Last night I ordered the supplies to package & ship 11 x 14 prints. First up is glassine paper. This goes over the face of the print so it doesn't get scratched. I went with paper, instead of plastic sleeves, to protect the artwork. It arrives in a couple days. Next are the rigid cardboard mailers for sending prints via mail. I bought prints from a friend and this is what he used. They look like they can take a beating. Unfortunately they don't arrive for at least another week. The last items are the white paper envelopes for local pickups and deliveries. They arrive tomorrow. They're flimsy compared to the brown mailers and the prints would get damaged if I mailed them in these envelopes without extra reinforcement. Which I might have to do till the mailers arrive. Next up is to order the the first run of prints and list them for sale on my online store.

I took my bike to Good Karma to get it serviced today. The rear wheel became off-centered and the tire rubbed against the frame when I rode it. They took care of it and now it's back to normal. I also bought an extra wide cushioned seat and they installed it. No more uncomfortable tiny seat halfway up my asshole!

After the leaving Good Karma I drove to Campbell to check out local artist Drew Roulette's mural-in-progress on the Los Gatos Creek Trail. I can't wait to see it completed and without the scaffolding.

I went to Orange Moon Salon this afternoon to hang my latest 18 x 24 inch drawing. The one I drew earlier this month. It's now hanging out with the rest of its cousins on the wall. We also started talking about doing an art closing reception at the salon, since my drawings have been up for months. Nothing is certain but we might do it in July.

I made a sale yesterday! A heather gray shirt with the pink SAN JOSE print on the front. I packaged it today. I usually do a hand drawn Thank You card but this is for a friend and repeat customer so I did something a bit different as a surprise. I can't show you what I did till she receives her order and sees it first. 

In other news I found that my bike's rear tire is rubbing against the frame when I ride. I was wondering what the strange sound was and I didn't know where it was coming from till today. I'll be taking it to Good Karma Bikes soon so they can fix it. 

I also made some new buttons. The colors still need a little tweaking on a couple but they're looking pretty cool

I picked up the USA map proofs this afternoon. I really like the 11x14, (smallest size) but the colors on the 16x20 and 24x36 are dull by comparison. The two big ones were printed using a wide format printer and cost a lot more too. I'm going to keep looking for a better solution for the large prints but start selling the 11x14 right away. I just need to look into shipping materials and postage costs.

Today I went to Big Ink Printing in San Jose to get quotes on printing my USA map. It was my first time there and I saw one of my stickers slapped on their front desk. Patrick, my buddy who printed them for me, had them made at Big Ink. I ordered some print samples of my map in different sizes. I'll get them in the next couple days. 

I worked a little bit on my Sticker Monster piece and finished the teeth. I took pictures of the tracing & cutting process as seen in slideshow below. I'm gonna work on the tongues next.

I didn't realize when I bought my bike that I was so out of riding shape. When I owned a bike back in high school I would sneak out at night and ride all around the neighborhood. Fast forward to now, many years & lbs later, and I'm having a tough time going just a couple miles.

Today, to get more practice and build stamina, I took my bike to Lake Cunningham. When I got there I found a parking pass inside the ticket machine tray, saving me $6. I rode my bike around the parking before doing two laps. It was hard as hell, especially with my shifters & derailleurs not working properly! I really need to figure out what's wrong and fix it. When I was done, I left the parking pass in the ticket machine tray for the next person to find. I'll probably keep going back to Lake Cunningham till I get more comfortable riding my bike and building my endurance, before going on long rides in the streets.

After spending the night with my cousin at his parent's house, my aunt & uncle. We spent the morning catching up before going to the park for my other cousin, his sister's, birthday party. (I have LOTS of cousins) After hanging out there for a bit I drove back to San Jose. At home I watched a little TV before cleaning up and doing dishes. I was too tired to do laundry so I'm putting it off till tomorrow.

This is a makeup post for Saturday. I was out of town and spent the night at my aunt's house where we had a surprise party for my grandma. We're vaccinated so we felt safe getting together after 14 months of sheltering at home due to covid. It was great to see everybody and even though it's been so long it felt like we never skipped a beat. Just like old times.

That last time I went hiking one of my boots started making a flapping sound and when I got home I saw that the sole came unglued from the middle of the shoe. Today I glued the sole to the shoe and clamped it tight for a couple hours before lacing up for another hike. My friend and I went to Coyote Valley Open Space Preserve and did the whole park, one loop a little over 4 miles long. Easy Peasy, and my boot seemed to hold up.

I was going through old pictures yesterday and today and found some cool process pictures from when I made my Cells MK2 painting. I completely built it out in Adobe Illustrator before painting the panel. I also had to take a headshot today and I worked a little more on my Sticker Monster collage. It's got fangs now.

Today I went to Alum Rock Park to get my steps in. I hiked 7 miles doing the Penitencia Creek & South Rim Trails. When I got home I started looking through old pictures and came across the ones I took the last time I hiked Mission Peak in 2017. I'm ready to back.

I finally using those stickers I've been hoarding for years. I'm making a sticker monster collage. So far, so good.

