MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL... AND TO ALL, A GOOD NIGHT.... AND A GOOD NEW YEAR!

I am truly sad...  Here I sit wishing that I was at home with my wife and boy.  Two days have now passed since Christmas day, and what a Christmas it was this year!  My boy, all of eighteen months old, summed it up very nicely, in one word...  "WOW!"  That is what he said when he woke up Christmas morning and we went to check out the tree and see what Santa Claus (a.k.a. Ho Ho, in the McCaffrey household) had brought him.  That was a pivotal moment in my life, made simply by my little boy uttering that one little word...  "WOW!"  Wow indeed is all I can say.  I will let the pictures do the talking from here on out.  All I can say is, what a day! 

Please visit the Link located to the right, or click here to visit our Christmas Page....

A Face You Can Fall in Love with...

Now this is the face of an angel...  Kudos to Kim for coming up with the poetic wording...

Halloween Fun During Christmas???!!!

I know what your thinking.... Halloween pictures in the middle of December??!!  Well, sadly, I'm just getting around to posting these....  and the video below...  I hate that I missed his Halloween this year...  The boy looks like he had a ball!



Updates to the Site!

This week I have really been trying to get back on this blog and add some new stuff.  Today I loaded up a new link to Planet Photoshop.  This site offers Photoshop tutorials that are free and require minimum bandwidth to run.  Basically this guy, Corey Barker, runs you through a series of "how to's" on creating neat special effects, text, 3-D applications, lighting..... YOU NAME IT!  The tutorials are simple screen capture recordings of him actually running through the artwork on his computer.  I also like how he makes the lessons user friendly for Mac or PC users.  This guy is the guru of Photoshop as far as I am concerned and I have learned a lot.  Check out the link at the bottom of the site or go here.  www.planetphotoshop.com

If you look closely, you will also notice that i loaded up some new links to some of my favorite bands and their Youtube Channels.  Ironically, I owe the artwork for the banners to some of Corey's lessons on Planet Photoshop.  By pulling images and logos off of the web, I was able to piece together the concepts that are shown on the site, manipulate them, add some fancy text and effects and..... well scroll down and you will see the results.  Oh, and check out the bands while your down that way...

A Father and Son kinda Weekend!

I had the best weekend with my boy!  It was our first father and son weekend alone, just the two of us.  We sure did miss Mommy, but we had a blast.  And I think that Mommy had a blast during her weekend off.  Noah was a good boy too.  He minded me very well for the most part, even when he was a sleepy boy.  He is such a good boy.  Kim and I are so lucky.... No, not lucky so much as "blessed."  This boy is a blessing.  I never thought that I could love or feel this way about another human being.  It is an amazing feeling to walk in his room at night to make sure he is tucked in and just watch him.  (I wish I could sleep that well, without a care in the world except my next ba ba, my next poo, or who is going to change that poo.. Ha Ha!)  I think my favorite part of the day is in the morning, when you first hear him rustling around in his room, and then, all of a sudden you hear, "Ma............ma! Ma........ma!  MA...MA!" Slowly progressing quicker and louder.  Then, sometimes you will hear, "Day.....day!  Day...day!  DAY..DAY!" in the same progression.  I just love that!  Its the best way to start the day.  Christmas is coming soon, and this boy, as far as I'm concerned, is a good boy and is gonna be tops on Santa's list!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL... BLESS YOUR FAMILIES... BLESS YOUR CHILDREN.... BLESS YOU..

My Favorite Family Pics...

My Purty (wife to all of you who don't know who or what that is) is my bestfriend.  She makes me happy beyond belief.  She has given me the most wonderful son and I adore them both.  We have a blast together.  When my boy is up it is time to play, play, play, and play some more!  The whole family gets in on the action, even old Pokie, our happy and loving dog.  Anyway, I wanted to share some of my favorite pics and tell my family that I love them very much...

So many pictures....  So little time... Wish I could put em all on here...

Latest Concept Art - Return of the Star Wars Nut...

Some of my latest artwork. The subject matter is goofy, but you can't deny what the software can do! The original linework was hand drawn using a software called Manga Studio, then imported into Photoshop where it was rendered with brush tools, a variety of filters, and finished off with blending options....

I Hear You... And it Sounds Good to Me!

Stumbled across this band a while back.  I have never been much on the gangsta rap, or rap in general.  These guys are a little bit different though and the masks just set the atmosphere for something destructive, malicious, heart pounding, and thrilling...  The background sounds are electrifying and exciting.  The multiple voices bring depth and energy to the lyrics.  Would love to see these guys in concert... I bet its a hellofa show!

Enjoy...

Animated gif test... This is only a test...

Back in the old days of website building there used to be a really simple and cool way to create neat little animations and slide shows that were small files and really easy to upload (especially given the amount of server space in those days).  These little humdingers were/ are called an "animated gif."  You can still find them here and there, but mostly the technology revolution that is out there now has done away with them.  Anywho....  Just wanted to run a little test and see if this simple little screensaver version, that I made a couple of years ago, would work on this blog site.  So far...... no luck, but I was able to upload it as a true video file... maybe it will work in this posting and for the comic strip stuff that I would like to add later....

The Clone Wars - Lightsaber Duels

So, my wife got me a fantastic game earlier this year.  It is taken from The Clone Wars animated series and pits you against the greatest villains of the Clone Wars era.  It is a Wii game, but the graphics are quite good and are very comparible to that found in the TV series.  The game came with two lightsaber attachments that fit right onto the Wii controllers, which light up, one red and one blue.  Overall it is a fun game, but the best part is that it gets me up off of my butt, swinging my sabers around like a madman!  Yes in deed, I bet I am a sight to see in there.  And by the time I through with a few rounds, I'm sweating like I've done two hours of arobics (unfortunately its most likely only been ten minutes though).  So, I think that I have more than made up for leaving an indention in the overstuffed chair, as posted last night...

Better Than the Original

This cover version of "Bad Company" is better than the original, or any other crappy knock off of the original...  Hands down...  Five Finger Death Punch keeps me calm in the sea of turmoil that surrounds me at "The Cube Farm..."

Good Times with the Blog Site

Life is a funny thing some times.  With all of the time that I spent setting this damn thing up, sizing and resizing images, cursing and cussing, typing and backspacing....  Should have got my big butt up, turned on the Wii, and did some exercising...  I think I have left a permanent indention in the overstuffed chair that rests in our living room...

My First Post

Greetings and salutations to the rest of the world!  This is my first post on my new Blog.  I have been looking for a blog site for quite a while now and I have finally found what looks to be a really good one.  I am excited to see what my beautiful wife, family and others have to say about my topics and interests.  I plan to make this blog both professional and personal, which ought to make for some interesting comments and discussion.  A couple of things that I plan to talk about a lot of is family life and stories from what I have come to call  "The Cube Farm."  You will learn more about this later, but suffice to say, I plan to share some interesting and fun stories from my work life in the service of our government.

For those who stumble upon my site from the outside world, I hope that I can provide stories and information that you will find fun or even useful.  Cooking, art and design, computers and software, gardening, landscape architecture, graphic design and Photoshop will also come into play here.  I also plan to set up a portfolio of works so that everyone can see examples of Photoshop works, graphic design and my landscape stuff. 

Hopefully, over time, "The Workshop" will become the place to visit for a variety of people, with a variety of interests and ideas....

Enjoy...

K