Zel-kun’s Words

The outskirts of Oklahoma City were very similar to the outskirts of Chicago.  The roads were set in the same way, the buildings had the same architecture, it had the same feeling.  At the same time, however, it was so… clean.  The walls were free of graffiti, the roads were smooth, even the paint seemed brighter.  You could tell you weren’t in the best part of town, but it sure didn’t look like it.

My first visit on this trip was supposed to be a site in Tulsa, a hundred miles northeast of Oklahoma City, which was where I landed.  In the morning, I was informed I would need to drive to Oklahoma City, but I didn’t have my laptop, as it was supposed to be shipped to my hotel room that afternoon.  This meant I had to first pick it up from the UPS facility in Owasso, about ten miles northeast of Tulsa.  The trip was looking up.

That afternoon, I arrived in Oklahoma City, it was a little cold, but nothing compared to the temperature in Chicago.  It was about forty degrees, which was nothing for Wintertime up north.  I passed the jobsite half a dozen times before I finally found it, pulling up to the tiny black speaker, which was the only sign that this place might just be where I’m trying to go.  The building was short and unmarked, surrounded by a tall barbed-wire fence, it looked like a military compound.

After checking my credentials, I was led into the compound, where I began to work.  My job was pretty straightforward for the most part, to take asset inventory in the location and import the data into a new inventory system.  There were different nuances, but that was the basic routine.  The room I worked in was large, spacious, and cooled to the point where I could occasionally see my breath.  The room was divided into aisles with towering cabinets housing the equipment, each one seven feet tall.  It was easy to lose yourself in the aisles, with nothing marking your location other than a letter or two at the top of each cabinet.

At the very front of the room was a door and two windows.  The door led into the control room, where the operators sat and monitored the performance of the site.  The windows were so the operators could see into the room.  I spent three days in that room, entering one piece of equipment after the other into the database, occasionally taking breaks to show one of the operators how to use the new system.  The job had its tedious moments, but being in a different location somehow made it seem more exciting.

On the third day, as I was nearing the end of the last aisle, I opened a cabinet to see it full of unfamiliar equipment with no serial numbers visible.  I check through my entire book that shows the numbers for models with no visible model numbers, and there’s nothing there.  I call my project manager and begin describing the equipment.  He tells me to wait.

So I wait.

Half an hour later he calls back to tell me how I’m to input these new devices into the database.  It is slow and tedious, with it being nearly ten in the evening by the time I’m done.  As I’m finishing, the lights go out.  I’m standing there in the dark, surrounded by millions upon millions of dollars of equipment.  I carefully pack up in the dim glow of the machines, and make my way to the control room.

The control room is dark and empty, everyone had gone home.  I flip the lights on and call out, “Anyone here?”  After a few moments, I realize that I have, in fact, been left here alone.

Great.

I call my project manager, who is probably upset that he’s still working, and I tell him that I’m alone.

“Alone… what do you mean?”

“Well, they all left.  There’s no one here, the lights are off.”

There’s silence on the other end.  In hindsight, this scenario happened pretty often on my trip, me being able to render my poor project manager speechless.  “Don’t move, those places have some tight security systems.”

“I’m in the control room now,” I respond.

“Good, don’t move, I’m going to try to get in touch with some people.”

Sure enough, he can’t get in touch with anyone, being ten in the evening, and calls me back, “I’m not sure what to do, you can’t leave, if you set off that security system, we’ll all be in a lot of trouble.”

Just then, the door to the outer hallway opens and in walks a young kid, maybe eighteen or nineteen, and grabs the trash.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have never in my entire life been so happy to see a janitor.  I catch him and ask him to let me out of the building.  He complies, and relate the news to my very relieved project manager.  A few minutes later, I’m standing in the cool night air of Oklahoma City.

I take a deep breath, grab my things, and walk to my car… on the other side of a giant, electronically locked, barbed wire fence.  I lean against the wall, shaking my head.  Out of the frying pan and into the fire.  I kept thinking that any minute, a cop was going to drive by and see me meandering around this secure area.  He’ll see my out-of-state license, and complete lack of credentials for the place in which I stand, and he’ll throw me in the back of his car.

