It feels like summer again, but not in a good way.

After a while, and I am sure that anyone who writes or blogs in a non professional fashion can agree on this, life gets in the way and your ability or desire to blabber on teh interwebs takes a nosedive.  I have obviously not written as much as I'd like and I do feel bad about that.

The Girl gets closer.  She kicks and wiggles and squiggles and we wait.  OOOooooooh how we wait.  Fortunately at this writing we have 2 days and 4 hours to go have her where we would like.  In no time flat we will be on the home stretch and we will see what happens to my productivity then!

Working on two or three different projects now.  One I am thinking would be best done in water colors, one in acrylic and the other/s digitally.  I will keep at them even after The Girl comes.  I have too.  I want to make good things for my family. 

Blargo

Well that was an expensive weekend.

The Boy had his birthday party on Saturday and while it was great fun it was tinged with great financial loss.  You see my car, MoMo, decided that it did not like having a functioning alternator and so it crapped out.  MoMo is not a cheap car, per se and so the parts therein are not cheap either.  $400 later and the car functions but still.  OW.

He loved his birthday though.  We got him Monsters Inc and Univ toys. He received blocks and planes and playdough.  More food than I could have imagined and he was a very good boy.  His cake though, was wonderful.  We had a friend make it and she did a bang up job.  The cake was two layers, white cake below, chocolate above.  She was able to make them in the style of Monsters Inc.  The bottom layer was Sully's fur and the top was Mike Wazowski.  The Boy had fingers in it before we had even sung Happy Birthday.

Additionally: The Wife has been having a fair number of contractions.  Apparently Braxton-Higgs are more common in pregnancies after the first.  She has been pulling through with a combination of perseverance and tasty foods.  Berries and melons.... cookies.  You know, the essentials.  I am not worried though, The Girl will come when she is ready, these are just warm ups.

Final Martian.

I've finished, or at least hit the point where I don't want to work on this thing anymore.

BEHOLD, MARTIAN.

I am fairly certain the brain line thingys killed me.  So many dadgum little lines to squiggle and wiggle and slither about.    It is a lot of work when you are a lazy person!

I see a lot that I could have worked more on but I could loose myself in tiny details and I don't want to do that.  I am going to find the next thing to work on and I am going to complete it in less than four weeks.

That's all for tonight.  Go'way.

The Rosedales

Alternate title could be "How the hell do I keep finding neat bands after they've stopped".

I seriously have a talent for finding bands that have a unique flavor years after they've halted the majority of their creative output.  In the case of The Rosedales, they haven't updated their band page in a year or so, their last album was released in 2009 and their social media presence is next to nothing.  But I've latched onto their albums on Spotify and have loved them.  I've been trying to analyse why and the best I can come up with is broken down into a couple of different categories.

1. Subject matter.
The Rosedales are a horror pop/punk style group similar to Koffin Kats, The Creepshow or Bloodsucking Zombies From Outer Space.  Ergo the lyrics are packed with spooky imagery along with the song titles.  Never Coming Home, Murder of Crows, Frozen Ghost etc.

2. A different sound from the genre.
Instead of the harsher sounds that permeates the genre, The Rosedales sounds a bit more... I hesitate to say softer.  More atmospheric?  It allows for a different mood to form and produces some very sing-a-long-able tunes.  To describe it I can only think about some of the alternative pop that came from the 80's.  Less Synth, more vocalization.

I was listening to one of their songs the other day, So Ordinary from their 2003 album Raise Your Spirits and I realized that this song is I am Legend.

"I came to the other day, man my eyes were dark and grey So I cried up to the sky, whoa Then I wandered around this town not another soul around I'm the last man on earth

Life seems so ordinary, without you mine feels so scary I feel so dead and buried, without you I feel so ordinary now So ordinary now

Three years have gone by, every night I hear the cries All those mutants left behind, whoa Could things get any worse, now I'm driving in a hearse They only come out at night

Life seems so ordinary, without you mine feels so scary I feel so dead and buried, without you I feel so ordinary now"

If you are unfamiliar with the story thanks to the Will Smith movie from a few years back, the lyrics above is pretty much the first half.  However I don't recall if in the book Robert Neville drove in a hearse.  I think that is lifted from the pretty great The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price.  Come to think of it the whole song probably is an homage to the movie, what with that last man on earth lyric.

In short, give them a listen.  I enjoy them, if more people rediscover them then maybe we will get another album.

The memories of food.

As I continue writing these posts I feel that having one day a week where I talk about food strikes me as a bit... glutton-y?  I like food, I really do but I don't wish to give the impression that it is all I think about.  This may be the last Tuesday Foods post for some time.  We'll see.

