Spotting Proposition

Having lived an active outdoor life in spite of my fair and delicate skin's tendency to get sunburn, it was no real surprise that after a few years of living in Arizona a doctor pointed out some pre-cancerous lesions forming on my face and arms. Further examinations showed a bit of basil cell melanoma on one arm as well, which had to be cut out.

Yearly checks and yearly applications of liquid nitrogen kept things at bay, though a bit more was used every year and I did have a second basil cell removed.

20 years lived in Arizona with doctors well acquainted with these things, then I moved to Maine. A bit of searching for work before getting a job with health benefits and my own tendency to procrastinate made for a gap of years before I got myself checked again. The dermatologist did a bit of freezing, but also had to burn out two spots of basil cell.

2 more years before I get another check (shame on me!) Different dermatologist who says I have so many lesions (legions of lesions?) that he would rather try a different approach. Using a special ointment that would be, as the pharmacist put it "chemotherapy in a tube." Four weeks on my arms and two weeks on my face. It would attack both the seen and the unseen lesions. It would also look horrible as it attacked and destroyed them.


I did my arms first and showed my coworkers what was happening so as to prepare them when my face started looking like I'd escaped from the Zombie Apocalypse.

click a spot to enlarge the lot

Antique Lawn Comics

It's been a very rainy past few weeks and the yard loves it. You can see how well it's growing with Pandora just peeking over the grass. We pulled out our riding lawn mower last week, on one of the few not raining days, and discovered the battery was dead. We now know we should bring the battery inside during the winter. Carrie bought a new one, now I just have to figure out how to get the thing primed again. Hopefully we'll start the mowing process again over this long weekend.


Last weekend we went to the Maine Comic Arts Festival in Portland. First convention type event we've been to since we moved up here. We bought a handful of comics. Actually, Carrie bought most of them. I made sure she saw the ones I thought she might like and she bought all but one of the ones I thought I might also like (that were not overly expensive.) So I did buy one.

Carrie got a free Tiki drawing from Daniel Edwards. He had an interesting children's book, that we'll probably want to investigate once he's turned it into comics or a cartoon. He's been drawing some tarot cards to use in the story line so we chatted for a bit about comics and tarot and Sita Sings the Blues. Tikis are getting featured in his next book.

Another artist was giving out free sample panels of his comic. A couple got Carrie to laugh out loud, so she bought a copy of his sampler, Secret Harbor.

Upstairs was even bigger and more comics were bought. Kitty Hawk had the best cover in the place, and I want to read the webcomic now. A couple of books had artwork very similar to Jeff Smith's work. Grune was the one we picked up. The Underburbs looked good enough to buy the first collection, but they were sold out, so only issue one was purchased.

Carrie bought a mini-comic about cats from Gynn Stella, but what brought me to the table was the banner hanging from the front, especially the art you see to the right. Back in the days when I was playing in fantasy role playing games, I had a character named Meep who was a were cat. Guess this is from one of his as yet untold adventures...

Weather was cool enough to wear my Love & Rockets the band hoodie, and this time I wore my Love & Rockets the comicbook t-shirt underneath. The shirt got a lot of compliments. And a couple of people even noticed the hoodie.


This weekend we started by traveling down to visit Kemmer in Massachusetts. We went to a few antique stores and ate at a Thai restaurant. And I am contemplating the purchase of an expensive toy. It's made out of wood, just over 3 feet high, 4 and a third feet long, and in need of severe TLC. But expecting to be quoted a price in the thousands, I was stunned to get one in the hundreds. Carrie and Kemmer both seem to think it would be a good buy for me. I'm still a tightwad, so am sitting here today talking with Carrie about where to put it. We already think we can do enough repair work to it ourselves to make it look good enough and not fall apart. But if it cannot be placed somewhere safe and yet well displayed, there is no sense in spending the money. If I can talk myself into it, I'll go again next weekend and see if it's still there.

As always, click on a photo to get a bigger view of it.

Keith of the North

My high tolerance for the cold was noted even before I moved to Arizona. One roommate in Massachusetts called me Keith of the North.


Not long after my move to the desert, the Holt decided to take photos for the yearly calendar. At my suggestion a number of us headed up north to get some pictures of us as elves in the snowy forest. In the first pic you see me as an elf with big ears and no glasses.


Afterward as we were loading ourselves back into the cars and getting ready to head back home, a Native American came over to me to ask for money. I tend not to give beggars cash (though I have been known to give them food.) Carrie knew this, and stepped between us to say she was the one who handled the money. The guy then looks at me, me, who talks to animals, me, who juggles knives, me, who wanders around in the snow wearing a loincloth, and says "You wouldn't make a very good Indian."

As always, click on a pic to enlarge.

All the News That Gives Fits

This may be my earliest appearance in the newspaper. I'm the kid in the back with the glasses. Interestingly enough, this foreshadows a couple of my later interests: autographs and post offices. I no longer have the two autographs, but I ended up working in that post office.


It's pretty obvious which one I am in the below clipping. Notice that everyone but myself and the principal are looking at the camera.

click on my chin for a bigger look at the past

Humor in a Juggling Vein

This has happened to me several times. I stop to watch somebody juggling and they decide to challenge me to see if I can do it. . .

