Monday skechbook: The dangers of a lay ministry

A while back we attended our church meetings in another ward. The Sunday school lesson was pretty close to this, except we didn't look up anything in the Book of Revelation.

...then tweet your report!

It's the last Sunday of the month. If you haven't done your home teaching yet, you might try this!

Important safety reminder

I found I had this left over from earlier this year, and it seemed a timely reminder to be careful in school zones.

Off the plan

Blast from the past

I found this OLD oldie behind one of my file drawers a while back. This is one I did back in high school...that was, like, more than five years ago. It's ancient!

Ever learning, never able to come to a knowledge

I forgot last week to make mention of BYU's Education Week, a Continuing Education program. I used to go to it all the time when I was a kid; nowadays I have to supplement my education by reading good books. Like Fluffy.

Today's happy thought!

For four weeks, the main entrance to BYU was blocked because of construction. To hear some people it was like the end of the world! How could they possibly get up to campus? I mean, besides the several other routes and detours that were available? Somehow we all managed to make it through, and both the road and campus are still standing.

Monday skechbook: It ain't what it used to be

There's a gas station just down from our house that closed up a while back. As we drove by it one day, some wise guy made this crack.

To Nephi, seer

You gotta wonder.

What's up?

Voices carry

It's true. We had a very strict "no ventriloquists" policy.

Right. Or, to use the vernacular of the day, NOT!

Hello, hello

I know the cliché is a Chinese echo, but I don't know Chinese! So greetings from the Land of the Morning Calm instead!

Triptych

This is an illustration of a Korean story -- only I can't remember which one! I like the style. You can tell it's a Korean story because they always start out happy and wind up sad...well, maybe not always, but it happens a lot in Korean literature.

You don't look a day over 499!

I just reached a milestone of 500 posts! That's kind of amazing to me. When I started out, I wasn't sure just how long I could go before running out of cartoons. I never realized that I had so many (although I have to admit that there are a couple that were accidentally repeated -- I'll leave it to you to find them!). In celebration of this auspicious (to me, at least) event, I'm purposely rerunning the first entry, which was also my first published cartoon.

I still have quite a few left. I promise to keep 'em coming (but I can't promise they'll get any better!).

Now go have a piece of cake on me!

Monday skechbook: Error 404

Admit it. You’ve done it. Almost everyone with an Internet connection has.

You’ve googled yourself. And possibly one or two of your friends.

I did that just the other day. Most of the stuff that comes up is work related, either with the Oregon Department of Transportation (including its subsidiary, the DMV), or with the Utah DOT.

This time I went to the “image” results. My cartoon blogs were there (Beckstrom Buzz, Zarahemla Times, and even Good Heavens). But what surprised me was that I showed up on other sites as well.

Cool.

Then I went to one of the sites to see. Motleyvision.org had an entry that explored the world of Mormon comix (their spelling). Cool, I thought again. Then I tried to find where I was referenced.

Not in the main body.

In fact, I didn’t show up until the second half of the 53rd follow-up comment. Does that even deserve a W007?

Anyway, it was kind of cool. I also garnered a mention in sixteensmallstones.org with another entry on LDS entertainment on the Web. I feel like Steve Martin's character in the movie The Jerk: "My name is in the phone book! I'm somebody!"

Special guest artist: Dale Kilbourn

This is an old one from The New Era many moons ago where they used my idea and had one of their artists do the artwork. Good job, Bro. K!

Crank it

I modified the text to modernize it a bit. If you look closely, you can see it's not an iPod he's holding -- it's a Sony Walkman, which was on the cutting edge of technology at the time!

Push the escape key

We often have a debate at work about access to certain Web sites: namely, the Communications people want to be able to use social media in the marketing mix. It often comes down to a debate between accessibility versus security, and one of the big threats to security is viruses or malware. Since the IT people are in charge of both security and accessibility, they usually win. But they're working with us -- so far we have a presence on Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and access to Facebook. We're getting there.

Turn it to the left

It may not be nearly as cool (pardon the pun) as Al Gore's presentation, but here's my theory: I think there's someone up in Canada who has been messing with the controls!

Real men don't need 'em!

Of all the theories about what cave art really means, I think this is the most likely.

Extreme makeover

When's the last time you saw a phone booth?

Monday sketchbook: Skeletons

I like the simplicity of this drawing, the juxtaposition of the skeletons and just how bored everyone looks with what could be a creepy situation.

The heat is on

I asked our elder in Arizona if this was true. He didn't bother to answer me.

Cleanup on 189!

The construction work on University Avenue (aka US 189) kicked up a lot of dust, which generated a few complaints. Rather than a vacuum, however, they brought in sprinkler trucks to try to keep the dust down. Makes more sense, I guess.

And Toto, too

Here's one of my little claims to fame. Not this cartoon, but the cartoon reminds me of a story.

Several years ago, there was a huge wreck on I-84 in eastern Oregon due to a dust storm that blew through the area and created zero visibility conditions on the freeway. Dozens of cars and trucks crashed in the few minutes of darkness.

That part isn't my claim to fame, though.

A few years later, when I was working as the public information officer for DMV, I got a call from a mystery writer from Portland, April Henry. She was doing research for a new book, and she wanted to use the crash as a starting point. As PIO, I had access to the accident records, and walked her though the official account of what happened. As a result, she gave me credit in the acknowledgments of her book Learning to Fly. I helped her with a couple of other books as well, mostly her Claire Montrose mysteries.

I got an e-mail from her a little while back, looking for some help with a new book. So buy all of April's books and look for my name in the acknowledgements!

• Visit April's blog (even though it's on a rival host!)

Cowabunga, dude!

I'm glad there weren't a lot of people who thought about doing this.

That sinking feeling

Because the road ran right through the middle of town and we wanted to get it open to traffic as soon as possible, the contractor used a quick-cure concrete that would be ready in about half the time. Of course the idea of quick concrete got me thinking about quicksand, and I came up with this.

He chutes!

It was really cool to see a whole fleet of mixers lined up to place the concrete. Some of them had to have really long chutes to get the concrete to where it needed to go. It seemed like it would be fun to take a ride down one, kind of like one of those log flume rides -- only it was full of concrete, which might take a little fun out of it. This is another one I'm proud of: I like the onomatopoeia of "splork," which is exactly what it sounds like to fall face first into wet concrete.

Monday skechbook: raindrops keep fallin' on my head

A certain brother-in-law of mine, who served as a missionary in Ecuador, told us of one day they were confined to their apartment due to some political emergency or something or other. It was hot, so rather than waste the day sitting and sweltering inside, they went up to the roof of their apartment building and, in the name of service, helped cool off the population below by means of water balloon.

I have no way of independently verifying this report, but I suspect it's true.

A pure heart, anyway...

I bet I tried this same argument with my mom!

Not fade away

This is one of my personal favorites of Explore Provo. I've always liked those old "old (blanks) never die, they just (blank)" jokes. I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with my own version!