SpringCon 2013

Jack, Maggie and I met the Jankovich's for the spring comic convention. We also met Mike D there. This is becoming a tradition and I like that.

At the MN State Fairgrounds

the Ghostbusters had Stark Industries gear

with Batgirl

Maggie holding her own against the competition for action figures

:(

I cancelled my subscription to any comics I had them pulling for me at The Source today. You can give them a list of comics and as they get them, they'll pull the requested copy from the new stock and store it in a bin for your convenience. I've been using this service for over 7 years. Today I called them and had them disperse any issues I might have had in there and cancel my list.

Partly because I feel a shift from comics to roleplaying games. That's one reason. Another is The Source recently moved it's location. They're now in a nicer and more spacious facility. While that is great, there honestly is part of me that feels not at home in this new place. I miss the old weird store. Also, I've been saving money for GenCon instead of spending it on comics. Also, comics have been not very good lately. Also, I've been finding better, older comics for cheaper at Half Price Books.

Also, I've probably taken another inevitable step away from childhood. I hate that one the most.

Easy Day and Lunch

I had lunch at Cecil's with a former co-worker at KSTP. We used to go to Cecil's after the morning and midday news and we both left 5 around the same time. Hadn't seen him for a couple of years and he looked good. Too long. Good people.

Easy day at work. During the AM routes they had me go out and observe other bus drivers which is a default task when all the regular drivers show up to work. Then I had said lunch. And for the PM routes they sent me out to stand-by, which is like what I did in the AM, but with out the observing. I'm just a set of wheels available if something goes wrong. And nothing did. I got to choose a flat-nosed or transit style bus. Those are fun to drive.

An easy day was what I needed, too. Because I'm sick AGAIN! This variety of cold is the ever-running flow of snot out of the nose along with more sneezing than I've ever experienced in my life. I wonder if this is actually allergies.

And I also found time to get comics today.

3 Years

Married for three years today.

It stormed a lot today. It also stormed a lot three years ago.

For our anniversary, Cara painted a picture of us dancing from a photo taken at our reception. She did a wonderful job.

I got her three red roses and wrote her a love letter.

Leesha made a very nice card for both of us from her and Jack.

We bus drivers had our St. Paul route picks today. Starting at something like 6AM the most senior drivers choose first. Mine came at 7:56 or sometime around then. I think that means I'm moving up, or older drivers are quitting. Yay for me.

I chose a route that winds to and fro all around this side of St. Paul (this being closer to where I live). The first school is Highwood Hills, which is the school I was driving for on my noon route over the regular school season. The second school is Wellstone. I have a good history with Wellstone, but this route will be a departure from what I usually drove for them. This route guarantees around 6:30 hours a day. Not too bad for a summer school route. I plan on helping out the Monarch Bus Service staff with training to maybe pick up even more hours.

Comics!
I was hoping to pick up Clandestine #5 (of 5) today because its by Alan Davis and its great. But either the Source didn't get any or it sold out already. There was supposedly a new Indiana Jones comic out today that didn't get shipped. So the only comic I was expecting was Captain Britain and the MI-13 #2. This series started off in the middle of the Marvel Secret Invasion. Its been great so far. For me, Marvel + the UK = goodnes (ala Excalibur). Since I only had one comic in my hand I check out a couple of back issues. I picked up the IDW Doctor Who #1 and White Tiger #1. Haven't read either one yet.

Memorial Weekend

Friday night we went to Willis West (Greg and Mandy's house) where we grilled out and ate in. It was a very good time visiting and playing with the dogs.

Saturday we slept in. Cara and Leesha went down to Ikea with Darlene to shop. Called me and I went to down to transport a cabinate. Pre assembled. Door open so took my time going home. Stopped at Hot Comics and found Uncle Sven's which the Source recently purchased. Hans was working there. We dug out Identity Crisis and marveled at how well it portrayed Deathstroke the Terminator. Found a bunch of Challengers of the Unknown comics for $.50!

Cara and I watched the first episode of the current season of Doctor Who before she went to be and I watched SNL.

