Note to self: don't leave the living room blinds wide open if you plan on walking around the apartment nekkid.. especially if you hear people outside :(

I'll be a moth to your flame.

So utterly blissfully happy.

How privileged am I to have such amazing people in my life. You know who you are. The ones who care about me and my future, who uplift me and help me be better every day. You guys are everything.

Never before have I felt so satisfied, so completely cared for, so entirely loved.

Thank you..

It's my favorite time of the year. I live for the storms. Seeing even a glimpse of one is energizing. Feeling the rain on my face as the light illuminates the world is magic. It's even worth having to leave Castles and Coasters early because they shut down all the rides for the massive thunderstorm moving overhead..

"I've gone alone, took all my strength
I've made the change,
I won't see you tonight

So far away, I'm gone
Please don't follow me tonight
And while I'm gone, everything will be alright."

No matter how hard you push. No matter how much you try to drag me down. I won't stoop to your level. Because if I did, I would be compromising the very thing you love about me..

Horde quests are SO much more epic. The questline that takes you into Twilight Highlands includes this bit of dialog while you wait to board the zeppelin fleet... As an engineer, I had to giggle a bit :)

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Hobart Grapplehammer: Boarding the Spear of Durotar, are we? You are to be envied, Horde marine!

Hobart Grapplehammer: You are about to rip the horizon a new sky-hole aboard a sensational new era in aeronautical innovation.

Hobart Grapplehammer: It's been recklessly engineered with a merciless disregard for both budgetary concerns and those cumbersome, inefficient "laws of physics."

Assistant Greely: Not a penny was wasted on comfort or personal safety!

Hobart Grapplehammer: While you wait for its arrival, my assistant and I will momentarily demonstrate some of the features of this remarkable aircraft.

Hobart Grapplehammer: As you know, air weighs nothing. So to create a lighter-than-air vessel, we had to bend a few rules.

Assistant Greely: We bent the crap outta them!

Hobart Grapplehammer: The Spear of Durotar is filled to the bursting point with combustible, super-heated gas.

Hobart Grapplehammer: Bilgewater engineers have taken advantage of its inherent high-altitude instability and resultant low-cost.

Assistant Greely: We passed the savings on to us.

Hobart Grapplehammer: We've mitigated the explosive instability of the gas by putting it under IMMENSE pressure.

Hobart Grapplehammer: Doing so required the removal of a number of safety valves that kept erupting.

Assistant Greely: Ask yourself: what good is a "safety" valve if it keeps going off? That doesn't sound very safe to me.

Assistant Greely: Tell 'em about the engines, boss.

Hobart Grapplehammer: Oh my, yes. In order to maximize both range and payload, we've concocted an unorthodox blend of rocket fuels for the state-of-the-art engines.

Assistant Greely: We call it "Doom Juice."

Hobart Grapplehammer: It is so energy-dense as to combust at the slightest provocation.

Assistant Greely: Even verbal.

Hobart Grapplehammer: This stuff is so volatile, it probably shouldn't be moved. Much less... flown.

Assistant Greely: To ensure a crew response in case of a fire, fuel storage has been moved away from the crew quarters and placed beneath the passenger compartment.

Hobart Grapplehammer: Your course today will take you directly across the great sea.

Hobart Grapplehammer: An enormous, unforgiving expanse of pounding grey waves, freezing temperatures, and ravenous sea life.

Assistant Greely: In the unlikely event of a water "landing," please reach under your seat cusion where a cyanide capsule has been located for your convenience.

Hobart Grapplehammer: Trust me, friend, a rapid pill-induced death is far preferable to the long, agonizing process of hypothermia and subsequent dismemberment by sharks.

Assistant Greely: For those of you allergic to almonds, our cyanide capsules come in an assortment of other flavors.

Hobart Grapplehammer: Don't ask how we know what they taste like.

Assistant Greely: You'll also find a complimentary bag of peanuts.

Hobart Grapplehammer: Should your zeppelin be attacked en-route, panic is inadvisable.

