Two weeks ago, we finally finished the huge undertaking in Mom and Dad's house. Now it's right back into it for my brother. I'm becoming an expert at painting whether I like it or not! I'm pretty close to my family, and its nice that whenever a huge project like this comes up, we can count on everyone to pitch in as much as possible. Dad's brought over his lawn mower a few times and taken care of the yard work, Mom's helped run errands and tape around woodwork, my sister's been the real painting guru/machine, and I've been kind of on touch up detail when my height hasn't been utilized to paint ceilings. It's amazing how much is getting down when we all work together. I feel closer to them being part of this. This certainly cranks up everybody's busyness factor, but that's what my family does to help each other out. My brother greatly appreciates the help, and I am happy to do it for him.

I need to go to bed though. This is going to be a busy work week on top of everything else. More about my weekend later.

1. Clear Blue Betty - Write Your Name In The Sky

2. Clear Blue Betty - Never Been A Rebel

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I'm going nowhere
Where I am it is a lot of fun
There in the desert to dismantle an atomic bomb
I watch them shadow box
Check the stocks
I'm in detox
I want the lot of what you've got
If what you've got can make this stop

There is no fiction
That will truly fit the situation
I'm documenting every detail
Every conversation
I'm not used to talking to somebody in their body
Look, there's somebody in a body, somebody in a body

from Fast Cars by U2

How me is that, with my stupid addiction to chatting, mySpace (will you be my friend?), email, and blogs? I seriously need to unplug for awhile.

1. Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor (Non-Stop Mix)

2. Prince: 3121

3. Rufus Wainwright - Want Two

4. U2 - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

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P.S. I added a few pix from my trip to AZ to my Snap Shots section. I have more images stuck on the laptop that is currently being diagnosed (cross your fingers). I will eventually add the more "arty" ones to the Photography section, although I'm a bit behind on those pages. I've been trying to bulk up the other sections of this site, and sadly, the photo section has fallen behind. Later.

Today I can't help but feel a bit like the zombie pictured right, who I've lovingly named "Adam" since he is my first of many zombie creations. It was not a bad day, nor has it been a bad week. I can't believe it's half over though; it's flying by and I'm wiped out.

Another co-worker and I have been working on a contract project for a large car company. The deadline is ridiculously tight and things are in full gear. Now it's my time to perform. I've had my nose to the grindstone, working as hard and fast as physically and mentally possible. It gets to the point that after an hour or so of staring at the computer monitor, I have to force myself to get up and just refocus my eyes. Every day so far when I get home, I've taken an intense power nap. This has really helped me shed the stressful energy associated with this kind of work. I don't think I would have been capable of working like this had I not been on my vacation last week and recharged my batteries. I still can't help but feel a bit like poor ol' Adam here, as there's still much to do and so little time to do it.

Ah yes. The proverbial hump day! :)

This afternoon, as I found myself getting a little worked up with hundred of files, changes, requests, meetings, "need-to-gets," etc., I put on Pink Floyd's greatest hits which forced me to calm down. I'm only a casual fan of the band at this point, but there's something incredibly magical about their music, especially their out-of-this-world guitar solos. I found myself in an almost zombie like state, my "zone" as I call it, blocking out the rest of the world and really managed to get much accomplished.

Perhaps being undead has been given a bad wrap. It certainly hasn't hurt George Bush.

Anway...that's all for now. Can you tell I'm fried?

Wednesday's Playlist:

1. Sting - Sacred Love

2. Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd

3. George Michael - Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1

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My batteries are recharged. I have much to accomplish the next few weeks, but I'm up for the challenge.

I had my art class on Thursday night. My friends who have been going to the Academy were off for Easter break, so they attended the class as well. It was great having their familiar presence there. I've only seen them a few times in the past year since they started going to the Academy, but once again on Thursday night, it was as if no time had passed. Their friendship, inspiration, and excitement about art and life only added to my feeling of contentment, relaxation, and being refocused.

At the beginning of this month, I noted my three-year blog anniversary. Well, last week was also the three-year anniversary of me starting my art classes and meeting those friends. It was an anniversary of many beginnings of sorts.

It was perfect that they were at class. I couldn't help but feel so accomplished in the friendships I have with them as well as my commitment to my art and who I've become as an artist. The combined feelings of a refocused heart and mind allowed me to really sink into my drawing, pushing who I am and what I want to be. I feel like week after week, when I really hit my mark, I approach my drawings with a real openness to my style -- to the combination of the endless inspirations of my past. For me, those inspirations have never truly been the Picassos, Rembrants, DaVincis, Monets, Warhols, or Van Goghs of the world. Instead, it's been Max Texteira, Mark Sivestri, Alan Davis, Walt Simonson, Todd McFarlane, John Byrne, Jim Lee, Barry Winsdor-Smith, and Chris Claremont, just to name a few -- all artists in the realm of comic books.

