2007 Road Glide

Here's a few pictures of my current bike. It's a 2007 Harley Davidson Road Glide. I've owned four other motorcycles but this is my first Harley. I'm very happy with it. So far I've changed out the grips, all the fluids, added a taller windshield and a few other minor things.

The plan is to keep this one for a few years.

Hi there. Sorry, no new art. I just feel like talking.

So, let's see. What's been going on?

1. Kilter is grown up and moved out on his own
2. Luckygirl is turning 13 next week
3. I still work at the same job
4. I havn't painted anything in a really long time
5. My wife and I have been remodeling our master bathroom. It's taking way longer and costing more money than expected. Hopefully it all pays off in the end.
6. I sold the Cop Bike, bought a Honda VTX1800, sold the Honda, and now ride a Yamaha FJR1300.

My KZ1000P

For those of you who didn't know, I recently purchased retired PHX PD motorcycle. It's a 2001 Kawasaki KZ1000P (KZP). The bike was super cheap and way below my budget but I liked it better than other, more expensive bikes that I could have bought.  It's big and comfy with an upright seating position and it's also a little quirky. I did lots of research and found out that these things were being built for nearly 25 years with minimal changes, the result, a later model bike with super classic style.

It was all painted in PD white when I bought it so the first thing I did was paint the fairing, tank, boxes and fender black, but I left the side covers with the police special logo alone. Here's the before and after:

Before:

 

After:

Plaid

As I was working on the previous post, I relized that I have neglegted to show this painting to you. I did this one a few months back. Acrylic on Canvas, done using painting knives.

There's no reason to delete my blog.

The other day I was thinking, "You know, I should just close and delete that Brown Street Blog & Gallery. I never really post anything anymore." Well, I decided not to. There's no reason to delete it. Even if I rarely ever post anything, and when I do, it's usually something silly, who cares? It's not like anybody out there is holding their breath for the next posting. And it's not like I'm holding anyone back from achieving their dreams by keeping the blog open.

The main two reasons I had for starting this blog was 1) To say whatever I felt like. and 2) to share my artwork with anyone who cares to see it. Well, I haven't had anything to say lately, but that doesn't mean I never will again. I also haven't painted anything in quite a while, but I still have my easel and brushes. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will strike at some time I don't expect.

As for me lately, life is good as usual. My wife and I hit 20 years of wedded bliss. My son turned 18 and is now living with a girl. My daughter is about to turn 11 and is as beautiful as ever. I also really enjoy my job. I am thinking about buying a motorcycle soon. Probably a big touring bike, like a Goldwing or something. I'll be sure to post a picture when I do.

Anyway, even though I don't blog often, I see no reason to quit altogether. Hope you keep reading.

Stuck in the Garage

Have you seen the beautiful car that Kilter bought? 2002 Mercedes Benz E320. He paid way less than I paid for my Kia.

Did you know that if you get three moving violations before you turn 18 you will have your license suspended for 90 days?

Kilter knows it now.

Whales

As you can see, I'm painting again. This one is called "Whales". Real tricky huh? It's acrylic on canvas. I think it's 24x20 inches. I included two pics because I have so much trouble getting clear pictures of my paintings. The first picture captures the colors but has lots of glare. The second one doesn't show the true colors but it's a cleaner photo.

I'm also in the middle of another painting that is totally different from this one. It's not done yet so you'll have to wait to see it.

PS3 Addiction

I have an addictive personality. I think it's because I always have to be doing something. It's the reason I started painting. I had a week off of work and didn't have anything to do.

I used to play lots of video games as a kid. I lived across the street from a bowling alley and would scrounge quarters to play Donkey Kong. Once I got older I didn't play any games for some time but then my son got old enough to get into the game thing. I bought a PS2 and got addicted to Gran Tourismo 3, then several others.

Once the "Next Gen" systems came out I decided that I wasn't going to get involved because if I did, I would get hooked. Great plan, poor execution.

Kilter has a job and buys his own things so it wasn't long before he came home with a PS3 and a game called Battlefield Bad Company 2. I thought nothing of it because it's mostly an online game and I have always avoided playing online for fear of being annoyed by all the idiots out there.
Somehow I tried the game. Next thing you know, I bought my own PS3 system. Now I'm addicted to it. I'm up to Level 37 (Major) of 50. I started out ranked higher than 250,000 and now I'm ranked in the top 20,000. The thing I love is the challenge of playing online against other live players. Anyone who has played video games knows that playing against a computer is very predictable. Playing online is anything but. It's a new challenge that you can never beat completely.

If you have an adictive personality, I highly recommend you avoid this game.

Chimp Raises Tigers

OK. This is too cute. If you know me, you know I'm not particularlly into cute things. This article caught my attention. My daughter and I were looking on Bing to find pics of tiger cubs and we stubled across this chimp that is helping to raise two white tigers in South Carolina.

