Well, it's not even Tuesday, but I was cleaning up more photos from Bali. This time, mountains...




( Mountains of Photos... )


Anyway. Yesterday was a great day. I knocked out five pages that have been giving me hell. Epiphany struck like lightning and now they are on paper. Their restless and vague imagination reigned in and defined. Ha ha!
More coffee. Less procrastination. Off I go!

I'll be concise as I can, since we have precious California growlers lovingly smuggled into Colorado that we must drink--but this FurtherConfusion was amazing. I have a lot of fond memories of the old hotel--it was one of my first convention experiences, back in the days I ran around as an attendee and didn't worry about artshows and dealer's tables. It was a familiar bastion of old friends and routine hallways, days spent passed out in the parking lot, nights spent sketching at the bar or playing backgammon, late-nights spent--well, I don't remember. FC also plays host to the few jager-induced blackouts I've experienced. ;]

However, it was time for FC to move and if you make a change, make sure it's for the better. The Fairmont is an amazing venue for the convention. Bitch about the price if you like--but it is five stars and shows it. Besides, think of all the money you save not taking a taxi every time you want to head out to eat somewhere! ;]
There are numerous restaurants, banks, a movie theater and sights to see within staggering distance of the hotel (plus other nearby hotels which are much cheaper, ya know.)

I think this year we were all still getting used to the hotel and the hotel was still getting used to us--but now we're no longer strangers and someday, hopefully, we'll be old friends...or bitter enemies with funny stories. ;]

The Nordguard Sneak Peek panel I ran went well, despite my having only about 3 days warning, switching rooms last minute, being opposite the fursuit parade and not actually being in the schedule. Still had a great turn-out and thanks to everyone who came and those we hijacked! ;]

I tried to get enough sleep every night, in a tactical and canon's blaring effort to keep away concrud. Infused with vitamin C, lousy with sleep, doused in Purell and with ludicrous amounts of vaccines (that's what going to Indonesia gets you!), I think I was fairly impervious to all but hangovers.
The dealer's room seemed to go by quicker than usual--but that could be the Scotch folks kept bringing by. I did miss Glen running the voice auction, no offense to the new guys. All the staff were great as usual!

Overall, it didn't feel much like FC's of old. At times, I forgot where I was or what con I was at (which might just be a symptom of doing too many.)

Despite (and because of !) it's new con-smell, it was a great weekend filled with old friends in a new setting. It was something different but the same, a new incarnation of the old. I'm already looking forward to next year!



Now, we're home again, rested and with a long road ahead of us. For once, that's actually metaphorical. This is the longest stretch we have between conventions. The next we're 100% sure on is AC in July. We've worked very hard the last few months to clear out any outstanding obligations and tie up loose ends. Finally, after a long while, we're free agents, deadly art ninjas with time on our side. It makes me giddy thinking about it. We have six solid months to devote straight into the Nordguard comic. When we get rolling on it, it's like a drug...Or a snowball that just gets bigger and faster as it gathers momentum...Or tunnel vision since I stop getting distracted by peripherals and fixate just on my work and that makes me so, so happy.

So, with an evil wringing of my hands, I grin and depart to lay siege to the fridge and it's innocent beer-filled towns-folk. And in the morning, I go into that bright land full of purpose and ambition, where my only care is to challenge myself. The reward is the fruits of my labor, sweet enough to put the Barbary lamb to shame.

(Yeah okay, I've already been to the fridge a few times tonight.)

We’re off to California soon, making the great westward pilgrimage like so many folks on my friend-list this weekend. San Jose and FurtherConfusion bound!





Aside from typical Dealer’s room activities (table #103), it looks like we’re going to be running a panel!
It will be covering the Nordguard comic: making it and general development, showing finished pages, techniques and procedures we’re using, storyline, and uh—period appropriate hats and so on. ;]

It’ll be Saturday, 1pm-2pm in the California Room. Don’t be shy! Come on over. :]

 
That aside, it’s time to return to the joy of hemorrhaging printers, razor-sharp matt board and the sleepless nights of pre-con-madness!

