(#141) 365 Days - Day 012

(#141) 365 Days - Day 012
Originally uploaded by unknownfluke

Again i get to use the timer function on my camera. I like this thing more and more. Plus I really like this shirt a lot.

(#137) 365 Days - Day 011

(#137) 365 Days - Day 011
Originally uploaded by unknownfluke

So, not a great day. Figured I had to take a picture so I did. I just didn't put much effort into it.

(#136) 365 Days - Day 010

(#136) 365 Days - Day 010
Originally uploaded by unknownfluke

Another shot of me... Using the timer function on the camera. Not too shabby. Pretty uncreative though and that depresses me.

(#120) 365 Days - Day 009

(#120) 365 Days - Day 009, originally uploaded by unknownfluke.

Yay I finally got my real camera back. Now I can take some decent pics with my 7.0 MP Polaroid that has a horrible auto focus. Eh, good with the bad...

Bank of America

Banks suck a big one. Hoe in the world can they get away with taking our hard earned money just because I got a little screwed around with my charges. On of the charges was for $0.13. How much crap is that. The other three were under 5 bucks and for each of them I get charged $35.00. Bull crap! For the "convenience" of not being embarrassed in a store when my card gets declined. That is what a bank employee told me one time when I complained about it. In the fine print when you sign up for an account it tells you that there may be a charge if something like this happens and I am okay with a small charge. However they don't say anything about begin charged $35.00. And a year ago this was at $30.00. Which means within a year they have slowly raised the charged $5.00. Even stranger is that when I started getting charged $35.00 my friend was still getting charged $34.00. Equality for all my rear-end. I really wish they would stop doing this. There is no freaking reason why they should charge this much. Until someone gives me a good reason it will continue to piss me off.

365 Days - Day 008

365 Days - Day 008, originally uploaded by unknownfluke.

So, Josh, Krista, Rebekah, Sarah, and I went to Carowinds to hang out for the day. We had a bunch of crap happen while we were on our way and ended up getting there around 3pm instead of the 12pm we were hoping for. Josh and Krista were there at 10am so they got a bunch of stuff done and had a good time.

Anyways, this shot was taken with my phone and I forgot to change the manual focus so it came out blurry. It was so bright outside that I couldn't see that it was like this in the LCD screen. As long as you don't look at the big size it looks ok.

365 Days - Day 007

365 Days - Day 007, originally uploaded by unknownfluke.

I like this shot for some reason. I think it is mostly because of the way the sunlight shows up. I almost got into a wreck while taking this shot. I made a left hand turn through an intersection forgetting that it wasn't a protected turn. I pissed some people off for sure.

365 Days - Day 006

365 Days - Day 006, originally uploaded by unknownfluke.

I feel bad about this shot. It was basically a throw away shot I took while walking to clock out at work. I had to get something uploaded and slacked on the creativity. Not that many of my shots so far have shown much. This just has much less.

I'll do better tomorrow.

365 Days - Day 005

365 Days - Day 005, originally uploaded by unknownfluke.

I love this hat. It is a fedora that my sister bought me for Christmas last year. It is a bit small so I don't really wear it much. I am pretty sure when I get my hair to a length I like I will start wearing it more. Until then it hangs on my dresser mirror looking pimp.

Also, the shirt was a gift from my mother. I have yet to find the actual Gelatin Factory that it mentions. I have doubts that it actually exists.

365 Days - Day 004

365 Days - Day 004, originally uploaded by unknownfluke.

This made me laugh when i saw how it came out. See the picture I see on the phone is a lot different than the picture that shows up on the PC. My face is pasty as hell but still I like how my head looks like it is floating a bit. Need to shave as well haha.

365 Days - Day 003

365 Days - Day 003, originally uploaded by unknownfluke.

I like the orange color behind me other than that I hate this shot. It is hot as hell in the trailer I work in and it shows by the sweat dripping off my face. Freakin' crap...

365 Days - Day 002

365 Days - Day 002, originally uploaded by unknownfluke.

Second day and my camera/phone surprised me. I actually really like this shot. Even thought it is really grainy and blurry...

I want to start a savings specifically for the Nikon D80/50 SLR camera I dearly want. Who knows maybe in a couple years I would be able to afford the 500-800 price tag. Then again in a couple years I'm sure the price would have dropped.

Anyways, I like this shot. look a bit angry but really I'm not. Just a camera whore I guess. I wish i had the patience to do my hair like this every day. Most of the time it is just flat and crappy like yesterdays. Not a fan of the flat hair.

365 Days - Day 001

365 Days - Day 001, originally uploaded by unknownfluke.

So, I am starting a 365 set. I hope I have enough dedication for this. I think it would be really cool to look back a year or so from now and see that I have accomplished something. Even if it is only posting a picture a day for 365 days. I don't know for sure if I will be able to keep up with 365 straight days. I know myself way to well to pledge to post like that. Plus with holidays and lack of internet days ahead I know it will be interrupted. However, I will pledge to keep this going for 365 days worth of shots. I think it will be fun.