Sunday we met at Uptown Bar and Grill for gyro omelets. We picked up Darlene at her church and went to Uptown to meet Greg and Mandy and Mom and Dad.

After that Mom and Dad followed us to our house and we all went to work on Bopper's room. Had sandwiches. Leesha slept in the living room while mom and dad had her bed. We went for a walk and sat outside and talked.

Memorial Monday we had some breakfast and shortly after that, Greg and Mandy came over as well as Trelevens. We spent most of the day in our back yard.

McKeever writing Teen Titans!

Sean McKeever (who is now exclusively writing for DC Comics AND has been assigned to write Birds of Prey AND on the writing team for the weekly Countdown title) is now the new writer for Teen Titans.

Beechen’s move to the new miniseries does come with a cost – he had to give up Teen Titans, where he was recently named as the series’ new writer, stepping in for the departing Geoff Johns. Moving over to that series will be another member of the Countdown team, Sean McKeever.

McKeever will join Johns, Marv Wolfman, Mike McKone, George Perez, Todd Nauck and other creators for August’s Teen Titans #50 “jam issue,” and then head off on his own with September’s #51 with artist Randy Green.

“Sean’s is able to write in that great younger voice that the Teen Titans book really needs and a great sensibility for the characters, and again, like Adam, with his time working on Countdown, he was able to learn a lot about the interaction between them. When Teen Titans came free, Sean just seemed the most logical choice. Sean will be writing two of our team books now, with Titans and Birds of Prey, and he brings a great voice to both those books.”

You can read the entire article here. If you don't know who Sean McKeever is, then here is some context. He is a friend of mine from from back in high school. We became friends over our mutual interest of comics. I worked for his dad at the hardware store where Sean had his own comic shop set up. He helped with many of the video projects Greg, Orion, and I would do. His house became a haven for many of us. Sean is one of those really good friends you have. I'm so excited about his success.

The Girl Who Cried Wolf and Free Comic Book Day

Just before we left for Ms. Laura's graduation party, Leesha says her stomach hurt again. She was sick from school yesterday because she threw up on Thursday night for unknown reasons. I responded by telling her to lie down for a while which she protested about. It turns out that she happened to not want to go to the graduation party so she was making up an excuse. This upset me very much.

I'm finding it difficult to believe her when she complains about stomach aches or whatnot. I hate 2nd guessing her all the time, but this is what she's left me to do. The night before, she was at Jeremy's house and he said she was up late crying. Her reason for being upset were different for everyone she told. She told Jeremy one story, me another and Cara a third story. How can you believe anything she says? It is a thing I'm struggling with.

We all ended up going to Ms. Laura's graduation party at Como park anyways. Ms. Laura is the bus aid on my Murry Jr. High school bus route. She and I have gotten to know each other and discovered that both our families attend Woodland Hills Church. She has been studying to get her license in special education and invited us to celebrate. Leesha ended up having a blast and even cracked open the pinata!

After we left Laura's party we went to the Source for Free Comic Book day. The Source ran out of free comic book comics and ended up giving away cheap regular comics. They gave one bag to each of us- Leesha, Cara and me. Leesha's was 'screened' for younger fans. In her bag was a 1976 issue #1 of Kobra from DC comics. SCORE! I took that one for myself.

Micro Con

Today I geeked out. Cara and I went to church last night which left the day wide open for me to go to a local comic book convention and spend my bonus on comics. My mission was to raid the cheap bins ($.50 or $1.00) for all the G.I. Joe comics I could find that I didn't already have.

I found nearly 50 comics, most of all G.I. Joe as well as some other titles.

I came across Greg's co-worker and friend- Jessie. He was with Greg and Curtis at the last comic convention we went to in the fall. Greg couldn't go today because he had some birth class to go to after church.

Down to STL, MO

We had the CRV checked out before our trip down to St. Louis to make sure the clutch was ok (see below). My folks set us up in a fancy hotel in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, using my site. The trip down was fine. Traveling with Leesha has improved since last time we did this. She's growing up.
Leesha's privilege -
She's growing up so much that she had a privilege on this trip. The privilege was - She can stay up as late as she wanted to, her decision. And go to bed when she felt tired. And get up as early as she wanted to. However... if she started to whine (because she was too tired), she immediately loses the privilege. She did very very well with this. She made it all week and mantained the privilege.

