YouTube – Hooked On Comix Volume 2

Tuesday 17 August 2010 - Filed under Videos + WebStuff

Killer series!

YouTube – Hooked On Comix Volume 2.

 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2010-08-17  ::  Steve

Wow, I haven’t posted in a while

Thursday 29 July 2010 - Filed under Uncategorized

But, whatevers. I’m a busy, busy man with many important goings on and decisions of import! Or something. Something, something, something. IMPORT!

Right, I’ll be at Wizard World Chicago in August and I’ll have these two beauties for sale! I think I’ll only sell them as a set, it seems a shame to break up a pair. That or the first like 10 sets will be reserved for buying both and the numbers after that can go splitsville. Also, I’ll have my minicomic 0101010ve as well as the anthologies Readling With Pictures and Sequential Suicide! Yay, products!

I think I’ll have prints of the 0101010ve cover as well, because, well, it’s snazzy. Probably sans logo. The heart graphic will probably be larger as well.

Oh, and yes I am still running. Not barefoot anymore though. I’m shod. I wear either Newton Galaxy’s (for street) or New Balance MT100’s (for trail). I’ll probably be replacing the Newtons with another shoe, they’re just too expensive. Think I’ll try the Kinvara by Soucany. I run anywhere from 10 to 20 miles a week now. The last few weeks have been low mileage though. But last Saturday I ran a 2 mile race at about 9:30 a mile. That’s really quite fast for me! I finished in 19:02, got fourth in my age group (yay for shallow fields!)

Right, if you want any of these prints you can email me at the link on this page and I’ll see what I can do. They’ll be signed and run either 10 a piece or 18 for the Sandman set and say.. 26$ for all three? We’ll go with that.

2 comments  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2010-07-29  ::  Steve

Triumph and failure

Thursday 1 April 2010 - Filed under 5AM + C25K + Running

So, I totally blew my 5AM experiment this morning. I didn’t get to bed early enough last night and I completely let myself go this morning. I didn’t end up waking until 8:20AM. Bummer. Oh well, I’ll start again tomorrow morning.

On a better note, I RAN MY FIRST 3 MILE STRETCH TODAY! Technically it was 3.24 miles, which means it was a little more than a 5k. This is good. I think I could have gone farther, I was feeling pretty damn good that last mile. On top of that it only took me 12 minutes over my average 2 mile time of 29 minutes. So, it seems, I’m actually faster per mile on a longer run. Go me! Distance is what I’m working on anyway (specifically marathons and ultras somewhere down the line)

I’ve actually been running everyday for the past week. At least two miles per day. This level of activity makes me tremendously happy. I’ll be honest, when I started this several months ago I never thought I’d get this far. I have a horrible habit of going all in and then quickly dropping things. Running feels different now. It’s no longer something I’m forcing myself to do, it’s something I get to do. I sit in meetings thinking about how far I’m going to run that night. It’s a reward now, and that’s awesome.

It’s also started to change the way I think. The first time you push your body to run a certain distance that you’ve yet to achieve is a magical experience. It’s transformative. When that finish line comes into site and you know you’re about to do something you’ve never done before, that you’ve pushed yourself farther than you ever have before, anything seems possible.

I’m not looking at anything the same.

I’ve struggled with crippling insecurity most of my life. A soul sucking pessimism that’s crippled so many areas of my life. Therapy helped a lot. Running has helped more. 

When I look at the wreck I was just 4 or 5 months ago I realize how much of my life I wasted on insecurity and just how false it was. I’m now 100% sure that if there’s anything I want to do I can make it happen, it’s all just putting one foot in front of another.

1 comment  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2010-04-01  ::  Steve

5am Wakeup day 1

Wednesday 31 March 2010 - Filed under 5AM + Life Hacking

Right, as I mentioned yesterday I plan on blogging each day about this 5AM experiment.

So how’d it go the first day? Well, I’m tired. That’s not surprising, I didn’t go to bed until 11:30 or so last night. I did end up wavering in and out of consciousness for about 20 minutes after my alarm went off. So technically I got up at 5:20ish.  Oh well, I should do better tomorrow.

Good news is, I did get a run in! 2 miles this morning at 6:30. That was nice and I subsequently felt great most of the day. I also got most of the lettering done on a page this morning before work. So, all in all, a productive morning!

Well, I don’t have much else to say. Maybe more tomorrow when I’m less sleepy.

 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2010-03-31  ::  Steve

A 5AM Wakeup Call

Tuesday 30 March 2010 - Filed under Goals + Life Hacking + Running

So, this post came up in my ‘explore’ section of Google Reader (the best damn RSS tool out there) and I thought it was a neat experiment and something I’ve been wanting to try. So, with that said for the next thirty days, excluding Saturdays, I’ll be waking up at 5AM.

I don’t go into work until 9AM so I’ll have a few hours to kill each morning. Here’s what I plan to do.

