10-11-18
I’m hollowed out. Like an old friend died, lost at sea. Finished the Travis McGee series by John D MacDonald last night. I’ve been living in Travis’ world for two years, slowly enjoying the adventure. I’ve never connected with a character like this before– it’s a goddamn bum out.

Would’ve liked one or two or twenty-one more novels, but JDM wrapped it up pretty well considering he didn’t know he’d be dead two years later. I hope the legend of book number twenty-two, Black, is true but I don’t think MacDonald finished it.

I fell asleep sad but satisfied. The great adventure is over, but it ended exactly how I want to remember McGee– on a leisure cruise aboard The Busted Flush, drink in hand, with a carefree woman.

10-12-18
Ryan and the boys came down from Utah to visit. We had dinner at mom’s and looked through family scrapbooks. There were tons of terrible hairstyles and bad clothes but the memory under mylar that won the night was a work of art Ryan made in first grade.

It’s a drawing of himself with (near as we can tell) what’s supposed to be a baseball bat in his hand. But the “bat” is between his legs and sticking straight out so it looks more like a huge boner. It felt good to laugh hard enough to hurt my face.

10-13-18
Raining all day again– love it. Editing video 3 of 4 in the Inktober series and my give-a-shit is starting to wane.

10-16-18
I think about Travis and Meyer and JDM. I think about Johnny Carson, Burt Reynolds and Robert Mitchum. I think about my Dad and Dale. The 1960s and 70s. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows calls this feeling, Anemoia: Nostalgia for a time you’ve never known.

10-19-18
Really can’t muster a shit to give about anything today. Inexplicable melancholy is an odd ghost.

7-26-18
Yesterday was Zora’s 90-day review. She got the job. Everybody in the office signed the awkward welcome card and there was cake in the break room.

8-11-18
Finally got the GD lease signed for the new place on Wednesday– took forever. Thanks to Maria’s Squirrel Power we were able to get the house we wanted even though it seemed like the owner was trying NOT to rent it and the property management company were inept bumblers at times.

It’s in a great location and has a bunch of stuff we were looking for: no stairs, no carpet, no giant west-facing windows, 3 bedrooms, 2 car garage, and a yard for Z.

For the first time in our lives, we hired a moving company. Hell yes! Triple High-five! We’re still moving all the small and/or breakable stuff, but I ain’t humping that king bed or heavy-ass solid wood and leather sectional down the stairs. Praise Jesus! Two years ago when we moved to an upstairs condo unit, (also in August) I swore I wouldn’t carry the ball-breaker shit back down the stairs. The next day, I set money aside for movers when we were ready to go.

We’re super stoked. Moving house in August in Phoenix eats ass pies but we’re excited to be in the new place next weekend.

8-16-18
Got the keys to the new place and started moving some small stuff this afternoon. Air conditioner is able to keep it at 78 until noonish, and then it loses the battle with 107 degrees and 40% humidity outside. When we dropped off the last load of the day around 5:00, it was 83 degrees in the house.

8-23-18
It’s happening again. Summer in Phoenix and the Air Conditioner shits the bed. In the rental house before last, this clam bake bullshit happened in July. The hottest it got in the house back then was 93˚ I think. We’re currently sitting and sweating at 92– one degree from the record.

When the HVAC guys came out today I thought all would be well. The first seven days were only low-level misery because the A/C unit could keep it from going higher than 83 degrees. But while trying to fix the problem, they made it worse. Never thought I’d be wishing for the 83˚ of yesterday.

Fuck this whole city. It’s a hell hole and we gotta move.

8-24-18
Moving house also means moving and rehanging the current 67 piece framed art and photos collection– it’ll take few days. It’s always a pain in the ass, but worth it once it’s done. There’s a lot of math and measuring involved and it’s hard to concentrate when it’s 93˚ in here. Spent the morning filling out the 6 page Move-In Inspection sheet for the new house– total bullshit.

A/C guys just got here with the new part and I’m hopeful but leery.

Last night it was 93˚ in the house. I fell asleep for an hour or so and woke up in a sweaty small panic. Is Maria okay? Is Zora gonna die? Holy shit. Around 1:30 we went out to the living room and opened the front door and the sliding glass trying to get some air movement. Still hideous, but better and we were able to sleep a little on the couch.

They’ve been here almost an hour and it isn’t working– I dunno, seems like it’s taking too long…
AND NOW I’VE JUST BEEN TOLD IT’S STILL BROKEN AND THEY HAVE TO COME BACK TOMORROW! FUCKING FANTASTIC.

8-25-18
The A/C guys are back for the fourth time to take another shot. Yesterday we reached a new record, 95 degrees. Please, Universe, let this work.

UPDATE: Woohoo! It’s cooling down! Who would’ve thought 85˚ would feel so good?!

8-26-18
We cleaned the old house for five hours, looked for a chair at Modern On Melrose and then had over-priced mediocre tacos with super slow service downtown.

6-24-18
The Super Trumper next to me blabs idiocy at his buddy while I wait for coffee. He’s regurgitating the shit the TV News Shouters told him last night. It’s odd because the guy seems like a regular person, but he’s trying to explain (loudly to everyone in here) just how great of a dude ol’ Donald J Dipshit is.

If you want to talk policy, go for it. At least that would seem somewhat reasonable, but just saying he’s “great” over and over only proves your own buffoonery. Well, that and makes you sound a little like Tony The Tiger.

