Tomorrow, I start school again. It's going to be a tough semester for me; I'm taking three classes and working full-time, and I have a bunch of other projects, like this web site, that I'd really like to keep up, so life will be keeping busy. I'm sure I'll post lots of cartoons and journal entries complaining about how much I have to do.

I've got lots of things to say -- some brilliant bits of wisdom to be sure, but, man, I just don't have the energy to blab.

I plan on updating the site once a week, on Mondays, but if I have the time, I may be adding some stuff on Fridays as well.

December 29, 2003

I got my report card, and I got an "A" in Editing Essentials. I've never gotten an "A" I felt so happy about. As soon as I opened my report card, I called everyone I could think of that would really care: Michele and my mom.

Meanwhile, we're both popping antibiotics to combat our coughs, and we spent most of last week lying in bed, feeling pitiful, and trying to get our dog to do our chores.

In other news, I've been working on a bunch of projects that have keep me distracted. Nonetheless, here are a few more cartoons -- a feeble attempt to catch up. Today's batch of toons are dedicated to my good friend Troy.

While I gave these the gray-scale, I had "Raider's of the Lost Arc" playing in the background. I've watched it three times since Christmas. Thanks Carrie!

I'm hoping to go see "Return of the King" on New Year's Day. We've been meaning to see it, but we haven't wanted to disturb the other theater-goers with our hacking.

December 15th

I'm back.

The day we returned from Pennsylvania, I had my finial in my Editing Essentials class. I didn't do as well as I'd hoped, but I probably did alright in the class -- not perfect, but alright. Turning my attention to my last story for my fiction workshop, I felt a cold decend on me which sapped, if not my strength, my spirit. I just managed to get a story together for the final class -- a story that my mom liked -- and then I crashed for the weekend.

I've eaten too much and worked-out too little. As much as I love the holidays, I'm looking forward to a return to my regular schedule after the new year.

More toons on Friday.

-Shawn

November 23, 2003

Today Michele and I drove down to my folks' boat where the Robertson clan came together for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner. We got to see uncle Brent and uncle Denny, and we had a delightful chat with aunt Sue. Grandma reminded us that, in her life, she's traveled everywhere but Russia (she never had any desire to go there) and also that she has no use for old women. Carrie made me cookies for my birthday which were delicious, a great treat.

I've got a day-and-a-half work week and then we're flying out to visit some family up north. There won't be any updates while I'm away, and I have exams as soon as I get back, but the first weekend in December should bring a nice backlog of updates.

See you then! Happy Thanksgiving!

November 19, 2003

Next week we're going to Pennsylvania to see Michele's Dad's side of the family for Thanksgiving. I heard they've seen some snow up there, and I'm excited because I haven't seen snow in about twenty years. The day after we come back, I have my big final exam in my Editing Essentials class -- so it will be a crazy time. I'll have one more batch of toons up before the trip. After that it'll be a week or two before there's more updates.

November 10, 2003

The big news is that I just decided, out of the blue, sort-of, to get in touch with my dad after not really speaking for a good ten years or so. We both mentioned how the past is like a different world now. So that's something!

Below, I've drawn a punk snowman. My friend Kipp Crawford e-mailed me and wanted a story about a boy and a snowman. He didn't give me much to go on so here's a basic story line for you Kipp:

The boy is picked on by the other kids so he builds a snow man to help him fight. The first snowman is a traditional stove-pipe-hat-corn-cob-pipe type, but he proves to be a useless coward when the other boys come by to pick on him. Angry, the boy plucks of the snowman's hat and pipe and pulls out his carrot nose and sticks it in his head. Then an idea comes to him. He gets more carrots and makes Punk Snowman! Punk Snowman teaches the boy how to be cool and together they kick butt.

October 26, 2003

It's way past my bedtime, but here's a new toon a least. I'll probably do another update for tomorrow.

October 23, 2003

Michele's taking a photoshop class and the instructor warned them that, once you get going with photoshop, you'll get addicted. It's true. I've been playing with it, and now I can't stop.  I doctored-up today's journal entries with a gray scale, and I like the result. I can't promise this each time so enjoy it while it lasts.

