I took this picture when I went up for an interview with Olan Mills Church division about a month or two ago. They offered me the job, but the hours kept changing every time I talked to them. At first, I would have had Sundays and Mondays off. Then that changed because I would be the “new guy” that I’d probably work most Mondays. Then it became “We can’t even really give you Sundays off”. Wait…
… that’s seven days a week traveling, staying in hotels and away from my family?
When I went for the interview for the position with Olan Mills, I stopped and took this picture because of the turkey vulture on the roof. It was one of those scenes that was pretty cool in person, but didn’t have the right atmosphere for the moment. I played with the image a little this morning and came up with this rendition of the scene. Enjoy.
Anyway, I am doing a second interview for a position I interviewed for this coming week sometime and hopefully can announce that here soon. 
Original Image.
I created this little scene using the iPad and the brushes app for iPad.
It was first a classic iPod that I loved for music and video. Then the iPod touch which integrated apps for almost everything. My laptop has been getting increasingly less used since I purchased an iPod touch. I check email on it, I play games and I even compose music on it and use it to make phone calls via skype. I still sit down at my computer every now and then to write an email or a post on my site, or even do graphic work with my wacom tablet. But going through my software that I use on a regular basis, I think I am done using a laptop PC for most everything else.
Let me share what I use my laptop for.
- Browsing the web. Simply searching for things, doing research, and writing posts and engaging with people and friends through online communities like facebook or twitter. The iPad definitely looks to be the better choice for this in the long run. I can use an app to engage different social tools like I do on my iPod touch. Now I can actually use these applications on a decent sized screen without having to sit down at a desk. Let’s face it, laptops were not designed for the lap. Maybe to burn your legs while you cradled the awkwardly tilted screen while the dog chews on the power cord?
- Managing web sites. Yes, most of my sites are now run on wordpress. It’s simple to use and easy to get it to do what you want. I even build other people sites using wordpress. A laptop has always been the best way to do this on the go. Now I occasionally use the wordpress app for ipod/iphone but I find that the mobile login plugin for my wordpress installations actually has a decent interface for doing about everything I need to do on a regular basis. In the future I think the iPad will do equally, or better than my ipod touch.
- Writing. Not just posting on websites. Occasionally I still open up OpenOffice and write something larger than just a single post. Resumes for example. But there are even apps for writing resumes now. Increasingly, I have found that sitting down to write something using my laptop is becoming more of a multi-tasking adventure and quite a distraction from actually writing. My antivirus needs updating. I just received an email or windows itself needs some kind of update. One of the greatest complaints about the iPad is that it doesn’t multi-task, but to me this is one of the reasons I am getting an iPad. I don’t want to have to babysit my laptop so I can settle down to write something. I might also mention that apps are better alternatives to over priced software as well. Apple has always had a better software pricing scheme.
- Graphics. I do a fair number of graphics. I design websites. I do occasional cartoons using my wacom. I put together marketing materials for others. In short, this is one area that I may miss a laptop… or would I? Macs have always been the choice for graphics professionals. I just never had the money to go that route and still get a laptop-type computer. Apple Macbooks are pretty expensive, but if I have something else to replace my laptop… maybe a Apple desktop would be a good choice now? Two apple products (iPad and Mac Desktop) instead of a laptop pc or macbook sounds like a great alternative anyway. I will be able to keep my desktop clear of unnecessary software because of my iPad, and since I am usually sitting down to do graphic work at home anyway, I can use my iPad to sketch out the idea if I get a brainstorm on the go. Even in the short term, I may buy a pc and just go with a version of Linux. Heck, I use gimp for graphics anyway, and WINE does a great job of porting windows applications to linux anyway.
I am sure I will find more reasons why I am most likely never going to buy another PC, but for now I think I better turn off my laptop. It’s getting a little hot.
