Today has been a busy and very interesting day. It started with a jolt with a loud bang coming from the other room in the middle of the night. There was a bathroom tote attached to the shower wall with suction cups that fell off with a very loud clang and bang. After checking it out I went back to bed only to be disturbed about half an hour later at 3 am with sounds of explosions and broken glass. It sounded like muffled gunshots and it was very alarming. My mind was racing trying to figure out what was going on. My pistol is located right under the bed… do I grab it and investigate, what was that sound, I didn’t hear anyone outside or inside the building right before it happened…. in the split second from the first bang 2 more followed and after I was jolted awake again I began to figure out what was really happening. After the third bang I could hear fizzing and instantly thought OH NO NOT MY BEER!!!!! It turned out to be the home made pop. Jennifer and I wanted to try it and see how it compared to the stuff that can be purchased in stores. After tasting it when it was ready I didn’t really like it. It tasted to medicinal and didn’t suit me. At any rate there will be no more samples due to the violent end to the experiment. Unlike the beer the pop is all sugar and the yeast in it kept making carbonation and didn’t run out of steam like it would in the beer with the small amount added with priming sugar. We unwittingly made glass grenades that were placed neatly in the study’s closet. The explosion was so violent that glass shrapnel was embedded in the door and wall. The shards also had enough force to ricochet off of the ceiling and land on top of things placed on the top shelf of the closet. The boxes right next to the bottles had neat tears with glass all over the interior.

Jennifer and I ended up spending all morning and afternoon cleaning and removing glass and pop residue. There is still some cleaning to do with the carpet. We are using carpet cleaner to lift the pop out of the carpet. It is going well but it is slow due to the wait for the cleaner to do its job. We are very grateful that the bottles exploded in the middle of the night instead of some time that we could possibly be in the closet gathering items. Who knows what would have happened if someone would have been next to that, I’m sure it wouldn’t have been good.

The temperature here has been mild. It was 65 deg here today and we have the windows open. Wallace is loving it. He enjoys sitting on the window sill taking in the rays and sniffing the air coming in. He also loves looking at the birds that fly around and land on the ledge right outside the window. He was very mad and has been acting out due to him being sequestered in the bathroom while the cleaning was taking place. He probably assumed he was in trouble or something and is now acting out.

We also stopped by a thrift store to look for an old game. Jennifer has a school project where she has to make her own board game and make a business proposal to go along with it. She has to make a working model as well. We were looking for a game board to use as a base and paste on the image of her game board on top. We couldn’t find anything large enough to work for her purposes. We did meander through the store and found something that would work for decoration in the apartment. We got a glass container and Jen wants to put her left over balls of yarn in it and put it up on the shelf for color. I thing it is a good idea and the jar cost 50 cents. We could also put some twigs or other thing in there to add to its appearance but who knows how it will look. So we didn’t leave disappointed.

For the rest of the day we will be relaxing after all the events and our next major decision will be what to eat for supper.

I am up early! I was told yesterday that there would be production at the place I am being contracted out to. I was then called and told a line was down and would be called to come in when it is ready. I am pretty much playing the waiting game for that. It is refreshing to get up and see the sunrise. I also have time to study. I want to get back into flying and I have a lot to do to achieve that. I took some tests from one of the books I have of test questions and scored between 87% and 90%. That isn’t too bad considering I haven’t looked over the information for a number of years. I know I can do better and I am going to read as much as I can and try to take in as much information as I can. My flight yesterday reminded me how much I miss flying. I hope that I can fly more in the near future. I am going to go read. More to come later.

It has been a busy Monday. I went flying in a Warrior at the local airport this afternoon. Jennifer bought me an hour in a warrior at the local airport for my birthday and I finally cashed it in. I have always wanted to be able to fly when ever I wanted however money was the biggest factor in that not happening. Hopefully in the future that won’t be as big of an issue. The flight was very enjoyable and I hope to do more flying in the near future.

