Thank you to our troops!

Kings Ice Cream - complete

K is done! Palette knife. I like this one.

Today's Gazette

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

Looks like a beautiful weekend ahead.

Kings in progress

A little further along now. Still a bit to do. This one looks better in person, and the palette knife is fun, as always. Next up is "M" for Munson Street, and "G" for Gilligans. They're sketched in. Kinda wiped out tonight, so calling it quits for now.

Missouri

"Take all of your so called problems, better put 'em in quotations."

Perfect lyric to address what's happened in MO and how natural disasters (and man-made ones as well) can help you put things into perspective in a hurry. Those people got hammered by that tornado. I don't think I've ever seen one so big or one that has caused so much wreckage.

Kings Ice Cream- in progress

Very rough block in. Windows are all wrong at bottom. Don't take them literally. It was almost midnight and I had a knife in my hand. This one will be all palette knife.

Only five more to do to have the alphabet completed. Hopefully I'll be nearly done by the end of the month. Then I can spend time doing "extra" ones for either the solo show or the other shows this summer. I still have to liquin most of them and put them in frames and wire them. Still quite a bit of work ahead of me.

But summer is on its way. Summer, and races, and traveling (a little) and hopefully gobs and gobs of F-U-N. I'm going to have it if it kills me!

Illinois Avenue, finished.

Guess we all have to have something to believe in.

Plein Air

This was painted on Surf Avenue and Pennsylvania Ave today. Much more challenging to paint in the open air, but it was enjoyable. Got another one mostly done but then got poured on. Had to grab the painting and palette and run for the car. I'll have to finish that one a little later. The review of the paintings is on Sunday at Camp Rehoboth from 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.

Monkeywrench

This is one of those "good for running, good for venting, good for head-banging" kind of songs. My favorite part is right in the middle, where he starts with "temper....temper"

one last thing before I quit


I never wanted any more than I could fit into my head

I still remember every single word you said

and all the shit that somehow came along with it

still there's one thing that comforts me

since I was always caged and now I'm free

Illinois Avenue in progress.

Pink Shoes

I bought a pair of hot pink running shoes. I'll have to take a picture of them, because they are truly obnoxious. I didn't buy them because they were obnoxious however, I bought them because they are lightweight. I ran in them today and they were dreamy. But I have to admit, I did keep looking at my feet. I'll have to be careful with colors on the rest of my body, because it could get pretty garish.

Oh yeah....and....

Simply to avoid redundancy, I will resist the temptation to post Green Day's "American Idiot" again. This time in honor of Arnold Schwarzenegger (wow, no idea if that's spelled right). Yet another politician (wonder which "side" is winning) who is a SCHMUCK cheater/liar/phony/coward. Oooh, there's so many!

Sunday's Post Secret Fave

Sometimes it's all that's missing....and sometimes you think it's missing, then you get it, and realize that wasn't it at all.

Back to the assembly line

Okay, so this is Lewes Beach. Now that I"m looking at the photo, I see some things that need to be corrected. So...I'll call it close, but not quite.

And this is Ristorante Zebra. Pretty much done, but I can see a few things that may need tweaking. I'm getting close to having the alphabet done, not too many letters left. I'll be ready for a no-painting zone when the summer is over.



News

I am a news watcher. Not crazy with it, but I like to be informed. So I'll watch in the morning, read the paper (a pleasure that will one day disappear) and peruse the internet as well. When I go on vacation, I disconnect. I might catch the random news clip in a restaurant or bar, but all-in-all I avoid reality. When I went to Florida a few weeks ago, that happened. The weird thing is that when I came back, I wasn't ready to go back to the news....at least on the television. Some of my newspapers piled up too. There has been a certain reluctance to step back into reality. I've chosen to do other things in the morning, in my conscious decision to avoid the mind-numbing reality that we're lambasted with on a daily basis. I guess if it wasn't "bad" news, it wouldn't be all that interesting to people. The good news is always saved for the last five minutes....and they usually say something like, "and we'll leave you with this feel-good segment, good night." Gee, thanks. That makes up for the oil spills and the political bi-partisan bullshit and the war casualities and budget nightmares. That little squirrel on the waterskis made me forget it all.

The Osama Bin Laden murder is a perfect example. While I do think he was an evil man (though I'm sure in his mind, he felt he was following his personal beliefs, as most psychopaths do) I definitely had some mixed feelings about the celebrations in the streets. My first thought was "man...now they're really going to go apeshit on us." Haley shared this same sentiment this morning. Then I heard it from someone who is about to go to Afhanistan to serve. He is now more worried than he was before. As Americans, we could certainly take some tips on how to demonstrate some class from the Japanese. Or the Swiss. We can have a quiet pride and feel that justice was served without resorting to animal-like behavior.

So anyway, that's my soap box for the day. And in honor of all the bullshit that's going on in the world, here's a replay of the best song to sum it up. I think this time I'll dedicate it to Boehner. And I pronounce it "boner."

Almost there

Umbrella Shack 2011, in progress. It's nearly done. Just a few tweaks here and there. Have to put it aside for a couple of days so they pop out at me better. I feel like all I've been doing is painting and running.

Sydney

Okay, so he's not your typical rock god, but I love his voice and love this song. And I love new discoveries!

Moving along

Bombay Hook - framed and ready to go.

Tweaking, refining, tweaking. Attacking the lower roof and building next. That's driving me nuts. Way off.

If you can say this, you're doing something. :)

A bit of history yesterday.

Thanks to all of our military, out there every day, in places far from home, doing the unimaginable. Osama Bin Laden has been killed. Now if only that was enough to end terrorism. Still, a victory and an end to a chapter.

Mayday!

A little more done on the Lewes Beach painting. Still playing with the sky...and everything else, really. Plan on bringing that blue more into the center and fading off to the left. In progress.

Wilmington Avenue, complete. Very simple, (looking, anyway) very minimal. Very done.

Just something fun. Sketched with the residents at Brandywine Assisted Living.

Fun to just draw once in a while.

And this is a shot from the 1/2 marathon on Sunday. Placed first in my age group with 1:48. Not too shabby. Stupid grin on my face.