The questions are simple, the answers are not

What if you knew you wouldn't get caught, would you?

What if you loved someone who couldn't love you back, would you still love them?

What if the love of your life was happier without you, would you be happy for them? would you have the strength to move on as well?

What if you had a chance to make a a difference in a strangers life, would you? could you?

What if you only had a year to live, would you live your life differently? and if you would, why aren't you living that life now?

What if you had just one chance to go back and do a 'do over', would you? What would it be?

What if the thing(s) that you loved the most, were gone from your life, what would you do?

What if you had something serious on your mind, and walked into a field of beautiful flowers, could you stop and enjoy the moment of beauty?

Cedric, Senior

Introducing Cedric , Sr.....I want one of these!

A t ypical English dinner

My friends here in Huntsville, Bill and Joyce B, invited me to the house for a 'typical' English dinner...and what an experience ! Meat, roasted potatoes, mashed turnips and carrots and in the back there, mushed peas! and oh yes, Yorkshire pudding, everything served with gravy.

And I must say, i enjoyed every morsel of it , plus the fact that I know Joyce busted butt to fix it for me and to showcase her native country's cuisine.


My plate...just before I was about to dig in...bon Appetite!

PS - the one thing i forgot to capture was desert, and I can't pronounce it much less know how to spell it.

back to VA tomorrow and hopefully able to post some of the drawings I did while on travel

Food from the road

It's true that when you travel you always end up eating too much or eating fast food crap. Wake up, dress, hotel breakfast, meetings, lunch usually at fast food or sit down place, meetings, big meal or fast food...urg...

so last night in the big meal category, me and my colleagues went to a great little place called Paulis....steak and game and wonderful wine and escargot ! I forgot to take pix of the escargot but you get the idea of the steak, scallops and tuna we all had.

My Cowboy steak...yum yum
Ted Z's Tuna, what a presentation of food
Ryan , shown here and my govie Thadd , had the scallops....needless to say the plates were all pretty clean when we were all done

Art class nude

this is just a 20 min pose. the 1 hr pose is too big for my ity bity scanner

well for the second time, i attended my open life drawing class. this time, with a wee bit of experience under my belt i started drawing like a pro, warming up with the one minute poses, concentrating on parts that i have trouble with, etc. I wanted to scan the 1 hour pose, which is the same from week to week to give the painters in the group a continuous pose to keep working on. but i started from scratch again, and had a plan to rough out the whole body, working on all the proportions, so i didn;t draw a mis shapened dwarf again, and then work on the detail. HA - the parts I got right fixed the previous drawing errors, but I made new ones.....so i went and bought some new pencils and charcols. that should make me sketch better, don't ya think?

What if....musings while sketching -art class

1 min pose sketch....enhanced a bit with a little Photoshop.


"Musings while living"

What if you had a cell phone and it never rang?
What if you landed at a familiar airport, but nobody was there to greet you?
What if you had something important to say, would anyone listen?
What if your friends can't confide their fears and joys to you, would you still confide yours?
What if the hole in your heart never healed, could you try love again?
What if you let hurt overcome emotion, would you still hang on to hurt?
What if you are ready to face your demons, but they left town?
What if hurts never healed?
What if living in the past means your present has not significance?
What if you gave a party , and no one came?
What if you went to a party and you were the only one who came?
What if the parent now has now to become the child?
What if all the conversations you had with people from now on were doomed to be only superficial?
What if you tried to have a heavy conversation, but found you knowledge superficial?
What if you never 'got' poetry, would you still read it?
What if good is not good enough?
What if you did the right thing all your life, but found out it really wasn't right?
What if you realized you took a wrong turn in life, would you fix it?


"my love where ever I go, I take you with me..." Melissa Etheridge

Obama equals Dewey ?

and now an un-paid political announcement - your vote does count

Help, I've fallen and i can't get up!

The desk bunny is drunk with power, no wait, sleeping? no wait, i got it...eye problem - just can't see staying at work !

It started this morning

and by dinner, the crisp clean shirt I was wearing would not get a second chance to be worn again till it made the pilgrimage to the cleaners and back. thank God, i guess for big boobs, or i would have trashed my pants as well!

snuggly buggly

snuggly buggly
Originally uploaded by KrabieK and the Thrashman

my little boyz sure knows how to make the most of a nap time situation

Political lCartoon - Taxes, Ruby and Obama

With the taxing proposals [ pun intended] all that might be left in your wallet WILL be change...

Ruby been people watching again

Composite from the Sketch Book...

