Lord of the Video

MONKEY UPDATE!

ITEM! THE MARKET FALLS AS THE ACID RISES!
I've been off Prilosec for a week now, give or take a bit. I feel like someone's been dancing on the tip of my sternum. It is unpleasant. I'll be going back on it soon, but I ran out and need to get to Wal-Mart. Yay. One of the many things we'll be picking up when we finally breakdown and go. I hate giving them money. So very much.

ITEM! COMICS KEEP ROLLING!
Every day has been a new test for continuing the comic I've got going on above. I draw one every weekday, which means that even though it posts thrice a week, I'm actually drawing two extra. If I count right, that means that I've got enough to finish the month. Of course, that's just a guess. I'd have to "look" to know for sure. The thing is, every day, as I sit down to draw the comic, I wonder, "What the heck can I actually do more?" I can already tell that some are not as successful as others, but I'm enjoying testing the boundaries of a comic that has such odd rules for storytelling. I do not use words for dialogue. I do not use people. I use background sparingly. But, anything else goes. So long as it can happen to a blob creature.

ITEM! MYTHIC PROPORTIONS AND SUCH!
I finished writing a myth today. It was a short, simple one, but it's kind of the basis for the world in the idea that was once the comic I was thinking about doing some time back. Woohoo for useless progress!

ITEM! HEROES STILL ROCKS!
It does. Really.

Pass the Turkey

Well, I passed my Praxis II tests. All three of them. Miracle of miracles, I say. Taking three tests in a day was a train wreck waiting to happen, but somehow I managed to keep everything on track. That means that I'm one step closer to actually doing something productive.

Woohoo.

No, really. I am excited. I'm just a little fried about the whole thing. The stress is crazy and...oh crap. I should've called...whoever it is that I was supposed to call. Actually, she was supposed to call me (that's what they said on Friday when I left a message) but I didn't call back to make sure. Great. One more thing.

Anyway, the tests are out of the way and that's spectacular. My mom's trying to get me to take another set of tests for some other area, but I really think that'd be a waste of money. I mean, I did well in some of my other courses, but I only really studied Art.

At least for now, though, I can rest with the bit of assurance that I'm at least good for teaching art. Now to 1) get into the program and 2) get a job.

No big deal.

Praxis Makes Perfect

I took my Praxis I test today. Well, yesterday, really. I mean it's 45 minutes past Wednesday, now, but I haven't slept yet, so I'm a little fuzzy on how to count my relative day. Not that it matters how I count it. (So, instead I'll go to sleep and write the rest later) I feel good about the test, in general. I don't like that I know the results for 2 out of the 3 test sections and not the third. I think I could deal better if I knew nothing. Instead, I've got the majority of the picture, but not the full thing.

Whining aside, I did well on the two sections I've seen the results from. I did well above the requirement in reading and math. The first was expected (not only do I generally test well, but reading comprehension has always been a favorite test subject of mine) but the second was a surprise. More so, when you consider that I actually scored higher on the math section than the reading section. It was a point difference, but still...I hate math! How does this happen? Was I just warming up through the reading section or did my brain decide to screw with me in the middle of the single most important test I've taken in the last half decade? I suppose there's also the possibility that the math section was just ridiculously easy. Whatever the reason, I'm just glad that if there's any section I have left, it's the writing section. That doesn't mean that I'm not worried about it, but I wasn't worried about it going in, which is important. I worried about the math section for the last couple weeks. Let it be writing now. Actually, I feel good about my essay, not a bad bit of writing for the time I was given, but the editing section has me worried. I can edit well enough just reading someone else's writing, but the multiple choice thing was kind of overwhelming.

With that out of the way (hopefully), I just need to get the Praxis II done (another writing section, a multiple choice knowledge section that has me peeing my pants, and a section that requires me to take four pictures of my work to submit for criticism...which suddenly makes me regret my focus on cartooning) and somehow manage to get accepted into the Non-Traditional Licensure Program (henceforth referred to as the NTLP).

After that, I'll part the Red Sea, walk on water and achieve cold fusion in my bathtub.

The Ship Being Jumped: A Work in Progress

Today is my last day in the library.

