Daily Diary

Monday---I wake up at 5:30am to piss and then sleep again till 8:10 when the wife’s alarm goes off. Baby is awake at this point anyway. She showers and gets ready to go to the airport. I check online shit and download new podcasts to listen to. She plays with the kids a bit and then takes off. I record a new podcast and upload it. Then update blog and start penciling more cards and Starslam strips. I’m on a roll! I put bots on the bus, baby in bed and I get to coloring pages for commissions. I work on that all day.

Bots comes home, baby gets up and I let them play while I do laundry and I go back to coloring pages. Baby passes out at 7:30, Bots finally at 9:45. I color more pages and then pass out around 1am.

Tuesday---Bots wakes me up at 7:30am. So I go downstairs and check online stuff. Suddenly while on Facebook, I get the red spinner, indicating my mac froze. I try to restart. Again. Again. Again. Boot from disc. Boot from backup. The question mark folder. I’ve seen this before. Hard Drive is shot! Great.

I pack up the kids and head to Best Buy at 10am to get a new HD, air can, wipes and bots a disc for good behavior in the store. We get home and I start to dismantle my beloved. Baby goes to bed, bots acts up bad but I get him on the bus. I take out the old HD and put the new one in like a pro. Try rebooting from the disc several times (My disc drive is shot in this mac and it takes forever to read discs). Finally I get it going and start running a recovery from Time Machine. Takes about 3.5 hours. Finally its done and starts slow and sluggish. But I get things back to where I need them. But all the while I notice that the fan on the computer seems more noticeable. I putz around with various troubleshooting guides to reset things, add fan monitors and things to no avail. I decide to wait till the kids are asleep and I can work on the thing uninterrupted.

Bots gets home and is very needy and moody. Baby is practicing walking. Brian Maze calls me at 5 and we shoot the shit. Finally baby goes to bed at 7:30 and I put bots in the bath. I take apart the Mac again and check that I installed everything right. And re-clean the fans for dust. I boot it up and it sounds good. So I put the rest together and start it back up. The fan is loud again. So I try to reset the SMC and that seems to help. But then it starts again. So I guess there’s something else mechanically wrong with it. Perhaps it is on its last legs as a computer. I don’t know. BUT, I will deal with it until such time as when I can afford a newer Imac computer. Maybe next year? We’ll see.

Bots goes to bed around 10pm and I fiddle with the mac some more while catching up on Stern. Then organize the NFL cards and make a list of last ones that need to be done. I end up passing out at 11:30pm to Trek TNG.

Wednesday---I wake up at 2am thinking its 6am, and check my phone. Surprise! I got lots more sleep headed my way! So back out I go til 5am, when I am woke up by bots shifting in my bed. Apparently he woke up and joined me and fell asleep next to me. Cute. We sleep till 8:30, when I start to move he does and smiles at me. Melts away the frustration of his moodiness yesterday. Part of the best thing of being a parent is those smiles that make you forget. J

We get up, get James and head downstairs to clean house, finish laundry and check internet shit. I start penciling and inking the last 10 NFL cards. I get bots on the bus and James to bed. Then I color the cards. I am done by 3:30pm. I check the mail and get James up. I get bots off the bus. He’s moody as usual. But I tough it out and play with the kids all day till they both pass out. The wife arrives around 11:20pm, and tells me about her horrific flights back home. We end up passing out together around midnight.

Thursday---I wake up to bots smiling in my face at 7:20. I get up and we hang out downstairs until its time to wake up the baby. The wife sleeps in til 9, but I get her up and we go to Walmart for some grocieries. I weigh myself and am disgusted by what I see, so I get a bunch of veggies and no bad foods for myself. We put bots on the bus and then head to Red Robin for lunch. I eat somewhat healthy. We get back and I get an hour nap but then trade off with the wife because the baby don’t wanna sleep. So baby and I hang out downstairs and I clean the kitchen and take out the trash. I wake the wife up to see if she wants to go out of town when bots gets home. She agrees and heads downstairs.

We wait for bots to get off the bus, then we hit the Post Office so I can mail out the NFL cards. Then to Grand Rapids we head. We stop at a comic shop but I don’t have time to really dig too deep into long boxes. We then try to find another one but its closed down. Thanks YELP! We then head to Big Lots where we don’t get much and bots acts up pretty bad. So we head back to Lansing and I drop them off at home. I head to the Big Lots here, looking for Ghostbusters figures. Then I hit the used DVD store but find nothing good. Then I get the wife some Taco Bell and then head home. I draw a bit with the bots and then the wife puts him down to sleep. I read the news about the newly discovered and released “lost” Doctor Who episodes and decide I want to collect all the old doctor serials. I finally join her upstairs and pass out.

Friday—I wake up at 8:20, hearing the wife in bots’ room comforting him cause he doesn’t feel well. I hear baby stirring so I get him up and downstairs. I draw with bots for a bit and we sit watching TV. I listen to the BFB podcast from last night as I check internet on my phone. I’m super hungry for some reason and I eat cereal and a salad, but am still hungry. We opt to go to Cheddars for take out. I run to Hobby Lobby to get white paint, and pick up our Cheddars order. We get home and eat. I paint white over my new scrolly I got from my old job, covering over the dildos so that I can use it to tape prints to at conventions.

The wife takes a nap and then so do I. At 7, the baby goes to sleep and the wife and I watch Wheel of fortune and Jeopardy. Then they head upstairs to pass out. I watch “Cabin in the Woods” and a Mark Maron Standup special on Netflix while working on new Starslam strips. I get three penciled and partially inked by 12:30 and hit the pillow by 1am.

Saturday---The wife kicks me awake to get the baby at 8:10, as she always does. So I get up and bring him downstairs. I check online shit and tally up my calories for the first couple days. I start a book journal to keep track. The wife gets up and I take a 25 minute walk around the block. I get back and she puts baby down for nap and goes to Kroger for groceries. She returns and heads for work. I draw a potential cover for the eventual STARSLAM graphic novel and print/pull a bunch of reference for things to come. Then I take some time to type up and edit some old poems that are going into my book that I will release in the future.

Baby gets up and we watch some Trek DS9 and then THE ROAD, which I have put of seeing for a long time and have finally sat down to watch it. Enjoyed it. By that time, its bed time so I put baby to sleep and then check on bots. His room is a complete disaster so I clean it up. Then I clean up the kitchen and living room. Having a child with autism is very difficult in more ways than one. Especially where cleanliness is concerned. Ten minutes after I cleaned the house, he made more messes. It never ends.

I check online shit and get bots ready for bed. The wife comes home and takes over. I watch the last hour of THE HOBBIT and some of Svengoolie on MeTV. I head upstairs and pass out around 11:30.