Mom and Dad are doing great. They're house is so warm and welcoming. They're kicking arse with they're home business.

Dog Museum- The Dog Museum is something I've been trying to visit for nearly 10 years. This trip we finally made a point to go and it was fantastic. It was well beyond any expectation I had and we all were deeply pleased with what we saw (except for Leesha who found it rather boring, but didn't complain). www.museumofthedog.org

Comic Book Shops- I managed to get away and check out a couple of the local comic book shops. Dad took me out to the 'Uptown-esque' area for the first one- Star Clipper. I didn't like this shop. It was nothing like more traditional shops. This one felt like an uppity coffee shop where one should wear a scarf and a beret. The 2nd one was in Kirkwood and it was small and uncomfortable. I missed the Source of MN.

Grandpa and Grandma are doing ok. Grandpa is falling into dementia and Grandma is a trooper dealing with it. At one point in the day Grandma was out with Leesha, so it was dad, mom, Cara and me with him and he started to refuse to eat his lunch. It was alarming because it seemed that he never took a stand like this before. He seemed to be better when Grandma returned. I discovered that Grandpa was deeply in to comic strips- namely Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon. This is meaningful to me, because of my love for comics. It gives possible explanation for why Greg and I never caught on with the hunting and fishing of my dad's youth.
Business encouragement
trip back.

Pee in a Cup
Today was a rough go. My precious me time every day between 9 and 11:45 was destroyed by chance. My name was selected at random again for a drug test. I had to unsettle myself from my computer and go pee in a cup. Altered my whole day. Didn't eat until after my noon route and got comics early. I'm tired.

Its snowing.

The Man in Black Fled Across the Desert, and the Gunslinger Followed

An accident on 94 over the radio caused me to take a different route to my first stop today. Got there with 3 minutes to spare. I took Jackson street all the way downtown, cut over to Robert and all the way up the hill across the river.

Best comic I've read yet this year- in a few years, actually. Dark Tower is based on Stephen King's Gunslinger series. Amazing comic. The novels (which I've only read the first 3 of 7) are incredible and often called King's magnum opus. There are threads throughout the series that, in small ways, tie into almost every single other novel King has written. The series most clearly ties in with The Stand as the Man in Black is the antagonist in both the Dark Tower and The Stand. Reading the comic caused my hands to sweat and my heart to race a bit. Best comic I've read in years.

I had a guy do an evaluation and ride with me on the Wellstone route this afternoon- rather unannounced and suddenly. The guy's name was Steve. He displaced Davyon's regular seat so Davyon sat one seat back, in the 2nd row. Through out the ride Steve started chatting with Davyon and what was really interesting was Davyon was on the defensive right off the bat. And Steve kept pushing! Davyon was getting really upset, started dragging everyone else down including me, saying I wasn't so innocent on the bus. It was very strange.

Glenn Beck had an amazing guest. Ayaan Hirsi Ali may have become one of my heroes tonight. Her stance against Islam has made it so clear to me how the thought of opposition to Islam being politically incorrect is completely ironic. Islam may very well be the most politically incorrect set of beliefs and traditions on this planet, currently. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a death sentence for saying the things she says.

Cara's mom was over when I got home. David is out of town for two weeks (he booked a flight on some other web page).

LOST resumed tonight, but since we don't have good reception and Cara's mom was here we didn't watch it. I did manage to start downloading the episode before going to bed.

Groundhog's Day

Today is Groundhog's Day. I used to blame winter on that stupid groundhog when I was a kid. This is the coldest day of the year. And the coldest day I've ever driven a school bus in. Because of the cold there was a sundog today shortly after dawn.

I sold my Palm Pilot on eBay today. I also sold a book.

It was too cold to nap on the bus, so I went to Schinders and burned up some time there. Found last month's Dungeon magazine.

Flipping through radio channels, on my way home, wishing I could listen to my David Bowie CD, when all of a sudden Golden Years STARTS on KQRS! Great song. That happened earlier this week with Peter Gabriel.

