If they were anything like my grandpa, they probably just have the scanner on quietly in the background 24/7 to get the scoop on what's going on around town. I remember walking to my grandparents' house after school and listening to the scanner right through supper. If something interesting came up, grandpa would reach over and turn up the volume out of habit.

We had first choice to keep the bear, but chose not to. From there, it's first in line to get it. They said that the person who got it called the sherriff's office within 3 minutes of our call - apparently they were listening to their scanner.

Thanks for informing me about the Native American traditions.

We had some unexpected excitement on our way home from the Bayfield Apple Festival this weekend in beautiful northern Wisconsin (south shore of Lake Superior). A 350 lb black bear decided to throw a little chop block on our motorhome. We were rolling along at about 50mph (80kph). Things turned out poorly for all involved. While the bear definitely ripped us up a little, I'm sure he was real dead on impact. None of us were hurt.

Behind all of the obvious surface damage, the front cross-frame piece is bent back about 1-2 inches. He hit us just off center running from right to left and we think he rolled underneath the front driver's side (that's left for us:) and out the side just behind the front tire. Who won? You make the call. The bear is more "intact" than the motorhome, but definitely more dead.

On a side note, is anyone here familiar with American Indian tradition? We were passing through indian land and one of the reservation police officers (Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe, I think) broke a cigarette in half and sprinkled the tobacco in a ring around the dead bear. Any idea what this means?

Oh, and the motorhome is still for sale if anyone is interested.

Happy Birthday, Susan!

Paying forward the tradition, here's a little Jack Handey humor for you on your birthday:

“Ambition is like a venus fly trap. If a frog were to sit on it, the fly trap could bite and bite but it wouldn't hurt the frog because it only has tiny little plant teeth. Then some other stuff could happen and that would be like ambition.”

Bruce, thanks for sharing your expertise on this. I am watching with interest. I may not be quite ready to sit down with the credit card, but I'm watching and learning.

yeah, I'll attach it to a PM.

cool model, Marian. I hope you don't mind me playin' with it.

bg downloaded from internet.

Nice work Al66. Vibrant color. Tight details.

Ross, you do fantastic work that makes it easy for me to produce something like this very quickly. I don't mean to take credit for creating this look, I just tweaked it a little.

For future reference, is a reference to FF technically and/or customarily sufficient when posting as such or should I look back and reference the person who created it for use at FF?

Thanks again for your excellent work you've created many of my favorite styles.

peace,
Nick

having fun playing with sketchy styles. first shot trying out the Style Builder

base style from Form Fonts

this started as a sample and I liked it so I spent some more time on it.

I've seen some stunning b&w images from some of you folks. Any hot tips, comments, constructive criticism?

Jim, ffr, I have experience this in the past and found that SU remembers the secondary screen position for tool "browsers".

So, for example, at the office I would hook up my laptop on the left side of my secondary monitor and put the browsers over there. Then when I would go home and hook my laptop up on the right side (for example), the browsers were nowhere to be found.

I had to go to display settings and reset the secondary monitor position to the opposite side and then drag the browser menus back to the main screen, etc.

Not sure if that's what caused your misplacement, but it's something to consider when using alternating dual monitor setups.

Nice work, Edson. I like the presentation.

Very nice work, Tina.

Very nice work. I like all three.

I like the contrast of the first image - it would jump out beautifully on the front of a promotional brochure, for example. I like the overall mix of the second image - most pleasing to the eye - soft mixing of the trees (I like the soft transition from sky to tree on the left better than the lined delineation of the tree on the right), and the hard lines of the building stand out nicely. The style of the third image may have its place (bold!), but I feel like this particular perspective is constrained - like I want to see more of the houses, I'm trapped in an alleyway... and how did this great big tree get here? I can see how it could be cozy, but something about this view makes it feel a little closer to claustrophobic - and the trees are devouring the houses. I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea... fwiw

Much respect for your work,
Nick

I feel like the sky, lighting, overall tone is a little drab. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself, I just like a happy sky

Very nice work.

my two cents

thanks Edson. I agree it looks better and brighter. I believe the final cabinet material will be white painted as shown.

Tina and Bruce, thanks for your encouragement. It's nice to know I've got friends here rooting for me.

Thanks everyone. I'll keep your suggestions in mind. and I'll post the next iteration here.

@lapx - I didn't notice any dark spots, you can view it via the link in my initial post. and I don't have any experience doing this in K. though it seems the concept would be the same - just render 6 images: forward, right, back, left, up, down. then grind it out in gocubic.

Thanks Tom. I agree it's a bit too saturated. I think the cabinets are to be painted anyway - so the look will be totally changed before it's done.

Gocubic is the name of the panorama generator program. Coupled with the cubicpanoout.rb it's a pretty easy and quick process. I got the rb at Ruby Library Depot.

My first customer! (Though I'm not officially "open for business", so to speak, still working out some details...

I still have some finishing touches to add (walls across the hall so it's not a big open white space, cabinet hardware, an outdoor view without a porta-potty, colors, etc.) but I would be glad to hear any suggestions on how I could do this better.

Larger Image here Kitchen SW Iso Wide Angle.jpgLarger Image here Kitchen NW Iso.jpg