Working Together...

I am not an extremely political person but...

At the President’s State of the Union Address on January 25, 2011 there was an effort made by our lawmakers to break the tradition of the Democrats and Republicans sitting on opposite sides of the room, divided by an aisle. I also understand that this was nothing more than for show, they were still divided but they were willing, for a short time, to ignore their differences and mix things up and break from long held traditions.


I also understand that the way business is done in Washington was not going to change because of this symbolic show, the ideals and beliefs of the individuals have not changed, at least by much. But, despite my understanding of the divide between different political parties and even between individuals within the parties; there was some hope that maybe this show of cooperation may lead to some actual cooperation and people would start to work together.

I was listening to Morning Edition on NPR this morning and they were talking with two of those who broke from the tradition and sat together, a Republican and a Democrat ignoring the divide for a few moments to sit together. During the interview one of the two made the statement “people should not expect this to occur next year, this was a onetime thing” or something along those lines. I am not sure if it was the Democrat or the Republican that said it but it was very disappointing and disheartening to me. That one statement summed up what I knew to be true; THIS COUNTRY IS DIVIDED!

I was hoping for those few moments, that “we, the people” could set aside our differences and beliefs for a moment and listen to what each other has to say, then work together to come to some understanding that will benefit all. I no longer have much confidence in our elected officials to be able to work together to get things done, it appears that they will continue to sit on separate sides of that isle and are not willing to make an effort to honestly work together to make changes that will make a difference in all of our lives.

I will continue to hope that in the future, hopefully not too distant, we will elect someone; democrat, republican, independent or whatever, who is willing to ignore the “this is the way it is always done” idea and sit on the opposite side of the isle not only for the few moments the President is speaking each year but throughout the year. One of the news people last night explained that there are no assigned seats; well it is time for someone to stand up and say “I will sit where I want” and “talk to who I want to.” Our elected officials will never truly be able to work together until they are willing to make the symbolic seating arrangement at this State of the Union Address permanent and not just something they do for show.

Milky Way in watercolor...

Watercolor painting of the summer Milky Way, completed on January 2, 2011. I am beginning the New Year with a new painting and am going to try and spend time this year painting some of the wonders of the night sky as well as try and complete more sketches of the Messier objects to work on completing the Messier Sketch Poster I decided to start last year.

2010 Total Lunar Eclipse

This eclipse occurred last week; I posted a couple of photos to Facebook until I could finish this up. I hope you enjoy this mosaic it was a lot of fun to photograph and watch and it was a lot of fun to put this poster together. The first part of the eclipse was clear all the way to totality; I went inside during totality to re-charge camera batteries and download some photos then came back out as totality was ending for the second half of the eclipse. It remained clear most of the time but a few high clouds and some haze passed by during the last half of the eclipse but it was still visible.

A New Beginning...

On Thursday, August 19, 2010 I began a new chapter in my career and life, I am a victim of the horrible economy and am now joining the nearly half million others on the unemployment line. I along with several others at my former employer where part of an effort to keep more than 100 others employed during this tough time, this is a tough time for all. The design and construction industry is being hit hard by this recession and there are a lot of good people who are affected by this, either they are like me and unemployed or they are like lots of others who are taking pay cuts or working fewer hours to try and ride this out.


I will do fine, I am lucky, my family and my friends are being super supportive and everyone is looking out for me. Over the last several days I have received so many emails and phone calls that it is hard to be upset and sad with so many people sending me kind thoughts and prayers I know things will work out and something far better will come of all of this.

For the next couple weeks I am going to think of this as a vacation, it has been a very long time since I have had a long vacation so I am going to try and do some of the things that I have been saying “when I have some free time” because I now do. I am also going to work very hard at completing my AREs, those are the licensing exams that I must take in order to become an architect and I only have three of them left, so wish me luck. If all goes well I will be able to change my resume to say Robert A. Williams, Architect and that will be a huge deal for me. This is something that I have wanted for quite some time, since the 4th grade (let’s just say it is a long time).

I am proud and grateful to have had the opportunity to work at Dekker/Perich/Sabatini and I hope that in the near future I will have the chance to go back, but if that does not happen I also know that I will succeed and thrive wherever I end up. The economy will rebound and we will all be much stronger and happier because of all that we have learned over the past year and a half.

Thank you to all who have expressed your concern and support, please know that I appreciate it all and I will be OK, I will make it through this and I will be a better person for it.

Work in Progress...

I am back in the creative mode again and am now working on another watercolor for a friend. She saw the self portrait I did of myself (posted in May) and she actually liked it, I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so she asked me to do a painting of her daughter.


I began the painting and decided to document the process along the way so over the next few weeks I will be posting the painting as it is being worked on. When I am all done with it I will post the picture I am using to do the painting and I look forward to your comments and suggestions along the way. I am working on becoming a better painter and I am going to have some fun while doing it.

Keep an eye out for future posts and for the final work when it is done.

The Moon, A long time coming...

Ok so I have been away for a while, I am not sure where I have been but I have not been posting very regular. It has also been some time since I have been out taking photographs or doing any artwork of any kind. I think I have been a little lazy and a little busy studying for exams (even though I have not been very good about taking them). I am going to try and do a little more photography and will be working on a watercolor of some friends little girl.


They were impressed (I think) by my self portrait watercolor, imagine that, and asked me to do one of their daughter. So what the heck, I need the practice and she is supper cute so I will start on that soon. This will be some more practice for when I do the watercolor of my nephew next (he is supper cute too).

This is a photo of the Moon I took with my point-and-shoot camera through the eyepiece of my telescope at Oak Flat last weekend. I am having a lot of fun doing this and the photos are getting a little better each time. This one is actually like 6 photos that were put together in the panorama software I have been using for some time now and you can see quite a bit of detail of the lunar features. I would have done some more photos but the battery in my camera died so it kind of ended the photo session.

Until next time, keep drawing, painting, photographing or just doing whatever it is you want to do.

Sketch and Paint

OK, do not laugh...or at least too hard. This is one of my first attempts at doing a watercolor of an actual person (in this case me). I did a sketch of my nephew a few weeks ago, I had been trying to do this for some time but have never been happy with what I have done in the past. I was motivated by a good friend of mine Sy, she does some wonderful paintings and I was talking to her about it and she convinced me to try again so I did. While they may not be perfect yet they are getting better. I really like the way my nephews pencil sketch came out so I decided to try and do a watercolor and I used a photo I had of my (it was a photo that Sy had taken). I am to some extent happy with it, I still need some more practice and will continue to try and then hopefully be able to do one of my nephew that I will be happy with. I like the hair in this painting better than my own hair, but the nose and mouth definitely need some work.