I spent all weekend relaxing for the most part and didn’t finish my drawing or make the updates I wanted to my web site. I will have to complete those as soon as I can. I have a new idea for my next drawing and it is going to be aviation themed. The one I am completing is also aviation themed.

In other news the cat was going crazy this morning. He was chasing flies and managed to catch the two that were trapped in the apartment. Once he caught them he ate them. He seemed very proud of himself and has been strutting around the apartment since then.

Since my last post I did manage to bottle the beer I made. It will be ready for consumption when the first week of December rolls around. It is a Belgian Ale and I am looking forward to sampling it.

I have stuff to work on so I better get to it.

It has been a slow day so far. I have a few things on the agenda. I need to bottle beer, work on my drawing, and I also want to work on my web site. If I work constantly on my drawing I should be able to finish it tonight, however I think I will break it up into a few more days work and finish it by the weekend and get my site updated by the weekend and have prints available for sale by then.

I took a break earlier and wound some yarn for Jennifer while she was doing homework. For Christmas last year I purchased yarn winding equipment for her as a gift. It has come in handy, once it has been wound up it is far easier to keep tidy than if it were in balls. I find the winding part entertaining. Jennifer thinks it is funny that it holds my interest. It is a win win though, I help out and have fun at the same time.

I have a lot of stuff to do so I better get to it. More to come later.

While setting up my light box to take pictures of yarn for Jennifer, Wallace jumped into the box and walked around inside. Once inside I figured it would make for some good pictures. He was very difficult to photograph, he kept trying to escape once he discovered there wasn’t any toys or treats inside. I did manage to get a few that turned out.

Even though he was difficult, Wallace did manage to put his best side forward. It is good practice as well. I also tried to get the pictures as good as I could get them with the camera. I did very little adjusting in photoshop as a result. I tweaked the exposure slightly due to the filter darkening the image and boosted the color saturation.

In other news I completed more work on my latest drawing. I hope to have it finished by the end of this week. I am planning on offering prints of it and other works I have made for sale on my website. I am still formulating prices but more about that later once it is ready. I also have been pondering what I should produce in the future. I was thinking about various still life images of fruit, flowers, and other various decorative themes. I will continue with the works I know the best including aircraft and animals as well.

I have been busy working with my blog site. I have the formatting almost done to the way I would like it. I will more than likely change the photo as well as the text color. I still have a lot of work to do updating my web site. I will be adding art work I have done as well as making a portfolio of my work. I will also set up the shop space allowing for purchases. It will be small at first. I am very critical of my work and can feel like the stuff I have made for sale isn’t up to par for sale. I could be too picky though. When others view my work they tell me it looks great and they would purchase a print if available. I have one of my pieces I made in high school framed and hanging in the living room. I was offered $500 for the framed work. I am too attached to it to sell it, however it is inspiring that someone would be willing to purchase it after viewing it.

Lately I have been working on a couple different pieces. I am working on a painting as well as a pencil drawing. Out of all the mediums out there I think I prefer using pencils. I have the most experience using them so it only makes sense that they are very easy for me to use in making works of art. My art work is very broad spectrum. It ranges from wildlife, landscape, to aviation. I have also been working on photography, the reason for the start of this online presence. The pictures have been advancing as time has gone on. I have an account with JPG Magazine. Some of the pictures on there are good representations of my talent. Some I just feel don’t do my talents justice. It could be that I am being too picky. I do have some more pictures that I haven’t posted because I haven’t had time to edit them into their final form, mostly cropping and adjusting light and color. I have a few I will add this afternoon to JPG Magazine when I get a moment away from my drawing. It will be added to the website once it is completed. I better stop procrastinating and go back to working on my projects.

The title says it all!!!! I really need to pay more attention to what I’m doing. I am relearning how to do things on here. Hopefully I will have the formatting back to what I wanted soon.

I have upgraded to the newest edition of wordpress and still have to work out some bugs. Hopefully I can fix it quickly. I have been neglecting my website and blog. I have to get back to it. After the upgrade I will get to the updates with events going on. More later.