its been a rollercoaster ride of a year so far. not one with loop to loops, turns and shit. more like the coal miner at hershey park. something the kids would go weee over.
my time at duke energy is coming to a close. i took the job there to get off of not so funemployment and to get my foot in the door for a full time position. a contractor thinking temp to hire. two years later, i have saved them millions of dollars with my contract negotiations. and i feel like have the lions share of true contracting experience in the group. but yet i currently have a resume submitted for the job that i have held for two years. its a real kick in the jimjim.
so i am taking a job with a friend's company. i am going to be a project manager for a small commercial construction company. a new and fascinating chapter for me. freeing my time up, as i will work from home to do it. that might give the time i want to take to paint.
i am trying to take my art a little more seriously now. i even threw together a little faceyspace page for it.
the Art of the Yerg
check it out...

2013 is just a few days away. 12 wasn't bad. a shit ton better than 11. and a fuck ton better than 10 was. i am sorta hoping that i keep with the up tick on the whole life thing.
my job is boring as missionary... my work load is nill, so i have to invent things to do. but at the same time, i don't really think anybody cares. its hard to try to convince people that they should hire me permanent when they don't give a fuck about their own jobs. it would be really nice if i had some sort of epiphany of what i wanted to do for a career and was actually qualified to do it.
the art is going along nicely.i took a few commissions before the holiday. a portrait of posion ivy and one of lux interior from the cramps. it was good money for christmas.
still chronically single. my grandparents will be married for 65 years next year. my grandmother doesn't have the best health and has come to a peace with her mortality. i feel like i am coming to a peace with my relationship mortality. i will be 37 next week and i have trouble seeing myself settling down. but i am not sure that i am equipped to be the eternal fuck buddy either. i think i have been on match.com now for over ten years... got some good friendships. some good hump sessions. a whole lot of remaining single.
anyway...
oh yeah, and i feel like the creepy old guy some days with the age of the models on here some days...
there. tangible update...

art. i cannot get the damn pic to load...


my latest painting. things are going good. feeling like i am finally starting to get back on my feet after two years of funemployment followed by a year and a half of contract work.
although last week i got a nice kick in the jim-jim when i thought i might be able to trade my cooper in. alas, i didn't qualify for financing. oh well.
i get to go to pennsylvania tomorrow and chill with the family this weekend. that should recharge my batteries...

introspection time...
it was a long week and i ended up drinking every week night instead of saving it for the weekend. this made for particularly long work days.
dinner monday turned into staying for hipster monday night at the local brew pub. always good for the sight seeing. i mean, OBVIOUSLY i have no problem with ink and piercings. and while my own experience may be a little conservative, i wonder what a 20 year old is thinking with a face tattoo. in thirty years are we going to be looking at CEO's in boardrooms with face tattoos?
but i digress.
tuesday is our usual trivia night. i love the lesbian chick that runs it and we always win. this means free beet, fun times, and the two of us usually looking up naked chicks on our phones to compare.
wednesday was our first meeting for my domestic violence awareness charity for this year's campaign. but beforehand i met a girl for a glass or two of wine. now, this chick and i were sort of dating but not really a few years back. she resurfaces every 4-6 months and starts down this path of "you don't know how much i care about you and miss you." this is exacerbated by her love of the bottle. she eventually gets to "i cannot believe we never had sex," which i kindly remind her was not MY decision.
this always culminates in an ending of the evening in a weird way. last time, she ended up inviting the guy she had just got done seeing to join us via a text, which proved to be more than awkward and i bailed. this time, she was supposed to stop and see her brother and then join me after my meeting. she bailed and said we could get together thursday night. of course, i didn't and haven't heard from her since.
this reminds me of what a friend of mine recently told me. "i have met a lot of women and think i understand wear the ground floor of crazy is. then i meet the women you date and realize there is a crazy basement."
no shit.
thursday night, i just wanted to stay home and relax. she was a no show, so my roommate was at the ready with an alternative plan. valient thorr at the chop shop. exhausted? why not go to a metal show with three openers for the most insane combination of seriously done tongue in cheek jazzercizing leader singer metal? goo... great fucking show. too many PBRs. and my ears were ringing well into friday afternoon.
it was cool though, because rodney raines invited me to participate in the skate deck art show at his wine shop that he has coming up. solid fucking dude that is seriously a pillar of the local community. i think i am going to do an elvis board. could be fun.
i also have to get a skeleton our lady of guadaloupe done for a a buddy in the not too distant future. at least i finally got the michael hutchence commissioned piece done after avoiding it like the plague for the last four months.
http://flic.kr/p/cx1GLU

today, i think i might try to trade the cooper in for a newer model. 2005 was a lemon year for MINIs and while i will miss the speed and quickness of my badass little S, i would love to have the dependablity and versatility of a regular clubman.

