Games Children Play

Posted by Jaime Buckley on Feb 7, 2010 in Growing Up, Jaime Journal, Some People's Children! | 1 comment

Our kids are spoiled. Look at all the toys, games, electronic devices and media saturated environments they are involved in? Most youth nowadays could probably break down a computer and design software if they were motivated, but can’t figure out how to have a verbal conversation with their own parents in a social setting that doesn’t allow texting.

Do you remember our lives as youth?

Hell, if I was lucky, I got to spend 20 minutes trying the cutting edge game called PONG!

I had tinker toys, leg-gos and ever-cool lincoln logs. It’s when the best football games were the ones you played live, with friends, and come home with the trophy scars of war. You remember those days, don’t you? The adults wanted you to play touch football or flag football, but as soon as the adults turned their heads long enough or left the field, the rules went out the window! Yeeeeeaaah baby!! Knees, elbows and bloody lips were the call of the day as the pig skin rolled across the ground and you dove at it to save the day.

Now the only bloody lips are from the fights of who gets the playstation controller.

What happened to creative games? Creative game play?? Using your brain to come of of new, fun ways to spend time!?

So many of us are wasting our time on things of no consequence. Crap, even business men play games of doing business, thinking it’s some kind of achievement to create a business in the realm of ‘moneyville’ while their work suffers in real life [or they could become ever more productive].

I have a lot of find memories from when I was a child and the games I played.

…ok, they were actually games other kids played on me.

…ok, they aren’t really fond memories.

…ok, they sucked actually, but I survived.

Bugger this. I’m gonna go play Mafia Wars.

Don’t Squirt Your Local Police.

Posted by Jaime Buckley on Feb 5, 2010 in Growing Up, Jaime Journal, Some People's Children! | 0 comments

I made sure mom and dad would never notice what I took from the garage. After all, it would take all the fun out of your success in deploying your diabolical plan, only to come home to a belt strap on your butt, right?

I took a little gasoline from the lawnmower, some paint thinner, an egg I had been baking in the ground out back for a month or so and some of moms wood stain. Mixed it up in a soup can. I told Christian what I planned to do with my ‘melt-in-a-bottle’ creation and being the sweet little demon he was, he eagerly joined right in.

Placing the finished concoction into the water bottle of my cool, plastic covered motorcycle bike, we road away to see if cop cars were indeed invulnerable to creative nine year olds.

We found a good corner in our neighborhood, but far enough away so mom and dad wouldn’t stumble upon us if they drove their regular route. The location had enough trees and bushed for me to hide behind and move about without being easily detected. I stashed my bike around the corner within the trees and made sure it was completely invisible. I planted the demon I called my brother on his skateboard just to the right of the corner street sign, which forced any passerby to pull over against the bushes, where I would be hiding. If it went as planned, I could cover the side of a car and get away without notice.

We were in place, armed, and ready for action.

It was a little wait, but as soon as we saw a patrolman, Christian did his thing. What a master of BS emotions he was, tears flowed like rivers down the small cheeks that looked so sweet you got cavities just looking at the little crapper. The cop noticed him as he sank his face into his hands and sobbed, his little frame delicately centered on his massive skateboard, shuddering in despair.

The cop pulled into place, perfectly in front of the bushes where I was hiding and rolled down his window.

“What’s the matter fella?” the cop said.

“I just moved here and I’m lost,” cried Christian, fussing loudly. “Do you know where I live?”

Before the cop responded I went to work, uncapping my water bottle and squirting my eye watering liquid/gel all along the side of his car, completely covering the police insignia’s.

The two talked for a couple minutes, Christian staying on his board, darting an occasional glance my way from time to time. I emptied the full contents of my bottle and watched the paint melt down the side of the vehicle before my actions were even complete. Once done, I quickly gave a thumbs up and backed into the bushes. Christian instantly perked up with a smile:

“Oh! I remember where I live! Thank you so much for the help!!” and he dashed off in the opposite direction from where we lived.

We never got caught for damaging the image of a fellow citizen. It was wrong to take advantage of someone, especially unaware. It was back handed, sneaky, destructive, irresponsible and not very nice.

I did, however, feel I had a great future in chemistry.

Well, that…or politics.

Even Brothers Have a Use

Posted by Jaime Buckley on Feb 3, 2010 in Growing Up, Jaime Journal, Some People's Children! | 2 comments

My brother Christian always had this annoying skill. He could cry at the drop of a hat. Pissed me off. Not that the skill was bad. Pretty cool actually…he just had this huge success rate of getting me blamed for all sorts of crap when we were young. I didn’t have to be in the room, but I’d get a swat later on.

I did however, find a great use for this twisted skill he had. We were young (I believe we were 9 and 7, but not positive) and had moved to a new home. In the garage, dad had all sorts of cleaning liquids. They were flammable. I know, I lit most of them on fire over the years, melting toy cars, plastic army men and making the every popular barbarian torch out of my sisters doll head, stuck on the end of a stick. Christian and I had new bikes which included water bottle attachments. Now I never knew of any friend that actually used their water bottle. At least not for water anyway. You’d be a sissy. It was used to carry contraband, like lighter fluid or gas to start a fire, rotten eggs to squirt on Sissy Hamleton as you raced by at top speed, or any other liquid you wanted to transport without the interference of a parent.

