Greetings: Last month, August of 2023 was a bit of a pivotal point for the year. As you can see, I was all over the mid-West and Eastern part of the country. I was all the way down in New Orleans, and all the way up to the Canadian border. All things considered, it was a decent work month, even with the big changes at work. But there were big personal victories as well. I finished the Awakening, and as of September 1, it is in final editing. You should see updates this months, as it goes over to the publisher in the first week. Granted, it could easily be rejected, but these are the chances we take. Right?

I have had a little time this week, and the wife likes landscapes, so I pulled up one of my old lessons about light streaks. I think that I like this one. It is a picture of a Florida inland area and I just painted around the edges with a firefly filter. It came out very nice, at least in my opinion.

The final week

I am on my final week before heading home, and I can't wait to get there. I did a hard roll today and shut down in a Service plaza figuring that I could get a Starbucks and a slice of pizza, then shut down and get some sleep before rolling into a 34-hour break in Pennsylvania. But that did not go as planned. I waited in line at Starbucks for about 30 minutes only to find out that they were out of most of their stuff. I wanted a Mocha, but instead, they gave me a Latte with some sort of chocolate sprinkles. It was very unsatisfying. I hit Sbarro and grabbed a slice of pizza for $12.00. Granted, it was a quarter of a pizza, but still an outrageous price! To top it off, the slice was greasy, undercooked, and the cheese tasted weird. It was not a good experience. But I ate it and hit the bunk, only to wind up running to the bathroom about 2 hours later. That pizza went right through me. Very sad. But it is going into home-week, so I will take it. Tomorrow, I head into PA for shutdown, then I roll the last four days to the house.

A fun rabbit hole

Before I went to sleep, I used a bit of cell-bandwidth to watch some videos. Cassandra Peterson, Elvira - Mistress of the Dark, is from Colordo Springs, CO. She posted a series of videos giving a tour of her hometown. It was a fun little diversion.

In January, I took a photoshop class on mythical beasts. I did not do a lot of them, but this was my first try at a Dragon. I don't know if I like it or not, but I figured it was good enough to be put in here.

Time to rest.

I pulled my brake a bit before noon and shut down for the next day and a half. I was tired, so I took a nap, then got up and did meditation. I did my weekly exfoliation shower ritual, and some serious meditation. I am already feeling centered. I have a lot to do, but I have two days to get it done. I cleaned some of the truck, and then I made myself hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner. Not a terrible day.

This is from about six months ago when we were exploring nature. I am more of a mountain man, but the assignment was to create a seascape from scratch. I was in a bad mood, so I made it a rough sea with a looming storm.

To the wall boys.

The entire day today was dedicated to "the Awakening". I have a Tuesday deadline and I went through 11 chapters, half the entire novel, today. I got the re-edit done, and I am comfortable with the plot, storyline, and dialog. Tomorrow will be more of the same and I will hit this deadline. Granted, it gave me one hell of a headache, but I can do this.

I like this one. It is from the lesson on diffusion of images using filters to fracture all or part of an image. The grey tones make the image pop, where a mundane ballon become part of the theme.

A bit of disappointment and setback.

I always try to do my due diligence, even if it is often a bit late. This time, I am glad that I caught the issue before hand. I was going to hit a deadline tomorrow for submission of my manuscript. Thankfully, I found some authors that deal with the publisher that I have been communicating with. They are a hybrid publisher that engages the same tools that I use for writing. But that is not a bad thing. It is a common practice. What is uncommon, or at least frowned upon, is that, without warning, about six weeks into the project, when you are biting your nails, you receive a "proof copy" of your book, along with a bill for over $1000. 1K to publish? Okay, it is acceptable in some situations, assuming that the publisher has some serious distribution channels. In this case, they don't. They supply the POD (print on demand) sites and that appears to be all. I can do that myself. So I am back to the drawing board. But it gives me a bit more time to polish "The Awakening".

Being in Brookeville, PA. for almost three days is grating on me. This is way too much down time. But at least I am heading home at the end of the week. I spent the day working on the novel and then relaxed for a bit. I made a serious plate of Hot sausage with noodles. I was going to grab a salad, but I forgot. I only remembered when I was heading to bed. Isn't that silly?

This is my first try at a rose from back in June. I think that it looks a bit flat, and I am not sure that the colors appear in nature. But it is okay, I think.

Rest boy, rest

Not much to tell from the personal side today. I had two bits of dwell, one between runs and one while I was in the pepsi dock. I decided to use them to rest. I am feeling extra tired this week. I shut down in a VA rest area and ate my last steak with some potatoes. Then it was off to bed. I am boring this week, but it is almost time to go home.

This was pseudo-still life, but during the class, the teacher was droning on and I got really bored. It was the first time, early in the course that my mind wandered to a dark place. It was just supposed to be a glass of water. But I added a few things, dark things. I like the way that it came out, but not the way that I got there. After this, I increased my meditation. In my defense, I had been watching "True Blood" before the class, so there may have been some influence from Sookie and Bill.

