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| August 2006 | |
| And the Rain Came Down August 30, 2006 Wednesday 9:24 PM photo date 7/27/05  I shot the above photo last summer when I was in Arizona for work. I posted the graphic as my homepage a few weeks later after Hurricane Katrina hit. The image represented the ominous presence of Mother Nature, the devastation that was going on in New Orleans, the sadness that was felt in our country, the ripple effect it had on our economy, and the shame felt about the messed-up situation that was going on in the city, regardless of who you want to blame. The irony of the shot in that it originated in Arizona, not known for its rain, doesn't fail to escape me. But tonight, as I finally have a chance to revisit these pages, it seems fitting to post this graphic again as the anniversary of Katrina passes us by. Did were learn anything from this ? From 9-11? Why is it that these disasters just separate this country farther and farther apart? How long must we sing this song? Wednesday's playlist: U2- How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb |
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| Living Document August 22, 2006 Tuesday 8:22 PM photo date 7/24/05  I've been doing this website for almost three and a half years. As my talents with web design change and grow, new opportunities to catalog, capture, present, and express myself also grow. These pages have always been more than a blog to me. They've been a full website chronicling my life through my art, photos, music, writing, and the spoken word. Today I'm celebrating a mini-anniversary of sorts. A year ago, I launched the new design for this site. With the new design, I've added podcasts, audio- and video clips, screen desktops, an area with songs I've created, sketchbook galleries, my personal photo album, and even a store front. And I've done this all while keeping a more-or-less running journal of my life (check out the archives older than August 2005 to see the old web design). I've built things in a way to allow me to expand when I need to and can approach these pages with a "the sky's the limit" attitude. At times, of course, it's hard to get motivated to visit these pages at all. Lately, I've been writing about how it feels like a chore. But other times, I'm excited about and can't pull myself away from updating galleries, sharing candid snapshots of my friends and family, or hearing the sound of my own voice. I go through spells where certain areas of this site are drowned with attention while others are almost avoided entirely. It's quite the allegory for my world outside of this place, I suppose. In the past year, with the addition of all these new areas to this site, these pages, this G-Man Ink before you, have become even more a part of who I am. A living document of my life. And as I look to the future and see things like my presence on YouTube and MySpace, I wonder what the not-so-distant future holds. |
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| Video Podcast #2: B for Big Ideas August 19, 2006 Saturday 3:12 PM I just added a new video podcast to my site. I bought and watched "V for Vendetta" last night and am just blown away. To see the podcast and hear my thoughts on the movie, click on the previous link or go to my Media/Podcast page to view it from there. If you don't have QuickTime and can't view it from my site, you should be able see it here, at YouTube. It blows my mind how easy it is to broadcast my thoughts out into the world. Let me know what you think, I'd love your feedback! |
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August 17, 2006 Thursday 9:51 PM sketch date 10/1/89 No real post today. Just lets say it was a bad day and leave it at that. Enjoy this drawing which is kind of how beat up I felt when all was said and done. Hit me with your best shot... Thursday's playlist: 1. U2- How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb 2. U2- All That You Can't Leave Behind 3. Christina Aguiliera - Back to Basics 4. Christina Aguiliera - Stripped |
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August 15, 2006 Tuesday 9:25 PM sketch date unknown, circa 1990/91 Today was a horrible day at work. I was wild-mad with some things that went wrong with a project of mine which, because of somebody else's screw-ups, will cost me an extra day of work. There's nothing I hate worse than feeling like my time's been wasted, especially when I was a week or two ahead of schedule. I was red in the face all day, cussed a lot, and people knew to approach me with care. Especially the people who screwed up. By the time I drove home, I was just feeling like shit. I knew there was nothing I could to change what happened, it wasn't the end of the world, and, that in the scheme of things, it wasn't worth my energy to be upset. But with being mad all day, it just spread in my body like a cancer and I couldn't shake the negative vibes. Yeah, the sky was falling, it was the end of the world as we know it, the British were coming and all that jazz. As I was driving home, my mom called me on my cell phone. I felt like I barely had the energy to drive and talk at the same time. When she asked me how I was doing, it took all my effort to feign a smile