Great Place, GREAT FOOD!

Famous Dave's BBQ restaurant is one place we had some of our meals while visiting Minneapolis just over a week ago!

It is a great themed restaurant with really good BBQ food and at very reasonable prices, my wife and I shard a patter for two for just $18.99 and there was plenty of chicken, ribs and other food for us to eat!

Click here to visit their website!

I can highly recommend the restaurant to you and if you see one while your in the USA, make sure you stop and grab some BBQ at Famous Dave's!

Sadly Dave was not in when we visited but maybe one day we will get to se him cooking on his BBQ...LOL!

Great food, wonderful staff and a super way to enjoy the real America we Brits often dream about!

Yesterday's commission

A golf theme for this gift caricature, a 65th birthday!

Minneapolis

We visited the city of Minneapolis last week and it was great! The pictures are of a sculpture park just outside of the downtown area of the city and very close to the new baseball stadium that is being built for the 'Twins'. The downtown area is a mix of commerce of business associated buildings with restaurants and a 'skywalk' that links the downtown area so that in the winter, you are able to get around from office block to office block even when there is 3 feet of snow on the ground, very smart!

Minneapolis is also home to the 'Mall of America', the largest in the USA so I am led to believe, it even has a theme park in the center of it! We had lunch there with our good friend Tom Richmond and my wife was able to shop for a few hours but I also sneaked in some shopping in the Apple store and got my hands on the latest iLife09 software at a much lower price than Apple ask for here in the UK! A result!

Minnesota the state is a beautiful place with lush green areas and home to 10,000 lakes, so hunting and sports are big in the area!

One day I hope to return to do some fishing and catch the local fish that is called Walleye. I ate some for lunch and they taste real good!

It was very cool to visit a new part of the USA for us and see some of the real America that is missing from Orlando and Las Vegas. The USA stills has a special place in my heart and I always love being there.

Beyond Las Vegas

Las Vegas is known as a fun town that is like no other on earth! Gambling in the casino's and a good time is on the menu, along with big name attractions like Elton John and Celine Dion, plus shows like Cirque du Soleil that are currently playing in six casino's! So you are spoilt for choice and with a range of budgets, from reasonable ticket prices through to very expensive, there is something for everyone.

But, is that all Vegas has to offer? Well not exactly.

Set in the Nevada desert, there are many local features around the city that have been there since the dawn of time!

One such is the Red Rock Canyon. This Canyon is a must see if your visiting Las Vegas.

Click here for more information about the canyon.

My wife and I spent a few hours there on our trip and it was our second visit to the canyon. We rented a car that cost under 70 dollars with the gas. So we were able to drive out the Canyon from Vegas, it takes about 30 minutes due to the traffic lights along Charlston Blvd but is a straight forward route with no problems, along the blvd there are lots of restaurants and make for a good stop for lunch!

The Red Rock Canyon has a scenic route that you drive through with parking areas at places that are perfect to get a great view of the canyon and all it's beauty. The scenic drive is 13 miles in length, a one way system makes it work very well and all you need to do is make sure you have some bottled water with you as it is very dry and hot.

So next time your in Las Vegas, make sure you visit Red Rock Canyon, you will not be disappointed!

Catching up

Apologies for the erratic posts. After a 2 week holiday I have a stack of work to catch up that is mostly administration & office based; emails, enquiries and bookings that need confirmation/booking forms printed out and posted. It takes some time to get it all done!

But I have managed to upload a few of the pictures from the last 2 weeks on my mobile me gallery..

Click here to view the gallery and select the picture folders (some older Japan folders are still there from earlier this year)

I will be posting more in depth details and other pictures soon..

Home!

Yes we are home after a GREAT Vacation in the USA!

Our flight was smooth and landed ahead of schedule!

Bags unpacked and I am just about to get ready to go out to a weeding that I am drawing at tonight. I have another one tomorrow afternoon at the same venue!

Monday shall be a day of rest and catching up with the jet lag.

I shall post pictures soon for you to enjoy.

But for now, a BIG THANK YOU to the following friends who made this vacation extra special:

Tom & Lisa Chudyba for letting us stay with them at their beautiful home in Maple Grove, Minneapolis

Celestia Ward & Robert Sudini for drawing us at the Miracle Mile Mall, las VEgas and for Celestia who so very kindly drove us to the airport so we could catch our flight home!