I suppose our time in Bali and the surrounding area is best broken into threes. To put it succinctly, ( we started on the beach... )

The holiday season found us traveling west into the bitter cold of high Utah hills, over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we went. It was a typical family gathering, with gifts exchanged in the soft glow of a plastic tree, bottles upon bottles of beer, wild turkey (the whiskey variety) to go after the other kind of wild turkey that better fills a plate. As traditional to the small town, Santa showed up to deliver good cheer and bags of peanuts, and was easily tempted to stick around for a shot or two of the ol' creature.

( Santa prefers whiskey to cookies and milk... )

Another year, another turning of the earth. A good time to wake up and greet the new year with a young heart, awash with awe and ready to take the world around in the brief glimpse I get. Vegas had a good lesson for the new year--Luck is really just a word for how you view and evaluate experience. I suspect, hidden in all things, (just like every dice roll in backgammon) there lies the perfect move for every chance roll of fate and it always leads you to the best results. Whether you win or loose in the end, it will definitely be a great game.




yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds
~ ee cummings

2009 leaves a bitter-sweet taste in my mouth. The year had it's highlights and lower-than-usual points. Bad things come in threes, then sixes, then cubed. This was a hard year to get through at times. However, I survived and I'm wiser for it.



Ask Me

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

~ by William Stafford

There was a lot of beautiful and brilliant happenings this year as well. Perfectly smooth spots in a broken road that made the journey worthwhile. Life would be so boring and our wills so weak did we not have hard times to sharpen our claws against. May every year bring a celebration and a challenge; here's to hoping I'll always have the fire to meet it.

The cold spell has finally passed through Colorado. Dry and bitterly frigid, it left me pining for the equator. When I had a spare moment, I started the long process of sifting through, sorting and processing the photos I took from my weeks in Bali in November. While I dread that I've still just brushed the surface, I have a few ready for public consumption. ;]

Midwest Furfest was really quite fantastic this year. Actually, I'd go so far as to say extraordinary! There were the usual kind of shenanigans--we left in the middle of Dealer's Room hours on Saturday to go ice skating for a few hours, fancy dinners with deep dish pizzas, many a mispronounced French dessert and a quite extraordinary! port, a good (and profitable!) poker game, unmarked liquor bottles, lots of cake, an epic quest for sushi, elevator parties and that Midwestern hospitality that makes MFF a convention I regularly recommend to people as a good first con.

After the convention, Ket and I headed northward to spend a couple days somewhere good, quiet, and where no one would think to look for us...Wisconsin fit the bill nicely. (Who really expects anyone to be in Wisconsin?)




( More Photos, Turkey Day, Foxes, etc )


A big thanks to friends, family, the friends who treat us like family and the family who--who knows why--love us like old friends.

It was a very full week and a half--in fact, it feels like double that. I can't wrap my head around the distance traveled and the events which all unfolded--but I've been having a hard time doing that lately. It's nice to once again be in a fixed location with another long stretch of pavement behind me. I am very glad to be home.

You never know where coyotes will wash up these days. I've spent the last three weeks in Asia.

A journey far east is begun by going west, some 9,000 miles west. We chased the sunset for hours as we traversed north to avoid storms in the Pacific. I watched from the plane's window as the coast of Alaska fell away and we crossed the Bering Sea, over the date line, down the coastline of Russia and into Tokyo. I spent just enough time in the Nerita Airport to use a Japanese space-toilet before getting on the next leg of the 36-hour travel day, south.



( We arrived in Singapore at midnight and... )


But where next?

