Grunt #2

Oops, I completely forgot about doing this since my weekend was pretty busy and I wasn't really home for most of it.  ... So I'm going to have to just post another picture because I don't have a post planned out.  Here is another variant of a Grunt from Halo that I drew.

Grunt #1

Here's another drawing I did a couple days ago. You've already seen the Hunter I drew awhile back and I decided I want to draw all of the Halo characters because I have an idea for a comic strip, and obviously I need to know how to draw the creatures for that. So slowly you will see all of the ones I've drawn. And here is one of the Grunts. Enjoy.

 -- CK

Photography

Photography is a hard hobby. Not in the sense of going out and taking pictures or of printing them or such. But in the fact that at least with me I have all of these images in my mind of what I want to capture with my camera. The problem of this is that the world doesn't work in the perfect photographical way. Things that sound like the perfect picture in your mind turn out to look horrible. Example being like if you were imagining taking a picture of this cool looking tree sitting by a flowing river with the sun shining behind it. Well that sounds perfect so you go for it. But when you get there and take the picture all of a sudden it doesn't look so perfect. The sun's reflection is too bright so the tree actually looks like a telephone pole being eaten by a gorilla. You get my drift. Well.. maybe not, that analogy might have failed. Oh well. I understood it and that's good enough for me. But back to what I was saying. Photography, while it can be really rewarding when you do get that perfect shot, can also be insanely frustrating when it seems like none of your pictures are turning out. I myself do have about 10-15 pictures I can call pretty awesome, but out of about the 5,000 pictures I've taken that doesn't seem as impressive, at least to me. But out of those few pictures I have, when I got some ribbons at the county fair for 3 of them, it made it that much better.

... I have no idea if I wandered there, if I did I do apologize, just bear with me. Oh and you may of noticed my profile did change to my real name. I just linked to Google+ and I decided that there really wasn't any more point to hide my identity. So hi, I'm Josh Symalla.

-- CK

Hip Hop Violinist

So I was talking to a friend today and she sent me a link to this YouTube video of a violinist named Lindsey Stirling. She calls herself a Hip Hop Violinist, and in the video she was playing three different parts of a cover she wrote of Jennifer Lopez's "On the Floor". It was amazing!! I also checked out all of her other pieces and my personal favorites are "Transcendence" and "Shadows". Also for any video game fans out there, she also has a really good "Zelda Medley" duet. Listening to her pieces got me to finally pull out my violin again and start playing it again. I was surprised home much I still remember of the pieces I used to play. I'm thinking of ordering her sheet music and learn to play them because of how cool they are. I think everyone should check out her songs, again I'm going to say, they are amazing!

-- CK

Polish Pride

So as some of you know, I am 100% Polish. And I am insanely proud of that. Last summer I went to a Polish festival that was held nearby, and it was loads of fun. There was music, people dancing, a ton of food, and then a lot of cool exhibits. I got to see a Polish sheepdog (I don't remember what they were actually called) which was cool cause they were huge and almost pure white. Well onto the subject of the post, a little after that I ended up looking for some Polish clothing articles and I came upon this site called www.polishpride.com. It's really cool and there are a lot of things on there. Well I asked for one of the sweatshirts for Christmas and I got it. Now I can show off my pride everywhere I go. (Its the PL Est. 966 Tan Hoodie) But yeah I'd say if any of you has any Polish in you, or is just interested that you should check the site out.

-- CK

(Thanks grandpa, I love the sweatshirt.) :)

Its beginning to look a lot less like Christmas!

I love Christmas. I love getting gifts, and even more I love buying gifts for people. But even though I love Christmas so much, I hate it too. Confused yet? Well work in retail during the holidays and you'll feel the same way. The holidays are a time where you have a ton of people coming to buy gifts, and expecting that they will get said gifts, even though they are trying to buy them two days before the 25th. When you think of Christmas you think of all the happy times, dancing through the snow, singing carols, and whatnot. But when you work in retail you see the Scrooge in everyone. If you don't have the particular product they want, be ready for a hailstorm of insults and accusations directed right at you. I don't understands why this happens, but that's how it works. So next time you are shopping for Christmas (most likely next year I would assume), please oh please be nicer to us. We try our hardest to make you all happy.

-- CK

Hunter

Work is insane because of the holidays and I haven't really been able to update the blog.. So I leave you with a drawing I drew awhile back. If you don't know, its a Hunter from the game Halo.

Skyrim

So I mentioned in an earlier post that I picked up a copy of Skyrim from Redbox and was playing it. I only put 6 hours into it, but I am hooked on it. The game is amazing! And this is coming from someone who isn't normally a huge fan of RPG's. Games like Mass Effect, Star Wars: KoToR, and Dragon Age I want to like because they are great games, but I have a hard time playing them because I start to lose interest quite fast. I also had played a little of both Morrowind and Oblivion, and both of them were a hard for me to get into. But Skyrim is different, it is just awesome. :P When I started the game I decided that I wanted to be an Orc tank, which is odd because I tend to like using magic more often than melee, like in Diablo 2 I always play as the Sorceress. But for once I am enjoying fighting through the lands of Tamriel with just brute strength. The feeling of pulling off finishing moves on almost all of your enemies is great. This game is a must play for anyone who likes games, or knows how to move their hands to be able to play a controller. I so wish I could actually afford to buy the game since I haven't played since the first time.

-- CK

Snowy nights

I love this weather. After it gets dark, there is no wind, you go outside and the snow is falling peacefully. Standing out there looking up at the sky, I gotta say that that may be one of the greatest feelings ever. It is just so beautiful. I've always loved when it snows.

-- CK

It was a dark and stormy night...

It was a dark and stormy night. Well not really, it was dark cause it was a quarter to midnight, but it wasn't really stormy. It was snowing though. I was driving home from my girlfriend's house and the closer to home I got, the more snow there was. I got to one point in the road where it turns right and goes down a hill, and it didn't occur to me that I should probably slow down because it hadn't been slippery at all elsewhere. Well when I got to the top of the hill I saw some tire tracks that didn't turn with the road but went straight. Oh crap... Well my car hit the turn and just like the other car didn't turn, just started sliding forward. Unluckily though, said car was still at the side of the road where it stopped and I was sliding right towards it. I started freaking out because I didn't want to hit the car so I tried to steer it away into the curb. That didn't work, but I did manage to completely turn my car sideways and my car slowed down really fast. I then slowly started going again and finished driving home. And that was my experience last night, it was both scary and kinda fun. Luckily for me it was so late so there wasn't any traffic coming the other direction.

Still need new tires...

-- CK