My Life In General

So, like I have been talking about oh so long ago, I finally did it and got married. My wife Sarah is amazing. Of course I have know that all along. That's why we got married. Married life has been great so far. I know people say that if you can make it the first 5 years that you will probably make it for the rest of your life. I think this is a safe assumption. Also I think we have a very good chance at this. I have seen how divorce has ripped apart families and would never want to put my family through that. so, we will make it.

Life is kind of weird right now. Granted being married is great. Always having someone there for you to come home to is really nice. Just right now the home is pretty much crap. We live in a crappy apartment that at first smelled heavily of cigarette smoke. That smell is still there no matter what we do to get rid of it. On top of that my cat is sick with something. So she has been going just outside of her litter box. Lets just leave it at that and say that unless I get some money to take her to the vet I may have to give her up to someone who can. Sarah and I have been talking about moving to Greensboro and getting a house up there. I know I have a job I could do without. I'm not making enough to support myself and that sucks. She likes her job andI would hate to have her leave it but if we moved up there we would be a lot closer to her family and her friends. Her friends and family are great so that would be perfectly fine with me.

Right now we are about 45 minutes away from my family and an hour and a half away from her family, if we moved up there we would just be an hour and a half away from my family. So, the distance is no problem. We drive enough to see everyone so I don't think my family would have a problem with it. We have a plan for both of us to finish up our degrees and get decent jobs. Then when we decide we finally want to have a family we will move down closer to my parents since we both think it would be a better place to raise the kids. Like Sarah said, she wants her kids to be able to grow up knowing what a cow is and to have trees to play on.

Basically our living situation is pretty bad right now. I think we have mold growing in the carpet and it is starting to affect my allergies. That is ridiculous! We need to get out of here. She asked if I would want to go ahead and find a place in Greensboro or try and find a better place in Charlotte then try and move later. I want out of Charlotte. I don't have a good enough job to justify staying here and I have no doubt that I can find something a lot better in Greensboro. Plus Sarah found a house for rent that goes for the same amount we are paying for the freaking apartment we are renting. How messed up is that?

So, yeah we have some decisions to make in the near future. We both need to find a job and we need to find a decent place to rent so we can build up credit enough to pay off the debts and buy a house. At least I'm not having to do this all alone anymore. Much better having someone to go through this with.

Going to the Chapel...

Yes, it is true. I am getting married! June 23rd my fiance and I are tying the knot. We have been talking about getting married for the last couple of months. We have wanted to talk to the parents and basically get their approval but kept putting it off and finally about 3 weeks ago we did it. My parents were all for it and thought we were ready. We decided on the date and her parents had a little bit of hesitation but I think since we have laid out a bunch of the plans for it they seem much more at ease now.

Originally we were thinking of just having a civil wedding and after about a year of marriage and saving up we would go ahead and have a big ceremony. That idea got ditched when my parents suggested using their house for the ceremony. It will save us a bunch of money in trying to tie up a church so soon before the date. I mean its less than two months. Most people plan ahead at least 6 months so they don't get charged outrageous rates for renting stuff.

It seems like it will be a really cool casual wedding. Sarah got her dress online and should be here by the end of May. I am going to rent my tux from a place near mom and dad's house. We are getting the rings from a place where my brother in law gets all of his jewelry. Really cool guy runs the place. Got us a really good deal on the whole package.

So far I'm really excited. Everyone keeps asking me if I am nervous and so far I'm not at all. Should I be? I think maybe once it gets closer and stuff with the planning gets more hectic I might get a little nervous, but for right now I'm just happy to be getting married to girl I love.

Dave

In the Line of Duty

Okay, a little time out to speak on something that happened Saturday night. My girlfriend was driving to visit me and she had 18 cop cars with the fire blazing pass her. She got spooked and called me. We joked about how she didn't have to worry about speeding any more because whatever happened had pulled all of them off their regular beats.

Today I find out that two cops were apparently gunned down on a domestic dispute call. Not sure where but the headlines just say East Charlotte. I think this is horrible. One of the guys was only on the force for about a year. The other guy was on the force for about 7-8 years I think. They both were married and had kids. One had a son on the way. Absolutely horrible.

Just wanted to speak about it. Little depressing I know but thats how the world works sometimes.

Dave

A Little Bit of Mumbling

So, I didn't really do much today besides work my tail off at my job. Granted it is only 6pm and I still have a good bit of Xbox360 to be playing tonight. I'm staying at my friend's house and watching his cat while he is out of town for the next week. He just so happens to have a 360 and a "46 HDLCD screen to play it on. So, I went out the other night and rented Dead Rising and have been trying to ration that and Oblivion out with a little bit of Viva Pinata thrown in for spice. So far I am loving the 360 and really want one of my own.