Indonesia, a place I never thought I'd ever go. It had never crossed my mind as a destination, but epiphanies rarely get marked on a calendar, either.
In the last two weeks in Indonesia, I've seen beauty and I've witnessed atrocity.
I haven't yet sorted myself out--I woke up last night, confused and disoriented, not understanding how our bedroom had been transported to Asia or why it was so deathly silent outside, snow falling in sheets. I struggled into realization then returned to sleep, but my mind still turns and tries to place exactly where I am.

Eventually, I suppose the words will come together. The images will coalesce onto paper and like Odysseus, I'll be free of my tale after the telling. If nothing else, I will have many more photos to share soon as the time presents itself. ;]
I am glad to be home, even if greeted by snow. Most importantly, I'm back in the company of the better half of our dubious duo.


And where next week? East, but of a different variety--out towards Chicago for MidwestFurfest and Thanksgiving. A rolling coyote gathers no fleas.

I believe that every piece of artistic expression is a positive addition to the universe. Figuratively and literally, of course.

If there is something out there in the world that I hate or find distasteful, I recognize it as a symptom of society. Something culturally has triggered an artist to paint it, an author to write it, a musician to sing it. Society cultivated the seed and brought it to fruition and I am but a piece of that same puzzle, as much a part of the creation as the artist.

It is mankind’s creed to create, for better or for worse. Inspiration explodes like scattershot in random directions. Physical evolution comes with a lot of dead ends and the rewards of that trial and error are visible all around you. Cultural evolution comes with a lot of experimentation, which can end in brilliance or crucifixions, but is only recognizable in hindsight.

Unrelated to anything recent and nothing in specific, more as general observations of the world in which I live—I am fascinated with ‘the haters.’

By and large, I find myself unaffected by people’s opinions about what I do or who they think I am. In the last five years or so, I’ve learned best course of action for me is to Do Your Job Well and Step Away. It’s a Taoist tenant, which is easy to prescribe but hard to live by. However, the challenge itself is rewarding and I suspect that’s the point.

For the most part, I’m happy with the choices I make and I have few regrets. I really enjoy the work I do, my life and who I have to spend it with. While I’m still making plenty of mistakes and constantly struggle to remain balanced, I’ve grown up to be a calmer, happier person than I ever was in my irksome (often embarrassing) formative years. Life’s troubles and tribulations unfold themselves into opportunities and mistakes become great teachers.

But along those lines, I just have to stare in odd fascination at people who flail and scream and writhe all over themselves to spout how much they hate this, they hate that, and for such asinine and arbitrary reasons… It’s as though they haven’t realized that with a little effort, your life can be something you’re proud of and you don’t have to wallow in the shit you make. ;]

It is much easier to sink than swim, I suppose, and being negative will always earn attention from martyrs, but never respect from peers.

I suppose now in the modern era are we capable of actively finding what we hate and anonymously taking a stab at it. Most every ‘hater’ I’ve ever seen is a petulant teenager with so much lustful angst they find themselves pressed to the world’s greatest loudspeaker: the internet.

I remember what it was like being younger, thinking about no one had ever felt like this, no one could ever understand the problems I was burdened with, or the depths of my sorrow or the heights of my joy. I was so awesomely unique yet so painfully cliché…I’m really quite grateful I never had a wide audience for my adolescent idiocies. ;]


As an adult, your world gets bigger and you can only laugh at yourself or get angry when people laugh at you. Here’s to growing up!

I was shuffling through photos this morning in an effort to move the majority them to my backup drive (and in an additional effort to procrastinate) I started flipping through them. There was a couple places I never had the opportunity to write about in the oh-so-long ago, so I might as well now. (My tea's already cold anyhow, and who can be expected to work with cold tea?)
This particular place we passed through on the last leg of our three weeks in the Outback last October, after traveling thousands of kilometers toward the Red Center with family friends.



Deep in the middle of the middle of nowhere, somewhere in South Australia lies the town of Marree. Historically, intrepid people from Pakistan trekked across the Red Center, brought their camels and their desert know-how and they charted what would become the Ghan Railway. The Ghan still runs across Australia through some of the most desolate country the world knows.

