Been a While 2015-W47

Though I was sure it was more like May, I'm confronted with proof that I haven't made a blog post since early March and nor have I painted much since then... but with pretty good reasons for most of the gap. We know April showers bring May flowers, and I'm happy to say that Old Red made his annual appearance. We know May flowers bring Pilgrims haha but I don't know if there's a rhyme for what June brings. All I can say is for me, June brought a substantial life change. I was back in school.

I started my career in IT before I graduated High School even, and was a software developer before eventually moving towards consulting and sales. But my tech skills were mired in a stale shrinking tech backwater so I decided to enroll in an intensive course in web development. Intense is a bit of an understatement. Since early June I saw only co-workers, fellow students, and the parade of humanity that rides the rails of our CTA. Working full time during the nine weeks of offsite prep work, I expected a break when full time classes started. No such luck. I think in five months I watched 12 hours of television and went on four social outings.

For now, I'll say not much else about school other than the workload was crazy and the technical challenges were nothing compared to the emotional hurdles. Glad to be done & now I'm putting my shoulder to the wheel of job searching. Very different nowadays, is that. So please wish me luck and meanwhile — as of last week — I'm back to painting and now today, blogging. You see, I visited my old Truman College painting classmates a couple weeks ago and they inspired me to get back to both! I'm on a new series, The Banshees. Which are Irish but we Scots have nearly the same creature.

Banshees shimmer into existence and they wail and they shriek. Obviously not a portend of good, but more typically of death and misfortune. In our time, some corporation seems to give airtime to, or employ, no shortage of foxy Banshees — on whom we can rely to open their pie holes and wail some sort of nonsense. Like the Irish model, foxy Banshees tend to pale hair and they utterly lack real substance. Series inspiration Koch's Banshee today is joined by my newest: You-tuber Megan Fox, who should not be confused with the hot version. As I recall, the Tuber opens her pie hole to deny evolution. I'll wryly observe that many science deniers seem to accept science just fine when they need medical attention.

On that note, as I look out today on our slushy first snowfall, I'm glad to be back. I plan to post more dependably and maybe I'll score 52 in 2016. Thanks for stopping by and I hope this finds you well, too. Enjoy!

Banshee II