Nothing to see here

Well, I clearly suck at this. Last week I was basically out of commission. I had to sub at the box factory while someone was on vacation as well as tutor every day. This forced me to get up early and had me occupied until about 4pm every day. I also had softball playoff games every day at 7, so any free time I had was spent taking naps. As for the two weeks before that, I have no excuse. So pretty much no carving took place last week. But I made up for lost time this weekend. I put up some more vacation pictures last night and just put up a large carving update today. I had planned to be through all the vacation pictures by now, but, as I said, I suck. One more batch to go, and then I'll give you some extra info on Ric. He's moderately famous. Or at least more famous than anyone else I know personally.

As for Jesus, my plan is to have the carving finished in the next 2-3 days and then start painting. If all goes well he will be complete by Sunday. My schedule is fairly open this week, with just one last championship softball game tonight and one hour of tutoring on Wednesday since everyone is on vacation, so I should be able to finish on time.

What are the chances someone will read this after I've been gone for three weeks?

I am back from my trips. I got back late Wednesday and promptly sleep all day Thursday. I made sure I did nothing Friday. Saturday I attended a graduation party and Sunday was the annual my-mom's-friends-from-high-school party. Which brings me to today. On one of thos days I put up the few Denver pictures I took. I've also started putting up pictures from California. Started because there's 515 to choose from, so they're going up in groups as I find the time and, more importantly, the desire to go through them. I also started working on the Buddy Christ again today, so there's a few of those added, too. Nothing else to report for now, but I should have something later in the week.

Told you I'd post more

Clearly I'm a lying asshole. Rather than post more often I've gone ahead and given you nothing for over two weeks. Then again, we never agreed to any posting rules, so calling me a lying asshole was very rude. I haven't really been doing anything important. Mostly I'm just a boring person, so I have nothing to write about. But today I bring you an epic tale taking you on a journey not only across a country, but into the soul, to a place where the pain of living is overcome only by the insurmountable fortitude of the human spirit, and to the edge of reason, where the only salvation is the divine. Come on, try not to click that. I dare you.

Our tale beings with the journey of a young man. Let's call him Max. It's his middle name really, but that's what I call him, so you should call him that too. So Christian departs in the early afternoon on Wednesday, July 1, 2009. Oh, Christian is his first name. Christian Max Caterina. Ok, so my brother goes to Pennsylvania. But why would anyone go to that hell hole, you ask? A fair question, but one with a reasonable answer nonetheless. Pennsylvania is the ancestral home of his girlfriend. Maybe. She lives there. Ancestral sounds more epic.

But what sets this journey apart from any other? Ah yes, that age old event that we all face at some point in our lives: major spinal surgery. Faithful followers may recall that our hero (me, not him) was able to coax this from a simple wooden dowl with nothing but his force of will:


As mentioned in this album's description, this mystical flower is likely the only thing that could ensure the success of the surgery. So Max took the flower, ever so carefully, and left on his quest to align the spine. Well, he'll just be sitting there really, hoping for the best.

That portion of our story should come to an end in just one day, but when will we know the ending? For me the answer is tomorrow. But for you, not so fast. Wait, I'm going to see Mike and Judy tomorrow, so for them, also tomorrow. But anyone else, not so fast. Because tomorrow I depart on my own journey. The first leg takes me to the new Hurlewang home. A magically unfurnished place where I will certainly have the pleasure of helping my "hosts" move into the place of hosting. I will toil under the burden of their harsh regiment of games and stuff until I escape on Monday to The Land of a Thousand Sunshine State of California.

There I will meet up with a band of follow travellers, who go by the names my brothers and sister and the girlfriend of my other brother who goes by the name Lucia. There we begin the true purpose of this journey: to visit family in California, some of which I have not seen in over seven years. You see, they use to make the trip out here quite regularly, but as they have grown older, gotten married, and had children they are able to do so with greatly diminished frequency. And as we get older, aren't married, and have no children it's now our turn to do all the work and spend all the money to go see them. So this is where I will be until July 15th. Until then you get no new pictures or posts. Though the posting thing you should be use to by now. But before I go, I drink from my deep reservoir of faith and ask my Buddy Christ to watch over everyone in my absence. But since he's only really half finished I only expect half of you to make it.


Ok, I'm done. That took an hour to do. Go back and read it over and over for an hour so we're even.

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?

Greetings you reader types. How are you? Doing ok? You want a soda? You may be wondering if my post title is just a really awesome random string of words. No, that's dumb. I'm too clever for that. But first, I will digress.

My (relatively) intense tutoring schedule abruptly ended this week. I just have a few hours next week and then nothing until mid-July. As such, I may find myself bored enough to put stuff up here more often. No promises, though. +/-

I have completed flower carving today. I will begin painting tomorrow. This calls for a flower picture. And a sexy hand.



Now, I return to the title of this post. As is my habit, I've started preliminary planning for my next thingy before the current one is totally finished. As advertised, my next creation will be a carving of Buddy Christ. Buddy Christ made his film debut in the movie Dogma. He was introduced by Cardinal Glick. If you've somehow never seen this movie, you can watch the relevant portion here:

The words in my title straight from the mouth of the late, great George Carlin, who I think you all recognize from the clip above. So I think it ties everything together nicely. Plus maybe I'll get some traffic from people that actually worship Jesus or pork chops. Let's hope I can carve this one as well as I drew it:



Peace be upon you.

Of Balls and Jesus

Ball in cage is complete. Really, it's been complete for the last three days, but I got lazy. And some family people showed up for the weekend. But now it's stained and finished. The ball is trapped and it rolls around, so I consider it a success. I can tell it will be something that mesmerizes Mike for years.

I'll still be working a bunch for the next three weeks or so, so I'm holding off on my next big thing for now. Instead I will be working on a flower complete with stem and flower parts. I will be interested to see if this one is better than the last one I made nearly nine months ago.

I do, however, have something in mind after I finish this flower. I have yet to use my relatively new hobby to blaspheme, but that's all about to change.

Doesn't it... pop?

Ibis completion day

Ok, so it took a few more days than I wanted, but the ibis is done now. It was really done on Monday, but I decided it needed another coat of white late last night. It magically stands on its own two feet. And you thought my four years at an engineering school were a waste. Here's a picture.


Are you out there Aziz? I tried calling you the other day. I miss you. Call me. I have a bird for you.

haha tricked you I'm still alive

Now that I've surely convinced everyone this isn't worth looking at anymore, I can finally post. Don't worry, it's going to be short. I just haven't been doing much carving, and so I don't have much of anything to say. It's been a mixure of work and arabs keeping me from the wood. Things get a bit crazy for me this time of the year, as parents realize their children are failing math classes and it might be good to maybe do something about it with less than two months of school left. I'm also doing a lot more SAT stuff this year, and that's coming up in early June. To add to all that, arab Mike was here yet again for work, and after entertaining him all week we drove to Maryland few a couple days to see asians. That concludes my list of excuses. Now, my jew friend is coming back from Miami in about a week, so I'm really going to try to finish this bird by the end of the weekend. I'll update you on my failure at that point.