I started with the dragon spewing fire and snot on the steak and then just tried to work different situations and vignettes into one whole collage. I was spassing with coloring on photoshop, but pratice makes perfect, esp if you just want to fill in color and the scan of the figures doesn't have closed paths every where.

agenda man -where were you?

a bit small but click on it and it will get bigger....LOL

where was he while i was in Kansas City !!!!

Time for a new bedspread! and stranges works of art

Left over blocks of wood, painted , put together, with a dreamcatcher haning off the end most piece. I don't know what i was thinking or trying to achieve, just experimenting and letting my imagination guide me. And I hate to see raw materials in the garbage can. But one needs to be careful to cull the good stuff for saving or you end up with a foolish mess!





In keeping with the Mission Style I so like, I decided the bedspread and shams were due for a change. The old bed spread just needs some sprucing up...but this is cheery for the dank and dark I know is coming, called winter.

Kansas City - meetings and briefings

crammed into a meeting room in the Holiday Inn Conference and Suites in Overland Park aka Kansas City, my ability to draw, drink water, record notes on my laptop and just stay comfortable was limited. However, I did capture our moderator and meeting leader.

If you ever want evidence that this country is overweight, go to a meeting with government and their contractors. Polishing a seat with your butt tends to put the 'grease' down where it is needed. LOL.

BCSC-T Project....it's all yours PM/DCATS!

One of the programs we were working on, the BCSC-T, the Program Mangement was transferred over to PM/DCATS [Program Mangement /Defense Communications and Army Transmission Systems ] up at Ft Monmouth, NJ. All the guys up there that I work with are great folks and someo fo the few positive people in the government [ not ' geez, we have an issue' but 'here's what we can do to get it done'].
A while ago my PM/DCATS colleagues came down, with their boss, Cathy Young, for a transition meeting of the BCSC-T program. I draw this of Cathy while we were in the meeting. It just seemed like "what did I get myself into with these MDA folks!"

This is for you Stevie McC !

cedric jr,

photo.jpg
Originally uploaded by KrabieK and the Thrashman

when will they get off that damn conference call!

A suite! KS city

A suite!
Originally uploaded by KrabieK and the Thrashman

sometimes ya just gotta have space to work....makes the travel just a little bit easier

almost finished

Just needs a few coats of polyurthene and a bit of a touch up in the yellow area...and voila, abstract art on pressed wood

Wedding part deux

Now pronounce you Man and Wife !!!!!
The first dance started mushy and turned into a bit fiery!!!
The NY skyline did it's best to provide a twinkle to the night.
The introduction of Rob and Em - hooooyahhh...
Mort pix to include Cedric Jr's view of the wedding are at my flickr account.

Next stop, Matt & Ang - May 2009 !

Mr& Mrs Rob and Emily LaPlaca---

This weekend was the festive occasion of my neice, Emily , getting married to her love, Rob. The weather was fantastic, and after a quick 5 hr drive up to NJ Saturday morning, some quick change at the hotel, we headed to the wedding.

Rob and Em's wedding was held at Liberty State Park, in Jersey City, NJ. Ellis Island was nearby and Lady Liberty stood watch to welcome guests.


The wedding was outside and the guests looking upon the ceremony had the back drop of the NY skyline as well. Before all the guests arrived, and after the wedding party was just about finished dressing, a bride and her Dad in a moment of reflection - of things changing and life as it will be and no longer be.

Rob waiting for his bride to arrive
And once again, a moment that changes the lives of father and daughter, now a woman, but still Daddy's little girl.

Exchange of vows....

No You telework No more !

Well , the other day we got an email that was further 'guidance' to augment the Employee handbook with regard to teleworking. Geez, I am so glad I am a grown up and can be trusted...NOT

What I have been up to,

Another one of my 'recycled, repurposed' pieces of art, pressed wood that was part of a packing crate. Art instead of trash...:-)



Abstract that is currently a work in progress.....but you can see the wood texture around the sun, you know, the unpainted part.

I had my first experiance with drawing from life and models last nite. I am going to Open Life Drawing at Lorton's new Workhouse Arts , the old prision. We had 10 1 min poses, which I found out later that was supposed to be a warm up. After the first pose, and the monitor said switch, and the model struck a new pose, I was like "WAIT! I'm not done yet!" Arggggggggg.. but they actually didn't come out that bad, and served the pupose. Then we did a few 5 min poses, then 20 mins and the last was 1 hr or so. The last one, the longer one, wasn't all that bad. The ones in the middle, with the exception of maybe one scketch, almost had me going back to stick figures!
However, I do think I am up for the challenge, althought I do know that I absolutely can not [ate least not yet] do foreshortening. That and hands, and feet and faces and.......:-( Sharpening up the pencils and ready to go at it again !