On This Day:
Sunday June 22, 2008

This is the 174th day of the year, with 192 days remaining in 2008.

Fact of the Day#1:

Barry and I got married 19(!) years ago today. Yep. 19. Count ‘em. We met in a November, got engaged that February (the 13th in case you were wondering) and were married in June.

So…for my beloved poet in t-shirt and jeans–Happy 19th Anniversary.

Fact of the Day#2:

snails

A snail is a gastropod (which is a mollusk), especially one having an enclosing shell, into which it may retract completely for protection. A gastropod lacking a shell is commonly called a slug or sea slug.


A snail can sleep for three years.

WE HAVE LIFTOFF

You can see the shuttle beginning to launch in the bottom right

I took a video of it, but I don’t know if I can make it work. I’ll upload it and see.

Guinevere

Guinevere was the wife of Arthur, legendary king of Britain, and best known in Arthurian romance through the love that his knight Sir Lancelot bore for her. In early Welsh literature, one Gwenhwyvar was “the first lady of this island”; in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s inventive Historia regum Britanniae (early 12th century), she was named Guanhumara and was presented as a Roman lady. In some accounts it was suggested that she was Arthur’s second wife.

On This Day:
Saturday May 24, 2008

This is the 145th day of the year, with 221 days remaining in 2008.

Fact of the Day: kimono
The kimono is a garment worn by Japanese men and women from the Early Nara period (645-724) to the present. Derived from the Chinese p’ao-style robe, the basic kimono is an ankle-length gown with long, expansive sleeves and a V-neck.

FEELIN’ HOT, HOT, HOT!

THE TOOTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TOOTH

The belief that it is lucky to pick up a horseshoe comes from the idea that it was a protection against witches and evil generally. The legend is that Mars (iron) is the enemy of Saturn (God of the Witches); consequently they were nailed to the house door with two ends uppermost, so that the luck did not “run out.”

Take a listen

You’ll be glad you did.

The stripes in toothpaste are created by a special device fitted to the nozzle end of the tube. A colored toothpaste is first filled around the special fitting, the white toothpaste is filled second, which holds the colored toothpaste in place at the top of the tube.

On This Day:
Tuesday February 12, 2008

This is the 43rd day of the year, with 323 days remaining in 2008.

Fact of the Day: fish in winter

Fish don’t go into a state of true hibernation in the winter, yet their metabolisms do slow down. Advice for fish in backyard ponds is to stop feeding entirely in November-December and to not resume again till at least March (or until the water temperature has reached 50 degrees F), and then to start with very low-protein, easily digestible foods until May or so.

Fish become much less active in the winter, don’t grow, and hardly need to eat. The only need that remains the same is that for oxygen, and when fish do die in the winter, it’s often because their supply of oxygen is used up before the ice over their habitat melts.

This weeks Toonweekly theme was: Star Wars Cantina creature
I LIKE Star Wars, dare I say I LOVED the first 3 movies (ok, I’m old school, sure) the other ones…not so much. Of course I remembered the Cantina scene…who couldn’t?!? Han Solo shot first.

Go visit my new pals at the toonweekly site. Hell, start participating!!
http://www.toonweekly.com/

We were to design our own new characters that were to be in the cantina scene. Pretty fun. So I did a couple of cool looking alien creatures that are beaugarting another chick alien creatures drink, while a jedi tries to hit on her.

I wish I could lay claim to the color job on this piece. Lucky for me, Barry took pity on me and after my feeble attempt at trying cool lighting…he graciously colored my piece. I’m very lucky to have access to one of the most talented people I’ve ever met.

Here’s a little bit of trivia about Barry. Back when we were in university at BYU Barry wrote an incredible play called ‘Blessing’.

Well, said play won LOTS of awards–oodles and tons. Barry and his talented cast and the director got sent to Arizona for a competition. This was the Rocky Mountain Theater Festival. He won and guess who he beat out–Yep. Trey Parker and Matt Stone. There ya have it.

Now, some folks take Star Wars a little too seriously. They know what color light sabers Jedi Masters have, what color acolytes have, which one is evil…
Relax, Bro. Relax.
3 people have now pointed out to me that Old Ben was the only Jedi in exestence at the time of the first Star Wars.
Folks, I don’t care. It ain’t real. Move on…
So anyway, here’s mine.
Suck it up, and move on.

Jericho returns TONIGHT!!!
Currently HBO’s The Wire is my favorite show. But I am all a twitter that Jericho returns tonight on CBS at 10 Eastern. Watch it. I WILL come to your houses, and Iwill sit your ass down and make you watch this series. Or we can be more civil about it and YOU can go to the CBS website and get caught up on the series.

