May is, for all us 'murricans, National Bike Month! So put on your best Lycra, pump up those tires, repack those bottom bracket bearings and bike away into the distance! Or in my case huck over that double, rail those berms, pin it through the switchbacks and bomb it down the fireroad!

And just like that I've returned from my magical vacation to another city in another place that is not where I live! Plane ride was 100% uneventful, it didn't rain, it was nice to see my family, and I did an art trade with an uncle. More on that once the art in question arrives in the mail so stay tuned!

Gonna be outa town this weekend so....yeah. Not gonna be available to answer messages probably unless I find Internets randomly or something. Please try not to cry too much in my absence!

I made homemade applesauce and had some for breakfast today. It was delicious. My journals now approach the quality of tweets and facebook "status" updates or whatever the hell those are called. I'm sorry. I'm gonna go for an epic mountain bike ride now. *flees*

Oh don't mind me, I'm just proving my existence!

I just got back from my first mountain bike race of the season and HOLY CRAP was it awesome! And really freaking tiring, but mostly awesome. The course was fast, fairly technical, and the dirt was real loose so it kept me on my toes so to speak. Didn't crash, no flat tires, didn't barf 2-3 times after the race, and my bike still works perfectly! Didn't win, but I wasn't expecting to! But most importantly, I didn't get second-to-last place! 3rd time's the charm I suppose!

So yeah, I passed my driver's license test today and I can...drive a car and stuff now. Apparently this is significant in modern society.

Well I figured out why I've been feelin' down recently and how to remedy it! I just wasn't getting enough exercise! For the past few weeks I haven't been running as much and when I was I was just puttering around doing 8:30 miles or something. This conclusion should have been much more obvious, but it wasn't until today where I, for whatever reason, decided to floor it and went around 7:20 pace for my normal 5.3 mile course. And right now I feel like awesome!

This isn't the first time mini-depression has been brought about by lack of exercise on my part. Last year and over the summer I was knocked out with injuries and couldn't run for about 5-6 weeks both times. I became lazy, grumpy, and started disliking my family. Then I started running and getting decent amounts of exercise again and all the emo crap went away! Thank you endorphins! I love you very much!

I'll spare you the physiological reasoning behind why this occurs. Unless you ask me to, in which case I'll be more than happy to explain in great detail! X)

Sorry about my rant journal yesterday. I just kinda... flipped out and crap ya know? Promise I won't do it again until something traumatizing happens!

So.. anyone here like t-shirts with witty captions on them?

I'm just getting more and more pissed off more easily and more often as of late. Not sure why. Could be pressure from school, could be looming deadlines of projects, could be my social life turning kinda bland, could be not having the balls to tell people whom I dislike that I dislike them and the reasons why I dislike them, could be being alive, could be generic teenage angst, could be any number of things really. I'm just angry and getting more angry with less effort, and it's pissing me off. This is all your fault Charlton Heston. I needed someone to blame for this because it's OBVIOUSLY not MY fault and your name popped into my head so.... FUCK OFF CHARLTON HESTON!

P.S. Strange... I feel less angry now. Thanks Charlton Heston!

Finals are over (doot doot doo!)
I can finally relax (da da daa!)
And eat potato chips all day (dum dum duuum)
Rhyme scheme... crap... (dun dun dun)


Not one of my better songs this...

Well I'm finally back home from my vacation! Had a good ChristmaHanuKwansaDon. Had a good New Years. Relaxed a bit. Did quite a bit of fractaling, and over the next few days I'll be uploading the fruits of my labor. Might even wait a day or so between them to taunt you all and make it seem like I did more work than I actually did!

Unfortunately, I have finals in a few weeks so I shall soon be busy again. Fantabulous!

Gonna be out of town until around the 2nd of January starting this Monday. (la la la)
Won't have internet, (dun dun dun)
but I'll probably be bringing my computer with me.(la la la!)
I'll do some fractals most likely.(lo la la)
Simple sentences are pretty awesome (doot doot doo)
I think. (La la la. )

I know, shocking. Please contain your excitement.

Well I ended up getting the bike finished faster than I'd expected and with much less hassle as well. The brakes still need some fine-tuning and I need to put on new grips but other than that it's done. Maybe pictures soon.

