Category: day to day

The 4 Stages of Competence | My wife read a magazine while we were waiting in the doctors’ office and found a learning model that has changed my perspective on learning. The core of the idea is that in order to gain a competence in a skill it is necessary first to recognize that there… Continue reading The Value of being Incompetent

August’s Caterpillar | One of my favorite home movies

Wouldn’t it be nice to be young when everyday was a musical? Created with Halftone, an iPhone app.

This past weekend our family experienced a great tragedy. Our sixth grade science teacher passed away in an accident. I have heard about Mr. McCullaugh over and over again since he first began teaching at our middle school. Our oldest daughter was in his class his first year teaching. His experiments and demonstrations were legendary… Continue reading You are needed and make a difference!

The chicks began hatching and so far there are four with three more starting to hatch. It looks like we will have seven new chicks in the morning. Who knows, the other two might hatch and then we would have nine. The bantam chickens eggs are a bit bigger than a ping pong ball which… Continue reading Stripey hatches four and soon there will be more

During the past week I have notice a variety of issues that have an interesting connection. Paper books versus E-books, classroom versus online, and traditional illustration media versus digital media. The one thing that they have in common is that one is an artifact that can be seen, smelled, and touched, versus an artifact that… Continue reading Real versus Virtual

I have been at Treasure Mountain Scout Camp for the last week. It was a great week spent with my son and the members of his troop. The boys worked hard and were kind to one another. My son earned six merit badges and worked on rank advancement. He should be a first class scout… Continue reading Scout camp

The end of a semester is quickly coming to an end. The last day of classes is tomorrow and on Thursday I will be traveling to Salt Lake City, Utah, with junior and senior graphic design students for an AIGA portfolio review. It is amazing how much work it takes to get through a semester.… Continue reading The end of a semester

It was a great Halloween evening. We went to visit the grandparents with a flower, a polar bear, a fortune teller and something in a black sheet of fabric. There was lots of good soup and and conversation. We laughed a lot and I really did eat too many M&Ms.

The past two years have been filled with medical challenges for me. Bile duct cancer, cancer treatment and liver transplant. (Thank you to my donor and their family).  So with most of that behind me, May 1st seems like a good day to start living again.  I have the summer off from school and have… Continue reading May 1st seems like a good day to start living again

Three of the four ukulele bridges popped off with the strings tuned and tightened. I designed a new bridge that gave a larger gluing area. Then one of the ukes was bumped off a shelf and the neck broke off. I fixed that one this morning and after a day of drying time I will… Continue reading Wood Glue

Sproing! What a terrible sound but I heard it three times yesterday. After applying all of my physics mental capacity I think that I have a solution. I will let you know as soon as I know if it works.

The morning was wonderful and the kids liked the cigar box ukuleles that I made for each of them. Here are some photos. (click images to enlarge)

This year our family is making our gifts that we are giving to each other. It has been really quite fun. I have been working on mine for several weeks. It is not right to post to the world before Christmas day, but I will give a few hints. It is made of plywood &… Continue reading Christmas is Comming

This is a video that one of my favorite students brought to motion design class one day. All these years later I still love the finger choreography.

My creative slate is clean at the moment and I am looking for the next project. I want it to be a book and so I need to find a concept and an interesting way to share the concept. This is a frustrating and exciting part of the process with many dead end roads traveled.… Continue reading The Beginning … Again

Just as I was leaving work this evening I noticed that I had a new e mail. I opened it and it was devastating. One of my students was killed in an automobile accident. Truly, I am not afraid of death but it seems such a tragedy for young life to end so suddenly. It… Continue reading Choose to Live

August’s Caterpillar**Disclaimer: A caterpillar was harmed in the making of this production.