That's one of those sentences that proves, rather conclusively, that I'll never be a professional writer. I mean, in conveying a rather profound and life-changing event, I managed to suck all the drama out of it and leave you with the emotional equivalent of a Denny's waitress delivering hash browns. The fact is, that this is a bit scary. I'm leaping into the unknown blindly. But, if there's a time to go, this is certainly it.

Since Chuck is my hero, I've decided to follow him into teaching.

Ok, maybe Chuck had nothing to do with it, but he is a heck of a nice guy. And taller than I remember. Strange. Anyway, it's been one of those things that I've wanted to do for some time, in a private-to-myself-and-lovely-wife sense, but something that was out of reach by circumstances. The thing is, now, I can get and the getting is good. I plan to get my feet wet doing some substitute teaching and, simultaneously, looking for a throw-away job to keep the cash coming until the alternative licensure program kicks up in the summer. Then, God willing, I'll score a sweet job teaching art at some school within driving distance of my residence.

Short driving distance. I don't want to spend the whole day in the car, thanks.

At present, though, I don't know who will have jobs open in the area. That's scary. That either means that a job needs to be created, someone needs to move, or someone needs to take a stroll through the pearly gates.

Side note: please don't kill anyone just so I can get a job. I know how it might seem like you're doing me a favor, but I've seen enough Law & Order to know you wouldn't be. Thanks.

Powerless

synchronicity

Main Entry:
syn·chro·nic·i·ty
Pronunciation:
\ˌsiŋ-krə-ˈni-sə-tē, ˌsin-\
Function:
noun
Inflected Form(s):
plural syn·chro·nic·i·ties
Date:
circa 1889

1 : the quality or fact of being synchronous 2 : the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung

It's funny. Well, really it's irritating to the point that I just want to punch someone, but that would be funny. Not for me, because I'd probably get beaten up, but funny for someone.

Anyway, having chased that rabbit, let's get back to the blog at hand.

So, the Heroes Volume 2 finale, titles "Powerless" was on last night. I know this in an academic sense. There is evidence it happened. I can cite sources and, were I inclined, give a close approximation of the plot. I cannot, however, give a first-hand account. Last night was the second night I stayed at my parents' because the power company was supposed to switch off the power to my house and connect some new stuff so that the old crappy stuff can go away.
I say "supposed to" because they didn't. Actually, today, the chances of it happening were, in their minds, slim. That was just information I didn't have. What they did today was send a woman with a spyglass-like measuring tool and a stake to mark where a new pole will go.

In two weeks.



Or whenever they get to it.

Beyond that, there's still no word on exactly how soon the new wire will be coming in along with all the switching off and on of power. April, I'm thinking. And what really bothers me is that there's nothing I can do but yell at people who 1) have no control over the situation and 2) aren't responsible for the mess, anyway.

Well, that, and I can watch Heroes....finally...

Alive and Awake

It's rather disconcerting. This morning, when I woke up....I woke up. I've been more awake today than I've been in a while. I didn't get more sleep. I didn't eat better. I don't know what the difference was, but I was awake. Here's the run-down of my early morning...

6:00 - My alarm goes off. It's set to radio and, unfortunately, that means that sometimes I don't get good enough reception to wake me up.

6:10 - The wind shifts (or something) and suddenly the radio gets enough signal to wake me up. I hop out of bed and make Aaron a bottle, put the dogs out, change his diaper and begin feeding him. During this time, I continue a project I'd been working on for my Dad.

7:10 - Aaron's finished his bottle and drifted off. I've successfully convinced him to stay asleep (for some reason, if I set him down, it's a lot of work to make sure he doesn't jump up awake when he should be sleeping). I give the cat food and fill the dog bowl before hopping into the shower. I'm aware that I'm running 10 minutes behind and need to make up a lot of time.

7:25 - I'm out of the shower and dressed. I'm also quite happy about it because I managed to get out of the shower at about the same time as mornings I am not behind. This puts me back on schedule. I put a pop-tart in the toaster and refill the empty "gravity pack" from the unopened variety pack box. I comb my hair, deodorize and do the last few getting ready things.

