Back to Blogging

It's been almost a year since I posted on here, but I've been thinking a lot about it lately, and have really wanted to get back into blogging. I keep a daily journal where I have a conversation with myself each morning and get all of the thoughts out of my head and into my virtual notebook, but they never get read by anyone else, so I have been sort of blogging for a while, but with no audience. The concept has been referred to as "daily pages" or "morning pages". There's a site called 750 Words, which is a modern way of doing the same thing, only it's all stored in the cloud. I started doing it in a notebook with a pen years ago, but have since moved it online, using Google Docs. The premise is to take all the thoughts tumbling around in your head, and put them onto paper, which organizes them and clears your mind for new thoughts. Over the years, it's made me realize a few things, make decisions, and talk myself into or out of something. It's also very interesting to go back and read entries years later and see where my head was at
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This morning, I've written out six drafts so far to develop and publish over the next few days. I've been spending way too much time navel-gazing when I could be sharing and interacting with other people. Being introspective is great, but there is an an audience here, even if I've neglected them for a long time. I'm still journaling all the personal stuff on a daily basis, but my public thoughts will be here for a while.

This will also help me establish my online identity and build a persona, for networking purposes. I've really been digging into social media, and as a marketer, you just can't ignore it. It's everywhere, and it can really help you reach an audience if you embrace it. I've seen people who completely shy away from it and treat it as a bad thing, and that just confuses me, especially if it's your business you're talking about. It's just the way the world connects now, and it's a tool that can be used effectively or poorly. I still have a huge amount to learn, and have not been using it to its' fullest potential, but I'm at least making an attempt. I hope to some day branch out into podcasting or video casts.

This blog deals with various things I'm into - my career in art, my journey as a web designer, my gaming, my music, and all the geeky stuff I'm into. I'll try to keep it creative and fun.

Thanks for watching!

Brainstorming

In my case, more like a light shower.

I don't need anything more to do on my plate with everything going on in my life, but I'm feeling creatively void lately. Maybe I just have more time to think now that I'm not distracted so much by gaming. It's been a long time since I've written anything substantial. When I look back on my Shanghai books, I'm not very happy with them, and I don't want them to be the high point of my artistic endeavors. I'm trying to think of something new, and not go down the same roads I've already been down.

I'm not under any illusions that self-publishing will be profitable or even be seen by anyone. The cost barrier that was in place last time around for me has been removed now, with print-on-demand services who can cranks out physical copies as needed, instead of having to warehouse boxes of books no one wants. If I were to write a novel, crappy or not, it could be available through Amazon if I wanted to list it.

I don't know yet what I'm going to do. My usual pattern is to start something and then never finish it. I want to move a project to completion this time. It doesn't even have to be a big project. A short story or a small one-shot comic would be great. I've started some free-writing to see where my imagination takes me, and figure out if I have anything truly creative left in me, or if that time has come and gone.

Cutting the Cable

We recently decided to try life without cable in the house. There was a lot that cable offered, especially with on-demand movies and being able to watch entire seasons of shows at will. The cost has just become too much for our budget with our current place in life, and that seemed like one of the easiest choices to cut back on. Our screen is not completely dark, though. We still have Internet, and can stream content through the gaming console.

We have Netflix, and they seem to have a pretty impressive selection of shows and movies to choose from. The new releases are pretty weak with the streaming-only option, though, and there aren't any current running episodes on there.

I did the seven day trial for Hulu+, thinking this is where I'd be able to watch new episodes of my favorite shows. Wrong. A few new things, like Daily Show and Colbert, but those seem to be rare exceptions. I just didn't see enough on there to make it worth the eight bucks a month, and the interface, both on the console and my tablet was pretty weak.

For new movies, the Redbox seems like our most economic bet. I can reserve copies online, and then just stop and pick them up on my way home from work. A dollar a pop is not a bad price, especially after having paid four and up from cable's on-demand service.

What has been most surprising is how many others I've encountered who have done the same thing. I don't know if cable companies need to be worried, but it seems a lot of people are exploring alternate entertainment choices for TV and movies. It's sort of like my cell phone bill. It was one of those things that just kind of grew, and the prices for additional services just kept piling up, until we finally recognize how crazy it's become.

