Tell me about Iowa
 

I have been offered a great job in Pella, Iowa. I have a few days before I have to give them an answer. Tell my why I should or should not move my family to Iowa.

It's a shithole

It’s the birthplace of Hy-Vee.

How deep are your roots here?

It's not Kansas.....

Look dude I'm sorry I left a negative review on your business geez leave me alone it won't happen again.

I went to camp once in River Falls..driving through Iowa..seemed like forever to get through the State.

It's bigger than it appears.

But seriously... Pella is this Dutch Reform community, so be prepared to live among a bunch of people with sticks up their butts

Iowa
 

Deep. I have about 300 relatives that live within 50 miles of me.

We would probably live in Des Moines.

Nothing wrong with Iowa, plus good steak places.

It's corny

oooooooo...what a lucky man, you are!

I'd take that into consideration.

IIRC, you already make great coin.

Is the job more challenging/enticing, or just better pay?

40 years ago Des Moines had a nice club called the Fox Den down off of Airport Rd. AAA baseball team. Haven't been back there but a few times but back then Des Moines had everything you'd want or need and several things you probably wouldn't.

It’s a director level job with better pay and bonus structure than I have now. More challenging and gets me out of my comfort zone a little bit.

It's 183 miles from the greatest brewery in the world, so I feel like that should be taken into consideration.

I loved Iowa.

Coming from AZ, I had never seen so many shades of the color green.

My kids ran free from sun up to sundown.

1000 people. 3 bars. 7 churches.

Everyone gets taught how to weld.

Faith is everywhere and when they're handing you a pulled pork sandwich it's hard not to listen.

Walking tacos.

County fairs.

....

The bad stuff.

Every single line in the opening of The Music Man is truth.

Every single person within shouting distance is deathly curious about your life.

The ice that freezes in November is still there in April.

Your weed costs $50 1/8.

As a population, Iowa drinks a pony keg of Busch Lite per person.

The humidity and the bugs.

That's never a bad thing.

Would this be your last move into retirement?

Or do you think you would go back home?

Lastly and most importantly, how does you babe feel about it? She's the one that has to go up there and make a house a home. How long at your current place?

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Des Moines Metro area is nice, plenty of things to do, places to eat, local breweries, etc. Lots of bike trails if you're into that. I'm not but feels like more than half the people I know are. My only complaint about living in Iowa other then the seasonal extremes is no pro sports team so get used to hearing about the Hawkeyes and Cyclones all the time. I used to have Chiefs season tickets for years until kids got older as it was only a 3 hour drive.

Holy ****.

Sure you don't want to move somewhere even farther away!?

Caseys Pizza and tenderloins!!!!!

LMAO

Are you still in manufacturing management or was that someone else? I thought you and I had very similar roles but I could be confusing you with someone else.

If you are from Wichita, Des Moines won't be a culture shock, but it is a lot colder in the winter.

Pella is nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. Do get the Dutch letters there though. Good stuff.

Plenty of outdoor activities if you like that kind of thing.

Would I want to live in Pella? No.

But if you lived somewhere like Altoona, Carlisle, or Pleasant Hill you’re looking at about a 40 minute commute. Not terrible but could be a change depending on what you’re used to.

Other than not having the Chiefs or Royals, I would take Des Moines over KC. Plenty of places to eat and things to do, a little smaller and more manageable, and I really have never lacked for things I am wanting here.

Which one is that?

Des Moines is quite a bit nicer than Wichita IMO. I would not recommend you move to Pella.

Good people in DSM. Cold weather and moving away from family would be the two draw backs.

TG

I thought you loved shitholes ???

Iowan here and I love it.
I’m in the northeastern part of the state so all the things I love to do such as trout fishing, motorcycling kayaking are at my doorstep.
The Driftless area is stunning and sparsely populated.
The people are nice and I can’t think of a better place to raise kids and grandchildren.
Great public schools with educators and more importantly parents that care.

As I age I am becoming tired of the longer winters but you just need to keep occupied and continue to search for opportunities outside, like hockey, skiing and winter trout stream runs.

Pella is a clean town and it’s true you’ll do better if you start your name with vande- It’s a litt stuff and they want everything to look Dutch. There is a college in town and they have a big tulip festival that draws in more people than you’d think. You could do worse than pella. They also have a private school if you want your kids to play on a team full of recruited 6’7 high school kids against local communities.

If you’re looking Des Moines it’s got some things to offer. Altoona on the east side or bondurant are growing. It would be an easy drive.

You can find what you want in Iowa and you’ll get out of it what you put into it. If you’re a bike rider there are tons of trails that craft beer snobs peddle on brew tours. If you like parks there are tons of outdoor things and state parks. Lots of live music and hippy shit if that’s your thing.

