Wanted to update everyone on a few things that aren't really that big of a deal to anyone other than me and my family.
Two years ago, my wife was diagnosed with an auto immune disorder that affects blood circulation. There's not a medicine to take for it and it's not something that is life threatening, but when the blood leaves the extremities it can be incredibly painful when it returns and it also is difficult to drive when an 'episode' arises as you lose feeling in your extremities. Think of when you foot or arm goes to sleep, you can't lift it or feel anything and the pain that hits you when the blood returns is many times more painful.
The stimulus for the onset of an episode is cold...as in grabbing a bag of peas out of the supermarket freezer, or in the winter. This winter, things got bad enough to where the episodes were happening even after having gloves on before getting into a vehicle that had been in the garage, so no exposure to the raw outdoor elements. The only way to minimize and or limit these episodes is to remove yourself from the primary stimulus, which is the cold. As you might imagine, that makes living in Iowa more challenging.
This was one of the driving factors behind our looking at warmer options and it was also at this time when I felt that it would be in the best interest of my family if I were to look to get back into the 'regular' workforce, like I had been for the first six years I published HawkeyeNation.com, since other media related opportunities I had drawn income from in the past would likely not be there given the logistics of distance. There has also been some softening in the advertising world. I looked at a couple things in Florida and also reached out to some friends I used to work with in the energy sector, given the eight years of my professional career I spent there.
I accepted a job with an energy company in Tulsa, OK and began wholesaling in late April. We sold our house in West Des Moines and moved to the Tulsa area (Owasso) on June 10th. My wife's quality of life is going to improve a great deal and we are excited about that. This summer has been a challenge as the home we were to move into on June 10th fell through the day of closing as an active termite infestation was discovered that day, so we moved all of our stuff into storage and have spent the last two months in a 554sqft 1 bedroom apartment with the four of us...but we've certainly got to know one another better and there have been blessings involved in that. We just closed on a house last week and while there have been a few curve balls we've found since we moved in, we are excited to start this new chapter.
As it relates to the website, it's going to be a 'Back to the Future' sort of thing. Of the near 14 years I have been writing about Hawkeye athletics online, I've lived out of state six of those years. I founded HawkeyeNation.com living over six hours away from Iowa City. There was only a two year period where I did anything that resembled beat coverage (me personally) and the last four years has seen the site be mostly opinion based, which is what I prefer. That's going to continue to be the case and there are numerous beat outlets that exist and we will continue to link to them all the time.
You'll still see opinion pieces here if you care to read them, still see the columns and items I enjoy writing, still see all the pressers, daily mashups during the seasons, features like analysis from Jared Clauss, Chuck Long and more. We have a few things planned for basketball season this year that have never been done and we believe you'll enjoy them. As it relates to SoundOff, I am not yet certain what is going to happen there. With Jim's passing, that show is going to forever be different. It was Jim's show. We'll see what happens and that is WHO's baby; I was only along for the ride and very thankful to have had the chance to work with Jim Zabel. I'll still do some radio spots from time to time for the folks who want to have me.
So the majority of things will feel and seem familiar, but we're also planning some design and functionality changes here in the near future...with the way technology is and the way I've chosen to steer the HN ship, a person can do this from anywhere and as long as people care to read their opinions, one can have a lot of fun doing something like this. I can honestly say I'd like to do this until they put me in the ground. I greatly appreciate each one of you who visits the site and makes it a part of your daily Iowa Hawkeye experience.
