Been a while...

It's been a while since I updated the Emma info... She is standing by herself, she can get on her tip toes and she has just learned that she can crawl UP stairs!

She had a wonderful time in Cancun with her Mommy and Grammy! She discovered pelicans and Spanish, "Hola baby!" She is quite the picky eater right now though. She seems to have a thing for dry food, if its moist of wet, she won't try to pick it up at all.

Oh well, I'll post more later.

The only thing worse than having AOL is canceling AOL

The only thing worse than having AOL is canceling AOL

So back in July I called AOl to cancel my service and the woman that worked there him hawed and pissed around and kept telling me that I should stay with AOL and that they would give me a free month. I said no that I wanted to cancel and to give me a reference number or whatever.

She said the account would be closed on the next billing date.

The next billing date arrives and I get billed from AOL.

1) they said they were giving me a free month, so what the fuck?

2) I Fucking cancelled AOL!

I called AOL today and they asked me for my cancellation confirmation number. I did not get one. "Well our record show you were given one free month and you were supposed to call again to cancel."

That lead me to further questioning the charge, and ended up with be asking if it was AOL's policy to lie and deceive their customers when they called to changes to their service. The dumbass said that there was no one that could help me with the charges that were already made to my credit card. A few more minutes of colorful shouting at him, I got a cancellation number!

Then I get to call the CC company. The guy I spoke with was an awesome help. He told me that this not the first time that he personally has had to deal with AOL billing their customers after cancellation.

Well I'm done venting. Remember AOL Sucks!

My little drummin' brother!

My brother is in Elkhart Central High School's Marching band. Here they are at a competition in Goshen Indiana.


He's the white kid on the xylephone (that's a stupid word...) in the middle of the pic.

He tells me they placed well. Congrats.

And on the topic...One time at band camp.......

Comic (Book) Relief for the Evacuees of Katrina

I decided yesterday that I would do what little I could to physically help with the stress and hardship of relocated evacuees from hurricane Katrina. I've given what money I can and I can't afford to take time away from my home and family to help in the Gulf Coast region.

I figured, I like comic books, I bet there are people (kids and adults) in shelters and these 'shelter cities' like the Astrodome that could use the distraction and relief that 20 minutes reading a comic book could bring.

So in conjunction with my good friends at BuyMeToys.com I'm asking folks to buy comics and I will send them to shelters on my own dime. If you are a customer of BMT.c and want to do this just buy an extra book and give it to Casey or Kelly. If you don't shop there regularly make an effort to stop in and buy a book. If you don't read ask Case or Kel what is a good book for all ages and they'll tell you what is good. Or ask me, I think I know what is OK for kids and adults.

I'll send the first batch to the Astrodome on Friday afternoon. The next will go to the Indiana State Fairgrounds, then to Ft. Custer in Battle Creek Michigan. From there I'll just Google where people are at and keep sending stuff as long as people keep contributing books to the cause.

I'm only sending Comics. If anyone wants to send something else, I'll be making quite the list of addresses.

Emma's 9 month pictures

Christy took Emma to get pictures done while I was in Chicago this week. My Emma (If I may say so) is a DOLL!!!

She took Abu with her. (Abu is the furry one)

She still loves to have her picture taken. And will go from grumpy baby to smilin' sunshine when you take out your camera.


The pictures of her in the basket are great! I can't believe she left her hat on long enough for the picture.

We'll have these picture sin a few weeks so if any of the family wants a specific one let us know.


This last one is my new favorite. To me it says, "OK, this is the last one then I want some applesauce!"

Best find at Wizard World Chicago

Three weeks back and I'm still going through and reading the stuff I got at WWC. The best thing I picked up was a whole set of A Monk's Tale from KonSequencial studios.

For $20 I got 0-5 of the comic, two anthologies, three linen bound sketch books and some promo material (cards, bookmarks, ect.); plus I scored some great sketches in my '60 Second Sketchbook' from Kendrix Foong and Laurie Breitkreuz.

The story is about 3 young Chinese monks. It is set in a remote village of 'ancient' China. The local government is corrupt and the citizens of the village the monks are passing through are being subjugated by the local military. One of the monks decides to stop some soldiers from abusing a young woman and that involves the three in the village's struggle.

During the course of the action the leader of the three monks get arrested with the father of the young girl. Both are scheduled to be executed when the monk discovers hat some of the local military are at odds with their leadership and want to rebel and fight for the people.