Aggravation

I had close to six hours of down time in docks today, but I was too antsy to do anything with it. So I stared off into space. Very sad. But I am almost home. I have two more runs to go, but they are both a bear with very tight schedules. Oye. You know, if they would run me like this the rest of the time, there would not be a problem. Whatever.

Gaining a little speed. I did not only stare off into space. I pulled up the water glass image and finalized the edit. But I just did not feel like doing anything else. I did not even want to prep the truck for home time, work the novel, or even watch a movie. Pfft. I guess it was bound to happen, it might be the birthday mood. Grrrr

Working the class images. Here are the mountains in a storm. The assignment was "A daydream". I had Colorado on the mind.
The second image there is an experiment. The wife dislikes portraits and images with stagnant composition, with good reason. I cannot say that I disagree with her, but much of the photoshop course that I took was based on center-point composition and creation or reuse of figures. So, I wanted to see if I could break out of the mold here. The figure is photo-realistic digital with an off-center composition, breaking the canvas in thirds. It was very difficult for my ordered mine to do, but I got it in the end.

The Moodies

I want them to run me like this all the time. It does not give me time to think. By the time that I shut down, I am ready to eat and go to bed. And that is what I did today. I rolled hard, shut down, then made my pork tenderloin (BBQ flavor) with my last onion and potatoes. Then it was off to sleep before the evil-meanies could catch up to me. But alas, some foreshadowing here, I had some wretched dreams. That is never a good thing.

Catching Up

It is almost time for a week at home, so here is a catch up of what is going on. I am still waiting for my sheep-skin from Arizona University, but this is because of a rebranding issue at the college. They are now fully Arizona University instead of Arizona Global. But I graduated in June, and it is really starting to piss me off that they are dragging their feet. As far as my continued education, I no longer do a single photoshop lesson a day. But I do one a week still. I am continuing with the Saxophone and Violin, and making some progress. As of tomorrow, I am 500 unmissed days into my French and can watch most French movies without sub-titles. Not terrible. I have no idea when I will ever use that, but there it is. I have stalled on my photography, but that is because I have to get all the cameras out and clean them and charge the batteries. Pfft. I am done writing "The Awakening" and I am slowly editing it. There has not been a lot of re-writing, but a few things needed tightening up. I have to find a new publisher, because the one that I was involved with appears to be a "pay us and we will do what you can do" type of venture. Pfft again. Finally, Colorado is on hold right now while the family and I reorganize and figure a few things out. Nothing horrible, just things that require a bit of thought. See you in the funny papers

I have always loved sailing ships. Here is a first attempt. Not real happy with it, but I will keeep it for now.

Pushing Hard.

I am headed toward home, but I did not make it nearly as far as I hoped. I wanted to get within an hour or so of my drop in the morning, but that did not happen. I got stuck in traffic around St. Louis and had to shut down futher out than I wanted. I took the time to prep about half of the truck and make my pork chops, my final meal, for dinner.
I am almost done the novel "Origins in Death" by J.D. Robb, and I hope that I can finish it before i get home. I did take the time to finish up my sailing ship piece that you see above, and it came out okay, but not great. Then it was time for a quick series (American Dad) and sleep.

While I was in the dock at Sam's club, I finished up a piece that I started last year around Halloween. Gotta love spiders. I may recreate this one when I do my review, but for now, here you go.

Ah, to be home.

I hit the yard about noon and Laura picked me up. It did not take long to clear out the truck and we were heading home. We hit the bin store and I found an excellent desk lamp, and Laura picked up a few things as well. Once home, I got to open my early Birthday presents, an incense burner, Yoga socks, and Yoga pants. The Yoga stuff is VERY comfortable. I love it. The burner is one of those gravity feed things and is pretty cool. Since I had incense on my purchase list for this run home, that worked out well. At the house, I started my laundry, looked at the changes, and planned my week. I have a LOT to do.

Not being lazy today

Laura went with me to Aldi's and we got the lion's share of my groceries for returning to work next week. That is a big thing, because I still have to prep the stuff. But I think that I got everything that I need for my proteins. I am only doing six weeks out this next home-time because I want to be home for Halloween. I was tired because I was up early, but I pushed on through the day and got some of my stuff unpacked. All-in-all, a decent day, even if I was a tad bit late getting home.

I did not like this assignment when I got it last summer, and I do not like it now. This is my first (and last) try at arranged flowers. They just are not my thing.

Working harder than when I am working.

The first thing that I did today was to run through the meals for next week. I was able to put together all 42 of the proteins and added three extra for good measure. I tend to run short. Then it was time to break into the hard stuff. I loaded up the cart with rocks from when we took out the fountain. That took an hour. Then I hit the back yard. That took the rest of the day. I was able to fully burn out the chain saw blade before I got halfway through the job. What a day. But I got to a stopping point and watched a show. I cooked myself fried fish and tater tots for dinner and relaxed. What a day! Unfortunately, that means that I did not get my new area set up, and I did not get to do any of my writing. Both of those were on the agenda for today. But the yard was more important.

I pulled this one from the archives from Halloween of last year. The assignment was "seduction without being raunchy". It was to introduce the class to the believe that you don't have to do full frontal or full nudity to show sensuality. Because it was October, I did the Halloween theme.

