There has been this reoccurring character in my sketches lately. I’m not sure what to make of him yet. I named him Ocot the Wanderer. (pronounced: Oh-caught) I think the cartoon bug is biting me again and if I keep it simple enough I might be able to keep up with this one. I did have a Wizard of Cheese comic going a few moons ago but it just got too time consuming, between sketching, inking, coloring, etc. Anyway, I have not really developed a back story for this guy yet…heck i haven’t even thought of what type of creature he would be. Some ideas that are floating through my head are that he’s a stuffed animal…figure…character that acts out when the evil one(owner) is not around. Or maybe he can be a really deep thinker that ponders the hows and whys of the universe….eh….there’s no way I can pull that off. When I look at the sketches I think he looks like you would want to pick him up and give him a hug. Other times he looks like he/she/it should have a shank or a bloody screw driver in his/her/…it’s hand. I don’t know.

Anyway, I need some ideas. Here is a sketch of Ocot I did in a graphics app. There will probably be a few incarnations of him but this is roughly what I’ve done so far.

This weekend felt busy. I have been putting in late nights either working on Flash for work or working on Beads and Quilts. Last night I went to bed around 9pm or so and woke up today at 5:30am.

On Friday night Sue and I played Wii Sports for three hours straight. It was kind of our ‘date’ night. It was a discouraging time as she beat the snot out of me in almost every game we played. She even got a score in that golf trainer with the targets that I don’t see anyone beating for a long long time. Ryan and I have been playing Mario Cart a bunch and it is great to see him getting better. Early on I was fear full of him getting his license in twelve years.

We went to the Shreve’s house Saturday night to hang out and let the kids play. It was nice to get out of the house. Tom and I went for a ride around their mountain. We even got to drive near a bar that looked like you can not come out without being in a fight or two. “We don’t serve your kind here!” See video:

I forgot to tell you…we had Matt and Lauren Kresge over for dinner the other night. Sue made her homemade pizza and salad. Lauren made the most yummy “dirt” I ever had topped off with tasty worms. After dinner and conversation Ryan got us all into playing Wii. Matt displayed his armchair athleticism. Ryan gave us all a beating in tennis. Then we played some Mario Cart until it was time for the Kresge’s to leave. I think everyone had a good time. As usual, Ryan and Dominic provided most of the entertainment.

Yes, he’s at it again. Here’s proof that Dawe was trying to peer into my computer screen. Thank goodness I turned it off.

After some extensive testing and tweaking Beads and Quilts is up and running. We are starting off with about 80 unique items including bead necklaces, bracelets, earrings and 1 craft that is a bunny decoration. All of the bead jewelry came out wonderfully. Sue burned some midnight oil…which is actually her staying up until 10pm…each night for the past week writing descriptions and setting up pricing. My mom has been furiously making things that we can put up on the site. I believe there will be two or three more bunnies within the week or so and hopefully a baby quilt or two from Sue will be added. Having handmade unique items is very difficult because when things start selling you have to constantly make more to keep an inventory. As long as you love what you are doing and don’t let it burn you out you should be fine though.

Dominic is such a funny little boy. It’s no secret that some ‘potty humor’ really tickles my funny bone. That includes gas, burps, etc. Tonight while we were finishing up dinner Dominic had something to say or more accurately his butt did. He was sitting in his chair babbling about miscellaneous things when he stopped and appeared to brace himself in the high chair. Then we all heard what could easily have been mistaken for a steady pattern on a snare drum starting very quietly then sustaining a mezzo-forte volume for what seemed like a few seconds. The rest of us sat quietly looking at Dominic in amazement. When no more sound came from him a big grin appeared on his face and he laughed out loud.

You hear it all the time where parents are proud of their kids. While I can not exactly say that I was proud of Dominic for this episode it did give me a whole new respect for him. At 1 year old he seemed to really take to ‘potty humor’. Here is some other humor I read a while ago and still get a charge out of it Bathroom Etiquette in the Cube Farm.

Busy busy busy…working on getting beadsandquilts.com together. This weekend I finished the functionality for the site and put on the photographer cap. I think I finished taking pictures of 47 separate pieces of jewelry with another 20 or so to go. Sue has been working on making a quilt and my mom just finished a rabbit. So far everything is going well and I can not wait to launch the site.

Over the passed few days the boys have been having a good time getting into trouble and having fun. Check out the pics below:

Ned the snow man came to life. Ned passed away today because of heat stroke 2/8/2009.

Dominic and his cousin Karina had a fun time. Karina is mesmerized by the little dinosaur on Dominic’s shirt.

The boys displaying their safety glasses.

Five minute before lunch Dominic thought it’d be a good idea to snack on the dirt from our plant.

