Exercising Obsessed Mom Can't Handle The Truth

One of my Facebook "friends" started posting her daily workout status.  She established earlier on that she was going to challenge herself to do some workout every day for 30 days in a row.  The entire month of November.  I followed these post and noticed there were some who would comment the expected comments, "way to go", "keep it up", "whew, you are making me tired"...all well deserved, but no one was giving her the kind of comments that might inspire her to push harder, like: "is that all you go?", "hmm, only 10 miles", "come on get back in the gym and off FB!"

There did come a day when she posted she was not able to workout due to some conflict.   And still no real comments to motivate her.  This post got me to thinking, what was the intent behind her post?  Was it to keep herself on track.  Was it to publicly "brag" or "show off" (felt that was unlikely).  Was it hoped to receive some accountability, as in her friends would keep her on track if she were to expose her success and failures and when she was not able to motivate herself get some motivation from her friends.   I took her intent to to be the latter and since no one else was taking up the call to action I felt I needed to.

Having been a workout obsessed individual in my youth, I understood the value of knowing there was someone at the gym expecting you to be there.  You relied on them and they relied on you.  If you were ever to not show up you'd catch hell and equally you'd give hell.   During the workout if you were showing signs of weakness or a desire to "puss" out you expected your workout buddy to push you that extra bit.

So with this level of accountability in mind I proceeded to call her out on her moment of weakness.  Well guess I misunderstood her objective.  From her response it seemed to me that she took it more personally as she attempted to make excuses and justifications for her missed day.  I kind of expected her to just do what a guy would do, "yea I'm a big puss, but I'll show you next time asshole!"   Then her other friends, all girls, were all like, "it's okay", "you're trying really hard", "I'm sure you deserved a day off"...yadayada.

REALLY!!!  Jeez..  Just goes to show you there is a huge difference in guys and girls.

Men Would Shave If Women Stopped Shaving

When you work from home, which typically means you don't have many social interactions, it is easy to let some of your normal daily personal up keep and hygiene practices slide.  So just about every week is some form of No Shave with no excuse other than being lazy.

 I'm sure this Movember or No Shave November thing is not popular with the ladies, in general.  Most women don't really care for facial hair.  It just makes most guys look sloppy and aged.  For the younger males, who are just getting there first few whiskers, they mostly look like they have dirt on their face.  My red headed, 18 year old son, for example, has a spotty, thin hint of facial hair and really just looks like he has red clay stains on his face (since we live in the red clay state that is highly probable).

I'm sure this whole thing of not shaving in November to raise awareness for prostate and testicular cancers, both strictly male issues, was a response to the wear pink to raise awareness for breast cancer.  The wear pink thing some how successfully infiltrated great male bastions of maleness like football and NASCAR, and men didn't like it.  In football it has trickled all the way down to the pee-wee level of football.  Little boys wearing pink socks to play football.  Kids so young they won't understand the thrill of a boob grope for another 8-10 years.  How could this of happened?

One thing for sure, the No Shave November will come to a screeching halt if women start setting their collective razors aside and let the forest of hair take over their legs, pits and nether regions.  Maybe guys need to just adopt a color for the cause.  How about some shade of green, the typical color a guy turns when your nuts have been kicked or your prostate squeezed.

Myself Getting The Best Of Me, Where Was I

 I've got multiple balls in the air right now and not really in the mood to wow you with my stinging wit and deep insights.  So enjoy these couple of pages from my sketch pad.

Who am I kidding?  I'm the only one reading this.  I don't get the impression, hell evidence, that anyone else is reading my blog.  It is like what I do most of the time when I'm by myself...I talk and carry on elaborate conversations...just with me.  That's what this blog has become, just more of me talking to myself.  I see so many other blogs out there that have

engaged followers.   One's that comment and add to the blogger's dialog.  A lot of the comments that have been posted on my blog are posted by me.

So I guess if I don't want to talk to myself or if myself doesn't want to hear from me, it is up to me to Shut the Fuck UP!!!!
Myself starts whispering in the back of my head, "then just shut up."
"Okay, Okay...I hear you loud and clear.  It's not like I have nothing to do!", responds Me.
Myself barks back, "THEN STOP TYPING!!  JUST STOP!"
"It's like I can't.  I have to respond, I can't let Myself have the last word.", says Me
"Idiot!", retorts Myself, "Your just a sad little idiot."
"Well Fuck you too, you self absorbed, control freak!!", Me shouts as he clicks save and publishes the blog post.

Where the hell was I during all this?

Evolution of a Greeting Card - Buy Christmas Cards Now

Above from left to right is the progression of the birth of a greeting card.  It started with a simple request for a card to provide congratulations to someone who has their wedding schedule for New Year's Eve.  So a rough sketch of an idea was made.  Essentially this is just getting the visual in my head to the paper to see how it looks.  I like the concept so I roughed up a sketch in non-photo blue to establish placement and scale.  I did a couple of these before settling on this one.  Then I ink over the rough with a dip pen and India ink.  This gets scanned in, cleaned up and color and dialog elements were added in Photoshop to create the final image.  You can buy this greeting card at One Guy Drawing Cards.

Don't forget to check out the Christmas cards.  Click on the tab at the top of the blog to see the whole collection.  

The 2013 Halloween Costume

Halloween - Time to Cobble Together a Costume

Every year I do the same thing.  I wait to the last minute to put together a costume.  Interesting enough though I usually wind up winning the contest or being recognized as the creepiest, scary guy on the block.  I'm doing the same thing today.  My mind keeps coming up with a little twist here, an idea there, and tweak it again.  I've got 4 or 5 hours to prepare.

I want some beer right now also.  Guess I'll be making a run to the liquor store.  I better do that before I get into costume.  It just dawned on me though I'll have to be in costume to get my son from practice tonight.  Boy, he's gonna love that.....HA HA HA HA HAHHHHHHAAAAAA.

Here's your sketch pad page for the day: