The merry, merry month of May

May 27th of ’06 – my how time flies when you’re having fun!

Well, I turned 47 this month with the usual zero fanfare. I haven’t done cakes and presents in years, and don’t generally make much of a big deal out of the day. I usually don’t mention it at all. I’ve noticed that my mustache is turning white, which is kinda weird to look at in the mirror. I toy with the idea of shaving or coloring it, but I just don’t much care, if ya know what I mean. Heck, maybe I’ll start to look distinguished or something. (yeah, right! LOL!)

I feel terrific and I’m still in great health here, and that’s a good thing, since I still don’t have insurance these days. That’ll all change soon though because I’m back to work again, and man am I happy about that! I’ll tell ya – sitting around on one’s ass playing video games is pretty boring after about a week. Oh yeah, and trying to keep everything afloat while on unemployment is really nothing to write home about either – but I managed to work through it pretty well, so I’m not complaining.

Of course, I did more than video games and naps during my time off. I studied a lot – photography-related stuff mostly, including advanced courses in Photoshop and Illustrator. And I shot quite a lot of photos and learned some new techniques and even made a few drawings and wrote a few short stories while I was at it. I finally finished a long-ago-started animation I’d been meaning to get around to completing, and I perfected my macaroni-spaghetti-hamburger-corn mush dish – and didn’t even use a microwave for any of it. LOL!

So now I’m back to work, on the road again, and shooting photos on the weekends pretty regularly, which I’ve been posting to my web site in the photo section here:

http://www.buckcash.com/images/artphotos/index.html

I've been getting into a lot of bird shots lately, but I’m still picking off a few landscapes, flowers and other critters along the way – just really digging the bird shot thing right now is all. I’m getting plenty of walking and hiking around out in nature again through it, not to mention some pretty good shots (if I say so myself), and that’s all good.

Some interesting things have been happening in relation to my cancer stories and cartoons. This year, I’m an official speaker on the roster for The National Cancer Survivors Day Foundation, so occasionally someone contacts me about speaking to groups about my experience with cancer and humor.

On January 19th, one of my cartoons was featured in a video presentation at the National Academy of Science in Washington DC at the 60th anniversary of the American Cancer Society. Here’s the one they chose to present:



That REALLY made my day!

Another of my toons was featured in an article about humor and oncology in “The Journal of Clinical Oncology” a while back, and then just this past Tuesday, May 23, my web site was mentioned in an article in USA Today, which was pretty cool!

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot! The terrific folks over at www.gotcancer.org now have clothing items that feature one of my cartoons (and other great stuff!). I've got a hoodie now that features this cartoon:



You can get one too if you like. Clicking on the toon above will take you to the page of clothing items you can get it on. If nothing else, go do a little "web window shopping"! LOL!

Or, you can just surf on over to (<-Click on that to go there!) and see all the rest of their fun cancer stuff! They've got a great sense of humor over there, so help 'em out if you can, and get some cool stuff in the deal!

Earlier today, I got a bad cramp in my left leg that reminded me of the pain associated with the blood clot I had way back when; the one that put me in a wheelchair and necessitated my learning to give myself shots to clear it up. I noticed it’s been a bit swollen lately at the end of the day too. I’ll be sure to have it checked out as soon as my insurance kicks in, assuming there are no other problems before then.

That’s about it for now – all’s well here!