Birthday present.

Last year, I was working on my Masters and had three jobs on the side.  We were expecting our little boy, too, so there wasn't a lot of disposable income.  So I've been waiting for this camera for two years.  I can't wait to get out and shoot some pictures!

The Canon 600D.  Or Rebel T3i, depending on which country you're in.
That's all for now.

Peace.

No excuses!

I've had the Blogger app. on my phone for longer than I can remember. But I don't like how the posts look on my page online. That's a pretty bad reason not to post.

So today is as good a day as any to start posting from my phone. At least I'll be getting something up here for you and I can always edit it when I do get online.

And it's my birthday! 28 years old today.

To start:

Baby Fairweather is this big, now! Another reason I've not posted that much as of late, which I don't mind.

A couple of 'mascot' designs for the high school. Nothing official and more of a character exercise than anything, but fun nonetheless.

Part of a game design that I'm trying in a different way. I really liked the designs for some of the sections of the race track in Wreckit Ralph - made with proper sweets! I figured I'd try something similar for a game I'm working on.

And then this one to finish. We get some awesome thunderstorms rolling through the town. And our house sits opposite a great space for us to watch the lightning when it hits the next town. It's truly awesome.

Well, the low battery beast strikes. I'll be back soon with some more created things!

Thanks for waiting for me.

Peace.

We found him!

My, my, my.

March, eh?  That's a long time ago.  It's probably about time I made a post to let you know that I'm still alive and well.

Several fairly significant things have happened in the past few months which has made posting here, to be honest, pale in comparison to the priority list that is constantly changing and growing.


Fairly significant thing number one:

My wifey and I celebrated our fourth anniversary on the 4th of June.  It was a lovely day and we had a really great time a few weeks later, when we went to stay in a hotel that we had saved up for with the money from...


Fairly significant thing number two:

I got a new job!  I've been working at ABF for two months, now, and it's amazing!  I'm in Inside Sales, so my job is to call round potential customers and existing accounts and make sure that they are doing ok, pretty much.  ABF is a logistics and supply chain specialist.  The best way I can describe it is that we can move whatever you want to wherever you want.  By truck, plane or boat, we'll do it.  My department in particular focuses on LTL - Less than TruckLoad.  If a company has one or two pallets that they need to ship, they pay us for the space the pallets will take up and we'll put the pallets on one of our trucks and move it around as effectively as possible until it gets where they want their freight to go.


Fairly significant thing number three:

I'm a dad now!  On April the 28th, my darling wifey gave birth to a beautiful baby boy; Micaiah Arthur John Fairweather.  (We don't want him to be able to fill in forms and paperwork that easily).  Born by C-section at 10:15pm, weighing 7lb 15oz, he was healthy and happy and I shall flood this space with pictures once I get my phone back*.  He had his three-month shots last week and after some rough (days and) nights, he's getting back into his usual routine of sleeping pretty well!  Other than that, he's just like his dad; eats, sleeps, poops, repeat.


*I went fishing with a good friend at the weekend.  I threw my phone into his boat where it would be safe from the water and he proceeded to sit on it with soaking wet pants and killed it dead.  Fully dead.  Eh.

I've written some poems and taken some pictures.  I've drawn out some game designs and doodled a bunch of new things.  It's been a busy few months but I've kept the drawing going.

Thanks for sticking round here.  I'll be back into getting things up here more regularly in the near future.

Peace.

Instagrammin'. It's a word now.

I've been having a nice time trying to get a photo a day up on my instagram page.  I've been posting more than one for the most part, but it's nice to have a little goal for each day.

I've found that - rather frustratingly - the best way to get a nice, crisp image on there is to take a photo with my camera, upload it onto the laptop, email it to my iPod, take a screen shot of the image and then post it on Instagram.  It's laborious to say the least, but boy, do I love the outcome.

 

So the following pictures are a mixture of the past month.  Camera images, iPod images, etc.  They range from animals to games design to the environment.  It's been fun.

 

 

American Dwarf Toad.  One of many in the pool at the moment.