Hobart Grapplehammer: Instead, look for a number of deck-mounted flak cannons positioned for just such an emergency.

Assistant Greely: Nothing keeps a fleet of combustible dirigibles safer than randomly flinging molten metal in every conceivable direction!

Hobart Grapplehammer: Greely, show them how the guns work.

Assistant Greely: With Pleasure!

Hobart Grapplehammer: Simply aim and pull the trigger. Or don't aim. I wash my hands of the whole thing.

Assistant Greely: I can hit my house from here!

((Greely proceeds to fire off a few shots.))

Hobart Grapplehammer: Greely, you're not randomly firing that thing into Bilgewater Port, are you?

Assistant Greely: No.

Assistant Greely: Maybe.

Assistant Greely: A little.

Hobart Grapplehammer: In the unlikely event that a catastrophic failure does not instantly kill everyone aboard...

Hobart Grapplehammer: ...a number of parachutes will appear along the railings.

Assistant Greely: We call them "Emergency Rampless Debarkation Devices."

Hobart Grapplehammer: Simply grab a nearby parachute to be vaulted clear of the burning zeppelin. Hopefully onto dry land.

Hobart Grapplehammer: Greely, would you like to demonstrate how our parachutes work?

Assistant Greely: Oh hells no! Those things are death-traps!

Hobart Grapplehammer: Very well then. I see that the Spear of Durotar has almost arrived.

Hobart Grapplehammer: Your safety and well-being are no longer any concern of mine.

Assistant Greely: From all of us at Bilgewater Harbor...

Hobart Grapplehammer & Assistant Greely: Have fun storming the Highlands!

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Cartoons vs. CGI: A dying art

I remember the day I heard that Disney fired all of their cartoonists and artists, saying that the future of Disney lay in CGI only. My heart utterly broke.

When I was seven, I mailed a few of my drawings to Disney. I received a letter back, which included my original letter with the section highlighted in which I told them my age (apparently they don't receive too many drawings from 7-year-olds). Their response said that they were impressed with my work, and when I was old enough, they wanted me to send in a professional portfolio and I'd have a job waiting for me. Now here I am, 18 years later, and the job I was promised is obsolete.

I've always had a fondness for the incredible clarity of expression capable with art, and in particular, cartoons. In  what takes paragraphs of text to explain, I can sum up in one facial expression of a drawn character. And one several-panel comic speaks volumes. Family and friends are often my inspiration; my dad used to do voices for characters he made up, and every year for Christmas, Father's Day, and his birthday, I would make him a cartoon based on his voices. The dry sarcasm and twisted dark humor made my gifts his favorite every year. And many friends and ex's over the years have been turned into their own characters, complete with their own comic and storyline.

Drawn characters afford a certain level of imagination in their portrayal; exaggerated expressions and movements that defy reality serve to enhance the storytelling and enrich the visual experience. Cartoons are a feast for the senses. Much of the detail in a cartoon is implied, such as a cat's fur being represented by a couple jagged lines on its forehead. Any additional detail is not only needless, but including it becomes a distraction from the far more important representation of the character's colorful personality. The richness of the character lies instead in the attention to other more subtle, but poignant, details: an exaggerated wink, a bounce in a step, a jaunted chin or slinky tail.

CGI, unfortunately, undercuts or completely misses many of the beautiful things about cartoons. When you spend so much time painting every hair, every line of physical detail, instead of a "character," you end up with exactly what you set out to make: an extremely lifelike representation. But the point of animated movies is to express characters and ideas that can't be found in life. Have you noticed how unmemorable characters from Disney movies are these days? They're dull and unexceptional. They're too lifelike. Kids don't care about how well you rendered every hair of fur on a cat, or the time it took to make the reflections in its eyes shine just right; they would rather see its personality sparkle instead. Sorry, CGI artists. You should leave the characters to cartoonists.

From the utter depths of despair, to the soaring skies of euphoria, we toss back and forth between the two on the stormy seas of life. Today, my heart found itself plunged entirely into both.

No words are eloquent enough, strong enough, to describe the pain I feel knowing that I have caused someone else to hurt. No apology could ever suffice.

