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Sorry for the delayed comic this week! We're still house-hunting, so this week has been pretty hectic!
The good news is I'll be appearing at StripCon in Dallas this Saturday! Come by and say hi!
Hey there, hooligans!
We're in a bit of a strange situation and I'm hoping maybe one of you guys could help.
About 2 years ago Tiff's mom, Carol, came to stay with us when her brother passed away. Then about a year ago now I got custody of my 3 kids, Alex, Cali and Nick. So that makes 6 people in the house. At the time we were in a 2 bedroom apartment, which was way too small. The kids were all having to sleep on a fold-out sofa in the living room every night. So we had to move to a bigger place. Right now we're in a 3-bed rent house with a converted garage (Tiff's mom's room). And it's working for us for the most part and we were expecting to stay here for a while. We're even weeding the lawn and taking care of a bunch of other repairs that the previous tenants had just ignored for god knows how long.
Now here's the problem you can help us with. :nod: The income we get between myself and Tiff's mom's social security isn't nearly enough to support the family as a whole in this rent house. Until now we've been getting some help from a discretionary trust (meaning that we can't use any of the money without the bank's approval).
Two weeks ago we got a call from the bank and they said
(and when it's over, the trust will be gone)
Luckily for us the way the custody hearings went (with the kids' mother never showing up) we're allowed to go wherever we need to go. So we can get a house anywhere in the US... potentially even in Mexico or Canada although I wouldn't expect that.
Based on the research we've done this past week the town we're in right now is one of the least expensive places we could get without putting ourselves way out in the Styx. So we've been looking in this area and not finding much and what we have found mostly needs major repairs like a roof or something. We did find that the Detroit home market is about 40% less expensive and have found some places there that might work, but even there it seems to be slim pickings (also because of the crime rate there and making sure the neighborhood isn't too dangerous especially with our kids). I'd prefer a place where I can get high-speed internet (Uverse or Fios preferably), although it's not an absolute requirement... I would just have to put my webserver in a colo facility.
We know it's going to be a challenge... we've been at this for two weeks already.
Anyway, if you know of a house for sale in that price range, I'd really appreciate any leads you've got.
Apparently this blog doesn't allow comments, so you can email me at isaac_dealey@yahoo.com.
Thanks! Stay awesome, hooligans!
Hey Hooligans!
Sorry there wasn't a new comic up on Friday. This week has been crazy hectic. We had to do a bunch of car-shopping and then I was prepping for Dallas Comic Con yesterday.
The con was great! Met a bunch of local artists, had fun hobbing the nob. And we finally have a vehicle that's large enough for our whole family (6 people).
So I'll be posting up a new comic in the next day or so as soon as I can crank it out.
Thanks for reading and stay awesome!
ike
Aloha Hooligans!
After having a tooth pulled this past week and being too busy in general, I've been slow to get my next comic published as well as to finish an important commission. For those of you waiting on a new comic, I wanted to say thank you for being patient with me! :)
Also, I wanted to let everyone know that I blog much more frequently on my DeviantArt account than I do here. I just put up a new blog today with links to some content that I didn't create, but that I thought was pretty damn funny! :) You can read it here.
Stay crazy, friends!
So I just realized I haven't updated this blog in a while... so lots of news...
Tiff and I and her mom and the 3 kids (yes, 6 of us) moved out of the super-cramped 2-bed apartment (yes, 6 people, 2 bedrooms) into a house on the other side of town. This happened on the 1st of November. I had my birthday on the 5th and then on the 11th (yep, 11/11/11) the court awarded me sole custody of my kids (following 8 months in which my ex failed to appear in court 5 times consecutively). The judge ruled that my ex should not only pay child-support but also pay back attorney's fees with interest because of her not showing up to court. I don't expect to get any of that money in part because it turns out that my ex's condition is worse than we'd originally expected. She finally went to see a doctor last week, got admitted to the hospital and after a CT scan and some other tests the doctors said she has so much Alzheimer's-like damage in her brain that it's unlikely she'll ever recover enough to care for herself, much less hold a job. She's 41. D:
The doctors started the paperwork to get her on disability and into state care (since she has no insurance), but the judge ruled against the doctors' judgement that she's incompetent... which means that she'll be released and go back to stay with her father in the next couple days. I'm pretty concerned... it's kind of dangerous for her to be trying to take care of herself, but that's what the judge ruled. In order for us to get her into care now either we or her father have to petition the court with further evidence and probably get adult-protective services involved.
The small silver lining in all of this is that we were able to get custody of the kids in February and so they didn't have to stay with my ex until she went into the hospital. In that time we've managed to get them all caught up on school (from being 1-2 years behind and failing all their classes). Nick and Calli are now A-B students! Alex is a C-F student, but we're working on that. They're also clean, clothed and well fed, which wasn't true when they were staying with their mom.
So that's all the family news. I'm hoping I can get to at least one local convention this year. I've been getting a lot of exposure on DeviantArt lately where I created a new group for critiques. Check out Critoons at http://critoons.deviantart.com -- or come see me at http://smolderingremains.deviantart.com . Also I'm working on a series of interviews with other webcomic authors called Gutter Stars to pay forward some of the success I've had on DeviantART. :D
I'm having a lot of fun still making the comic.
Thank you all for reading! :D