For so long, I've been trying to work those influences out of my style instead of embracing them. But suddenly, I can see where those influences lie and how to embrace them and really push them to the next level. In a weird way, I can almost see the future of my artistic approach as that lifetime of inspirations have become my style which is truly my own.

And that is something I will gladly own up to.

Getting away really did me good!

Monday's Playlist: James Blunt - Back to Bedlem

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I got back late Monday night after a long day of flying followed by a couple hour drive from Milwaukee. The highlight of my trip home was seeing Huey Lewis at the airport. Huey Lewis and the News were my favorite band when I was a kid. I had much time to kill at the airport in Salt Lake City that I actually kind of stalked him for awhile! I was surprised by how he was able to walk around the airport, practically unnoticed. I wonder if in 20 years from now I'll just casually bump into Bono at some rinky-dink airport and text message all of my friends!?

The lowlight of my trip home was that my iBook died somewhere between Tucson and Salt Lake City -- no internet to kill my three hour layover or DVD player to catch up on some movies I brought along. Also, the second half of the photos that I shot on the trip were on that computer. My computer guy doesn't seem too worried about it, since technically, the photos are still saved onto the hard drive. Now its just a matter of getting to that hard drive sometime next week.

I felt so much more relaxed on my return trip than I did on the way there. Before I left, things at work were chaotic, my parents' remodeling project was coming to a head, and I'd put a smell dent in my car. I was pretty fried. But being away from it all, whether I was above the clouds, thousands of miles above sea level on Mt. Lemmon, or out in the vast desert in an odd (to me) wilderness that felt other-worldly, helped me refocus -- almost reboot, really. All of the anxieties and stressors that had been mounting just kind of dissipated. To use the title of a Huey Lewis song, I was able to see the "forest for the trees." Ironic that I did that where there really were no trees!

My friends were awesome hosts, and have a real calming presence about them. I have to give them some credit for my feeling as relaxed as I did. The whole time I was there, I never watched a lick of TV. It was quite wonderful escaping the boob tube and all the pop-culture celebrity shit that I seem so easily captivated by but yet despise so much. It was good to rid my body of that junk food.

As I said, traveling home, I felt so much more relaxed. I had Tuesday off of work and caught up on my sleep. I have today off for Good Friday, so I had a nice two-day work week to come back to. My trip out west helped me put of the stress at work into the proper perspective. In the end, it's still only work. Today the only real task on my radar is to spend some money at the art supply store. It's all good.

The trip was so what I needed. I'll be talking about it for years to come. It's now part of my history.

If you haven't noticed, I'd been keeping a blog of my trip while there on my mySpace account. On Tuesday or Wednesday, I carted over those entries and images to these pages, which explains why three or four day's worth of posts mysteriously popped up. I hope you scroll down and read about some of my adventures.

Hopefully in the next few days (weeks?), I will post some more photos from the trip -- at least the first half anyway until I (hopefully) retrieve the other ones of my day in the mountains from that hard drive.

The entire time I was planning my trip to visit my friend Brandon, we joked that I'd be "there in the desert to dismantle an atomic bomb" which is a lyric from a U2 song (and the title of their album). In a lot of ways, my trip out west actally did that for me. In the end, things didn't go boom, there was no sonic blast or mushroom clould. Somehow out there in the desert heat I found my reset switch or cut the right blue wires. Things are good again. I feel so relaxed. I can begin again.

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The Return
April 10, 2006 Monday 10:10 AM
My Tucson adventure was a great trip. It's one of those things where it felt like we did so much and so much time had passed, but yet, it just flew by in the wink of an eye. It was so good to see my friends, see the sun, and just get away from it all.

I'm writing this from the Tucson airport (free Wi-Fi!!!) with around an hour to kill before the first leg of my flight takes off. It's a couple hour flight. Then I land in Salt Lake City with almost a three hour layover and then off to Milwaukee before my two hour drive home begins. It will be a long day. I will be lucky if I'm home by midnight. But for some reason, my stress level of getting home is nothing compared to that of getting there. Who knows? Maybe I just needed the time in AZ to decompress.

My friends were such gracious hosts. It was a great combo of doing things and relaxing. I somehow managed to get a little me-time in there and let them have some family time together too. They're just good people all around with such a calming prescence..

In the end, despite the sunburned arms, neck, and legs, a huge scrape on my wrist (it looks like I tried to slice my right wrist open) and arm, and a pretty big blister on my big toe, I feel simply great. My joke with Brandon was that during my time in Tucson, I was a wreck, falling apart at the seems and that the desert and mountains aren't kind to this boy from the midwest. It's all good, though, dudes, it's all good.