Now, in the city of Diablo, California, the houses were posh. Even by todays standards, this would be a beautiful area and the residents had their own police force patrolling the neighborhoods. Trees were many, lush and perfect for hiding in when a kid didn’t want to be seen. The combination of these facts hit me one afternoon and gave me a brilliant idea.

What would happen if I created the greatest concoction of all time, put it in my water bottle of destruction and then found a way to introduce it to the local police? They were always yelling at the kids to stay off the grass, chasing up from the golf course and bringing us home in the middle of the night because toilet papering a house just wasn’t proper. It was time for some payback. I could take my annoyingly cute and volatile little brother, plant him on the side of the road as a distraction and then introduce my mad scientist concoction to the first cop car willing to stop for the fake tear kid.

I was always quite creative as a child.

So I made a plan…

Daughters…God’s Gift to Fathers.

Posted by Jaime Buckley on Feb 1, 2010 in Fatherhood, Parenting, Some People's Children! | 5 comments

The bets have been going on for ages. All the kids have been praying for the results, and guess what?!?

It’s not a monkey! WOHOOO!!!

Can’t tell you how relieved I was to put that fear to rest. I now know for sure that we ARE having a 100% perfectly human female child! Got the call a few hours ago and though I don’t think I reacted at the moment of impact like Kathi was hoping I would…he excitement has been sinking into my mind minute by minute. There’s never been a gender preference in my mind. Ever. Oh, the exception this time was we had been praying for twins for nearly 19 years and that didn’t come to pass yet again….but past that, I just wanted to know all was good: that both Kathi and the baby were healthy.

Yes, the boys are feeling just a tad out numbered now, being only three boys to seven girls, but if you could watch them behind the scenes, all this whining is for the public drama. besides, the three of them have enough testosterone to compensate for a dozen sons (heaven help me). What they don’t say out loud is that they idolize their sisters,…and those girls have no greater pride than in their brothers. Besides, most of these girls can hold their own and clobber their brothers faster and harder than most young adult men could (they pick up martial arts rather quickly). The boys just want to have the tables leveled out.

What is it about girls that makes life so wonderful in my mind? Well, I know they don’t swear and break things in a devious manner or huck loogies.  I also know they can’t bench press a Buick or pee standing up like the boys, but they do fill my home with song, give their father hugs and kisses as I come and go to work.  They notice the things of the heart and when they smile, life is just…better.  Yeah, I’m smitten by my daughters, but they give me a stronger desire to change the world. I know, I know, it probably sounds corney, but I’m serious here. They make me want to roll up my sleeves and bend this world into a better shape than it is…or burn my life out trying.

Why?  For them.

You see, my view of men and women has always been the same: The females are just as noble, strong (in their own unique ways), intelligent and filled with talent and passion as men. But to me, they bring a special light, a refinement and a joy to the soul that another male just can’t create. Not in my mind, anyway. Oh, I’m not so foolish to know there aren’t exceptions, but my daughters have been raised to be something I feel is lacking more and more in this wide world: good, virtuous, noble, pure women. We are the ones who should be beating the snakes and smoothing the road so that they can walk, unmolested in this world.

Maybe that’s why I’m so blessed: because I’d skin any male who tries to tarnish that purity. Who knows. I dearly love my girls and they are the pride of their father’s heart.

Just my opinion, but then again, they’re are my daughters.

The Heavens Sighed With Relief

Posted by Jaime Buckley on Feb 1, 2010 in Growing Up, Jaime Journal, Some People's Children! | 0 comments

On May 27^th 1969 I think the great heavens above breathed a sigh of relief as I was promptly shoved into a body and sent here to Earth. Now that I’m 40 years old and have experience as a father myself, I’m pretty sure my personality in Heaven drove my family there to the verge of insanity. They couldn’t wait to have at least a tiny break from the teasing, the opinions on everything and the constant chasing of my future wife Kathilynn to get a kiss.

I’m not so sure about that last part, but I chase her all the time now, so it tends to reason.

My religion teaches me that our lives in Heaven before we came here [Earth] were very similar; with close family associations and personalities such as we have here. That’s incredible in one respect, but it gets me wondering: how much trouble was I in up there?

I have a hard time imagining my Father in Heaven running behind me while I marked up the clouds with a stray black bull nib screaming “THAT’S IT! I’M COUNTING TO FIVE YOUNG MAN!”

The more I think about it, the more I start wondering if Father in Heaven is bald. The stress I caused had to be horrible.

So I was sent to Earth and was born in Oakland California to Daniel and Rosina Buckley.

…who unfortunately had no idea what they were in for.

Good thing we’re all born [relatively] cute.

