here is a first look at tiny town. there are 9 houses, 1 nesting box and 1 bird table in all. i'm in the process of priming them all for painting. i'll give them their individual due as i complete them. for now enjoy them in their raw woody goodness.
and this is a tiny house that could serve no practical purpose except for heightening the adorability of any room it graced.
more to come...
these are a couple of pics from our day at the beach:
this is shauna doing a super cute little landscape painting of the scene above while we were hanging out in the sand:
you can click here to see the finished paintings. and here is that skin you were all promised:
i'm pretty sure i already regret posting a shirtless picture of myself on the internet. i invite you to post your best hairy, tubby breast jokes in the comment section.
we were fortunate to be able to see the j.c. fireworks from our vantage point:
as well as the n.y.c. show: 
finally here's a nice shot of papi and his always exposive behavior:
blammo!
this is a little pen, ink and brush sketch id did while subbing the other day at e.i. i've never been to naples before, i was looking at this comic panel by jean giraud, a.k.a. moebius:
look out tennis world, shauna and i have taken to the hard court. after a marathon three day session of play in some summer heat we're taking a few days to recover before we hit the courts again this weekend. look out mr. jiggles, yer goin' down! - for those not in the know mr. jiggles is the name of my gut.
no doubt you've all noticed a pretty steep decline in my may posting totals. my knee jerk reaction would be "hey, i've been busy, doing a little more teaching than usual, i just don't have as much time for crafts and such that i used too have". that sentiment might be disingenuous. i think the real problem might be my clean shaven face. since the "lip sweater" went away i'm not feeling as inspired or clever as i once did. maybe it's one of those samson kinda deals. no worries all, i'll find my drive again.i refuse to remain moxie free. keep checking in and i'll keep trying to entertain; and here's one more look for the road: 
oh how i miss you my old friend. r.i.p.
and the terrier had six rbi in the win. the sunday game starts after eight, lets hope i can make it through.
go sox
it was really the worst sort of game for about three and a half hours, the yankees getting a gifty call, joba pitching lousy but still weaseling his way out of trouble with four double plays and the red sox just looking lousy with the bats. if i had a temper i would have thrown something. then the magic happened; in the ninth inning, down by two runs with two outs and youk on base "new manny" jason bay came in to face mo rivera - arguably the games greatest closer. before i get into what happened, it is worth taking a moment to talk about "new manny". sure i loved manny back in the day but his antics, lazy baseball play and all-around doucheyness eventually meant he had to go and he was replaced with bay. this is manny in the field: 
and this was "new manny" last night:
this is manny standing at home plate after a home run celebrating himself: 
and "new manny": 
back to last nights game - two outs, one on, down by two runs and jason bay crushed a home run off mo to tie the game. 
he quietly rounded the bases - so canadian - not even smiling - not because he wasn't having a good time - but because, as he later explained, "Until you win the game, it's really hard to jump up and down and get all excited about anything..." he almost looked like he felt bad for rivera.
in the eleventh inning youk hit a walk-off home run against demaso marte, a pitcher not so good like mo. youk was not afraid to celebrate:
with the game now over even "new manny" enjoyed the moment "...once Youk hit that ball, it was a relief and we could enjoy it a little more, winning that game makes all the difference in the world in enjoying it." and if you enjoy youk's beard you will definitely enjoy beardoftruth.com. till part 2 tomorrow...
we all took it very seriously, sampling each flavor, rinsing between bites and ranking our choices. 
the flavors in play were chocolate chunk, chocolate chip mint, cinnamon, coffee, dulce de leche, vanilla peanut butter, butter pecan and coconut joy.
you can see shauna's final rankings next to our empty cups.
all told just a wonderful experience. they advertise having sixty flavors, i think i'll keep it up until i've tried them all.
i fancy myself the artistic type and i went to film school so one would figure i have at least decent powers of observation. for the purpose of this post most importantly i love cute furry animals so how is it that i missed out on this:
it wasn't until my most recent trip home that shauna pointed that little guy out to me. i'm so disappointed in myself. it might be time to reevaluate this whole artist thing. how can i teach children to appreciate art when that super-magical squirrel was right in front of my face for all those years without me ever noticing. alas, i'm forced to lament the lost time we could have spent together.
sorry i've been so absent again. I've got some good stuff to post soon; some fun drawings from when shauna and i were stranded in the airport in carolina, a video of papi giving me a bath and some pics from an ice cream social we had with heather. for today i just wanted to acknowledge that the baseball season has begun. the sox got rained out, but the yankees newest - and fattest - pitcher got shelled so not a bad day all around. see you tomorrow.