I'm writing this now just to kill some time in the airport. I wonder if they'll have Wi-Fi in Salt Lake City? If so, there's a good chance I'll log on again. This blogging thing from remote locations is pretty cool. Everything I usually do on my website is tied right to that computer and the software I have on it.

Anyway, I'm off...time to kill more time.

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Anyway, it was still a fun day, and something I am glad I've done. The drive to Mexico was breathtaking, as everything on this mini-vacation has been. The temps were in the 90s today, and I'd say that it felt cooler except for the burning on the back of my neck and legs (I swear no matter how much sunscreen I put on.....). In thinking of going back home to Wisconsin, I'm in the mindset that it will be July-like weather there as that's what it feels like here. I have a feeling the chilly early spring of WI will catch me off guard, after only being away from it for a few days.

It's hard to believe this trip is practically over. Tomorrow I'll be spending the entire day in the airport, leaving here around 9:00 for an 11:30 flight, spending about 3 hours in Salt Lake City's airport before leaving for and arriving in Milwaukee around 9:30. Then I have the 2 hour drive home. So, yikes, y'all. It will be nice to get back, but it's been great spending the time with my friends and their little girl. They've been the ultimate hosts, really making me feel at home. They had a lot of cool things planned for me to do while here, without making things feel too structured. But we certainly made the most of my time here, that's for sure.

Anyway...that's all for now. Now it's time to wrap my mind around my reality at home again, and try to get back into that mindset where the sun didn't shine nearly as bright.

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As we drove, the entire time we had U2 blaring. The songs "In God's Country," "Where The Streets Have No Name," "Elevation," and "Beautiful Day" took on new meaning today, really adding to our soundtrack, adding to the majesty that we witnessed.

As we drove to the top of the mountain range (with Brandon pointing out where the biodome (I thought that was just a stupid movie) was) the landscape changed from cactus, to rocks, to many pine trees. It felt a lot more like Colorado toward the top of the mountains, but certain parts of northern Wisconsin with all the vegetation and forrest. As we got to the top, we pulled over and did a cool hike into the forrest/nature/mountains. It was really cool. As we curved around and about all the different little obstacles that the "trail" had to offer, we'd constantly come across some new plateau, scene, or view that simply took my breath away.

The hike and the drive up the mountain was filled with so many wows, oohs, and oh-my-gods. I was just amazed by the beauty.

There was a point while we were taking a break in the more woodsy part of the hike where we kind of each separated a little bit and just relaxed on these huge rocks looking over a tremendous valley (extremely high up with lots of steep drops). As I sat on this huge rock with thousands of feet below me, I just closed my eyes and felt the wind in my hair and the sun on my face. There was no noise around at all except for the occassional cranky bird. I just sat there and was. I felt connected to nature and just happy to be. And then for a split second, I remembered how far away I was physically and mentally from all the stressors that have been plaguing me of late. My goal to escape those problems worked. This was so what I needed.

I had a minor fall on the way back from a waterfall that we chased. I slid down some slick rocks and scraped my leg up. I got up, a little flustered. This was the first time we came across other people, and I had to fall. Well, with that, I slipped down again, scraping my arm/wrist up good. I was pretty dirty and was bleeding. I kind of got a little worked up for a bit, just feeling hurt and tired. But it was good. I may have been huffing and puffing because of the high altitude, sweating like a pig because of the hot sun, and dirty and bleeding because of my fall, but there was no place I'd rather have been. I could rest. I would cool down. And the scrapes and bruises on top of this sunburn of mine (despite two applications of sunscreen) almost seem like stories themselves to share when I get home.

It was a good day.

Tonight, we went to a local flee market called --something-- verde. There was a lot of junk out there, but it was weird. People would be selling hats and food and stereos and washing machines. It was quite the cultural experience but fun to walk around. I always enjoy the fair type of atmosphere, even if people are peddling junk.

So tomorrow we have another big day planned. Brandon's co-worker, Ronn, is native to the Tucson area. Tomorrow he is going to be our guide to Mexico, which should be a good time. Brandon and I joke that Ronn has been my replacement since he moved out here, so it will be cool to meet this guy. I'm looking forward to another new experience tomorrow. I should be a good day.

I'm beat. That's all for now.

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I'm amazed at just how differerent the landscape is out here. As we were driving up and down mountains and valleys, noticing as many mountain ranges as desertscapes (if that's a word), I commented how I felt like I was almost on a different planet. There's a weird mixture here of feeling like I'm in the middle of nowhere yet surrounded by people in a relatively large city. It's a weird feeling, but I get a great vibe from the city and the surrounding communites.