October 21, 2003

Tomorrow I have a mid-term exam in Dr. Laws' notorious Editing Essentials class. A lot of students feel a little apprehensive about it, but I think I pretty much got it -- and, even if I don't, cramming tonight isn't going to add much to the last several weekends I've spent studying so I decided to draw cartoons instead.

The first one, Passive Frequency, is my newest Catch Phrase. You can get an explanation of a Catch Phrase and check out some of my past works here.

Lately, I've been admiring Kazu's www.boltcity.com -- trying to reverse engineer some of his techniques -- and, today, he graciously revealed some of his secrets on working with color in photoshop. To experiment, I took a doodle of Michele and me in our living room engaged in our typical evening activities. I pretty pleased with it. With a little practice I think I'll gain the confidence to start illustrating my little children's story "The Capital of Iceland."

I'm not really tired yet so I think now I'll go make some vegetarian stew, power brain food for tomorrow's exam.

-Shawn

October 15, 2003

This story about the Cub's fan who potentially cost his team a shot at the World Series has haunted me all day. If you haven't been paying attention, at the end of the game, the Marlins hit a fly ball just barely clearing the fence when a fan, blinded by the excitement of having a chance at a game ball, reached for it, stealing it from the outfielder whose glove was only inches away. Then the Cub's were ahead, moments away from winning the game and moving on to the Series. Afterwards, that fan had to watch as the Marlins came from behind to take the game. It haunts me because I can see myself doing the same thing, feeling overzealous in a moment of my own personal glory only to realize I've dashed the hope of millions of fans. Today the guy escaped into hiding; he can't go home now.

Then again, it's the Cubs who let the Marlins score eight runs in one inning, not the fan. And I'm sure the Marlins' fans harbor no resentment, nor do the television executives who get to bilk another night of premium advertising dollars. Whenever I experience a failure, I always try to look back to find that one moment where it went wrong. The truth is that a failure results from a pattern of actions, and often it's only a failure from one point of view.

But, boy am I glad I'm not that guy.

October 12, 2003

While in the middle of typing out a little essay for this spot, a power surge reset my computer causing me to loose everything I'd written. The essay sucked anyway, so it's no real loss. I contemplated just going to bed and updating later, but, instead, I picked up my sticks and cranked her back up and made the changes again. Every once and a while I learn something from my own cartoons.

October 10, 2003

Driving to work this morning, I found the sleep I deprived myself of last night trying to catch up with me. The cruise control set to 75 MPH, flying down the Florida Turnpike, my eyes would blur out and the soft glow of the hazy morning light would rock me in her lullaby arms and beg me to sleep. After only half a second, as my head fell limp, I'd jolt back to life, terrified.

I cranked up the White Stripes and tried to rock out in order to stay wary. It worked for a while, but the next narcoleptic fit waited to pounce on me during the two second gap between songs. Soon, even the punk ravings "Fell in Love with a Girl" sounded like soft whispers lulling me sleep.

A Highway Patrol car drifted by. A look of bewilderment fell across the officer's face when she saw me repeatedly slapping myself , muttering out loud, "Wake up! Wake up!"

But I made it to work with out becoming a road side flower memorial, so that's good at least. I always like to start the day on a positive note.

October 5, 2003

I wrote a pretty good short story called Witness for my fiction workshop class. The class gave me a very positive reaction and made some good suggestions; everyone seemed to really like it. I'm going to fix a few things and post it up here in the next couple of weeks. I'll have a little extra time now that I'm not working on the other web site for school.

October 1, 2003

I started my second sketch book today. Flipping through the old book, I realized I've been at this since May. My favorite part about journaling is watching some things change subtly over time while other things don't seem to change at all.

Happy birthday to Craigers!

September 29, 2003

I keep three staplers on my desk. A black Bostich, a little white Swingline and a big black Swingline. That may be more staplers than one man needs, but I can't bring myself to get rid of any. They sit side by side, a phalanx, next to my pencil holder. I never considered it odd until a customer, leaning over my shoulder, demanded some justification.

Mark, the owner of our office building, loves a deal. He goes to auctions whenever he can, and he buys anything that seems like a bargain. When the local claims adjustment office of a national insurance company went out of business, and 56 people found themselves without jobs, their staplers were deposited in a big corrugated box and put up on the auction block. Mark bought it for a buck and stored it in the copy room.