Our favorite show so far has been catching up on the first two seasons of Walking Dead. Now, we're stuck seeing info about season 3 floating around, and no way to watch it without paying two bucks and episode through iTunes or Google Play.

We're just getting started with this, so we'll be exploring our options.

I'm Back

I dreamed I stopped existing for seven months...

After a hiatus to get caught up with things at work, school and life in general, I've been wanting to get back to writing. I still journal daily, but I miss throwing things out there on the off-chance that someone will actually read it. I think this is more for me than for other people. Stay tuned...

Mid-life Crisis

I've been thinking a lot about my artistic career lately, and what I'm going to focus on next.

The comic book thing has never really taken off for me.  I'm good at it, but after all these years, I'm not getting any offers to draw or ink anything, and my own projects haven't been able to get past the first few pages in the last decade.  I learned a lot from all my work in comics, but I've come to the realization that I'm never going to be more than a hobbyist in the field, and maybe I should devote my efforts to trying to become better at something I have a better chance at succeeding in.  I'm sure a lot of my art will continue to be influenced by comics, though.  It's a part of who I am.

I've gone back to school, and am working on a BA in web design and interactive media.  I've been building web pages for more than 13 years, and the progress this art form has made since I started has been staggering. There are a lot of new tricks that I need to learn, and I've been working on the list.

So, I'm primarily going to be focusing my attention on becoming a better web designer.  I'll be posting a lot more notes and blogs coming up as I re-design my own site and put the things I've learned into practice.

Daytona Beach

Here's a slideshow of a bunch of vintage pictures from my hometown, Daytona Beach. Some neat shots in it.

Random Thoughts for September

For the past month, I've been expanding my contacts in social media. I've added a few hundred folks on Linkedin and Facebook, primarily in the comic book creator and fan area. To date, I've had a few people who remember me from The Tick and the Malibu Comics days, but so far, I have not been asked to ink anything, or gotten any inquiries on collaborating on a project. The experiment to see if all this is worthwhile is interesting, but still remains to be seen if it gets any results. I'm not looking for full-time work in the field - just an occasional project to keep my hand in and get something fun into print or on the web in front of readers.

I left my home church after a few years there. Changes in some key positions have resulted in some drama, and my family needs stability right now, and that's all I'm going to say about that. We've decided to try out a different church each week and see if we can find a place where we fit in, and where our gifts are needed. There are a few we've put on our bucket list to try out. I want to avoid any that are "weird" and not biblical, or have alternate versions of the bible. No snakes.

Not being in that church anymore, I don't have a gig playing bass on a weekly basis, and that's kind of sad.  I most likely won't get another opening like that again, which leads me to the next thought.

I'm playing more guitar lately, trying to teach myself chords. A guitarist seems to be able to find an opening with other people fairly easily, but in this town, you can't throw a rock without hitting a bass player, so that instrument is not very much in demand.  I'm not doing too bad for never having had any lessons, and picking everything I've learned up from books and YouTube. I have a long way to go, though.

Math class at AIO is almost over. These have been the hardest classes I've had to date, and I can't wait until they're in the rear-view mirror. Eleven weeks of this crap has really worn on me.  I've actually learned a few things, but I don't see myself ever needing this. My next class, which starts on the 26th, is Introduction to HTML, which I already know quite a bit about. I started writing web pages about 12 years ago, having to write all the code out by hand.  This class should be a breeze.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is in beta now, and will be released soon. Money is tight, so I haven't pre-ordered yet, and I'm not likely to have enough for the full release, so I probably won't be getting in on the ground floor. Stupid economy.

Rant: Google Adsense

I just finished my second go-round with Google's AdSense service, and my account has been deactivated once again, for reasons unknown. The email I received went on about click abuse, but I had zero clicks for the month I've been using it, so unless someone came in yesterday and gave me a flurry of clicks, I have no idea why they decided to bend me over once again.  Looking around on the web, it looks like I'm not alone in this practice.  It's hard to address a problem or infraction when they won't tell you what it is.  And of course, they didn't turn their ads off.  I had to do that manually.

I will never use this lame system again, nor will I recommend it to anyone else.  Google is fast evolving from the edgy tech company to just another faceless corporate overlord who absorbs everything they want and leaves you with no alternatives.