Luckily, that never happened.  But I did have to stand out in the cold for another hour or so until the janitor finished his shift.  He let me out, and I was finally able to leave Oklahoma City.  But I chose to go back to my hotel room and sleep first.

Zel-kun out.

Y’know… bleh.

Ever have one of those days? Let me give you a rundown of my day…

WARNING: I get a wee bit technical.

9:15 - Come in to work, late because of two accidents on 355.

9:16 - I am informed that a printer I installed last night isn’t working properly. I spend twenty minutes with the print server administrator getting the right drivers uploaded.

9:50 - Everyone can print to the printer except for one person.

10:30 - After troubleshooting, it turns out that Windows 2000 is incompatible with the driver. I begin work to hunt down an older driver and load it to her computer locally.

10:45 - She is printing, so I finally return to my desk and am handed a laptop I’ve been expecting. So I load it up and while doing so, fire off a Zelkun update.

11:00 - The lady who’s printer I was working on calls to complain about her computer not working, completely bypassing the ticketing system. I head on up.

11:15 - I find out the docking station for her laptop is bad, making her external monitor flicker. I run upstairs to grab another.

11:30 - The new docking station works, but I find out her network jack in the wall is broken. I painstakingly crawl over the fifteen picture frames on TOP of her laptop to disconnect her, then crawl over the bags of random items under her desk.

11:50 - After successfully relocating her to a new location, I find that the network jack in the new location is inactive.

12:20pm - I get a call from Jeremy, a friend of mine from TekSystems, we were supposed to go to lunch today, and he had arrived at the building. I tell him I’m finishing setting the lady up, and I’ll be about ten minutes.

12:30 - After finally getting her set up at a working port with a working docking station, her computer flickers and freezes, tapping the chasis causes it to freeze, so I head upstairs to swap her hard drive.

12:50 - The symptoms are resolved with a new laptop chasis, unfortunately, Windows refuses to recognize the network card. I call Jeremy and tell him it doesn’t look like I’ll make it to lunch.

1:20 - For some reason, a flash drive I borrowed isn’t working. I burn the network drivers to a CD. Oddly, the 32MB CD takes ten minutes to burn. After which, my computer locks up.

1:30 - The drivers don’t work, a couple co-workers and I pronounce the laptop dead. Preparations for rebuilding and deploying a temporary laptop are underway.

2:00 - The external hard drive I’ve been backing up the data to fails. At the same time, a machine I was imagining gets caught in a boot loop.

2:30 - After a second attempt at imagining, I set the machine aside and begin building a new one. At the same time, I build the replacement laptop and begin a new data transfer onto a flash drive.

2:50 - The data transfer is a success, and the replacement laptop is nearly complete. After turning down a kind offer to replace machines on the twelfth floor, I grab my jacket, ask Mike, a co-worker, to name a machine when it finishes imaging, and escape to eat.

3:10 - I eat a Wendy’s Chili and a side salad. They are very good. The straw for my Dr. Pepper has a hole in it and sprays me a little.

3:40 - I return to work to find that Mike forgot to name the machine I was building. (to clear the air, I don’t blame him, but it did add to the day)

4:20 - A guy knocks on our door. Like an idiot, I ask if I can help him. He then shows me a nice Blue Screen of Death. So I move over the three computers I’m working on to make just enough space for his, when Mike says he has a lot of space and a it of free time, and takes the laptop off my hands. While he tries to pull data, I pull another laptop to replace his.

4:25 - Steve (another co-worker) tells me he just happens to have a laptop nearly completed. Which takes another bit of burden off of me. That’s when I look at the laptop I grabbed from the back and see that it won’t power on. I add it to my pile.

4:50 - With the machines I’m building nearly complete, I see a ticket for a lady that needs an aircard installed. I figure I have just enough time to help her. I find out that the entirety of her aircard management software is corrupt, and must be repaired, manually deleted, uninstalled, registry entries cleared, and reinstalled. All remotely.