Last night was “tubby bath” night for the boys. It’s usually a pretty funny scene. Both Ryan and Dominic in the tub playing with toys that are best suited for the bath tub. Ryan splashing, Dominic laughing, Sue getting angry that she’s getting wet. Dominic was the last one in the tub last night. Ryan got out early to get dried off and ready for bed. Dominic sat in a small puddle of water while Sue prepared his towel. Dominic let a loud bellowing stinker go that sounded bubbly because of the water. Sue, Ryan and I laughed. Dominic on the other hand was not amused. In fact, he looked horrified. I can only imagine what was going through his head. “What was that?” “There’s a monster in my butt!” He continued to look scared as he lightly shifted his weight onto one cheek in order to inspect what that might of been under his butt. There was nothing there naturally and he changed from horror to confused. Little ones are amazing creatures to watch when they explore new things.

I believe we are going to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins game tomorrow night with John Dawe. Ryan has been to a few games over the past few seasons and completely loves it. Dominic and Ryan play hockey almost every day. If I’m on my computer and Dominic is in the basement, he will walk over to me with an extra stick and hand it to me. That’s his way of saying he wants to play now. Ryan has been getting really good at playing goalie and defense. The weather appears to be getting warmer already so I do not know how much more time we will have to get him on the ice rink to learn how to skate.

After installing, customizing, adding contents and pulling hair out from frustration for a number of e-commerce platforms I have settled into one platform…but first let me review what I tried. Magento was my favorite of the free platforms but on a shared hosting environment it was very slow. Magento will be amazing for the person that wants a free platform and has some jink to get a dedicated or semi-dedicated hosting solution. OSCommerce was the one platform I spent the least amount of time working with. The back-end of the OSCommerce solution was not very intuitive and seemed sloppy. Early on I thought I would be happy putting in time to customize the chosen platform as needed…this platform made me uphappy. WP e-Commerce was my final attempt at a free e-commerce solution. It is built on top of the Word Press blog platform. Everything about this solution was fun and easily customizable. I had the store setup within a few minutes and making section and items was just like making a blog post or a page. Unfortunately, after I got things in place and ready to add products I decided I did not want to work with a free solution anymore.

The time I put into customizing, installing and troubleshooting had left a sour taste in my mouth and I wanted something canned that I was familiar with and could make changes often within seconds. In comes Yahoo! Small Business. I guess it helps that I work for a company that specializes in designing and customizing the Yahoo! platform. My only real reservation was the $39.95 monthly cost. Aside from that I have not really seen any issues with the platform and its feature set. Setup took a few minutes and I was in there making modifications and slicing my mockups within a day.

So my goal is to have the site live and taking orders (hopefully) within two weeks. I need to get our inventory together, take pictures, write descriptions, set prices and do some final testing them BeadsandQuilts.com will be fully operational.

I think I pushed myself a little too much last night. We had our ‘weekly’ get together at the ice rink to play some hockey. We played fairly solid from 8:30pm until 10:45pm with little breaks here and there. The ice surface was great aside from a few huge gouges. Luckily no one really hit one and got hurt…or if they did at least they didn’t get hurt. When you hang out with guys for a little while the flatulence runs freely and the conversation could cause a truck driver to blush. Eh, I’m being a little theatrical…OH the flatulence ran freely but our conversation was not that bad. We did get some key information on each others wives that hopefully does not get loose via a few beers during a Supper Club get together. Sam made some pond hockey goals (little boxes about 8 inches high but 1 foot wide by 1 foot deep) which made the play very challenging and fun. I took a shot off my calf and it’s a little sore now but I’m sure it will make it difficult to walk tomorrow. Everyone really seemed to play better this time around. Skating was good, play making was happening, Tom flew over the boards once…fun fun fun!

I got in my car and my clothes were soaked with sweat, my calf muscle was throbbing and my feet were sore. THAT is how you know you had a good time playing pond hockey. When I got home I peeled off the layers hopped into the shower and felt like I was ready to crash…yet here I sit typing this stuff.

We seem to have guided Ryan into being a super good boy. And by ‘we’ I mean the Wii. It took two or three days of being hard on Ryan to stop his little antics of not listening and throwing temper tantrums. We made it so there was a threshold of boldness we would tolerate and once that threshold was met we immediately eliminated the Wii play time from the day. Ryan really took to the Wii when we got it so this was a really big deal for him. Over the past week or so he has been incredible. He listens, his tantrums are minimal and I think he sees how much happier it makes him and everyone in the house. So far it has been very successful. Sue, Ryan and I started a little schedule where we all get together and play Wii after dinner is cleaned up. The competition is great and everyone is interacting and working together. I think it is crash time…

Before leaving work today I talked a little with Chris Harman and he was telling me about a girl he is seeing. While I was asking questions and waiting for answers something dawned on me. Chris very well could be that dude Arnold Vosloo from the Mummy movie!! Check out the scientifically created comparison pictures below. I simply do not believe that I sit next to the evil mummy dude each day at work! He always has his headphones on listening to rap and occasionally blurts out mostly unintelligible lyrics about ‘yo momma…’ and ‘my gat…’. I MUST get his autograph next time we are at work together. Kudo’s to you Chris….Arnold….evil mummy dude!