Photo Issue #1, Page 12

Unlike the prior page where I had difficulty finding the subject, images of small animals are easy to obtain. The problem was sorting through them and choosing what image I wanted.

At one time, I was considering making something like a fake arm that would also have food on it so it would attract animals. I’ll be honest, it would make the picture significantly more gruesome; but, more than a few of my readers have commented that they really enjoyed the simplicity of my pictures. That I take a simple thing, such as a picture of an empty culvert, and the language I use  leaves the violence up to the reader’s imagination. 

With the concept of simplicity in mind, I went through all my pictures again.  I decided that this image was the least complex, and allowed for the most mind wandering.

Dameon Strykes Issue #1 Page 11

New page has been added ( www.ironfistregime.com ), and we’re finally going to meet Detective Thomas Hones.

It was suggested to me I start a blog about the pages. I don’t intend on adding anymore to the story in this blog as I feel it would distract from the actual pages themselves. I want them to tell the story; if I wanted this to be entirely written word I would have tried writing a novelization of Dameon Strykes.  No, the intent of these blogs is to talk about how the page was made.  Where I took the photographs, changes I made, and what not. Very few of the pages are staged, and some of them having interesting stories behind them. Hopefully this area further enlightens as well as entertains any of my readers.

Often times I find myself looking for things that one would think it would be easy to find; until you hunt for it. Police vehicles might always be lurking around that corner you’re speeding around, but finding one parked (and not currently conducting business) is a bit more difficult. Add in the number of times I found one without my camera, ran home, only to return to the vehicle gone and this one took quite some time. While I could use my phone, I find myself having to do a lot more post-work to get a lesser quality image. There’s also a lot of things I do while taking the picture that my Canon Rebel can do that my phone simply cannot. I found this vehicle just waiting for me while  I was hunting down next week’s page.  I took my time getting this from various angles without appearing too suspect. Sometimes I go weeks without finding an adequate picture, but this day I shot two of them. The other will be next week’s page.

2016: A year in review

2015 ended with the death of Lemmy Kilminster, and 2016 decided to greatly increase the number of famous artists I love dying. Starting with David Bowie and ending with Carrie Fisher, people who were influential to my life passed on.

While the world is a poorer place for having so many amazing people no longer in it, their deaths impacted my life minimally. Their deaths might have changed the conversations I had with my friends, but it didn’t change who my friends were, who my family was, nor what job I held.

Over-all for me, as an individual, 2016 was a good year. Early in the year I received a promotion at UPS. I went from a loader to supervisor. While the stress increased, I’m infinitely happier with this job than I was with Enterprise. I have new challenges every day, and I can see the impact I have on the work place. Lorena and I grew closer this year. So much so that we decided to move in together. There have been plenty of new friends, and I don’t feel like I lost contact with any of my old friends.

Only thing I’ve really lost this year was the house I grew up in. My parents decided to move closer to my brother, who lives in Vegas. I got a chance to visit the home of my youth one last time, and I was surprised how much emotion it caused me to say goodbye to that place. But it’s also a place I only saw occasionally. Saying goodbye was hard due to its symbolic nature, but its impact on my actual life is minimal. It gave me a good reason to visit my brother and family in Vegas, and hopefully something I’ll do more of in the upcoming years as well.

I also suffered a knee injury. Out of nowhere, I found myself limping one day. I learned I had microfractures in one of my kneecaps. I had to start going to physical therapy to work on it. Losing the ability to run, at least temporarily, was outright heartbreaking. One of my resolutions for 2016 was to run more, and the injury simply squashed my ability to do that.

Two of my resolutions for this year were about writing. I definitely continued writing, spending much of the year editing the novel I’m hoping to find a publisher for. I also worked on other projects, including continuing Dameon Strykes #1 and a fantasy book. I, unfortunately, did not find an agent. This wasn’t due to my lack of effort, and as such I won’t count it as me failing. I am just going to need to approach this goal in a new manner.

Another goal of mine was to do something for myself. I feel like I accomplished that with things like letting myself have some frivolous pleasures, like Everquest, as well as taking one of my vacation weeks to just do the bare minimum.

Outside of my injury, artists that I enjoyed dying, and election results I don’t even want to talk about, 2016 was a great year for me. I’m hoping I can continue to grow in 2017, and some ways I plan on doing that are:

1. I need to find a professional editor for my book. The major problem I ran into with trying to find an agent was my lack of having it professionally edited. I tried to cut corners and find others to help me edit, but that wasn’t enough. So, after my tax returns, I plan on investing in myself and my dreams.

2. Work on my physical health, specifically my knee. I want to get running again. I want to be active again. I need to watch what I do and do it in moderation, but it's something I can, and will, overcome.

3. Reconnect with friends. This is really something I need to do early on in the year, but every job I’ve had, come mid-November work becomes busier and I close up. There’s a bunch of people out there that I love that I haven’t gotten to see for awhile because of that. I’m already starting to make plans to reconnect.

4. I’d like to find a new place to live. I’d like to find a place I want to call home, even if just temporarily. I moved twice last year, and I’m ready to feel at least a little settled.

5. Be a force of good in the world. With the recent election results, a lot of bad shit is going to happen. While I might not be able to stop the potential nuclear devastation this world may suffer, I can at least stand up for fellow Americans against hate and bigoted laws that, while they may not impact my directly, impact friends, family members, and just other human beings who deserve respect.