5:50 - I finally hang up with her, and set to deploy the machines I’ve been building.

6:10 - The machines placed, I run away from the place as fast as I can.

6:50 - I arrive home, and toss my coat on my bed. My stepfather then asks me to look at his computer, he’s having some problems.

7:15 - I eat dinner.

7:30 - I help my stepdad out with his computer some more. (I love him, but I am SO sick of computer problems at this point.)

7:50 - I finally sit down to write the tirade you just read.

Thank you and good night.

Zel-kun out.

My plane landed in Oklahoma in early March of 2004, where I was about to embark on my first job as a travelling contractor.  I got off the plane, waiting at the luggage carousel, tired as can be.

I had received the call the previous evening, asking if I’d be willing to leave the next day.  I was to replace someone who had been sleeping on the job, and they needed someone immediately because the project had already started.  I had been unemployed for about a month at this point, so I was not about to turn down an offer for work.

I woke up at three in the morning, so I could be out the door by four, and arrive in Peoria by seven.  I got to the address, which had no markings, it was a small building with a communications tower, I had no idea if this was the place or not.  I pulled out my cell phone (a parting gift my old job kept active for me for quite awhile), and called my contact.  Sure enough, it was the place.

The guy’s name was Steve, who can best be described as easygoing and neurotic all at the same time.  Steve gave me the crash course in what I would be doing during the project, all the while lamenting on the status of the project at the time.  I could sense his frustration when one of his techs called, who was sitting outside a site in California because no one was there to meet him.  So there was a tech, on the clock, doing absolutely nothing during a project where already the time constraints were apparent.

After a few hours of training, he gave me the information I would need for my flight and rental car and all that.  At three in the afternoon, I arrived at the Peoria airport.  I parked my car in the back of the lot (as if I had a choice), and began walking to the airport, lugging my luggage (appropriately named so, it would seem) across the chilly parking lot.  I was very grateful when halfway there a shuttle bus came to pick me up.

I’m not certain if its custom to tip the shuttle bus driver, but I handed him a five, I was grateful to avoid the full walk.

I got to the counter and handed my ticket to the attendant, who informed me that since the ticket was just bought this morning, they couldn’t approve the credit card without the holder being there.  SoI call Steve, who promises to compensate me on next week’s expense check.  I hand the lady my card, who swipes it and says, “I need to inform you that since the ticket purchase was made today, you will be getting the full security search.”

Well isn’t that dandy.

So I take off my shoes and watch some aging security guard with a fancy TSA badge root through my bags.  He swabs the fabric with q-tips and places them neatly aside.  He runs his hands over my clothes, checking for hidden items I assume, then pauses at the CD spindle I had on one of my bags.  I knew I would have a laptop on this trip, so I packed a few games and DVD’s.  Apparently, this interested the TSA guy, who proceeded to open the spindle and examine the CD’s individually.

I’m just glad he didn’t find my CD labelled, “101 ways to bring down the American Capitalist Society of Infidels with Homemade Bombs.”

So he closes my bags, takes the swabs and tells me to head on to the next step of security.  There is a lady who hands me a large plastic tray and asks I remove all metal items from my person.  I remove my belt, wallet, keys, cellphone, pen, ring, glasses, 9mm semi-automatic pistol, and put them into the tray.  She sends the tray through a scanner and I see a man at the other end snapping on a white latex glove.

Oh, hell no.

Fortunately, he just put it on to closely inspect my pen for the concealed superflu vial I hid in there.  Another man took me behind a glass screen and asked me to stand along a line with my feet apart.  I then explained that he was going to pat me down, and assured me that only the back of his hand would come near my genetalia.

Reassuring.

So, finally, with my shoes back on and my dignity fully lost, I wait in the terminal for my plane to arrive.  I was a little nervous, I hadn’t been on a plane since I was seven, and I had a fear of heights.  I sat there looking out the window as a small propeller-driven plane pulled up.  The door opened and a man announced, “Flight to St. Louis, now boarding.”