Got home, had dinner and Cara flew out the door for work. Leesha and I had the evening. She went to work cleaning her room. I went on inspection. I asked what if I found something in her closet?- it was fine. What about under her bed? She had confidence that it was going to pass as well. But I said "Hey, what about this?!" and pulled out a comic book I was hiding in my pocket and threw it on the bed. She had a reaction of a little bit 'how did I miss that', 'wait... I haven't seen that before', 'hey! this must be my reward' and she flew to it and started paging through. She was well behaved. Next I had her take 5 pennies out of her bank and I went down and grabbed 5 toys from the pile of toys Cara and I get whenever she leaves toys in her pockets from the laundry. 5 pennies vs 5 toys in a Connect-Four challenge. She wins she gets a toy. I win I get a penny. She decided to walk with a tie- 3 to 3. We finished off the night with an episode of Dungeons and Dragons cartoon I downloaded.

The Further Adventures of My 30 Foot Yellow Car

They washed my bus last night!

The timing of my route went too well, yesterday. Plus I forgot to hand in the results. So I figured I could do it today to get more accurate results, but today went just as well- if not better.

Dah is back to school. She had a birthday present for Leesha. Then I had to explain what generous meant.

This computer is starting to die, I think. It took almost 15 minutes to boot up. This started me off in a foul mood for my 1.5 hours at home. On top of that- the phone ran more than ever in this period of the day. Grumble grumble. Oh, I have it so bad.

The Noon route went rather well which brought be back around. Those kindergartners are so darn cute.

Then I went to the Source for comic books. I was happy after that. I picked up an old AD&D comic from DC from way back in the late '80s and a new comic for Leesha.

I have been selling a YTB company profile document on eBay for $.01 for the last few weeks just to get company information in the hands of people. I sold many. Most people purchased them for the sake of trading feedback, unfortunately. That wasn't my motive, but it was a nice side effect. It caused my account to surface on eBay admin radar and they pulled the remaining auctions off. Then they removed every feedback I received for selling those. I guess that didn't work out. I thought I was onto something there. BLAST!

Today I had a stupid song stuck in my head. I cannot recall what it was and I'm not putting any effort into trying. It had been irritating me so much that I figured programming KTIS into my Jeep's radio, on the way home, would help. It took 1.5 songs before I was searching again. Then I found Solsburry Hill by Peter Gabriel and right at the beginning of the song, too! That was the best way to see the day out.

Comic Book Day and The Voice that Relaxes

We had a Safety Meeting at work today so I was unable to go home. This disrupts my routine which is good and bad. I love to go home and relax turning the heat and the radio up, but I am also a fan of change.

Since there was no work or postal service on Monday, that makes today Comic Book Day!

It's usually on Wednesdays, but not today, that I go to The Source and chat with the guys working there about whatever- usually Hans. Hans and I trade music a lot. We have many similar interests which go beyond just music. Today we talked about The Gunslinger series by Stephen King and how Merlin/Randall Flagg (of the Stand) was very similar to Tolkien's wizards and even Lewis's version of Merlin in That Hideous Strength. He lent me another album by Transatlantic. In turn, I gave him a copy of Ayreon - The Human Equation. Transatlantic was a lighter prog band that featured Neal Morse who left the band and went on to do solo stuff as a christian musician.

I got gas for the Jeep today at $1.86 a gallon!

Dah is a young girl on the elementary school route I work. She has taken a liking to me and always sits right behind me and chats away about whatever. One day Leesha ended up riding the bus with me all day. She and Dah became friends, but they can't seem to connect by phone since. Today, Dah wanted to sing songs that she made up right there on the spot. I allowed her to go ahead. The odd thing about it (and what makes it blog worthy) is that when I would allow myself to focus on her voice, I found it very relaxing. It only worked on the songs she made up. The only other song she knows (that I recognize) is Whitney Houston's Greatest Love of All and I found that that song doesn't relax me at all- even if its sung by Dah.

As soon as I got home dinner was served. As soon as dinner was done, Leesha was on her way to bed. Our schedule is brutal. Seems like there isn't much time with her.