I know that my dreams of becoming an internet entrepreneur are going to require two things: work, and more work. Work in the morning, work at noon, work in the evening. Since I am weaving all of this work in with a busy day job, it is fairly tiring.

Motivation makes it easy to put in the 99% perspiration required. What do I do when motivation runs out?

For the last week or so, I had lost my motivation for my 101 Woodblock Series. I spent last weekend knowing I needed to crank out about 15 hours of work on this, yet I got nothing done. The motivation wasn’t there. I didn’t have that drive to get it done, and in its place was apathy towards the entire thing.

I think that it has hurt that I went cold turkey off of drinking coffee a little over one week ago. Coffee was largely my fuel, I drank a lot of it. It has been rough to get over the hump on this one. Though this talk of coffee is an extended aside from my main point, it gets to the heart of another point I will write about soon, the connection between physical well-being and emotional well being. I know deep down that I won’t make a million dollars on the internet if I am not physically healthy.

Back on track – last week, this lack of motivation caused me to miss my morning power hours. This set my whole day askew, since my day began with not following my own habits.

so when there is little chance that my motivation will kick in and take care of things, I have to rely on thing: Grueling it out.

Yesterday morning my alarm went off at 5:45, telling me to wake up and write. I had no idea what I was going to write, and this habit is new enough that I haven’t built that innate trust that the power hour will be productive, even when I don’t know how it will be productive.

So my alarm was ringing, and I was faced with a choice. I could reset my alarm for 6:45, and sleep another hour, or I could gruel it out and force myself to sit in front of the computer. Somehow, my willpower took over, and I did the latter.

I sat down with no idea what I would be writing about, and no real motivation to write about any specific topic. I started poking around my writing folder on my computer, and found a draft with just a few lines written that sparked something, and I knew what to write about. After I whipped out the first blog post in about 20 minutes, I had an idea for a second, and I whipped that one out too. I ended up with two blog posts written, edited, converted to HTML, and posted or scheduled to be posted within 45 minutes.

The main reason that I was able to get these two posts written was that I grueled it out and forced myself to sit in front of my computer. As I was sheepishly walking out of bed towards my desk, I remember thinking to myself that I had to do this, even if I just sat at my computer for 45 minutes and did nothing.

Those first 5 minutes sucked. When I was getting out of bed, cutting up a dish of fruit and pouring myself some juice, I was fighting with a part of saying that I could still go crawl in to bed for another 45 minutes. I didn’t have to be awake. Something happened once I began work, and it became a lot easier to follow through and get everything done.

Important lessons from yesterday morning:

• If I wait until I feel like writing blog posts, copy, content, or whatever, I will never get anything done.
• If I have a habit in place, I need to follow it, even when I don’t want to.
• Genius may be 99% perspiration, but a lot of the time, it takes grueling it out to get to the point that you break a sweat.

I have learned two lessons:

• I have to have everything I need for my morning habits, or it falls apart
• I have to have a nice evening before, or it falls apart

Simple habits may be easier for me to implement, but this habit is a pretty big change. I have a lot of negative momentum that tries to keep my old habit of sleeping in, hitting snooze, running late, and picking up some unhealthy muffin or egg sandwich on the way to work.

I say this because this morning I blew it and didn’t get any writing done. I woke up at 7:00, and had an entirely unproductive meeting.

Missing Fruit Makes a Mismanaged Morning

I was in LA all weekend, and I blame my problems on that.

LA itself was great, a buddy of mine opened his home to a few of our friends, and we all had a good old time for the weekend. Lots of male bonding and geeking out.

I got home late yesterday evening, and didn’t have groceries. I was missing the usual fruit that I cut up in the morning for breakfast, and I was out of coffee. Two hits to this new habit of mine.

Late, wasted evenings make a late, wasted morning

In addition to my lack of morning supplies, I stayed up late and had a couple beers to relax. I had been on the road for 8 hours, and I didn’t really have it in me to get anything done and be productive.

I fired up my computer, watched a few shows, threw down a couple beers, and in general had the alone time that I need to recharge. I was up pretty late, and 5:45 am came just a little bit too early.

It didn’t help that I was up till 2 or 3 am each night over the weekend, and up around 8 am every day. I was running on low sleep. When morning came around, I decided to not get any writing done, and sleep in till 7. It felt good, and I probably needed it.