I stood there in disbelief for a long moment.  I’ve seen larger SUV’s than this thing.  I pictured a dozen scenarios with that plane spiraling out of control and slamming into the ground.  But as much as I didn’t want to, it was time to board the plane, so I boarded.

The inside of the plane was even smaller if that were possible.  The floors were metal, the walls and the ceiling were metal, and the chairs looked like they were ripped out of a van, leading me further to believe that this was just a car with wings glued on.

I sat in the tiny seat, my elbow crammed against the window, and my head against the luggage rack above me.  I saw the other passengers filter in, there were seven (including me) in total.  Then came the steward, hauling a little case with him, which he put next to him as he took his seat, facing the passengers, smiling away.

The plane started moving, the little propellers spinning.  I gasped as the ground fell away and things such as houses and cars became smaller and smaller.  I don’t know how high we were, but I can’t imagine it was all that high, everything seemed too big.

But then, I don’t really have a point of reference.

In the middle of the flight, the steward picked up his case and opened it, “Would anyone care for something to drink?”  He pulled out plastic cups and began filling them with ice.  He then lined up a row of sodas and began pouring the orders.  He handed me a Dr. Pepper, which did quite a bit to soothe my nerves.  I kept expecting us to fall right out of the sky.

But, the plane landed safely in St. Louis.  Despite my fears, the ride was smooth and the service was exemplary.  If the plane had been built to house a tall man like myself, I daresay the ride would have been downright pleasant.

I spent the next two or three hours at the St. Louis airport, waiting for the flight to take me to Tulsa, Oklahoma.  It was dark by then, so I wasn’t able to see the St. Louis cityscape out the window.  Which was a pity because I love cityscapes.  I also love the word cityscape.

My plane finally pulled up, and I was relieved to see it was much larger than the last one.  I boarded the plane, took my seat, and rested easy.  This plane did not have Dr. Pepper, so I settled for a 7up.  I then proceeded to fall asleep and spill it on myself.  The stewardess, a comely southern lady who appeared to be in her late thirties, helped clean up the mess with utterances of, “Oh, you poor dear.”

I might have been more embarrassed if I wasn’t too tired to care.

The plane landed and I stood there by the carousel, waiting for my luggage to come by.  I knew I could spot mine easily because I attatched red zip-ties to the zippers.  So a bag with red zip-ties came down… and it wasn’t mine.  It seems a lot of people shared my idea, so I had to closely examine several bags in hopes of finding mine.

The luggage carousel seems like a bad idea.  There’s no administration involved.  There’s no way to prove or disprove which bag is yours (at least not that I could see).  What would prevent me from taking the wrong bag?  Would I get to the hotel and find my bag full of women’s undergarments?  Would my bag suddenly have eight severed heads?  And if I wanted to take an extra bag, what would stop me?

I walked to the attatched rent-a-car place and gave them my information.  Unfortunately, they had no full-size vehicles left, which meant I had to drive a mid-size.  While it wasn’t the smallest car I had been in, it wasn’t the largest, either.  When I put the seat all the way back, I could sit somewhat comfortably, even though my knees were up against the steering wheel.

But it was enough, and I was finally on the road to my hotel, at ten in the evening.  It was a tiring day, and I was glad to be done with it.  Oklahoma was an ordeal in itself… worthy of retelling, I should think.

Zel-kun out.

I actually typed this one out months ago, but a glitch in the network caused the whole post to be obliterated.  I guess its finally time to giver ‘er another go, eh?

I give you, the Mountain Grove Saga:

Awhile back, I was on the road for TekSystems, doing some work for U.S. Cellular.  (those of you who read The St. Louis Chronicle already know this)  This had me going to some pretty interesting places.  Though I suppose no place is as interesting as Mountain Grove, Missouri.

By the name, one can deduce that its a village in the middle of nowhere.  One would be quite correct in that deduction.  Miles and miles of wilderness and rain (it was rainy during my entire stay in Missouri.  If it wasn’t raining, it was either about to, or just had), broken only by the narrow highway that bore right through valleys of rock.  It was a long drive, accompanied by my Creedence Clearwater CD’s, which seemed all the more appropriate on this particular stretch of road.

