Tag Archive for ‘Steph’ at Riding the Wind

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Tag Archive for 'Steph'

Birthday

Published

Mike

on February 10, 2008

in Comic, Nonsense, Photography, Wood Carving, Work and Writing

. 1 Comment

It was my 28th birthday the other day - on February 8th. Steph and I took the day off from work and went to Loch Tay where I found some nice driftwood for possible carving and stick making projects. We just drove around the Loch, mostly. It was quite a windy day, though it was sunnier than it has been of late. I took some photos:

So I must admit that I still haven’t done any carving lately, and I have yet to post my latest carving project photos in the projects section of the site. That’s partially because I realized that I only have photos of one of my projects. There is another set of photos on Steph’s camera and some I have to dig out from my email somewhere, as I forgot to take pictures before I gave the carving to my Dad and he sent pictures after I got back home.

Nothing is really happening today. We might go for a walk a bit later. There is a beautiful little stream I’d like to get a photo of if I get a chance today, but Steph’s still in bed. We went to bed quite late - I think at around 4:30-5:00 am, yet I woke up at 10 am and felt wide awake. I fear I’ll have burning eyes and a weary body later in the day to punish me for my silly sleeping schedule. There is really no reason other than being too lazy to go to bed. John and I have been working lately on a big project for a popular gaming site but we’re now almost done. There are a lot of little things to fix and clean up but overall it is in much better shape than when we inherited it. I don’t really want to give away the name of the site, but suffice it to say that John and I have been mentioned in several site and forum posts and we were mentioned in two of the weekly podcasts, which are quite popular. It was kinda cool to have the experience, and it was good for learning, but I’d rather have a regular schedule and more time to accomplish tasks. What I’d really like to do is learn to do custom vBulletin mod stuff and more server side scripting for maintenance (maybe with python or something - something useful for cron jobs and not horrible to look at, etc) and then be able to work independently on my own projects without having to kill myself over them. That way, I’d hopefully be able to get a lot done yet keep time for myself for writing, etc.

Speaking of writing, I guess things are going moderately. Not too fast, because I don’t really do much at the moment. Since my book is going to be based on my life experiences living in Scotland, I’ll need to get out and meet more people and do more things if I want this to really happen. I intend on making some changes soon. I have a few ideas, but I’ll leave those until later, as I’m not sure what I’ll do yet.

On the HandRooster front:

I know we haven’t done a comic in months. I know it’s probably annoying. I know I keep making excuses when I get emails. Believe me, I want to do this. I think I’ve finally convinced Steph to go forward with it, but we may be making slight changes in the way the art is done. At the moment, it just takes her too long to do them. It isn’t something we get any money for, and it seems like a lot of time to her to spend on something when she doesn’t always appreciate the humor or when she’s slaving away for hours on something I’ve written in 2 minutes time. I really feel her pain. I wish I could draw the thing, but my unsteady hands and warped sense of perspective would probably have people calling for my head. I don’t really want to go to low quality stuff after having broken the 100 comic barrier. Anyway, we should be moving on soon. I think Steph may be doing some comics next weekend, should I provide her with the material. I have some ideas, so we’ll hopefully have some good news for you before too long.

It has been so long

Published

Mike

on January 16, 2008

in Comic, Military, Nonsense, Photography, Web, Wood Carving, Work and Writing

. 2 Comments

Well I’ve realized that it has been over 3 months since my last entry and another 3 since the previous entry. I’m sorry. I’ve been busy, but probably not that busy.

Most of you probably know that we’ve made the move to Scotland. We live in a little place called Strathtay near Pitlochry and Aberfeldy. Our house is called “Tayview Cottage” and as the name suggests, we have a view of the River Tay. It is a beautiful and peaceful place, but my peace comes mainly from the knowledge that I am now free of the military for good. I am no longer involved in all of that nonsense. I’m a civilian. Yay! I just hope all of my friends who are stationed all over the world are safe and happy, and not being forced to do anything horrible.

Steph and I are doing web development work with my brother in law, John. We’ve been starting at about 10:30 am and working until the late afternoon. It isn’t necessarily glorious work, but it is much better than what I was doing before. I’ll be getting into some server stuff at some point, which should be more what I’m used to. I’m also doing some writing, in an attempt to compile a book based on my experiences here in Scotland. I hope it will be good, but I guess it all depends on what I do here, what kinds of people I meet, and the activities I do. I also want to take a lot of photos and do a lot of walking. The scenery is great here. In fact, I’ll put a photo from behind our house below so you can see it.

