' game (ugh) and the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. Good times.

I got back up to Iowa City around 9, and had enough time to fix myself a Tom Collins or two before heading out to watch the De La Hoya/Mayweather fight. The fight went pretty much as I expected, a split decision for Mayweather, neither fighter got hurt or knocked down. But it was a good fight, one of the bigger fights of my lifetime, definitely the biggest for close to a decade. Part of me wants this fight to spring boxing back into the mainstream, but another part of me feels like this is kind of a swan song- unless there's a rematch, there probably won't be a fight that gets people this excited again. Unless the Klitschko brothers fight each other, which won't happen. This fight didn't play out like one that would get the casual fan into boxing, though. It was too defensive, there were few big punches that landed, and no knock downs or knockouts. There were some really excellent rounds. But the first round was a slow start, the fighters just feeling each other out, and I think it was the ninth round was a pretty dull one, as well. I didn't really think it was as close as the scoring made it out to be, but I was cheering for Mayweather, so I could've been a little biased. The fight was thoroughly enjoyed by me, though, I had a good time, and was glad I was able to watch. It helped that it was a friend's birthday so the beers were free, but I think I would've liked it better just getting together at someone's house with a large TV and had a bunch of food and what not, making it to be a Super Bowl-like event. Kinda hard to get other people to agree to that at 10:30 on a Saturday night in a college town, though.

After the fight, I met up with another friend for a little bit, only a couple of minutes, and then went home for bed. It was a pretty non-social weekend for me so far, I was in bed around 10:30 on Friday and 12:30 last night, went to a movie (Hot Fuzz was hilarious, more to come later) by myself, and played some video games and hung out with a dog. And it was pretty excellent, I'm not going to lie.

(PS - A few people have said they're interested in the Great Blogger Mix CD Exchange but haven't sent me their info yet. . . Hint hint Minty and Adam! Anyone else that wants in should let me know ASAP, so I can get the others the info before they start sending their mixes!)

Opening Day thoughts, etc.

The baseball game went well tonight, the Cardinals lost, the Mets won, all is good. My man Carlos Beltran went 1-4 with an RBI and a run scored, plus he threw out Eckstein at the plate by full step. What was 3rd base coach Jose Oquendo thinking, sending Eckstein? First off, Eckstein is not a speedy runner. Secondly, you don't test Beltran's arm on a week grounder to center. Thirdly, you don't send the slow-ish runner against a strong thrower with the best player in the league on deck!!!!!! I cannot emphasize that enough. Having Albert Pujols at bat with two men on and one out is a big difference than having him up to bat with one on and two out. And it worked perfectly for the Mets, Pujols walked, Rolen (I think he was up next, I can't exactly remember) was hit by a pitch, which loaded the bases for. . . Yadier Molina. Who promptly does what he did for most of last season, get out. Had Eckstein not been sent, assuming the inning played out similarly (which is a stretch, granted), they would have scored at least one run. If I were a Cardinals fan (luckily I'm not), I would be furious. As it is, I'm upset that a third base coach would take that chance with the physical specimen Albert Pujols on deck. There is no situation in which that is an OK thing. That's your World Champion, folks. (I feel dirty saying a team that won 83 games in the regular season was a World Series Champion. But they did, and now all season we'll hear the phrase "Defending Champion St. Louis Cardinals." To borrow a phrase from the Sports Guy, I will now light myself on fire.)

I'm very pumped for the Royals opener tomorrow, especially since the game will be televised here!!! It makes me happy to no end that espn is showing the opener for Kansas City. Sure, the Red Sox being the opposing team probably sells the game, but still. . . If you see me around town tomorrow (I'm not sure how many people in Iowa City read this, if any), I'll be decked out in my Royals shirt, hat, and maybe the wallet will make an appearance. Plus I'll have my KC keychain. Now if I only had a tie, then I could celebrate Opening Day all day long! I don't know if I should wear my royal blue underwear tomorrow; they've brought me bad luck in the past. (Yes, I am 26 years old and believe that the pair of underwear that I put on affects my day-to-day happenings. You don't want to get me started on things that I believe can affect things, especially when it comes to sports. Here's a quick one: If I'm not able to watch a game, I will not check the scores, and will purposely avoid looking at the score ticker across the bottom of the screen for fear of seeing the Royals' score. Because if I see the score, it will make them lose. That's one of the more rational habits.)

My weekend was uneventful outside of the show, but nice. I went home to Muscatine to watch our dog there on Friday night and most of Saturday. Spent some time in the hottub on Friday night, which was amazing. I need to get me one of those. Then Saturday was rather lazy, I loafed around watching TV during the morning, then KP came over and we grilled some brats and just talked for a few hours, which was nice. Then, a couple hours after that, there was a tornado warning for Muscatine County. A pretty interesting 18 hours there, from the midnight hottub, to grilling in the afternoon sun that occasionally peaked out, to sitting in the basement reading with our dog Niles while I waited for the twister to come. (It's almost been a year since the tornadoes hit Iowa City, so I was going to be cautious this time. There were some strong winds howling around, so it seemed like the smart option. For better or worse, Muscatine is still intact.) Then today I ran some errands and went to work. Now I'm blogging. woo. But all is right in the world, the baseball season is upon us, and I'm feelin fine.