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We're finally travelling under our own control. After a day in airports and airplanes, we're in our beautiful car, me and my beautiful wife, going back to our beautiful house, and I ask myself, because that song is on, "how did I get here?".

I got here, the suburbs of Raleigh NC, because 8 years ago all the jobs were here. This place was home to dozens of companies eager for programmers and biotech workers. They were hiring and the developers were building new houses, new strip malls and new office buildings. I noticed, when we drove down the first time, that Raleigh smelled like freshly excavated earth - construction. Everything here is new. I can go a week and not see a building more than 25 years old. Farm land, old neighborhoods, forests, swamps - all constantly devoured by developers.

And so we're driving home, past chunks of land that were horse pastures 6 months ago, past strip malls being built across from existing strip malls where you'll find another dry cleaner, another nail salon, another Super Cuts and another Matress Factory - one of each in every plaza. A huge variety of the same. I'm thinking about the city we left, 7 hours ago: Rochester, NY. ...