Today my grandma and I finished the 1000 piece puzzle we started a couple days ago. Afterwards, because the air quality was good, (from the wildfire smoke) I went on a 5 mile hike/walk through Alum Rock Park and just a few minutes ago I sent off the revised design for that little job I'm working on. Time for bed.

I helped a coworker buddy move out of his house yesterday. His house is on the side of a hill and we had to carry a bunch of boxes from inside the house up a flight of stairs to the U-Haul on the street. I was there for 3 hours and got one hell of a workout. I slept great last night but woke up sore as hell this morning. My shoulders and arms got it the worst. I pretty much stayed in bed all day and watched the whole first season of Cobra Kai (It's fucking great!) and I worked on a graphic design job for a couple hours so the day wasn't a total waste.

I went back to the dentist this morning and got fitted with a temporary crown. After I got home, and whatever they numbed me with started wearing off, I could feel some residual pain. I don't know if it's from the cracked tooth itself or having my gums injected and molar drilled for almost 2 hours. If everything starts to feel better I'll have the permanent crown fitted in a couple weeks. If things don't get better I'm afraid I'll need to get the tooth extracted and either get an implant or a bridge. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the crown does the job.

I went to the dentist today. It turned out my toothache is from a cracked molar, not a lost filling, and I'll probably need another crown installed. The dentist filed down my cracked tooth, so there's less pain when I bite, to hold me off till my appointment on Thursday. I'm still taking ibuprofen for the pain and felt like shit most of the day.

I went out of town and saw my cousins and had a great time catching up but I've also been dealing with a toothache for a few days. I think a filling fell out. The pain has gotten worse so I've been popping lots of ibuprofen for a bit of relief. I'm hoping my dentist can get me in tomorrow to fix it.

I hung out with my buddy today who I haven't seen since March, before the shutdown. We met up at a park, stayed socially distant, drank some beers, drew in our sketchbooks and caught up after 6 months. On Sunday I'm driving up to Ukiah to visit my cousins. I don't think I've seen them since Christmas and I really miss them. It's gonna be hot as shit but we'll still have a good time, plus they have AC. I've been needing to see friends and family after sheltering in place for so long. I always feel better afterwards. I like to think of it as recharging the soul's batteries.

Today I felt like I could stop worrying about the fire coming down the hill and possibly having to evacuate. The weather was nice and the air quality wasn't terrible so I went and walked two laps at Lake Cunningham. This was my first time going out after being locked indoors with the windows closed, and glued to the computer, for the last 7 days days. It felt good to not worry about the fire but I still feel bad for those who were forced to evacuate and even more so for those who lost their homes. I wish we could fast forward past the wildfires, covid-19, racial injustice, police brutality and everything else that's made 2020 the biggest shit-show in my lifetime.

I ordered a small drafting table this afternoon that's scheduled to arrive on Friday. I've been wanting a table with an angled drawing surface for a while. After working on those large ink drawings for weeks my back began to hurt, most likely from being hunched over a flat table for hours at a time. I put off working on my "protester" drawing, which still isn't done being penciled, till I got a proper desk. It wasn't very expensive, so I hope isn't dogshit. The reviews were pretty good and I like that it's very basic, just the tilting surface and height-adjustable legs. I even got the last black one in stock.

And in other news... I was going thru boxes of old drawings and snapped a few pictures of drawings I did in my early teens.

1. Power Rangers Suck (1994)  - I think I drew this in summer school between the 5th & 6th grade. I don't know what my beef was with the Power Rangers but I copied the cover of Green Day's album, "Dookie," to shit on the them.

2. Ozzy Osbourne (1995) - This was long before the The Osbournes TV show. I copied the characters that were pulled off the internet in 94-95. I think my cousin Dani printed out a webpage for me at her parents house one day. It might have been my first introduction to the internet. I took the pages home and redrew the little Ozzy characters.

3. Inside an Alien Ship (1996) - I'm not sure if I pinched this too but I definitely took Alien Workshop, an actual skateboard brand, from the ads in Thrasher magazines. I still love this drawing, there's so much to look at, I might redraw it.

I hardly did anything productive today. I've been so frustrated lately building my new website on Wordpress and making little progress so I took some time away from the computer today. I have new items that I'll be adding to my store and the plan was to have them available when I rebuilt the new site but since that's taking me so long I'll probably have them available on my current (Weebly) site soon. I haven't been getting much exercise lately so tonight I forced myself to go out for some walking & running in the neighborhood. By the time I made it out it was already 11:22 PM but it's cool since I've been in vampire mode for a few weeks now, staying up till 4 or 5 AM and waking up around noon. Livin' la CoVida Loca

After hours & hours & hours & hours & hours preparing, I finally filed my taxes this evening. One day before the extended deadline. I was stoked to finally finish and learn I'm receiving a refund. The last few years I've had to pay the federal government so I'm happy to finally get some money back. After filing I celebrated with a short hike up to Eagle Rock at Alum Rock Park. 

I went on a 2 hour hike at Alum Rock Park today and snapped a few pics along the way. It got dark on the way back and I came across a wild/feral cat, a little bigger than a large house cat, in the middle of the trail. It climbed up a hill and watched me from above as a I walked past. You can see it walk off the trail at the beginning of the video below.

Today I started writing messages on the protesters signs and went for a hike at Alum Rock Park, up to Eagle Rock. Can you see where I fucked up on one of the signs? Also check out the pics of the mutant bug (tarantula hawk) and a plant from outer space.