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/jericho/

I have great hopes for it’s return and the numbers is should pull in. Well written, well acted (Oh! Gerald Mcraney–next time step to the left!!)

Skeet Ulrich…You tastey li’l fella.

Just do yourself a favor and give the show a try. Watch the first season. You’ll be glad you did.

What is MY favorite all time TV show? Mystery Science Theater 3000. Cool thing here. It’s no longer being produced (damn you Comedy Central and SciFi Channels!!) but Mike Nelson does something similar with his RiffTrax web site.

www.rifftrax.com

Spend an hour or two just entertaining yourself with the teasers. You’ll get some joy.

Happy thoughts!

I picked up a pretty damn good set of books. GettyImages released a series of books starting with 1900 and going up to 1990’s. They are fascinating to look thru. As an artist they provide incredible reference as a human it shows you the incredible human spririt–somestimes the photos are extremely graphic (WWI things are tragic indeed) to sublime (children with looks of utter joy over little things we take for granted). I highly recommend investing in some of these books. Each decade book gives you insight into all classes of life from all over the world. Insights into politics, entertainment, travel, science…hell, go for the gold and grab ‘em all! The images are out of this world and the historical value is a treasure.

Barry and I spent most of the day cleaning out closets that were far too fully loaded with junk. Most of it has indeed been crap. We are hoping to have a garage sale next Saturday (the 16th)and get rid of a large portion of our crap. So our crap can then go with you and be YOUR crap. Happy to pass it on.

It was really fun to come across old photos, clothes (which I’d dearly love to fit into again someday, but also realize the futility of such a thought and decide I’ll just leave most things for the girls). We came across a lot of old toys that we had acquired in hopes we’d make money off them at some later date, or just cuz we thought they were cool. Most are now still on their boards for the kids to grow into and decide their fate–sell, trade or play with.

We came across an old sunglasses, headphone wearing, plastic covered Coke bottle that would dance when a loud noise was made. The kids got a BIG kick out of that. It was fun to show Chloe and Fox our High School year books, my wedding dress, and other various pictures. They couldn’t believe that Daddy had all that hair at one time, and that I wasn’t always as round as a basketball. And why does Mommy have on a tie that looks like a piano keyboard in this picture–luckily enough I could run to my closet and show the kids I still have said tie.

For me, it was fun to walk down memory lane, but the BEST part was getting to show the kids little bits of our past that made us who we are. Me–it was the piano sheet music I use to use, cool 80’s clothes that I still have, and oodles of Barbies. Barry=comics. Boxes and boxes of comics that will remain in the closet.

We also realized that old cards and letters, the ones we wrote to each other, or the little love notes we’d tuck into books or clothes for discovery at a later date, are they other ways they will get to know us and remember us when we are no longer with them. It was kinda sad, but very fun. Until my nose started having fits due to all the dust that was flying around in the room. The house is a complete and utter mess with boxes strewn everywhere and piles of clothes, toys and assorted crapola waiting for the garage sale.

Fox loves to take a running start and dive into the big garbage bags full of clothing we are going to have at the garage sale. We have a mountain of clothes in gargage bags sitting in the corner of our kitchen.

This week’s ToonWeekly was themed…Midieval. Such a wonderful topic to do and I screwed the pooch with this one. I guess I was trying to hard for political/familial struggle and ended up with…yuck. I like the girls hair–kinda wanted an art deco flow to it, but that’s about it. Too sacharine. Next week’s will kick butt–creatures that shouldda been in the Cantina scene in Star Wars. I already saw one friends and it is totally breathtaking.

Happy thoughts.

On This Day:
Wednesday January 30, 2008

This is the 30th day of the year, with 336 days remaining in 2008.

Fact of the Day: jazz and blues

Jazz is a musical form, often improvisational, developed by African-Americans and influenced by both European harmonic structure and African rhythmic complexity. It also is often characterized by its use of blues and speech intonations. Blues denotes a secular folk music of African-Americans. It has origins in the Mississippi Delta in the early 20th century. As a musical style the blues are characterized by expressive pitch inflections (blue notes), a three-line textual stanza of the form AAB, and a 12-measure form. Typically the first two and a half measures of each line are devoted to singing, the last measure and a half consisting of an instrumental “break” that repeats, answers, or complements the vocal line. Blues and jazz are closely related; such seminal jazzmen as Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong employed blues elements in their music.