Schedule for a productive evening

The big lesson for me is that I am gonna have to schedule my standard evening as well as my standard morning if I am gonna keep to my productive schedule. This might be a little more challenging, because my evening activities vary a whole lot more than my mornings.

I think I will need some evening habits in place to make this work though. As I work this out, I’ll be writing about it here.

This may seem odd and trivial at times, but it was very much planned out.

My alarm went off at 5:46am this morning. After a minute or two of clock radio, I hit snooze, which resets the alarm for 9 minutes. I got out of bed at 6am. Stumbled into the bathroom. My joints were stiff, my feet didn’t want to carry weight yet, and my eyes were half shut.

I got into my kitchen at 6:04. I started my laptop, started a pot of coffee, and opened my fridge to pull out some juice, a peach, and a nectarine. I drank a glass of grapefruit juice (the last of the container – I need more), and cut up the peach and nectarine and put the slices on a plate.

I told you there were going to be some trivial bits in here.

It was 6:10 at this point, and I spent 5 minutes stretching. I was determined to be able to touch my toes by the time I was done stretching. Mission accomplished.

While I was stretching, I thought about writing, and tried to figure out what I was going to write about.

At 6:15, I sat down in front of my computer with my sliced fruit and mug of coffee, and fired up my text editor of choice.

In 20 minutes I banged out a blog post about what my 101 Woodblock Series is about, and got it formatted for the web and posted by 6:50.

At this point I put on some shorts and a sweatshirt and left my apartment to move my truck. I was out and about last night, and got home fairly late. I parked in a meter spot the night before and had to find a street parking spot this morning. It took about 15 minutes. This situation only happens about once a week.

I got back in front of my computer around 7:05, and whipped out another post for another of my blogs (written with a pen name) in about 20 minutes. I already had half of the content written for this post, and it took about 20 minutes to get it up and ready to post.

7:25 rolled around, I fired up my email, cleared out my inbox, read a little news, then started to get ready for work. I packed up my lunch and mid-morning breakfast (when I eat breakfast this early I need an early morning breakfast and a mid-morning breakfast), and made it to work about 15 minutes earlier than usual.

So why bore you with these details?

This kind of habit that will lead to being successful.

I have a time management problem. I work 8 hours a day, and when I get home, it is difficult to focus on writing. When I get home, take off my suit and tie, and get some dinner in front of me, I want to relax.

My ability to focus drops significantly after 5pm.

I can’t focus on writing while I am at work, and I usually spend my lunch break exercising.

Mornings are really the best time for me to get my writing done.

I also realize that writing is the limiting factor to the growth of my projects. Every one of my projects revolves around content driven marketing, information products, or something that is written.

Without writing, my projects stagnate.

My goal, then is to create a morning habit of writing. If I can dedicate 1 hour every morning to writing, I will accomplish quite a bit.

Yes, it was deliberate

I actually wrote this schedule out on paper last night. Habits can be difficult to change, so I thought through every bit of my morning, and wrote down what and when I would do.

Seriously. I scheduled waking up and going to the bathroom. I even scheduled hitting the snooze button.

I had the piece of paper with this schedule on it sitting on my nightstand so I could grab it and reference it in the morning.

It worked this morning, and worked pretty well. Two blog posts in a morning’s work makes me pleased.

I’m planning to keep the schedule on my nightstand again tonight, to repeat the process again tomorrow. The real test will be next week, when the momentum of motivation from trying something new decreases.

Anyway, expect updates.

One thing Eben Pagan pointed out in his Altitude program is that you need to know when you are getting lucky in business, and follow that route.

I’ve been figuring out where I’ve been getting lucky by digging in to the search result keywords for my blogs. Google Analytics has a neat feature that let’s you see what keywords people are searching for to find your site. These keywords make great titles and content for new posts and articles! You have proof that people are looking for this information, and they are finding your site, so you might as well produce this content, or more content, or better content on these subjects.

On one of my blogs, I have a certain keyword search (after my name and the name of the site) that has given me the highest number of hits from search engines. All of this is because of one post I wrote on this subject, which is showing up on the first page of google for that search. I have an opportunity to create more content on this subject and provide it to these people.

