Before we get this shindig started, sit back and take in the awesome new layout that my old student/protege, Kim Sloan, made for the site!  Not bad for still being in high school, huh?

Snaps for Kim!

*snap snap snap*

If you want her to hook you up, she's doing some freelance web-design work and I can get you her contact info while she sets up her own site.

Now, on with the show!

It was as cold as a witches left tit up here this week.  Up until now it has been a jackets-optional kind of winter, so I was loving it.  I went so far as to shave my beard in celebration of the warm weather.

Then el diablo unleashed a whole tank of liquid nitrogen on the mountains and I got a pretty annoying cough which kept me from going running for like 3 days!  I was pissed!

I kind of forgot just how much I look like a teenager without an epically huge red beard covering my face.  I also forgot how chilly things can get when you don't have a permanent face mask on.

Unlike Iowa, spring doesn't really hit up here until April or May...or so I've been told.  I guess this makes sense since the town is at 7200ft and the mountains peak out at like 14,000ft.  Pretty awesome, but also pretty cold.


It was cold enough outside that our house made really loud creaking and popping noises, the power fluctuated on and off and water would freeze before hitting the ground!  I didn't get to try it, but you could also blow bubbles and watch them freeze in midair.

I bet you all can guess what I will be doing next time we get a cold snap.

My new comic series, "Nerd on the Range," has been a pretty big hit with the newspaper so far.  I wonder how long it will be before I reach statewide syndication?  ...or even better, national syndication!

"Peanuts," "Blondie," and "The Family Circus" have been around for way too long, so it's time for them to be replaced by something new and awesome, and preferably made by me.

This would have been a longer entry, but it's finally warmed up enough to go outside and I am finally over my cough, so I am totally going running!  I flushed out my system with about 10 pounds of fruit and chugged water like a champ, so I think I killed the virus dead.  Dead in the streets!  (Because I take the thug-gangster's no mercy approach to killing viruses, with some hardcore anti-oxidants.)

On an unrelated note, [Girlfriend] got to see The Decemberists concert in Chicago last night and am I radiating jealousy!

 
Someday I will see The Decemberists in concert, and I will go into a deep coma from sheer awesomeness.

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.