If Only I Had The Money To Keep It

Being around you when you’re like this makes me feel sick, but I can’t imagine my world without you anymore.

Prop page

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I've been busy planning and going to weddings, moving into a new place, raising a puppy and coming up with a new outlet for my work. https://www.patreon.com/jlinneprops That's a link to my patreon page. It's a place where I give rewards for certain levels a person can reach for helping to support my art. Every month I do a raffle for my patrons and the winner gets their own prop replica! Right now I'm building an axe from lord of the rings for a guy in Arizona, so check it out and win some cool shit!

New years resolution (gotta write it down so I don't forget)

- Live simply (get ride of all my excess clothes, possessions, etc)

- Exercise more regularly (cliche I know but I need to do it)

- Eat healthier (Allison and I have been shopping mainly at farmers markets these days but my vegetable and fruit intake is not only low but also pretty unexciting)

- Finish projects (I have ADD and while I really enjoy getting excited about new projects and seeing what I can do, unfortunately I have a low completion rate with is always extremely frustrating)

I've definitely taken a step in the right direction but it's going to be a hard road to really getting better. Life will always be a struggle but the only options are to keep moving or give up.

Beorn the skin changer

I have long been a fan of the LOTR books with the Hobbit being my favorite. I think it's because I read it at a young age and t was able to make a nice impact on my imagination. Anyways I was excited when I heard about the Hobbit movies and couldn't wait to see one of my favorite minor characters, Beorn, on the big screen.

Needless to say I was disappointed.

Not only did they skip over the chance to lead nicely into the film with some down time at Beorn's house which would have allowed them to reestablish the plot prepare everyone for the events that would later happen in the movie, but they also cut down the content from the book drastically. Why go into the appendices and pull out extra information to help extend film time and then cut short scenes that are actually in the book  itself.

I don't want to be totally negative about the movie, it did have some great parts and as always the people at Weta did a fantastic job with the set, props and design work. However, I recently got a chance to look through the "Desolation of Smaug" design book that is out on the market (available on amazon below).

http://amzn.com/0062265695

All I can say after looking at all the designs made for the Beorn character is that they picked the wrong one. There were some truely fantastic concept ideas that were much more closely related to the book's description. Understandably you want the dwarves to look distinctly different so that you can tell the 13 of them apart, but there is no way anyone could mistake the giant Beorn for a tiny dwarf, so why try to make him look like one? Luckily the got all 30 seconds of screen time for his bear form right at least.

Thanksgiving climb

My brother got into town just hours ago and soon we'll be going on our 3rd annual  day before thanksgiving rock climb.

I am oh so very excited :)

For us here in Chicago spring has finally arrived. I know it's almost May but here it seems like we have been cut back to only two seasons, winter and summer with maybe two weeks of fall and spring (if we're lucky). So with hopefully just three or four more days of 30 degree weather left, it's time to break out the camping gear!

Me (Jake) and my girlfriend Allison live in a one bedroom apartment in the city with our cat Turd Ferguson (Turdie for short). Even though there's a park across the street it doesn't fulfill the desire we get to be outside. This is a blog for us to share our outdoor experiences and love of nature. Enjoy! 

SEX SEX SEEEEX!

I'm not sure about everyone else but my girlfriend and I enjoy our sleep. We have an extremely comfortable bed and a bedroom that is cool and almost completely pitch black for 15 hours or so. But over the past few months that glorious sleep has been interrupted by our neighbors having extremely loud porno sounding sex.

Our building has an air shaft that runs through it, which houses 3 of our 5 windows (the two in the kitchen and the one in the bedroom). It's nice because even though we're an inner apartment we get some extra light, unfortunately we also share the shaft with a few other apartments. One being our overly sexual neighbors. Don't get me wrong, I love sex too, and it's something Allison and I try to do as much as possible. But at 3, 4, 5 and 7am on a WEEKDAY we prefer to be asleep instead of listening to the moaning and groaning of another couple. At first when we moved in it was funny (we heard them one night while brushing our teeth "Holy crap I can hear our neighbors having sex!") but when you've gotten maybe 3 hours sleep under your belt and our woken up by a high pitched female "UHAAAAAAAAAAAA" it becomes annoying as shit.

Am I wrong? Should we be celebrating their humping? Is this all part of living in an old building? Or should I shout out the window for them to shut the fuck up?

Up and coming

May 18th- Crawfish fest

May 25th- Tahoe race fundraiser

June 2nd- 100 bike race in Lake Tahoe

June 14th- Camping in southern Illinois

June 15th- Our second Warrior Dash

Let the season begin. Can't wait.

-Jake