This will make me sore.

Another day in the trenches, or in other words, the back yard. I hit Stewart Brothers to get a new chain for the Sun Joe pole saw, but they did not have one. I was told that the one that I have could be sharpened, it only takes about three minutes. I popped over the shop and asked about it. They said 24 hours. Isn't that interesting? I hit Lowe's and they only have branded chains. So back to the house, dug out the dremel, and did a bit of sharpening on my own. I did not do great, but I did enough to get what I needed. Then I got a LOT more done on the yard. I have to figure out what to do with the mountain of materials, but that is for tomorrow or beyond.

When Laura got home, I headed over to Mom's to check the gutters. They need to be replaced. Sigh. Normally, I would say that I would do it, but there might be back-damage, and that is beyond me because I don't have the tools or helpers to replace fascia. Pfft.

I worked the digital data for the truck and ended the day with Chicken parmasen and root veggies with French Fries. All-in-all, a decent day, but I am going to be feeling this tomorrow.

The Mountains, the Sea, and the Country. Three views in one lesson. Everything on all three of these is done from stock images and combined in photoshop for the final product.

The Faux Birthday

I will not be home on September, 18, so today was my fake birthday. We were going to clean and detail all the cars as a family event, but the weather did not cooperate. So, instead, we cleaned the garage. It has been a while since we did this, and it was a mess. Originally, I set aside two hours for the project, but once we got into motion, we just kept going, like the energizer bunny. We all did well, and we removed a lot of stuff that was just taking up space. It was a good project. It is not finished, but it is a lot closer than it was. I don't know if I will finish it up before I head back to work, but it is a lot better. Once we finished that, we headed to the Pacific Buffet for dinner. It was very good and I even tried oysters. Oysters is one of those things that I have never tried, now I have. I was unimpressed.

I finished up the digital stuff for my storage drives as well. That is something that always takes a lot more time than I think that it will, but that part is ready for returning to work.

Loss of a long-time company

I have been with the same internet host, Hostgator, since 1989 when I first founded Ancient Pathway and Triumph Media. Over the years, of course, they have increased their fee schedule to keep up with the times. Sadly, this month, without warning, they increased their monthly fees by almost 30%. I was sure that this was a mistake, so I jumped into chat with a customer service agent. Nope, not a mistake. Without adding any services, positive aspects of the account, or other products, they chose to raise their prices. I pointed out my tenure, my referring others (about 800+ people and companies over the years) and my overall satisfaction with the company. I quoted their profitiblity margin, their market share, and their lack of expansion. I understand that there are times when companies must raise prices to meet the times. But this is just a greed-grab. It is very sad. The only suggestion that they had was that I could switch to an annual or multi-year plan, which would still be about 10% more than I currently pay. Because of this, I will be moving servers to a more viable service. This is a monumental undertaking and is going to be problematic. Thankfully, I shut down the shop on Ancient a long time ago, because that could not move. Keep your eyes open, it should not create any problems for the followers, but you never know.

This composite drawing was part of the composite class. It was meant to bring together numerous elements in a cluttered, but aesthetic piece.

And the energy goes "POOF"

It was like hitting a wall. I just had no drive today. I still have a lot of things that I want to get done, but I just could not bring myself to do them. So I was down for most of the day just staring off into space. I did hit Walmart and pick up my fresh stuff for back on the road, and grabbed a rack of ribs for dinner. They came out pretty good, except that they were done very late. I never knew that I could cook ribs. Hmmm.

Artistic without going cartoon-like, or ultra-realism. I think that I finally got it.

Buckling down

I was tired and I really wanted to just sit on my ass all day. But I could not do that. I got the stuff out and mowed the side and front yards, and I got everything edges, whacked and blown. It took a couple of hours, but it was satisfying. I did not get the backyard finished, nor the rest of the garage. But I will be home again in six weeks. Yeah home!

The need to decompress

Laura, with the help of the kids, set me up my own little cubby area in our room. Kind of a sanctuary where I could go and hide, or get away from people. It is meant to simulate the truck, or at least partially. And I had time to get in there today and check it out. I fired up the writing computer and worked, not on "The Awakening", which is all but finished, but on "Gaia's Judgment", a provocative tale of when the great mother reveals herself after a storm. The storyline is done, and I am in edit and cleanup mode. Once editing is done, that is another novel, 80,000 or so words, done. Now I just have to find a publisher. Pfft.

Laura had to work the evening shift, so I made myself BBQ chicken and French fries and watched some random stuff until she got home. Then it was off to bed and waiting for the new day to dawn and to destinations unknown.

I did not like this lesson, but I liked the result. "Depict a sense other than sight".

Into the groove

I was able to get most of the truck set up between getting there in the morning and while loading in Blytheville. But they were efficient, so there were still a few things to do, which I took care of when I stopped in Tupelo for the night. I will head out tomorrow and get really close to my drop and be shut down for the weekend.

Midlife crisis? Nah.

