Providence , RI

Today I covered the announcement of a plea bargain to take place by one of the people indicted in the fire at the Station club where Great White played and 100 people died a couple years ago...

Skiing

MIME TIME

That's me on the left...a couple years ago...with my buddy Joey in front playing a little pool.

Budweizer Tour

They gave us samples...

We saw the horses...

Did you know that Bud is the best selling beer in the world but it is beat by another beer in the US...

Bud Light.

GOALS

I have been challenged by Sinan to come up with a list of Goals so here goes...

This is what I got brimmin in my head...

BY THE AGE OF 35 I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE:

1) freed myself from debts to cards
2) Bought a house
3) Child(ren)
4) Finished at least one comic book
5) Illustrated someone's book
6) Created a coffee table book
7) Produced my audio drama trilogy
8) Visited South America, Barcelona, Prague, and Japan
9) Seen the pyramids, Great Wall, Petra, Jerusalem, and Stonehedge
10) Shot a documentary
11) Started a business venture
12) My weight at around 155 - 165 lbs (73k)
13) Taught at least one class
14) Perfomed in another play
15) Journeyed somewhere by human power (bicycle/kayak/hike)

HOW'S THAT SINAN?

BATHTUB MARY

I Have always been one of those people who is fascinated with oddity...I have alway been intrigued by the type of person who would bury half a used bathtub and put a statue of Mary in it...For those of you not accustomed to seeing this...My old home of Plattsburgh NY has a large population...I went around once and gathered many photos of these statues to put together in a collage for a poster...(never finished)
I just googled Bathtub Mary and came up with an image of a Mary I have actually photographed (the one above)...it got me thinking...I might start working on that again

Sad story...Four kids from a Christian High School were finished with their exams and were preparing for a weekend retreat...They crashed into this car and two of the kids were killed...It is always tough to coverthe deaths of kids...Very hard when you have to go to someone in the family for a picture and ask them for a statement.

Harp Seal

This seal was sited around Revere Beach and they sent us out to see it...It is leaning on its side but I guess it was just taking advantage of the spring weather...

The police brought it back to the water but he hadn't had enough so he came back to the beach...

He was not afraid of people though and a crowd gathered to check it out...it was kind of cool

STATUE SPOTTING

Boston is known to have many statues...so I decided since I had some time I would check out a couple... The first statue you have to check out in any American city is the statue of George Washington...Here he is riding on his horse...looking very much like the military leader he proved to be...Then I sat and thought about what other statue could I see that would surprize me...(the fella behind me just sat there silently so I had to come up with it on my own...)
I decided on the statue commemorating the discovery that inhaling Ether can ease the suffering of those in pain...In this picture above you can just barely make out the older man rubbing the ether on the ailing mans chest...this is the oldest statue in Boston's Public Garden...presented to the city in 1868...I tried to take a few pix and put them together so you can see the whole monument.

JOURNALIST ABDUCTION

I have a hard time with this. She's a freelance journalist for a local magazine. The Christian Science Monitor out of Boston and we just found out Al Jazeera has recieved a tape with a silent Jill Carroll and a threat that if all female prisoners in Iraq are not released she will be killed...in three days.
First off this is such a bad situation because I think when a journalist is abducted and threatened or killed you wonder what the deal is...
I mean we aren't supposed to get involved...we only watch and report back...We have no advantage to the terrorist...and it's not like the US is going to negotiate...they don't negotiate with terrorists.
Second, this is a woman, I mean what does that prove about these people except they are cowards...
I Hope everything works out for her...I don't know what to say...I could be there...in her shoes...camera smashed...beaten...waiting to see if I live...
Pray for her and her family...I know I will.

BOSTON'S FREEDOM TRAIL # 1

I started at the Statehouse and decided since I had some time to kill before work I would check out some of the historic scenes...Today I saw the location where The Boston Massacre happened...It is located right behind the Old Statehouse...

It has no statue but only a marker on the street because it is a busy intersection and someone would probably hit it...

Then I decided I should see one of the monuments in the city remembering the five men who died on that day...

Above you can barely make out a representation of the propaganda print that Paul Revere made of the occasion...Below is the original image...

History states that this is a very inaccurate depiction of the events...for one thing Revere's crowd looks like they are peaceful...the real people were throwing oyster shells, rocks, and snowballs at the soldiers...and the soldiers look like they are shooting on command when what really happened is someone tripped his rifle went off and everyone started shooting...The commander, rather than lead the fight tried to break it off...but when he did it was already to late and resulted in the deaths of five people...Although inaccurate it was really good at promoting the desire to break from England.

This is the statue they came up with...what is interesting is that I think it does justice to the mood of the time very well...The woman has loosed one of her breasts and is now baring it in defiance...she clutches a chain in her hands and under her right foot is a broken crown...

INFORMATIONAL PICKET

This is me in an informational picket for the union...I was there to see the sunrise...and experienced for the first time what it's like to be in a picket line...The numbers on the plackard are bills going through the statehouse (behind me)...They are supposed to lead to things like insurance for part-time workers...since they make up a large portion of many workforces...

NINJA LESSON # 1

Lesson of the day start looking up...I am editing today...which is not that bad seeing as it is sub-zero weather today...I took this picture in the edit bay I have been in all day and discovered something I had not noticed until then...There was a cardboard box blocking a hole in the ceiling...IT WAS PRETTY BIG TOO...I never saw it...and if a ninja had wanted to he would have had the drop on me...

IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN!!!

I am seriously freaked out why is a picture giving me new hidden information everytime I duplicate it?

WHAT'S THE MESSAGE?

My friend Hooter sent me a picture and when I tried to view it I realized it was a message full of code...some numbers and picture files...like breadcrumbs...to help me find Hooter...and now I am not sure who to trust...there is someone writing his blog but is it him...do I need to find him is he in trouble...who is the girl in the one picture I have fully desifered...When I duplicate the photo I seriously get extra info every time...

OW!

MY EYES FEEL LIKE THEY'RE BLEEDING

SUNSHINE ON MY SHOULDER...

UH OH

COOL

SINGING ALONG

THIS PLACE IS GREAT

YAHOO

the people i meet # ????

They may be a girl and her police officer boyfriend...they may be adventure capitalists...they may be from russia...or alaska...but we had fun...and they were nice people...

WHEEE

YAY

CAPTAIN FUNTIME AND HIS PALS...

BEER PONG

Beer pong in Off the Wagon bar on McDougal street.

TIME TO EAT

We decided we should eat...We talked about the features on our cell phones...Some of us said Falafel for 2 bucks was a great idea...but that's just chickpeas

I wanted meat...but this stuff is supposed to be hard to cook because they keep rotating it and it never is fully cooked...
Do I look like I care...

FREEGANS

They pick through garbage as a form of activism...They do have jobs...(Guy on the right is a French Journalist)

NYC Bound

QUESTION

Why are there so many Roast Beef joints in MA?

TINY SHOES DON'T WORK

I put these silly shoes on this morning without thinking and after a day of working in them I think I'll have to live with them looking normal size...but they do look cute

WORK'S OVER

Drinking with Shane after searching multiple locations for an open bar...TGI Fridays OPEN

QUESTION

Why are there so many Roast Beef places in MA?

STATEHOUSES

So I decided I was going to get some pix of statehouses in the states I am normally in...Above is Rhode Island...taken just before midnight on New Years Eve...
Here is the Massachusetts statehouse right up the road from my job...And I decided one night when my wife was out of town to take a picture of the New Hampshire statehouse at about 1:30 in the morning after work...I drove an hour home after leaving Boston and drove past my house another half hour to get this picture...I kept trying to get a good angle and quickly gained the attention of the local law enforcement...The pulled me over and wondered if I had been drinking...I had to show them the pix I had taken of the other statehouses to stop them from doubting me...When I did get out of the car to take the picture I realized that there were three police cars behind me...Slow Night in Concord...

My mind is a blank...

NEW ENGLAND vs JACKSONVILLE

This was my first time working at a pro-football game...I didn't know what overcame me...

I was shouting and cheering as the NE Patriots took to the field...

The fans were a bit crazy...but with a fun loving smile on their mad eyed faces...

I got a pretty good view of the game while I was on the field...

Pats hunted the Jaquars down and walked away with a playoff win under their belts...

This is a crazy example of "Keeping up with the Joneses"

VROOOM

VISIT NY

I went to visit my folks and had a nice trip......I got to see my grandmother...Here is a nice three generations pic of my grandma, mom, and sister Nikki.

Then Nikki, her fiance Mike, Dad, and I went night skiing...

It was a good time except the t-bar which I never made up without losing one and having to hitch another one...

GOING TO NY

Hanging out with Matt at Junior's in Albany.

I stopped at Simco's on the bridge to try their famous hotdog...it claims to be the world's largest old style hot dog...It was good too...

TRYING TO GET BACK INTO DRAWING

For a while now I have neglected my original love...Drawing...for this year I am trying to get back into the mode of actually doing ir on a regular basis...and this will be a place where I will feature some of my progressing stages as I get back into the habit...

WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS

One of the things about my job is that I spend a lot of time driving into bad areas of town and I have come up with a checklist of obvious clues that you are not in a part of town you want to be...Today I went to a shooting in one of these areas and you know something is wrong when there is no crowd wondering what is going on...because they all knew it was going to happen...or they aren't surprized.You first have to work hard to get in there because the town designers have made all the streets one-ways going the wrong way to make it difficult to move around in there...Then you most definitely will see a shopping cart nowhere near a shopping mart.And if you don't see a bunch of shoes hanging from a light pole or wires then you will see damage road signs...making it just as hard to get out as it was to get in...

YELLOW FEVER

AMMAN, JORDANSo it seems my fascination with yellow cars has spread to two of my friends and reached as far as Jordan...

I saw one today... I-93, MA
AMMAN, JORDANMy friend Tololy in Jordan has sent me some pictures of yellow taxis in Jordan...AMMAN, JORDAN

(This is my favorite because you can see the arabic sign in the background)

And Hooter sent me a New Years Pix of one he saw...PLATTSBURGH, NY Keep your eyes out for these eyecatching vehicles... AMMAN, JORDAN

NEW YEAR / NEW IDEAS

This is it...We made it to 2006 (or whatever)...We now leave the best year of my life so far...What happened in 2005?
-Got married
-Had a great bachelor party
-Worked happily at WCSC in Charleston, SC
-Won awards for my work in television
-Moved to the "Live Free or Die" state
-Got a job in the #5 market, Boston, MA
-Got a working car
-started this VERY popular blog (12 readers)

What's up for next year?
-Hopefully buying a house
-Working on more illustration projects
-working more on my autobiographical comic book
-expending a lot of creative energy
-keeping this blog exciting