I hesitate to cut this out though because so many shared memories come from meals or food experiences with friends.  I love sharp cheddar because it is something that my grandpa shared with me.  Its special.  I have a fondness for mac 'n' cheese with corn on the cob because it is one of my favorite meals that my mom made when I was growing up.  I imagine that anyone reading this has similar memories that they could share.  It's another of those connections that seems, no matter where you grew up, to be similar for everyone.  Is it genetic?  Who knows.  Maybe it comes from far back when we huddled together under the stars and told tales by the fire while sharing food.

If I were to replace the food section I would probably switch it out with something geeky, seeing as that is the sort of thing that I enjoy and it is my blog.  Honestly I probably should use it as an update day for the comic that has been languishing.  Maybe I will use it as a review day?  I don't know.  I need to think about these things in advance rather than stream of thought-ing them.

Soon, soon.

The Girl is coming soon.

The Earth trembles at the coming child.  Men weep and children run.  Soon she will lay waste to all and make all bow before her....
In like a month.  In the mean time Wife and I are gathering up the baby accessories like clothes, diapers and battle-borg teddy bears.  You know, the essentials.  So in an effort to allow my wife, the Wife, to gestate in peace I've been trying to take our son out more.  This last weekend we went down south to the Payson Scottish Festival.  Fun was had by all.  I had a Scottish Egg for a bit of second breakfast.  For those unfamiliar, a Scottish Egg is a hard boiled egg, wrapped in sausage and deep fried.  Billions of calories, nae a hint of vegitables, DEEP FRIED.  Scottish Food.

Also got some Ginger Beer, because of course I did.  How could I not?  Especially when the salesperson that handed me my two bottles was about the ginger-y ginger you could ever ask for.  I applaud the lad.  It takes some bravery to go out on a limb, sell the drink and put up with the barrage of comments that his complexion would invite.

In a way I will be quite glad when the new baby is born.  In a way I will also be rather sad. It is pretty neat to feel them kick but I want to meet her now.  I want the Boy to meet his sister and for us to grow as a family.  Moreover I want to continue to take my family to festivals and expose them to fun flavors and sights.

Just about another month now.

Utah Trivia.

Well, in those days Mars was a dreary, uninhabitable wasteland, much like Utah. But unlike Utah, Mars was eventually made liveable when the university was founded in 2636.

I have a love/hate relationship with my state.

It's true.  There are things about Utah that I absolutely love and there are things that make me wish I could live on Mars, far far away from the crappola that happens in our little/not so little state.  The good things include some ridiculously good hospitals and research institutes, a thriving geek/art/music community.  A lot of very kind neighbors/ random folks.  The bad things are people who put their ideals of their religion ahead of the actual teaching of said religion, a general intolerance in some circles of "different" individuals.  Etc.  Every state has their problems but outside of New Jersey few have as many jokes made about them.

Presented here are some facts of my home state that are cool or frustrating... or both.

1.Utah's 65% or so comprised of Federal land.  IE we have a lot of really big national parks, forests, monuments and military facilities.  Quite simply you can get lost and die in a million acre forest just two hours outside of our major metropolitan areas.

2. We are home to Pando, The Trembling Giant. Quite possibly the largest organism (due to weight) on the planet.  It is a bloody great tree y'all.

3. Several land speed records were set at the Bonneville Salt Flats.  An area that is exactly what the name describes.  An absolutely massive bed of salt that in the summer is hard packed and really good for going very fast upon.  I've been out there after a great spring storm and the water stretched for miles all around, perfectly still and flat.  Wonderful.

I won't take up the time to grump about the things that upset me.  That only gives them power.  This weekend I am going to the Payson Scottish Festival and I am going to have a fine time. 

Car drawing.

The first drawing I ever made any money on was of a blue 60 something Chevy. It was a pencil drawing on 8.5x11 paper and it sold for a whopping $20 cash.  We did a quick and dirty seal on it with some hairspray and that was that.  I spent a few hours working on it before the owner of the car ever saw it and quite honestly I had no intention of selling it.  Since then I've painted some planes and cars, mostly for my father some just for me.

I like drawing machines like cars or planes because they are ever so geometric.  The shapes that make them up are very easy to see and to translate onto a page.  One of the first things I've been told in my art classes is to squint.  You remove surface details and the basic shape of the subject comes forward.  From there you can construct the drawing as you see fit and it should work because the foundation is there.  I'm thinking that by this time next year I would like to be able to go to car shows with a portfolio of my pictures and sell commissions.

I think it would be good for me for a few reasons.
1. More practice never hurts.
2. More travel with the family never hurts.
3. If the car owner likes my stuff and decides to buy then that is money in my pocket.
4. If the car owner shows it off it could mean potential new business.