Happy Valentine's Day

We are in, and on, Love!

It's All About Me

Many years ago, my parents went on a cross-country vacation and came across this store in Salt Lake City, Utah. It used to be a big deal.

Bizzy Winter

Looking out over our driveway toward the road.















I drive 45 minutes each way to work, work an 8 hour day with another hour in there for lunch, then usually work at least an hour of overtime. With the days getting longer I'm now seeing daylight in the morning, but the drive home is still in the dark. And Carrie has a longer drive and a lot more overtime than I do. In other words, we don't have a lot of free time these days. When we do, we're often doing needed errands or chores.












We had a bit of snow during the first part of the winter. Carrie has even done a few turns at the snow blowing. But it was up to me to shovel off the roof. I hadn't been keeping up with clearing the edges with our roof rake, so an ice dam was starting to build up. We weren't certain how much the next precipitation, a rain storm, would wash away the ice or add to it, so I had to get up there with the shovel. Fortunately, that was all that was needed to ensure the rest got melted in the rain.







Inside, with no photos to post just yet, we've got a lot of shelves up in the studio and all my comics are now accessible. I just have to put them in order.

The main part of the house is starting to feel like it's actually ours now that we've been putting out our bric-a-brac and hung a few things on the walls.

Happy Anniversary

18 years of wedded bliss!

Keith and the LL Bean Stock

I've been in Maine for almost a year and have only just gotten around to buying a raincoat. I used to have one when I was last living in New England and even brought it to Arizona with me when I moved there. But it kinda went away after a few years of not using it in the desert and I no longer own it.

Anyway, I went to LL Bean and bought a new raincoat. And a new pair of sneakers. Not as big as this boot though. I only take an 8 1/2 EE.

Unemployment Benefits

In this picture I am at Unemployment. Not on unemployment, at. That's where I got a job. All other State Government Departments are on a hiring freeze, or even downsizing, but Unemployment employment is up. The office is in Augusta, the State Capital, and is a little bit more of a drive than going to South Portland for Staples was, but it's usually doable.

On my first week there, Monday was a holiday, so I couldn't work. Tuesday I drove up without the directions, relying on my memory of having driven there before. I took the exit off the highway that was familiar and immediately saw my mistake. It was familiar because it was the one Carrie and I took on Sunday when we were house hunting. Oops. Fortunately I had been through town before and was able to get myself in the right direction and arrived at work just on time.

Wednesday was a foggy morning and nothing looked familiar, but I took the correct exit anyway.

Thursday my car wouldn't start and Carrie eventually had to give me a ride in. Poor Carrie, an extra 80 miles to both her morning and evening commute. Thursday night I got a new battery.

Friday the car started up fine and I got to work 15 minutes early. And they put me to work right away.

So far it isn't difficult, but I haven't really gotten any training. A lot of busy work that is making me more familiar with forms and some of the computer system. As with any new job I hate not knowing what to do. It is very frustrating, exasperating, etc. I really hate that part. I find it both physically and emotionally draining, but keep at it because I know it will get better and it is good to be employed full time once again. At a state job no less.

As always, for a bigger view, click on the picture. If you do, you can better see the beige bulletin board and the green cubicle walls.

Job Posting

This picture is not of a local job posting, it's a photo from when we were living in Arizona. It was taken at South Mountain Park in Phoenix. Click on the photo to enlarge it and try to see what's in the old fashioned classifieds behind me.

Friday, just after I'd clocked out for the day at Staples, before I'd even left the building, I got a call offering me the state job. I, of course, immediately gave my two weeks notice. I start the new job on the 21st. More details later.

Happy Valentine's Day

We both had to work, but still got to start and end the day together.

The Answer, My Friend: Snowblowin' In the Wind

It finally snowed enough to use the snowblower. It took a while before Carrie and I figured out all the controls enough to get it started. We were shown how to use it, but how long ago was that? After running it for a bit I figured out some more of the controls and was getting a good idea of how to use and control it. I got the snow behind Carrie's truck cleared out along with a spot for her to turn around in the driveway, and a wide enough path to the road before it ran out of gas. I never did get around to filling up a gas can for it. Well, Carrie had to go off to work, so she couldn't go get gas for me to clear out my car. I had my car snowed in so I couldn't go get gas to clear out my car. I got to shovel my car out.

At least since I'm going in to Pet Pantry a couple of hours after they open today (they want me to stay late so they can keep the store open later) somebody else will have had to have done the shoveling there.

Except that it's started snowing again.

Puppets of the Carribbean

Carrie and I were up at a store in Brunswick we liked (but had gone in too close to closing last time to fully explore) and found they had even more puppets than last time.

When I first was playing with him, he had the usual gruff stereotypical pirate voice: "Avast ye scurvy dogs!" But then Carrie put a pair of glasses on him and suddenly he had a refined English accent: "Piracy is my avocation. No, sorry. What I meant was, Piracy be my avocation. We must get the correct pirate grammatical structure in there, musn't we."

I'm thinking his name might be Thaddeus.

Autumn has arrived and the summer rains have made the foliage spectacular.