This is a win-win situation. I know I can create better content on this subject than the other search results are providing. I also get more people exposed to that blog, with the chance of converting them to ongoing readers.

I am borrowing from my buddy Dr. Wordpress who wrote a series of posts with practical blogging tips, and I am going to write a series of practical tips discussing the subject matter of that key word search.

I got lucky by writing an article that has gotten highly ranked by search engines for a search on that subject, now, I need to capitalize on that and be thankful that I got lucky.

I’m hoping to get a lot of good information and inspiration that will help take my websites to the next level of performance. Plus, I might have a little bit of fun in Las Vegas.

Here was my entry:

I’m actually not a very good writer.

I can’t effortlessly whip out a thousand words or two on a subject. I struggle to find the words that will communicate with my readers, and inspire or inform them to make their life better. I write, and re-write, and it sometimes takes hours to craft a post that I think others may think is worth reading.

And I do it anyway.

The things about writing, and specifically blogging, that are a struggle are the things that make me do it. It is a challenge, and because of that challenge, I am drawn to it. I love that writing isn’t easy for me, and because of that, writing is far more rewarding than other things that I have a natural knack for.

Blogs have levelled the playing field and removed the barriers to entry. Anyone can have a blog up and running in just a few minutes these days. People all around the world can read what you and I write seconds after we decide to share it.

I’ve chosen blogs as my primary way of sharing what I have to offer with other people. Now I am faced with the giant task of writing compelling content, and finding ways to show people what I have to offer. Blog World Expo will teach me how I can keep working to do this.

I admit, I am greedy. I don’t want to sit in a cubicle my whole life. I don’t want to work form 9 to 5 every day, and dress up in slacks and a shirt to go in to the office. I want out. Specifically, I want out by communicating and creating value to share with other people. I want to learn how to make my writing, and my blogs, more compelling. I want to improve my life, and I want to do that by making other people’s lives better.

Blog World Expo is right for me.

You can see the comment on the blog post by clicking here.

If you are, you might think I am an incompetent web designer. (You may also just know that you are using bad software, but I’ll get to that)

Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) still has a considerable amount of people using it. The numbers range from just under 15% of users to just over 30% of users using IE6, depending on which source you check.

Of course, IE6 is the browser that many businesses have decided is their official supported browser, so many people in Corporate America use IE6. This is very frustrating for those of us that know better, but are required to use certain software.

So why is this site jacked?

IE6 has a bug (one of many) that doubles the margin on floated elements. The columns on this site are “floated”, so that they can be displayed next to each other. There are also margins between them and the side of the page, so that they will be spaced properly. IE6 doubles these margins, which squeezes out one of the columns, because there isn’t enough room on the page. The last column ends up underneath the other columns.

Why does IE6 double these margins? This practice is clearly counter to the specifications for HTML and CSS, the programming languages that this determine what you see in your browser.

IE6 is just bad software that holds back the web. It is the stupid kid in the classroom that holds back all the smarter kids from moving on to the next lesson.

I recommend using Firefox or Chrome, but even upgrading to Internet Explorer 7 or 8 will fix a lot of the problems.

Maybe I’ll get around to including some hacks to get around this into the code for this site, but really, should I have to hack my site so it looks vaguely how it should in a browser as widely used as IE6?

In order to get back a little of that breath of life, I have committed to a project: creating 101 prints. Each one will be a unique and individual work of art, using relief printing as the primary medium, with some other mixed media as well.

When I’m done, these prints will go on sale for just a few dollars each, as a shameless self-promotional stunt. The money I will be charging will be no more than I need to pay for shipping costs, my material costs, plus a buck to go towards a nice, expensive brayer for the next round of 100.

I have always been drawn to imagery that combines organic and natural imagery along with images of mechanics and technology. The juxtaposition between these two is the theme of this series.

The other theme of this series is “Sean makes art again”, which is the more important result of this project.

As a special, get my butt in gear bonus, I entered a little competition with my friend, Dr. Wordpress. His site, Website In A Weekend, is all about how you can, over a weekend, not only start your blog, but get it firing on all cylinders.

Doc decided that he would write 101 articles on his website, and now we are having a competition to see who can finish first. He’s got a head start on me, but I’ve got a lot of time to spend on this in the next few weeks, and I think I might catch up.