There are things going on and I am making mistakes. As I think that I have said already, the vicious dogs at Hostgator decided that they were not making enough profit and have raised prices by 1/3. I have looked over all the white-papers about the company, the news releases, etc. There are no signficant changes to the company other than changes of leadership. No new servers, no expansion, no hiring frenzy, nothing to account for such an increase other than pure greed on the part of the leadership. So it is time to make resolutions. But as the wife pointed out, this is a horrible time to make such life choices. Ancient and Triumph have been around for 34 years in just three more days. Making life choices about them is something best left to simmer before doing. But I am considering, just considering, taking a sledgehammer to the whole kit-and-kaboodle and consolidating them all into one. It is only a thought. We shall see. My Birthday is Monday and I tend to get moody and rash this time of year. I was going to get myself a present, and I was really excited by it, and then forgot what it was and have been unable to remember. It is annoying as hell.

The assignment was to depict four negative moods. I took that assignment and stretched it a bit. I call this the desolation series with heart, mind, spirit, and soul in order of appearance. I was trying to relay the negative aspects of life on these aspects of the person.

Not ready for downtime.

I rolled into Lexington, SC. by just about noon and got a decent parking space. I was able to grab a Starbucks and a temporary replacement brush for cleaning my Air Fryer. I forgot mine at home. But it is all good. But as soon as I got back in the truck, with big ideas of what I was going to get done today, I lay down to relax for just a bit, then it was five hours later. I am not going to make a big deal out of it, but I am going to watch it very carefully. I had seven hours of sleep last night, then another five this afternoon. That is 13 out of 24. Once in a while is not a big deal, but if these becomes a normalization, it is time to sit up and take notice.

The progress of the arts

Once I got up and reprimanded myself for oversleeping on the nap, it was time to get things together. Project time! There are 14 days left in the month, so I have pulled that many images from the photoshop classes and I think that I am set until the end of the month. Come October, there will not be that many pictures and such, so enjoy them while you can.

On the writing side of things, I finished up the writing project that I was working on. I have weeded the stories and have the final results. I have 43 novel length stories ready to roll. And when I say ready, I mean that they all have Synopsis, Characters created, and storyline beats done. I can finish any one of them in under two weeks. This is something that I have been working on for two years and I hit the last one this past week while sitting in my cubby at home. "The Awakening" and "Gaia's Judgment" are both in editing now and ready to go to press. I just have to figure out how to do that. I also have 25 short stories in the works, most that just need to be polished up. I have to figure out what to do with those. It has become obvious that this is going to be an uphill climb, but at least the view is great. (Thanks Miley Cyrus). But one thing that I am doing is stealing an idea from King and others. I have started moving ALL of the characters from all the stories into a single source document, and I am including some of them in cross over stories. I don't know why, but that idea just tickles me.

Fighting the screaming meanies

Screaming meanies? I know that I know that reference, but I cannot place it beyond the weird, loud alarms that you can get for the truck. I want to think that maybe it was the Beatles? Maybe from "Yellow Submarine"?? Anyway. in two days, I turn 58 years old. My birthday has never been a good time for me. I do not play with this because I know that it is unresolved childhodo trauma that I have yet to deal with. Last year, I pinpointed the exact incident, and one year later, I still refuse to address it. I am still not ready. But being able to admit that there is an incident, which I may NEVER deal with, is still a step in the right direction. Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are (Meatloaf: Bat into Hell 2, Back into Hell - 1993) and that is very true. These things cannot hurt me, but they remain unresolved. Maybe this year. Until then, it will remain a screaming meanie. This time of year is always just reflection, and it usually takes me into a pit of mental hell that is reserved just for me. But you know what? This year, I can say "I'm Fine" and mean it.

On a lighter note.

While writing this, I was rolling YouTube on Roku and had to stop and watch a video. Daughtry and Lzzy Hale did a hard rock version of "Separate Ways: Worlds Apart" by Journey. I dig Lzzy Hale and Halestorm. Not really a fan of Daughtry, but they really rocked this cover. Interesting. The most interesting thing is that this was a theme song for me and Joanne from High School, since it was released in 1983 and the song that I used to explain to Joanne that I was leaving her and heading to Germany. Very interesting memory. While I like the Journey Original - Daughtry and Lzzy kick ass on it.

Finalizing the day

I have indulged the annual depression and kicked it to the curb, TWO days early I might add. It is possible that it could creep back in and blackjack me over the head before Monday comes, but I don't think that is going to happen. I am confident in that. I am having the nightmares, but those are expected, and I have gotten them lucid, so when they creep in, I can grab them and turn them into something more interesting. I fired up the ole computer and did the blog, worked on e-mail, and loaded up the writing databases to get EVERYTHING in order before this break is over. It is a hell of a goal, but it is in writing, so it shall be. I also have the three websites preloaded so that I can try to make a decison about what to do about that issue. I have to figure out how long it will take to migrate them into a single source. And that is one hell of an undertaking. Sigh.

This was actually one of the first lessons of the course concerning landscapes. A simple mountain scene. I think that the wife will love it!

Down day, and taking advantage

An easy-peasy day down in Lexington, SC. I took advantage of it and sat on my butt most of the day. I have been way too moody lately, and took the day to do a butt-load of writing and just listen to music. Love the easy days.