over the phone and say "Fine." My plans for tonight were for me to stop over after work and help finish up a landscaping project wey've been working on. The project consisted of creating an area out of landscaping bricks, filling it up with black dirt, covering the dirt with red bark, and then planting a bunch of flowering perennials. My sister and dad have been working on the project for the last couple of weeks. I was just stopping by tonight to help with some of the finishing touches. As I got there, I was amazed at how beautiful the flower garden, as we've been calling it, looked. It was completely amazing and serene with all different kind of brightly colored plants that will come up each spring and bloom during different times of the summer. To me, it feels like a Zen garden. I just can't believe how good it turned out. My nephews arrived shortly after I got there. They were with Dad picking up a final load of bark at the landscaping place. They showed up full of smiles and questions. Of course the first ones were which Star Wars episodes I brought along, which is a standard question now whenever I see them. And of course, I just happened to have a couple of them with me in my backpack. We all worked together to finish up the landscaping, I watched 15 or 20 minutes of Episode II with the boys, and we had supper together proud of our accomplishments on this newest addition to my parents land. When I got home after supper, I hopped on my bike and went for an hour bike ride around town trying to beat the setting sun. As I drove around town, zig-zagging up and down the back streets, courtyards, one way streets, and hidden paths around town, I thought about my work day versus the rest of my day, the part of it that really counts. I thought of the stark contrast between those two parts of my life, the two things that probably play the biggest roles in my life, and how today, they differed from each other so drastically. It's amazing how quickly a bad day can turn good when presented with some big smiles, the beauty of a garden, and the love and hard work of a family. Tuesday's playlist: 1. Christina Aguiliera - Back to Basics 2. Johnny Cash - My Mother's Hymn Book |
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| Video Podcast #1: Check 1, 2; Check 1, 2 August 12, 2006 Saturday 10:15 PM It's been awhile since I created a podcast. This new computer I have continually blows my mind. In the frame of the laptop monitor, there's a built-in pin-sized iSight webcam. I was messing around in some programs the last few days, and realized that in this little camera there's also a mic that captures audio. I may just have to add some vocals to some of the music I've been working on. Anyway, I have a program called iMovie which is an easy way to edit movies. I didn't realize until today that I can record video into iMovie using my built in cam. So tonight I created a quick little 25 second video podcast to figure this out and get back on the ball with the podcast thing. To see the podcast, click on the above link or go to my Media/Podcast page to view it from there. If you don't have QuickTime and can't view it from my site, you should be able see it here, at my first upload to YouTube. Let me know what you think! |
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| Family Night August 10, 2006 Thursday 9:29 PM photo date 8/5/06  In my previous post, I wrote about sometimes having a lack of inspiration for this site and what it takes to get over that. My friend Phillip left me this comment: "Do what I do, just post a picture and no words from time to time. Or a short nothing. Or nothing." For as simple as that may sound, it hit me like a ton of bricks. So often, I approach these pages with this immense self-placed obligation to myself or the people who read this. But I guess at times, a picture is worth a thousand words and sometimes all we need. Or all we choose to share. The above image was shot at Lambeau Field for the annualGreen Bay Packers Family Night scrimmage. Only the Packers can have 62,000 fans sell out a scrimmage game where the Pack is playing against themselves! A great time was had by all, and most importantly, the kids and my parents had a great time. Thanks Phillip! |
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August 8, 2006 Thursday 10:32 PM sketch date 9/5/89 In my previous post, I raised the question to myself, why do I do this? Why do I do this blog thing? And tonight, as I sit here feeling uninspired, the question poses itself once again. The thing is, it's not like I don't have anything to write about. I had a great weekend with friends and family, and that was my initial idea for a post. But for some reason, I'm just not motivated to write about that. When I first started this blog, over three years ago (wow!), it wasn't as much a daily journal as it was a collection of essays and ideas about certain topics. Eventually, it became a daily log of the going-ons of my day-to-day life. There are times though, even if it's the simplest of things, that I feel overwhelmed to adequately capture all the things that I've done on a given day, weekend, trip, vacation, etc. If I wanted to do justice to the day-to-day, I'd be writing in this far more often than I have been