Helping American Families

Posted by Jaime Buckley on Jan 31, 2010 in Work | 0 comments

I’ve been on this crusade for over 3 years at the point of this article, and I have to say the results are exciting…especially now that we have switched our attention to an immediate and more tangible subject than debt: food! I’m a big cootie and food is one of my loves in this life.

When my brothers and I started this adventure, which quickly grew into a literal crusade to save the American Family from debt, we had a goal of influencing 365 families with a system of debt reduction. That’s a loft goal: one family every day of the year.

But we worked hard and there were many nights I didn’t see my own family, but I was supported in this worthy cause by those who love me. At the end of the first calendar year, we (myself, Lee Bradshaw, Brad Lavery and Ondi Allred) sat back and did a tally of the results.

We had nearly tripled our original goal.

Almost 900 families had been affected by our message and system in a positive way! The average client was saving $125K-150K in future mortgage interest and at least 10 years from their mortgages…along with eliminating ALL THEIR OTHER DEBT!! We also started converting professionals in many fields who now see a tool and vehicle to help their own clients do more than dig a bigger hole into debt. People from the mortgage fields, real estate fields, insurance and even construction fields started learning about what we do and how we help people.

Over time, we converted bankers, credit unions and other lending institutions to our way of thinking and that was only the beginning…or so we thought.

The economy changed to where people had more of a need to keep their homes than paying them off! Yet the waves continued to hit, week after week, and those who were not prepared for this type of financial landscape…those who had listened to the so-called “professionals” in the financial field, lost their investments and many lost their homes. This, coupled with the instability of the job market started a chain reaction that has affected every family without exception in one degree or another.

So where are we now? We are looking to help solve the most basic fundamental need a person can have: food. Most particularly feeding children and struggling families.

Lee Bradshaw has been dreaming of this for over a decade, and after we had our own families hit by wave after wave of financial storms, we just didn’t feel a desire to be in the upper ends of the financial world when so many were suffering all around. The system Lee had utilized on a small scale was perfectly capable of supplying food to as many people as required. All we needed was the man power and tools, along with your organic donations.

The system is The Backyard Harvest Project. A way to utilize the food we are wasting each and every year from our own back yards, by allowing our team to come in, care for your plants, harvest the food and take the larger portion to those in need.

In 2009, within minimal help, the Bradshaw family grew, harvested, processed and distributed 50,000lbs of food to those in need! That was without funding, without a proper set up and without support. Today Lee is putting all his efforts into The Backyard Harvest Project, because he’d like to create 500,000lbs of food for those in need this year!

Can he do it? Absolutely, so long as he has the donations and the help from people like you in the community.

Not only that—but this project is not limited to Utah! HECK NO!! If you want to start a branch and become the Hero in your own community, Lee can show you how! Just get on over to The Backyard Harvest Project and contact Lee via email. He responds to everything personally, so you’ll get a hold of him sure enough.

We have the answers to so many of our economic problems, if we will just take the time to look, and then work together to achieve them.

The Perfect Ink (The Voodoo Mix)

Posted by admin on Jan 30, 2010 in eComic Lesson, Work | 2 comments

Each artist has their own ways of creating their stories. We have favorite tools, we have a favorite style, whether emulated or unique in our own right.

However, if you are making a comic book in a traditional form, and you have to perform inking…we all have a specific need in common, and that’s the right ink.

There are as many brands of inks that you can use, as there are pens and brushes. However, getting the right consistency is something we all strive for. Why?

Well, if you have ink that’s too thin, you’ll get splotch marks throughout your work—and when scanning, you’ll be doing a great deal of cover-up work. I had that problem myself during he first year of WANTED:HERO, and let me tell you—the last thing you want to do, is spend double the amount of time, inking—because you have to go over everything twice!

If you have ink too thick, you’ll find your pen nibs or brushes gumming up, which can not only be a pain—but it can ruin some brushes if left too long to dry.

So, the question is….how do we get an ink that is black as midnight, pliable, and consistent? Many message boards on the web pose that very dilemma.

Well, I have an answer for you—so grab a pen and paper.

If you have never heard of Dick Blick art supplies…these guys are huge (largest in the USA) and they have the thickest ink I have ever seen in 20 years of cartooning. Go to dickblick.com, and look up “inks”. There you will find the gold in a jar, called “Black Cat”…and they Do mean BLACK. Not only is this stuff as dark as you can get, it’s also very inexpensive. Only $14.99 for a full QUART! However, they run sales most of the time, and I buy the same amount for only $10.98. This ink has been around since 1911.

Now, you can experiment with this ink, by thinning it with water…or you can add one more step, which is what I do. I use “Higgins” water proof India Ink, and simply mix ¼ Higgins, to ¾ Black Cat. When I open the container, before working with the ink—I simply take the back end of a brush, and stir the ink for about 30 seconds, wipe off the handle of the brush, and stat working. The consistency stays the same for over an hour, at which time I simply stir the ink solution again.

…and there you have it—a good, consistent black ink you can rely on, day after day.