I have 45 of my 101 started, and will finish about 20 of them this week. Next week I hope to get another 25 done, and another 30 the week after. It’s time to crank things up!

When it is all said and done, I will be releasing these on my website, BadDeacon Design. I’ve got a series of articles running on the blog over there about the web as a medium for art. I’m proud of this set of articles, check it out!

It was a fantastic time. Here’s the full story.

Tuesday

I got in about noon Tuesday, and walked to our place. My friend Scott found an awesome place. It was a huge open loft, three beds, a pull out bed, and some couches. It was 2 blocks from the convention center, and just incredible. It had a full kitchen, and Ralph’s super market was two blocks away. I went for a jog to check out the convention center, and got to see the massive trucks unloading huge crates of stuff at the back of the convention center.

Scott showed up that afternoon, and was equally wowed by the place. We threw back a couple beers, then headed over to the Padres stadium, met up with Pants (Brian C from Comic Geek Speak), and headed in to the game. We had great seats on the field level back up above the home dugout.

That ballpark in San Diego is a great park. It feels new and a nice place to sit for an evening. One corner of the stadium at the left field is built into an old historic building of some sort, very cool. I think pretty much any stadium seems great when compared to Oakland coliseum though.

I didn’t watch that much of the game though, since I was talking with Scott and Pants most of the time about comics and whatnot. Ralph joined us after a few innings as well, which made a great group to hang out with.

After the game Scott and I headed back to our apartment, sat around a bit and threw back some beers. Drinking beer was a prominent activity throughout the entire weekend.

The weather in San Diego was fantastic. I realized this when I was sitting outside on our patio at night, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and wasn’t cold at all. Some of the best times of the convention happened late at night, sitting around talking comics with my apartment mates.

Wednesday

Wednesday is Preview Night at SDCC, but it is really just another day of the convention. There is really nothing “preview” about it. I got to the convention center about half an hour after badge pickup started. The line was long, and it took a while to get through. The funny thing was that the line for pros and press was much longer than for attendees. They had hundreds of folks working the line for regular attendees, but only a dozen or so working the line for press and professionals. I was attending the show as press for my Only The Valiant Podcast.

Wednesday was all about convention exclusives for me. I went around to a few booths and bought exclusive toys and statues only available at SDCC. My plan was to work Wednesday night to get stuff I could sell on ebay, and help pay for my trip down. Mission accomplished. There was a fiasco getting the Green Lantern Blackest Night figure, but I eventually got the first of the five figures. I wouldn’t be so lucky with the rest, as I figured out Thursday.

The best part of Preview Night was meeting up with everyone afterwards. We had a nice meet up at the Tilted Kilt for food and beer. About 15 or so folks showed up, we got our drink on, talked about preview night, and what we were looking forward to. I recorded the first OTV Comic-Con Episode, which was great fun.

The meet up at the Tilted Kilt was a beginning of a theme throughout the convention, the best times are not the convention, not the panels, not the dealers, but spending time with people and friends. Conventions are a chance to get together with friends, meet new people, strengthen those ties, and hang out. The convention itself plays a small role in the overall experience, and is just the thing that brings us all to the same place at the same time.

Thursday

Thursday started out as a very frustrating day.

I woke up at 6am, and this was after staying at the Tilted Kilt till midnight the night before, and headed to the convention center to get in line. I wanted to get the exclusive Blackest Night Green Lantern figures, since I could make a few hundred dollars – at least – by buying them at the show and selling them on ebay. There were no more than 200 people in line in front of me, and I waited about three hours to get in. Went straight to the booth, and no luck.

The line was already wrapped around the booth twice, and was starting along a walkway. They gave out tickets to the first part of the line, and then announced that there would be a raffle for tickets later in the day in a large pavilion. After not getting a ticket that morning, I went back to the apartment, got cleaned up, had some breakfast, then headed to the pavilion to enter the drawing. No luck. I gave up. My capitalistic plan to rake in a considerable profit was shattered.

In a way this was nice, because I was able to just not worry about lines for the rest of the show. I wandered around the small press areas that afternoon, met Steve Bryant of Athena Voltaire fame, and checked stuff out. After the morning of ridiculous lines, I wasn’t up for much.