Read the full story with more pictures here ----> http://tinyurl.com/2dg2cmn

Here's a preview:

Artistic Struggles

I havn't posted anything for a very long while. A big reason (or excuse) for not keeping up with the blog is that I haven't been painting much.

I completed a rather large painting (4" x 4" mdf) that hangs in my living room but it didn't photograph very well. I guess you want to see it anyway so here it is.

I really like the picture but it looks nothing like what you see in this photograph. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get rid of the glare.

By the way. The picture/scupture on the far right in this set (Wooden Tiles) is no longer there. A person who has a dance studio and does art sittings (provides a studio and subject for artists to come and practice) fell in love with it so I gave it to her. It now hangs in her studio.

My new TATTOO....better late than never....

Well, okay, so waaaayy back in March I said I was getting a new tattoo...and I did! I just never got around to posting it on the blog! Sorry. But SOMEONE finally complained to me so I thought I better get it done.

Sorry the picture is not better, but I think you can see it okay.

It did hurt A LOT!! Enough that I will have to really think twice before getting a tattoo on the other foot. Luckily it did not take toooo long....I sat really still so he could do it quickly and get it over with.

The artist that did the tattoo was "Wookie" at Club Tattoo and he free handed the drawing then filled in the tattoo. It was a little scary being the first free handed drawing...usual they draw up design, make a stencil for me to approve and THEN stick it on me. I am extremely pleased with the design!

Let me know what you think.

Is "GIVING" important to you? It is to us...

Hello Everyone,

Just a quick note to say Merry Christmas! This year we O'Donnell's sponsored a 16 year old boy through the Phoenix Children's Project. I asked the director of PCP if there was a demographic of kids that usually are not sponsored and do you believe she said teenagers (well being the mother of one I understand that one) but also over weight kids. Now, the only way you know they are over weight is by comparing their age and sizes...you dont see a picture of the kid. How terrible is that!!! Many over weight kids have no control over it, maybe it is a genetic or physiological problem. Anyhow, I was assigned a teen age boy and I enjoyed getting him a complete outfit....underpants, sock, shoes....everything! Hopefully I selected well, as I know teens can be very picky. I included the gift receipts just in case. I also gave him some "fun" stuff in the form of video games he asked Santa for....I think he will be happy.

In addition to this we sponsored a family. Last year we got my husbands office involved in PCP also. This year someone in the office brought to our attention a family where both parents of 5 kids got laid off and where in need. We decided to sponsor them too. With the help of the office and my mother-in-law, we are able to provide presents for the entire family....including the parents!

I have done a lot of shopping this year and it feels good that it was to help people in need to have a great Christmas! This family does not have any "gaming" systems...and they all wanted a PS2 (which is only sold used now). Well, as it turns out my family has 2 of them, I thought one was broken and bought a 2nd from a carport sale. Well, as it turned out we just did not have the 1st one connected correctly and it was fine. So, my son got to put the extra one in his bedroom. He was nice enough to donate HIS system with a few of his own games to this family! My daughter donated some of her games too! Now that is family participation...makes a mom all warm and cuddly inside! We also provided presents from each kids wish list, so this will be one VERY happy family!!

If you do not participate in something like this, I encourage you to begin. Just donating money is always appreciated but I have to say it is much more satifying to actually do the leg work, then wrap and deliver the presents! My daugher especially enjoys helping me wrap! We try to make it a family affair so even the kids get the joy of giving during the season. A life lesson that I personally feel many "adults" still need to learn or maybe just need to reconnect to.

Well, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Share a comment of what you do to share joy through the holidays, I would love to hear new ideas too!

WOW! My son got a new car...the hard way!

Well, the boy was driving with a friend to come join me at my office and do some work over Fall Break! When out of the blue another driver turns left ....right into him! As you can see by the pictures it was a serious accident. Kilter ended up with loss of short term memory for awhile and still to this day does not remember his accident. His passenger had a ruptured spleen and had emergency surgery. She is doing well now. Thank the Lord they are both okay now!

At first Farmers Insurance wanted to make Kilter 20% liable for the accident....I guess because he could not avoid it or maybe just because he was there....but we talked them down to only 10% at first....then we got the POLICE report!! Well, it states he was driving BELOW the speed limit and the picture and diagram of the accident clearly show that Kilter tried to avoid and swerve away from the other driver but the other car was just on top of him too fast! With the evidence showing the other driver was clearly at fault we disputed it with Farmers and they agreed to accept 100% liability and voided the original 10 %....which is excellent!

With Kilters car having so much damage the insurance company said it was a "total" loss and cut us a check for the vehicle. It will take a few months to settle the injury claim. But at least we can replace the car at this point.

Kilter REALLY wanted an older BMW....so we shopped around for awhile and finally found a purchased a 1988 BMW 735i....it is in excellent condition. We only paid $1400 for the car which left Kilter a couple hundred dollars of insurance money to use to fix up little issues on the new car. What a deal! We brought Uncle Jo over to get his seal of approval and now are very happy with the purchase. Of course being old it needs some TLC but mechanically it is excellent and just needs minor fixes. It looks very nice parked in front of the house....makes us look wealthy...lol....

