Hurry up and wait. But mostly, hurrying up.

So, I finally got the finalized job offer for my new job, and have been as busy as a pig-town whore on check day for the past week and a half or so. Monday of last week I finally got my full-fledged offer, including a start date, which was, somewhat incredibly, laced with the words “We were hoping you could make it up to Wichita next week and work here for two weeks or so, we have some short-term project work that should be a good fit for you, and we’d like to get to know you a bit better before we ship you off to Iowa.”

Now, ordinarily, a rushed start date wouldn’t be an issue; it certainly would have been nice to have a month or two, to finalize my house-selling preparation, look for a place to stay, and just generally get my shit together, but it’s possible to do these things out of order, and only increases the inconvenience a little bit.

My current situation, however, is fast approaching being out of control. I received my start date last Monday, and didn’t get the exact date confirmed until Thursday. That date was today, Wednesday of the following week. Then, a week from this coming Monday, I move to Iowa. Yikes. That’s two moves, one of them pseudo and one of them for real, in under two weeks. I’m staying in a hotel for the next week, and then moving to Iowa around next weekend. All while getting my house ready to put on the market. Fun, fun.

Thank goodness for my parents (how rarely does anyone use that sentence without any intended irony). They showed up on Friday to help out with some of the cleaning and packing, and also to haul the ’68 Mercury Comet that’s been sitting in my garage for the past 3 years back to their house in Kentucky, where they plan to get it fixed up. They made the drive originally thinking that I would be starting on Monday (because that’s how the original offer made it sound), so the news that I wouldn’t have to leave until Wednesday morning was welcome. Over the weekend and through Tuesday, the three of us managed an incredible amount of work.

My house was in good physical shape, but a bit dirty and cluttered. Plus, its curb appeal was limited at best, as I hadn’t really been keeping check on the weeds and bushes that line the front of the house. We got the Mercury started (it needed a new battery, new spark plugs, and a wholesale change of the gas in the tank) just enough to get it onto the car hauler, and then proceeded to manage a ton of yard work and to clean every room in the house. The house is now completely show-ready and in the process of being put on the market.

This morning I drove up to Wichita (a 5.5 hour drive) and straight into the office. The 350Z is loaded up like a mofo out in the parking lot, awaiting its unloading in the hotel/motel room. I brought the Xbox 360, a ton of DVD’s, my laptop, a ton of clothes, books, etc. I should be well-set for the hotel stay, and now have to find a place to stay in middle-of-nowhere, Iowa.

Still, it’s gone remarkably well so far and I’m optimistic. Hopefully I can stay that way…

Random thought

You know you're a hopeless hybrid of electrical-engineering-geek and video-game-geek when you start contemplating exactly what it would take to generate a relay pulse that would interface with your "Guitar Hero II" guitar at exactly the frequency of the strumming in "Misirlou".

I'm thinking it would be a trip to Radio Shack and maybe $10 worth of parts.

Holy Fucking Iowa

So, the good news is, I got a job offer - for a job where the work I'll be doing is likely to be right up my alley, and in a situation that I have reason to believe isn't going to make me feel as though I'm being paid to manually masturbate various farm animals for a half-decent salary (I know, I know, my standards are so high). I've accepted. I don't have a start date yet, but it's likely to be soon.

The bad news is, the offer is in motherfucking Iowa. Eddyville, Iowa, which is about an hour and a half southeast of Des Moines, a town of about 300, with exactly 0 stoplights in town.

Most of the people in the plant in Eddyville live up in Oskaloosa, which is a town of about 13,000, roughly half the size of the town I'm living in currently; so, you know, I thought I'd had it rough before, but I ain't seen nothing yet.

I'm glad to have a job offer, and was pretty surprised at the fact that my job search seemed to consist of the following two steps:

1) Post resume on monster.com
2) Answer phone. A lot.

Apparently electrical engineers with 6+ years experience are in demand.

The good news is that it's Iowa, and not Texas, and if it's a small town in Iowa vs. a small town in Texas, I'll take Iowa any day of the week and twice on Sunday (what the fuck does that saying even mean, anyway?) While all small towns, as a rule, are "churchy", the Iowa culture does not breed in an insanity factor quite like Texas does. For example:

1) In rural Texas, it is almost impossible to meet a single woman over the age of 25 who has fewer than 3 kids with fewer than 2 last names. This is unlikely to be the cas in Iowa, which doesn't quite have the "marry young and start spawning" culture.

2) Just this morning, I had people ring my doorbell at 10 in the morning asking me if I go to church. I said no. They said they'd like it if I could come to their church, not surprisingly, one variation of Baptism or another. I said "Not gonna happen" and sent them on their way. This is less likely to happen in Iowa.

3) I've been in Texas for three years now and have met exactly no one down here that I would consider to be a close friend. This is directly related to the previous two points. I somehow doubt that that will happen in Iowa.

Still, I'm nervous as all hell about the move, as it will be my first experience ever in selling a house, and I have to figure out exactly what it is I'm going to be doing for housing up in the land of caucuses and corn. My guess is I'll try to find a house to rent. I just don't necessarily feel like I need to do this owning-a-house thing, particularly when the contract in Iowa would only be for a couple of years.

I'm antsy as hell, having a bit of a hard time sleeping, but feeling good that I'm about to enter back into the realm of the employed once again.