a work in progress...

Who looks through my posts anyway?  Ha! Here's another painting of a VanGogh that I started a couple weeks ago.  This is actually a prototype of a much larger and cropped version I plan to paint for a birthday present.  I'll continue to edit and add progression photos of this painting until I feel satisfied with its completion.  So here it is...

Ha!  I can't figure out how to rotate it here.  It's rotated fine in my iPhoto library.  Oh well.  This is the first night I worked on it.  I just wanted to lay a base of colors.

I actually have a "paint night" where friends come over and we paint and listen to cool, hip music.  Such bohemians. Ha!  This is the third night (in actuality, 3rd week) and I laid the base for the sky.  It'll be a less gloomy day when I'm done with it.  I really enjoy mixing colors.  

To be continued...I'll keep you (all one of you) posted of the progress...

Catching up so... Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Ten days into the New Year and I'm just now doing this... let's see, since October, a bunch of stuff has transpired.  One of them was the completion of my rendition of Van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night in acrylic.  I promised a few folks that I was going to post the progression of the work so here it is...

Sketch phase with a grid 

Dark Colors

Not dark colors

Filling all the white canvas

Almost done, just finishing touches

Can't tell the difference between this and the previous image

I guess I'm done.  It was a long process.  I need a deadline.

Tough Mudder...

So this weekend, I did something like this...

It was a blast!  I didn't think I would complete 9 or so miles of running/walking/trudging the slopes of Wintergreen Ski Resort on a brisk Saturday morning, but I did.  Peppered along the trails were nearly two dozen obstacles to overcome; one of which was a long dumpster full of ice water.  Yeah, I couldn't feel my left toes for a couple of hours, but I eventually got the sensation back.  Here are some shots I took the day after I did my race.  I don't know any of these people.  It was tough to find the friends I knew who were running it that day, but I eventually spotted them.

As you can see, there are two paths; one uphill, the other downhill.  The uphill is the longest uphill walk that day which led into the middle half of the race into a golf course.  The downhill is after the golf course mess and the mystery obstacle.  After this little downhill was a shorter uphill which was a definite morale bummer.

This madness was after the slip and slide portion.  The downhill was surprisingly difficult to traverse.   My knees were not happy at the end of the day.  

I took this picture because the dude was wearing sandals!
What the heck!?!

Other Mudders were dressed in silly little costumes.
These guys were wearing hats and ties.
Some were wearing only speedos while others were in full Halloween gear.

This was the turn that took us to the shorter uphill.
That's why the people in the picture look so demoralize as they look ahead.

This was one of the obstacles that require teamwork.
It was a great  example of community among strangers working toward the same goal - to finish.
So everyone helped each other.
Below is a video of it. 

At the end of it was a gauntlet of wires armed with 10,000 volts of electricity that shocked any exposed skin.  Here are my friends finishing.

Dashing With Warriors

This weekend, a few friends and I ventured on one of those adventure races.  This one is called The Warrior Dash.  It was held in Lake Charles, Virginia, about 20 miles south of Richmond.   This particular location was a 3.56 mile run peppered by various obstacles which include walls, tires, ropes, water, logs, planks, more walls, more ropes, FIRE, and mud.  I must say it was tough.  It was a wake-up call to what the Tough Mudder will be like in about 3 weeks. That one will be 8-10 miles with similar obstacles throughout.
Here's a quick video of the Warrior Dash.

Here's what the day looked like.  It was pretty rad!

Dear Hurricane Irene,

Thanks for not doing too much damage and flooding outside the house.  But can you do something about getting our electricity back?

Sincerely,
rickybobby

P.S.  I don't know how you got in the house, but we've put everything back in place.

Quick Roadtrip

This past Friday, my good friend Erin (also known as The Best Imitation of Myself) and I trekked down to sunny Florida with a truck full of her furniture and stuffs!  Yep.  She's getting married to a naval aviator in about three weeks and will be moving down to the panhandle of Florida shortly thereafter to be with her future husband.
    We left about an hour before sunrise on Friday and headed south.  It was supposed to be a 14-16 hour ride with stops built in, but it somehow turned to a 21 hour journey.  Yes, it was a long time to be in a vehicle, however, it was not a tiresome trip.  I thoroughly enjoyed being with my friend and talking about all sorts of interesting stuffs.  Stuffs can be found in our trip minutes.  I just learned what trip minutes are.  It's basically a play by play of a roadtrip in written form.  When she was driving, I was taking minutes.  When I was driving, she was taking the notes.  Can't wait to look back for a good chuckle.
     We got there past midnight Central Time, met up with John and made mojitos!  Then I passed out on the air mattress.  The next day, we moved everything in the truck to inside the house.  John and I assembled the furnitures Erin and I picked up at the Charlotte IKEA with engineering precision.  The moving and the assembling and the thunderstorming took about 3 hours and we finished.  Then we made more mojitos.  Cheers!
     After gathering up our lives, we headed to a popular watering and eating hole called McGuire's Irish Pub.  Out of my entire weekend, the only recognizable picture I took was this.

Holy Crap DELICIOUS!

This concoction has 6 shots of something or other.  I think it's some rite of passage to consume one of these.  Whatever...I passaged it.  Thanks John and Erin!

   

"You'll Be Smittened!"

Please do yourself a favor and click and watch the video.  It will make your day as it did mine.
     Fun weekend.  I bought two rather large pieces of stretched canvas in order to begin my painting projects.  The more I think about doing them, the more stoked I'm becoming.  To be continued...
     Oh, got to see Band of Horses play at a sold out show.  Kings of Leon cancelled the rest of their tour leaving Band of Horses no where to go.  So they decided to find a local venue in the last minute and give us an amazing show.  I'm kinda glad Kings cancelled.  I wasn't going to pay to watch them, but definitely pay for Band of Horses.  They rocked and I'm a little deaf in my right ear!  I'll attach a little clip I took with my iPod.  Enjoy!