My desk stapler palyed hide and seek, crawling under file folders, hanging out on top of the filing cabinet, sneaking into the conference room. Knowing about the full box in the copy room, I gave up looking after a short thirty seconds and dipped into the stash. When my first stapler wandered home, he found himself replaced. Later, Rob left his stapler in my office, and, unable to find it later, dipped into the box himself. One, two, three staplers.

Now they're my friends, and I can't bear to separate them. The big black Swingline, all metal, makes a satisfying ka-chunk when I pound my fist on its head, and it has the strength to bite through a thick packet. The little white Swingline has sleek curves designed to fit in my hand, perfect for picking up and clipping two or three pages on the fly. The little black Bostich is the all-purpose workhorse, attaching check stubs to accounting copies over and over, quietly and without the need of much force from me.

Furthermore, I can think of few things more dejecting than squeezing an impotent, unloaded stapler--especially when I'm in a groove. That staple-less squish means a long walk to the supply cabinet, an interruption to my marathon of productivity. Having two other staplers standing-by is the perfect escape from this gumption-trap.

Today I found myself with three empty staplers. I loaded them all full with staples, like they were soldiers dressed for battle, and went to the copy room to get a fourth, just in case.

September 15, 2003

I went down south to celebrate Grandma Dorthy's 89th birthday. She was born in Birmigham, England a month after the bloody commencement of World War I. Too young to remember the war, her memories begin durring the depression, which struck England first, and followed her family to Canada and then Michigan. As with all her depression generation cohorts, she saves every left over and stocks her freezer full with mostly-eaten half-expired tidbits--as if there were some question regarding where her next meal will come from.

The leftovers from her birthday dinner came from the British Open Pub. Grandma says she likes the Pub because it's decorated exactly like an actual British pub (and she would know because, as she's quick to remind anyone, she's English, you know) and because they serve only traditional English food unlike the other pubs which pander to American tastes. I asked her which of the pub's specialties was her favorite and she responded, "Oh the crab rolls." At the Pub I noticed some broiled grouper and a fetta cheese pizza on the menu and envied the joyfull, convenient selective preceptions of the elderly.

September 11, 2003

Two years ago today I boarded a Virgin Atlantic 747, flying home from Scotland when, three hours out of Miami, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, I noticed the plane turn around. We did a 180. The sun flipped from the starboard to the port side. Although nobody else seemed to notice, my heart leapt. I wanted to ask a flight attendant what had happened. My mind started to whirl. Had we been hijacked? Was there some kind of emergency?

Before I conjured the courage to question an attendant, the captain clicked on the intercom and announced simply, "Due to events in the United States all the airports have been closed. We've been directed to return to Gatwick."

Silence ensued.

The passengers were outrageously calm. In fact, for the next four and a half hours and eerie stillness settled over the cabin. Only when the big island came in view and peoples ears started to pop did the muttering speculations rise up. Maybe we're at war! Maybe there's been a nuclear explosion in the US. I started spinning fantasies in my mind; I imagined if I were trapped an ocean away from Michele that I would steal a sail boat and make a voyage of desperation across the Atlantic.

Upon landing, I found the news at once less severe and more terrifying than I had imagined. The captain made some sketchy announcement about terrorist attacks that didn't make much sense. They handed out an AP wire summarizing the events of the day. The buildings fell down, it read. What the hell!? Not until I checked into a hotel in Brighton at 1:30 in the morning did I click on the BBC 24 hour news channel and catch a re-cap of the day's horrors. Outrageous. Surreal. It cracked my mind and it took another week, sitting in the hotel room waiting for another plane home, growing a beard, glued to the news channel, for reality to register. When I caught another plane (I didn't have to steal that sail boat after all) I flew home to a different America than I had left, to a world that hasn't been quite the same since--that will never be the same again.

September 7, 2003

As the weeks get crazier and crazier I find myself turning to the cartoon journal for a little solace. This is truly my domain where I'm the captain and crew and the horizon holds nothing but promise.

Today's cartoon is for my friend the doom-monger. The trouble with always betting on the worst case scenario is that even when you win, you still loose--although it just might keep you off the rocks.

August 31, 2003

Here's a week in review from earlier this month. There's a few more pencil sketches in my journal begging for ink that might find their way to this page on Wednesday.

