Well, it has been ages since I did an update on any of my various journals. I guess things have just been so busy that I really haven’t had the chance or I haven’t felt like it because I just want to sit around and do nothing for a change.
We’ve been really busy getting ready for my exit from the military. Mostly we’ve been trying to find a place to live in Scotland, so we’ve gone up several times and had a look at places we could rent. We found a really amazing place with views overlooking a beautiful river which has herons and various other birds hanging around. There are also nice mountains and there are woodlands all around in which red squirrels thrive, which is pretty rare these days. It is also in a really nice place for just generally getting around to other places. There are good transport links and the towns nearby are nice. We really want this place, but there are a bunch of other people interested in it so we’re having to fight over it. I hope everything turns out well, but I’ll let you know. We also found another place to the west which was really nice as well. Basically everything comes down to timing, as we have to move out of our current place the last week of this month. We need stuff to happen quick.
I took some pictures while we were up in Scotland. I didn’t put most of them up on my Flickr account, but I did add a few. I’ll stick them below. Hopefully I’ll be doing more updates soon but I hope everyone is doing well.
I thought I’d just do a quick update to tell you what I’ve been doing.
An interesting thing happened. Our comic website, HandRooster was linked to by Joystiq on their weekly webcomic wrapup poll. This caused a substantial rise in daily hits and visits this weekend, and various blogs and social websites have been linking to some of our comics. It is pretty exciting for us, regardless of some critics whining about one thing or another. We’re just going to keep doing comics and see where it takes us. If we disappear into nothingness, at least we’ve made something interesting and funny (at least I think so) and if we get recognized and it turns into something bigger, that is great too. I’m having a good time with it right now and I’m hopeful for the future of the comic.
I’m still doing a lot of backposts for corresponding comics on the Handrooster Blog and hopefully I’ll be all caught up soon. I’m hoping that some people will have at least some interest in what I have to say about these comics. If not, oh well. I enjoy doing it anyway. Until next time, here is me wishing you all the best.
I just wanted to do a quick update to let everyone know I’m still alive. I am. My finger is healing nicely and I’ll hopefully be back on the carving path before too long. For right now, I’ve just been playing a lot of Halo in preparation for a little tournament we’re having here this weekend. It should be fun. I’m also working on the comic at HandRooster and we’ve also introduced a HandRooster Blog. I’m still doing some backdated entries for old comics, but I’m also doing entries for each comic per weekday, so check it out if you feel like it. I’m hoping someone will. I hope everyone is doing well, and I wish you all the best.
Yesterday I was carving my sister’s wedding gift and I failed to put on my carving glove. I also did something very stupid and placed my hand in the front of the carving. I went over a slightly difficult section of wood and my tool slipped and sunk into the flesh and fingernail of my left index finger. It bit down to the bone and formed a flap, partly fingernail and partly flesh. A nice flow of blood started and I ended up getting some quick first aid. I then went to the hospital and got further treatment…mostly cleaning and bandaging. They used paper stitches because they said they couldn’t do much for the tips of fingers.
I’m fine now, and I’ve learned a valuable lesson about safety while carving. I don’t think you’ll find me without my glove anymore, and I’ll certainly be much more careful about my hand placement. I think the key is patience and focus when carving wood. I’m not an inherantly patient person so I think that this is a learning process for me.
I’ve been thinking a lot about some things that annoy me about working for people - at least these people. One of the most annoying things is knowing what needs to be done, prioritizing these things, and then having a “superior” who isn’t even aware of all of your projects come in and push their own priorities. Everyone seems to have a different set of priorities and each person wants their top priority to be your top priority. I know what needs to be done and I always have a plan in my mind for getting these things done in time. I’m guessing this is the same sort of thing which happens in the civilian sector, but it is a big reason why I’d like to work independently someday. There are many other things I dislike about being in the military (such as violence, disregard for other people and cultures and our interdependence with these people) much more than this sort of thing, but this is something that bothers me in the sort of day to day aspects of working in the military in general. The military (especially this branch) is like a failing business. Everything is done in ways that aren’t thought out by the people who really know, and people are treated like rusty old tools.
We’re still doing comics every weekday on HandRooster and I think we’re doing ok. We’re also toying with the idea of doing a sort of news/talk post associated with each comic, in a sort of Penny Arcade style. It would probably do me good to do that, honestly.
I’ve been involved recently with a lot of Halo 2. We sometimes hold Halo 2 festivals, which we call Halofest. I got that name from my friend Frank, but now I give them individual names. For example, the one this last Saturday was called Halofest 2007 - Tragic Ending and the one on the 26th of this month is called Halofest 2007 - Rite of Passage. We just tend to play a lot of different gametypes in the community center. We eat a lot of junk food and play all day. We had about 7 or 8 people show up this last time and we’re hoping to have more on the 26th. We’re all very excited about Halo 3 - if it ever comes out.
So I haven’t posted in a while because I’ve been waiting on a project. I’ve been working on my blog (via Wordpress) on my personal website. I decided to use my blog to post entries and sync them with LiveJournal, and I’ve just got that up and running. So now, I have a blog on my website without having to give up my livejournal, which is cool.
Not much going on. I’ve been playing World of Warcraft again, and I’ll soon have a level 60 Undead Warlock. I’m sure that sounds very geeky, so I won’t really say anything else about it.
I finally ordered the camera that I wanted, and it should be on its way. It’s a Olympus EVOLT E-500. It’s coming with one lense, but I’m thinking about getting a macro lense for it. I’ve been meaning to ask if he uses one for his beautiful close up pictures, or if he just uses a standard lense. Anyway, I’m hoping to post quite a few pictures of the beautiful british springtime soon. I hope you’re all doing well, and I wish you a truly peaceful and happy day.