Friday, January 28, 2011

Moved to the mountains

I moved to Pinedale, Wyoming when I got a job offer at the Sublette Examiner as a reporter.  Normally I wouldn't move 1,000 miles away from home without knowing someone in the area...but the 7200 ft elevation was too tempting to pass up for improving my running and learning how to snowboard.

My new job rocks, the office is loaded with mac computers, my coworkers are awesome and I got permission to make comics for the paper in addition to my regular reporting load.  (One step closer to obtaining national syndication as a cartoonist...suck it, art school!)

Things were totally epic for this first few days.

Then I hit a freaking deer and totaled my car!  A stupid suicidal deer on the other side of the highway jumped out in front of me and my only options were to swerve into oncoming traffic, go off the side of a mountain or hit the stupid jerk.

Not wanting to die, I hit the freak and drove 18 miles through the mountains at night with no headlight or passenger window.  Fan-freaking-tastic.



I was so mad at that deer that I promptly broke my vegetarianism and ate a deer burger out of vengeance.

[Girlfriend] and I named my 2001 Daewoo "Appa" last summer because I bought it at the peak of our Avatar obsession (the anime series, not the blue freaks) .  Daewoo was only made for a few years and then the company tanked...so parts are rare and expensive even though the car is cheap.

Fun fact of the day:  Gigantic Wyoming deer love to kill cheap Korean cars. 

So, I was 1,000 miles from home, new in town and fresh out of college with no income yet since my first pay day was 5 days away.  There was no freaking way any bank would hook me up with a car loan without my parents as a co-signer...and I thought I was an adult.  Guess not!

Fortunately, the people here are extremely nice and the local car dealer hooked me up with a crazy nice loaner truck until we could get me in something new.  Despite all this, I was freaked!

After a week of begging the banks in Wyoming to hook me up with a loan, I ended up going with my hometown bank back in Iowa since they knew me well enough to know that screwing me over with high interest rates would be totally bogus.

My new ride is boss.  In fact, I might go so far as to say is soooo cash.


I'm a diehard fan of "Kill Bill" and an alumni of the University of Iowa, so anything that is black and gold must be mine.  I named her Uma (after Uma Thurman, my favorite actress who coincidentally looks a lot like [Girlfriend]).

My coworkers and friends reactions to my car crash were pretty similar...and it was a pretty good blow to my recently inflated ego.  Yay karma!



Jacie is one of my chillest coworkers, so I drew her in my first comic to get printed in a newspaper since college.


[Since Pinedale is way up in the mountains, there are tons of moose here...so I grew a beard.  Deal with it.]

So Appa is dead and I got a car loan in addition to my student loans to pay off...but it's worth it.

Doubt me?  Best check yourself, fool, because I don't front...much.

Ch-ch-check this view out, cousin!


Living and training up here is improving my running in ways that never could have happened in Iowa.  The thin air, massive mountains and awesome aquatic center across the street from my house is totally getting me ready for the 2012 Canadian Death Race.  (77 miles in less than 24 hours over 3 mountain peaks).

You all knew I was insane, and this is the extent of my madness. 

1 comments:

Kendy said...

LOVE IT!! Keep more coming!! :) Uma is sizzlin' hot!

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Matt
I got my English degree and mountain of student loan debt from the University of Iowa. I like boo berry cereal, martial arts, running and cats.
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