Friday, October 21, 2005

I am Back Home Again

Surprise, surprise...I'm back!! I know it has been a long time since you heard from me, but the life of an artist kept me pretty busy. But, now all the shows are over until May of 2006, my art is in storage for the winter, and I am free once again to write a tech blog and try to keep you update with the going's-on in the world of high tech.

Just to catch you up, it was a good year overall for me with sales of my artwork already exceeding last year's total with 2+ months to go in 2005. The year started out very slow in May in June, but took off in July and never really slowed down. I had my best show ever in late July in Richland, WA where I doubled last year's sales. Even Leavenworth was good to me in the late summer and fall.

This summer, I moved into the fascinating world of digital photography which I will detail in greater depth in future blogs. I really love shooting digital with my new Olympus E-300 Single Lens Reflex Camera. While traveling recently to California for two shows, I managed to spend two days learning my new camera in Mt. Rainier Natl. Park and three days photographing the Oregon Coast. I really got some great shots and am looking forward to finishing them up in post-processing and showing some of them off.

The family is all fine. Susan is still clear of any cancer problems (5 years now) and is still working at Family Services of Grant County. Aimee has graduated from Seattle Pacific University with a teaching credential in Music Education and is doing her student teaching in Seattle right now. She will shortly be moving to Ephrata to finish out her student teaching at Ephrata High School. Kristen is working full time in Seattle, and Eric is going to college on his GI Bill and working nights in Bellingham.

I am glad to be back home as the Art Show life can be pretty taxing. I was gone from home at least four days a week and when I did get home, I spent three days reprinting and replenishing stock to get ready for the next show. I did shows in four states this year, which was a killer, both in driving time and gas prices. Some of my time was also spent doing printing on my extra-large Epson 2700 printer for other artists. It became a nice little side business for me as I can print up to 24" wide prints on canvas and paper.

I had hoped to keep the blog up-to-date, but there was just no chance. Will try and do better from now on, although my plate still seems to be full right now. I will do my best.

In my next blog, I will tell you about a free office software that is taking the world by storm and forcing Microsoft to reconsider their office software. See you shortly.

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