I’m still digging on my Vision M player. I’ve been listening to the soundtrack from “The Wire”–you watched it yet???–and there’s some cool blue stuff on it. I’m surprised too at how much dialogue samples from the show turn up. It’s cool. Can’t help but feel the chill up the spine when you hear Omar whistle of “A Hunting We Will Go”. You best be watchin’ your back. Anyway, it’s kinda fun when Rene’ and I get together. We talk about music like we’re back in high school! She’s got me listening to FlyLeaf, 30 seconds to…something. All good.

Time is tough but Barry and I negotiated a schedule. Wednesdays (for the most part) will be strictly our family day. We’ve had to make a schedule of who will be were working where, what times that person will be leaving to make it home, pencil in personal time, etc. It’s been tough not seeing each other for more then a couple minutes a day–literally. I’ve been invited to work for an art company which would give me more time with the family but there’s still things I’m working out. It’s a scary, exciting time. I’ll get to draw and work at my leisure (ha! Like I know what that is!). So today both Barry and I shoved it all away, took the kids, loaded up the Chloe-mobile and we got out for air.

Today we went for a nature walk with the kids. We went to just a local park called Lake Louisa (which is HUGE, btw). I certainly don’t fancy myself a city girl, but take away buildings, people, strip away the background noises–cars, lawn mowers, dogs barking, and put me outside, I kinda get mighty nervous.

That all aside the woods were beautiful. Huge live oak trees that must have seen a lot of stuff. I love live oaks. These had Spanish Moss hanging down from them. The area we ventured to was more swamp then forest. Huge Cedar trees. Quite a Thoreau-ian moment. Everyone needs to read more Thoreau.

We bought the kids Taco Bell (Barry and I ate ham and cheese–we are recommitted to Low-carbing again. More later). Chloe ate hers up–Fox didn’t really care although HE’S the one who wanted it! Molly took a couple of 3 bites.

It felt good to be with the family all together. Really good. It felt good to be going something active and I think the kids all enjoyed being exposed to something they’d not really seen before. They played in the sand and we walked quite a bit. I took lots of photos. We must have stayed there 3-4 hours if not more. Then we went shopping a couple places. Then home we came–to find out drains all backed up! Barry’s got this sewer drain opener thingie poured down the drain and we can’t flush for 7-8 hours. Thankfully we’re doing it while we mostly sleep.

This weeks Toon Weekly theme was ZOMBIES!!! Does it get any better then that?? I couldda done a bazillion designs but I went simple…family.

The color is pretty much exact–I didn’t desaturate it at all. I finally got some pretty good reds. Reds and blacks are hard to paint and harder to scan.

Chloe wanted to do a Zombie as well. She did a Daddy Zombie. I love it!! I got her singing The Cranberries “Zombie” as well.

I’m finished the flats of Wombless!! Woohoooo! Join me in a brief happy dance!

Happy thoughts.

Yes, we really do have Homer Simpson shoes…

Just to let everyone know this weekend (Jan 25-27) Barry, Thomas and I and the whole Ka-blam crew (err…ummm….which IS Barry, Thomas and I) will be attending the FX Show in Orlando, FL
www.fxshow.com

Lots of wonderful guests. I can’t wait to see Brad Beyer from Jerricho
Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Serenity)
Greg Grunberg, Stephen Tobolowsky
and George Takei from Hereo’s.

Yes, while it’s nice to slave for the kids and at the drafting table, sometimes it’s really nice to let your inner geek out.

Come by our booth and say ‘hi’. Oh…and bring chocolate. Or Dt. Mt Dews.

Here’s this weeks post for TOONWEEKLY.com. See, I’m really liking these guys. They choose cool things to draw. Well, except for the fact that I hate clowns…yes I do have a weakness and clowns really do make me hinkey.

I love to get going on watercolor. So I did the last couple weeks’ submission in watercolor.

I scanned in the original…

and then sucked all the color out, lol! Barry laughed at me. I’m just in a place where I don’t want a lot of color. I like it coooooooold.

Here’s the two versions. Not THAT big of a difference, but I like the desaturated one better. I pimped the kids in there. Well, just Chloe and Fox. Molly didn’t make an appearance in this one.

Work on Womblees progresses EXTREMELY nicely. I’m thrilled, pleased, tickeled and excited. Here’s another page that’s all colored up.

I’m totally doing flats first and then the color mojo begins. 6 pages are colored, I’m up to 26 on flatting. It really is a better way to work.

WE SAW MARILYN MANSON AT DISNEY!!! And the place didn’t burn!!