In other bike-related news, I'm going to start working out with an XC mountain bike team at a nearby high school. Depending on how my spring schedule is I might even end up racing! My bike is a bit... burly.... for XC racing but I'd probably not be a front-runner anyways, so having a more fun bike than everyone else while still going hella fast ain't that bad I guess. I do, however, need to order some parts for it. Larger brake rotors, new, wider handlebars and a quick-release seatpost clamp. Not 100% necessary but, it'll be money well spent in terms of improving my bike's performance and also not having to take out a multi-tool to adjust the darn seat whenever I go down a technical single track section. Which is a lot.

In the silly, boring land of non-cyling-related news, I shall be submitting something new this week. Maybe more than one new fractal depending on spare time, but there will be at least one new update.

As some (or none) of you may know, I love bikes. I mean... REALLY love bikes. Especially mountain bikes. Seriously, it's almost to the point of obsession...

ANYWAYS, I've decided to take an early 90's (1994 to be exact) Cannondale M400 mountain bike, my current commuting machine, and return it to a state of trail readiness. This will be by far the biggest cycling-related undertaking I'll have ever... undertaken. New tires, saddle that isn't as old as I am, new front wheel, new shifters, new brakes, new brake levers, possibly even convert the threaded headset and stem to work with a modern threadless system. It's gonna be a bit of work. Already gotten the new tires and saddle (panaracer fire XC pro for the rear, and a continental explorer for the front), and tonight I'm ordering the new brakes. (Avid Single Digit 7's) I intend to do all, or almost all the work myself, so the only cost will be for components. I think I can do it, but it's going to be quite a bit of work.

Why am I tell you this? Well it basically means that instead of doing a fractal stream this weekend and getting 2 or 3 fractals rendered and ready to upload, I'm going to be working on the bike. Sorry I've been dropping the ball lately on updates, but I just have too much stuff going on most of the time to really sit down and focus a few hours on apophysis and fractals.

After a little over a week of marathon rendering, I've finally gotten 10 fractals re-rendered at the proper size and quality for printing, and with any luck, selling. I did a few test prints at home, and while my printer works great for 4"x6" mini-prints, it's not nearly good enough for 8.5" x 11" prints. Contrast is low, uses LOTS of resources, printing is excruciatingly slow, somewhat grainy images, blah blah blah. So I'm going to run up to the copy place down the street and get 10 prints done of each image, which'll cost me only 5 or 10 bucks!

My business plan after that is to print off a few 4x6's at my home, each of which I'll price at 10 dollars. The larger prints I'm going to try and mount on foam-core board and hopefully the local coffee shop/gallery will host a few of them! I'd probably end up pricing those at around 25 bucks.

Due to lack of a paypal, credit card, debit card, etc, I'm limited to selling offline, and I probably wouldn't mail anything out at this point in time. However, if I do ever set up a paypal or whatever, I'll set up a print shop on dA or cafepress or something like that.

I showed off several of the 4x6's and the response has been fairly positive. People find my fractal art interesting, and would gladly fork over 10-25 bucks for a print. If this works out (and I REALLY hope it does) I will be a very happy person.

Happy Halloween.

Okay, here's what's up. I am going to try to sell prints of my fractals. Not through dA, but in real life. Why am I saying this on here? Well because it means I'll be spending a few days re-rendering a good amount of my fractals to fit an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of high-gloss photo paper and then mounting them on foam-core board. Each render takes between 3 and 5 hours. You do that math. So after I get about 8 or 12 images re-rendered I'll be going back to creating new fractals for here, which will take about... a week or two. Maybe longer.

Hopefully this will mean I can make a few bucks to help save for college or upgrades for my bike. I figure I could probably sell prints for around $30-50 each should the coffee shop gallery down the street let me hang a few up there. If not then I'll just have some prints of my art that I can hang on my walls and I've only spent a few bucks for foam core.

Wish me luck.

Instead of making a boring "This is what's going on" journal. I instead decided to write a "this is what's going on" journal. IN SONG VERSION!!!

duh duh duh duh duuuuuhhhh...
I'M SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING! (la la laaa)
AND I KNOW IT SEEMS DEGRADING! (la la laaa)
BUT I'M A LAZY BUM! (la la la)
AND THERE'S NOT MUCH TO BE DONE (la la la)
I'LL GET SOME STUFF UP SOON! (la la la)
I PROMISE THIS TIME IT'S TRUE (la la la)
SO STICK WITH ME FOR NOW! (la la la)
I'LL SUBMIT SOMETHING SOMEHOW (la la la)
THIS RHYME SCHEME REALLY SUCKS (la la la)
BUT I DON'T GIVE A DAMN. (la la laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!)