I got much sun today. Too much. I'm sunburned and I shouldn't be. I know better. But that is the life of a redhead.

We hiked this morning, drove around town, checked out the Apple store, and hung out. It was a full day and I'm beat. Tomorrow I hike in the mountains is planned. More later.

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There's nothing pleasant about flying.

But I'm here. It's good to see my friend, Brandon. Rumor has it, there's mountains on the horizon and a landscape that my camera will love. Tomorrow a desert hike is planned and then some tooling around Tucson.

But I'm beat. It's past 2:00 AM WI time here, and I'm just winding down for the day.

More later!

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Now that my work week is done, and won't be back there until next Wednesday, I've been able to cast aside the stress that I've been under there and focus on this trip (It's supposed to be 90 there this weekend!!). I'm really excited to get there but also a bit nervous as I realize this the first time I've actually flown alone. Oh well.

Things here will be at a standstill until I come back. I get home late on Monday night. If I get around to it, I may add a few updates to the blog features of my mySpace account. If you want, check there to see what's going on.

Anyway...Time to hop in the shower, pack my suitcase, over-feed the cat, and I'm off!

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I'll be flying out west to visit my friends in Tucson, AZ on Thursday. I'm pretty excited about my trip, but have lots to do before I actually leave. Things at work have been getting more and more hectic. The remodeling project at my parents' is almost done, but the excitement of it has long wore out its welcome. Both work and home seem to be reaching heightened levels of stress that I just can't escape. I SO need to get away from it all. There's much planned for the short time I'm in Arizona: hiking in both the mountains and the desert, a possible trip to Mexico, finding myself the essential cowboy hat, a visit to Tucson's Apple store, and spending much time with my friends.

I shot the above photo last summer when I was in Scottsdale, AZ for work. Although the sun has made her Wisconsin appearance the past few weeks, there's still a coldness in the air, something very familiar to our early Wisconsin spring. After a long day today, I'm simply looking forward to and trying to remember the feeling of the sun on my skin and some warmth.

Monday's Playlist:

1. Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith movie audio track

2. Cold Play - Talk EP

3. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe Original Soundtrack

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I decided that for tonight's post I'm going to follow what I did for that April 2003 post (which can be found in the archives) and keep this pretty basic, without a graphic. That was back when G-Man Ink consisted of just a home page, journal, and photography page. That's even before I started taking my drawing class. God...we just started the war in Iraq.

Now if you look at the menu above, it's pretty obvious this site has evolved, much like the state of the web in the past three years. On my links page, I even have links to mySpace and Flickr accounts. I'll probably be uploading videos to YouTube soon enough as well.

I love the sense of sharing and community that's come to the web in the past three years. I've gained that sense in these pages with the addition of comments to my journal pages. I'm always moved when people open up and share their life experiences in my comments, creating a real dialog out of the subjects I write about. It's one of those things, where the world doesn't seem like such a small place anymore, and that I'm not the only person who's ever gone through whatever it is that currently is on my radar.

It's hard to believe I've been doing this for three years. But I love how things have evolved....how I've evolved. Some things haven't change at all. I'm still listening to lots of U2, Madonna, and the Beatles. I'm still drawing and love writing.

And we're still at war in Iraq. ("How long, how long must we sing this song?")

But I'm also creating music and podcasts and sharing pictures and art from all different aspects of my life. Heck, I even have an eCommerce presence on the web thanks to this thing. The possibilities of where this could lead my creativity is endless.

My initial goal in creating this website was to share a little bit of myself with the world. As an artists, it's important for me to put myself out there in various forms of media. I've never been a fan of the gallery art scene/world. So I chose to do things my own way using the web to share my work with the world. I want people feel some kind of momentary connection or have some type of reaction because of my art, music, writing, photography, etc. In a lot of ways, it's one huge performance art piece to me. One of my friends took a couple of my drawing off of my journal and they are now his wallpapers on his computers. I know a few other people who have my music on their iPods as well. How cool is that?

I'm going to end it tonight like I started it three years ago, and talk about what's currently on the "radio." Although saying radio is all but obsolete for me now. I got my iPod a few months after I started this site. It's really changed how I listen to and even buy music. I only buy CDs if I can't get them on iTunes. Currently playing is "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter which has been my "it" song for the past few weeks. Three years ago when I started this, it was "In Da Club" by 50 Cent. Boy, things have changed.

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P.S. Be sure to check out the March archives. I didn't add much to any of the other pages of this site although I added more drawings to the March journal page than I have in quite some time. My second year of blogging ended much the same way my first year of it started. Back to basics and all about art. When one door opens.....