Also the legislature just passed a tax chance and the state income tax will now be a 4% flat tax which is very competitive.

Don’t worry about the cold because I’m leaving my truck running to speed up global warming. Busch light is the beer of choice but if you like snob beer there are lots of places to get it. Breweries and wineries everywhere.


And billay, if you shit talk Iowa again I’ll chin check the ginger off of you.

Nothing to add other than I had no idea the Dutch were so notoriously cheap until I met a few over the last couple years. Apparently its an acknowledged thing among them that I had never been exposed to.

Best of luck with your decision.

Also…buy your local honey from me and a bottle each for each of your Kansas family members when you go home to visit.

I wouldn’t think the difference would be that shocking. Weather is obviously different.

I was through there in the summer and I just as well have been in a different planet. I went through a hilly spot and the corn at the top, on the side and at the bottom all looked the same. With that I’m sure comes humidity. But you’re in Wichita so that’s not astronomical a change. They don’t get over 100 much. Like at all. (See hilly Corn comment)

The winter though. That’s different. I stayed in Cedar Falls for a week and it was foggy the whole ****ing week. And it wasn’t even a coffee shop talk item. Nobody cared so it’s obviously not that abnormal. I’m like Superman. I need the sun. It’s further north and that matters in the winter.

The distance from family thing is on you to pick. Kids matter. I just don’t know where your head is there. Obviously it’s not a total deal breaker or you wouldn’t have interviewed. Google machine says it’s 5 hours from Wichita. That’s closer than I thought it was. That’s about how long it is to my in-laws. And while we don’t get back there maybe as much as we’d want, I also work a reeruned amount of hours compared to a normal-type job. A weekend trip isn’t bad. A 3 day trip is better but a weekend thing isn’t bad at all.

That’s also about how long it was for us to my family from Sidney before we had kids and from my family to college. Once your kids are out of the house the trip is really pretty light. Plus you’re all interstate I haven’t ever been.

I will say when we were in Sidney it was about 7.5 hours to my in-laws and that’s much different. That makes weekend trips harder, the extra 20% seems like 40%. That was a little tougher. But as context, I’ve always been 5 hours from anywhere. So my perspective is different probably. My Brother is about 9 hours away, so if he comes, he’s doing a week. Which to his credit he does at least once a year.

As far as the job, I’d fire away if I were you. I’ve never been tethered too close to family, despite running the family farm. I lasted 2 years at a corporate job with limited upside. And that was in 09 when the job market was saturated with skilled labor. One thing I will say is negotiate. My businesses and the businesses I am in touch with (and trust what I’m being told), is the price elasticity of demand for labor is high. I’d say the ceiling on what we’d be willing to pay a guy is probably 20% higher than it was 18 months ago. So negotiate. And maybe it isn’t cash. Maybe negotiate a work from home day a week or something. If you could throw in a WFH day and make it a 3 day weekend on a day your kids have off or something that could really move the needle from a personal utility standpoint. Maybe that’s not doable in a factory setting so maybe it’s a bit more PTO to compensate the distance from family. If they nuke that Maybe you toss a little cash back their direction, I don’t know, but negotiate. I don’t know if anybody that’s happy with their staffing situation.

If I were in your shoes I’d probably be gone. The only hold up would be picking up my kids if yours are still at home.

Hey, I'm not a snob because I love drinking great beer and not that watered down piss most people drink!




I'm a snob because I'll drive my Beemer halfway across the country to drink it...

This would be my last job before retirement, but we wouldn’t stay in Iowa for retirement. Plans are to live 6 months in Hawaii and six months in Kansas during retirement.

The wife is a little hesitant about moving. We went and looked around Pella and Des Moines. My wife is Hispanic and Iowa is pretty white and conservative. That isn’t normally something we worry about, but she does worry a little about being accepted.

Inlaws live in West Des Moines, it reminds me a lot of Johnson county. But thats probably a pretty decent commute from where OP plans to work

Still in manufacturing management.

Great album by Slipknot highly recommend!

I make a pilgrimage to Decorah every summer to visit friends… and oh yeah, there’s also Toppling ****ing Goliath

Ah yeah, that is true. Wouldn't worry about it too much though as long as you're not moving to small town Iowa.

Des Moines is “whiter” than Wichita? I mean, I suppose it depends upon where you live, but that seems unlikely.

Fold in some Pulpit Rock sometime.

Oh I do. I go there more frequently actually since it’s located right in town

I can’t really speak on it too much because we only spent one day there. The company I was interviewing with assigned us a realtor for an entire day. We gave him our parameters on what we’d be looking at in a home (price, size, style, amenities) and he showed us about a dozen homes that day. It seemed “whiter” than Wichita, but it’s probably not fair to make that distinction after one day and to be totally honest that isn’t something we’ve ever talked about before. I think it came up because she would be moving away from all of her friends and family.

