Its been a bit. Been slugging it out with myself, truth be told its been a hard few years... not to say there has been many good things as well.
We lost my sister on new years.... She was a year younger than I (im the oldest) She struggled with drug addiction and it caught up to her... Its been tough she and I are the only ones in my family that had to grow up like we did well the only one who KNEW the hardships we had growing up all biker gangsta life and all the shit that comes when your dad is a 1% er and mom a stripper....
Covid..... Before covid I started working at a bread shop. Its kinda a big deal in the bread world. Well the owner Don is. I do it all there mix, shape, and learning the baking and scoring atm.
Went to my first concert in years a few weeks back. Got to see Brother Ali!! With the Travelers tour. Check out his podcast its amazing. https://www.brotherali.com/
Ill be heading out to my first ESL event in quite some time. I am super excited to be a part of a gaming event once more. Stockholm Major here I come. Hope you can see some of my work during the event, though Ill be sure to share photos I get. you can see some photos from other events Ive done gaming or non gaming! https://www.instagram.com/balloonsforgamers/
Bought a bike about 9-10 months ago. Managed to get a ticket 2 weeks ago so im sorting that out before my wife lets me back on it. Speeding, spliting lanes, and not having my MC endorsement. Ive slacked on the endorsement covid/ down computers and laziness has kept me from getting that done. Though I can clear that up once I get back from Sweden and take a class to take care of one other ticket and pay the other and Ill be back to riding legal like!
October will be 20 years since I created this account. I am so thankful for this site the community and where it is and will be in the future.... thank you all for giving me a little spot to be my weird awkward self I mean well!!!
Hope to see ya soon ....
Got a question Id love to answer.... Always down for putting myself out there.
FuDD
Some youtube music you might not be familiar with but speaks to me
Wow, you are an unbelievable balloon wizard as always, looks phenomenal!! Sorry to hear about your family, I know that is hard. Stay strong brother, your work looks amazing!
Hey FuDDx! What a delight to hear from you. I love seeing more of your amazing baloon art, so thank you for sharing it here. My daughter got into balloon sculpture a few months ago and filled our house with birds and pineapples and dogs and every imaginable thing, and I showed her as much of your stuff as I could find as inspiration. I'll be showing her and my other kids this post, as well; they're all pretty hard core gamers like their Papa, so they'll be as delighted as I am.
Your new job sounds amazing. If I ever find myself in the Tucson area I'll definitely drop by for a couple of loaves.
I'm so sorry to hear about your sister. What a terrible loss.
My daughter just graduated from the UofA and has been accepted into the Occupational Therapy program through NAU but the school is in Phoenix(ASU) not Flagstaff (NAU).
My wife teaches and is a fellow at the UofA and was able to congratulate the students in person this year. wife and daughter Son and daughter
Thank you TelecoM! Appreciate the kind words!
AmericanUmlaut! Hi yo! So glad to hear about your daughter getting into balloons! They are so much fun and to be able to bring smiles and connect to so many is a true blessing. I never realized how much my mental health was improved by being able to connect with others . Balloon-animals on youtube has many great free tutorials if you guys have yet to see Mikes stuff. Bread life is fun but hard on the body. Early work times when mixing or baking. Slinging big bags of flour and then adding tons of water to it folding pulling dough out etc..
Yeah the loss of my sister is numbing...and so raw and empty pain filled hole....some days are better than others I try to spend much more time with my extended family and parents my other brother and sister etc.
I follow Proof Bakery on YT, they should be somewhere in your area and we also have a fantastic baker at our Saturday market over here in the Southeast.
Still miss some of the variety of some of the good bakers in Germany though.
But yeah, cannot be easy to be an artisanal baker.
Not even 19 years on TL for me yet, what a newb I am!
Yea Proof produces some good bread . The current owner of proof bought it from a guy who learned bread baking from Don my boss . Proof are about 2 hours north of us in the Phoenix area . Barrio Bread is in Tucson the first unesco food destination city in the USA!
It’s pretty neat to see how quickly we sell out of bread! We open at 9am and we’ve sold out within an hour and a half before . And that’s close to 1k loaves! We are in the slow season atm (everyone leaves for summer , college kids back home and our “snowbirds” head back to summer homes in cooler weather.
That's "my" baker (Corey Hinkel). Although he went back to doing only Saturday market + some bread for restaurants. I've seen up to 30-40 people waiting in line on Saturday, he's pretty good.
I really should try baking bread at home!
I'll check out Barrio Bread if I ever make my way to southern AZ, I've really only been to the Grand Canyon as part of my LV-Zion-Bryce-GC(South rim)-LV road trip, but there's more I want to see out there.
Mix seems like a really cool spot ! Would love to check them out if I ever get out that way! I enjoyed reading that article thank you!
Yea I miss my sister and really wish I had spent more time with her …. It was hard though she was living a life I wanted no part in ….
Time to walk over to Ikea to get some knot lamps (floor lamps) I tear em apart and use them for balloon stands. 30 min walk hope I don’t get lost lol!!
Got to meet and talk to many fans, players , production, well from everywhere and that's one of the most amazing things is getting to connect with each and everyone of everyone in this amazing community! <3
Some fans managed to get me the Liquid players signatures witch I was so touched that they did that. Even not following the game so much I will always root for TeamLiquid and be wearing my tl gear!! Even got to talk to a couple guys boxi and the player manager? and another player?? Oh my ... im bad.. so many people !!
I managed to snag a few pics I hope someone might have some others?
Thank you ESL James for getting this started Naz and the entire TL community/teams/crew...etc. You all have played parts in allowing me to live out some of my bigger dreams...Id love to do so much more ...never know keep reaching..
Some of them I wouldn't mind trying out. Pretty insane the amount of torque you can get of electric and eventually the mode drag community's ...ehh I really do love the rumble of my bike though for sure. Something that would take getting used to also no noise/ less "visible" not sure about that ive seen people argue that one on both sides. I have yet to watch any videos or reviews yet however either.
First few hours of day one and day two. I did not get anything from the 3rd and final day.
Wish I had payed better attention to the location and swapping out the batteries so I could get more footage. The start of the day is usually slow on day 1. But both days had some lag with attendees getting in right on time.
Edit
Time date stamp is wayyy wrong. I can assure you this was May 20-22nd this year
EPT
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/IBU4hnK.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/Ln0a4u8.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/aMdPKbZ.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/ElOTTWY.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/1KPtZap.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/hudPKks.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/UbUL3Hc.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/BONTnLm.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/9tqmn5S.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/b02gkwi.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/tuUdBIZ.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/juayUzl.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/s74mwAD.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/1ViOLQZ.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/NWt2siJ.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/GTuBZnn.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/OqkRxkp.jpg)