lately. But at times, I feel like a slave to this thing, which is something I've never wanted it to become. Sometimes a blank post stares me down as I question to myself, how can I possibly capture everything I want to say in mere words -- without spending four hours a night doing it?? And as I search the blogosphere, I notice many of my favorite reads are dealing with the same lack of inspiration, while many other have downright quit or not updated in months. At times, I think these last days of summer garner more attention than a daily journal, as we all try to cram in all of the things on our to-do list that was intended for Memorial Day through Labor Day. It's good to know I'm not the only one. And don't fear. I'm not going anywhere. Sometimes I just need to work through this writer's block and realize what my initial intentions for this thing were. Maybe it's time to get back to basics a little bit more -- pick a topic and write about that. Who know? That's all for now. Tuesday's playlist: 1. Madonna - The Immaculate Collection 2. Michael Buble - It's Time 3. Michael Jackson - The Ultimate Collection, discs 1-4 |
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 WorldwideAugust 3, 2006 Thursday 10:32 PM sketch date 12/18/90 Why do we do this? By "we" I mean us bloggers. What drives us to not so much write, but to write and share our lives with the worldwide web? From eight grade through some time in my early 20s, I always kept a written journal. I have notebooks full of them. To be honest, I don't know if I could even bare to read through them anymore. Someday, I suppose, I'll get nostalgic and maybe want to look back, but it's never really been about that for me. It's more about taking note of the present -- stopping and evaluating life as I know it at this exact moment. If anything, it's what helps me sort out things, make sense of life. Somewhere along the way though, I lost touch with keeping the daily log. It was about eight years or so between my last handwritten journal and my first online one. That period of time between the mid- and late 90s seems a bit transitional when I think about it -- not just for me personally, but for our society at large. That was right before the internet hit big. But who would have thought it would have evolved into what it is today -- and so quickly? I can't even fathom what it will turn into in the next five years. As it evolves to suit the needs of society better, it's actually helped me stay in touch or get back in touch with friends via email, chatting, blogging, and now the MySpace phenomena. One of my best friends moved out to Arizona last year. On occasion, we'll do a videochat IM session. We'll set a time to chat, crack open a few beers, both put on the same music, and just chat the night away, getting slightly drunk. We call it our virtual pub. To me, it's as close to hanging out in a bar with him as we're going to get. Even better than the real thing? Not quite, but almost. What it's done for me is allow us to stay part of each other's life, despite the distance, actually become closer friends. It's as if he never left. Even at work, I'm able to email my sister or a few of my friends all day long. It's quicker than a phone call, but we stay in touch a lot easier. Sice we got email at the office back in the 90s (you know, I really don't remember when we first got email), I keep in contact with my sister all the time. But I guess I'm getting off the original scope of this post. My intention was to talk about blogging and bloggers. It's interesting to me all of the wonderful people out there that I've met, at least virtually, through my blog. I've never really understood the full appeal of it, even though I've been a part of it for over three years. But I do know that being a blogger vs. just reading them has made me really appreciate the bloggers out there. I think we all understand that need to not only journal our lives, but to share it with the world at large. My take on it is that by having it online, it allows me to touch other people and to share my experiences in this world, which really aren't all that different from anybody else. There's a huge sense of community in the blog world, too, and I think at the very least, we all share that one component that makes us want to put it "out there" to be part of something a little bit bigger than ourselves. And to me, having people from literally all around the world read about my normal daily life and find some interest in it on a very human level blows my mind. It makes me feel like I'm part of the world which really isn't that big after all. The interactive element that blogs allow with the whole commenting thing really creates a wonderful dialogue which lends itself to commentary, criticism, advice, respect, and friendship. It's a powerful thing. I haven't even touched on the fact that thanks to blogging, people are writing again... So why we do this? I think I just answered my own question. Why do you do it? I want each of you bloggers to comment on this one! Thursday's playlist: 1. Dixie Chicks - Taking The Long Way 2. George Michael - Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 3. Imogean Heap - Speak for Yourself P.S. Be sure to check out the July archives. When one door opens..... |