School's back in and I'm carrying a heavy load.  I I bought a $90 grammar text book; it better be good. It looks like I'll be pulling out my writing journal. This semester I'm looking forward to composing some good fiction.

Special thanks to Kean Soo for including me in his illustrious Journal Comic Jam.

August 6, 2003

You don't want to go out to eat with me. Trust me on this one. The good ol' days of enjoying a nice sit down meal out at a casual restaurant with Shawn now lay drowned in the murky waters of the past. If you were smart you'd realize the trouble before you even convinced me to go. You want Mexican? "Hmmm. . .," I say, "I can't get a real good protein source at a Mexican restaurant, and those fried chips are too big a temptation. What else do you have in mind?" You want Chinese? "Well I could get tofu there, but they use too much sugar in the sauce and the MSG makes me feel funny all day. What else do you want?" You want TGIFridays? "Oh yeah, forget it. Some corn starched 'veggie patty' on a white flour roll with a plate full of french fries. What are you trying to do, kill me? What? You want to know what I want? We could go to Red Lobster where I can get a nice piece of grilled salmon. That's fortified with rich omega 3 fatty acid, you know."

You see? You should know what you're in for. So you're fool hearty enough to go to Red Lobster with me--I hope you're prepared to have your meal critiqued. Do you know how many grams of fat there are in a Cheddar Bay Biscuit? Dipping it in that drawn butter isn't making it any better. Instead of Bleu Cheese you can use a little pepper and some lemon juice to give flavor to that salad and if you pick out the croutons then it's all complex carbs. Oh, you may think broiled is better for you than fried, but they just soak it in butter; it's just as bad either way. You should stop drinking Coke; it's just pure sugar. I drink over a gallon of water a day. Aren't I great! Aren't I perfect. Blaa, blaa, blaa, blaa, blaa.

Then, watch me order desert and with every bite proclaim how decadent I'm being. Watch me lick the chocolate syrup off my spoon with my tongue like a home sick lover and, after a couple of bites, push it away. Oh I'm so stuffed! You want to yell, "Give me a break!" but you don't. You're polite and you put up with it because you're my friend. You're so kind. I want to let you know now that I appreciate your tolerance.

I don't want to be a health nut. It just sort of happened. An alcoholic doesn't just wake up one morning, toss away the cap from a bottle of Southern Comfort, sit down and say, "This whole functioning in society thing isn't working for me so I think I'll be a drunk." No, it starts slowly and evolves as a pattern of behavior. So it is with my eating habits. Some time between when I stopped eating meat and when I started eating fish again (to diversify my protein sources) I became a health nut. I adore my roasted almonds and coddle my cottage cheese. I eat fruit salad for desert and sometimes I'll even have 98% fat free Healthy Choice ice cream bars--but only if it balances with the amount of protein I had for dinner. I'm always weighing my food in my mind. And I can't wait to exercise next.

For those of you who don't know me, be warned don't ask me how I lost weight. At first I'll try to pass off the question, like Cesar thrice refusing the emperor's crown--but I want to answer--and if you provoke me, I will explode into a fountain of random health food facts followed by a contorted timeline of my subtle evolution from a pizza and buffalo wing junky who drank a gallon of Coke a day to a tofu junky who constantly drains the water cooler dry.

Just a fair warning.

August 3, 2003
Some friends of ours house sit for a well-to-do couple whose house stands on the banks of Lake Maitland in prestigious Winter Park. The couple spend their summers in their other house in New York, so our friends take the opportunity to invite their family and friends over for intimate dinner parties while the richies are away. This week they invited us, so we had the opportunity to eat grilled veggie sausages in a house well beyond anything that we could ever imagine to afford. By the end of our evening, however, we decided that we'd never want such a house. While we took the tour and our sullen foot falls echoed of the twenty-five foot tall ceilings, I imagined the master of the house entering the foyer through the massive, creaking oak doors to a dark house so large that even if he were to call out to his family, it would do no good as they all slumbered well out of ear-shot. Coldly, I questioned the motives of a man who would chase after such wealth. Obviously he's brilliant and driven; he's risen above challenges and achieved truly astounding wealth. When I see his motorized suit rack in the master closet I realize that, even if I could bring myself to be that driven, I could never bring myself to be that driven about money.