7:43 - I'm sitting in the car, looking at the clock. I've kissed my wife goodbye, grabbed my pop-tart and a can of Mt. Dew Game Fuel, run out to the car, run back inside to grab a card I'm sending to my brother and I'm still five minutes AHEAD now.

I still have no idea what I could've possibly done different to make up 15 minutes of time this morning. I was afraid, for a while, that I'd forgotten something, but I'm fully dressed, so that isn't it. I even had time to finish my pop-tart IN THE CAR parked on the upper lot. I didn't have to walk (or run) up the ridiculously steep hill. I just strolled right on in.

Crazy.

In other news, I've been working on characters for My Friend Sylar. I'm good with Sylar and Mohinder, but Peter's face isn't doing if for me yet. I don't know why I'm bothering to do this ahead of time. It's not like they'll be in more than a couple strips each before I move on from it.

Get Out of My Head!

Some people just don't take kindly to telepaths...

Of course, I'm referring to last night's episode of Heroes. I'm really enjoying the new season. I was a little disappointed by how short last night's episode seemed (I was spoiled by the longer premiere, I suppose), but if I'm so into it that I didn't expect it to end already that must be a good thing.

I am, in no small way, intrigued by the new big bad guy of the season. Mostly because I don't have any idea who it could be. A character we haven't been introduced to yet? Possibly. Based on some spoilers I read on line (which are hardly 100% reliable, but pointed at least to things), I had a theory on who it was (a new character, but one we met before he offed Nakamura). That theory, based on some things from the newest episode, lies splattered on the pavement beside Kaito.

In other news, I inadvertently sent an email about chapel to the chaplain instead of to my mother. Fortunately, it makes absolutely no sense at all out of context. Anyway, I wasn't (even in context) saying something bad about it, just that I was surprised by what wasn't happening. Long story.

Don't Forget to Set Your Alarm!

This is a friendly reminder for Chaos J. Cricket.

HEROES IS ON TONIGHT! DON'T FALL ASLEEP!!!!

Ok. So I've watched the Heroes premiere no less than thrice in the past week and, this morning, I watched The Office premiere for the second time. I feel good about all that. I'd probably feel better about The Office if I hadn't slept through my alarm for half an hour, causing me to watch the show into my "get ready for work time" (the "feed Aaron time" and "watch tv time" in the morning are one and the same...if I'm late to one, I'm late to the other). Still, funny episode. I'm glad I'm into that show.

I'm hoping that today will pick up. So far, it's been pretty crappy. Locked myself out of the house and had to wake up Andria by yelling through the window. Hopefully she was able to get back to sleep, but that doesn't usually happen when I yell through the window. At least, it didn't the one other time I did.

I'm working on a comic. Not an ongoing series like Vapor Lock, but something that I'll probably do a couple one-offs for. The working title is "My Friend Sylar", so I'm sure you can guess what it's going to relate to. It'll have little to do with the source material, except for characters, but I thought of a couple things that should make it fun for a couple comics. The thing is, a couple characters, the title character for one, are pretty much one-joke characters. So, it could be the next Garfield.

Also, today is my brother's birthday. If you happen to see him, unlikely, wish him a happy one.

9

Aaron is 9 months old today. That's extremely cool. The little guy is all over the place, which is fun to watch. He's gotten to be a little daredevil, or as much as one can be when they can't walk. Of course, that may just be a means-to-an-end from his love of all things tech. He loves cell phones and remotes and gadgets. He seems to think that the proper way to interface with them is orally, which is in error, but he'll catch on eventually.

He has yet to fit the computer in his mouth, for which I am grateful.

My boss mentioned that Aaron has now been out as long as he was in, which is approximately true. Perhaps it is because I'm not a terribly sunshiny person, that brought to mind that it's also been only slightly longer than Aaron's 9 months that my grandfather passed away. I wish I'd known him better. I can't help but think that we could've impacted each other in beneficial ways that I'll never know now. I miss him, as I have for years.

I guess that's the way it has to be when you don't live near family and you lack the ability to pop over and visit whenever.

I still wish Aaron had met him.

