• Floors finished, baseboards finished, thresholds nearly finished
• re-design for monsterbubbles.com nearly complete–hoping to go live with it before the end of August
• working on posters for a few local theater productions
• trying to find time to draw the pile of Summer Olympic-inspired GSM ideas I’ve had
• Set up a Facebook page for GSM

Take special note of that final item, please.  If you have a Facebook profile, and if you dig Grandpa Sex Machine, help a brother out and become a fan, won’t you?

Anyhow, hoping to have some sort of picturey thing to show you later in the week–maybe GSM, maybe just sketchbook stuff, but I’ll try to have some sort of content soon.  I’ll be headed back to the day-job on Wednesday.   Later!

Not quite finished yet (still have to do the baseboards), but the floors are down and a VAST improvement over the gross carpet that was on top of the busted linoleum that was on top of the original asphalt tile. Thanks, Tim.

Anyhow, no promises on the the next Grandpa Sex Machine update, but I will say I’ve got a couple drawn and waiting to be scanned and colored. Hopefully we’ll get the baseboards done quickly and I can get back at it. Of course, when the remodeling junk is finished, I’ve got some web-design work to do–that pays better than Grandpa does, so it’s my number one priority. Later.

Finally made it out to another Drink and Draw last night, and it looks like it’s been growing in my absence, so that’s awesome.  Gene wasn’t there, but the bartender on duty is also an artist.  Rich (Rick?) is pictured up there on the top right, but isn’t nearly as sinister looking in real life as he is in that caricature.  Miriam (Mariam? Meriam?) was also new (actually she’d been there a couple times before but not when I was there)–that’s her in the lower left–and her friend Angelina  showed up, too (didn’t get a chance to draw her).  Four people drawing isn’t so bad.  At least better than the time I was the only schmo w/ a sketchbook.  Anyhow, Dr. Sketchy’s next week, so bring a sketchbook and draw a burlesque performer!

Also last night my friend Mike from work showed up with a bunch of folks–I think at least some of them will be there next week.  They weren’t drawing, and I kind of missed my window to hang out with them, but Mike bought me a couple beers anyway.  I’ll try to return the favor next week.

In Grandpa Sex Machine news, I managed to get a comic roughly sketched up last night.  The floor project is still not finished, so no promises on completion, but wanted to let you know that comics are still in the works.

Awhile ago I was hanging out in Tim’s shop with Tim and Abe. Can’t remember what the project was that night, if there was one. Anyhow, Tim said, “Have you seen Abe’s card?”

“No,” I said.

So Abe pulled out a business card and handed it to me. It’s a red card with a black skull and crossbones on it and nothing else. I flipped it over to look at the back, and there’s nothing there. No contact info, no identifying information of any kind. I smiled and said “Nice,” then stuck the card in my wallet.

In the time since then I’d pull the card out at parties, in class, whenever, and say “This is my friend Abe’s card.” The card would get passed around, and I’d listen to the confused questions, the comments on irony, the accusations of super-villainy, and I would just smile and say “That’s Abe,” basking in the reflected glow of his genius.

I’m glad I had the chance to know Abe. Last Christmas, just before he and his family moved back to California, we were hanging out in the shop again and I told him that I felt like I had missed the opportunity to hang out with him much while he was here. Tim smiled and said, “You didn’t miss much.”

Hey.  Not a real update here, I know–if you checked the links in this post, you’re already familiar with this image, but I haven’t been able to work on anything new.  Still bogged down in flooring drama.

My wife and I had been working on it off and on for a couple weeks, but got serious about it on Sunday when we moved all the furniture out of the bedrooms.  The carpet from the bedrooms, the hall, and living room are gone.  One layer of linoleum from both bedrooms is gone.  On Monday I rented a floor stripper/power scraper (whatever you want to call it ) thing in the hopes of getting the original vinyl flooring out of the two bedrooms.  12 hours later and I almost had one room complete, but my hands and fingers were throbbing and swollen and my abdomen bruised from the constant beating I took from the vibrating floor stripper/power scraper/electric torture device (whatever you want to call it ) thing.  And yes, I know I just used “throbbing,” “swollen,” and “vibrating,” in the same sentence.  I’m just too tired to craft it into a joke.

Anyhow, as this thoroughly enjoyable week comes to a close, the bedrooms are both ready for the new floor.  Tim is helping me out starting tomorrow at 6:45.  Of course when the bedrooms are finished it’s on to the living and dining rooms, so it looks like it’ll be awhile ’til I’m back on any kind of regular schedule here.  Thanks for your patience!

Like I mentioned in Wednesday’s blaahg post, the Belleville Drink and Draw Social Club had its big Dr. Sketchy’s style life drawing session.  Mimi of St. Louis’ own Alley Cat Revue was the model and was a lot of fun.  The pile of scribbling that you see above is representative of only a handful of the the total drawings I did last night–lots of poses that changed quickly.  It’s been a long time since I’ve had to draw that quickly in pencil–hardly any time to add value.  I’d bring charcoal, but I’m afraid I’d make a big mess–I’m kind of a slob as evidenced by those drawings up there.  I envy people that can draw clean and slick.  It also became evident fairly quickly that I need a bigger sketchpad.

Was hoping that a girl in skimpy outfits would bring more people to the whole Drink and Draw thing, and it brought in a couple new folks (including my friend Chris), but it was still pretty sparsely attended.  Gene was working again, so didn’t get a chance to draw, which is too bad because he’s really good at drawing pretty girls.

Wanted to mention that the Belleville Chapter of the Drink and Draw Social Club (which I’ve been absent from for the past couple weeks) is having a Dr. Sketchy’s inspired evening this Thursday. Mosaics on Main has invited the Alley Cat Revue, so for a $10 cover charge you’ll be able to draw burlesque performers. So once again–all you St. Louis area artists–bring your sketchbooks and come hang out with us tomorrow night!

Didn’t get a chance to go to the drink and draw last night either–next week I think I’ll be able to get back at it.

Up top you see more junk from my sketchbook–fairly old junk at that. First three are a few coffee-swillin’ guys that I spotted at the Illinois High School Theatre Festival a few years ago. Len is a guy I know from a local community theater–I drew that at rehearsal one night for Damn Yankees, about 3 years ago.

Carpet is gone from two bedrooms. The tack strips were held to the floor with 3-inch nails–guess they needed the extra length to get through the TWO FRIGGIN’ LAYERS of tile that they just left underneath. The former owners of this house are my FAVORITE!

As of last Thursday, my summer has arrived. To celebrate, got together w/ Tim (and another Tim, too) last night and did some home brewing. It’s been so long since we brewed that we forgot how the whole thing is supposed to work. Should know in a couple weeks whether or not we got it right. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say mistakes were made–with any luck, though, none of them were deadly.

The big project now is to tear up all the carpet and replace it with tile and laminate flooring. Not nearly as much fun as brewing beer, but it’s gotta be done. Once the old carpet is gone, I think things will go smoothly (Tim is running the whole installation and knows what he’s doing), but getting the old floor up (there are two layers of tile under the carpet (ugh)) will be a tremendous pain in my butt.

Anyhow, the point of me sharing my re-modeling woes with you is that this could potentially eat into my Grandpa time. I’m going to try to stick to a regular schedule, but be prepared for the occasional delay. I know that’s sucky and unprofessional, but it’s the best I can offer. I will promise not to go on another 2 year hiatus, though. Cool?