The FYC

[for the full effect, let it play, and read on brother or sister.... read on.]

I have lived in the Soulard neighborhood of St Louis, Mo for approximately one year, six months, one week, and four days.

I have survived one Mardi Gras, two NLCS's, one Praxair fire, and hundreds of drunken evenings; and I have made it out alive.

While I have memories of many a good times to fall back upon, I only have three semesters at SIUE finished, and, consequently, I do not have a job to fall back upon.

Last August, during an Econ class, I weighed, to myself, the pros and cons of me leaving college:

Pros: I have the training and experience to make about $50,000 a year in network/system administration.
Cons: I could keep studying toward my major and get a job starting out at $21k/yr in about two years.

At the time, I thought, "Clearly, I should start, at the very least, looking for a job."

I threw my resume online and within a few weeks heard back from a large defense contractor, who offered me a position in Tampa, FL, starting out at $53k/yr.

Niiiiice.

I bit.

I went through negotiations and interviews with the company over the next few weeks and ended up leaving my classes during the fall semester, as I was expecting to be moving to Florida within the next few weeks.

About one week after dropping me classes, I had heard from that company for the very last time.

Apparently, they had filled that position. And not by me.
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No me gusta.

By that time, it was too late for me to register for Spring-06 semester classes.

So as of November '05, I was stuck.

Can't go to class. Nigga' needs a job.

So I did what most of helpless Americans do. I got on Monster.com.
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FUCK MONSTER.COM

Thanks for sending me those open fillings, Internets. It's glad to know that millions of others of resumes also flooded the desk of the hiring manager as soon as their need went online. You did me one hell of a service...

It's now February 10th. On this coming Sunday, The Lady Friend and myself will be packing up our vehicles and heading north up I-55.

Destination: Peoria. My parent's house, to be exact.

That's right. I am slowly morphing into George Costanza.

I have no problems with going back to Peoria. It's where I, and also TLF, (eventually) want to live (and by eventually, I mean "We want to move there when we're 32 and raise 2.3 kids, a dog, and a vegetable garden.") And even if I didn't want to be there right now, it's still a great situation. I get to live, rent free, in my parents big house on the lake, and try to find a job.

Whether that job happens to be long term (as in IT work in the StL) or short term (ie, driving a truck in Peoria) has yet to be seen.

What I do want to say is an official goodbye to my home of the last 18 months: 2215 Sidney.

Roommates Andy, Matt, and myself have spent the last year and one half living under the same roof, and although I can't say I'll miss them (I hate having roommates...always have, always will), I will miss them.

I'll miss the way Andy walks through the front door while coming home from work every evening and gives me the "one finger over his curled lips" shooosh while I'm watching "The Simpsons" and he's on his bluetooth headset. And I'll miss the way he walks directly upstairs into his bedroom every night, never to be seen again.

I'll miss the way I could look down on others from St Louis, when I said I lived in Soulard, and they said they lived elsewhere; as if "Yeah, I live and love in Gras central...you don't. Have fun walking by my house next year. Bitch."

I'll miss the way Roomate Matt would poop on the kitchen rug when he was super wasted and try to blame it on our neighbors "evil dog" (true story.)

I'll miss the times when myself and Dennis Quaid would get high on our back porch during a warm summer evening, letting the venerable Mike Shannon take us away to gigglesville, population: us.

I'll miss the way we could get in our cars and be down at Busch within five minutes.

And I'll really miss the way we could get back into our cars after Busch and be home within three hours (five minutes at a gas station, five minutes at Taco Bell, two hours at McGurks, fifty minutes at Truman's Place)[albeit be home drunk (and I mean DRUNK!)]
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I'm not saying goodbye to the city of Saint Louis.

I am, however, saying goodbye to 2215.

I'm saying goodbye to the boys.

And I'm saying goodbye to Soulard.

It's goodbye to Al's Saint Louis Living, version 1.0.

Al, V2.0 will be back, soon enough.

In fact, I'll go out on a limb and call my own shot:

I'll be back in the Lou by first pitch of opening day, and you can fucking count on that.

But the old days of Matt, Andy, and I eating Hodak's chicken after a ballgame at Busch during a random thursday night in August...
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I'll miss what I had, but I'm looking forward to the future...What troubles, myself, TLF, and the rest of this crazy cast of characters will run ourselves into.

That's the one thing I love about moving. I've moved about eight times in the last seven years; and as much as I've missed where I've been, I've loved where I'm going.

But, man...We had some times here, brah.

From Buid-a-bars to Christmas trees, man, we had some times.
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"Well folks, we just couldn't pull it together for one last win brought to you by the Wheezy Company tonight.

The final out was recorded at 10:22 and 15 seconds...and with that, we say goodbye, for the last time, from the lovely, the beautiful 2215 Sidney.

Good night." - Mike Shannon (paraphrased, of course)