Snow Leopard :(

Well, here it is a month and a half since I installed Apples' new OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and man am I disappointed. It seemed good at first as it gave me back a good chunk of space on my hard-drive and sped up my start up and shut down speeds, but then the issues started. First my programs started to just shut down whenever I tried to open a file, save a file, import a file etc... sometimes more than 4 times in a row, sometimes only once. Now I've noticed that my battery life is not as extensive as it was a month ago, enough so that I can notice it being used up faster. Then there is the issue with my super-drive, it won't play burnt DVD's anymore, commercial DVD's work fine or burning to a DVD is fine but it won't play burnt ones. I am seriously considering backing up all my files and then doing a hard-drive wipe and reinstall of Leopard OS 10.5... wish I had waited to purchase this product for another 6 months or longer, just didn't expect this kind of crap from Apple.

Editorials

As I sit here writing this I am procrastinating from an editorial assignment . How ironic is it then that I write here instead. I am torn between topics that we have to choose from. The topic I wanted to do I have had to reevaluate, I suppose I could still use it, but I would now be looking at it from the other side of the fence. It would still be doable I suppose since it is a "do you" or "don't you" type assignment. I could even use the reasons for my change of heart in the editorial as well as a bit of "filler". Anyway that's enough about that, onwards and upwards eh...

So we've undertaken a really cool exercise in our illustration class, we're working on 30 weeks of illustration and so we have a new illustration due each week on top of our regular assignments. It's been a great break from the regular kinds of things we have been doing so far. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is an artist or aspires to be one. Take an hour a day or so (I usually do mine in about 4hrs) and just illustrate something, pick a topic and go nuts. It's very therapeutic and also very enlightening. You begin to see your style evolve. We do one a week but I would suggest trying to do one a day, and keep a weekly theme going or some such thing as that.
Anyway that's all I've got to say about that :)

Thanks for stopping by...

New Studies

September is almost over and College is in full swing again. The courses this year are very interesting. We've begun a series of weekly illustrations in my illustration class, based on themes that are drawn from a hat. Even though we have more hours of classes this year it seems less hectic and I wonder if that is a result of good time management or having more know how in the programs and ideas we use... possibly a combination of both. Anyway I'll leave you with my latest illustration for this week, enjoy :)

Family Travels

Woke up on Sunday feeling lazy so I opted to stay home while the rest of my family went to church. As the morning progressed, and I surfed wave after wave of the hallowed halls of the net, I decided it would be fun to take a road trip somewhere... anywhere. It didn't matter where, just go to the end of the driveway and pick a direction and go, so we did.

We packed ourselves a nice little picnic supper and headed out on our adventure. It was a really nice, and cheap, way to hang out with my family and do something together, my son and I play this game online that has a great deal of exploration in it so it was quite cool to actually do something similar in real life. 

The roads were nice and clear of traffic and the weather was beautiful. We ended up heading on a northeasterly path and stopped in Temagami, about 2hrs from our home. Beautiful little town, with nice little shops, and an old train station all painted up to the nines. We travelled a few minutes out of town and stopped at a road-side picnic spot on the lake to enjoy our supper. Afterward we just soaked in the sun and location for a little while and then headed home. 

If you've never done this kind of thing with your family, if you have one, I highly encourage it. Bring along a camera or even some drawing or painting supplies and take advantage of any nice/cool scenery you may encounter. It's a great way to get closer together and get out of the house and have a bit of exercise and adventure. 

It is done...

Well, that's it, it's out of my hands now and into the infamous hands of our Canadian Government...
What is he talking about you ask? I am talking about the mystical force we call Employment Insurance. We all apply when we need it and then wait anxiously for the letter in the mail letting us know if we qualify or not.
The process itself these days is akin to writing a personal thesis for a PHD.
The loopholes that are required to jump through in order to qualify would make any circus acrobat dizzy. But, who am I to complain, I need it right?
Unfortunately I am not a lotto 6/49 winner, nor am I independently wealthy, so in my pursuit of higher learning in College to achieve gainful employment as a Graphic Designer I must undergo these challenges in herculean fashion. Meanwhile the days tick by and the bank account gets ever closer to overdraft territory.
The number of people applying for EI these days is beginning to outnumber the population of some of the smaller countries in the World. In fact I'm sure we as a Country could employ at least half of these people to work in the Services Canada sector and help speed up the processes for those of us patiently waiting for our letters in the mail. While we are at it, we should petition Bell Canada to hire the other half of us on EI to work as Service people and eliminate the idiotic "Emily" system they have employed for the last few years... anyway, that's my 2-cents worth on the subject. I'm going to stop typing now and cross my fingers for the next couple of weeks, here's hoping :)

Time

I was a bit at a loss for this blogs title, but after thinking about it for a few minutes I "Time" came to mind. The reason it will do nicely is that I'm going to talk a bit about it :) 

Time can go fast, or it can go slow, but go it does. One minute you're watching your first born come into the world and the next seeing them turn 13. You're just getting married, then suddenly 14 wonderful years have passed. 


Time is an amazing thing. We can take it, give it, waste it, use it, but we can never get it back, once it's gone it's gone. This summer is no different, it has just flown by and we can't get any of it back. Weather wise it has been a terrible summer here in the North, more rain than sun, more cold than warm, not many nice weekends to have taken advantage of and now it's almost over. Only this week left and then my kids are back in school, a week after that then I start my second year of Graphic Design.


I think back a lot and wonder where the years have gone, how quickly they went and what could have been different, the reality is I wouldn't change a thing. 

A New Day

Well, here we are, day two of this new experience. I'm sure that as I get further into this thing called blogging, that I will have more to write about and more to show, but for now I guess I'll just have some rather simple posts. 

I've a busy day ahead, many errands to run and chores around the house to do. Some of those chores are what I call self-induced, work I've made for myself, others are wife-induced, work my lovely wife has provided for me... isn't she sweet.  So I'll leave you for now with this, and another image that I have shot from a few months ago... TTFN

Hello

Congratulations you found me!

However you found me, for whatever reason you are here, I thank you. I have done other "journal" type posts before but this is my first actual "blog" ever. I guess it's not much different then what other sites such as Myspace, or DeviantART provide in means of posting thoughts and ideas, but lets face it, this is Blogger! "The" place to blog on the net. So thanks again for tuning in and reading. I look forward to posting many more blogs and learning all there is to do on here.

See you next time :)