I drive to a tiny bit of town which consisted of a bowling alley, a Kentucky Fried Chicken, and a Best Western.  I couldn’t even see houses, they may have been hidden in the forested hills which surrounded the tiny oasis of civilization.  I stretch to call it civilization, its like a tiny slice of a real town had been cut out in 1980, and was then deposited into the hills.

Usually, my accomodations were handled by fax, so all I needed to do was check in.  This place didn’t have a fax machine, so I had to pay out of pocket and get reimbursed later.  So of course, internet was out of the question.  I sat in my room, watching the local FOX affiliate.  There was no cable, so after nine, there was very little to watch.  My cell phone, which had served me royally my entire time on the road, was showing zero bars in this desolate place.  I deeply regretted World of Warcraft being the only game I had brought with me from home.  Without the internet, all I had was a fancy icon on my desktop, hanging solemnly beneath the equally useless ‘Internet Explorer’ icon.

I then discover something interesting, I see the little wireless internet icon glowing in the corner of my screen.  I had found the wireless network ‘Bestwest1′.  Well hot damn!  I open the browser and am redirected to the Best Western homepage, asking me for my network password.  (its very common for hotel wireless networks, they give you a number to put in so their gateway actually lets you out to the internet)  Elated, I go to the front desk and ask what the password is.

“We don’t have internet.”   The weary-eyed woman responds.

“But, its called ‘BestWest1′, it links me to your homepage, your motel has a wireless network.”  I insist.

“No, we don’t have the internet, sorry,” the moronic woman repeats, obviously clueless.

I sigh and return to my room.  Out of curiousity, I type my room number as the password, and it works, I am on the internet.  I wanted to carry the laptop over to the front desk and show it to her, but I decided against it.  It was late, and I had things to kill in World of Warcraft.  Besides, I needed my rest for what would happen the next day…

With directions to my next site in hand, I leave Mountain Grove, jubilant in my mood because after this site, I go to Jefferson City, where I would spend the next week.  A week in a city of food and internet was definitely going to be better than the rural land I’ve been entrenched in for the past week.

I drive through the hills, past farms, and through forests.  I make my final turn and follow the road down for 5 miles, as the directions state, and slowly look around for anything that might be the site I’m looking for.  I see an old beat-up sign on the fence of a pasture, telling me not to tresspass, that the land belongs to U.S. Cellular.  I see that a ways into the pasture is a cellular tower and a tiny shack at its base.  I shrug my shoulders, open the gate, and drive on in.

It was wet, as it had just rained earlier in the morning (I was in Missouri, as stated before, its always raining), so I had to drive slowly, as the road was more mud than gravel.  I had to stop for a moment as I waited for a cow to get out of my way, and continured to the little fenced-in facility.

Its obvious I’m the only one there, and there’s no way I can get in as the fence surrounding the tower is heavily locked.  This wouldn’t be the first time I had to go to an unmanned facility, oftentimes a tech from the area would be by to let me in and do my work, so I leaned against the car and waited… in the middle of a cow pasture… on a chilly and wet Missouri morning.  The whole thing felt a tad surreal.

A half-hour passes, and no one comes, so I pull out my cell phone.  Oddly enough, I have full signal (I AM standing right next to a tower), and I call my project manager.

“Hey Scott, how’re you doing?”

“Hey, how’s the site coming along?”

“I can’t get in, its locked.”

“No one’s there?”  He asks, in that somewhat befuddled manner that can only be achieved by a manager who has already dealt with way too many problems.
“Nope.”

“Hang on…” The phone goes silent a moment.

“Hello?” a gruff voice asks.

“Hello Bob (honestly can’t remember his name, so I’m calling him Bob),” Scott says, “I’m here with my tech who’s supposed to be visiting your site today.  And he says he’s there and can’t get in.”

“He’s here?  I don’t see him.  You sure he’s at the right place?”