Last week I hurt my back after working out. I woke up the next day with pain behind my left shoulder. It hurt every time I moved and walked around. It's gotten better, but not 100%, over these past few days. Yesterday I felt good enough to go for a walk and today I did modified work out, to avoid hurting myself again, and went for a run. When I got home I had to cook up some chicken, bell peppers and mushrooms that were gonna spoil if I left them any longer. I threw in a few other ingredients and it came out really good. Better than I expected. Bork, bork, bork!

I drank a shit-ton of caffeine, stretched, worked out, went out for a walk, ran a bit, cooked dinner, shaved and trimmed my beard. 

As things started to reopen during the covid-19 pandemic I chose to stay at home for 2 weeks after DJing a wedding. I'm happy that before the gig I tested negative for the virus and afterwards I never developed any symptoms. What sucks is that during this time there's been an increase in reported cases and hospitalizations. Today, California's mayor, Gavin Newsom, ordered bars to close back up in several counties including Santa Clara. I believe things reopened too soon and a roll back is probably a good idea but I have a feeling we're all going to be dealing with the pandemic for the rest of the year if not longer. I just read about the 1918 (Spanish) Flu pandemic which lasted 2 years and hit in 4 waves, where the 2nd wave was much deadlier than the first. There are a few similarities between 1918's pandemic and our current one so I really hope we can hit the brakes on covid-19 and keep it from getting worse.

I went for a run today. It's been 2 months since the last time. I ran for 10 minutes before my body said "Hell naw" so I walked the rest of the way. I wasn't ready.

I drew this and inked it today. It's a little bigger that 4"x5". The plan is to draw a big one (18"x24") with a bunch of protesters in face mask holding up signs and fists. I got a good idea of how I want them to look but still need to figure out what pens/markers to ink it with. I mainly used a Copic Sketch on this for the varying line widths but it's too big for the small details like fingers & hair. I'm gonna try a Sharpie next and see if I like it better, then maybe a Micron Graphic 1 and other sizes.

I did my stretches & workout at home, cooked dinner (chicken & mushrooms,) went for a 3.3 mile walk in the neighborhood, came home, ate left overs and made microwave-s'mores. The only thing that would have made today better would be if they arrested all the cops who murdered Breonna Taylor (only one has been fired)

As I've been SIP'n for the past few weeks, after protests and DJing a gig, I've been working out less frequently. Today I went to Lake Cunningham to walk a couple laps (4.09 miles.) I had been exercising 4 days a week in April & May but have only gone out a total of 4 times in June. It's time to get back on the horse and drop some more lbs.

Between protesting downtown last weekend, getting tested for Coronavirus on Wednesday, and DJing the event yesterday, I've decided to stay home for the next couple weeks just incase I caught a case of the cooties and to avoid spreading it. I understand there's a 2 week incubation period where it's possible to be infected but not test positive so I'm gonna do my best to be a good boy for the time being. This coming week is also the start of the next phase of reopenings since the shutdown and I'm gonna stay clear from dining at any bars or restaurants. I'm seeing headlines of recent spikes on Covid-19 cases in states that reopened earlier than California. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping a second wave doesn't hit San Jose or the bay area.

I DJ'd an outdoor wedding reception at a private residence on Saturday. It was my first event since the Covid-19 shelter-in-place order started in March. We took precautions to minimize spreading germs:

• The DJ booth was roped off to keep guests from coming up to make song requests. Instead we had a clipboard set out front for people to write down their requests.
• All toasts were done using a separate microphone so I didn't haven't to share mine. We left a tub of antibacterial wipes by the mic stand but nobody wiped down the mic.
• Guests were having their temperatures checked when they arrived.
• The catering staff and I wore masks. (I only took mine off when I was behind the rig by myself) Unfortunately I don't remember seeing any guests were masks or try to stay 6 feet apart.
• All the dinner tables and buffet tables had bottles of hand sanitizer.

On top of all that I had to setup 2 extra speakers and run a few hundred feet of cable to cover the whole area. It was a 7 hour event but I was on the property for 12 hours. It was a 15 hour day from when I left home and came back. I was tired AF when I got home and I forgot to write a blog post.

Good news! I got my Covid test results back this morning, no cooties detected. I also finished inking Eyes & Mouths today. Next I gotta erase the pencils and go over it, and my the other two pieces, Brains/Guts & Hearts & Stars, with white-out to fix mistakes. I'm finally beginning to see daylight!

I did some protesting last week and I'm DJing a wedding reception this Saturday so I went in to get tested for the Coronavirus this morning. I was told to stay home till I receive the results which can take 24-48 hours. I hate waiting on results like this and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the results come up negative. 

Friday started off great. I met up with my buddy, Jon, at Lake Cunningham and we went on a (socially-distant) walk around the park. After one lap Jon split and I stayed to do one more then ran into another friend, Adam, who was getting off work at the park. He drove up to show me he was rocking my San Jose shirt. That made my day! I didn't realize I was wearing my San Jose shirt till afterwards. On the way out of the park I snapped a picture of this awesome hand-drawn found-dog flyer posted near the entrance. When I got home I showered, ate lunch, did some crossword puzzles, and started drawing. It was an awesome day up until that point. Soon after, I heard about protesters downtown and on the 101 holding up traffic. They were protesting in response to the murder of George Floyd by Minnesota police. Soon I was seeing friends videos on Instagram of people smashing car windows, police firing tear gas & rubber bullets, crowds throwing objects at the police, a trash bin on fire in the middle of the street, a car running over people, people looting a Starbucks, a cop getting knocked out. This shit is crazy and there are protests/demonstrations/riots happening in multiple cities across the US. I wonder if this is going to continue through the weekend and what will happen in its wake.

Woke up sick this morning. All I did was go grocery shopping, eat and sleep. No art, just farts.