As you know, I usually don't do nudity. It's not my bag, and if you know me, that is strange as hell. I just don't think that I can improve on the perfection of the human form. Shrugs. But here is a rare view of what happens when I do. This is my impression of Quetzalcoatl the Aztec deity that takes the form of a quetzal bird and is associated wtih wisdom, creation, and the wind. Just something different.

Birthday day

I find my birthday depressing. Today is no real exception, except that I handled it well. I just trudged through. I did not go out of my way for good or for bad. I did have one encounter with two Christian youths that were quite intent on saving my soul. That did not go well for them. I gave them three minutes, then told them they had to give me three. I listened to their canned statements, then I gave them the full brunt of Lilith. They had questions. When they returned to their "savior partners" it looked like they were arguing. Poor babies. But other than that, a quiet and uneventful day. I rolled in silence all day, no music or audiobooks, and sat in reflection of the self.

Emotion is hard to show in artwork and writing. I was going for sadness here. The assignment was to show a negative emotion, anger, envy, sadness, etc. I think that I picked the safest answer.

I hope this is not a trend

I am sad. And I don't want to be sad. Things just are not holding joy for me right now. I am trudging through life. I have gotten this way from time to time, but it rarely lasts more than a day. Right now, it is rolling three days. But it is right around my birthday, so that may be the cause. I could not ignore it, meditate it away, funny movie it away, or anything else. So I tried the artwork and the creative writing method. Nope. So I shall deal and ride it like the pony from hell so that I can come out the other side.

The Day

A mundane day except for the backroads roll into Ohio. I was up right on time, rolled about 500 miles and shut down in a Love's. I did some writing, and I did my (September) daily artwork for the blog. I looked into moving the websites, but I have to get my head straight to figure that out. Time is an issue, but I will figure it out. I did an extra French lesson, and an extra E-hacking lesson since I had time. Then it was time for dinner, fish and a Love's Salad, and bed. Tomorrow is another day, and I gave myself 12 hours to sleep - I hope to use eight of it and wake up in a better mood.

Even in my pen and ink and paint days, I have never been good with water in motion. The same is true now. I tried to go for water in motion, and it came out very flat to me. Hmmm.

I am still rockin' the grump.

This is only about day four, but I am tired of rocking the grumpy cat. I just can't find joy in the world around me. Things are not terrible at work, and they are keeping me rolling. I only had a 2 hour dwell thus far this week, and I am not in New Jersey, thank whatever gods are listening. But still, the grump rolls in. Pshaw!

I did set up some courses on Zenva, Ehacking, and Codeacademy today, so that may help a bit. I miss school. I have finally heard back from Arizona Global and they say it is going to be yet another couple more weeks for my diploma. I got snitty with them and let them know that for a school that teaches project management, they sure do not pratice it. They did not account for the time requirements to PRINT diplomas with the migration to the full Arizona University? That is funny as hell. That is a basic requirement. Their project manager should be sanctioned for missing that one.

The New and the Old

I am playing a bit of clean up today. I got the new classes set up and they are a bit exciting. I am not going to wait for the dust to settle, I am taking an AI primer. I have a feeling that Artificial intelligence is here to stay and I am going to have to learn to deal with it. So I will take the primer, which is free, and if it is anything beyond rudementary, I may take the full course. Other than that, I am set up for a forensics course and two programming courses. Yeah, back in school, that will help. I also talked to Newsprings publishing. I now have a NDA on file and will be sending the latest manuscript over this weekend. They ARE a hyprid publisher, but they have many options available, so we shall see if it is accepted. Shrugs.

I shut down in a rest area and rolled the dice. It looked like the Ohio DOT was doing pop inspections, but they may have been going after ideling trucks. I pulled in, made my dinner, pulled my curtains and shut down. They did not bother me. I watched episode TWO of "Paper Girls", which has a storyline like a mexican jumping bean on a hot plate, and then headed off to sleep. Tomorrow is another day.

Okay, I am facing the long, dark, teatime of the soul. Not that horrible, but it is what came to mind. Today, I did something new. This is high-color, block-style, transitory. I built this from scratch using images of the wife, Lucy O'Hara, stained glass windows from an Italian church, and a total of 11 filters. I started with a blank canvas and just moved things around, section by section, until it felt right. There is really no theme to it, just a wandering mind.

I don't remember what Grumpy day this is.

I am still fighting the grumpy cat. But that is okay. It is not better, it is not worse, so I will take it. I rolled until I got within 100 miles of Atlanta and shut down. I had two choices. I could shut down in Emerson, which I know is a nightmare, or I could hit Calhoun, GA. I chose Calhoun. It was a mess, but I got a decent parking spot and made some Goulash. It was pretty tasty. I had a bit of extra time, so I submitted the book over to Newspring Publishers, then worked on a new piece of artwork, which you see above. This is soooo not my style, but I will keep it anyway. I am not sure if I like it or not. Time will tell.

I feel as if I have been out for weeks, but tomorrow is only one week back on the road. I don't have a pre-assignment, and I know that they are going to keep me creeping around Georgia until mid-week next week because I have a meeting on the 27th in Tunnel Hill. That should be fun. I got my new courses started and I am hoping that takes a bit of pressure off the old brain. We shall see.

