The morning:
Toby took today off. I have been running errands with him this morning – man errands. We have been to McNair’s Tire Shop, which is always an interesting place. McNair does a booming tire business. With cars and trucks parked amidst the old tires and junk, the mass-murder types working on the vehicles, and the odd assortment of Okies milling about, it is a hopping little juke joint. Every once in a while Toby sends me there by myself on some tire errand. I cringe at the thought. Where do you park? Who do you talk to? How do men know these things? Once when I waited inside the building for my tire to be repaired, I accidentally dropped my magazine on the floor. When I reached down to pick it up, I decided it was better left on the floor. It was probably stuck to the goo anyway. Being there with Toby is much better. I just watch from the safety of the truck wishing I had my sketch pad.

We made a run to Wal-Mart to have the oil changed in the truck. Toby bought me breakfast at McDonalds (whoohoo). After an hour of milling about the store, his truck was still sitting there, so we canceled the oil change and moved on. Next stop was Autozone, and then a quick stop at the welder shop. I like the welder shop; they know me by name and ask me about my family. Our last stop was the nuts and bolts business to buy bolts to hold down the barn(or something like that). I fell asleep in the truck for this one. We got home around noon. Now my fun date is out working on the welder.

Cartoons:
The Art Guild had a local comic book cartoonist to speak to our meeting at last Thursday evening. As you know, I don’t like to attend the Guild meetings, but with the art show coming up, it was something I had to do. I was glad I went. This cartoonist, Richard Jenkins draws a cartoon called Sky Ape. There are other guys who write the stories along with Richard, but he alone draws the cartoon. I was impressed. I have always been interested in cartooning - along with other illustration type careers. The art schools that I attended never seemed to be knowledgeable about such things. I think it is a more technical trade. Richard said he had an art degree from OU, but learned about cartooning and illustration after college. He showed us the basic technique he uses to do his drawings and how he inks them. Most of the time computers are used for the wording within the cartoon. It was all fascinating to me. It could be useful info for my art students too. Maybe I will try a cartoon sometime.

Thoughts:
With Toby home this morning, I watched Good Morning America which played a video of President Clinton getting pretty upset with Fox News. I thought it was a bit ironic especially when he accused them of putting their conservative twist to things. It was really interesting that he seemed to be saying if he were president now, he would be sending more troops to the Mid.East. It seems like the next question in the interview should have been, "Oh really, why didn’t you do it when you had the chance? What about Somalia?" Of course, I did not see the whole interview – only the part that GMA showed. I think I will go look it up and see what really went on.