I don't want to come off as sounding like money would be the only reason because it wouldn't be.  If you've never gone to a car show and spoken with the owners then you would understand that any complement to their car is very much like a complement to them.  They spend hours and thousands of dollars in order to make their car exactly what they wanted and very rarely is it anything other than a labor of love.

My father, in my lifetime has rebuilt 5 cars from scrap or better to functional and pretty road machines.  He's been doing it for a very long time.  His baby though, the one that took him ten years is actually a copy of a car that he customized when he was younger.  A 53 Studebaker that he chopped the top off of.  He was forced to sell it by his father after one too many speeding tickets.  It goes without saying that the guy he sold it to totaled it soon after.  Me Da Frankenstein'd the replacement together from 4 or 5 other Studebakers.  I quite distinctly remember that one was used for short track racing.

Ten years, who knows how much money over that time.  I painted him a picture of it for his birthday some years ago.  It still hangs with pride in their house. The point is that these sorts of people love to see their hard work appreciated and I personally like letting people know that sort of thing.  

BAGPIPES.

To anyone that knows me there is no surprise when I say that I love the bagpipe.  It is a cultural thing, a family thing.  They have been present for the happier and the sadder times in my life.  My grandpa on my mom's side played them, my uncle, a cousin (two or three in a pipe band at any given time, just not all on the 'pipes) a dozen friends of the family.  Long story short, they've always been there.

It pleases me when I hear them pop up in popular media like movies or tv but it usually is just a few seconds of pipes before whatever bass riff or dance music they had resumes.  One of the worst offenders I've found is Cloud Age Symphony (the opening tune to Last Exile)


Warning, lack of pipes.

To me it is akin to someone opening a chest containing a pile of beautiful raspberries and only pulling one out to give to you and just before they do hand it over, they squish it a little.  This is nothing against Last Exile, mind.  I rather enjoyed the show and art direction.  Just that opening bothers me.  It is not consistent with the tone of the show and it makes me wonder why they even bothered with the five seconds of bagpipe in the first place.

Then there is the opening that stays perfectly in line with a show.

Warning, laughing cartoon people.
Creepy and weird, huh?  That's Paranoia Agent to a T.  Not for everyone, certainly but nevertheless an interesting show that had some serious thought put to it.  From the theme and opening crawl to the end credits and everything in between.

Bit of a tangent but the point is kind of there.  Don't start of with something and go off to left field without having or making a reason.  It is certainly something that I need to be cognizant of in my writing and art as I tend to start with one path and end up going through the brambles to another.

Thoughts I need to keep in place for future projects:
1. I need to keep a story diary. A pulped paper hard copy for everything.
2. Everything has a reason in a good story, but not required in art.
3.Keep the theme steady.  Don't be bogus bagpipes.
4. Bogus Bagpipes sounds like a 1950's superhero catchphrase. Like if Banshee was made by DC two decades earlier.

Berry delicious!

Last night was a mixed bag.

On the plus side I was able to get a treat for my family.  Strawberries and some of our favorite drinks.  On the minus side my phone was bricked due to staying in my pocket when I went swimming last night.  The less said about that the better, aye?

The Wife and I love berries and I am pleased to report that The Boy does as well.  Wife and Boy both tore into the strawberries like they were going out of style.  There were some monster ones in the container, bigger than a toddler's fist and all I could think of was 'Thanks genetic modification!'

Keeping it short today due to being tired.

A father's day of sorts.

Hullo.

Radio silence has been broken.  It was initiated mostly because the last week or so have been rather... busy? There really is no excuse that would be adequate or sound like anything other than a "whoops" so I won't insult your intelligence.

I had the rather immense pleasure this last Friday (the 4th) to spend the day with my son and to give my wife a much needed day of rest.  I hear that she watched a lot of stuff and napped, so that was a success.  We went to a park that we had never played in before.  It had large shades covering the play area so we could romp in the 100+ degree day without getting a sunburn.  Plenty of water was had by all.  I would like to go back to this park because it had a nice stream with a duck family and several more play areas and climbing walls.

Its been recently where I've started to see glimpses of the man my child might become.  Hints in his face, small mannerisms that he has picked up from family.  The apparent never ending stretching of his limbs.

He will be four in less than two weeks.  He will have a sibling in less than ten.

I am only rarely scared of what might happen with them.

However it is days like the 4th that give me comfort.  We played, we watched a fun movie together (Mr Peabody and Sherman), we ate and talked and played some more.  I think that even if I go early then he has something to remember me by, something pleasant.  Days like today as well.  As soon as I got home he insisted that Mommy and I go swimming with him.  Afterwords I made dinner and we tucked Mommy into bed before I tucked him in.  He is a good boy.  A good helper.  In him I understand my parents more.  What they went through to get me to where I am.

It's days like these that keep me going.