Dear Friends

Hello Friends! Its been a crazy week. I made some new friends, got reacquainted with some old friends and sadly I lost a friend... all in the expanse of 2 weeks. This image is the piece I created for the faculty show that has just passed at my school. The horizontal lines in the piece was my lack of having a Wacom pen (I lost it earlier this week) and being too lazy at the moment to get crazy with it in Photoshop. I had dinner this week with my new friends Raphael and his lovely wife Beena. I feel very fortunate that the piece has a great home and even more importantly I received the gift of new friendship. About 2 weeks ago I received an email from my old friend from high school, Lacey, whom we are friends from art classes. Its crazy how things like facebook and google can get people reconnected to each other again. As powerful as the search tools are thats created from the internet culture the aspects of friendship is even greater. Even reading her email it seems like time never passed. I also got a chance to talk with another old friend from junior high/high school too. I went to Guitar Trader last Saturday and I haven't stopped by there in years. It was the place I bought my first guitar back in '93. I was just messing around with a few guitars and talked with the sales rep there just to find out that my old friend Mike is teaching guitar lessons there. And sadly, the next day was Earth Day celebration at Balboa Park. Don't take it the wrong way, Earth Day is great; it helps makes us aware of our human connection and responsibility to this world. It was just that I saw my friend James, whom I ride bicycles with, and exchanged some conversation with just as I was leaving in the afternoon. The very next day I received a call from my friend Jeanette that he passed away. It was really bizarre. He was so full of life the day I saw him and maybe in a way it was our way of saying "see you later" for the last time. We just had the memorial today and strangely enough I saw one of the current students at the school I'm teaching at there too. I happened to sub for Tyson's class about a year ago, just one class, and we say whats up to each other at school. Just to find out later that he's been friends with james for a very long time. Crazy how the world works sometimes. i definitely believe in karma and just the recent events this past week really has me thinking a lot about life in general. To all my old and new friends, including the ones that we haven't met yet and are reading this from around the world, please take care and say what's up sometimes. I want to enjoy many simple and happy moments with you guys and gals again.