Vacations and Secrets

Well, Stephanie will be in town tonight. Yay! (By the way, if your name is Stephanie and we've been dating for about three years, stop reading now. It will make sense later.)

Stephanie and I will be celebrating our anniversary by going to Myrtle Beach on Sunday. We'll return to our normal lives on Wednesday.

Stephanie has arranged for us to stay at Ocean Creek Resort. It looks fabulous. We plan to have a nice romantic dinner one night and another go to Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville. Definately look at the link, especially the photos under the "Group Parties" section. This should be fun.

Here are some pictures of the resort.





It will be a great trip. She's flying into Atlanta tonight. We'll borrow the dog for tomorrow (pictured below) and then it's off to our beach paradise!



Changing topics...

Madog has been working on a secret project. It's been super top secret stuff. I'm probably not suppose to be bloging about it because I wasn't given specific permission to.

Black Bunny posted something about it (with approval). Check out The Palpatine Project.

It is really worth looking at. I'm just impressed that I know people capable of pulling off such a feat.

Now, back to Stephanie. And Liz! I put it down here in case Stephanie does for some reason read this blog before our Myrtle trip. It's unlikely. I don't think she looks at work (at least she SHOULDN'T look at work).

Anyway, I asked Liz to create a watercolor for Stephanie. She saw one at Jesse's some time ago and loved it. It was a happy dragon.

I put in some requests, and this is the amazing result.



A happy, donut-loving purple dragon! I really love it. In fact, I made it into a shirt that will come to Disney with me.

This will not be the only present. Just in case she sees this or someone spills the beans, I'll avoid posting the larger gift until after the trip.

In case you haven't already, look at Liz's blog, Puppatoons Blog. There you can read about her own secret project for her main squeeze (Steve) and some ghostly new creations of her own. Not nearly as scary as Madog's, but cute in a ghoulish sort of way. This includes the puppet, Vapor. I really like it!

I'll repost something after Myrtle.

Oh, by the way, I am done with school until Disney. And I only have four Braves games left.

I Want To Be A Vitale!

Yesterday was the celebration of Steve Vitale's birthday.

I want to be a Vitale!

They are living the life I wish I could live. Steve and Liz are both artists with Steve mostly specializing in animation while Liz has some speciality in puppetry.

My very first job I every applied for was with the Jim Henson Company. I was rejected. I was also about 10 or so at the time. But I loved the idea of puppateering. It was by far the nicest rejection letter I've ever recieved. It recommended I keep practicing and made some suggestions for some puppet colleges.

Anyway, so I saw Liz's workshop with puppet parts everywhere. Foam and fur everywhere! Her newest creation is a Jersey Devil. He didn't have any eyes which actually made the horned, goat footed beast a little more scary.

Liz operates puppatoons.com along with Steve. Below are some pictures I ripped from her site. And a slide show I ripped from Gina. The slide show is of Coco the Dragon at the Reinessance Fair. The bird is Frash, a Thrashers inspired puppet making it on the big screen. The blue thing is Mo, the main star of Puppatooons.

Steve showed off his animation studio in the basement. Complete with tons and tons toys. I mean, wall to wall, floor to ceiling toys. Mostly Star Wars. Now I've been a Star Wars fan for quite a while as well. The only thing I've like before Star Wars was Ghostbusters.

And they've got that too! Liz walked out with a proton pack on. Full operational proton pack. Well, it lights up. It doesn't shoot out streams of pure energy. But other than that.

I didn't take my camera and I am kicking myself!

Maybe Captain from the The Black Bunny will post some of pictures soon.