I did walk around a few dealer booths and browse, and got one pretty darn cool book. My buddy Dave got me a book, The Ten Cent Plague, for my birthday. It is about the comic book scare of the late 40s and 50s, which revolved around the fact that people, mostly people who didn’t read any comics, thought that comic books were contributing to juvenile delinquency, and were a stain on our society.

Crime SuspenStories #23

I brought that book with me to San Diego to be my reading material for the week, and it inspired me to look for some old crime and horror comics from that era. I found a copy of Crime SuspenStories #23 at one particular dealer booth, and had to get it.

This comic was one of the pieces of evidence in the Senate hearings on comics as a cause of juvenile delinquency in the 1950s. The cover of this is quite out there. Yes, he is choking her to death with a tire iron. I like this comic because it has historical importance.

The fallout from those senate hearings, and from the hysteria over comics in general caused the American comic book industry to make a drastic turn, and the result is that comic books are considered by most people to be silly stories about super heroes in spandex. Comics have only recently been viewed differently, not as a genre of entertainment, but as a medium of entertainment, which can contain many different genres, for people of all ages.

So anyhow, this comic is very cool. I’m glad I picked it up.

Thursday evening was the All-Stars of Comics Podcasting panel. There was a panelist each from iFanboy, Comic Geek Speak, Indie Spinner Rack, Comics News Insider, The Comic Book Page, and Comic Timing. The panel itself wasn’t too fantastic, there wasn’t too much information that came out, but it was a great chance for everybody in the podcasting arena to get together and congregate.

After the panel a group of us went to Rock Bottom Brewery, and took over a little area of the upstairs bar. Dinner was good, and I got a chance to meet Bob from the Comic Book Page, and Ian from Comic Timing. We got to discuss podcasting in general, and the specifics of comic book podcasting. Other podcasters had interesting points of view, and I got a few ideas about how to make my show better, just through the conversations I had.

When we got home from the brewery, I set up my recording equipment, and Jay and I recorded an episode with our apartment mate, Scott. We talked about the convention, and we then talked about Resolution Comics, which is a small comic publisher that Scott has started with his business partner, Brian (who couldn’t make it to San Diego). It was fun to talk about what it takes to start publishing books, and hear about the challenges and the rewards involved.

Friday

Friday was the day I set aside for going through dealer boxes and buying some back issues for my collection. I found some good Green Lantern books at a decent price, and picked them up.

I wasn’t planning on making any big purchases this year, but as I walked by the Metropolis Comics booth, I noticed a few copies of Showcase #22.

Showcase #22

Showcase #22 is the first appearance of Green Lantern in the Silver Age. There was an earlier character named Green Lantern in the 40’s, but he was an entirely different character. The Green Lantern that most people know, and who will be the character in the upcoming Green Lantern movie, is the character that was first introduced in Showcase #22.

This book has been pretty hot, because Green Lantern has been gaining in popularity. The upcoming movie is also pushing the value of this book up as more and more people are looking for it, me included.

I started buying silver age Green Lantern books a couple years ago [The silver age refers to comics published in the very late 50s and throughout the 60s]. My goal is to get all of the Green Lantern books between his first appearance up through Green Lantern #75. Before this weekend, the earliest issue I had was Green Lantern #2. Issue #2 is his fifth appearance, since was in Showcase #22, 23, and 24 before he got his own title.

So I was walking along, and saw a couple copies of this book at the Metropolis booth. I hadn’t seen any other dealers with this book at the convention, and had heard that it was selling for dealers very quickly. I asked to see them, and centered in on one that looked nice, and was within my price range. It took some thought, because this would blow through my entire spending budget for this one book, but I finally decided to get it.

This book is what I have most wanted since I started buying Green Lantern books, and is the highlight of my collection.

Only Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and The Flash are more important DC characters, and I am very happy I finally got a copy of this book.

After the show, a bunch of folks I know from the Valiant Fans forum got together for a couple poker games. Money was made, money was lost, and a good time was had. After the games we recorded a podcast episode, but it came out not so great. It’s up, but I won’t link to it. It was late, we were tired, it happens.

Saturday

I slept in Saturday, and didn’t rush off to the show. After Wednesday night, Thursday and Friday, I had already had a very full convention. It didn’t feel like I had two more days of convention to go to.