So yeah... I was bored and decided to search my name on Google just to see what would happen. Apparently I'm a professional Darts player, a British Detective Inspector, 14 other people in England, an opera singer, and run cross-country. One out of 18 ain't bad. Maybe.

Blah, I'm not sure why I'm really posting this as a journal. Just trying to be funny and failing I suppose.

In other news, I recently got a flipping sweet new (to me) full suspension mountain bike. So far I've never been able to ride it off road, gotten two flat tires, needed to buy new grips, have a bent outer chain ring, and had to buy new pedals and a bash guard to replace the messed up chain ring. Sorta like buying a vintage Ferrari. Super-awesome, but you have to spend more money on it before you can get it into practical working condition. Pictures of it probably soon. Need to fix the rear tire and get the bash guard in first though.

Again, I'm sorry for lack of updates recently, but I just haven't really had the drive or will to do any art recently. I have plenty of time, but the few times I've booted up Apophysis I've had terrible renders and gotten angry so I haven't really done much. I might post something to my scraps section, but I'm not sure. I'll try to get some more stuff up as soon as I can, but I'm not making any promises, and I'm sorry in advance if i don't. Please don't hate me.


Don't doubt your sunshininess.

~Spykr

Hoooooooooooo boy...... I've been on a real roller coaster of emotions in the past few weeks. Giddy excitement, boredom, mind-numbing saddness, anger, all sorts of crap. However, I think I'm in a more-or-less stable emotional state right now.

Taking some time off from arting and whatnot allowed me to not worry myself with view statistics (which I get obsessed with), my skill level in apophysis, and just sorta pay attention to my social life and family a little more. I was still online fairly often, but I wasn't spending hours at a time completely absorbed into the computer focused on one task. It was kinda nice.

Expect a submission later today, and possibly a few more during the week depending on my homework load and workout schedule.

Have a great day ya'll!

After my next submission I am going to stop submitting anything for a while. I do not know for how long. Might be a couple days, might be a couple months. I do not know right know. I will still be logging in an checking messages now and again, so if need be, I will still be able to be contacted through a private message, but I will not be working on anything new, submitting anything old, or anything. Please be patient.

HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP! ONE OF MY FRACTALS GOT SUBMITTED AS A DAILY DEVIATION ON DEVIANT ART! THERE IS JOY SHOOTING OUT OF MY FACE AND I CAN BARELY TYPE STRAIGHT! HOLY CRAP!

http://spykr.deviantart.com/art/Volcanic-213228189

Okay, for the last time this summer, I'll be going off for a vacation. I leave Wednesday the 17th, and get back the following Wednesday. I will most certainly not have an internet connection and so if you desperately need to talk to me, sing me praises, or show me something awesome you found on youtube, do so now. Or wait 7 days or so.

In unrelated news, school starts back up in about 2 weeks. Fun fun fun. >_>

Well I'm back home again. For a little while. I'll be going on a short road trip next some time next week, buuuut yeah. I'm here for a little while at least!

So yeah, Mammoth was fun for the most part! Ran my ass off, went mountain biking almost every day, ate tons of food, slept a lot. Good stuff.

Oh yeah, I also put a deposit down on a sweet new (to me) mountain bike which I'll pay for in full come mid-September. Totally psyched about that. It's a full-suspension rig, 5.6 inches of front and rear suspension travel, really high quality drivetrain components, weighs about the same as my current bike, sick paint job, handbuilt in the US of A, and it's shiny. Just need to sell of my current bike and cash some paychecks from my summer job and I'll have teh monies. Cannot. Freaking. Wait.

PICS! http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/.....g?t=1312905411
(and yes, my face REALLY IS a crudely drawn smiley face on a white square. It's a genetic disorder...)

Before I do anything else, I'd like to apologize for letting you guys down and not submitting anything this week like I had promised. Real life stuff happened, and I just didn't have the will to do any art. I'm sorry.

Secondly, I will be leaving for Mammoth Lakes on Saturday and will not be back until next Sunday. I should have an internet connection, but I do not think that I will be checking up on here very often if at all. I might, but I dunno for sure yet.

See ya'll in a week!