Aidan had his 15 month checkup today. He got a few shots. My wife was berated by the doctor as Aidan didn’t fit their growth chart. He’s a bit small for his age and doesn’t weigh what they want him to weigh. Both Becca and I were small kids when we were little. It’s just our family. But apparently they think he isn’t fitting the growth chart for weight & that he’s too little and we must be starving him. Aidan eats pretty much from Sun-up to sun-down. Breakfast, milk, snacks, lunch, milk, snacks, dinner, more milk (maybe a juice or two) then more snacks. He could eat half a loaf of bread if I gave it to him one at a time. He has before. (I wasn’t trying to feed him half the loaf, but I absentmindedly just kept giving him pieces of bread and before I knew it half the loaf was gone. I cut him off after that.) But, he has a pretty fast metabolism for a little guy. Now, I will also say that he works a lot of it off through playing in his room too. He was early walking and early sitting up and rolling over when he was really young, so we decided early on that his room needed to be “romp ready” so he could play in there on his own.
After Becca got home from the doctor’s visit today with Aidan. I hunted down all the pictures of Aidan that I have on my computer. 886 images that show Aidan’s face. Shown Below.
Picasa has a nice little feature that allows you to categorize photos with faces so it found all the images of Aidan’s face and I went through and verified the ones the program had trouble with. I noticed that Picasa made all the images portrait shots of just his face for the categorization so I decided that I would try something else.
Picasa has a collage feature that allows you to effectively make digital double exposures. I decided that it might be fun to get an “average” of all the pictures of Aidan that I had on my computer. He’s grown a lot over the last year (he is after all 15 months old) and see what the “average Aidan” looked like. The final image originally was a little muted, so I used the “I’m feeling lucky” button to give the image more dynamic range. I thought it looked a little like a Rembrandt painting myself.
So take that, doctors who think Aidan has to measure up to some growth chart! He may not be average according to the chart, but he is average for himself. This makes him uniquely himself too.
Sorry for the lack of good updates to the blog as of late. It isn’t because I haven’t been busy. I’ve been working on a new website for my church and doing some more artistic type graphic work. We have a men’s retreat that will be taking place next month that is entitled “MANdate: 2010″ The little subtitle/tease for the retreat is “Are you ready for battle?” The graphic above is what I helped put together for the event. It is a collaborative effort between Pastor Erick and myself.
Rogin hurt himself somehow. I think it may have been when he was trying to jump up on the bed. It could have been that Aidan tried to run him over with his baby walker. It may have even been when he was playing with Dugal. I wish I knew. But here he is now, in his cast. No bones broken according to the x-rays that the vet took but the area around his ankle joint is inflamed. We are hoping that it is not a torn ligament. For the next two weeks he’s gonna be in a perpetual “time out” while he keeps the weight off of it and gets some good rest.
That’s probably the hardest thing for an active puppy to do. Stay quiet and lay around when he wants to be running and jumping. I may have to make him a lap dog during the next few weeks as I can’t bear to leave him in his kennel for such long periods of time.
Well, hopefully I’ll be able to get back to more dog drawings now that we have Rogin’s leg on the mend.
When I took the photograph for this digital, I used the flash and their eyes just shone really bright. I thought I’d leave it as in a sense it shows the wilder side of a dog. So when I painted this, I left it a bit loose and free flowing, more wild.
Becca has off today so I think she wants me off the computer.
He wasn’t really laughing. It was more of a yawn, but after I took the picture, it looked more like a laugh. It fits his personality so I went with it. Now what do dogs laugh about I wonder?
Rogin was trying to get the camera while I was taking this picture. But after messing with the photograph a little, I enjoyed the expression on his face and decided to go with it. I intentionally drew this one a little rough for the play on words with ruff. Not to be confused with buff. ”Rogin in the buff” is pretty much all the time. I mean other than fur, dogs don’t wear clothes unless you have a wife like mine around Halloween or something.
Yesterday, I had my cousin and her family over. I hadn’t seen her in probably 14 years or so. She has three kids now and her husband and has lost over one hundred pounds. It’s quite an accomplishment from the pictures she showed me. Anyway, I wanted to take out my dog Dugal before she got here, but I didn’t get the chance. Well, do you know how you know that you’ve been greeted by a cocker spaniel?
Yep. Pee. All over her pants down her leg. Dugal couldn’t just pee on a shoe, no… he had to jump and squirt at the same time. It takes talent to be a cocker spaniel.
” Hi, I know I haven’t seen you in fourteen years, so here let me let my dog pee on you.” All was good though. We laughed about it. Her kids played some Halo and we got a chance to talk a little while she held Aidan (who happened to have one of those mysterious poops that you can’t see from looking at his diaper and the whole while, I kept thinking “wow, he’s really gassy today!”)