Eventually I headed over, and decided to walk around the artists and illustrator’s tables. I found a sketchbook by Terry Dodson, who I saw earlier in the day signing at his booth. I bought the sketchbook, and decided to talk to Terry. I asked him to sign the sketch book, which was from his French book Songes. He signed the book, and as we were talking, drew a small sketch on the inside cover.

Songes Sketchbook

The artwork for this book is amazing. His illustrations look like modern art nouveau. He has drawn a lot of mainstream superhero comics, like Wonder Woman and X-Men, but the work he does for the less mainstream and foreign books blows his mainstream work away.

It was even more exciting to talk to him about his art career. He was in engineering school, and took art classes on the side. He was planning going into industrial design, but instead left school to work in comics full time during his senior year, and never finished his engineering degree.

His story was similar – but opposite – of my own. I was in art school, and eventually got into engineering. I let engineering kill my pursuit of art, and I have lately been working to course correct and find my artistic soul again. I was able to tell him that he made the right decision to pursue art instead of engineering.

Meeting and talking to Terry Dodson made me want to sit down with a sketch book and do nothing but draw and draw and draw until I am as good, or better, than him. I have been struggling to find the time to dedicate to art, because I am finding that I need to create art and illustrations, just to make the world make more sense (as strange as that sounds). Though I only had the time for a quick 10-minute conversation with him, it was very inspiring.

Later in the day I met up with a friend who had introduced me to a guy working in the comics industry earlier in the weekend. We had set up lunch for Saturday, and I met up with them. We had a great discussion about comics, and talked about what fan sites and podcasts (like my OTV site) can do for the industry.

It was motivational, and gave me a lot of ideas of what I would like to do with my Only The Valiant website. I have ideas of how I can make it more than just a website for the podcast, but more of a community hub for comic book fans.

I walked away from that meeting ready to go to work to make OTV bigger and better.

After lunch, I rushed to get my recording equipment from the apartment. I wasn’t expecting lunch to go so long. I’m not complaining, since the conversations I had were great, I feel fortunate that I got to talk and network with folks for as long as I did.

Back to recording though, we were scheduled to record our big “live from the show” episode Saturday afternoon. I got home, packed up the equipment, and headed to the convention. I got a great space to set everything up in one of the lounge areas, and got to work plugging everything in.

A good bunch of people came to record with us, with people from the valiantfans board, thecomicforums, and a fan who found us on iTunes and started listening from there. We talked about the convention, people watching, and argued about which Valiant books were the best to give a new reader to try out. It was a fun episode to record, and it is up on the site now.

A couple of us headed back to the Tilted Kilt for dinner, and later in the night Scott and I went over to the Hyatt.

The Hyatt is where the after-hours action takes place in San Diego, at least as far as the convention goes. The bar is huge, and spilled out onto the patio out front of the hotel. Myself, Trevor, and Scott found Steve, Chris, and Jim with some other folks at the bar. I met a lot of people, and got to hang out with a lot of folks.

I ran into James Sime, the owner of Isotope comics here in San Francisco, quite possibly the greatest comic shop in the country. We said a quick hello.

I ran into some of the Geek Savant/Super Real crew, and got to hang out with them for a bit. Dave Dwonch and I brainstormed an idea for a comic book: How To Pick Up Chicks At Comic Book Conventions. Dave was a wingman extraordinaire for me at Wondercon earlier this year. He pulled some epic wingman duty while I was meeting a lovely lady at Kate O’Briens until late into the evening. Like most ideas from 1am at the bar, I have no idea if it will materialize, but Dave is a very talented comic creator, check out Space Time Condominium.

As Dave and I were talking, some poor kid comes up to us and started a conversation with us. He walked up and asked us, “so what do you do?” Dave jumped right in with his pitch about Pickup comics, and asked if this guy would buy it. This poor kid said he didn’t really read comics, and that’s whent eh situation erupted. Dave railed on this kid about why he was even here, and we poked at him about his direction in life, and what he wanted to accomplish.

I really don’t think he knew what he was getting in to when he walked up to us.

The bar eventually closed, and Scott and I went home. We had just gotten home when we both had the same thought at the same time: “want to drink a beer?” We stayed up an extra half-hour or hour or so, chatting about comics, the convention, and whatever else.

