Art? - One of my Sketches

For anyone up to date on my postings, I promised a photo of the sketch I charcoaled for my mom for Christmas this year. It is a hand made duplicate of a print from the wall in our hospital, as outlined in a previous post.

So here is the drawing. On the left is the photo of the print Nicole and I took back in early December. On the right is my copy, framed and just prior to my wrapping it up.



My mother cried. She honored me with the response "it's the best gift I ever received." I struggled to keep from crying myself. It made the entire effort very well worth it.

TPC

Rant - Nothing Substantial

So, it's 8:55 AM, Monday Dec 19th. The Tim's run hasn't returned yet. No coffee = zombie mode. Zombie mode = ramble online.

I have to bull through these next 3 days before I can get a little holiday rest. Gonna try and stay away from 'too much' beer this holiday, to avoid the 'need a vacation from my vacation' problem experienced after typical binge weekends. So, here I am in day 1 of 3. What to do, what to do. I could write about something new in my life I suppose.

What's new .. oh yes! I am no longer last place in the hockey pool! 13 of us, and I've slowly managed to move into 9th place. That's quite an accomplishment, as I have a lifetime record of being in last place in hockey pools -- except that one time when last place won a prize, then I was second-last place. I'm not making this up.

I have ALL my Christmas shopping done too. That's a huge relief. Waiting on two items to show up in the mail, and then I have to wrap everything before my girlfriend scours my basement looking for her gifts. Nicole loves surprises so much she can't actually wait until Christmas. :)

Coffee is here! Time to return to the land of the living.

Rant - General Update

Work is boring today, so here's some e-ramble.

Nicole and I: Doing exceptionally well. She truly makes my days easier to bear. Making her laugh has been an ever elusive joy for me, but lately I think I've tapped into her humor a little. I'm so proud of that I want to put it on my resume.

Zievo: Not much progress on my life long dream. The Pendulum prototype (project management and time tracking tool) is functional, and we've been using it at work for the last several weeks. It needs a few more features critical to it's success as a prototype (a roaming event system, and a graphical time editing interface), but we can't seem to find time to work on it. Christmas is going to slow progress as well, likely to a stop.

Comedy: Discovered Dane Cook recently (thx Nick). His Retaliation CD put laugh tears on my chin. 100-foot native Americans, that's what I'm talking about.

Christmas: Shopping: maybe 60% done. The hard one is my mom. She spotted a drawing on the hospital wall (when she was in for minor surgery) that she wanted me to draw her.
- Step 1: Acquire a photo of it (tip: walking around in a hospital taking photographs of wall drawings with a camera on a tripod can yield some very strange looks ... tripod was necessary because of the picture being behind glass, which would cause a nasty glare if flash was used, so we had to use a high ISO film with a long exposure time, and tripod was necessary to reduce blur).
- Step 2: Photoshop it and print to paper without skew (skew caused by my poor camera skills ... don't let my ramblings in step 1 fool you).
- Step 3: Acquire appropriate frame, sketching paper, and charcoal pencils. All completed so far.
- Step 4: Actually draw the thing. Wish me luck, I haven't sketched in about a decade. Maybe I'll post a pic once I get it done.

Nick comes home the 17th I think, and my last day of work is the 21st. At that point, all 3 siblings will be moved back into the parents house for the holidays (in my case 5 days). Our time will be spent laughing, giving gifts, consuming spirits and much of mom's cooking, and playing various games, mostly video (yearly tradition). Good times, good times.

So yeah. How are all ya'll doin?