Category Archives: Whimsical

Whimsical

It’s Just a Scratch!

“Sometimes the delete key is your greatest friend.”   – Steve Martin, “Pure Drivel”

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This certainly true for me. I’m constantly aware of my tendency to add too much extraneous detail. But in a quest to avoid perfectionism, it is a requirement to avoid over-editing, even when it might make the post or point much more interesting.

“Bonus level Jesus people.” I saw this phrase last week and it struck a chord with me immediately. I’m assuming you can imagine the inherent mockery in the context of the first time I read it? It’s one thing to meet a very personable person, someone with enthusiasm and charm, another to be kidnapped by a sudden verbal left turn into over-the-top religious nutjobbery.  I’m sorry, but no thanks, I don’t want to hear about how Noah’s ark is in modern day Iran. Please have pity on me!

“Just because someone blows smoke at me doesn’t mean I have to inhale it.” I apologize for not having the original source. In my defense, I saw it somewhere that I know for a fact wasn’t the source. I enjoyed the potential usefulness of this trite saying tremendously and can’t wait for the perfect opportunity to unwrap this zinger and mash it into someone’s nostrils.

“Life doesn’t make any sense, and we all pretend it does. Comedy’s job is to point out that it doesn’t make sense, and that it doesn’t make much difference anyway.”
― Eric Idle

Gift, Whimsical

111242014 Creative Wrapping and Decoration

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Each of these packets is actually individually wrapped layers of envelopes, with each containing cash and pictures, bundled together into two separate packs.

I wish I had done a better of keeping pictures of all the hundreds of crazy wrapping and decoration jobs I’ve done over the years.

“The Dirty Sanchez.” My friend Chris got a surprise, using a funny picture I had drawn on the table at a mexican place where we had shared a meal. His wife asked me to quickly wrap it to conceal what it was, so naturally, I dragged out my picture of my on-the-fly artwork.

An example of a personalized letter envelope I made. I have made 100s of these over the years, usually in bright colors. For some reason, I liked this one in negative colors. When I was much younger, I once made weekly payments for a used car by making a different decorated envelope for each week’s payment. The lot manager had a display in his office with my payment envelopes on it.

A holding/storage box. Probably 2,000 strips of tape, a few hundred stickers, paper slivers, etc. The inside was completed decorated, too. One time, while working at Cargill, I had made one of these for someone’s son. As hard as it is to believe now, it took me about 60 hours of work, had several compartments, 2 of which weren’t visible and wouldn’t work if you didn’t know to press the inside corner to drop the extra compartments open. I don’t have pictures of it anymore.

Simple newspaper wrapping paper, shrouded in 4 8X11 color pictures of the recipient.

I wrapped this box with special photo art paper, then used a couple of dozen personalized pictures to cover the box on all 6 sides. Inside the top paper, there was an entire layer of about 60 wallet-size individual pictures, too.

From a few years ago. I used pictures after making them appear as pencil outline drawings. He loved the box!

This present is wrapped in special red paper, then covered with 200+ bandaids as a decoration. (She used to be a nurse, but the real reason I used them is because it’s cool and no matter how you apply the bandaids, it looks interesting.

From a few years ago. You can see that I used both color photos and outline pictures on colored paper to wrap many of the presents.
Gift, Holiday, Whimsical

11212014 Great Kid Ornaments

The picture above is an example of xmas ornaments I used to make out of color photos, stickers, paint/fingernail polish, and tape. By putting the year on the photo, I could indicate how old the child was, as well as the year. After a few years, any tree begins to tell a story of who is in the family. It was something that I could get one child to help with another child’s ornament.

Whimsical

11152014 Is a Picture Worth More Than a 1,000 Words

This is an awesome picture of Mark Adams and his brother.

I’m sure that the person snapping the picture way back in the day caught the brothers unaware.

However, Mark’s “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” expression and his haircut combined with the bewildered look of weirdness on his brother Roy’s face is indicative of a classic picture to me.

I can’t help but laugh, after all these years of seeing it.

Whimsical

New Government Agency – The WTF

fbi2

I had a brilliant idea for the Feds. Instead of the ATF, CIA or FBI, why not create a Special Task Force and call it WTF? They could show up in force and knock down your door and scream “What the F happened here?” No matter how badly they perform their job duties, you could excuse it away by saying “Well, they are the WTF. WTF did you expect?” You’re welcome.

Whimsical

10092014 Random Goofiness…

This is a view of my Aunt Marylou’s yard. Godzilla, of course, wasn’t actually there!

“Each of us secretly believes ourselves to be immune from stroke, cancer, heart attack or sudden unpredictable illness and decay…” -X

Social Rules, Whimsical

09232014 Stapp’s Ironical Paradox


 
Stapp’s ironical paradox: “The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle.”
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P.S. This picture is of my dad, after he miraculously avoiding being killed after driving into a holler while incredibly intoxicated. True Story, too…