rainbows and forgotten pictures
Not too bad for a tuesday, it was a long day at work but on the way in I caught this rainbow. I took the camera in so I could get a picture of my new cubicle, or cubby, or workstation. I'm not sure it's still a cube if it doesn't form a square.

This past weekend they remodeled the room I work in. There'd been discussion of it since I started, we were going from corner office areas with about 12-14 feet of workspace to 6ft desks. But we got to vote on the colors! w00t. It will take some getting used to, but I might be able to keep some areas clear.


It is a little cramped feeling, and its more like an internet cafe, since it's so open. On my desktop I am working on a remodel of the interiors of the salons. Just concepts at this point. I am finishing up some other pieces that the printers continue to call about, so there are generally a lot of 11x17 papers cluddering my 6 feet of space.

Here's a shot of the the right side of the room, there's 3 more stations along the left wall. It's pretty loud and bustling, people play music on a little CD player, and everyone is pretty cool, it's just weird that the rest of the office has private cubicles. Oh well, I think the misconception is that creatives want an open sharing environment. People have been jokingly calling it a callcenter. (I have my winged frog on a spring hanging over my cube there behind the bright orange pumpkin.)



This is Roger Roadrunner, he greets me in the morning sometimes, but mostly says good night on my way out. What a beautiful bird. Mee-meep.


I think he gets fed so he hangs around, one day he walked to my car in front of me, which was weird.


Steve's birthday was back in June, and I forgot to post these pics. I got him an ice cream cake from Baskin Robins and a car wash kit. It's been too hot or stormy to do any type of vehicle washing, but come fall he'll be shining up that Prelude.

Make a wish!

Mountain views on the I-10

It's saturday and we're burned in.

Kind alike being "snowed" in, but you know, the opposite. I saw that Niko had to pee at one point and didn't have my shoes on, so I ran her out and singed my feet. We had just watched the episode of the office last night where the boss burns his foot on the George Foreman grill, so when I mentioned to Steve my singed sole story he asked if I needed Dwight to come get me. Hah. I wish we would've watched that show from the beginning, there was just something about it that bugged me when it started. The fact that it was just like the BBC version, but now I love it and watched 6 episodes in a row last night. We might try to catch up on 24 and lost too, while were burned in.

My friend L is having a little pool party today, another all girls thing. Ugh, enough already. Everything they do is all girls. I'm tired of it. Before deciding to get the pup last weekend I was going to stay with them at a resort in Phx. I guess it sucked, their bill got super expesive for drinks, L left at like 9:30 to pick up a waitress shift, and then the next day when boys were allowed to join the all-girls-at the pool, L's boyfriends new truck got stolen with a bunch of his art equipment in it. I can't imagine getting a car stolen, but I guess it's bad here.

Work has been pretty frustrating at times, but the perks are still making me glad to be there, I picked up a prescription today that was 1/2 the price and I paid for it through a FSA I'd set up with pre-tax $$, that they gave me a credit card for so I don't have to wait for reimbursement. I also got to take bentley on a photoshoot Friday morning, so he might end up on some signage for collars and leashes in the stores.

The trip to Palm Springs was such a blur last weekend, but it was a good test drive, 2 more hours to San Diego which is where I'd like to go next road trip. It's definitely a beautiful drive, I only posted pics of Niko but here's some of the trip.

The famous windmills of the Palm Desert area.


Steve looking down the fans.


View from hotel.


Steve holding the little Niko.


Me holding the little Niko.

About 20 mins after getting her we ran to PetSmart and bought a harness, and two car seats. Bentley likes his but she wanted to be in Bmans with him so kept jumping out then dangling from the harness, so we strapped her into the seatbelt with Steve for the ride, and she slept for the whole ride.

My parents were in the Ozarks that weekend and sent this pic that made me laugh. Probably because my dad is always telling people to "Jump in the Lake", this is him doing just that.


She wakes us up in the night a lot so we take naps with her and she cuddles up around necks, it's cute.

Yes, Michigan the feelings forever....



Our trip to Michigan was really great, it went by so fast and I didn't get to see as many folks I would've liked, but I saw a lot of family, and had a little happy hour and outing in Lansing.



We met up with some folks at Leos for happy hour thursday, then went to the exchange for nightcaps, Matt was gracious enough to keep us up at his place. It was really nice to chat with old friends, I miss Michigan.


It's hard to see Jadey on the couch here planting a big sloppy kiss on my face.


I got a pic of Steve with the lush greenery we don't see here in 'zona too much.


The Dallas folks flew in and we all ended up around my folk's bar in the basment for some day-before-the-party billiards, dancing and libations.


My cousin Cody from Florida dancing the traditional brides dance.


Heidi and Cole cutting the cake in the tent near the porta-pottie. It was a true farm bbq-reception, complete with a trailer oven roasted full pig.


Of course, there was some line dancing, which was my cue to exit the floor and take fotos.


My grandpa came and hung out for a while, fed the dog some Koegels, and got in some pics with the family. He seems really happy for having lost my grandma a year ago. It was really good to talk with him.


My mom posing with my sister's new mother-in-law. My mom bought her skirt when she came to visit me in PHX just a couple weeks earlier. I thought she looked great.




The day after the party it was kinda rainy but everyone still wanted to be together so we slowly gathered in the garage, drank budweiser and chatted, its kinda sad everyone lives so far apart, but it makes it so bitter-sweet to get together like this too.



This past weekend Steve's friend JB came to visit, we took him shopping in old town, and out to Oregano's for some great pizza, this is the last of the travels/visits for a little while now I need to get back into the art swing!

Sun, Art, and New Pet Beds.


I've lasted a month at my new job, made it through some big projects, stayed late a couple of times, but also got to go to see the opening of the XMen movie with the group of graphic designers I share the room with. I come home for lunch some days, and take bentley in to work with me on Fridays, it's been pretty good.


We've finally got the Sun hung between the chairs out back. It looks really nice, and reminds us that it's very hot outside.



A closer pic, the face was a little weird, but its got a lot of character, and reminds us that it's hot as hell out there if we forget while standing in the over hundreds temps.

Last weekend we went to downtown Pheonix to check out the farmer's market. I'm thinking of setting my art tent up somewhere on saturday mornings and have a couple markets to check. There were's many tents on this hot weekend, and there's one closer to my house but I saw some beautiful jewlery here that I will come back for closer to the holidays.

This is one of the backlit art pieces near a bus stop at the intersection of 7th avenue and glenrosa in PHX, I am sending them my slide portfolio to try to get some of my work up, I love this idea and think it probably looks really cool at night, haven't made the trek down to see the evening version, but this piece in particular had a cool day night effect of photography done with masking.

Another by the same artist, with day cut out to night through the sillouette of the child.


These next two were macro pics I think, of cereal, very cool, they look like bales of hey in some post-nuclear or mars atmosphere. The artist was hard to see on my pics, I think it said - Ernie Button "Shredded Wheat ..."

And these were lucky charms on pins all broken except for the one.Ernie Button - "Pink Clouds and Green Clovers"




One huge perk of my new job is a big discount on pet stuff, I got matching beds for the crew and they seem to have picked their favs already.

Bentley luvs his new red bed.

And Venus luvs her new blue bed.

Serena is easily disturbed so often goes back to the couch for comfort.


And Bentley had a crazy little game we caught on film the other night. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2OQiDcCSw8

Bentley's posts: http://www.thegreatbentley.blogspot.com/