mr. hanky

allison's ice-breaker event at orientation yesterday was called "Dragon Tails". The purpose of the game is to get as much poo from your opponents' butts into your butt as possible. Sound crazy? Here are the rules: 108 people stuff a bandanna down the back of their pants...then when the game starts you grab each other's bandannas and shove them down the back of your pants. don't you see how this is a great way to meet people? the fecal bond she will form with her classmates will surely last a lifetime...

Getting there (and back)

We got our first taste of the distance between Maryland and Kansas last week. Honestly, the drive itself wasn't all that bad...it took two full days. The first night we stopped in Dayton, OH for dinner with a friend/co-worker (the corporate office of my employer is located there) then slept in Richmond, IN. Richmond is the kind of town where you stay if you want to escape the bright lights of Dayton, and you're not quite sophisticated enough for those fancy motor lodges in the suburbs of Indianapolis. The return on our $40 hotel room investment was MASSIVE. Allison went to "Hoosier Pete" to buy a morning cup of coffee for 49 cents, only to frantically burst out of the store moments later in fear. We opted for McDonald's instead, where I was greeted by a cashier whose t-shirt read "Sure, I'll share my fries with you. (Not!)". I promise to get a picture next time. We passed the time throughout the two day drive by rotating music with some books-on-tape, which I would recommend to anyone driving long distances, or anyone reading this blog from jail with access to a CD player.

Once we checked in at her temporary address in Kansas, Allison and I headed out on the town of Manhattan for a few days of errands and discovery. Like I said in the last post, I was pleasantly surprised by the overall scene of the place. One interesting stop on our journey was the Manhattan Town Center mall:


Wait...what?! I guess it's comforting to know that I can't LEGALLY be assaulted with a firearm at the mall, but there's all kinds of stuff wrong with this picture. I mean, it's a MALL...did you really need to bring your gun? I especially like how they posted a notice on each door - you know, to make you feel more safe. Fortunately I didn't see any "No Hand Grenades" signs anywhere, so I went inside packing heat in case anyone commented on my fat thighs while I tried on board shorts at PacSun.

Here's my next installment of How People Talk in Kansas...this one may be hard to explain, but try to follow along. Whenever you do something that causes the other person to wait for a moment (even if that moment truly is just one second long) they say "you're fine". We went to State Farm to get Allison's insurance info transferred, and I overheard a guy pausing for TWO SECONDS to get his drivers license out of his wallet. The woman behind the counter told him "you're fine". I handed my credit card to the waitress at breakfast, then realized that it's the kind of place where you pay at the register on the way out. Before I could even mutter a syllable (I must have had that "my bad" look on my face) she said "you're fine". It's a really good example of the accommodating nature of the folks in Kansas, and it's also extremely annoying once you notice it.

But I couldn't stay in Kansas forever. Allison starts Orientation on Monday, and I gotta get back to work. Somewhere along the way, I got the bright idea to book a flight home on Sunday at 6:10 AM out of Kansas City (2 hours east of Manhattan). No sweat though...a quick search of FlyKCI.com rewarded me with a ground transportation option via the RoadRunner airport shuttle for a relatively low price (I wasn't going to let her drive me to the airport in the middle of the night...those highways are DESOLATE). This is where things went downhill. The shuttle was late of course, and the driver resembled Dobber from Coach - you either get that reference, or you don't. Dobber loves his job, but isn't good at it. In fact, he is one of the worst drivers I have ever witnessed. Remember, I was on this shuttle at 3:00 AM, and hadn't slept yet. I was nervously chugging an Aquafina, and within minutes my bladder was lighting fires in the lower half of my body...I had to pee like no one has ever had to pee before. Dobber ran a red light in downtown Topeka and I wanted to throw up. The boy in the seat ahead of me was listening to some dance/rap combo on his headphones at a volume that felt like a subwoofer was beat-boxing on my liquid-filled abdomen. Dobber drove 80 MPH through fog with the high beams on, and I thought I was going to pass out. I was moments away from putting my pee-into-the-half-full-water-bottle plan into action when he broke the silence with a creepy "Welcome to Kansas City International Airport" introduction to me and the 7 other sleeping passengers.

One thing we learned on our journey across America is that there is no shortage of material for blogs...

We’re definitely in Manhattan...