Of the people in my life who have come and gone, the exceptional ones fall into two categories. The first type of people possess incredible potential for greatness, but squander it, their lives spiral downward while time and potential waste away slowly. The second type, however.. they fight on. These people capture what little spark of meaning they find in their dreary existence, and they fan that spark into a blaze... transforming their world, reaching new perspectives, spreading warmth and life with every endeavor, reaching higher with every breath. They transcend.

My life these days only has room for the people capable of enriching my world by sharing theirs.

This song has been, and always will be, yours.

I've reached toward the sky, I've said my goodbyes
My heart's always with you now

Time for me to fly.

Please, no more words

My stories are up on facebook. Please read!

There are a ton more photos that I want to share, but they were deemed unfit for facebook for one reason or another. I'll try to post a few here.

One of the places Lance and I stopped at on our way up the coast was a reconstructed 19th century schoolhouse. The woman working there, probably out of sheer boredom from lack of visitors, chatted with us like crazy, telling us stories and being utterly fascinated by the ones I told her. The schoolhouse had desks with books from the era on each.. and I spent at least half an hour poring over the fascinating texts. Here are just a few (please click to enlarge!)

Rules for teachers, 1872

Excerpts from a 1906 geography book regarding climate

Millions of Cats

"Forget about the reasons
and the treasons we are seeking
Forget about the notion
that our emotions can be swept away, kept at bay
Forget about being guilty, we are innocent instead
For soon we will all find our lives swept away."

I'm back from my Michigan trip. It was incredible.. truly one of the best trips I've had in a long time, and the company was great.

Most of my stories and experiences will be posted with the pictures on Facebook, so don't expect to see too many here. Sometime tomorrow hopefully I will get the highlights posted and shared.

Worst part of the trip: Meeting Lance's mom, finding out she's a very nice lady, and feeling a slight pang of guilt for the years of "your mom" jokes I've been telling Lance. :D

For the sacrifices made. For the pain endured. For the long nights spent caring for others, making their problems mine, listening, understanding. For the family I never had. For the family I long to find. For every time I was treated badly, and still faced the world tall and proud.

I'm doing it for all these reasons. I'm doing it for me.

I have been feeling so great for long enough.. apparently it was time for a little dose of reality.

Losing a friend always hurts; losing one over something like this.. is just crushing.

The funny thing about a support structure is that it needs to be leaned on in order for it to stay up. You remove what it supports.. and the rest just comes tumbling down.

I have no idea how it happened. I have fallen completely, utterly, madly in love with you..

What is it exactly that gives us the feeling of time slowing down or speeding up? Certainly time seems to pass more quickly when we're enjoying ourselves, but not always.

This past month has seemed like so much longer. My own world slowed down to a halt, for the first time in a while I may open my eyes and truly see. On bated breath I pause, the air around me utterly still, my mind transfixed by new sensations.

In what should have been a time of sorrow and mourning, I instead find myself smiling. Laughing. Entirely carefree.

My perspective regarding who I am and what I want out of the people around me has completely transformed. I had myself convinced that the bad comes with the good; that perhaps I deserved to be treated poorly because I am myself flawed.

But the feeling I have had spending the entire last month with people who encourage and uplift me.. it's breathtaking.

For so long I punished myself for my past. Put myself down. Suffered as penance for my crimes. It's so easy to believe the bad stuff; it's much harder to believe the good. It's also incredibly hard to take responsibility for your own life and actions. Giving excuses is easy: the hard part is facing the fact that you're on your own, and no one is going to save you. What you do with it is your choice and yours alone.

I've made it my goal to fill my life with only good from now on. I'm ready to truly live. And let time keep ticking on slowly; I'm savoring every second.

My apartment lease is up this month, and they wanted to jack up the price $50 a month on me.. But I talked them into letting me keep my old price AND getting $100 off my next month's rent. And my travel voucher from Colorado was approved for the full amount! I feel so rich right now.. It almost makes up for the insane amount of spending I will do this summer....

Only fools rush in