Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Do what you gotta do to get out there


I have worked the same job for nearly three years, and its time for a change. In this line of work I am required to travel and be away from home for weeks at a time for about seven months a year. This job like every job has its peaks and valleys, and I have found that it has more peaks than valleys which any sane person would keep the gig as long as they could. The traveling is the greatest thing about the and probably one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I have seen both coast's and the gulf of Mexico. I have spent a considerable amount of time in the top seven populated cities in the U.S. I have met people that have changed my life that if not for this job I wouldn't have ever heard their perspective.
The one greatest thing that i have learned from this job is not that the pressure within a contained vessel controls the temperature at which water boils, or that liquid nitrogen pushed through a heat exchanger is the best way to dehydrate a chiller that has blown its copper tubes. Its the simple fact that home is not always where the heart is. I moved back to east central Illinois about a year ago, because I felt that I missed my family and friends. I moved into a small two bedroom apartment with a good friend, and was ready to rejoin my old life, old friends, and same distant family. But what I what I found was that the same reasons I moved in the first place where simpler and more visible. It hasn't taken me this long to figure out that I simply don't belong here. Now I don't mean any disrespect to the fine people that have holed up here to start and finish their lives, but I cannot.
The United States is one hell of a country it has everything that if you look hard enough in any city you will find great sites, amazing people, and crazy things to do; things that if you grew up in a small town would change your whole outlook. An outlook I would have never got without this job, and wish to continue on my own terms. That's right kids my own way without having to come home, because the jobs finished. If I like where I'm at I can stay and explore and adventure more. I can learn and grow with the United States and hopefully soon the entire world will be my classroom, and there will never be a shortage of subject matter. The classmates will change daily, and my ideas, morals, beliefs, loves, hates, and knowledge will be everlasting.

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