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...