What do you call a bear with no teeth?
A gummy bear.
So, I’ve been lacking on my journal entries lately. I typically use this on my site to update family, show off our awesome kids, and other things going on. I’m going to start with the most recent and then stumble backwards for a while.
COLLEGE TOUR
Yesterday, Willem took a “college tour” at Madison Area Technical College (or Madison College). It was a very awesome tour for him. He got to meet quite a few instructors, stumble into several shops and see how things were going on the different aspects of the automotive technician program. He got to watch a transmission get turned over and troubleshooted, 15 different cars in several different levels of breakdowns or complete rebuilds.
We then did walk upstairs to where dear old Daddoo did schooling. And found out they don’t have a pinball machine anymore in the “rec center” (now the Student Resource Center … that has an XBox and no arcade games! – blarg.)
Yes, he’s old enough to start touring colleges. Yes, we both feel old.
He’s not sure if he’s going to apply in the fall. He might go the route of apprentice at a diesel repair shop.
LOCAL ELECTION
Some of you might not know, but this past Tuesday, April 4, I was on the ballot for Village Trustee of Pardeeville. Once the results came in, I was in the top three. I’m now on the village board. I’ve been sworn in, have my special laptop, access card to the village hall. I just need to finish filling out my W4 and turn that in. My official first day is April 15 (next Saturday).
HIYA!
This past weekend was a full one. Not only did the kiddos have a tournament on Sunday, but Saturday they did a sparring seminar with Bill Superfoot Wallace. There are two other journal entries with pictures and videos. Lillian made it again to Grand Champion. It was a very long day – but very awesome weekend.
OH YEAH
I turned 47 on March 31. I spent the day mostly cleaning my studio, drawing a bit and uploading to Rumble (more on that below), and grilling dinner with karate family. Yes, I grilled in the rain.
MORE KARATE
On March 19, both kids attended and competed in the Southern Wisconsin Open Karate Tournament in Verona, WI. They both did well, but this time, Lillian made it to Grand Champion. When competitors are in black belt ranks, they compete for grand champion. So if they get first in forms (either traditional or open – meaning they make up the form themselves), they move to grand champion in their age division. Lillian made it to a run off and the top three moved on. Lillian got fourth. She was equally terrified and excited (even though she’ll say more terrified).
WORK
Work has been mostly nuts of late. Like uber nuts. When I’m not developing new fixtures and improving my skills, I’m working on various displays and fixtures for a great number of clients. Some fixtures are going into Kroger Pharmacy’s and some … some are developing new displays for existing customers. The above photo is a prototype / proof of concept for an essential oils line. We’ve moved on from this display, but it was proof that we could use a different material to create a very unique display.
OH YEAH
And Willem turned 17 the beginning of March. We went to a local play all day arcade where Willem and his close friend decided to beat the “Die Hard” game which I didn’t know existed. Apparently he looked it up and sought it out after playing Dance Dance Revolution.
COMIC
After all the medical stuff that has happened to me in the last few years, I’ve realized my mortality and the fact I haven’t written my story down I started back in 1994. I’ve been constantly poked and shamed by my friend Matt for countless years about it. Chapter 0 is currently out and linked off the home page (under Sequential) … and Chapter 1 is currently in pencils on my desk. I was going to try and get it out by March 31 as my birthday gift to everyone, but it’s been difficult carving out time.
But when I have been drawing, or working on the comic, I’ve been recording and uploading to Rumble. Rumble is an alternate platform for YouTube and is a lot easier to work with. It also allows you to be more open in your speech and content without the overwhelming ban hammer YouTube is know for with independent creators.
Link to my Rumble streams is here: https://rumble.com/c/c-1832137
Until next time…
Be excellent to one another, tell someone you love them, all hail The King baby.
Laters, Mark