No serious. We did see Marilyn Manson. Friday, Barry, the kids and Thomas and Rene’ decided we all needed to get “dusted” (our term for the cure to the stress, anxiety, and doldrums that we often get). We pack up and headed off to Disney for a day and received a big dose of Pixie Dust–hence the term “dusted”.

Anyway, we were just about to leave Magic Kingdom when Barry went to use the rest room. He came back and had this quizzical look on his face and asked if we’d seen Marilyn Manson. We all thought he was kidding with us so he made us wait until the guy came out. It was HIM!!! Dressed in black, wore big shades. If you just past him, you’d assume he was just another goth. But once you really LOOKED…it was Manson! It was funny. Love the music. Did you know he has no chin? No kidding. I’d never noticed it before.

Rene’ got pictures so I’ll have to see if I can nab any from her.

Anyway, we kinda watched to see what he and his body guard would do. They walked past us a bit then met up with some other people and a Disney escort. Hmph. Who’d a thunk Marilyn Manson has to pee?

But that wasn’t our only celebrity siting of the day, either. While we were at The Grand a group of 5 people walked past us. One guy said hello. I kinda half heartedly answered hi back. Then once again Barry asked…You know who that was right? It’s the guy who played Veronica Mars dad! His name is Enrico Colantoni.

Barry’s got this unique gift for seeing and remembering people. Warning: Never, EVER play any type of trivia game with Barry unless you want to get your feelings hurt. He stores all these facts and data up just waiting for something.

Anyway, we had a wonderful, if not tiring, time and I think we all feel the better for getting “dusted”.

Ah! Ikea!

I keep telling myself this place is a wretched place. Children don’t belong here…I don’t belong here. By all rights I should hate this place. Yep, Ikea has come to Orlando, FL.

This store actually opened up in mid-November here. Of course it had to cash in on the Christmas rush. My first awareness of Ikea came as I was trying to make my way to a local huge, rather exclusive mall. It JUST happened to be on the day the dreaded store was opening (I Later found out as it was explained to me by a Ikea junkie friend). Traffic cops were at the ready at all surrounding stop lights. It was as if a President were visiting and they were awaiting the motorcade. Folks around here whisper with reverent voices anything having to do with Ikea. What was the big deal???

A week or so later I took the 3 kids and went to see what was so special about Ikea. Well, it’s huge.
2 stories.
Did I mention it’s huge? And blue?
And huge. And way cool looking furniture. And what’s this? Not too badly priced!?!? Cool beans! I can even leave my kids (provided they are housebroken and over a certain height–so Chloe is in, Fox and Molly are out) in a kiddy care facility while I shop (get this part)for FREEE???!!! I

And it’s huge. HUGE I tell you!

Chloe can’t wait to go into the child care area (hell, from the looks of it *I* wanted to go into the child care area!!)

Chloe is ensconced in the play area and Fox, Molly and I bravely set off on adventure.

Ikea is rather like an uber-conformist Wal-mart on steroids. Seriously. Upon entering you are handed a brochure/map. The floor plan is laid out (even arrows on the cement floor to encourage your conformity just in case you get sassy and want to freestyle your own path) so you pretty much have to follow one serious traffic flow or risk the glacial stares of staff and customers alike. Yes my pretties, conform!

The kids and I wandered around and quickly the time went. Before I knew it, an hour had past and I had to go spring Chloe from her play area and then we continued on gawking.

Then we came to their cafeteria (one of 2 it turns out). Even the food is cheap!! They serve this salmon dish that looked divine, and cost under $5.00. I just kinda glanced over at the eating area and we moved on to perusing mode. We came to the bed area, and the cabinet area and I came to the most startling of realizations.

IKEA IS PRESSED WOOD FOLKS! Pretty, yes (if you like that Euro style) but it’s JUST PRESSED WOOD!!!

AND YOU PUT IT TOGETHER!!! YOUR OWN DAMN SELF!

I’ve been back many times. The kids absolutely love to go there. Chloe loves to go to the play area and run around for her hour with other kids. Fox loves to go play with the wooden toy train sets that are set up in the kids area. Molly just likes to chill.

As bizarre as I find it I am always amazed at the people that I’ve met while there. I’m always running into people that are in Orlando JUST to come to Ikea. This time I met the coolest man from Miami. He’d fought in WWII. He’d traveled over 3 hours just to see this store. But then we were talking over cheap hot dogs, so I’m betting he came up for the food.

Then we all go and get cheap kids meals (they have hot dogs for fifty cents!!!) The kids yesterday got a full on mac n’ cheese dinner for $1.00! I just watched not believing I’ve drunk the cool-aide as well. sigh.