We really haven’t gotten a chance to do much here yet, as we just got back from a 3 week visit to the states. We visited my family and had a good time. It was very snowy there for the majority of the visit, which was nice. We got to see my young nephew again and got a chance to see my sisters, my parents, and a couple of friends as well as some other relatives. We ate way too much food, which was enjoyable but bad for us. We also got some very nice Christmas presents. I carved a few things for presents before we left, so I’ll post pictures of those when I get a chance in the Projects section of my website.

I really want to get started on HandRooster again. We had quite a bit of success with it and had tons of traffic at the height of our relative fame, but we just didn’t have time to keep it up while we were getting ready to move and while I was getting ready to get out of the Air Force. That, and I was too stressed out to really concentrate on it. So, I really want to start again but I think that Steph is less keen on the idea. It really is much harder for her, as she has to spend a lot of time on the illustrations. My part isn’t as hard each day, but can be a bit difficult when I’m hurting for ideas. Anyway, we’ll see how that goes. I hope she comes round to the idea. I have a few ideas already, but it all depends on how much time we have.

Well, I’ll put 2 photos below. The first is the view from behind our house and the second is a photo taken from my parents’ balcony in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Enjoy, and I hope you’re all doing great.

Much Needed Post

Published

Mike

on August 8, 2007

in Comic, Military, Nonsense, Photography, Web, Wood Carving, Work and Writing

. 0 Comments

Well, it has been quite a while since I’ve made an entry with decent length and information about the happenings of my life. I intend to resolve that now in this very entry.

Lately I’ve been very busy at work doing all kinds of stuff in preparation for a big inspection which is coming up in September. Although I don’t really care about the outcome of the inspection, I do care about the people it may impact, so I’m trying hard to do well for their sake. I’ll be out of my job probably anywhere from mid November to early December so during that time you may not here much from us as we get situated in Scotland somewhere.

We recently did a big upgrade of the HandRooster website to make it look nicer and to allow for future updates, etc. The site now has a single front page with both blog and comic in one location. I think it looks really nice. We continue to update every weekday. It does get hard at times and we occasionally miss a day or two but generally, we’re doing a pretty decent job of keeping things updated. It is quite hard to think of something funny everyday, so some days have better comics than others.

After my finger injury, it took me a while to work up the courage to start carving again. I’ve started carving on the love spoon for my sister again and I’ve made a lot of progress. I still have a bit to go, and I still have to do the detailed parts and I’m not sure how to do them exactly. It may get a bit scary, but I think I can do it eventually. It’s been quite a while since I started the project but I’ve learned a lot. I feel bad for taking so long, but I hope to get it done soon so I can give it to my sister.

Anyway, I think that’s it for now. I’m quite happy at the moment because I think good things will be happening in the future. I hope all of you are doing well and I look forward to reading your blog and LJ entries. Steph and I went for a photo walk recently, so here are just a few of the photos. You can see them all and much more on my Flickr page.

Change of plan

Published

Mike

on July 25, 2007

in Military, Nonsense, Web, Work and Writing

. 1 Comment

As some of you may know, I’ve been in the US military for almost 8 years now. For the majority of that time, I have found that my personal beliefs are completely incompatible with military life. Unfortunately, due to many circumstances (some good and some bad) I couldn’t extract myself from the military in a good way. My enlistment is done in December of this year, and Steph and I had planned for quite a while that we would go back to the US and live on the West coast somewhere. I planned to get a job in IT, working as an Information Security specialist in some company. I must admit that I was excited about the change and the prospect of a new life, but the job didn’t appeal. It was just money and a lot of time away from Steph.

Things have now changed. We’ve decided that we’re going to move up to Scotland and I’ll pursue writing while we support ourselves doing web development with Steph’s brother, John. I’m so excited about the change of plans and I’m so relieved that I can finally be myself and possibly mold my life into the one I’ve always wanted. While we’re going to make plenty of contingency plans and be very careful with the financial situation, we’re also going to try our hardest to make it work up there. We’ll be able to spend much more time together as well as live a slower, more balanced life. I’d like to thank everyone who reads this regularly for supporting me through some difficult times. You’re all part of my happiness.

Yesterday’s Bike Ride

Published

Mike

on April 12, 2007

in Comic, Nonsense, Photography, Web and Writing

. 1 Comment

Yesterday Steph and I took a ride down to Whelford on our new bikes, and we rode along a little public footpath/road down there. We also brought our cameras and took some photos of the area. I’ll post a few below, but you’ll have to go my near home set on my flickr page to see all of them.

We’re still working on the HandRooster comic everyday, and we’re looking to promote it a bit better. If you know anyone that would like our comic, please let them know about us. We’d really like to have more readers. As of right now, we don’t really know who reads it or how many people. We can go on general web stats, but that includes a lot of bots for web searches, etc. Also, feel free to leave comments and let us know what you think about it.

Anyway, the photos from the bike ride are below. Let me know what you think. Have nice day!