All of that is issues 1-5. The story is set to be concluded in issue 6 due out sometime this fall or winter. Issue 0 served as a bridge between the short stories where the young monk's where introduced (in the two anthologies, Short Term Konsquences). When we initially meet them, they are children, by the end of the story they are all young men ready to start the journey we see in issue 1.

Individually the books are a bit expensive (2.25-3.25 cover price) for the greatly decompressed but action filled story, but the deal at the con made them a great buy. I now am anxiously looking forwards to both issue 6 and the redrawn story featuring covers by Greg Horn, starting in 2006.

Emma's a Big Girl!

Well, Emma had her 9 month check up this week. She is 21 lbs 11 oz and 29 inches long! She impressed the doctor with her attention to him and the stethoscope. He was concerned (for us) that she was interested in walking already, and gave us the generic good doctor "baby proof your house" spiel.

After that she had to get some blood taken for some test that ate mandatory in Indiana. She HATED that. The tech in the lab was good though and Emma only insanely cried for a few minutes after the whole needle ordeal.

Other than that no news from our house.

Emma will get her picture taken next week and I'll post some when we get them.

Pretty (gross) Baby...

Emma, at my brother's house for Makhayla's 1st birthday party, really enjoying her carrots. This is perhaps the most frightening picture of the monkey-girl every taken. Thanks Kati for having your camera handy!

A slightly more normal pose.

My daughter the woodchuck...

So Emma has teeth. Two in on the bottom, they've been there a while, and now two on top with two more coming in on top and at least one more on the bottom.

Yesterday Christy walked in on her chewing on her crib. Of course it was on the part that will be her footboard when it is converted into a bed. We are off to get some of those bad tasting bumper pads this evening.

Jay-Emma now has more hair than you.

Wizard World Chicago '05

Wow.

So Three days later, I'm still picking up the pieces. The convention was very good this year, better than last year's, not as good as 03's. I had a great time in Artist Alley this year. I filled out my 60 second sketch book with a Thor from Walt Simonson, a Poison Ivy from Steve Leiber, and sketches from up and comers Jeremy Dale and Casey Heying (I have no shame, pimpin' my buds).

I also was very reserved on my comic purchases. Sure I found a few deals; a Star Wars trade and Chaykin's Might Love for $5 each, a few neat new books, A Monk's Tale from Konequential Studios, but it was nothing like in the past.

I also found some neat stuff to buy. Palisades' Super Grover Figure and Litho and the Rainbow Connection Kermit were picked up on Thursday's Preview night ( a great addition), I picked up The Dark Phoenix and some European Indy Clix at Wizkids' booth on Saturday. I played no Clix, and couldn't even find the Envoy appreciation night on Friday (not that I was trying that hard).

Christy and I also found Corrie Doerrfeld (she is great!) on Saturday and picked up her new Leah book, Leah Loves Pink and a new one called Bananagins for Emma.

Friday evening also found us hanging out with the guys from the Comic Creators Syndicate, a local group that put out their first anthology last spring, Syndication. While in the Hyatt bar we also laughed our asses off at the most unprofessional "agent" in the history of representation. She was flirting with Mark Waid, of the famous '03 Mark-Waid-Fight, and falling out of her top. Listen girl, I don't care who your daddy is, buy a mirror and shut up!

Saturday evening we had Pizza and bummed around the lobby, saw a dude get tased...good times. Sunday evening was much more mellow, a bunch of us walked to Maria's Mexican restaurant (again) and had a huge (and cheap) dinner. Then ended up in the bar for dessert!

The weekend was fun and stressful at the same time, we only made it to one and a half panels (but got free swag at each of those), the fan awards and those dinners at Maria's (damn good Mexican Food!) was almost worth the drive to Chi-town.

Only 51 weeks until WWC '06!

Dude, I gotta Dell

So I bought a new computer this week. It should be here any day now. We also are getting rid of AOL (after 9 years of crappy service). Bad news for me is that our phone lines are not up to date enough and have to get a new wall jack installed in the "office" for the SBC DSL line to work.

We actually saw that coming, since all the phone and cable lines are strung through the vents. I'll be sending out my new e-mail when we change, I still will answer my work emails and 1(because I have to check them every half hour anyway) its usually a faster way to get in touch with me anyway.

