My Weekend

It has been a few days since my last post. Sorry about that, to you two people who read my blog. I've had quite a busy few days and haven't had any time at all to post. Saturday night my younger brother Ted and I went over to my best buddy Mike's (Unleaded Logic) house for his Halo 2 party. This party consisted of 6 hours of pizza and Mountain Dew fueled video game battles. Each player at the party had their own Xbox and Tv or computer monitor to play on so there was none of that annoying split screen to deal with. I've only played Halo once or twice before this party but now I feel a little more than hooked on it, especially because of how you can play online or in a network with friends.
Sunday I went with Ginnie and Ted to the Arlington Park horse track to do a bit of gambling and photograph some horses in action. I'm not really into animal photography or sport photography but I thought I would give it a try. We won a little money and I took a few shots before my little brother had a bad allergic reaction to cigar smoke, which there was plenty of when you went inside to place bets. So.. we rushed out of there after the 6th race and tried to find some a drugstore or a gas station that sold Benadryl allergy medicine to prevent his throat from swelling shut. He looked pretty bad, his eyes were all red and his lips and eye lids were swollen. Scary stuff. After an hour he was almost back to normal. We spent the rest of that night indoors playing Burnout 3 and Medal of Honor: Rising Sun on Playstation 2. I would recommend both of those games as good multiplayer games. Medal of Honor has cooperative missions as well as multiplayer free for all battle games.
Monday (yesterday) I left early to take Ted home to our dad's house and then I went out alone (Ginnie stayed at home) to the orthodontist to get my braces removed. It feels so great to have them gone. I don't have to worry about my mouth getting cut up and now I don't ever have to brush my teeth again. After that I went to ANOTHER doctor to have my tonsils looked at and to schedule an appointment to have them removed. I'm going to have my surgery next Tuesday morning, then I'll be in bed for about 3 days afterwords, possibly vomiting out old blood meanwhile having the worst sore throat I've ever had. I'm surely looking forward to this... not But.... 3 days off my feet may not be too bad. And four days after those 3 I'm not supposed to take part in any strenuous activity, so that's another guarantee for laziness on my part. This means I may not be able to post for a few days. Ginnie is supposed to be attending to my every need while I'm recovering and I'm sure she'll do a good job. Maybe I can make her publish a few posts for me...
She is in a pretty good mood today because after an interview we both attended at the Naturalization and Immigration Services building today, she was granted Legal Permanent U.S. Resident status from the government so that is GREAT news for us. She's got her green card now and there's nothing else to worry about, for now. Next step is citizenship test, but that isn't for another 2 years.
Another semi-good thing happened over the weekend. A book that I illustrated came back from the printing presses and is ready to be sold. In a few weeks it will be up on Amazon.com for all to buy."51 Poems for Children" is a book of fun poems reminicent of Shell Silverstein and even Doctor Seuss at times, that I was asked to illustrate. The book consists of 49 (due to the printer's error) children's poems and about 30 or more of my illustrations. I worked on that project for nearly year, although it was at a slow pace, and I am proud of my work in it. I do not claim to be a great illustrator nor do I aspire to become one, simply because I have chosen a different path. I could do it, sure... I may even be a better illustrator than a photographer. I've studied photography and I love it and I want to stick with that for now. Who knows what may happen in the future.
If anybody is interested in getting a copy of this book (autographed by both the author and I) you can contact me at my email address. However, I would advise you to wait a while because I have a lot of hell to raise about the production quality of this book and a lot of things to say about the woman who published this book (poorly). This post will be coming soon, complete with the original pictures I drew for the book and a comparison to how they were butchered in production. The author is working to salvage the problems in the book by cleverly inserting a bookmark with the 2 "forgotten" poems in each book that has only 49 poems. Unfortunately the illustration that I did for 1 of the missing poems will not be on the bookmark, but that's doesn't bother me.
On another note, I'd love to hear some feedback from any readers I have. U can leave a comment about anything you want. Let me know what you are thinking or what you think I should do with this blog. Anything at all is fine. Hope to hear from you.

-Joe

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