Many (un)Happy Returns

Against my better judgment, I went back to the neighbors' house. Apparently, I don't learn. This time was less embarrassing, but still unsatisfying. The first time, we were trying to unload a stray dog on them. Instead, we ended up keeping the dog. He's cute enough. This time, I was after the flour container we loaned them a couple weeks back (they'd come asking for a little flour just after we'd returned from our Anniversary trip and the house was a wreck, so...we let them borrow the whole thing). Shouldn't have wasted the time. Apparently, they tried washing it in the dishwasher and melted it. For this to have happened, they would have had to have been unaware that the dishwasher uses very hot water and that thin plastic containers need to be put on the top rack. I knew this. I don't even have a dishwasher. I AM the dishwasher.

Except when Andria is.

Anyway, so now we have to find a new one. It's too bad, because it was rather handy and they don't have that set at Wal-Mart anymore.

Man, that sucks.

Mike Wieringo died yesterday. He's been one of my favorite artists since his work on Spider-Man back in the late '90s. I got as many of his Robin back issues as I could and tried to get my hands on anything he drew. I've been following him on his blog, and I'm pretty stunned.

He was one of the best.

Vacation Particles

Death Drive

I find, as I age, that I'm less and less capable of staying up past the grandfatherly hour of 11pm (or even up to it at times). This is probably due, in no small part, to the fact that I've been getting less sleep since Aaron was born. You'd think that, having a baby, this would be expected. You'd be right, but wrong in assuming that he was the cause of it. In fact, I can find no particular reason why I've been missing sleep of late and it's somewhat alarming. Of course, he was at fault the night before we left for Vegas, so that made driving to Amarillo (our first stop) tricky. However, there were far less occurrences throughout the trip of the dreaded asleep with eyes open condition that I've experienced in the past. Far less. That, however, didn't make the couple that did happen any more comforting.

More alarming, however, was when my car unexpectedly overheated at Cuervo, NM. I hadn't noticed the temperature gauge spiking, so I was surprised as I pulled into the gas station for a refill to see the water and coolant my car so desperately needed gushing onto the pavement. The day before our return trip ('cause I put everything off to the last minute) I replaced the thermostat with the help of her cousin. That is to say, I watched as he did the real work.

I did burn my thumb, though.

Vegas, baby! VEGAS!

Suffice to say, Vegas has earned every last bit of it's reputation. Andria and I lost a combined total of $9 (unless you count the $10 she was up on the slots at one point) and that even includes her $5 bingo game (her grandmother's choice). I got to play Empire Strikes Back on the slots at the Stratosphere, which was cool, though not being able to go up to the top of the tower because we were 3 minutes late to the ticket counter (we'd passed it before, but the shrouded kiosks blocked our view of it as we rushed to the elevator at the end of an extremely long walkway) because nobody at the elevator up knew where we'd get tickets.

Morons.

Andria's family was great, as usual. We had a few minor comfort issues (apparently, most houses are not built to sleep an entire familial group with ease), but that was hardly a bother. It was nice eating at Jack-in-the-Box, too. We need one of those around here. They have a bacon variant on almost all their items.

Including their shakes!

Ok, not really the shakes.

The two things that did bother me were that, first, my brother-in-law's girlfriend stated that she would in no way take $1 million dollars from Donald Trump, were he to offer it, merely because she didn't like him, and second that he referred to the Bush divorce while speaking of his personal feelings about George W. Honestly, I can let the second slide. I mean, when you watch almost no news, sometimes it's hard to remember where you saw what headline and something from The Globe might sneak in. It's really the first that blew my mind. If Osama bin Laden himself offered me $1 million, no strings attached, I'd be running to the bank. Mind you, I'd turn it down in a heartbeat if even someone generally considered to be a saint offered it with the stipulation that I do something I would feel to be wrong.

Well, maybe two heartbeats...I got bills, man...

The Devil be my Guide

I love technology. I do. Anything that can remove some of the tedium from life and free up some time to do something preferable is a good thing in my book. Unfortunately, anything new can cause problems. If the technology is new, it often has glitches. If the user is new, well, I'm sure we've all seen the effects of inexperience before, even when the user is quicker on the uptake than the standard.

