Another July has come and gone once again - and something happened this month which wasn't something that personally happened to me, it was to a famous rockstar. Most of you reading this will know that I'm talking about what happened to Chester Bennington, the lead singer of Linkin Park - his death was tragic and shocking to hear about.
You might be wondering why I'm dwelling on the death of a celebrity, because I usually don't like to focus on the news, especially when it's about people dying, famous or not. The reason I am is because Linkin Park were one of my favourite bands as a teenager, and were one of the bands that got me into heavy rock music, along with Limp Bizkit and Slipknot. A lot of Linkin Park's music helped me get through my teenage and secondary school years, because I could relate to the lyrics and the heavy music. It's just a tragic irony that those same lyrics couldn't help the man who sang them with the passion and the fury that he had. RIP, Chester - I hope you're in a better place now.
On more personal matters, I've still had no luck on the job front, and as always I'm still looking. Helping around the house and doing the twice monthly side job has been keeping me busy though, as well as my artwork of course. I recently completed illustrating the second of the children's book series for our close friends, admittedly it took far longer than it should've because of my procrastination on it. I'll try and do better with the next book - it's just that circumstances get in the way.
A few blogs back, I mentioned how I was getting disillusioned with DeviantArt too - that's been the case again lately. I feel like there's been a lot of immature people trying to take advantage of me in order to get free art of their characters, or just posting stupid stuff on my pictures or profile just for the sake of attention. I have no time for people like that, and I'm sending out a warning now, anyone who continues to harrass me, or any of my friends that way, will receive an instant ban-hammer to the face. I'm not playing nice anymore.
On a brighter note, me and my wife have been making the most of the nice weather this month - as well as my bike rides, we took a few trips to state parks and beaches, and not surprisingly each place was canny packed. Also not surprisingly, we spent the 4th July week in Newport, the highlights of which were a play on a mini golf course with the in laws, and a sunset cruise around Narragansett Bay onboard the MV Gansett. We also went to a music gig at Mohegan Sun on the 29th, which was our first gig since the Deftones last August - the headline act this time was Kings of Leon, and they were absolutely spot on. The opening act, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, were canny tight too.
That's pretty much it for July. As always, I'll leave you with some artwork - this surfing scene, which was an entry for a summer themed art jam that I hosted this month. See you in August.