These are pictures for you to see the car....let me know what you think...

It is a very sexy "luxor beige metallic" color.

oooohhhh.....aaawwwsome....

Now thats a car to keep awhile!

What a beauty! He named her Briana....

Shaded Ball

This isn't exactly what you are used to seeing me paint. I am trying to learn better technique to be an all around better painter.

The shaded ball is an exercise that some art teachers have their students do to understand variations of color and practice shading.

This is done using 5 shades of black and white. I still need a lot of practice but hopefully it pays off.

Dancing Music

Here is my newest painting, Dancing Music. I painted this for my Mom's birthday on September 22nd. Happy Birthday Mom!

This painting is not my usual style or color pallet. I don't really like to do anything with detail. I'm more of a heavy handed, smearing paint, type of guy. I also like heavy, dark colors. the closer to black the better for me.

Here's the painting. Let me know what you think.

Shadows

This is my latest painting and is titled Shadows. Don't ask me where I got the idea from. I don't really know. I put several layers of paint on this thing but felt like it wasn't going anywhere. I took it out to the back yard and sprayed it with my high pressure washer which peeled of some of the layers of paint. Once I did that I started seeing something so I added the bold, horizontal, red bar and then covered the whole thing with a very thin wash of Mars Black giving it the dark feel. It might be a little too dark for most people's taste but what the heck.

Tell me what you think about Shadows.

I'm a real twit...

I'm such a twit (someone who tweets on Twitter).

I haven't blogged in a little bit but I'm very active on Twitter: @az_james

In fact, I'm addicted to it. Talk about a great way to get a big wad of information that is personalized to your interests.

I have it set up like a news ticker using the DestroyTwitter application so it updates every 60 seconds.

I can't even start my day without logging in and checking all the tweets (a post on Twitter) to see if there is anything interesting.

I guess that's a big reason that I haven't been blogging as much. With my role change at work, from Trainer to Instructional Designer, I am much, much busier that I was in the past. I don't really have much time to write a full blog post so I tweet mini blog entries (140 characters or less) instead.

If you follow az_james you'll see mostly RT's (re-tweeting some one else's tweet) of things other twits tweet that interest me.

I like to follow several news twits, sports twits, local twits, learning twits, ID twits, and most of all, political twits.

When I first became a twit I followed only people I know. I then branched out to celebrities and pro athletes. Once I figured out what I was interested in I removed those that didn't talk about things that interest me. I don't care what some movie star is having for lunch. Give me something I can read and care about, or better yet, can learn from.

Now I have found several twits that provide information that actually applies to my life and my work.

In fact, I think Twitter is necessary for me to grow on my job. Really. Consider the cost of going to training classes in this economy. If I find a tweet that provides an article with insight to some new way to provide learning, that's a far better return on investment. On occasion I even find things that are so relevant I email them to my entire team.

Anyway, if your not on Twitter you should be. Whatever your interests, you'll find like minded people on Twitter who will share their knowledge with you. The best part: Its Free.

Wooden Tiles

I know I haven't blogged in a while. I really haven't painted anything in a couple of months. I started on something that I couldn't get to look like my vision of it. It led me to avoid the painting. Finally, I decided not to do the painting so I hope that will help me get back to painting other things.

This one is called Wooden Tiles. It's more of a sculpture than a painting although you probably can't see that in the 2 dimensional picture.

I cut out several small squares of wood. I glued smaller blocks of wood on the back of the tiles of all varying sizes. The small blocks are all differnt sizes and angles. As a result, no two tiles are mounted the same. Then I painted each time individually and voila.

Wooden Tiles

CALISTA

Meet Calista, our newest addition to the family. I call her Cali for short. She is a 10 week old puppy. Chihuahua/Terrier mix. We already had three other dogs so this was not something we were planning for. We just happened across her and the girls in the house all fell in love. Initially this pupply looked just like she does in this picture. Calm, docile, relaxed. Whoa did she play us. This dog is so hyper I sometimes think she eats cat nip or something. She starts getting excited and then jumps all over the other dogs (who are all much bigger). The other dogs give her a good scolding but she doesn't care. I guess she can't help herself when she gets wound-up. She is coming along on her house breaking though so I know she has some doggie smarts in there. Here's a couple more pictures of Cali decieving us into thinking she is so calm...

Apollo High School Prom 2009

OMG! They grow up sooo fast! These are few pics of my son and his girlfriend/friends before they went to PROM!!!! Can't believe how fast they grow up! Kilter (my son) is the tall one....the little red head is his girlfriend and the other girl is her best friend/boyfriend.

I thought I would post these pics to brag about what a handsome boy we have!!! If you have kids be warned....they get this age in a blink of an eye! OMG...he will be going to college sooner than I know it!!! YIKES!!! Mom is just not ready for all this! But I am proud!