Monday was tax day. It got extended from April 14th because of covid. I still waited till the last day to file. This was my third year reporting self-employed income and even though the preparation has gotten easier after streamlining my record keeping process, it still sucks a load of ass. I took lots of notes and screenshots as I filled out the Turbotax forms to make it easier for next year but I might start paying someone else to do my taxes.

It sounds like an organization of trained & certified cats you can hire to do your taxes. In actuality it's an abbreviation for Tax Categories and I spent most of Sunday making sure I properly categorized every transaction I made in 2020. Monday is tax day and I'm glad I'm almost done. 

It's Saturday night and they're due on Monday. I'm almost done, I think. Just a few more things I gotta plug in, like payment card processing fees & miscellaneous expenses. I can't wait to be done.

I hiked the Mount Ununhum Trail with my friend Jackie this morning. It was 7.7 miles long with 1,200 ft of elevation gain but at a nice & steady incline. I heard about this place a couple years ago and have been wanting to go. It wasn't bad.

I saw my doctor today for a checkup and to go over my lab results. (that bruise on my arm in the picture below is where they drew blood a couple days ago) Aside from being overweight and slightly high blood pressure my doctor said my test results look really good. Better numbers than most people coming back for doctor visits after the covid shutdown. I was pleasantly surprised. I thought they were going to be bad, especially since I'm currently about 10 lbs over what I usually weigh this time of year. There's still plenty work I need to do health wise but I left my doctor's office feeling good. I wanted to treat myself so I visited my local comic shop, Legends, inside Eastridge Mall, and picked up a bunch of $1 comics. All of them are new but they're reprints of old books. After returning home I got ready and went on a hike at Alum Rock Park. I did all of the Penitencia Creek Trail, almost 6 miles, then came home and did some more work on my taxes. I have this weekend to finish as tax day is this coming Monday.

Yesterday, besides cleaning out my stash of old sketches and stickers, I backed up my iPhone, iPad and Macbook and updated their operating systems. The iOS devices continued to work fine but my 7 year old laptop was having a tough time after the new MacOS update. I updated my Mid 2014 Macbook Pro's OS, from Catalina (10.15) to Big Sur (11.3). After the install the fans in my laptop came on full blast and overheated. I'd known  for months that Macbooks days were numbered. One of the speakers had blown out and the trackpad hardly works unless you press down on it really hard. I was waiting for the new M-series 16" Macbook Pro to drop but didn't want to risk losing any of my work in case my old Macbook took a shit so I pulled the trigger on a Mac Mini. I'd mostly been using my Macbook as a desktop with an external monitor, mouse, keyboard and speaker so the new Mac Mini fits right in. Now I can use my Macbook as a backup and get it repaired and not be computerless while it's in the shop.

434.1This afternoon I went and bought a heavy-duty speaker stand for my single QSC K10 speaker and a couple 1/4" to XLR cables. I'd been using my work's DJ equipment all these years and now that I'm buying stuff for myself I'm reminded of how expensive everything is. Later, after practicing some mixing, I started tinkering with my bikes rear brakes and I think I fixed them. They weren't tight enough before. Now I gotta figure out why my front brakes squeak when I slow down or come to a stop. Tonight I finally went back to working on my taxes. I added up all the miles I'd driven in for business purposes in 2020 and it was 434.1.

It was a pretty boring Sunday, cleaning and doing laundry, until I took my bike out for a ride. I went up a hill, stopping twice, and on the way down the chain came off the chain wheel and my rear brakes were barely slowing me down. I was afraid I was gonna eat shit. Luckily I didn’t fall and I managed to slow down by the time I reached the bottom. I got the chain back on then went home. I got my workout and a scare. I’ll try and figure out the brake situation before I take the bike out again.

I drew another Head Thing thing today. I suffered from major wrist-rust and it took me a while to loosen up but it came out ok. There's also footage of me drawing it but it needs to be edited down.

I took my bike back to Good Karma Bikes to get looked at this afternoon. Yesterday I took it for a ride and I wasn’t able to shift into the third/highest gear in the front. Today, at the shop, the guy tests it by turning the pedals and using the shifter and it starts working fine. He tells me to take it for ride and It worked like normal. So weird. Afterwards the repair guy said if I have any problems with it to bring it back and they’ll swap the shifter. I’m really liking the service at Good Karma Bikes. After returning home then working on the computer for hours I stopped to bake cookie dough that’d been sitting in the fridge all week. My friend made the dough and the cookies came out delicious. Tonight I also pulled out the DJ controller to start practicing again. I’m DJing my friends 40th birthday party next month and need to shake the rust off. And if that wasn’t enough, I also started sketching something weird on a 18”x24” sheet of paper. I was hoping I’d finish inking it tonight but I stated getting too wrapped up in details and didn’t come close.

I took my bike for a test ride down the street today. A rode for few blocks and noticed the front derailleur wasn't letting my shift into the high gear. I watched a couple Youtube videos when I got home to try and troubleshoot and fix it but decided I'll take the bike back to Good Karma Bikes tomorrow so they can do it and/or show me how. I then spent most of the day working on creating a new resume from scratch. My old resumes were never that good so I wanted to do a complete overhaul. I took a break from the resume to enter the mileage I logged for the Casitas US map mural project into my newly updated spreadsheet, made to make next years tax preparation a little easier.