“Well, there’s a lot of cows, and a tower.  Along route 35 (can’t remember the road either, let’s call it route 35)?”

There’s a momentary pause, “That’s our remote site, the main switch is about 35 miles south of there.”  I smack my forehead, I was given the wrong address.  And now I was standing in the middle of a cow pasture, as it began to drizzle, in Missouri.

So, I get the right address, and the right directions, and say my goodbyes to the tech and my project manager.  I get in my car and step on the gas… and go absolutely nowhere.  The left rear tire was stuck in the mud.  I knew that if I didn’t get out of there soon, not only would the project be thrown off schedule, but I would lose my sanity.  Already I thought I saw the cows mocking me as I was stuck in the mud.  I put the car in neutral, and step out.  I step behind the car and do my best to push the car out of its little mud hole and back onto some firmer gravel.  My nice dress shoes sink into the mud but I manage to push it just a little.  I get back in, and with a mighty heave, the spinning tires throwing mud onto my trunk, the car moves forward and I leave the cow pasture, heading for an even more remote location…

Down deserted roads and through a thick forest I drive.  I head along the road as it spirals upward, as I begin to see more of the surrounding area below me.  I am driving up a large hill (or a small mountain?  it was pretty large), and the view was actually pretty spectacular.  Even with the fogginess, I could see for miles across the hills and forests.  Its a pity I didn’t have my camera.  Finally I reach the top, next to a ranger station is the site, and the tech who sees my muddy feet and muddy car and laughs.  He knows exactly where I’ve been.

I am led in to the small and cramped site.  It was once manned, but now operates automatically, a layer of dust on the desks at the front.  It was almost sad in appearance.  But I opened my laptop, and set to work, as the tech sat in his chair and went over some papers.

“Oh, before I forget,” he says, “Watch out for scorpions, they sometimes get in here.”

Well that’s just super…

Well, I didn’t see any scorpions, which is definitely positive, and the site was small so I finished in a few hours, also a good thing.  I finally was able to get in my car and leave the wilderness behind.  I’ll miss the view, granted, but I will not miss Mountain Grove.

Or the cows…

I hate those cows…

Zel-kun out.

It was last week when I accepted an offer from DeVry to help with a PC refresh project, it was going to be a week-long project at decent pay, and I was looking forward to it.  There were two unique things about this particular project:

1. It was the longest non-solo project I’ve been on, meaning I worked with a team of technicians.

2. The hours were 11:00am-8:00pm, with lunch at 1:00pm, which really messed with my rhythm.

Tuesday:

I left my home with an address,  looking for the DeVry building.  I was looking for 500 Park Blvd, simple enough.  But there’s something you should know about Illinois…

We don’t believe in putting addresses on buildings or street signs on our roads.

I figured the building would be clearly labelled.  A big ‘DeVry’ sign or something.  I was not so fortunate, instead, I am treated to a large business park with five nondescript buildings, with one address between them, 300.  So I am now bouncing between the buildings, in the hopes of walking into the lobby of the right building.  It is then that I find out something interesting…

500 is the Wyndham Hotel… not exactly the DeVry building I was thinking it’d be.

Luckily, I found the people I was looking for in the Hotel Lobby.  Apparently the refresh was taking place at the hotel during a convention.  A handy little bit of information I could have used earlier.  So we all go to this tiny room where we’re going to upgrade about 200 laptops, and we set to work.  Nothing really else to note for Tuesday.  Save for one of the techs ordered lunch: Seven large pizzas for FIVE technicians.  Nothing like a $174 lunch…

Wednesday:

I receive a laptop with a note from the user…

“This computer is slower than watching my 80 year-old grandfather taking a dump”

The next computer had a nearly pornographic wallpaper of a little girl on the toilet.

One of my fellow technicians, Rich, brings his own laptop and sets his MP3 player going.  There’s something surreal about ‘Paint it Black’ followed by ‘Too Sexy for my Shirt’ (or whatever the hell the title is), then ‘Freebird.’

