Still here, still kickin' it

yeah, I haven't done much in the way of blogging lately. I got all moved into my apartment, got the living room area arranged and cleaned up, and should be working on the bedroom. But instead, I decided to play my DS, and now I'm at Charczuk's, watching Top Chef and using the internet. And tomorrow I'll be over here, using the internet again, but more to watch The Office. I don't have cable or internet, yet, so yeah. Hopefully things will get figured out on that front soon, but in the time being, we'll have to deal with this setup. Oh well.

This weekend should prove to be exciting, I'm heading to Minneapolis, and will have a shenanigan-filled time with H, a performance from Kate Nash, a get together with an old high school friend, and a meeting with the ever lovely Whiskey Marie. There's a chance that I won't make it back to Kansas City.

I'm going to clean off my camera card, so there will hopefully be some classic pictures. Or at least some blurry evidence of what happens. There will probably be some memories that will be blurry, too.

I'll try to be back soon, but if not, fret not, my homies. And check my friends' blogs, the whereabouts of Flenker may be reported elsewhere.

LATER

Music for the jilted lover

The two videos below, from the Airborne Toxic Event, are songs to listen to if you've ever been dumped, or forlorn, or have experienced an unrequited love.





I've heard them quite often on XM, and have grown fond of their stuff. (pardon if my descriptions are brief. I've had a couple gin and tonics, the Royals got killed, I've had a busy day!)

The lineup for Austin City Limits was released today. It's a good one. You can see it here. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go. Plane tickets to Austin are supercheap from KC, and I've got a place to stay. I'll make a post about it as the event draws nearer, but I'm excited.

Speaking of excited, I'm way pumped, tomorrow I move to my own place! I put the deposit down on Monday, but didn't hear back 100% sure until today. So yeah. It'll be a week before the stuff I left in Iowa makes it down, so in the meantime, my furniture will consist of an air mattress and a clothes hamper. So much for the house-warming party. Thankfully, my wonderful mom and step-dad have offered to use their truck and horse trailer to haul my crap. Then, we're going to a Royals game! That's awesome. My family basically rocks, all around. Post here maybe even more infrequent for the time being, and I'm sorry about that. Until I get my computer set up (or get a new one), I'll only have limited access to the internet, outside of work.

Well, it's sleepy time for Flenker. enjoy the weekend!

A final missive from Iowa

I had a little "going away party" last night, which basically was my friend Chris coming over and watching "Trapped in the Closet" while drinking some gin and tonics. Plus some Wii bowling. It was a pretty good time. Seeing as how spring break has started at Iowa, and I didn't figure anyone would want to make the 20-mile trip north to Cedar Rapids when they could be out getting wasted in Iowa City, I wasn't planning on much. But we had a good time.

I really should start packing my car. I'm not taking a whole lot of stuff, just some clothes, a few books, some movies, of course my Wii, and my computer, along with an air mattress, but I should tidy things up around here before I go, get stuff situated so I can easily sort through them should I decide I want something, or when I get a place of my own and want to bring it. That was a long sentence.

Our dad is coming up to take Travis and me out to lunch, we're going to Zoey's Pizza, probably my favorite pizza in the area. I can't remember if I said that on here before, but it's delicious. Then I'm going to be hitting that dusty road. Ooh, that reminds me, I need to get some windshield wiper fluid. I'm out.

Alright, I guess it's time to start loading up junk. It's been fun, Iowa. I won't be too far away, I'll be back plenty of times. You can't get rid of me. I'm like the Terminator.

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.

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.