Marree was founded by those same dauntless Pakistani in the shadow of a separate--and now very much--deceased fork of the Ghan. Like towns in the US separated from the interstate, Marree has withered and been ultimately forgotten. Like many towns in the Outback where water either never was, or is just a distant memory of better years, Marree has it's water brought in by truck every day and it's food flown in frozen.

The population is notably different than the other swarthy, ex-con Brits you find scattered around at various mining towns like White Cliff or Innamincka. There is a feeling in Marree, a strange kind of dehydrated desperation, most definitely a bad feeling. If it were not for having the only petrol for 500 kilometers, I'm not sure who would still come through this eerie place.

When we asked Harry if we'd be staying in Marree long, he cringed and said, "No and don't wander too far."


( So, we start to wander... )

The last few days found us under Arizona skies.
Of all the places I've traveled, I still firmly believe Arizona doth brandish the best of all sunsets.

( More Sunsets and Colorful Pixels )



Also, have a Jack-O-Cactus! Seasons greetings from the land of Valley Fever!

Well, I guess it's official-- Autumn is here. All around are yellow trees, blown bald by a blustery wind and in preparation for the forecast of colder weather on the way. Even right now, I can hear the tell-tale sound of crunchy leaves whipping over the pavement below. The clouds have rolled over and blocked out the summer's blue sky.

September closes like a good book I didn't dare to put down.

The last week was more like eight days packed into seven, or an elephant squeezed into a tube of toothpaste. My ability to compose metaphor and much of my memory seem a bit questionable, but beer bear with me!

For those unaware, the Great American Beerfest was last weekend here in Denver (unlimited 1,800 different beers from 580 different microbreweries across the country.)

Among the 50,000 attendees of the convention, about a tenth were friends of ours (my math may still be shell-shocked, so that number is subject to debate.) Either way, sleep was not an option with so many friends around. In the true words of Mr. Nelson and Mr. Haggard, I gotta get drunk, I just can’t stay sober; there’s a lot of good people in town.

It all started…last Monday, I think? Maybe the Saturday before? Anyway, there was definitely a robot with an afro at some point. And dangerous crumpets.

First and foremost, a certain family member came a long way to stay a short while. We had much in the way of celebration to make up for, a little loss to atone for and a whole lot in-between that could only be solved with liberal application of libations.

Let me bullet point, in the style of the times.
-Sunday: Something to leave your head spinning.
-Monday: Wine. Wine. More wine.
-Tuesday: Sleep off wine. Crawl out of bed into afternoon sushi happy hour. Generous amounts of free sake. Nap. More sake at closing-time happy hour.
-Wednesday: Worked! Well, sort of, until we went to get a drink.
-Thursday: the great Day of Three Dinners (and Beer.)
-Friday: Flying Dog Free Beer-And-Brats. Bottle o’ Scotch and bowties.
-Saturday: The Big Show, the the Great American Beerfest. Epic and full of especially tasty concoctions. Later, dinner for our party of 20+ in a private room at the Wynkoop. Drunken chorus of Happy Birthday©. Bar on the 27^th floor, then surprise cheesecake at home.
-Sunday: Communication fail. For Lunch: beer. For dinner: sake. For desert: sake. For the night cap: 5 hours of the Beatles Rock Band, mudslides and dawn.
-Monday: Airport and goodbyes. Impromptu Wyoming. De-tox.

As if there was ever such a thing as a perfect birthday present, I believe it was the company of close family, fantastic and true friends and a city alive with revelry to share with them. (Also, I did not get even a hint of a hangover all week.)

Finally, in the words of Mr. Nelson and Mr. Haggard: There’s a lot of doctors tell me that I’d better start slowing it down; But there’s more old drunks then there are old doctors; So I guess we’d better have another round!

I’ll drink to that!...Again!