They just stare a lot.
Wifey will find community in Iowa.
No tacos tho.

Tasty Tacos is Des Moines is delicious

I live just outside of Des Moines. Traffic for a larger metro area is pretty tame. 15 minute rush hours most days. Good food, especially authentic Mexican with our Ag base. Pella is a very clean town, but very proper, although some stores are open on Sundays now and they have a few bars. If you want a more metro life, you could live in the Altoona area for an easy commute to Pella, or even Prairie City for a happy median. If you want rural and cheaper, move east or south of Pella. Good Triple A baseball and Hockey, usually get good concerts. Great bike trails, and decent lake/reservoir options for boating/fishing. It is the Hawkeye/Cyclone on Sports radio but I stream 810/610 most days. Also, it's only about 2:45 to arrowhead and all easy driving. Also, the Iowa House, just passed a 4% flat tax that has a good chance, so it will be competitive tax wise as well. If you get here, let me know, I will buy you a few beers if you bring me a dutch letter from Jaarsma's...

Ha. I know several people from Sioux City that eat there every time they go to DM.

I love Mexican women.

Let me know when she becomes available.

Thanks for the info. I’ll take you up on the beers if we decide to make the move.

? I would bet you are no further than a 30 minute drive in almost every town in Iowa from an authentic Mexican street taco...

This isn’t even a threat.
In Iowa you don’t lose your girl, you lose your turn.

Your wife has nothing to be concerned about. She will find people going out of their way to be friendly to her. In the meat packing towns it could be different but not in the majority of the state and definitely not the DM area. Rural Iowa is conservative. Suburb Iowa is liberal Karen who need extra brown friends to balance their tiktoks cred. For the most part you receive what you put out there, here. If you’re decent, Iowa nice will find you.

After being with me for 25 years, I guess being with a lesser man might be a nice change of pace for her. :D

Id take that bet but we have to go try all the food together because your people think cinnamon rolls go with chili.

I still need to open the one I bought from them... I was a bit disappointed in their selection, but TG was on ****ing point at the time, so it really wasn't a fair comparison.

Depends on how much money. Iowa isn't far, we've played a lot of shows there, it's pretty conservative, which doesn't bother me...but some of the guys seemed like they were looking at an alien when they see a dude with long hair, earrrings and sparkly nails that their girlfriend wants to **** and they're confused on if they just want to watch or join...

but yeah, Iowa wouldn't be all bad. Depends on the money. You can always drive back and visit.

What does your family think?

This isn’t true. Iowans like tacos as much as Busch light. Almost every small town has a Mexican restaurant and I could drive you to 10 taco trucks in the DM area.

ROFL
LMAO

With the exception of my wife I haven’t solicited any other family members’ opinions. I don’t want more to think about then I already have.

Their special releases are as good as TG, imo. But they're obviously operating on a much smaller scale than TG so visiting from out of town is more likely to be hit or miss unless planning around a release.

I have family around Lake Rathbun and it always seemed like the locals would make minorities as uncomfortable as possible without being physically threatening. It's a weird area.

White people running taco trucks.

Yes!!!!!

Hey now. Those white people once ate at Del Taco.

This is 100% accurate, it's like what I described above.

That's fair.

More cheddar cheese on my tacos please!!!!!

"what the ****, I thought avocado only went on toast. white toast."

I made the move in the opposite direction about 40 years ago. I lived in southern Iowa from 4th grade through HS and consider it my home town. I think my childhood was fairly idyllic, running around town safe and free. Of course that town is dying the same slow economic death of all small towns. I think Des Moines are a lot the same, DM is a bit more "metropolitan" whereas Wichita is a great big little city. You will definitely be shoveling more snow. And there are plenty of intolerants in both places, but it is usually ignorable.

You do know what they say about all the Southern counties in Iowa? If you gave them all to Missouri, it would increase both state IQs by 40...

I do like lettuce and mayo sandwhiches with my Chili, but never heard of Cinnamon rolls... although I didn't know kids told jokes while trick or treating until I moved to Des Moines.

Are you an animal?

It’s a thing.

:D

It's probably better than that shit hole In-A-Tub where they put Kraft Mac n Cheese powder all over it.

300?! :hump: That is wild. It sounds like a neat opportunity with some new challenges and that's nice. Home is nice too. It sounds like you're wife is a bit iffy. Maybe another visit?

Back to topic: chili and cinnamon rolls are a Kansas staple. And don’t you forget it!!!

Love Tasty Taco. Grab some almost every trip to DSM.

Its much better than Nebraska.