That said, our trip was guided less by a printed map from Yahoo! along with ye olde Rand-McNally, and more by my father's Palm with a GPS....er...doohickey (totally technical). Most of the time, it was great. However, when Andria and I decided at the last minute to take a side trip up to Las Vegas, NM, things got a little weird. Our little detour looked innocent enough, at first. I mean, you could see the road on the map, which seemed like a good sign, so I wasn't too worried when it turned out to be a windy two lane road with no shoulder. Indeed, I wasn't even bothered when we entered a small town either called Villanueva or El Cerrito (Yahoo maps has it listed as both in the "hybrid" view). I even tried to stay optimistic when we turned onto a dirt road, though as the rocks grew larger and the hills and valleys steeper I found that to be a bit more difficult. Then, we hit a gate. The road went through private property and had been locked off.

Huh?

After a moment or two of consideration, we headed back until we saw a guy in a truck coming from a side road. He seemed rather eager to help, probably because we were the first people he'd seen all day, and gave us new directions. It turns out the road DID at one time go off in our previous direction, but then they closed that road off in favor of a newer version of the same road. So, we headed off in the direction he pointed and the road continued with it's rocks the size of a jet ski. This was no longer new to us, so we weren't concerned until we saw "The Hill". I'd been warned about the hill by the friendly rancher, but he said it was nothing we couldn't handle, so long as we took it slow. He failed to mention that it was a gravelly mess, at a 45 degree angle and that the road was no wider than our car as it wound down the side of a mountain with a 100+ foot drop where the shoulder would be.

So, yeah, that sucked.

Then, it turns out that if we'd just set the preferences to "real road" or "don't kill me, please" we might've taken an actual highway. Silly technology...

Ready to Save the World

Well, it's Thursday, so that means it's time for me to reiterate my love for Heroes!

What? Well, of course I know it was on Monday! Yes, I watched it then! Tuesday was no good for me, that's why! Wednesday? I had no power Wednesday!

Anyway, it was a good thing the power went out on Tuesday and not Monday just before Heroes, because I surely would've thrown a fit. A fit in the dark, but a fit nonetheless. It wasn't an episode to be missed. In an uncharacteristically helpful move, I'm going to not spoil the episode for those who've recorded it and couldn't find an hour to watch it in, yet. Still, it set the stage for a great season finale (along with the final build-up to it). I think I'll try to do some Heroes drawings and post them here. You know...right after I get some work done on that webpage for my uncle.

He only asked me to do it back in February...

No, I haven't been slacking! You know I had that logo thing to do! ...Yeah, I could've worked on it whilst waiting for word on revisions to come back... Shut up!

...Ok, here's the thing. I've forgotten whatever else I was going to say. Probably wasn't that important, but still...it's been a couple days and I wanted to fill the space talking about stuff. Stuff I don't remember, now. So...I think I'll leave.

Bye.

Oh, wait...er...nevermind.

Anxiety...ATTACK!

I've been having a bit of anxiety where the site is concerned. Obviously, my level of involvement here over the last year has been less than...much. I've had numerous false starts on comics and I've even planned a redesign on the site that didn't happen. That last one is partially my fault and partially the fault of the people who make the irrational policies on our email at work. It's ok to keep a viewed email forever (so long as you don't exceed your inbox capacity), but unread emails have a shelf-life of 30 days, no more. The sketched version disappeared (I emailed it to myself so I could work on it at home), so I have nothing to go off of and I don't have any ideas for what to do with it.

Then there's the new comic idea...which is an older comic idea that's jumped back to the front. I have it more fleshed out than I did in the past, which is good...helps make comicking easier. Unfortunately, every time I start to draw, I...well, I don't. It has been suggested that my passion for drawing has been replaced by my passion for fatherhood, which in and of itself is not a bad thing (I do want to be a good dad), but since drawing was my outlet for frustration and creative impulse...well, not having that may end up being difficult on me later. I don't know how this works.

