I've been an amateur astronomer since childhood when, as a young man, I was fortunate to have a kind man come to my home once a week to tutor me. He always brought his large Celestron 8 telescope and I developed a love of astrophotography. This went on for years. Like I said, I was very fortunate.
Today, 35 years later, I am still as passionate about it as ever.
Rev. James Anthony Colyn, 39, former pastor of the Glendale (Az.) Bible Baptist Church, received a sentence of seven and a half years in prison. Colyn was described by police as a "sexual predator" who molested a teenage girl who asked him for counseling because she was being abused by her stepfather. Colyn PLEADED GUILTY to a charge of attempted molestation as a plea bargain.
When shopping at the local Port Orchard, Washington Albertsons store this morning, someone called out "Good morning!"
I turned to look and saw a lady I didn't recognize. She was stocking bread items but had stopped to wave and greet me.
"Good morning!" I said back, then turned away to start filling my cart.
"I remember you!" she said cheerfully.
I turned back and took a second look, but still didn't recognize her.
"You used to read stories to my daughter," she said. "Back when she was in Kindergarten. At the elementary school."
In a previous blog post, I wrote about how I created scale models for a living early in my career. I did it for a living for two reasons: One, I've always enjoyed building scale models ; and two, because I was paid well to do it.
My inspiration were always the wonderful spaceship models I saw on television and at the movie theater. This was back before CGI, and the models used in Star Trek and in Star Wars fascinated me to no end. To keep my skills sharp, I often designed and built large models - some of them on an impressive scale.
Recently, I completed work on a 1/350 scale model of the NX-01 Starship Enterprise model seen in the Star Trek series "Enterprise."
This was a fun model to build - even though I didn't start it from scratch. The model kit was given to me by a friend, Sara, who had already built the engine nacelles and had done some paint work on the underside of the primary hull.
As a kid, I grew up building scale models. Assembling ships, airplanes and logging truck models sparked my imagination and soon, I was crafting unique ways of detailing and lighting them. My logging trucks had headlights, my space ships and blinking navigation lights and my warships puffed smoke out of the gun turrets. When I discovered Star Trek as a young man, my imagination went into hyperdrive and I quickly moved from the AMT model kits of the day to designing and building my own custom space ships. Some of these were up to eight feet long!
This weekend, I decided to take a break from the Bob Dylan portrait I've been working on to start something a bit more whimsical. This is Quark, one of my favorite characters from Star Trek's Deep Space Nine. This is part of an ongoing series of Star Trek-related art pieces that I have been producing over the years. Unlike others in the art series, this one likely won't have a limited run of reprints available - this will be for gallery exhibit or sale only. Probably in the $500 range, or so. The art canvas measures 30 x 20 inches, so it's quite large.
I went back this morning and found the old homeless guy's tent. It was open and uninhabited. Everything inside was dripping wet - it was so sad. I had brought him a sandwich and hoped to take him to Walmart to get some dry shoes and socks, but that wasn't meant to be.
While driving back from Port Orchard, Washington's Sedgwick Albertsons store today, my mind was where anyone's mind would be: what to make for dinner tonight, how I would fit all the frozen goods into an already-stuffed freezer and when would it ever warm up enough to wash my truck? After the recent rains and snows, the truck was filthy I was going through a lot of washer fluid to keep the windshield clear.
I have been a fan of The Three Investigators book series since I was very young. As a youngster in Glendale, Arizona, I would often walk several blocks to visit the downtown Velma Teague Library, often staying for hours. My appetite for books was as healthy then as it is today, and I was particularly interested in the book series about a junior detective firm in Rocky Beach, California - one headed by Jupiter Jones and calling itself The Three Investigators.
