Damn

As in, "Damn, it's been a long freaking time since I've posted." But, oh blog, I have not forgotten thee.

I just got tired of posting.

So here's a quick recap: Being single is good, not working retail is good, making more money is good, getting ready to move would be good if I genuinely believed my friend would ever close on this godforsaken place already, and not having a fever anymore is good.

Perhaps at some point, when I'm not drowning under heaps of paperwork, I'll take some time to elaborate over past and current events.

In the meantime, be cool and stay in school.

Being sick blows

How's that for a title? It pretty much sums up how I'm feeling at the moment considering it's just a few minutes after 5:30 AM and I'm still up, doing my best to keep from bruising my own ribs with more long bouts of coughing. I'm not even sure how I came to contract this plague. What I do know is that I felt fine up until mid-day Monday and then I just knew I was coming down with something.

Here I am almost three days later fighting off a fucking fever and hack. I couldn't even call in sick to work this (or last) morning because I had lost so much of my voice only harsh, broken squeaks were coming out of me. Instead of coming across like some childish jackass and having my mom call out for me, I wrote an e-mail explaining my dilemna/curse/death sentence/etc.

Now I'm glaring at the clock knowing I'm going to have to call out for another day, this being my third week into this new job that I'm liking so much already. Fortunately I was already beginning to look like death warmed over on Tuesday, and I called yesterday to see if 1) things were going smoothly and 2) to let them hear my Lord-of-the-Rings-ring-wraith voice.

The best part is I'm not even sure if I should head back to bed now or just stay up until 7:30 so I can break the news. My concern is that if I go back to bed now, I might be so tired I sleep through my alarm or some nonsense and not call in. The flip side, of course, is: I'm fucking exhausted and would love to just fall asleep already.

Oh, the joys. I should get sick more often.

More art...

That's pretty much all I've got to say. I love working in Painter more and more. The program itself really is amazing. Now all I need is a brand new G5 to play nice with it.

Anyhow...



Click the preview thumbnail above to check out my Flickr Photostream. From there you can get a much more detailed, full-sized version of each image I've posted.

Goooooodbye, Borders.

Yesterday I was hired to work as an Administrative Assistant for a local branch of a geotechnical science firm. I have a feeling it's going to be a nice change of pace to move out of the retail world, and at what better time? The holidays are right around the corner after all. It'll be nice to become another faceless consumer and not having to field stupid questions and even dumber customers.

More than that, I get to work with one of my best friends. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to transition. I'll also be working closely with her, so I'm looking forward to the entire experience.

I'll also be making a significant increase in my income. This in and of itself means I can finally start start doing more of the things I've been meaning to without (as much) concern about my financial stability. I've already been spending more time working on some varying web design aspects. I'm working on getting a greater grasp on CSS and perhaps start learing about things like XML, PHP, and possibly PERL.

I've also been meaning to spend more time working with Painter IX. I picked up a book called Painter IX Wow! that has been a useful tool thus far. I'm hoping to tap into it further this week. We'll see...

What a night

The title says it all. It's always nice when one can go out with their close friends and just romp around the town. My friend, Adam, is making plans to move up north, so myself and a group of friends went to go see his band, To Lay with Lions, play out at a place called "The Skyline."

After that, my friends and I went to Applebees for some drinks and conversation, then Damen and I hit up downtown before stopping in to my favorite stomping ground, Shakespeare's.

Up until then, the night had been fun already. It only got better though. Upon entering Shakespeare's, we met a bunch of people Damen knew from long ago. Reminiscing - at least for him - was cool, and I got to meet some new fun people out of it all.

Come 2:30 AM or so, we decide to leave the closing Shakespeare's for a night cap. Our thirst for all things caffeinated brought us to Perkins, a place not exactly uncommon to us at the wee hours of the morn. But lo and behold, a not-so-important ghost from my past sauntered in ahead of us, a girl named Liz. I hadn't seen this girl in ages, and I would say it's fair statement to say time's been a little rough on her. Maybe all the alcohol she'd apparently imbibed had something to do with that; I don't know.

Either way, the whole night was a lot of fun, and what better place to scribble it all down? I've been lax in updates as of late as is. Perhaps when I'm a little more sober myself I'll get into the crazy stalker I can't seem to shake. Hell, she offered to take me home tonight.

Ugh. Definitely a tale for another time. In the meantime, be good out there. God knows I'm trying... maybe.

Work in Progress

I love Painter IX. It's all still very new to me, but I must say that I've gotten used to using the drawing tablet. I'm looking forward to making the investment into an Intuos3 so I can have some tilt control. In the meantime, I'm enjoying even the simple pressure sensativity and control I'm getting out of my Graphire.



There really isn't much else to write about. Things have been really good as of late in most every aspect of my life, certainly a turn-around from where things were. I'm just trying to keep things in check and ride the storm.

Motivation

So life still sucks, but that's always been plenty of motivation to start doing all the things I should've been.

... one of those things being drawing.

Anyway, here are a couple of my latest little scribbles. I'm going to start working on some completed compositions soon, but in the meantime I've just been working on feeling out a style for the project I have in mind.

Enjoy.