And I think it's the same with most people. They don't want to be rich; they just want enough to live a comfortable life. If they have the fire in them to drive them to be driven, they often prefer to focus that passion on something else: on their music, on their art, on their children, on their cartooning and short stories, on God. Sheli and Jason invited us to their church today and we were excited to see through an important window into their life. We were excited to see God from another perspective--or from any perspective as we don't get to church often. The pastor demanded, in his sermon, that we stop and look at our lives and simplify. When he said "simplify," he meant that we should focus our energies only on the things that are important to us. We should say "yes" to the things that allow us to grow in the directions that our spirit begs and "no" to the distractions that might derail our progress. He meant, I think, our service to God. Heathen as I am, to me it meant my wife, my work, and my cartooning and writing.

So here I am, pecking away at my keyboard on an ultra-casual essay for my web site that promises to earn me no money. Michele and I scan the ILS listings for a modest house or condo that is below our means while we plan a life that promises that we'll never find ourselves lounging in one of the half dozen sitting rooms of our palatial house in Winter Park. That's okay with us; we've looked at that lifestyle and we've turned our back in favor of a smaller, more comfortable life. We clank our ice water glasses together in a toast to our relatively rich life and watch "The Restaurant" as the rabbit ears strain to pick up the feeble NBC signal. Just the same, I've resolved to re-double my efforts in the things that breathe inspiration into my life and to follow the path my gifts have laid before me to the bitter end. And if on that journey I should happen to strike gold, you know, get a syndicated cartoon strip or get on Oprah's book club, and some house like that should happen to sprout up before us, we'll --I guess we'll just have to make do and suffer through it.

July 30, 2003
When I came home from work today I found news helicopters hovering above our apartment complex. The hyper-active Florida lightning that sparks around here like the Jacob's Ladder in a mad scientist's lab struck a building on the next street, set the apartments ablaze, and burned 19 people out of their homes. Last night as the summer squalls dumped their rain, more lightning danced around us and played havoc with our power which was on and off, on and off all night as I tried to work on a new logo. I reverted to old pen and paper and went to bed early.

Today I was telling Jake about my current favorite syndicated cartoon strip, One Big Happy by Rick Detorie.

July 27, 2003
Michele and I had a great weekend sleeping in late and trying to do as little as possible. Robbie C. had us over for veggie chili on Saturday (it tasted great) and we got to see Troy, who despite his anti-socialist leanings, is more than happy to take as much unemployment compensation as he can get. We had a nice dinner on Sunday with Bryon and Rob at Houstons; after which, we watched the gorgeous Florida summer sun set over Lake Killarney. I told Bryon about my favorite cartoon link page, the journal comic jam, which I hope to be a part of soon.

July 25, 2003
I had a great summer class, a pretty intense writing workshop that demanded that I keep a daily writing journal (I hope to post a new short story next week). As a result, the cartoons slacked off for a while but now they're back in force and it's my goal to up date the web site twice a week-- Mondays and Thursdays. We'll see how that goes.

May 18, 2003
Michele, Katie, Kevin, and I saw "Matrix Reloaded" today and it deeply dissapointed me. I've taken some flack on this but I have to stick to my guns; although it had some interesting parts, "Reloaded" pretty much sucked. The story seemed weak, the characters never demonstrated any vulnerability, and some of the fight scenes just lasted too long. I could go on but I'll simply say this: I'm not going to spend a year trying to convince myself that it was good (ie. Star Wars Episode I) just because I wanted it the be good.

This is also Michele's birthday, which is much more important the "The Matrix" but we really didn't celebrate today.

May 29, 2003
We came back from L.A. , exhausted and in need of a vacation. Luckily the very next weekend was Memorial Day weekend. We went to Bradenton to spend the weekend with my parents. On Saturday we got the boat out and sailed to Longboat Key to my favorite anchorage behind Moores. Craig enjoyed sitting on deck with binoculars and critiquing the anchoring prowess (or lack of it) of the other boaters as they arrived. I spent some time drawing pictures of some other boats in the anchorage (check them out in the sketchbook), including a portrait of Captain Craigers himself. Then it was back to work as we tried to resurrect our pre-vacation routines--including working out.