New Project

With the Awakening submitted for publishing, I no longer have a daily writing project. So I moved on to something new. Gaia's Judgement. I may change that name down the line, but for now, it will stand. What is it?

"With its vivid characters, stunning imagery and thought-provoking themes, Gaia's Judgement is a powerful exploration of humanity's relationship with the planet we call home. Explore the resonance of our actions and think about what kind of world we want to leave behind for future generations."

This is a one-pass novel, meaning that I wrote it through from beginning to end without editing, spell-check or anything else. It is a Draft-1 work that is now in editing. With 214 pages (in MS Word - 8x10 format) and 63000 words, it is ready for polishing. When I am done, it should be about 90,000 words and 400, book-size pages. It is provocative, interesting, and a bit scary. The genre is horror / fantasy and tells us what happens when Gaia, the Earth-mother, has had enough.

I worked my brain and decided to do a new piece from scratch. I think that I like it.

Dead kitty time.

A short entry today. Once I found out that I was going to be sitting for 4 or 5 days, I chose to kill the grumpy cat. It took a lot of exercise, some serious meditation, and then a try at "effective meditation" a form of lucid wakeful dreaming from a state of meditation. It was an interesting experience which I will have to describe a bit more later. For now, suffice it to say that the grumpy cat is subdued for this round and I am back to a positve state of mind. Once that was accomplished, I finished up the above artwork and then headed off to sleep. I have a lot of time ahead of me, so I started making a serious list of things to accomplish.

I am working with a new meditation technique called "lucid meditation" that is similar to lucid dreaming. Instead of a trigger item as in lucid dreaming, you concentrate on a guide that becomes similar to the "silver string" used in astral travel. This guide always assures that you can make your way back from the deep meditative state. I cannot be sure, but I think that mine is Laura. These five images are how I remember her from within the lucid state.

Running out the clock.

The day was spent in the terminal just listening to people. Once that was done, I did a lucid dreaming session and repeated my morning routine of Yoga, exercise, meditation, etc. What a boring day.

Towards the end of the Photoshop course, we were given about 5000 elements for the creation of landscapes. This images contains about 40 of them. And I figured that Laura would love this one.

Down day, gods help me.

This is the kind of thing that can be dangerous to the old mental health. But I think that I got this. I started the day with my Yoga, Lucid meditation, exercise and morning stuff, and then ate a decent breakfast. Then I formulated a plan for the day. It was pretty intense. I did walk up to Grumpy's antiques, and it is quaint, but way overpriced. But that was just a side-trip for the adventures of the day.

I spent the day planning. I talked to Network Solutions and it looks like they are going to be the best bet for moving the websites, so I put that plan into writing and began the new design. Don't worry, I will fix all the pointers, so nothing should be interrupted during the process. I spent three hours in chat with their rep and I have most of what I need to make it happen. It should cost less than $200 to get the entire thing done, but it will save money in the long run.

The websites handled, it was time to evaluate the courses that I have available that I have already paid for but did not complete. I was surprised to find out that with the add-ons and deals, I have more than 200 courses sitting. OYE. Everything from writing courses to Artifical Intelligence. I even found about 20 Photoshop ones that I have missed.

Writing and Art

The photoshop courses reminded me that I wanted to evaluate the artwork and writing. So I dug in and went through everything. Now I have a full inventory and have to get things into some kind of order. I have about 850 works of digital art created over 18 months of school. I have deleted about 150 of them, and I am sure that I will do more deletions down the line. Many of these are "progressive" works where I started and saved throughout the process. I will save the FINALS that I like and delete the rest. This is important, because with the deletion and migration of Ancientpathway.net, they will have a new home over at cwklein.com . But that is a long way off. Then there is the writing. That is my big secret, and it is time to tell that secret. For the past couple of years, I have dedicated time to my writing. Most of it was in the form of verbal communication on my voice recorder. Then I would load the files up and let them transcribe to written documents. It was a minimum of 1 hour a day (audio) and then the time to transcribe, which was usually about the same amount of time while cooking dinner and all. I recently lost the program that did the transcription, because it went end of life, but that is okay, because I think the work is done. I now have... more than 25 short stories fleshed out and ready to process. 45+ NOVELS, 2 complete, 14 fully fleshed out that need a bit of work, and the rest are in raw form, but any of them I could finish within a week. I did not realize that I had done so much, but it really is exciting. Right now, I am waiting to see what the publisher thinks of The Awakening before I move forward with any plans. But I will say this, if any ONE of these were to take off, I could retire and write full time. That is scary as hell

That finishes out the day. I think that I used it well. But only time will tell. I am a bit antsy, and I still have another full day here, at the very least. Of course, my bad tooth is acting up again, but I don't want to think about that right now. That is a problem for tomorrow or beyond. And I have to talk to the wife about how to handle that.

A day that I am comfortable with and it was time for chicken and rice and a movie. Not a terrible day.