We go back to Ikea at least twice a month now. I still think it’s a gyp. The furniture IS just wood particles glued together, not some sort of exotic wood, mind you. And you have to pick up the stuff and put it together. The prices are nice, but they ain’t all that.

Fox has built up his collection of toy trains (kids obsessed) to mammoth proportions. I have to admit, playing with this train set it pretty darn fun. It’s cool to make patterns and connect lines and to see if you can make two paths conver…damn. I do get carried away. I see where the kid gets it from.

But I’ll still be there feeding my kids Mac n’ Cheese or Hot dogs SOMETIME this week.

Ya Damn Creepy Kids!!!

So the kids have taken to sleeping in our bed. Well, they start out in their beds but soon they migrate. I try not to let them scare me, let them know they have power. But do you know how damn creepy it is to wake up only to find these two kids standing beside you…staring? Gah!!

Their eyes really don’t glow at night. Mine just glow red from lack of sleep.

Things I’m into at the moment:

Fiction Plane:
My man Sting has spawned a hell of a singer. Maybe I’m biased because his boy sounds just like him. I love this band. Give a listen to ‘Two Sisters’. Funny, well written and led by the son of one of the most important musicians of our time.

White Stripes
Icky Thump.
I got the kids to love this song because it actually has the word Icky in it and there’s one hell of a beat. Great music.

Jerricho Season I DVD
It’s coming back!! The series that made me extremely happy is back in February. Go. Buy this DVD and get caught up. And don’t forget your nuts.

NOW!

The Wire
It’s the fourth and last season for this incredibly fantastic, and far too overlooked series. The Wire is about Baltimore cops. Wonderfully acted, wonderfully written. EVERYONE should be watching this series.

Go watch it!

Speed Racer

Is it me or does that tasty hunk of man meat also known as Mathew Fox look like a gimp in this flick??
As a kid I had a SERIOUS thing for Racer X. Maybe it doesn’t translate to real life, but I’m kinda not feelin’ this Racer X costume thing.

Breaking Bad
I should be distressed by the over abundance of drug themed shows at present: Weeds (I want to like this show, but I’m just not into it) and AMC’s new makeover includes exclusive network programming starting Breaking Bad. Bryan Cranston plays a chemist who has X amount of time to live and opens up a meth lab to make $ for his family. I LOVE Bryan Cranston and while I didn’t have a chance to watch the show tonight, I have it DVR’d for my viewing pleasure tomorrow. Yes, I realize I should be outraged over the drug theme, but I want to give it a shot and who knows, maybe this will bring needed attention to meth and treatments or maybe it will just be another great show.

Cool Stuff

Get touched

There are few people who follow and love gadgets as much as me. I LOVE them. From Digital cameras, to bluetooth headsets, to MP3 players, to massage chairs– I love GADGETS!!! My best friend got an Ipod touch and I think it’s the coolest thing out there.

Wi-fi enabled, sleek, oh so slim, it rocks. I still hate that it’s I-tunes exclusive. But I do hear that you can crack that.

I still absolutely LOVE my Creative Vision M (60Gigs o’ joy) but I gotta admit that Touch is one FINE looking toy.

I got to go away for business last week. I had a wonderful, creative, and enjoyable time. I got to take LOTS of photos of cities and buildings. I love high rises. They creep me out, and my anxiety and fear that SHOULD something happen and I need to leave a building quickly and can’t because I’m on the 30th floor of some freakin’ building … was sometimes manageable.

Womblees

Here it is. Page one colored and unlettered of my new series Womblees. I am thrilled and utterly happy over this book. It’s coming along and I can’t wait to have it finished in time for Megacon!!!

Molly has totally gotten into eating corn on the cob. All the kid wants to do. It’s really cute when she’s got the kernels all over her puss.

We are really happy that she can eat most everything right now. We did get her last phe results: Molly’s Phe level for Jan were 3.9, and tyrosine was 1.4, very good levels. Next test will be in Feb. The next doctors visit in Tampa will be in April which is when the doctor tells us if she needs to be seen continually or if her mild Hyper-Phe will only be something to worry about when she decides to have children.

I got to go away for business this weekend. I guess it’s rather like a good enema–getting away kinda cleans out the system. I needed the break. Good god I needed the break. Will post some photos and write about it later.

Here was this weeks Toonweekly.com entry. The category was Sea Creatures!! Love that! I chose the Green Leafy SeaDragon. The guy really exists and is the coolest thing to see. We always go to the shark exhibit at SeaWorld and that’s were they keep this critter.

Happy thoughts everyone.