Driving Off a Bridge

By

  I have been having the worst nightmares lately. It is weird because I normally don’t remember my dreams. Last night I woke up at least 5 times while having the same nightmare. I am driving across a drawbridge when it starts to open. Sometimes there is construction on the bridge and I fall through a hole after the other drivers refuse to let me merge. Sometimes I just lose control of the van and just slide off the edge. I’m always driving a van. A big white cargo van.     My first job out of college was as a delivery driver. I had just moved to a new city and thought, “What is the most difficult, anxiety inducing job I could possibly get at this juncture in my life?” Obviously it was as a delivery driver. This was before GPS was widespread or even cell phones. I had a phone in the van for emergencies but only emergencies. I would have to map out...

Fevers

By

One of the most frustrating things as a parent is a virus. There is nothing you can do for a virus. If you go to the doctor, you pay a couple hundred dollars to find out all you can do is wait until it runs its course. You can treat the fever and other symptoms but really it is just a waiting game until the real problem has passed. Occasionally a fever is caused by something else, like an infection. The problem with that is often it is hard to find an infection until it has gotten so bad that other major problems start popping up. I guess what I’m trying to say is the fever isn’t the problem. If all you do is deal with the fever, nothing is actually going to change. You have to find out what is causing the fever and deal with that. If you don’t deal with the causes, fevers will continue and eventually get worse. Unfortunately, sometimes to deal with a problem all you...

Drawing Circles again…

By

  Sometimes you just want to hang out with your kid, watch some Gravity Falls and draw hundreds of circles. I need to take a step back. I have really been focused on setting up the store and making products to sell. That is also sucking the joy out of what I have been doing. I have been trying to make stuff people will like or trying to come up with a new sticker or buildable. I decided I have to just step back. I am still going to continue setting the store up but I am slowing down a bit. I’m getting back to just drawing and having a good time. So I’m just working on…     Lots and lots of circles. Not real sure where this particular drawing is going which is why I decided to spend some time working on it. My daughter and I are still watching Gravity Falls, which is wonderful. It is like X-Files for kids. The characters are silly and strange but...

Floppotron

By

I was just scrolling through twitter when I came across this…     That led me down a Youtube hole that, for once, I do not regret at all. The Floppotron is a musical instrument created by Polish engineer Paweł Zadrożniak. The one in the video is actually his second Floppotron. The first one was far more simple. The Floppotron 2.0 is made up of 64 floppy drives, 8 hard drives and a pair of flatbed scanners. He then writes programs to make them recreate music…     I love it when you get shots of the computer screen and the lines of code just blazing by. There are a few more but I think this, Beat It aside, was my favorite. It works on a couple different levels…  

Trying to Avoid Slivers…

By

  Now that the kids are back to school I’ve had some time to get back to some drawing. Still working on some branding. I finally have a plan for the next mailing so those should be going out within the next month. Things seem to be settling down and getting back to normal. I hope this will last for at least a little while but I already noticed party plans penciled in on the calendar.     So this is an idea that has been kicking around in my head for a little while. I know that it is influenced by Jim Phillips but I couldn’t find a picture of the ad I was thinking of. I always liked his use of woodgrain in his illustrations. I thought it was an old cellblock ad but maybe not…     I’m pretty sure the add was for those little sticky pads that Santa Cruz made for about a minute. Maybe if I could think of what that stuff was called I could...

Hammer Time

By

  Yep. But really you should check out this artist Simon Berger… Here is his Instagram if you want to learn more… Simon Berger   Then we have this fella using his hammer…   Speaking of hammers, ever wonder why no one can lift Thor’s hammer? Turns out it’s SCIENCE!   And because The Addams Family is now on Netflix…

Popeye the Sailor Man

By

  There is a story about Hunter S. Thompson typing out the Great Gatsby word for word. He said he wanted to feel greatness coming from his finger tips. He claimed helped him learn Fitzgerald’s writing style and provided him a better understanding of how he constructed his prose. I don’t know if this is true or if it is just some random story he threw out there that became a part of his legend but even Johnny Depp retold it while doing press for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I have a hard time believing the stories told about people like Thompson. Charles Bukowski would complain about people bugging him after his spoken word events to go out drinking. When asked how he could live the way he did and be as productive as he was, he basically said, “It’s fiction.” There is no way all the stories could be true. No one could survive that, but it does sell...

Baby Cacti

By

  I get it. Again with the cacti? Yes, again with the cacti. I have been working on these and trying to figure out what I really wanted to do with them and I’ve finally made a breakthrough. You know what that means? That’s right, I will finish it up and start writing about something else over and over. I mentioned planting some at the zoo several months ago and then checking on them a couple weeks ago. Well I went back with phase 2. Babies! I planted a few and left a few babies in places where people might be tempted to take them. Rolled up inside were the stickers I printed up last week.     I don’t know if anyone actually took them or if some poor janitor just had to pick them all up but if you are here because you found a little cactus…Welcome. And if you are the poor janitor or other worker who was just annoyed to have to pick up my garbage...