This was one of the final pieces that I did for the Photoshop course. I was in a dark place, feeling frustrated, and annoyed by the world around me. I don't have any idea what this is supposed to represent, but to the best of my way of thinking, I think of the corruption of the soul. I do not like this work, but I cannot delete it either.

Keeping the mood up.

One of the most significant issues of being in the terminal for this long is keeping my mood up. So far I've been able to stay in a positive frame of mind even when I came out of a very negative place recently, but I can feel it starting to fray at the edges. I've had to increase my exercise and meditation to counteract the negative aspects of being in one place for too long. But so far I've been able to handle it.

While I was talking to Laura this morning we finalized our discussion on the websites and we are going to be moving. By the time the afternoon rolled around for our afternoon conversation I had everything in place and I was able to purchase the new site and some hosting on Network Solutions. Now it's time for the new design and by the end of the day I had it down to five different choices. First thing tomorrow I will finalize the choice and go from there. There is a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in.

First thing in the morning I got with chastity and we did some tandem yoga, and it was much better than when we were in shippensburg. The people up there were just mean, the people here are supportive and it was no big deal. Then we through the medicine ball around the little and that was that.

When the truck recovery fell through I decided to stay in the terminal for a while and continued my conversation with drivers. The energy is much different now than it was a year ago. There is no more excitement. People just are not happy to be here and I find that very sad.

To end out the day I watched some shows while I was in the terminal and then came back to the truck and ate rice. My blood sugar has been a little high lately, so rice was a good choice. Tomorrow is another day and if the rumor holds it looks like the meeting may have been pushed back a day to Thursday which means I'm going to have almost an entire damn week off when I could have been running. But I'm taking this with a grain of salt, if it helps the company and therefore helps me I am willing to put up with it. But time will tell.

This piece is actually scheduled for deletion but I may keep it. The lesson for this week back in July was comic superheroes. I had just been finished watching Wonder Woman and I used that as a base, but I was not happy with the end product because it was nothing like the strength of Wonder Woman and it looks way too cartoony. It is marked for deletion but we will see if I do it or not I always give at least one week of thinking before I delete any of the art projects. But even if it does get deleted it will remain here in the blog.

Oh look, Squirrel!

I'm starting to go a bit stir crazy. I do not like sitting for this long. I started the day with a good breakfast, yoga, exercise, and meditation. I got together the stuff for the new website which should be posted hopefully in the next day or so and this blog will move over there. Hopefully it will be seamless, but you never know. I was a little caught up on the design for the new system but I think I have it down now. I spend most of the day in the terminal with my Bunny ears on and working on different projects. I did a significant amount of writing and a significant amount of designing. I finished out the image that I posted above even though I'm probably going to delete it, and then it was time for work. The only thing that work consisted of was going to dinner with nine fellow drivers and Donald. We also had one tag along that is the trainee of one of the other drivers. Dinner went well and we got some of the information about what is going on for Thursday. But not much. I have to sit all day tomorrow and then half of Thursday and then I will be back on the road. Unfortunately that's going to be for the weekend so I really hope that fleet can do something for me.

I found this particular lesson within the Photoshop course very interesting because it showed me my limitations. The assignment was to work within black and white and with a single figure image and each person was assigned an emotion that they had to depict. In my case the emotion was fear. And I realized that I do not have the ability to show fear in my work. I did my best but this came out as anger or defiance. I tried several other pictures after this one and I had no ability to show the emotion of fear on my figures face. I find that quite interesting.

Gotta Go!

As you can see I am still in tunnel hill GA, and I still have not gone through the driver summit which is going to take place tomorrow. But I am ready to get out of here because I have sat on my rear end for way too long. I don't even have the ability to socialize anymore even though I was able to force myself to do it for three days. I've had enough of people. I spent about two hours inside the terminal this morning and that was all. It was time to pack up and go back to the truck for the day. But it's not all bad. I was able to create the entire substructure for the new site. Normally that would have taken me half a month easily but I was able to do it in a day and I'm pretty impressed with it. With a little bit of luck on my next 34 hour break I will be able to upload at least the structure so that people can come and take a look at it. The day that I upload the structure I'm going to move this blog over to that site but I will give you plenty of warning and a new link so that you can follow it. But that was all there was to the day I sat in the truck made some hot sausage and worked on the website with music playing in the background.

Some of the lessons, such as this one, were very rudimentary and easy. The lesson here was a calm sea and I think I hit it on the head even though the color is a little off. But I will fix that before I put it into the new gallery.

Final day

I pretty much ran out of my social abilities today and I hibernated in the truck until it was time for the meeting. Once we were out of the meeting and back in tunnel hill I went right back to the truck. But I did get shanghaied into Mexican food with a couple of the more interesting drivers, one of their students, and the tagalong that invited himself. The funny thing about the tagalong was that nobody who went to dinner got his name. He said quite a bit, but nobody ever thought to ask. Very strange. The rest of the day was working on the new site, which is almost ready. At least the foundation. I anticipate moving everything there within the week.