And there you have it. I'm freaking out because I'm not drawing, but I'm not drawing because, other than in the theoretical sense, I don't care to. I mean, even in times when Aaron isn't around and I might normally draw, I don't. What's THAT all about? Hopefully, this will resolve itself. I'll discover that mostly my inability to make myself draw was a byproduct of sleep-deprivation or something. But if it doesn't, that may mean fatherhood has changed me to an extent I wasn't prepared for, and that scares me.

Who am I, now?

The Geek vs. The Tight-wad

As I grow older and more encumbered with responsibility (wife, first, then child), I am becoming increasingly paranoid about the state of my finances. It's not like I'm more broke now than I was before. I've got at least the second highest paying job I've held in my life and the least amount of bills (it helps living in a house owned by family that doesn't charge you rent). Still, I get in a panic often about whether or not we have enough cash reserves to handle whatever major purchase may be lurking beyond sight, it's dagger-like claws set to rend the soft leathered flesh of my wallet. You know, car troubles and that sort. However, it is also note-worthy that I am a huge geek. There have been times when walking through the mall, I'll swing by the toy store, for no real purpose than to occupy time, and see something like a giant Lego set for building a large TIE Fighter or the Death Star or the Super Star Destroyer Executor, and I'll think to myself, "...muuuuuuust...haaaaaaaaaave..." much like the undead yearn for the brains of the living. The thing is, dropping $80 or more on a Lego set when I haven't played with Legos in over a decade and a half seems a bit...unnecessary. My resistance for smaller purchases, though, is considerably less. Conceivably, I could nickel and dime myself to death far quicker than I could ever fall prey to some larger purchase of geeky-goodness.

This is where Andria comes in. She's supposed to be the voice of reason for me. When she's feeling the urge to go overboard, then it's my job. Usually she's pretty good at it. I mean, I didn't get the theater release versions of Star Wars on DVD until Christmas!!!

Anyway, last night, we were at Wal-Mart. We'd been out for a while already and it was high time we headed home, since we were out of formula in the diaper bag and Aaron was expressing a growing concern about where his next meal was coming from. Still, Andria was making a final selection on some purchase or other, and I'd already grabbed her movie that we'd come in to pick up (as a show of how much more I love her than my sanity, I bought her Grease on DVD for Christmas...unfortunately, the copy I'd gotten had a bad spot on it and some of the features didn't work...so we returned it and got this new copy), so I swung by the toy department to see if they'd gotten any other Star Wars Galactic Heroes toys that Aaron couldn't live without. They did not.

HOWEVER....they did have the entire run of Marvel Superhero Squad toys. Hoo boy. They seem to lack just a wee bit of the coolness of the Star Wars toys, but, well, that didn't stop me from being excited. I brought Andria over and showed her.

Then a strange thing happened. We walked out with half of the entire set.

There's only one X-Men duo and one Avengers duo that we didn't get (and also the Daredevil/Electra and Punisher/Ghost Rider sets). This leads me to ask one question.

WHAT HAPPENED? Where was the voice of reason? I figured we'd maybe buy two packs, not even three, but most likely only one! With Andria there, I wasn't prepared to let the tight-wad side put up resistance, so there wasn't any at all!

Oh well. The geeking of my son continues. [Insert Maniacal Super-villain Laughter}

Withdrawal

Ok. It's been nearly a week that I've been back at work now. Also, today, Andria finishes up her second week of classes. I think that, between the two of us, I am handling the separation from Aaron better. I mean, she's rearranged her classes so that she only has one day of stuff that causes her to be gone away from him when I'm not home.

Alright. Who am I kidding? I just don't have the options she does. Its not like I can somehow compress my work week into less days. Even if I stopped taking lunches, that'd only get me half a day more time at home. And it blows!

I still enjoy my job, don't get me wrong, but I've come to the realization that I now (more than ever) only have the patience for people who act like babies when they ARE ACTUALLY BABIES. But, aside from a certain coworker, everyone has been absolutely cool.

Just not as cool as Aaron.

You may note that the tags for this post are "Baby" and "Life". The two are really becoming indistinguishable, lately.

This Just In: Fred Gallagher is a Girl!

Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

So, after all this time, I've decided I'm ok with it. Aaron can stay in there. I rather like the way things are and having a baby around would change everything.