If they simply had a human being who could explain why my account was suspended, I would be fine with that. I suspect it's an entirely automated process though, and whatever machine intelligence classified me as unacceptable cares even less what I think of them.

So, my AdSense experiment, which so far had yielded absolutely nothing with no clicks at all, has come to a bitter end.  AdSense is a bad product, and offers little to no support.

Reflection - Why I use Social Media

Lately, I've been expanding my presence online, and putting myself out there in the public eye.  I've been expanding my contact lists on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, and started my own YouTube channel. I've been tossing out examples of my past work to introduce my new friends to what I'm capable of. Some people have wondered, myself included, why am I doing all of this?

In the past decade, I've been laid off from three different full-time jobs three times.  I've had to start over from the bottom, and try to rebuild my career, only to have it shot out from under me time after time. As I approach 50 years old, I should be in the prime of my career.  I should be a department head with seniority and respect in my industry.  I should be making a lot more money than I'm making right now.  I should have healthcare and a retirement plan.  I should have vacation time.  I should have stability and security in my life.

I don't have any of that.

Starting over has become something I don't want to do any longer.  I'm finding the world is a very different place than it was a decade or two ago.  I'm happy with my current job, and am really enjoying the opportunities that have come my way with it, but I'm not going to just sit back and get comfortable again, relying on others for my long term employment stability. I'm going to be more aggressive and unapologetic in letting my employers and coworkers know what my full range of skills and what my ambitions are.

New media affords anyone the ability to network and introduce themselves into new areas every day.  As an artist, I can keep a strong presence with my portfolio out there on the web for anyone to find at any time.

I let people know what am capable of
I don't ever want an employer or a coworker to say, "Oh, I didn't know you could do that," or, "I didn't know you were proficient in that software package."  I won't hide my skills, and just sit back, hoping for the best.  In today's job market, you must continually prove why you bring value to your employer.  At my age, I can't afford to hide my accomplishments or my ambitions.  As I make new contacts online, I want each one of them to have as much chance as possible of knowing what I can do.

I remind people what I'm capable of
Out of sight, out of mind.  It's easy for past projects to be forgotten about, but one of the benefits of being an artist is having an ever-growing visual record of everything I've accomplished.  It costs me nothing to throw out a daily "best of" posting to keep my work at the front of my connection's minds.

I remind myself what I'm capable of
When digging back through copies of my past work to post, I found myself wondering why I still wasn't doing some of the things I did before.  I get comfortable where I am, and stop thinking about what I did before.  Every time I get a response, I remember that I can still do a lot of those things, and may again some day.

I hope to find possible collaborators
My biggest problem has always been working with only myself.  I'm not a harsh taskmaster, and I'm easily distracted.  If I don't finish a personal project, nobody cares.  I would love to work with other people on something we all have a passion for.  In today's world, we don't even have to live in the same town - we can collaborate online.  This is a goal I'd really like to see become a reality in the next few years for me.

So, coming up on the big Five-Oh, I'm not going to slow down.  I still have a lot left I want to accomplish, and I have to find new ways of doing that, so that's why you'll likely be seeing a lot more of me.

There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!

That's it? Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!

It looks like the storm has passed us by here in Florida, and instead of gale-force winds and torrential downpours, we get sunny skies and cookouts. Good luck to our friends to the North of us!

Irene - just passing through.

Hurricane Irene is passing me by, just off the coast of Florida, and we're seeing some of the outer bands here.  The wind and rain are picking up!

In Harm's Way - Irene

Watching a monster slide by off the coast. We're in the edge of it. Not bad, but the wind has really picked up!

Site Re-design - Brick House Digital

It's been a while since I re-worked the Brick House Digital site, which is the business face of the web design and animation company my wife and I work under. I was thinking about taking it to a blog only, but I still want a place to try out new design tools, and the domain has been active for 12 years, so we have a lot of history invested in it.  We're not doing a great deal of business under it at the moment, with both of us back in school, but we like to keep ourselves visible, and the site gets a fair piece of traffic a day.

I started with positioning the logo and some of the elements in CorelDraw. I'm going with a simple black background this time, some Flash graphics in the center area, and some social media links on the front page.

Desktop For Today

Today's desktop is an older piece of my 3D art. A skyship, modeled by Winston, rendered in Poser, I believe. I love this model.