We’re in Kansas. Allison is here for the long haul, and I’m here temporarily. In case you aren’t up to speed on the events that led to this blog entry, I’ll explain.

It’s been a goal of Allison’s to attend vet school for a long time...mission accomplished. A few weeks ago (Friday 7/25) the Dean of the Vet school at Kansas State University called to inform her that she had been accepted off of the waitlist. This was great news of course, but it left us with about 2 weeks to put a plan into action that would get her here today. To make matters worse, she received that call about 15 minutes before we left on a weekend trip to Connecticut for the wedding of our friends Anna and Mark. And the following weekend my friend Shawn got married. Yada yada yada…we didn’t have much time to prepare.

She also needed to quit her job. The folks at work couldn’t have been nicer about everything…they understood the short notice, and many of them were very generous with their advice and going-away presents. They made it crystal clear to Allison that they want her to come back as a Vet when she’s done with school, which is awesome to hear. I’m going to continue to work for the company for now, and possibly long-term. I’ll be in Maryland for another few months, then I’ll move out here when we figure out my future job status. I’ll write more about that situation later as it develops.

Enrolling in school, setting up student loans, and all of the other logistical stuff was hard to accomplish on short notice, but Allison’s been doing a great job of knocking it all out. And her Mom and Dad came up to help with packing and everything, which was huge. But none of that stuff matters without somewhere to live in Kansas. There was quite the comedy of errors that led to our arrival on Tonga Street, and I’ll tell that story in another blog entry. But we’re here now, and we couldn’t be happier. For the next month, Allison will be staying with a very nice couple who has deep roots in Manhattan. We arrived late Wednesday night…Allison called them for specific directions and was told that “you’ll be going through the south side of Manhattan” at one point. She looked at me and said “SoMa”. I thought I was going to have to wait longer for the cheesy Manhattan references to kick in, but sure enough they started immediately. In case you don’t already know, the locals lovingly refer to this place as “The Little Apple”. And as you saw in the picture above, they’ve even got a Central Park. The apartment we’ll eventually move into is located on the Upper West Side. I could go all day.

All poor humor aside, this town is actually pretty cool. I know this will sound unoriginal, but the first thing you notice is how friendly everyone is. Everyone. And it’s not like they built the university on Auntie Em’s farm in the middle of a corn field in Kansas. Manhattan has a Target, Best Buy, a mall or two, and a ton of locally-owned bars and restaurants. What this place lacks in TGI Friday’s and the Metro, it makes up for in Pat’s Blue Rib’n BarBeQue and open roads. I’ll take that trade-off any day of the week! The bars are conveniently located a few blocks from campus in a section called Aggieville, which is where we headed for breakfast this morning. We picked some place with “bistro” in the name because our east-coast-ears interpreted that as “we have wireless internet access”. I couldn’t decide which fruity (literally and figuratively) frozen drink I wanted, so we let the gentleman behind us in line skip ahead. I almost had to get him in a headlock to accept the offer (because nobody in Kansas would dare to offend anyone) when it occurred to me that we had already encountered our first local celebrity. He was an older man in a full suit and tie, hooked up to his Blackberry – not exactly a common sight in Manhattan. Everything about him screamed “I have a major road named after me!” A quick search of Google Images confirmed that this was Bill Snyder, former head football coach of the K-State Wildcats. I know what you’re thinking…”Did you get his autograph?” Or maybe you’re thinking “Wow Jeff you are the luckiest guy ever!” Or maybe you Googled “Bill Snyder” quickly to see what all the fuss is about. I know, big deal. But when you make a decision to move to Kansas after living on the east coast your whole life, seeing a guy who you recognize from watching ESPN every Saturday in the fall growing up makes you feel a little more at home. I don’t suppose we’ll run into the second most famous person in Manhattan any time soon, but I do suppose I’ll take that title in no time.

Another thing I noticed about the folks around here is that they say “go ahead and” all the time. Like, instead of saying “Please sign this form” they’ll say “If you could go ahead and sign this form”. It’s charming, for lack of a more want-to-make-fun-of-them-but-they-are-so-damn-nice word to describe it.

So here begins the journey…I’m gonna go ahead and update this blog whenever something interesting happens, or at least whenever something cracks me up. If you know me at all, that will happen often...