They do, the RockHounds, the AA affiliate of the Athletics. It’s a nice ballpark, and they have Thirsty Thursdays with half off of Shiner.
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From an area that averages 50+” of rain to 13”. What a shock to the system that will be.
Working a short flight from my wife most weeks is suboptimal but doable as long as you are intentional about staying connected in a way that works for both of you. I can tend to be an “out of sight, out of mind” kind of person, even for people I care about so I have to work to stay connected. The results otherwise are no bueno.
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You may not believe it, Midland is getting more and more green, and humid, every year. People are starting to complain about how much it rains and how humid it is. “This used to be a desert”, is the common word.
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Yeah, see how long that lasts
Glad you’re still with Big Oil, and there are worse things than Midland. Really.
Maybe we can all make a pilgrimage to a Rockhounds game.
Shouldn’t the Rockhounds’ mascot be Steve Buscemi waving a fistful of dollar bills?
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I drove through Midland a few months ago, got off of I-20 and actually drove through town. It was quite a bit larger than I realized.
It’s about doubled in the last 10 years. It’s upwards of 300,000 now.
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Do they still have the “shortest tallest building” of any city over Xpopulation? Or am I thinking of another West TX/Panhandle town?
I don’t know about that. Midland is known as “the Tall City” because back in the day they had the only buildings more than two stories for 200 miles.
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eta: it’s Wichita Falls, which I suppose I should know since I was born there
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Congrats on keeping gainful employment. While it would be rather a hike from Midland to be your regular watering hole, I can recommend the Hotel Settles in Big Spring for an occasional jaunt out of Midland. They have very good food and cocktails. It’s been a few years, but the chicken fried steak was some of the best I’ve had, and they do serve an Old Fashioned.
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Seems to me if you’d had the foresight to move to Denver you could have saved yourself all these name changing gyrations.
Speaking of moving, and speaking of Hemingway, I can report that my son had his first day of school today in Oak Park, Illinois. I imagine mine is a sort of parallel story to that of TPFKAAFIBD - kid with special needs, some places do it better than others, etc.
Let me tell you how much better. The first place we (I) optimistically (idiotically) put Daniel when we got to the US and A was a class with thirty kids across three grade levels. There was one teacher and, nominally, one assistant. That assistant was usually nowhere to be seen. We eventually figured out how to get him in a special program in the county district that had a much better student to teacher ratio, but the work that was very sporadically sent home made it clear that very little learning was going on. I reached my breaking point, and everyone here should know that I am a very patient, very level headed individual, when they sent home a stack of work at the end of the year that represented work he could easily have done five years ago. I was pleased to see that Daniel expressed his contempt for this nonsense by signing fake names on the worksheets and by assigning himself grades, variously A+ or F- depending, I assume, on his general mood.
As I was saying, let me tell you how much better. In his new school there are nine kids in the class. There is one primary teacher. There are six (six!) assistant teachers. These teachers aren’t just roaming around the building pitching in where they can. They are in the classroom. There are two language therapists on staff in the school. There is an occupational therapist in the school. There are two social workers in the school. I wonder where they find space for the actual students, but I expect I’ll find out eventually.
Sure, I’m going to pay five times the property tax I paid in Vegas, but guess what?
I still have to go back and arrange to ship some but not close all of our shit up here, so I’m not nearly as exhausted as I might be, but I will be.
Other than that, not too much going on. You’d be surprised how challenging it is to buy chairs on Facebook Marketplace.
I should add that I too am grateful to have the ability to pick up and move. I wonder sometimes if that latitude isn’t a liability for an eternally restless sort of guy like me, but in this case I’m pretty sure it’s a strong positive.
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First, good to hear it appears to be a positive for Daniel. Hopefully he’s getting what he needs. That’s the most important thing. Secondly, yeah, there’s a ton of shit to have to manage when you move. I haven’t moved or rented an apartment in 30 years. A lot has changed. I did a few years in Midland a while back, but that was all corporate paid for. I looked on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace for furniture and stuff, but 1) the pickings in Midland and Ector Counties are slim, and 2) people have too much crappy shit they’re trying to pass off as one-of-a-kind heirlooms. I just went down to Rooms-to-Go and bought an apartment full of furniture. I bought a bunch of household items from Amazon and will just pack up the truck and move to Beverly in a few weeks. I’ll figure out what to do with it if/when I need to get rid of it. I guess I’ll be one of those clowns on Craigslist.
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We flew in with six suitcases and a cat. I told people we left O’Hare looking like the Beverly Hillbillies and I think they thought I was kidding.
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On the one hand the planning and execution moving requires is probably good for the brain, on the other hand fuck that shit.
It’s best when it’s done.
Good luck to both of you.
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Much love for Daniel. I hope he thrives in the new environment. I want to move but it’s not a good time for me.
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As I maybe told you years ago when we talked about your move to LV, and this is before Trump’s destruction of the US DOE, public school is a great option (maybe best?) for special needs children because of IDEA, a federal law which guarantees educational rights for those kids, and which creates a mechanism for parents to be a full partner and to challenge and to litigate the educational program. Maybe some private schools are as good, but they are not required by law to be. This was a large part of my law practice.
My daughter’s son is autistic and is in a great public school for his issues. The dollars are federal, and if Trump directs the states to take over the public education financial responsibility, even a non-genius like I am will know what will happen in Texas. Kids will be harmed, maybe irreparably.
Good luck and my very best wishes to you and to him.
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Thanks, man. Yes, I remember that conversation. I realized fairly quickly after we got to the US that public schools were likely the best route for him, in large part for the reasons you describe. Obviously not any public school, and obviously not districts that will gleefully reduce services as the DOE and its enforcement mechanisms wither away. That’s one reason we chose this place - it seems to be fairly Trump proof in that no matter whether these mechanisms exist or not at the federal level they’ll continue to provide an extremely high level of services to all students because that’s just what they do. I told people that my search filter was places with the most obnoxiously progressive people possible and the most eye wateringly high property taxes imaginable and I think they thought I was kidding about that, too.
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Pleased to learn you remember the conversation. You are a good dad, and I have no doubt you will do what is best for him.
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