Desktop for Today

My desk at the office - today's wallpaper is a montage from last year's Blizzcon, featuring Kerrigan from Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft.

Random Thoughts for July 2011

I don't like algebra.

I enrolled in online classes at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh at the beginning of the year, and classes have been going great. I had a 4.0 grade average until I got to my current class - algebra. This stuff kicked my ass 30 years ago, and it's not changed a bit. I have another math class after this one, so it's 11 weeks of swallowing a bitter pill, and then I get back to the fun courses.

The finger I broke last year has healed up very well, and I'm playing bass again regularly now.  I still don't have a place to play that I feel good about. I've got a weekly gig in church every Sunday morning, but it's only a few songs, and we don't practice enough for me to feel competent with the material.  In my old band days, we'd practice for a few hours on a weeknight and then play for 8 hours over Friday and Saturday night, so we had things down pretty good.  I still want a Rickenbacker, but I'm also thinking about picking up the regular guitar again and making an effort to learn that.  The guitar shop here in town had a sweet 12-string Fender acoustic/electric for about $350 last year that I wish I had bought. There's always another guitar, though. Rickenbacker makes 12-strings, too, so they still make what would be my ultimate goal.

I have a Fender Precision that I took apart last year that I need to finish painting and put back together.

Been really getting into marketing on the web lately.  I'm doing the website for the company I'm working for now, and most of it is active at www.wwspwear.com.  We're a large silk-screen t-shirt company, and we have almost 30 years worth of work to showcase, so I chose to put it in a Picasa gallery rather than on the site.  That way, I can update the gallery and arrange however I want, and not have to keep editing multiple webpages.  I've also got drawings for business cards, window lettering, and packaging to create an overall image for the place.

I have my own sites that I need to update as well.  My web design company I have with my wife at www.brickhousedigital.com, and my comic book site at www.skulfrak.com.  I used the Skulfrak site as my portfolio when I was job hunting, but hopefully I won't need it again for that purpose for a long, long time.  I'm going to switch it over to my idea for comic book publishing, but between work, family, school, playing bass, and some gaming, I don't have a great deal of time for anything else right now.

I wish Obama would just mint two trillion dollar coins, throw them in the treasury, and put this debt ceiling crap to rest. You're the POTUS, dude. Grow some stones and show the tea party you're like a BAWS.

Every Night I Have the Strangest Dreams

I usually don't remember my dreams. They're nothing extraordinary. Usually just random flotsam and jetsam from memories or ponderings as I drift off to sleep.  The other night, though, I had one that was strangely vivid, and I can remember every detail.  It was just a short snippet, but I've been turning it over in my head, wanting to know more about it, and see what happens next.  I can never seem to get back to a dream when I try, so I'll probably never get any more of it, but it kind of creeped me out.  This is what I can remember -

I got out of the car and closed the door.  It was very late at night, and it was silent except for the cool wind blowing in the trees.  I hadn't been to the house I grew up in for many years, but it was exactly as I remembered it the last time I was in it.  I didn't know why I was there, and only thinking back on it now do I realize that when my mind calls itself back home, that's where I end up.

I had a nervous feeling as I started toward the house across the front yard.  It was the time of night when everyone else in the world was asleep, and the only things awake were troubled souls.  The grass was dry and I looked down as it crunched beneath my steps.

"I'm watching you."

I stopped, frozen with fear.  The voice was right there next to be, but I was all alone on the lawn.  I looked around nervously, sure I had heard something, but telling myself I had imagined it.  I wanted to run toward the house, or back to the car, but I couldn't move.

"I'm watching you."

That time I knew for sure someone was whispering to me.  I turned, looking for anyone who could be hiding in the shadows.  It was not a nice voice, and the tone was menacing.  I couldn't move until I knew who it was.  I knew it wasn't coming from inside my house, as that's a safe place.  As my eyes moved to the right, I scanned the neighbors house next door.  It was not the same house I remembered from my youth.  This was much bigger, with a second story and a front porch that wrapped around the house on the side.  There were big trees casting dark shadows along the wood siding.  A row of windows along the side facing my house were totally dark, revealing nothing at all inside.  Then I saw it.  In the last window near the front of the house, a small porcelain doll head was peeking out, as if looking at me.  And in that instant, I *knew* it was watching me.  It was an old, cracked and forgotten toy, with dark, empty eyes.  But I realized that it was a dark spirit, looking for something in dead of night, and it had found *me*.