I'm so bored at work now. I have plenty to do and I am constantly busy, but I just don't want to do this any more. The shine of opening a comic book store has tarnished a bit just because of some other things that have been popping up. I still really want to do it but I'm beginning to wonder if it will become just like all the other things I really wanted to do and just vanish slowly into nothingness. God, I'm getting Emo... I have to stop that...

I really don't know about the whole money situation still. I haven't looked into getting a grant/loan at all so I really don't know if I can even do it yet. I'm going to start checking that next week when I turn in my tax forms and find out how much I'm going to be getting back from the government. Hopefully enough to get me somewhere.

I did find some sweet Deadpool pictures on Deviant Art today. I printed them out and I think I will probably use them for some kind of display for my office/bedroom. Wish I had saved them so I could show them on here. I'll have to remember to do that next time. I don't think that it would be a problem as long as I link back to the original site and give the incredible artists recognition.

My boss at my current jobs wants me to try and design a mock website for selling some of our product. I haven't designed anything web related in almost a year and a half and that was just a flash site for my WoW guild. I have no idea how to do an eCommerce site and don't even know where to start. I'm almost positive that if I could get it started and he liked it that I could get out of the position I'm in right now and maybe start making some alright money. Well, almost positive means probably not sure... So far the company isn't so keen on helping out their employees much. Three years here and I have only gotten two raises and am still on temp status. Bull crap...

Anyways, I guess eventually I will need to make this all professional if people are actually going to be reading this in conjunction with my store. For right now I just want you guys to know what I had to go through and what I was thinking before I got to do my dream job. You can't just recollect this stuff later on and be like, "So, this is what I went through before now." I have to do it now while it is current and then look back on it and see that I was a dumb ass for not doing this sooner.

I am hoping I can start updating this a little more often than I have been. Wow, two posts since February! We'll see how everything goes with that...

Dave

Coming In With a Bang!

Well, maybe this will work I don't really know quite yet. I have an idea and so far it still seems out of reach. I have this outlandish idea of opening my own comic book store. I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous. Why would someone want to sink money into something like that when there is no way that it will ever get legs to stand on much less ever even hope of turning a profit. Maybe this is like my idea to write a fantasy fiction novel. Maybe it is like my idea to be in a band. Then again, maybe it is the idea that will give me something to do with my life that I love doing. Being able to be my own boss, being able to have a hand in making people smile because I just got their new copy of X-Men in, and being able to live in the world of literature while, hopefully, making a bit of money while doing it.

I know that it will take years to eventually pay off debts and make enough money to actually begin paying myself. I have read enough about this and seen enough people try and, not so much fail but, not quite make it. I also know that I am very excited at the prospect of maybe being able to do this. I want this and I am willing to work hard for it. I have no idea how i will get the money. They say that $30,000 is barely enough for the first few months before you can actually start selling your merchandise. How in the hell will I come up with $30,000 when I am already living from paycheck to paycheck. I don't want to have to wait until I am settled financially. Why should I have to?


I have a good idea of the store I want to have. My area of Charlotte has almost nothing in the way of good comic book stores. Granted we have Heroes and Rebel Base. Don't get me wrong, both of these are very good stores. I actually went to Rebel Base last weekend and bought about $40 worth of figures. Excellent stores. Only bad thing about both stores is that they aren't in a very busy area. I honestly wish that Rebel Base was in a much better location. Right now they are situated in a very up and coming expensive area. However, I don't see them getting much foot-travel from the locals. I can't imagine many of the 50-and-up business-men are looking to go into a basement like setting for the new Punisher comic.

So, with that said the main reason why I want to open a store is to give what the public needs... More public access to comics and the like. Maybe I'm completely cracked in my way of thinking, but having three main comic book stores for a city area are large as Charlotte-proper is nuts. Especially with UNCC right next door. I see enough games and electronic stores. Just not enough stores that focus on comics, trade paperbacks, and D&D books. These are my three loves. I just hope that maybe there will be a chance I can try and bring them to the mass public where they belong.

With as many movies based on comic books(horrible as some may be) out now I can only imagine that there are many people wanting to go out and read up on these heroes that they just saw kicking ass on the silver screen. Only to find a measly supply of comics set back in a corner somewhere at the local huge bookstore. A kid will ask him mom to take him to a store that he looked up on Google and she will balk at the prospect of having to drive more than 20 minutes away from the house. Of course then the kind will be so depressed that he will lock himself in his room, shunning his parents, and become a shell of his former joyful self. All because he couldn't go out and find a new comic to read. This is what is to become of our youth? No! I will try my hardest to get the comics into the hands of the people who need it the most. Mark my words... Mark them well...

Dave