Well, I thought it was time to finally pipe up and say something after much time of silence and neglect. This account certainly wasn't forgotten.

It's a long story on what happened, but to paraphrase, things did not go quite as smoothly as planned. We met a new friend. His name was Murphy and he would not give us a moment to breathe (For those foreign or perhaps not catching the joke, I am referring to Murphy's Law). The biggest snag was probably losing my wallet which containg my ID the second day we arrived. This not only prevented me from acquiring a job, but also applying for the apartment. The property manager of this complex just happens to be extremely strict and by the book and she came down on my roommate Slash with extreme prejudice. After almost a month of crashing on a friend's couch while trying to acquire all the proper information to fight her denial of our application, she finally gave in.
This warranted yet another trip back to SoCal to retrieve my belongings (By the end I made the trip from LA to Portland six times in total) and then the work of moving in and acquiring a job.

I'm finally out of my two week training, I'm working full time at a job I'm actually enjoying, and I will be making money to live quite comfortably again. A luxury I haven't tasted since late '05.

So things are finally smoothing out and I can get back to working hard towards an art career, meaning more activity here.

Also thanks to all the new watchers who have been coming in, favoriting images, etc. I do appreciate it