Missing Missy

For those of you who have never known the love and joy of a pet, you have my sympathies. For those  of  you who think pets are "just animals", you also have my sympathies, and with all due respect, you are wrong. My "pets" are part of my family. In fact, I think I am a "pet" for my kitties as, clearly, they run the roost.

I am so terribly sad to report that over the weekend we lost our purry, furry little family member, Missy. She was the sweetest cat I ever knew.She was smart and funny and she loved everyone. She even had her own Twitter account.  She had little spats with her brother Buster, but they sometimes played together and would often look for each other around the house.

She loved chicken.
She hated having her feet touched.
She loved anything soft she could cuddle - blankets, pillows, teddy bears.
She hated the word "no."

She has been my sister surrogate and best friend for nearly 13 years. She has had a number of health issues over the past few years, but seemed to be just motoring along and was happy and fine - until she wasn't.

Friday she started having breathing trouble and by Friday evening we took her to the emergency vet because she seemed to be barely breathing. The vet found she had fluid in her chest cavity and lungs from an unknown cause and that it could be a mass of some sort. They put her in an oxygen box because she couldn't breathe on her own within just minutes of getting her there. Within a short time it became apparent there was nothing we could do for our little girl and we had to make the hardest decision I, personally, have ever had to make.

I like to think that perhaps she has found mine and Secret Agent Man's grandmas in Heaven and is getting lots and lots of pets and belly rubs. It is harder for us and we are truly grieving. In fact, I'm just going to post my pictures. I'll be back later this week.

I've Got The "It's Monday and I'm Back to Work" Blues

So, yah, no cute drawings today. Although I do have fun video later, so stay tuned!

Last week I was a bit MIA as Secret Agent Man and I went to Vegas for the NAB Show.

It's a big geek conference for people in any kind of film, video, sound, production kind of job. Everybody from Avid to Sony  to Adobe to companies I've never heard of are there hawking their newest stuff. It was cool to see Sony's newest 3D tv which requires no glasses, for instance. They even had a beer garden and really, really (really) bad karaoke. (I don't know what that had to do with anything even remotely NAB related, but hey, whatever...)

Of course, it was also Vegas - so we had dinner at a couple lovely restaurants and one cheap pizza joint. 

We drank some fantastically smooth vodka - these bottles are hand painted! (Jewel of Russia, if you want to know): 

We saw these guys: 

and by the way, Mr Jillette plays a wicked mean bass for pre-show!

While at the conference itself, I had the distinct privilege to attend a workshop with Gale Anne Hurd, Dave Alpert,  Glen Mazarra, and of course -Robert Kirkman- the creator of The Walking Dead. 

!!!!!!

(pardon my crappy cell phone pictures...)

 I got this book:

and these signatures:

and it made me do a Happy Dance!!!!

Sadly, of course, in my head, my Happy Dance is like this: 

but in reality is probably more like this:

Oh well...

Our next adventure, however, made me do THIS, uh, Happy Dance...:

I'm telling you - if you ever get to Vegas, take the FlightLinez zip line tour. Totally. Worth. Every. Penny!

Here's a description from their website: 

The First Run has the biggest drop of the four Flightlinez on the tour.  You will plunge 450 ft in the first 15 seconds; you will not, however, feel the weightlessness associated with roller coasters.  Each of the four runs includes 4 parallel lines, which allows up to four guests to fly next to each other at a time.

Once all guests in your tour group have completed the First Run you will continue on to the next take off platform.  Each Run’s take off platform provides a unique view of the mountainous terrain from a different elevation.  These different viewing perspectives truly showcase the variety and beauty of the desert, which ever so briefly, separates you from the lights and noise of the Las Vegas Strip.  

The Second Run provides a beautiful view of Lake Mead while soaring 1864 feet across the desert valley below. 

The Third Run is just shy of a stimulating half mile in length, allowing plenty of time in flight to absorb the beauty around you.  You may recall "The Great American Roadtrip" on NBC filming their paint balloon challenge using this run.

The Fourth Run is our shortest and some say the most exciting run at just over 1100 feet in length.  With this run the tour concludes near the welcome area for Bootleg Canyon Park. Here you will also find Bathrooms and running water.   

Unfortunately for you, but not for us, we took the "Sunset Tour", which is gorgeous, don't get me wrong, but it started getting dark on the 2nd leg of the tour, so we only have video from the first run. 
This is actual video from the first leg of our tour. Secret Agent Man had the camera, so I would be the fat happy lady on the left, hanging on for dear life but also having the time of my life!


I think this one's next. 

So there's a new Tim Burton movie coming out you may or may not have heard of. Seems he is doing a movie re-imagining of the old Dark Shadows soap opera. This new Dark Shadows stars Johnny Depp, of course.
DeviantArt is honoring this movie with a new contest. I couldn't resist:

Tim Burton himself is picking the winners, so keeping fingers crossed!

The Return

For Illustration Friday.