JFlah's Blunders

I broke down and got the big boxed set of the TV show “Heroes” a few weeks ago. I’d seen several episodes and was thinking that since I rather enjoyed X-men and some of the Smallville series that I’d like to see the rest of the Heroes series. Well, I have to say that I rather enjoyed most of it. Despite the heavy evolutionist world view and the fact that several of the characters have a I-am-god complex and Suresh’s blasphemous comment in his first scene about god being a cockroach, having the evolutionism as the underpinnings of how they developed those abilities made the abilities origins seem a bit more sound, however, it seems to me that had they revealed later a conspiracy that it was scientists genetic tinkering that caused those super powered results, it would have been easier for me to swallow. I hate that they were only on for four seasons. It felt like they were just getting started. Yeah sure, they “saved the world” a few times, but it seemed at the end of season four they w...

CRL+Paint provided an image and a sketch of an ear for practice. I don't remember how I stumbled upon CRL+Paint , but it was a good day. I had never seen so many great video tutorials about basic digital painting techniques before. I have learned more on that site in the last little bit about how best to paint in the digital environment than I learned in all that time actually painting. He provides some reference images. I don't remember which video the above reference was from, but I thoroughly enjoyed working it. Though my version is not exactly the same as the reference on the left, I think I did ok even though I wasn't going for such a shiny looking result as what I ended up with. I just love to bump up the contrast.

I sought the LORD, and HE answered me; HE delivered me from ALL my fears. Psalm 34:4 I will lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone O Lord, make me dwell in safety. Psalm 4:8   I wonder sometimes why I fear anything at all. I mean, of all people, I have very little reason to be afraid, yet I do fear. Rarely do I fear for my life like Christians in Roman times feared for their lives, but I do have fears – some not at all rational. I fear the prospect of being single all my life long. I fear when I consider how quickly my family could be taken from me or how quickly I could become destitute. I fear that for all my “ fear and trembling ” that I won’t have “worked out my salvation” enough when all the cards are down. Many of the fears I deal with on a daily basis are spiritual ones like that last one. I usually combat those fears one by one by finding scripture that speaks to those issues, but sometimes I will admit that I get stuck. I often remind myself...

We get the e-newsletter Patriot News-wire here at work. Sometimes I take a look at what is in it. Usually I can't stand to read some of that blunt commentary (that and I don't want to think about all that negative stuff that has been and is going on right now in the US), but today I saw that they had an article about the recent House of Representatives vote to repeal Obama Care . I laughed. The House knows that the Senate will kill that repeal bill and that the president would never sign it once it gets to his desk. I know the polls say that more than 82% of the American public want Obama Care repealed in its entirety, but supporters of the bill have their fingers in their ears and are screaming "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" at the top of their lungs. Only way for any of that to be repealed is to have fruit basket turnover in the government - toss out the bad apples and replace them with good apples, if such things exist. And with so much nasty being slung around in th...

Dan Stevers is a great video tutorial guy! I've learned a lot from watching the few tutorials he has on his website . I hadn't touched Adobe After Effects since college (8 years ago) but after watching his tutorials, I was able to make something decent on my first try without spending two weeks on it. I'm so thankful for people who share their talents to further God's kingdom. Speaking of that... Original design by Jonathan Moultroup I've also been spending some time on Flickr with The Church Marketing Lab group. The design above is one from that group. I have yet to submit anything I've done to the group because there's such a lag between when you post something for critique and when someone actually takes a look at your work and offers suggestions - though soon I may start using that as a way to get some feedback on my work. I thought when they hired the "media director" that he would be a sounding board for me, but things haven't work...

Obama puts together "his" constitution. I'm not usually openly political, but I have become increasingly so in the last few months. I mean with the country's leadership spouting lie after lie, I get kind of wound up about the state of affairs. And since most of my news comes from the radio, I hear a lot of political drivel during the day that makes me go do some research. Yeah, you probably know what I'm going to say before I say it, but the current president and nearly all of the "leaders" in Washington are embarrassing. No wonder they refer to the president as "Mr. Obama" instead of "President Obama" even in the liberal media. How can a country be respected if the head of that country is rotten? It generally follows that if the head is rotten the body is polluted as well. Lies on the campaign trail before the last election... we should've known. Obama's lies have become so blatant that it's obvious he just ...

A few years ago my sister sent me a youtube video link to a video of Philippe Faraut doing a time lapsed sculpture. I was memorized. I've done some figurative sculpture and have been wanting to do more in the last little while but knowing how I am, I figured the best way would be to take a trip that centered around a sculpture seminar. I've always worked at a tiny scale - not because I wanted to, but because I couldn't afford to use so much clay at one time. One of the things on my bucket list is to go to one of his seminars during my vacation. It'll probably be four or five years in the future, but I'm going to do it. Another youtube video I saw that day was this one by Joanna Mozdzen. She doesn't teach seminars like Philippe does, but I learned some about the process from watching her video. Soon, I'm going to have to get my hands into some clay. A year or so ago I did a few steampunk inspired sculptures with some sculpey clay and various metal fou...

Photo-Manipulation by C Gilbert In doing some research during my lunch period today I came across some photo manipulations by Christophe Gilbert . (His work was featured in one of the psdTut articles.) I found his website and browsed through some of his photos. It's artsy stuff - lots of nudes too, but it's beautiful work that has some rather deep pathos. Looks like he's done quite a number of advertizement photo-manipulations too. One I really looked at was interesting. There were lots of people in the photograph and all of their faces were obscured, all except that of the happy person in the car. He has a lot of women he's airbrushed white and changed the colors of their eyes and done things like what you see in the photo - I'd never have thought to make the eye look like a ring in that way. Talk about creative perceptions! by LSD Photography Another article I looked at was about LSD Photography based in Italy. The next photo is something that reso...