I didn't know what to do.  Part of me wanted to confront it.  After all, it was a porcelain doll, and I had two hundred pounds on it, so I could probably take it in a fight, but that's only if it didn't use any of that zombie voodoo magic on me.  I could run, but that would seem kind of a sissy thing to do.  So I just stood there, staring back at it, and raised a finger and wagged it defiantly toward the doll, as if to let to it know that I was watching it too, for all the good that would do.

Then it grinned at me.

My blood froze.  "You see me and acknowledge me.  Gotcha."  the dark voice whispered to me.

It was gone, and I was alone in the yard, with nothing but my fear.

I knew that whatever it was, I had become it's new best friend, and I would be seeing it again.  Some night, I'll have to go into that house and confront it, and hope I'll make it back out by morning.

Keeping my Head Down

Not too much going on lately.  There are things going on in the background of my life that I have no control over, and I'm really hoping situations don't take a turn for the worse again.  I've used up just about every trick in my magic bag, and I'm really ready for some stability and security.  It may just be the way things are now, though, and I have to survive it as best I can.  It's really hard to stay positive when so many people have let me down in the past, and I've gotten to where I expect it now.  I'm trying to stay positive and be as productive as I can be, so maybe I'm just being paranoid.

Random Thoughts for September

I'm back to working on the guitar playing again.  I suffered a setback a little less than 3 months ago, when I broke a finger on my left hand, shattering a knuckle.  It was pinned back together, casted up, and seems to be well on the way to being healed.  I go for a follow-up with the surgeon today to see how it's doing.  I'm back to playing some basic chords and scales, so I have high hopes for a full recovery.

In my weight-loss efforts, I'm down 33 pounds since I changed my eating habits about 4 months ago.  I'm down a shirt size, and none of my pants fot correctly anymore.  For the first time in more than 10 years, I'm below 200 pounds.  Seventeen pounds to go to hit my target weight.  Maybe I should take up jogging on the beach or something, being only a block away.

Been spending some time each day before work at Panera Bread, sipping coffee and using their wi-fi.  At least the day starts calmly before a certain salesman comes in and ruins things by not respecting the sanctity of the lunch hour.

I've got a new comic started, but I've gotten a bit off-track and not been working on it like I should be.  I really need to regain my discipline in that area of my life.  Now that all the finger drama in my life has subsided, I need to get back to focusing on my productivity and setting some time aside each week to work on that project.

That's about it for me.  How's about you?

Disintegrata

Go nastily amid the peace and tranquility, and remember what satisfaction there may be in genocide.

As far as possible, without surrender, move into other people's space.

Lie often, and loudly; and listen to the lies of others, even the slow and incompetent -- examples can be made of them later.

Seek out meek and inoffensive persons; they are annoying, but fun to kill.

Do not bother comparing yourself to others; those greater than you will eventually be eliminated, and those lesser than you are dead already.

Fart in airlocks.

Assassinate your superior as quickly as possible; your own career, however exalted, is not worth a plugged millo if one of your junior officers gets it over your dead body.

Exercise caution if one of your course changes suddenly produces a sensor ghost; for the Galaxy is full of Federation vessels.

But let this not blind you to the happier side of things; many Starship captains are swaggering, tin-plated dictators with delusions of godhood, and everywhere life is full of incompetence.

Advance yourself.

Especially do not feign meanness, neither be cynical about hate; you are not likely to run out of either.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the joys of defenestration and evisceration for more mature pleasures.

Nurture a deep-seated suspicion of small furry creatures that purr; you never can tell.

File your teeth regularly.

Discipline is important; practice holding it in between planet falls.

You are a scourge of the universe, no less than your average interstellar plague or black hole; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the Universe is going to pieces in a most laudable manner.

Therefore do your utmost to annoy the Destroyer, however you may conceive of Him, Big Bang or Entropy Death; and whatever your plans of conquest, as you wade through the morasses of peace with fire and sword, annoy your soul.

With all its truth, high resolve, and courage, the world still has its ugly spots.

Be thoughtless.

Strive to be miserable.