 

Another toad.  This one stayed here for a while, which was really nice.  This was one of three angles I was able to get without it moving at all.

 

The Five-Lined Skink.  Lovely little guy.  One of the first things I've flipped this year (found when I turned a big rock over).

 

Same one.

 

After a big rain storm, the garden next door looked like this.  It was pretty ridiculous.  The house that my in-laws live in is on a slight hill, so while the whole street is relatively flat, the garden here stays pretty dry (or at least above water) even when nearly all other houses look like this.

 

For the past few weeks I've been working over night.  On my way home one morning, I saw mist rising from this pond on the side of the road.  I tried to get as good a picture as possible; while I didn't catch the mist too well, I'm happy with the shot.

 

A new board game I'm designing.  It's set in space and involves guns.

 

Went fishing a couple of weeks ago.  This is all I caught.  I did not complain.

 

Mistletoe is pretty amazing.  It's all over the trees here, so I thought I'd take a picture of where it connects and shoe the people back home.

 

Long exposure from ages ago when it was snowing.  I do like a long exposure.

 

A lake at a friends' house.  We were fishing on it for a while and while my wifey got a bite, it came off.  That was the closest either of us got to catching anything.  I did get this amazing shot, though.  Not too shabby.

That's all for now.

I'm at work tomorrow and it's nearly 4 in the morning, so I'm going to have to call it a night.

Peace.

Ice!

This is the first time I've experienced this.  And it's beautiful.  The snow from yesterday started to melt last night and in the early hours of the morning, the temperature dropped low enough to freeze the melt water again on top and around... well... everything!  I took a load of pictures, so here are some of the better ones:

The barbed wire wasn't so tough once the ice smoothed everything over.

The trees were covered with ice.  A thin layer just coating all of the branches.

The wire fences were also covered.  It was incredible to see everything just covered with ice.

It gave almost everything an eerie skeletal look - especially the trees.  The rest of the family here are used to all of this, so it wasn't as exciting for them - more of a scary thing as if all of this ice builds up to a certain extent, it can crush houses and fell trees.  I posted a picture on my Instagram account a couple of weeks ago of some pine trees on the way to town that had been quite literally bent over from the build up of ice on them.  The tops of the trees were nearly touching the ground.  Most of them had snapped in half due to the weight, but a couple were left standing...  pretty much.

I think it's great and I can't wait to see if it'll build up only a little bit more.  The Catch 22 is that I won't be able to get safely to the places I want to take pictures if it does.

It's going to be 26 degrees Fahrenheit tomorrow at noon.  For you, the Briton, that's -3 degrees.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Peace.

America. (Again).

So my wifey and I have been in the States now for a week and a half.  In that time we've done a fair amount of things and we're pretty tired.  I've had my flu vaccine, passed my theory and practical driving tests to get my license, applied for more jobs than I can remember and caught up with most of our family over here.  It's been a lot of fun, but I can't help but feel like I'm only going to relax properly when I've got a job!  I feel pretty guilty about not having anything coming in right now and I know it's only been 10 days, but I'm really itching to start working again and seeing a little income.

It's been a good while since I've posted anything.  Not having the internet at home to travelling to then having limited access to the internet again had somewhat hampered my posting amount.  Hopefully it'll sort itself out soon.  I just need to get on top of it again.

Having said that, I brought out the camera last night because it has been snowing.  I thought I'd take some long exposure shots and exercise my creative muscles.  It's been a while.  They don't really require any explanation; they are long exposure shots of various trees and buildings along the road:

This morning I thought it'd be nice to try and capture some of the more delicate things the snowfall brings.  Busting out the macro extension tubes, I got a couple of nice icicle pictures.

And a shot of some squirrel prints leading up to the tree in the front garden.

It's been nice getting to spend time with my wifey's family - my family - but I can't help but feel a little guilty that I haven't got a job yet.  As I said, I think that once I have a job and once I get a day off from that job; I'll feel like I've earned it and I'll be able to enjoy it a little more.  It's still cold here and nothing has quite kicked off yet.  Once the spring rolls in and it starts to warm up, things will get a little more lively.

Peace.