Saturday was a great day. I accomplished an incredible amount, from networking, to meeting people, to getting inspired to pour my energy into different work and projects. I wish every day of my life were as rich and satisfying as Saturday was.

Sunday

By the time Sunday rolled around, I had accomplished everything I needed to at the convention. I slept in again, and headed over to the convention in the late morning. I went to a panel, only my second of the weekend. It was How to Draw Star Wars with Katie Cook. Katie draws the Clone Wars online comic for the Star Wars site, and I have been a fan of hers for a few years. The panel was geared towards kids, and pencil and paper was handed out to everyone.

Katie would demonstrate how to draw different Star Wars characters, and the drawings were projected on a big screen, so everyone could follow along. The standout: Boba Fett in the Sarlac’s stomach juices, with a cute pet kitty floating next to him in an intertube. Every character she drew got a cute pet, even Darth Vader.

I walked around the convention floor for a while after that, made some final purchases. I found my friend John from New York, and got to hang out with him for a bit. I then finally made it back home.

Scott and I had invited folks over to our place for a post-convention cool down party. As far as I can remember, Pants, Trevor, Dave, Grant, Steve, Jim, and Chris showed up, plus another one of Dave’s friends whose name escapes me. Scott, Steve, Chris, Jim and I were talking about renting both units in the apartment building we rented for next year, so we could have one apartment to rule them all.

Our location and set up was really fantastic this year, and having the same thing, but even more so next year would be great. It would be this incredible congregation of creativity, ahanging out, and partying.

The location was great, the people were great, and I had a blast.

Back Home

I spent Monday packing up, figuring out how to transport all the stuff I purchased, and cleaning up the apartment a little. I’m glad I gave myself that extra day after the convention to wrap everything up.

My experience of comic book conventions is changing the more I go to them. I used to go to comic book conventions to walk around the dealer booth, buy some comics, and maybe get a book or two signed by a writer or artist. Comic book conventions were a chance to buy a lot of stuff, and that was about it.

The actual convention is now such a small part of my overall experience. The best times at this show were when I got to see old friends, make new friends, make new contacts, network with folks, shake hands, play poker, and raise beer glasses with folks.

This show was inspiring. It renewed my excitement about existing projects like Only The Valiant and my 101 Artwork, and got my me thinking about new projects. I am left ready to plow into everything and start creating. I have a few things in mind that resonate with me.

To everyone I met this weekend, thanks for making this convention great.

I was driving through town, stopped at a red light. The light turned green, but a couple people in front of me had to make a left turn, and I was stuck stopped behind them.

It took me a second to figure out why my truck got shoved forward and what caused that big crunching sound.

“Oh, I got rear-ended”

I went for my glove box, got my insurance and registration info out. A couple guys who were walkign by at the time told the other driver to turn his car off, he was leaking radiator fluid.

I started to wonder just how bad it was gonna be.

When I got out of the cab, I couldn’t see the damage to the back of my truck, but as I walked back there, I saw the damage to the other driver’s car:

Pretty mashed up.

I had resigned myself to having a jacked up rear end, and having to get some body work.

I got to the back of my truck, and saw…

Nothing. No damage. Hardly even a tiny scratch to the bumper.

Check it out:

It was at this moment that I realised that my truck truly is invincible.

I also now see that there is another truck across the street in the photo, quietly watching, as if in solidarity with my truck. We salute you, brother.

This is the second accident this truck has been in where at first it appeared the damage was gonna be bad, and then… nothing. In both cases, the other cars couldn’t exactly say the same, and neither was my fault.

One occurrence is random chance. Two occurrences is a pattern, and my truck is showing a pattern of invincibility vs. cars.

[I may have to post up the story of the first time my truck encountered car and won, it was from before I started this blog]

Over all, I was surprised and relieved to see I didn’t have any damage.

Most of all, I am proud of my truck.

The font and leading isn’t right.

Column width needs adjusting.

It’s a big mess of stuff with very little organization to it.

I’ve got a pretty design done in photoshop, I just haven’t had the time to chop it up and write the CSS.

When I look at this site today though, it disgusts me.

Uggg. I need to work on this. Soon. Looks like I have another busy weekend coming up.