The New Iron Man

Guess who's manning the Hulkbuster today...

Yup, my son decided to stick his stuffed monkey (looks like a lion to me, but it's a monkey) in there to help fend off the raging hulk. I don't know why, but this cracked me up, so I thought I'd share it.

Leaving Town After All

Here's a detailed write-up of the situation that Rish and I talked about in the That Gets My Goat episode we released the other day, in case you were interested to know a little more.

A few months ago, I wrote this post about my wife getting promoted at work. When it happened, we were hoping that it resolved our issues with the uncertainty of our future location. We were looking at a possible move to another part of the country for a couple of years. It looked like the only way that she could move up at work was to move out of state. But then they promoted her, and it looked like we might actually get to stay.

About a month after getting her promotion, however, the one final hurdle to our permanence came. My wife's job was doing a management restructuring, and her new position just might be going away. We worried about it for weeks, hearing rumors and then reassurances, but in the end, when the announcement was made, it became obvious that in the end, there was going to be no place left for her. 

If she stayed, she would be busted back down to her old position, and looking at the likelihood of several more years starting work at 2:00 or 3:00 AM. It had been a long hard process earning her way out of that situation, and we weren't going to accept a return to it. My wife's mental and physical health were more important. 

Our heats sank, because we were going to have to find something else after all. Our time here was probably coming to an end.

My wife started looking into her options, and it quickly became apparent that the best opportunity we had was in Houston, Texas.

 

 

There were a few outside possibilities, like one in Norfolk, Virginia that we were keeping an eye on, but in the end, the best thing for us turned out to be the job in Houston. She did a couple of interviews over the phone, and impressed everyone that she talked to, and they made an offer to her without even having to meet her face to face. It's a pretty good step up for her, with some good possibilities for further advancement very soon, so we jumped at the chance.

The good thing is that the process took a little longer than we thought it was going to, and therefore she didn't need to report to Houston until the first week of May. That meant that the kids could finish up school here without it being much of an issue. She moved out to Houston ahead of the rest of us, just left a few days ago, but I'll only have to be a single father for a month before I can head out to Houston to join her in June.

I'm pretty nervous about the idea of being on my own with the kids like that. Especially at the very end of the school year. Grades are coming up, and usually my wife is the one who helps the kids stay on top of things and come out with decent grades at the end of each semester. Luckily, there's a lot of digital tools to help us keep up with the kids schoolwork these days, so she can even do it in Houston. I'm sure I'll need the help, so thank you to the school district software developers.

We're all going to miss this place. Over the past few years, we've finally been taking advantage of the great outdoors available here. We've gone to as many of the national parks in the surrounding area as we can, from the Grand Canyon, to Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado, to the Utah parks like Arches, Zion, and Bryce. We also often just drive up the canyon on a Sunday afternoon to enjoy God's green earth. Houston is going to be too far away for us to take simple trips to places like that. They have very few national parks in Texas, so there's not as many opportunities.

There is a lot of other opportunities, we're living right on the ocean, and within driving distance of New Orleans, Dallas, San Antonio and even Florida's only a day's drive. A lot of things that we have no experience with whatsoever. That'll be neat to experience. So, we think it'll be an overall positive thing in the end. But we're going to miss this place, and particularly the people we know here.

I know Rish Outfield and I will continue to be friends as we have for many years. Our friendship developed from being acquaintances to strong friends while we lived in distant cites from each other, so living in distant cities again shouldn't change that any. The Dunesteef podcast has been flagging for years now, so if it continues on that trajectory, we can't blame it on the move...though we probably will anyway. Then we can avoid responsibility.

My oldest son is basically furious with us for taking him away from the friends that he has cultivated through his years of school. And we really feel bad for doing it to him as well. Next year will be his senior year in high school, and because of the move it won't be nearly as triumphant as he once envisioned. 

We have a lot of family that live within close driving distance. We have family dinners with my three sisters who live here once a month. The kids are pretty close with their cousins, and will miss them a lot when they no longer get to see them frequently. Lastly, Grandma and Grandpa live closer to us than anyone else in the family. It's a great opportunity for our kids to know their Grandparents so well, an opportunity that I never got to have growing up, so it makes me really sad to sever that connection. Little especially has built a great relationship with Grandma and Grandpa. Once we go, I don't know how well that connection will withstand the distance.

So, yes, we are going to mourn this move in our family. We've been here since 2004. When we move, it will be exactly thirteen years to the month that we moved in. Hopefully, we'll find even more fun and happiness in Texas. I've found that what really makes all the difference in life is your attitude. If your attitude is positive, any place can bring you joy. So, we're going to have to make sure to keep the right attitude, and have a great time in our adventure to come.

I Feel A Change Coming On...

This episode has a big announcement in it. Things are going to change significantly at the Dunesteef.

Find it on the podcast feed now, or right-click HERE to download the episode, or, alternately, you could just click the play button on the player below.

Masculine Manly Man

I had to take a picture of this guy, and share it with you. I've never met another person, wait, I've never even seen another person that would wear an Aquaman shirt. And this guy takes it to the limit with the shirt and hat combo. This guy is completely secure in his masculinity.

Anklecast 34: True Colors

Big is back with another episode of The Anklecast. No one knows why, but he decided to make it a video episode again, despite nearly no one watching the last one. He's a masochist, I guess. Anyhow, he's here to share another story from his back catalog. Probably one that should have been left in the trunk, but Rish Outfield shared his version over on The Rish Outcast, so he felt he ought to release his own version as well. Enjoy the podcast and the story.



To download the audio of the podcast, right click here, and save the file to your hard drive.

Related links:
Rish Outcast with the other version of this prompt Rainbow Picture Attribution
Broken Mirror Picture Attribution
Music from end sequence provided by incompetech.com
Some sounds from the new intro are courtesy of freesound.org

Gray Hulk

I stopped at the gas station to get a soda this morning, and the guy behind the counter likes to comment on my shirts. Today he saw my Marvel Comics T-shirt and said, "Hey, Marvel Comics, cool. Here's some trivia for you, what color was the Incredible Hulk when he was first introduced?"

"He was gray in the first comics," I said.

"That's right," he said. "Cool. Not a lot of people know that. I remember when I was a kid and I got that comic. He was butt ugly gray. I thought it was so much cooler when they made him green. When he was gray it seemed like an error or something. He was so ugly. I still have that comic book."

"Really?" I said, not really believing him. I've heard a few people claiming to have Spider-man issue #1, only to discover that it was a Spider-man #1 from the '90s, which is totally worthless. You could get more for it from a restaurant to wrap their fish and chips in than you could from a comic collector. "Wow," I was humoring him here, "A first appearance Incredible Hulk would be worth a fortune."

I had my head down, because I was typing my pin number into the machine at this point, but the man across the counter had gone eerily silent. When I looked up, he had a sort of shocked look on his face. "Really?" he asked. "You think it's worth something?"

"Sure," I said.

"I tried selling it before, but nobody was interested in it. I'll have to take a look at it again, I guess."

His reaction makes me think that he actually does have an Incredible Hulk issue #1. A quick Google search before writing this said that it could be worth around $18,000 or more. I wonder if I'll see that guy working at the gas station next week or not.

 

 

Famous Neighbor?

There's this screen at the local Pizza Hut that tells you if your order is ready. I was there today, and it turns out I've got a pretty famous neighbor.