Chauffeuring and Sketching

"Journal" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.5, 1/125 sec, ISO2500
“Journal” Cedar Park, 2017

こんばんは。How’s it going?

This evening was a busy one for me. I dropped my son and his friend off at a concert downtown, which meant a lot of driving! They had to be at the venue at 6:30 pm for a VIP meet-n-greet, then, of course, the concert lasted until after midnight, so I made a second trip to pick them up. But, the kids got to meet the band, saw the show from right in front of the stage, and had a great time. An hour and a half of chauffeuring is a small price to pay to give them a nice memory that will last a lifetime.

After I dropped them off, I stopped by BookPeople again and bought a few more small notebooks. I am planning on using them for my daily journaling. I started using a larger notebook recently for the journal, but since I decided to switch to the small notebooks, I cut out the two days I wrote in the large one and taped into the small one. It’s not pretty, but who cares?

"Ink Doodling" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.5, 1/125 sec, ISO2000
“Ink Doodling” Cedar Park, 2017

Back at home, I did some quick sketching using my LAMY Safari broad nib and Noodler’s Bulletproof black ink. It’s fun, although I don’t think I like any of the faces except the two in the bottom-left corner. But at least I did work on some eyebrows, and practice is good, right?

I also did a sketch looking at a reference sketch by @cyarine, who is an amazing artist. I love her work! I think drawing from reference photos is fun and helpful. It’s almost like getting into the mind of someone else… maybe not that much, but something like that. I guess?

"Reference Sketch" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.5, 1/125 sec, ISO2000
“Reference Sketch” Cedar Park, 2017

To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.

I hope you had a nice evening!

おやすみ

🐱 Toast

"Cat on Toast' Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.5, 1/50 sec, ISO6400
“Cat on Toast’ Cedar Park, 2017

こんばんは。How’s it going?

Tonight’s photo is yet another one of our cats. But this one is a little different because Yuzu is relaxing on a giant piece of toast! It’s actually a really soft pillow but the illusion is really convincing, isn’t it?

This evening I spent some time working on a drawing on the computer. Specifically, I concentrated on using the pen tool in Photoshop to make smooth selections, then filled them with black. And then I had a little fun by making the skin a bright pink.

"Pink' Cedar Park, 2017
“Pink’ Cedar Park, 2017

The original sketch is one I did a few weeks ago, so if it looks familiar, that’s why. 😀

To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.

I hope you had a nice Thursday!

おやすみ

ASUS RT-AC1200 Router and Chromecast

I wanted to post this little PSA in hopes it helps save someone a bit of frustration.

We recently switched our ISP (Internet Service Provider) and needed to buy a new router. We went with the ASUS RT-AC1200 router, which isn’t gigabit, but since our service’s bandwidth caps at 100 Mbps, we didn’t need the extra throughput.

For the most part, the router works great, but we did have some trouble with getting our Google Chromecast to work with the router. It had trouble keeping connected to the ASUS router. Even the setup via laptop or smartphone was difficult and wouldn’t finish successfully. Sometime we’d be able to see the Chromecast from other devices, and the Chromecast even indicated that it was connected to our network, but it we couldn’t cast with any reliability. I tried many things, and finally figured out the correct setting for the router.

TL;DR

Make sure the 2.4GHz access point is set to “Legacy”. Also, you may try disabling IPv6. If that doesn’t work, the last thing to try is to disable the router’s firewall feature.

After setting this, and rebooting the router, the Chromecast stays connected to the network and we can cast from all devices without problems!

Tuesday

"Gyudon" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/125 sec, ISO2000
“Gyudon” Cedar Park, 2017

こんばんは。How’s it going?

This evening I spent a few hours fixing my motorcycle blog. Apparently, it got hacked and there were a ton of spam links inserted into all the posts. And some of the posts got combined… I’m not sure how it happened, but I noticed that I had disabled my security plugin so that probably contributed to the problem.

I found there were three suspicious users named “Admin” also, so I removed those, ran a security scan, changed my password, and then got to hand-cleaning the posts. I think it’s all okay now!

Tonight’s first photo above is of dinner. Mariko made a gyudon (beef over rice) which was so yummy! I could eat this every single day. That white blob on top is an egg, but it was a bit over-done. Still delicious!

The second photo (below) doesn’t need any explanation. 🐱

"Contact" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: Motorola Moto G (4), 3.64mm, f/2, 1/30 sec, ISO125
“Contact” Cedar Park, 2017

I hope you had a nice Tuesday!

おやすみ