An apology to my fans and friends

It’s time for me to make a big apology to you, my faithful readers.

By this time in the Merry Month of June, I should be in the process of putting up my reviews on DC’s Month 30 PLUS a bunch of the ALL NEW MARVEL NOW reviews that I have had planned, based on at least the first issues of a bunch of their titles. At the same time, I should be about halfway in my WRITING of the reviews for Month 31.

Unfortunately, the last thing published here was Month 29. Heck: I’m two weeks behind in picking up my books, never mind reading them!

What’s up with that? Well, I’ll tell you. And before I hear the incessant Fanboy whine of “Excuses, excuses” I will say that you are right: they will be excuses. But, in my world, they are damned good ones.

So, my last official posting was on May 13th. As I write this today, it is June 12th. What has gone on in the last almost 30 days? Well, let me start with my daily grind: get up each morning, wake up, pull myself out of bed, do the household chores like cleaning and laundry and work on home schooling my daughter. Right: didn’t see that coming, did ya? Due to my current medical condition, I have been home since January 19th of this year and, frankly, I don’t know when I will be going back to work. This actually had worked out well because my oldest daughter, my partner in crime and my teenage terror, has been home since last September for a similar medical issue. So, she is being home schooled.

Now, if you think that’s easy. Try it yourself. That means, I spend part of my day, every day, reading AHEAD of where we will be working on the next day-just like a school teacher. It also means I am reading literature that she is reading, so I can take copious notes and help her get the most out of those readings so, when test time comes, she can pass the course. It’s a full course load of seven subjects that would normally have been covered over a school year but, due to a variety of circumstances, we didn’t begin until January. It truly has been cram time. With the help of my 84-year-old former school teaching dad, we went through entire years’ worth of World History in 10 weeks. We carved out Literature in 3, including reading five novels PLUS some Shakespeare. Add in a years’ worth of Physical Science, English Vocabulary and Grammar, Composition and Modern Algebra and it has been a hectic, busy, stressful six months.

But the end is in sight as I am currently burning through ink and printing out ALL of her work and collating it. Two science experiments to finish and grade, one research paper to finish bibliographies for and she’s done. High School here she comes!

In the last year, my wife has lost both of her parents and her brother has been struck down with a condition that he still battles with today. That has taken a lot of time and energy out of her life, not to mention teaching school five days a week and working on school work, both her students’ and my daughters’, at night. So, you just have to share the load and sometimes, that means I’m making more meals in the week than normal, plus dishes and watching my littlest one. Suffice it to say, there has been precious little time to even climb onto the Xbox and shoot a few zombies.

So that’s the day to day, where I crash and burn every night while trying to watch Netflix on the Ipad until my eyes start to droop and I forget what just happened. Then I get up and start all over again. Let’s also factor in that it is Spring turning to Summer and that means sports. My littlest one is just doing her first year of Instructional Softball, or Pony League, as they call it. My oldest is on a town league and the town TRAVEL TEAM. So it’s practices, games and long days on the field, both for her AND the family. Me-I do what I love to do: shoot pictures. Her first tournament, I shot close to 1,000 images over three days and got quite the sunburn on my face. From there, it was transfer, edit and eventually upload to my Facebook page (no-haven’t even STARTED to move them to my Facebook page for my business). There is another tournament next weekend. 

Sorry: had to stop for a moment to put the wash in the dryer and sort a few more items. Also, the printer ran out of paper as I was printing files off the laptop. Had to fix that too.

Where was I? Oh yeah: softball. So, there’s a 3 day tournament next week and a FOUR day affair the week after. If I am lucky, I can get some down time after the games in the hotel room and do some writing then. Also, I keep trying to get ahead on my yard work, but it seems the rain and other things keep getting in my way. Maybe tomorrow. I have a garden to finish prepping and some Perennials my oldest and I bought last week that need to go into the ground and there’s a firepit I got as a gift for 35 years of service at work that I need to build.

Did I mention that I spent part of Memorial Day Weekend at a concert by one of my favorite area bands, FOREVER YOUNG? Did I mention that I shot over 700 pictures that night and am still editing those images? Well, I did and I am.

That was also the weekend that my wife sprung the fact that we were going to go look at a four week old puppy we were adopting. SURPRISE!!! And, while I fell in love with her on sight, it meant having to get the house ready for a new child, albeit a furry one, and the home inspection that came with it by the organization. The pup is one of six from a dog that was facing euthanasia. The fine folks we worked with rescue dogs and find them homes. Mattie Fluff was the last of the pups to not be claimed and we stepped in. But the organization does a home study, just like would happen for a human adoption. That meant cleaning, picking up the toys and making the home a safe environment for our new baby.

That reminds me: I’m about 200 miles overdue for an oil change. I tried to get that done the other night at my regular place and was informed that there was one mechanic to finish three jobs. Okay: that WOULD have been convenient!

Speaking of pictures, last weekend was a full one where my oldest and I spent the entire weekend working as volunteers for the First Annual TerrorCon Convention. Two days of taking pictures, helping guests and working with celebrities. That meant two LONG DAYS on CONCRETE FLOORS. Both our knees are shot, causing her to miss two games already this week for her league softball and for me to find myself having difficulty like I haven’t had since the OTHER KNEE got operated on in 2005.

So…yeah: celebrities. Just because I feel the need to brag, here’s the list of cool people we hung out with, talked with, got autographs from and had our pictures taken with (the latter two at a price, of course). Deep breath…here we go: Russell Hornsby(GRIMM), Linda Blair(reall-do I have to go over her filmography), WWE superstars Kane, Papa Shango, The Godfather, Scotty 2 Hottie, Ariel and The Boogeyman, Dee Snyder(Twiosted Sister), Stephen Pearcy(Ratt), Richie Scarlett(“The Emperor of Rock and Roll”), Lita Ford and Cherie Currie(The Runaways), Michael Jai-White (SPAWN), John Altamura(TOXIC AVENGER II and III), Nicholas Brendan(BUFFY), Eugene Clark(LAND OF THE DEAD), Naomi Grossman(AMERICAN HORROR STORY), Kane Hodder(many FRIDAY THE 13TH movies), Roger Jackson(the voice of Mojo JoJo), Dee Wallace(E.T.), Fred “The Hammer” Williamson(BLACK CAESAR and many many more!), Tony Moran(the ORIGINAL Michael Myers), Irone Singleton, Lew temple and Vincent Ward(THE WALKING DEAD), Roy Wooley, Derek Garcia and Eric garcia(FACEOFF), Butch Patrick and Pat Priest(THE MUNSTERS), Felix Silla and Lisa Loring(THE ADDAMS FAMILY), Erin Murphy(BEWITCHED), Carel Struycken(TWIN PEAKS), Bobby Campo(THE FINAL DESTINATION) and a whole host of Cosplayers and other cool people.

So two long but awesome days! And you can check out my pictures along with those of the other talented volunteers by going to the Facebook page for Terrorcon and commenting on the great work you see there. Most of us have already decided to do this again for the Rhode Island ComicCon in November.

And then two days later, it was time to pick up Mattie Fluff. In addition, we so fell in love with her, we adopted her sister Leia Fluff the following day!

Yeah-been busy. But I hope to get back on track as soon as the schooling is done next week and actually have a photo break until…oh yeah: WWE live show next Friday. That’ll be my little one’s first show and means I’m probably good for another 700 pictures.

I will get back to comics soon. I promise. Until then, just bear with me. Hey-summer’s coming. Time to relax and enjoy!