This is what happens when I'm at work for 14 hours straight and come home and try to cook.















If you can't tell, it was chicken. 4 hours at 375 degrees. I was lucky that I remembered just before the smoking point.

Here is a quick little Photoshop I did to show some appreciation for Brian's effort on that huge vacation blog he did.

What the hell is that?
Is exactly what I was thinking when I almost stepped on this.















A while back I walked out of my house to find this on the walkway.
It appears to be either a really big slug or a really small monster.















The shiny round thing next to it is a quarter that I placed to show the size. Anyone see anything like this before?

I thought I would post some old pictures that some of you may not have seen. When I lived in Sussex I was lucky enough to get a ride on a hot air balloon during the annual festival. It was really fun as you can imagine and if you ever get the chance.....go for it!

This is the first picture I took the morning I went up. This is part of the chase crew filling the balloon with a big fan. Once it's filled, the pilot blasts it with the fire and the balloon rises to it's vertical position. After my trip the pilot asked me if I wanted to be on the chase crew for the weekend and I ended up doing this for the next two days.

After the balloon was about two inches off the ground I was at ease because you get the feeling right away how the thing floats. Below is a view of where we started. We got to this height pretty fast. But first the pilot dropped down to pick up a little kid that was with his parents and took him up for a few minutes and brought him back down. It was a cool thing to do and later that weekend I found out that he got in major sh!t for it.















As I was looking at the giant octopus balloon in this photo, the chase crew following in a van on the ground started yelling at the pilot over the radio. "GO UP, GO UP!!" I soon realized as I turned around what was happening.















Since the balloons are so large a pilot can't tell if there is a balloon above him or not. The pilot of this balloon didn't see us and was rising towards us.















Luckily our balloon got some wind that pushed us over just enough. We did end up bumping into this guy. It freaked me out a little, I saw my whole life flash before my eyes.....really, really, slowly.

After this little mishap the two pilots dipped down by this river to to discuss what just happened.















Some of my favorite random pictures.











































We almost landed in this cow field but the pilot thought it was such a perfect morning for a flight we just kept on going. You should have seen these cows run when they saw the balloon coming down.















You might have noticed that there are no shots taken from a really high altitude. The reason for this is because we had an 85 year old woman on board with us. She was a cool old lady but couldn't go really high because her brain might have exploded or something.

Although we stayed low it was an awesome trip to take. And after every flight the pilot cracks open a bottle or two. Being on the chase crew meant I had a buzz for the whole weekend!

Since I'm no longer considered a Graphic Artist at my new job I thought I would post some pics of me at work. What I do all day is take graphic files from other print shops and designers and prepare them to be printed on our presses. It's not that exciting. I'm more of a teacher than a Pre-Press Technician since today's generation of designer's don't really know what they are doing, so I end up either showing them how to do it right or fixing their garbage.
This first pic is of Lori and I trying to figure out yet another mess.















Here I am on the dreaded PC. This is my imposition station. Where I lay out multiple pages on a sheet so the bindary can fold and cut the job once it's printed.















Once the imposition is finished and the client signs off on the work. I send the files to our CTP machine. (computer to plate) This is me in the plate room. (more PC's) I spend allot of time in here "burning" plates. My record for one day is 72.















This is the CTP machine. On the right you can see a shelf thingy that sticks out, that's where the plates go in. Inside the large box is a drum that the plate rests in while a laser spins really fast and burns an image on to the light sensitive coating. It then travels to the section to the left. This is where all the chemistry is...developer, fixer, gum and wash. I won't get into that, it works the same way as developing a photograph. (sort of)















Here is the finished product, a shiny freshly burned metal plate ready for the press operator. For every printed sheet there are four of these plates. Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. All these four colours layed on top of each other makes a full colour image on the press. The plates are made of tin. Sharp tin. I spent most of my day avoiding cutting my fingers off.















And that's what I do, all day, everyday. It's not all bad though, the plate I'm holding above is one for a children's book. So I get to improve upon my reading skills. It's still not helping me with the spelling.

In case you're wondering why I have all these pictures of myself.
Since I have a blog and Christmas is over I thought it would be the perfect time to hire an out of work midget to follow me around with a camera.

For the first post I think I'll start with some shots of my new pad. It's still kinda "bare bones" until I get it the way I want it. Some of my furniture was left behind in the exodus from Sussex so I have to get allot of new stuff. Above is a shot of my living room, it's kinda blue.
Here are some pictures of the kitchen, it has a sink and stove and a fridge and a stool and a counter and a friggin dishwasher!! Best invention ever! Odd that my oven doesn't have a window. How can I see if my pants are warm enough?
This is my Darth Vader fireplace. It's really warm in this apartment so I doubt if I will ever get it going so I stuck some black candles in it. Where the hell would I keep the wood?
This is the view from my balcony. Prospect street, the parking lot and a car dealership. ZZZZZZ Hopefully it will get more interesting in the summer with a couple of cold ones.

And here it is. My new Mac....what can I say, it's awesome! As you can see I have it propped up on a cooler for now until I buy a new desk. My back is killing me!

Well that is my first post. Enjoy.