Another tech, John, begins complaining about the music.  The beginning of every song prefaced with a phrase like, “Oh god, I’m going to shoot myself.”

Thursday:

Another member from DeVry joins the team, a girl by the name of Dana.  I don’t see many girls in IT, so its refreshing.  She gets calls on her cell phone, her husband asking where to put snakes, frogs, and spiders.  She just moved into a new home, and is deciding where to put the 400+ animals she has.

We then talk computer games, and I am made fun of for playing World of Warcraft, stating, “That game’s for girls, you don’t blow any shit up.”

For lunch, in this fancy, five-star hotel, the staff sets out large covered silver platters.  Underneath… Bagel-Bites and White Castle hamburgers.

Friday:

Friday I worked from 11:00am to 1:00am the next day .  Nothing really to note besides the fact that John began getting on everyone’s nerves.  “My god, you bitch more than my crazy-ass mother,” proclaims an agitated Dana.

I also see a sign in the Hotel Lobby, “Devry Privite Reseption.”

I also saw a truck “Professional Fastening: Expert Service” And its gas tank was open and the gas cap was dangling as it flew down the highway.  I shouldn’t have to say why this is hilarious.

Well, that’s all for now.

Zel-kun out.

In early 2005, I took a job with an IT consulting company. The first big job I had with them was working for a major communications provider, implementing a new inventory system and instructing site technicians on its use. I would be more specific, but I don’t want to violate a confidentiality agreement I signed. Communications are very hush-hush organizations.

Each site I went to was completely unmarked. It was always a squat brick building, surrounded by a tall barbed wire fence, cameras all around, deadbolts and electronic locks on every door. I’m sure Fort Knox envies the security.

I had a few adventures on this road trip, traversing the American Southwest. It was a lot of fun, I made an insane hourly rate (driving time included), had all my expenses (food & gas included) paid, every little thing was taken care of. When I walked onto a site, people listened to me, and did everything they could to accomodate me. For the first time in my life, I felt respected and independent.

Most notable on this trip was my very last stop, St. Louis.

I was excited, I had been on the road for nearly a month, and was a bit road-weary. On the road, as fun as it is, you start to miss simple things, things I took for granted. Namely, a soft bed, a home cooked meal, and a computer that could run World of Warcraft without slowing down. Of course, those were only physical comforts. I also had some terrific friends, a loving family, and a wonderful girl waiting for me at home. Within a couple days time, I would be back in Chicago, I would be back home.

Enough with the glurge… on with the story!

That morning, I sat in the hotel room, checking my email, getting the address of the site I needed to visit that day. The address was something along the lines of:

3816 Locust Street
St. Louis

This was the address in my email, so I punched it into MapQuest. It gave me the directions, I printed them out and left. The directions led me into the heart of downtown St. Louis. It is a very interesting city, very different from Chicago in its style. The city seemed a bit more spread out, a bit more open, Chicago has everything clumped together, with constant construction projects going on. St. Louis had a more finished look about it. I’m not saying I like St. Louis more, Chicago has a charm that is unmatched by any place I’ve ever been.

That arch in St. Louis is utterly huge. I’ve seen pictures of the cityscape, and I always thought it looked big due to the camera angle. I was wrong, that thing is huge, towering over the freeway as you enter the city. I was astounded, it is definitely an achievement in architecture. I could see it for miles when I left the city on my journey home.

Well, I was searching for the address. I turned onto Locust Street, and slowly came to a realization as I made a few passes down it: There was no 3816 Locust Street. It was a section of road where complexes on both sides took up full city blocks. I could see a 3800, and a 3900. Great, I had an address that didn’t exist, and I was expected at the site ten minutes ago.

I call up my project manager, “Yeah, you know that address, 3816 Locust Street?”

“Yeah?” He answers.

“It doesn’t exist.” I respond. There’s silence on the other end as this statement sinks into his managerial mind. I hear him punching keys on his computer. After a few minutes, I found out a very interesting and important fact about the site.

Its in East St. Louis, Illinois.