6-27-18
Get ready to thrash with the monster mash and tell your street team to put up a ton of flyers ‘cause The Beast is gonna attempt a front side, back side, flim-flam to fakie 720 off a 4 foot cul-de-sac launch ramp. [Image for this process video]

6-30-18

7-4-18
The dark ages got even darker the night Helena Ramsdóttir was born under the final Wolf Moon. The revered queen of seven kingdoms, she never took a king– but was known to have pillaged more than her fair share of Norwegian wood. [Image for this process video]

6-5-18
Sure is a witch load of witch bands on Youtube: Stone Witch, Mountain Witch, Witchhelm, Earth Witch, Purple Hill Witch, Devil’s Witches, Acid Witch, Witchthroat Serpent, All Them Witches, Navajo Witch, Witchcraft, just plain Witch…

And my favorite Witch Band of all– Cybernetic Witch Cult.

Stone Witch is awesome and Earth Witch is pretty cool even though some of their songs sound like a rip from The Sword. Mountain Witch has some good riffs, Witchhelm is nice and creepy and the purple one has a wicked-bad album cover. Devil’s Witches is the photo-witch and All Them has some good records, but… I’m suddenly all witched out. [Image from THIS VIDEO]

6-6-18
Holy Hitchhiker! Keep walkin’ if Bad Betty offers you a ride on her two-wheeled death machine. Hell or High Water are the only two places she goes and the outcome is always the same.

6-8-18
On looking for a new house: The condo we’re in now is like living in the lava tube of an active volcano– hot and dark. This whole metro area is one giant Old Testament Hellscape.

We gotta find a new place because Zora, huge windows that face west, stairs, one-car garage, and carpet, carpet, carpet.

6-20-18
Get thee hence, Satan! And shove that fiddle up your ass ‘cause Johnny wants a golden Stratocaster with a whammy bar in this true story from the Old Testament. [Image from THIS VIDEO]

6-4-18
Six weeks ago, I was almost thrown in jail.

After days of hardly any sleep, I had Zora out on a walk and I really needed her to pee because we were going out to dinner for few hours. After walking around for ten minutes, she finally squats and begins her business.

From a parked car just behind us an unattended little girl starts walking toward us saying, “Can I pet your dog?” Over and over. I held up my hand and said, “Ah, ah, stop” to the young menace. Unfazed by a strange dog and even stranger man, she kept coming. Of course Z looked back, lost focus and didn’t pee.

Holy shit, I’ve never been so close to punching a seven year old in the face.

For the last year or so, we’ve been talking about the idea of possibly maybe starting to think about adopting another dog. Translation: Maria being unsure, but open to the idea and me freaking out and closing all doors. But the last couple months I’d been thinking about it a lot and what it came down to was fear.

Afraid I couldn’t love another dog, afraid of the responsibility, and maybe the dumbest was a weird fear of feeling like I wasn’t being loyal to Jack in some way. All this coupled with the yes-no-taffy-pull of emotional ambivalence, 15 years of memories, and the responsibility of adopting again.

It’ll be four years in October and I still haven’t been able to write about Jack.

Her name is Zora. Like a lady Zorro but spelled with only one R because in Spanish zorra means “slut or vixen.” Plus, it’s more exotic which matches her looks. She’s not your standard pretty, she has a more unusual beauty. She’s a Stumpy Tail Australian Cattle Dog mix from the big west-side Phoenix dog pound– a.k.a. The Saddest Place on Earth. Doggy Jail.

She loves people, other dogs are hit and miss. She only needed four days to understand peeing outside, three nights to sleep in her bed all night, and she’s very prey driven. She’s getting a little stir crazy in our 2 bed condo, but we’re looking for a new place with a yard. She’s a challenging little sweetheart. Here we go on a new adventure with another hairy family member.

*Of course I’m joking about punching the kid, don’t be ridiculous.

5-10-18
Posted page 24 pencils for Fuel on Patreon. Page work takes too damn long. If I want to do comic stories after this, I gotta use a way faster style. Super loose.

5-30-18
Drawing for the Gang War video. Holy shark balls, check out this gang of make-believe badasses! Dude, get the hell out of the way ‘cause they’re headed downtown for the big rumble tonight. Every psycho, shitbox and hard-look SOB in the city is gonna be there to do battle…

But don’t call the cops, this ain’t your typical gang war. It’s a brutal fashion show contest to see who has the coolest club name and jacket patch.

6-2-18
No time to draw for a couple weeks– still working on Sketchbook Time Machine. Building it for months now. Made the logos, website, set up email addresses, created social profiles, new Youtube channel, Mailchimp for the monthly newsletter sign up, etc… to infinity. A dozen new tasks pop up every day.

Haven’t drawn any new pages for Fuel either, which means nothing for Patreon. I put the payments from my MASSIVE 3 patrons on hold until I have time to switch the main focus of my page from comics to The Time Machine.

It’s SBTM out the ass right now but finally carved out the time to make a new sketchbook vid. (Gang War, previous page) Goal for down the road is to put out one vid and one written post a week. Gotta get all the time-sucks and brain blocks out of my workflow before I can produce that much stuff.

Tons more shit to do but this project is gonna be the long haul that I won’t get sick of– hell, I’ve been doing this stuff for 21 years so far and it’s still interesting and fun.