this is a piece that i just finished. it is going to be auctioned off to raise money for an amazing woman that is going through her second bout of cancer treatments. 27 and facing that kind of life is unfathomable to me. she has an appreciation for life that i am somewhat envious of.

this is one of the only places that i write about emotions or dating in my life, mainly because i know that for the most part, nobody reads it. i am cool with that. i can entertain my moment of catharsis without any judgement.
its been a hellish week for me.
when i graduated from college... twelve fucking long years ago... there was this slew of wedding that i had to go to for all my fraternity brothers and friends that were marrying their college sweethearts. i seriously went to seventeen weddings in a three year period.
thankfully, since moving to charlotte, i have sort of have the excuse of being all the way down in north carolina for not having to go back to PA for weddings. some of which are second marriages of the initial post college onslaught.
but now that i am in my mid 30s, there is another crop of friends that are getting married. dropping like fucking flies is more like it. one of my close friends thankfully eloped last weekend. one of my best friends is getting married this weekend. my other best friend is next summer.
watching faceyspace updates, a number of women i have dated over the years have gone on to get hitched. some of them, i am already enduring baby pictures in their updates. insanity.
all this has served as a constant reminder that the longer i stay single, i will in all likelihood, stay single. chronically so... tinge of depression to that.

four months ago, the bar manager at one of my favorite local water holes, past away rather suddenly. out camping, he suffered from a diabetic seizure and was beyond saving in full cardiac arrest by the time he got medical attention. we have a tight knit crew in the neighborhood, and it was taken very hard.
a few weeks ago, the owners of the bar asked if i would paint a portrait of him for a fundraising oyster roast in his honor. i am still not good enough to call myself an artist, in my mind, but how could i say no?
it was one of the most difficult undertakings i have put on a canvas. the pressure of painting a friend that was so well loved.
i dropped off the finished product today and didn't feel the best about it. didn't know if it really looked like him. until another artist and friend and bartender at that bar saw it today. the look on his face choked me up. made for an emotional day.

my charity is kicking off in less than three weeks, and as usual, i feel overwhelmingly underprepared. i JUST booked the second band for our kickoff party yesterday. something i usually have done months in advance. thankfully, a friend of mine, adam (who plays with an international touring act that you most definitely have heard of) had his birthday party on sunday and his little brother, nathan, was there. nathan has his own band that i have never heard, but i wanted to give him a shot. put him in a room with good sound and about 300 people and see what he can do. if he is anything like his brother, he is going to shine...

its that time of year again. my charity, Beards BeCAUSE, is firing back up again. this is our fifth year in our follicled fight against domestic violence. if you are in Charlotte, Atlanta, or Pittsburgh, go ahead to the website and register for our competition as a grower, FUNRazor or bearded lady.

My thoughts on the upcoming weekend... "never forget"

man, i am going to have an awesome August!
starting on the first, i will be having my first art show. granted it is in a local neighborhood bar in the charlotte "arts district", but it still counts. i don't really consider myself an artist. hell, i only started a little over a year ago. but i started a series of paintings of local musician friends a few months back. a total of five 30x40 acrylic on canvas paintings. plus i am going to throw my self portrait and a pin up style of my friend, jenny in the show. fingers crossed that it sells out...
then on the sixth, i have the annual bags for wags cornhole tournament. it always a good time. this year, i am also donating a painting to be auctioned off and i am super excited about that. its a great dane since the benefitting charity this year is a great dane rescue. i am sort of hoping that it does and doesn't lead to a slew of dog portrait.
then on the 27th. this is going to be the craziest Beards BeCAUSE event that i have thrown to date. we are doing a bearded lady fashion show. seriously, drop dead gorgeous models with professional grade prosthetic beards strutting their stuff down the runway to raise money to combat domestic violence. i cannot freaking wait...

so a buddy of mine that was a participant in my charity, Beards BeCAUSE, came to me and asked for help in starting his own charity. he wanted to put together a cornhole tournament to raise money for various dog charities in Charlotte. the humane society, the coalition to unchain dogs, and this year, the great dane rescue group.
a couple of beers and a few sheets of notebook paper later, he had the beginnings of Bags for Wags. i am proud to say that i have participated every year.
this year, i wanted to do a little more though. so my friend asked me to do a painting...

i know i loaded it sideways, but i am still pretty stoked about this and hope it raises some serious cash...