August 2016

So, summer's at an end, and I can safely say that I've been making the most of the warm weather, as I have done for the majority of this summer - bike rides, beach time and going on trips with my wife Nicole.

On that note, we had another "rock and roll" weekend on the 6th and 7th, going to not one but two gigs at Mohegan Sun, my first time going to the arena there, and the biggest music venue I've ever been to, I have to say. The first gig was a double header, Counting Crows & Rob Thomas. I'd only heard one Counting Crows song before the show, and I was familiar with some of Rob Thomas' music as Nicole is a big fan of both his and his band Matchbox 20's music. Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of either artist, but I will say that Rob Thomas put a lot of energy and passion into his show, interacting with the crowd and getting everyone pumped, and his songs are very catchy - I think he should've been the headline act, because while Counting Crows were solid, they just weren't quite as memorable in my opinion. Still, it was a good night all round.

The second gig was the flipside, one of my favourite bands, and my second time seeing them, the Deftones. They had Spotlights and the infamous Swedish punk band Refused opening for them, Spotlights were pretty good with their heavy shoegaze-iinspired metal, I wasn't too sure about Refused though, while they were very loud and energetic (their singer had quite the stage presence), they jut didn't quite do it for me. However, Deftones absolutely killed it, they were every bit as awesome as when I first saw them back in '07, I couldn't fault them at all.

It wasn't just music shows we checked out at Mohegan Sun - on August 20 we checked out the TerrifiCon comic convention, my first comic con since San Diego back in 2010, and while this one was on a smaller scale, it was every bit as packed as San Diego, comic book stands, famous faces and cosplayers everywhere, and while it was a little overwhelming it was still a lot of fun.

We also celebrated two friends' wedding on the 27th (congrats to you both, you know who you are), it was a great party, and of course it brought back memories of our own wedding ceremony two months ago - I have to say, it was nice not being in the spotlight.

This month also saw the Olympics, which this year were held in Rio in Brazil - I caught some of it, though I really don't like how like everything else it seemed to get overshoadowed by all the scandal going on. It was also a little strange knowing that the previous Olympics were held in London back in 2012, back in my home country.

I seem to have been getting these reminders of my home country a lot lately, it's been 8 months since I left the UK, and I admit that this past month I've had moments where I've been missing my family a lot. The fact is, that is always going to happen, as anyone who's in a similar position will know, being far away from your loved ones is hard - but that's why I'm thankful for technology such as Skype, I can still easily keep in touch with them. I just hope that both me and Nicole will be able to go and visit them again someday.

On a brighter note, things are finally progressing with my immigration - they finally received my case, 5 months later, about time too, and just this past week I had my background check done up in Hartford, so now I am waiting for that to come through, and then hopefully it won't be much longer before I have my residency card and am able to apply for jobs. That's been on my mind too, wondering about whether I'll be able to cope balancing work and life, but the fact is, I won't know if I can until I'm living it. Ill keep you posted on this of course.

Last but not least, with summer coming to a close, I'll leave you with some summer-themed artwork - if this doesn't make you want to jump into the nearest pool, I dunno what will.

February 2014

Just as quick as January flew by, February has pretty much done the same. (This is going to be a recurring theme throughout this year, I'm sure you'll agree.) However, apart from one night of snow, which quickly cleared away, the weather this month, much like January, has still been very mild compared to past winters - at least, that's the case in my part of the country, I've been very lucky considering what's been happening elsewhere in the UK with the storms that battered the country this month, and caused widespread flooding. I hope those who've been affected by the flooding will be able to get their lives back in order as quickly as possible, it must be awful to watch your home and the place you know so well get taken over by a deluge.

February also meant a certain day - the day which I now prefer to call "Slushy Day", but what everyone else knows as Valentine's Day. Even though I'm not single, I still have my views on it, which are all very well covered here. 
Either way, I got to see my lovely Nicole via Skype, and we exchanged gifts - before you ask, "How were you able to give each other Valentine's gifts via video chat?", she gave me her gift during her stay here 2 months ago, while I sent my gift for her through the post. It'll also be just under 2 months until we're hopefully together for real again, too.

Now, I don't normally watch much sport, however there are exceptions: Formula 1, the Wimbledon tennis, and both the Summer and Winter Olympics. This month was the turn of the Winter Olympics, last held in 2010 in Vancouver, Canada, and was this time held in Sochi in Russia. It enjoyed watching all the different events, namely the skiing, bobsleigh, luge and the snowboarding events, including my favourite event, the snowboard cross, and the events weren't short of drama and action. Great Britain don't usually do very well in terms of medals at the Winter Olympics, but I don't really care about that - for me, the Olympics is all about the action, the coming together of countries, and the taking part, because just getting to compete at the Olympics is an achievement in itself, and it's just a shame that a lot of people, especially the media, tend to forget that. I also don't care much for the political and financial sides of the Olympics, either.

A bit of closure now - I mentioned back in November that I had been considering trying to go self-employed doing artwork, I never mentioned how that all panned out. Well, I had an appointment about it back in December, and the impression I got was that it would be too much of an undertaking, financially. It's a shame, but I need to be able to have a stable income at the end of the day, and that line of work will not give me that.
However, I know two friends who are attempting to go down the same route - Andy and Hayley, aka Granitoons and TopperHay from deviantART, and I wish them the very best of luck with that. Please go and check out their galleries and give them a commission if you can, because they are simply brilliant cartoonists.

I'll leave you with a bit of artwork, as always - my bug characters Bob & Flyer as cowboys.