Confessions of a Quirky Christian Artist

When I was younger I used to speed constantly.  It honestly never entered my mind that I should NOT drive 10 - 20 miles over the speed limit.  Here is one of the reasons why: I had concocted a metaphor about the freeway.  (Technically a simile, but no one knows what I’m talking about when I use that word.)  The drivers are like wildebeests stampeding across the savanna, and the police are like the lions who randomly pick them off one by one.  Because of this metaphor and its premise (that I never consciously spelled out), I was a hapless victim every time I got a speeding ticket.  I could not take responsibility for my actions any more than a wildebeest could take responsibility for being a delicious galloping steak dinner for lions.   One day, after yet another ticket, my wife suggested that I stop speeding.  Mind blowing, I know.  Well it actually WAS mind blowing to me at the time.  I think it’s been 7 or 8 years since then and I’ve not gotten a speeding ticket in that time.  

I took two weeks off over the Christmas/New Year time and it was close to the perfect combination of relaxing with friends and family along with getting a lot of work done on my side projects.  I finished a fun game (Tomb Raider) and started a new one. (BioShock: Infinite) I feasted like a king.  Gained around 10 lbs and a couple inches on my belly.  I’ve been meticulously tracking the calories because I want to see what an average day of intake when I’m just enjoying myself looks like.  Turns out it’s between 3 and 4 thousand calories.  I’m happy to see that I’m not having any trouble transitioning back to my 1,500 cal/day norm.  My estimate is that it will take me 3-4 weeks to get back to my weight plateau and 6-8 weeks to reach my belly inch plateau.   I’m really excited that I got a second wind on my over-two-year-old sculpture project: Barba the Colossus.  I had no idea how I was going to tackle a particular problem with sculpting a bunch of fiddly architectural detail onto the