I'll probably be posting a ranting diatribe on changing over to my new computer soon.

Emma news, she's crawling! Actual, baby-style crawling now, not that scooting thing. She's also fascinated with standing. She stands all the time! She can pick herself up on AYTHING and will stand either totally on her own with a hand on whatever she can reach for comfort, or the traditional baby-standing-next-to-the-coffee-table-and walking around-it-for-hours-of-fun. We also put her down in the grass yesterday. She started picking at it and throwing it everywhere.

Very fun. I'll put up some more picture later.

Oh yeah, only 7 days until WWC!

I need to keep up with this better

So keeping up with my comings and goings is harder than I thought.

Update on the kid front, Emma has tooth #3 poised and ready to pop throu her upper gum any time now. She's started to "share" her toys with Mommy. By sharing I mean forcing them on her. She has a set of Link-a-do's that she chew on and plays with almost non stop. She was sitting in Mommy's lap Tuesday night and putting them in Mommy's mouth then laughing like a 2 foot tall maniac!

Work front, I had to go to Miami, OH last week on very short notice trip to get a piece of equipment. I was a quick trip and I got a lot done, but it was still a bit of a pain in the ass. I found a nice game shop, YottaQuest, in Cincinnatti to play Hero Clix at on Wednesday night.

Not too much going on to shout about this week. Christy and I are looking forward to our little vacation in two weeks. That's about it.

Fangs, Folks and Fangs

BIG NEWS

Emma has two teeth now! They first showed their boney white faces on Sunday afternoon. Now, three short days later they are probably a third of the way out and she's stopped fussing so much about them and started to use them to mark her toys with 'lil grind marks!

As soon as she will allow us to document these pearly white beauties I'll throw a picture up. As yet, she's playing hard to get sticking her tongue out whenever we try to capture them on film.


The holiday weekend was quite busy for us. Saturday Christy Emma and I helped my Aunt Di move out of her home. Afterwards we stopped and my Grandparents and we all met their new addition, a toy poodle named Penny. Emma loved her. It was only the second dog she has "met" at close range, and despite Penny's excited frenzy, Emm giggled and smiled a great big happy smile when Penny was trying to "get" her.

Sunday was "the smallest wedding ever". That's an inside joke on the Bride and Groom's stature. I'm sure they will be happy together, but Jen and Lee are short enough to be happy in that annoying Geico "Tiny House" add. Afterwards Christy, Brad and I cooked out at Brad's and vegged out to cartoons. But since Monday was going to start early for us, Christy and I where home by 11.

Monday (the Fourth of July) a big chunk of the family visited my Great Aunt TeeDee in her nursing home. It was Emma's first time meeting her, and she seems to like her a lot. She also got to meet her cousins Killian and (his mom) Steph. It was a fun day.

That's all for know. I'm sure that was more than anyone needs to know about my weekend.

My little girl

I want to share with you some of the pictures I have of my daughter. She was born in November and has lightened up my life in ways I could not have expected.


Left is Emma from her 1st Easter. She was about 16 pounds and 27 inches long. On the right is from just last week. She is about 18 pounds and 29 inches long. She's got a great "baby" look to her.

Luckily for her she doesn't look too much like either her mom or me. I hate when people compare children to their parents, its like they want to see miniature versions of them. Babies are their own people, just like adults.

She is still refusing to crawl, but she can stand for long periods of time. She pulls herself up on furniture, her toys and us. She like to play on her 'tummy', but movement is pretty restricted to rolling and short "scoots" forwards or back.

She is definitely a joy to be around and I love playing with her and reading to her and singing with her. Now don't tell anyone any of that stuff because I'll deny it...I have a rep as a grumpy dude to keep up!

Lofcutus' Blog, the what's and why's...

So, I've had this space for several months and haven't done a thing with it. So I want to start that way my friends and family can keep up with me and I can rant and rave like a maniac on the petty things that tick me off.

I don't want to keep this up as a "hey look at me" place, but since blogging has become the biggest self-publishing exercise in the history of mankind, I figure I should give it a whirl.

A few things about me, if you're too lazy to hit the Profile button and don't know who I am. I'm a thirtyish guy, married to a great woman, and a new dad. I've got a decent house in a decent town, and have some dorkish hobbies. I'm opinionated and fairly blunt. That comes off as crass and superior in print...So sorry in advance.

That being said, welcome to my mind.