Category: Blogger Post

I have one week down in Vancouver. This is the first that I’ve felt the desire to make note of being here. Main reason being that I came down with strep throat on Thursday of last week. Just short by a few hours of an exact week, my throat hurt so much that I couldn’t swallow. I’ve never experienced pain in my throat on that level before. When you have something going on in your body like that, your body has this natural reaction to want to flush it out. I had this constant fear of having to swallow the saliva my mouth kept creating. It was a hell of a way to start off this adventure.

The good news is that the job starts this week. The call came back on Friday in the midst of feeling completely awful. I wanted to celebrate so badly, but there was nothing I could do. Regardless, everyone is excited on both sides of the table with the whole operation. This will be my first job in the private sector… in a completely different city… in another country.

Felt good enough from my antibiotics yesterday that Rebecca and I walked along the seawall in Stanley Park. Saw three seals cruising along the coastline, most likely feeding. It was enough to make me stop and realize that this isn’t just my new home… this is new.

The one thing that tells me that I’m no longer in Iowa is the air. When you breathe in, it’s clean and crisp. Sometimes you have a faint scent of the sea thrown in. The neighborhood in which I call home right now is surrounded by restaurants, so the odor shifts from country to country as you pass indian to chinese to korean and so on. This is all so new. It’s whole different country. This is Canada.

There was a time span during my high school years that I became slightly obsessed with Canadian forms of entertainment. In fact, I still mutter the occasional “eh” that went outside of just inside jokes with friends because we loved watching Kids in the Hall. Our Lady Peace is on the radio. Hockey is everywhere. If I’m not a Canucks fan within the time span of a few days, then I’ll have to start checking to see if I’m ill.

Things are going really well. There’s still a hell of a paper trail to chase down. If there is anything I understand at this point in my life, it’s that.

I have had a chance to sleep on this entire flight. It didn’t help that they announced the in flight movie of being Batman Begins. I tried to get some rest, but I can’t figure out if it was my coffee this morning or my nerves.

I pulled my laptop out too late. Time for landing. Here we go.

Leaving Iowa behind was probably harder than I ever imagined that it could be. There is something to be said that the fact it was my home up to yesterday. As of this very moment, I’m homeless. There is a place for me to call home once I get to Vancouver, but the fact of the matter is that I have one key on my key chain and that belongs to the house I called home growing up in Monticello; you never know if and when you’ll need something like that, but it’s really good to have.

There’s so many unknowns to sift through once I hit the ground. It makes me default on my time spent reading Krishnamurti and his thoughts on the unknown. How we can never know what the unknown really is, even when we come into contact with it. Anything we see as being the unknown, we expected; therefore, that’s not the unknown. Basically, it’s mind numbing stuff to wrap your head around. Not reading for the faint of heart.

However, this is close to how I’m feeling. I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. Usually when you head into things like this, you have mental imagery that kinda leads to hopes and aspirations of dreams to come true. At this point, my slate is completely blank. I’m getting on that plane tomorrow. I can’t tell you what I expect to happen. I just expect it to be great.

I’m leaving.

There’s no better way to say it than that. I made the subtle hint, but now is the time to confirm what’s about to happen. I’m moving to Vancouver. The past two weeks has been a whirlwind of uprooting my life as I have known it for quite sometime to have it become filled with question marks and well thought plans. I’ve been talking about doing something like this for years. If you ask me, I think I’m finally putting my money where my mouth is. Never did I imagine that Vancouver would be that place to pull me away from what I’ve known as my home during my twenty-seven years of existence, but I guess stranger things have happened.

There’s more than a job waiting for me when I get up there. More so, it’s a future that I feel compelled to seek out to whatever end it might bring me to. The element of adventure is nipping at my heels for sure, but there’s more to the story. Rebecca is there to help me get on my feet once I land. With hope, I’ll be able to make some noise in the city once I get there.