• Run every morning.
• Write or Read each morning
• Work on pages for Loose Wires
• Give Ein (my dog) more walkies time each morning.
• Blog about this experiment.

I would guess that I’ll end up going to bed around 10 each night. I seem to work better off 7 hours of sleep than I do 8 so that’s my current goal. I’m not going to be strict about it though, I’ll just go to bed whenever I’m tired.

I’ll start reporting in each morning, just a heads up and what’s what. All posts will be tagged with 5AM. We’ll see how this goes.

Running tidbits

I haven’t blogged about my running recently, but I have been running. In fact, I’ve ran at least 2 miles a day for the past week. My ankles are back to 90% or so, in about another week they should be golden. Overall I’m still really enjoying myself and I’m slowly ramping up my speed and endurance. Last night I ran 2 miles in 18:03, so about 9 minutes a mile. That’s my new best. It’s a huge improvement over the 14 minute mile pace I ran on my first 2 mile stretch. Even with my ankle injuries sidelining me for a week I should still meet my 3 mile goal by mid April. Once my endurance is up to that point I want to push myself to hit a 25 minute or better 5k. I currently see nothing standing in my way of this, outside of effort.

An upshot of all this running (and I won’t lie, one of the big reasons I started running) is that I’m dropping weight like mad. I’m currently at ~224, that’s down from a peak weight of 264 from May of last year. A lot of that weight loss has been in the past 4 months. I’m about to have to trade in my fat belt, I’m on the final notch! I figure by end of next month I’ll have to buy new pants and belts. I can’t wear any of my jeans without the belt cinched all the way, otherwise they fall off. This, above near anything else, is enough motivation to keep running!

1 comment  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2010-03-30  ::  Steve

The awesomest hill in the history of awesome hills.

Saturday 20 March 2010 - Filed under C2E2 + Running

You know, I really shouldn’t be running. I think I should probably be giving my ankles a rest, but they’ feel up to a little abuse so Friday night I walked 4 miles with a little bit of running thrown in, especially downhill. It was a lot of fun. Here’s the map.

I think the ankle injuries will actually work out in my favor, Because I’ve had to slow down I’ve had more time to focus on my form. I’ve noticed my movements getting more precise and fluid. I’ve also noticed that my cadence is increasing (rate your feet hit the ground). My ankles don’t bother me when I’ve got my form working out. Now I just need to maintain it. Practice, practice, practice! Proper form is like learning a dance, once you’ve got it down it’s less thinking, more floating.

Also, in the map you’ll see a hill that’s just east of Lakewood Dr. I officially designate this the most awesome hill among all hills. It’s super steep and curvy so when you let yourself go…it’s the closest to flying you’ll ever get without growing a pair of wings. On my loop back I ended up running it again! The walk up twice in a row was brutal, but it’s completely worth it.

Somewhere in the middle of that I started thinking about meditation. I’ve always wanted to meditate. I tried actually, in high school and my mid twenties I made concerted efforts to try and build up a meditation routine. It never worked out. I simply can’t get my mind still, at least not with the standard meditation. But last night, in the middle of one of my run segments I realized how present I was. I think it’s the closest to a meditative state that I’ve ever come. I suspect it’s part of the reason I’ve fallen so hard for running.

In general my mind runs a 100 miles a minute. I can’t stop it. It runs away from me at every chance. It’s the worst behaved pet I’ve ever owned. For the most part when I write or draw I have to have music on and usually the tv. If I flood my brain with inputs it will basically overload and allow me to focus on one thing. It’s how I’ve always worked and my efficiency drops drastically when I’m not allowed that sort of input overload. I suspect this is part of the reason why barefoot running is working so well for me.

When running barefoot a whole new sensory spectrum opens up. You feel every groove, pebble, twig, root or pine needle in your path. You have to listen to that input as well as visually scan the ground in front of you in order to avoid all those things that you don’t want to barrel foot first into. That massive data dump on top of whatever music I’m listening to seems to have the overload effect I need. I find myself more and more dropping into the quite. That state of mind where I’m totally present and clear, I’m floating more than running. Once I get there, it feels like I could run out the road. There’s no tired there, just motion. Joyful motion.

Now, this is basically ‘Runner’s High’. I’m stoned off my ass on endorphins. Tons of runner’s get it but I believe that the addition of barefoot to my routine is what allowed me to get there. Not only from the additional sensory input but from the very fact that I couldn’t run more than a few yards with shoes on. That same sort of endorphin release has been recorded in meditation, acupuncture and isolation chamber sessions. I think it’s worth it for everyone to find a way to get there. For my particular circumstance barefoot/minimalist running is what’s working.

Right, but onto other things. I’m working hard on Loose Wires and I hope to have the 5 page preview up mid April, before C2E2. I have something really special planned for C2E2! Details will emerge closer to the show, but if you’re attending I think you’ll like what I have in store. Even if you’re not, you’ll probably like the end product!

 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2010-03-20  ::  Steve