I had actually forgotten about this piece of artwork until I pulled it up this week looking for two more to do for the month of September. This is the only piece that I have done even with the horror stuff that I have created that gave me reservations. I was going to delete this and then after I decided not to, I was not going to put it up. But sometimes the best way to overcome problems is to face them. This was done in the middle of last year and it is a self-portrait. The lesson was how do you see yourself? And this was my answer to that question. The only consolation is I was in a very negative headspace at the time and I don't see myself like this all the time.

On the road again.

I may be on the road again, but I am not making music with my friends. I think that was Bob Denver. But I can't be sure. Anyway, I am back on the road. I was able to get all of my morning stuff in and get a good breakfast before I headed out and then, of course I ran into the problems that you see above, but overall it was a decent day even though I didn't get as far as I wanted to. I started the book “black ice” and got about ten chapters in. It's about a strung-out detective and a new form of drug on the street. Pretty standard storyline and highly predictable but it's well written so I will continue.

I shut down in Lambsburg, VA in a rest area on the ramp, but in legal parking. The only problem is that it was on a 2-vector slope. I was facing uphill and leaning to the right and that does not make for good sleep. So tomorrow should be kind of interesting.

I got a lot more work done on the website, and with my next 34-hour break, that should be ready to launch. I have not heard back from New Spring Publishing yet; that call is overdue. I'm hoping that it is a good sign, but we shall see. Laura and Willow are gearing up toward their adventure and the world is generally in a good state except that they're going to shut down the government on Sunday because the babies on the hill will not stop arguing with each other. So I would like to suggest this. If they want to shut down the government, they should shut down the government completely, which would remove flight vouchers, close the Washington Motor Pool, but most importantly, give the Secret Service that protects the congressmen and senators a well-deserved break. That would make our leaders sit up and take notice. Turn off their credit cards and their expense accounts and they will have no choice but to do the right thing. And just to put this in context, the problem is being caused by a core group of hardcore Republicans who are reneging on a deal that was made earlier in the year. So I think they should all go to hell, but that's an opinion.

All good things must come to an end, and that includes this journey into the artistic mind of Christopher Klein. I have given you a full month of artwork, and if you want to see the rest, you are just going to have to keep an eye on the blog, so that you can be there when cwklein.com launches in a few days.

Bring me high to slap me low.

Today, the last day of September, was a donkey-kick to the face. I never do well in the old birth-month, and I always hope to get to the end of the month, untouched by the world. But, alas, that is not the case this year. First of all, the delays landed me in New Jersey. Granted, it is still 60 miles from New York, and the really bad area of New Jersey, but still the state. I just do not like it here. By the time that I weighed my options, the only place that I could shut down for the next 34-hours was a truck rest area. And the place is a wasteland. There is nothing here. But that is typical for New Jersey, and a lot of the East Coast. They just don't like the truckers. I did try to shut down at the TA at Exit 7 off of I-78, but I knew that was not going to happen. TA is one of those places that must mug drivers for every penny that they can pinch. So they only have a few parking spaces that are available unless you are willing to pay their extortion rates. And of course, people are willing to, because the options for the area suck. So they have about 20 available spaces and 100 or so paid spaces. They get between $10 and $30 a day for these spaces and there is a $3500 charge is you park and fail to pay. Basically, TA can kiss my ass. They used to be a decent organization, but now, 20 years after I started driving, they are nothing more than loan sharks and have let their facilities go to rot. They tend to be dirty, crowded, overpriced and have rude employees. No wonder companies like Love's and Pilot/Flying J are putting them out of business. In August, Debi Boffa took over as CEO of Travel Centers of America. Maybe the new blood will bring about change, we shall see.

Good news with disappointment

So, if you follow me, you know that I have been working on Awakening, a novel about Adam, Eve, Lilith, Ospiria, and the resurrection of the Fae in the modern world. About a week ago, I submitted this to Newsprings Publishing, a Hybrid publisher out of Red Bank, NJ. They are hybrid because you can pretty much self-publish and self-promote through them, go through normal publishing channels, or produce audio features. The chances of acceptance for a known author, historically, are about 1/20 and about 1/200 for unknown authors. I, of course, am an unknown author. So I submitted to get that first pink-rejection letter under my belt. I was stunned when I got a call today saying that my manuscript was accepted. It meets the requirements for a well-written work, and is part of the current trending genre (pagan / metaphysical) and though it requires significant editing, it can go to print within about six months. Of course, it requires a team to get this done. Editor, continuity, designer, marketing, distribution, etc. The wind blew out of my sails though because I am, sadly, an unknown. And while the manuscript is viable, NO publisher will take a chance on an unknown. It's not like I am King, Koontz, or Robb. So the author (myself) must foot part of the original cost of publication. I saw the contract and got hit with sticker shock. The one good thing about Newspring is that they only take 3% royalty, instead of the standard 33% or more that many publishers require. And that is only after your original investment is recuperated. But that original investment....OUCH. I hovered over my writing directory, with 47 novels, a dozen short stories, and hundreds of hours of work, and ALMOST hit delete. Almost! I will not wax poetic here, but in some ways, I may be facing a "dying of the light". I can't remember who said that. Maybe Robert Frost? Anyway, I think that it may be time to let that dream die. But no rash choices here folks, no rash choices.