The problem with blogging reverse psychology about unborn children is that they don't usually get a reliable internet connection in the womb.

On a more serious note, I'm sure everyone and their dog out there is saying something about it (I know the news is), but I hope that if it comes to it, I can be the kind of dad James Kim went out being. I don't know how he lived, but I know how he died and if I were in a similar place, I want to die for my family. I'm sure he didn't plan for that to happen, it surely seems he didn't, but you've got to respect a guy who will risk death to save the ones they love. I'm sure his last hours were at least scary and it was probably more than unpleasant, but he manned up and did what needed to be done. There's no shame in that.

Loss

Yesterday, my grandfather passed away. That was pretty tough for a number of reasons, most of which you can probably guess. I wish I'd been able to be there and it's tough knowing that I can't be there for the funeral, either. Still, I have a lot of good memories of him and I feel a great deal more peace about everything than I expected. I'll miss my Grandpa Ray, and I'm sorry he didn't get to meet Aaron, but I'll still carry him with me.

Blues

Things have been a roller coaster over the last couple months with my grandpa. He's been in poor health for a couple years now, but things have taken a turn for the worse in the last little bit. They found cancer. They took most of it out, started him on chemo. Last week, he got pneumonia. He pulled through the surgery with the cancer, so maybe he can pull it off again and come through. I hope so. If any of you out there pray, I'd appreciate it if you'd say a couple in his favor. If you don't, I'd take it as a personal favor if you picked it up in the short-term, at least.

This is one of the things that's been keeping me from doing comics lately. The worrying has done a lot to keep me from being that creative. In fact, it's one of the few things that can distract me from thinking constantly about the baby. I hope my grandpa lives long enough to meet him.

In case you're wondering. This does have a lot to do with the ACS button in the links. It would seem that we're all driven to support the causes that affect us most directly.

They're in my car! They're eatin' my gearz!

Related to nothing else below, the lady (loose definition) that works nights here at the library is apparently an idiot. I could understand if she were just a drama queen, but it is becoming apparent that the drama is not out of desire, but out of incompetence.

At life.

Ok, so, I've been having car troubles. They started a couple weeks back with what seemed like an exhaust issue. Specifically, when we started the car, we could smell exhaust...IN the car. Since it wasn't a pressing issue while we were moving (and it's a real pain in the butt to get in to see "the guy"), I put off taking the car in to get it fixed. Well, it got worse, so I worked things out so that I could get the car down to the shop and "the guy" fixed it.

Took all of about 30 seconds.

Since I'd left early that morning, I had time before work to get the car back to my wife, so as to return our usual transportation schedule to normal, and went to work. The car drove beautifully all the way home, or at least as much as it ever had. A couple hours later, Andria calls me up and says that the car is riding at least as bad as before and probably worse. This was not encouraging. "The guy" did his 30 seconds of work for free, since it was just a bit of welding and no real effort on his part (plus...I've gone to him for exhaust issues for years since he's something of a magician...dude can take a look at your car and bend the exhaust pipe to a perfect fit WITHOUT measuring...but I digress), but that didn't make it any less frustrating. By lunch time, I'd worked it out so that we'd meet at the guy we take our car to for all its other issues, which it has had many of. Turned out that what seemed to be the issue was solved by putting more oil in the car, which it had been burning and left us in need of. It had not been long enough since our last oil change to be that out of oil.

The next day, no noise, but the car was starting to vibrate. Hard. By this time, I was beginning to think it was going to be expensive since in the first two tries, it had totalled just under $11 to get those problems fixed. So, Monday I called and got the car in to have it checked. Again.

Know what the problem was? A wiring issue with the fuel injector. That much made sense. I mean, if your fuel ain't getting into the engine properly because of bad wires...the car wouldn't run smoothly. But do you know what the issue was?

MICE!!

Mice had eaten the wires in the fuel injector! WHY ARE THERE FREAKING MICE IN MY FUEL INJECTOR?!?!??!

So, I've got those mice a special treat. A little D-Con should take their minds off of my wiring. And, also, off living....muahahahahahahahahahaha!!