"The Janitor" sketches pg 1

"Coffee"

"Jilted"

"The Vegetarian" Character Designs

Santa Cards

2009 Resolution

Post a drawing a day.

"My Dad in Georgia"

My dad came to the United States in 1965 to be a medical intern in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My mom was also a medical intern living in Youngstown, Ohio. They met in the United States, two Korean immigrants who had come to America for a better education and started to date.

Then it was time to introduce my dad to the family. The only family my mom had in the States was her oldest sister and her husband who lived in Decatur, Georgia because he was a Professor of Engineering at Georgia Tech. So my dad made the drive down to Georgia.

He pulled over at a rest stop to go to the bathroom. He stopped short of the restroom doorway. There were two entrances, one marked "White" the other "Colored". He stood there for a long minute. Was he white or was he colored? He had to make a decision because he really had to go to the bathroom. So he went into the white bathroom. Without incident.

My dad once told me, "When I see a minority or a woman in a position of authority, I think that person must be really excellent at their job. Because it's twice as hard for a minority to make it that far than it is for a white person. That's just the way it is in this country. Maybe in your lifetime, there could be a black president. Maybe, but I doubt it. Definitely not in my lifetime. No way." I remember feeling disappointed when he said this to me.

Late at night on Tuesday, November 4, 2008 I called my dad and asked him if he remembered having that conversation with me.

He said, "You know what. I was listening to his acceptance speech and for some reason my eyes were wet. I reached up to my eyes and they were wet. And I realized I was crying. I can't believe. I can't believe it."

I said, "I'm so happy for you, Dad. That you're seeing this in your lifetime."

"Yeah, I know. Congratulations, Fred."

"Congratulations, Dad."

5th sentence

"My understanding of twinning, as with my (still limited) understanding of everything else in animationland, has evolved over the years since, and has led me to the following irrefutable mathematical formula:"

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions in a note to your wall.

Optimism

It is the night before the election. I am excited and for the first time, I'm optimistic (I'm for Obama). Here is why.

Previously I had posted a thought on this election and what it would come down to.  Basically, will the vast number of newly (democratic) registered voters (many of them young and therefore unreliable) actually show up to vote come Tuesday?

I say... yes.

Early voting lines for the past week have been absolutely inspiring for those who will vote for Obama.  Obama voters are especially enthusiastic about their candidate and to see the long lines in Georgia, GEORGIA, a state that leans McCain but will symbolically give extra motivation for voters to become a part of history.

To vote tomorrow, is to become an indelible part of this country's history!

Become a part of history.

Vote.

Gift from Kenya...

Check out my new button!
This was sent from my sister-in-law in Kenya! (via tigereyedesign.com)

Happy Birthday, Seth!

Fredfolio updates...

Uploaded some new boards to Fredfolio.

Joe, Bob and Thomas

My Birthday Present...

What the wife got me for my birthday.

:-)  !!!!!!!!!!!!!

In Honor of Columbo Day

 

 

Running Redux

So I did a little fact-checking on my previous post on running and discovered that my times were wrong. Turns out I wasn't slowing down with every consecutive race. Below are the correct times and dates (all 5K races).

(Above are pics from my most recent race.)

Sept 16, 2007

Banana Chase Race
22:26 7:14/M

September 23, 2007

Komen Breast Cancer
22.03

November 18, 2007

Run for Hunger
21:50.70

February 2, 2008

Kaiser Permanente
22:54 7:23/M

September 14, 2008

Banana Chase Race
22:09 7:09/M

I'm a Dad

Today, at breakfast in the kitchen, my oldest son (5 yrs), was looking out the window up at the roof.

He asked, "Dad, how does Santa get down the chimney?"

I said, "You mean, how does a big guy like that fit down the chimney and into the fireplace and into the house?"

He said, "Yeah."

I said, "That - is a very good question."

And then I walked out of the kitchen.

Web 2.0 Social Apps

In socio-economics there's the upper class, the middle class and the lower class.  In a wired society there's: the power users, the lay-user and the afraid-of-the-computer user.  In a web 2.0 society: the update-every-days, the update-once-in-a-whiles and the why-bothers.

The people who use web 2.0 social web apps is a subset of a subset of a small set.  They are all techies and are playing to the techie crowd.  Question is: will these sites continue to only play to the techie crowd, or as time goes by, will the new (younger) generation become the update-ever-day kind and take these sites out of hobby-mode to actually-can-make-money status?

I check facebook and friendfeed all the time but what I find is that there's only a certain minority of my friends who use these web 2.0 apps, and an even smaller subset of them that update their status or other feed-worthy activity. It's a very small set of people who are avid users, the majority of all my friends (all of whom use email) don't use the web 2.0 app because there's little return on investment (of time).

Updating one's status, or one's blog or any 'feed-worthy' activity is an investment of time. Why would I want to write a review on a travel site or a movie review site or a restaurant review site? What do I get in return?  If I feel like I'm party of a community then maybe it's stature.  Most of the time, it's for people to broadcast their thoughts opinions.  Most people don't care to broadcast.

Maybe future generations will be using these web 2.0 apps like we use the telephone.  Blogging and broadcasting feed-worthy activity will be as routine as checking email.  Maybe.

amazon's new subscribe and save

I've signed up for something on amazon called subscribe and save (http://www.amazon.com/sands/)

Basically, you buy stuff like paper products, toiletries and stuff you would normally buy at Costco and have it shipped to you for free. And then they send the same bulk item to you 3 or 6 or 9 months later automatically. You can modify the frequency. The shipping is free and buying in bulk saves you some as well.

I hate making the trip to Costco so this was a no-brainer.

Amazon has a lot of 'green' brands as well, but not the wide selection that costco has to offer. Still, it's worth trying out for a few months and see if I like it.

Politics - Show up or Shut up

I’m not going to rant or rave about the state of politics today. I’m just going to cut to the chase. It comes down to just one thing and one thing only:

Will the vast number of newly registered voters show up on Tuesday.

That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Period.

Many of them are Democrats registered by the well-organized Obama campaign and they’re in key states. So the numbers heavily favor Obama.

But, many of them are also young. And young voters are notorious for not showing up at the polls on election day. However, many of these young voters DID show up for the Democratic

primaries and caucases and were a major proponent of Obama’s victories against Hillary.

I don’t know the answer to my own question above.

I’m guessing that when the dust settles, the Palin effect will diminish and perhaps even backfire. But that’s just a guess.

There’s about 50 days left and depending on how you look at it, that’s very little time or a lot of time, for things to change.