So, I get back into my car, and begin the slow process of leaving the city. It takes half an hour with the traffic, but I make it across the state line and am now in East St. Louis. There’s something people not from that area should know: East St. Louis is a giant slum. I drive along a stretch of road, dilapidated warehouses and stockyards on both sides, looking for Locust Street. I make a few passes along the same two-mile stretch, where the road is supposed to be. And there was no roads. A railroad, a sewage plant, a lumber yard, and a boarded-up factory. So I pull over, pull out the cell phone, and once again call my project manager.

“Hey, you know that site I’m supposed to go to?” I ask. The manger knows what I’m about to say, I can hear it in his breathing, in his lengthy pause, and in his despondent voice.

“Doesn’t exist?” He asks.

“Unless its the sewage plant.” I reply to him, pondering that the sewage plant, at the end of its access road, does bear a similarity to a site. After nearly two hours of searching for this place, I was ready to believe it was. He askes me what roads I passed, so he can get my bearings on his map. According to his map, I am right there, right where I’m supposed to be. So obviously, this site is more advanced, and has cloaked itself against intruders.

“I’m going to get the site technician on a conference call, we’re going to figure out where this place is,” he said, and I hear the click of him switching over to the other line. I then hear the ring and the technician pick up. We talk to the technician to let him know exactly where I am. That’s when I see it.

An officer of the law. Pulling alongside me. With his lights on.

I pause, completely in shock, I have no idea why a cop would want to pull me over, I wasn’t even moving. “Hey… there’s a policeman here.” There’s silence on the other end of the phone, its obvious they’re as shocked as I am, “He has his lights on, I’m going to see what he wants.”

Now, get this image in your mind, if you will. Its about ten in the morning, in the scummiest part of town you can imagine, the air smells dirty (probably the sewage plant), the buildings around me are boarded up, there’s nothing here that should interest me. I’m driving a new gold sedan (rent-a-car, forget the model), wearing a nice long-sleeve button-up shirt and pressed slacks, I look as about out-of-place as one can look here.

“So what are you waiting here for, son?” The officer asks me. He has that tone in his voice, and anyone who’s been pulled over by a cop knows it. It his, ‘I caught you doing something bad and I have you by the balls’ voice.

Obviously, I’ve done nothing wrong, so while wary, I wasn’t really nervous. But I was careful, there’s an old saying, ‘Don’t confess to a crime that they might not know about.’ I put the phone down, not hanging it up, “I’m looking for Locust Street.”

The officer looks at me funny, obviously he doesn’t believe me, “Locust Street is downtown over there in Missouri, son.” Again calling me son, that knowing look on his face.

“I know. I was just there, actually, but apparently there’s one right around here too.” I respond. The officer’s eyebrow raises. Apparently, he now thinks I just may be innocent of whatever crime he thought he caught me doing. “I was actually on conference call with my manager, being as we can’t find it.”

“I think you should move along.” The officer says.

“What, why?” I ask him, completely confused at this point.

“Look as this area, kinda run down ain’t it? Kinda hidden. People wait for people here, like hookers, son. You familiar with hookers?” The officer asks, finally letting me in on the little joke that has had him smirking this whole time.

Great… just great… the officer thinks I’m trying to pick up a prostitute. That’s just super. At that moment, I’m not sure if I ever felt more out of my element, in the middle of a slum, being accused of picking up a prostitute by one of the slum’s finest.

“So I should move along, you say!” I proclaim, suddenly happy I can just drive away from the accusation.

“That’d be for the best, son.” He says. And without another word, I drive off.

I get back on the phone, the manager and the technician waiting patiently, “The cop thought I was trying to pick up a prostitute, over here by the sewage plant.” This is met with silence, then roaring laughter from the two.

“I know where you are!” The technician says. Sure enough, I was less than a hundred feet from the site the whole time. Apparenly, Locust Street was the railroad. You know that tiny bit of gravel that runs alongside railroad tracks? Yeah, THAT was Locust Street.

Fun times in East St. Louis…

Zel-kun out.