Iowa has treated be well. Granted that I’ve had my fair share of bumps and bruises, but I can’t complain. It’s made me who I am today. From what I can perceive, that has been a pretty decent human being up to his point. I’d also have to say that my parents had more of a stalk in that than my surroundings has.

Just stay tuned. Adventures are sure to follow.

I don’t even know where to start. I don’t even have a clear idea of how this is all going to begin. Things are happening at an incredible pace these days. Is it really that surprising? I sometimes feel like life never slowed down since the day college started for me. Always something to do. Always having ideas floating in my head. And somehow I always find myself somewhere that can use these things that find their way into my head. Sometimes it can get me into trouble. Other times it can allow me to achieve some pretty great things. I think I’m on both of those tracks right now.

I realize the crypticness of all of this drives some people insane. At the same time, this all seems incredibly like a blog. That’s because… this is. More details to come. I’m just so exhausted that I can’t even think straight enough to sort them all out for myself.

One thing I will say is to check out the gallery. Updated a lot of stuff there.

There is a lot to speak of with station life. At the same time, it’s such mass confusion that it’s hard to know where to begin. There seems to be a plan about what would like to be seen in the end yet there is no grand plan with any details. We’re going somewhere. No one knows how, when, or for how long. So many words are used in so many different contexts. Consolidation. Collaboration. Network. Individual communities. It’s nuts.

There are some folks that have been through this before. For the most part, you keep your head low. I’ve done my best to keep my mouth shut. I don’t want to jump out too soon and volunteer myself to take part in building something that’s never been done before. In some respects, that’s a good thing. I just have enough going on that I don’t need that extra work.

Change is in the air. It’s all a matter of where the wind is going to blow me.

I am such a slave to Rupert Murdock. All I seem to ever watch these days when it comes to entertainment is either something on the Fox or FX networks. Actually, that’s not completely true. I did find myself completely enthralled with the Discovery Channel yesterday. Who knew that king crab finishing is one of the deadliest jobs in the world?

I’m addicted to Rescue Me. So many people talk about how they don’t dig the whole post-9/11 firefighter wannabe-hero TV show, but there isn’t as much firefighting in the show as one would expect. It’s not a kids show by any means either. However, it’s a great example of how moronic the males among us can be.

The list doesn’t stop there. Nip/Tuck, House, Over There (although hardly realistic, the drama is enough to keep me coming back for more), The Simpsons, Family Guy, and yes… Fox Saturday Baseball, but that’s just because I can watch those games in HD.

HDTV rules. I don’t care what my sister says.

Such a week. It’s hard to really formulate much for thoughts today, but I figured I would give it a brief shot. With Rebecca here at the beginning of the week, I was able to have a really great vacation. Her time her was so limited, so it was difficult to really let the pace slow down too much. She was here and gone when I found myself thrown into the fires back at the station by the middle of this week. Was very tough to see her go, but I’ll see her again soon.

It was another double shot Friday this week. This time we were in at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art where they are doing a large exhibit dedicated to Grant Wood. He was the guy who painted American Gothic. You know, that painting of the farmer and his wife with the pitch fork? Yeah, that one. He was from my neck of the woods. And even though I put in a thirteen hour day, I still didn’t get to see the painting. As Evan put it, “We got screwed.” I’d have to agree.

To be honest, I was so tired by the time we had everything packed up, I forgot.

Without a doubt, what’s going on in New Orleans is at the top of a lot of conversations these days. What’s tough is the reaction that a lot of the people took just after the storm left town and everything started to literally fall apart. I still don’t have my mind wrapped around everything that happened, but everyday that passes brings more and more questions and just shaking of my head.

In 1993, the floods hit the midwest. We dealt with it. People gathered together in their home towns to do everything they could to save their homes. Then the national guard showed up. After that, the president came around to various areas and said, “It’s bad.”

I guess what really amazes me is that no one wants the government in their life until disaster strikes. Then the government is to blame. The government should take care of those affected. It’s their fault.