Posted on May 15, 2002

• As I said yesterday, thanks for being patient with me. My unplanned trip back to Illinois really distrupted my workflow. A took a day to decompress after we got back home and then started in a new wallpaper. The end result is now up on the new images page. Though it’s called “Valley of the Sun 2002“, it bears little resemblance to the original 1998 Bryce render. I just thought the title fit.

  Anyway, I hope you like it. I know the sunlight is a little on the bright side, and I will be trying to tweak that over the next day or so. Feel free to write if you have comments or suggestions.

• A side note: I just read that Bill Peet passed away last weekend at the age of 87. Some may remember him as a Disney animator (Fantasia, 101 Dalmations, Dumbo), but I will always remember him as the author of one of my favorite childhood books: The Caboose Who Got Loose. Thanks for the inspiration Bill!

Posted on May 14, 2002

• Thanks for being patient with me. I’m working on a new World Builder image and (barring any showstopping system crashes) it should be up sometime tomorrow.

Posted on May 9, 2002

• Hi folks. The past week has been pretty rough. My step-mother, Janna, passed away last Saturday after a year-long bout with melanoma. Jessie and I left Sunday for Illinois to attend the funeral and spend some time with my father. We returned to San Diego late last night.

  No doubt some of you have tried to email me over the past week. Unfortunately someone, somewhere, thought it would be fun to send out a zillion Spams with a return address “@digitalblasphemy.com”. My server was overwhelmed by the volume of bounced mail and my email server was down from Saturday afternoon until late Tuesday evening. Any email sent to me during that time bounced back or was lost. Spammers truly suck.

  I had planned on starting a new project last weekend but instead I will try to get started tomorrow and work through the weekend. I can’t say when I’ll have a new wallpaper up, but until I do I thank you for your patience and understanding. My email is working again (I think) so please feel free to write if you have any questions.

Posted on May 2, 2002

• I’m working on a new way to integrate the Pickle Jar with the rest of the gallery. Images with alternate versions in the 2000, 2001, and 2002 galleries will now have a “Picklejar” link which will take you to another page with a thumbnail-listing of the alternates. Hopefully this will be a little more user-friendly than the old way of navigating the Jar.

  There’s still work to be done (the pre-1999 galleries, for example, are not represented in the Pickle Jar) and the formatting is still pretty rough. Have a look around and if you have any suggestions or feedback please feel free to drop me a line.

Posted on May 1, 2002

• I’ve posted one last update to “Spellcraft“. Those of you interested in the earlier posted versions can find them inside the Pickle Jar.

  A lot of you have asked if there will be a “Spellcraft” poster. The answer is yes. I’d like to have one myself. I’ll post here as soon as it’s available.