This week as been a very fine week. Lots of little things and a few less-than-little things:


Monday, we took advantage of the Labor Day mattress sale extravaganzas and got a very nice new mattress. If one ever misses the joy of a car dealership, this should be the next thing you try!
A note about my old mattress--I asked my dad where it came from out of curiosity. He confessed he didn't know, only that my mom had taken the mattress from her dad shortly before my parents were married. So, this mattress "had a history" before I was born. Every one of it's spine mangling spirals of sharpened and coiled metal had it's own off-key operetta to sing.
I've never had a new mattress before. Short story: life changing? Yes. Impossible to get out of bed? Quite. Laptops? Bonus.
(I was sure to check that the old mattress was not stuffed with cash and crown jewels. No such luck!)

Wednesday, we went up to Evergreen and had dinner, beer and a very epically bad B-movie night with Natasha. (Never want to eat chicken again.)

Thursday, Ket ran into the room all a-squee after (inexplicably) finding a praying mantis in the house. I was surprised to realized she'd never actually seen one in the wild (a downside to growing up on in the UK). So we set the guy up in a terrarium with some store crickets and a some bugs we caught. He's been merrily munching his way through them. His name is (also inexplicably): "The Dark Machine."

Finished Season 3 of Dexter, Season 4 of Weeds. I shake my fist at the latter for it's cruel cliff-hangers.

Ket also got her DSi in the mail Thursday. Upon first opening it, I admit we both kind of stared at it like confused grandparents, long behind in the times. (The newest game system I own is a Playstation 1...and I more regularly play my NES.) But after a few minutes we figured out this new-fangled handheld technology and had it set up on the wifi.

Friday, we went to the Brew at the Zoo. It was by far the best beerfest I've been to. Essentially, all you can drink beer from 40 microbreweries, and all you can eat food from 20 or so local restaurants--in the zoo, after hours, with live music and surrounded by animals. I've never been so happy as drinking a pint next to an elephant.

Best quote of Friday night? A dude hanging over the rhino enclosure, saying, "Brew at the Zoo? What Could Go Wrong!"
We'd like it to be their slogan next year.

Work-front: I managed to find the right groove and I ploughed through a bunch of comic pages. Something finally clicked and I'm finding myself thinking about it all the time, excited to work on it, motivated to finish writing this silly journal update so I can get back to it. Ket's been in the same groove too, cleaning up and prepping the finished pages at almost the same rate I can draw them. The pages are taking longer than we'd predicted, but when it's something you enjoy, more's the pleasure in getting it done right.

Word of the Day today is inured. Huhm. ;]

Lastly, I guess the earth turned while I was sleeping. Yesterday, it was summer and today it is fall. The sky is grey and overcast, the air is cool and a faint drizzle hangs in the air if you look at it just right. I put on socks. Sure sign of change.

For the last several months or so, Kenket has been in the habit of sketching passerbys or "parked" dogs tied to trees or anything really that comes across her path while she waits in the vehicle and I run inside a store (usually the grocery.) When it's a dog, left by it's lonesome, she rolls the finished sketch she made into the dog's leash, anonymously, to be later found by the owner.

Unbeknownst to us at the time, one day she sketched someone's dog (a cute corgi) on the blank side of some directions I had printed. The directions lead to some distant local out of state, but they started just a few blocks away at, presumably, our address.

We arrived home this evening to find that someone had left a sketch of our house taped to the door.


Creepy? A little. Awesome? Much.

A thousand miles have come and gone below my feet. There, back and around again.

Home again, as I'm oft to write, though part of me feels this time I've got it all backwards. My heart tells me home lies behind, buried in the white dust and the shadow of the aspen giant.


( A Few Short Days )

i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers
are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

~ee cummings




And off we go in to the wild blue yonder, n'er to be seen again in the same river twice!
See you on the other side!

You know Ket needs coffee when she pours coffee beans into her coffee cup (and tries to drink them.)
And then she puts the grinder in the fridge.