Tom Richmond for having lunch with us even though he was working on a hot deadline and then also letting us stop by his beautiful home to meet the rest of his loverly family and his wonderful wife, Anna. Also for letting us pop into his studio and see what the current hot job is, watch this space!

Minneapolis

The Twin Cities are great! Yesterday we had a stroll around the Mall of America and done some shopping! Tom Richmond has a booth there and we saw Zack who works on the stand, drawing caricatures of the Mall customers. Tom met us there and we had lunch together and later visited Tom at his home and saw his studio first hand.

USA update

Apologies for not posting these past few days!

We had a GREAT week in Las Vegas, fun, sun and some wonderful places to visit, the Grand Canyon is truly awesome!

We are now in Minneapolis and today we visited Taylors Falls and had a river boat tour that was wonderful! The river is the border line between the States of Missouri and Wisconson!

Tom & Lisa our close friends are the perfect hosts and their house is beautiful, they have very kindly put us up for the 5 days we are here visiting with them!

I have a ton of photo's that I shall be posting next week once we are back in the UK and I can get them downloaded to my Mac.

Say 'Hi' to Elvis

So far we have seen too many Elvis impersonators and yet without them, Las Vegas would seem empty!

It must have been wonderful to be here in 1976 and have tickets to see Elvis perform back then!

Tom Jones is in town right now and we are hoping to get tickets to catch him live, as he now qualifies to be a living Las Vegas legend! The boy from Wales done good!

There are such a variety of shows to see and ticket prices start from around $50 and upwards with the average price being $99. Being spoilt for choice we are not sure just yet what other shows we hope to catch. There is a ticket booth not far from where we are staying and you can buy discounted tickets in the afternoon for that nights performance. So fingers crossed we get a deal!

Vegas monorail

Yes they have a monorail that runs most of the length of the strip and we are going to ride it today!

My only concern is that I am reminded of that Simpsons episode where the town of Springfield buy a monorail and Homer gets the job as the engineer who drives it and of course, it all goes wrong and mayhem ensues..!

Let's hope and pray that this monorail in Vegas is not the same as the Simpsons monorail!

From the archive

This is a cartoon from my archive, it was commissioned for a newsletter about HR and had a good response.

I enjoy creating these cartoons and always try to put some new ones together when I have time, but that is the problem, finding time. Once I get back from Las Vegas, I shall be spending some time on my 'applesRblue' site to add new comic strips.

I also want to redo the twitter background site and shall have an amazing offer available to everyone at the beginning of June this year, do not miss it!

Round and round the ball goes...

We are here in Las Vegas and it is baking hot and we love it!

My game is Roulette. I enjoy playing the table, betting on which number the ball will land on in the roulette wheel!

I have won many times, from small amounts to a few big wins and of course I have also lost. But I budget my gambling money and like I said yesterday, once the gambling money has gone, it's gone and I stop gambling.

I play for some fun and that's all. If I win it is a real bonus. It is my way of getting a kick and some quality time to be self indulgent and enjoy myself!

Entertaining at weddings is a wonderful job, but I am there for everyone else, so when I play the roulette table, it is all about me for a couple of hours!

My last good win was in Malta at a casino and when I 'was up', I cashed in and walked away with the money. The right thing to do!

Viva Las Vegas baby!

Up Up & Away....

Today we are flying 'transatlantic' from London, direct to Las Vegas, Nevada!

It is around 11 hours of flying time, a long journey but it is worth the trip as the amazing and totally crazy place they call Las Vegas, (or lost wages), is such fun and a great place to relax and have fun at the same time.

We hope to catch up with our friends Robert & Celestia and with a bit of luck my close friend, Eric Grady, who is a great comedian (he is playing/gigging in Las Vegas at the same time we are in town) and always has me laughing and feeling good when ever we hang out together.

My wife and I have put some money to one side for the gambling. That way we can have some fun and should it all disappear into the casino's pockets, we can walk away knowing we had a good time but did not break the bank!

There is always the chance we could win and walk away with more money than we arrived with! You never know!

So today it is VIVA LAS VEGAS BABY!

Amazing Magic!

Last week at the wedding in Clearwell Castle I had the pleasure to work alongside magician David Penn.

David and I have worked together at previous weddings and it is always such fun to catch up with him and see just some of what he can do, David is a truly FANTASTIC magician and leaves many of the rest behind in terms of his magic,performance and skills.

This is the link to his website www.davidpenn.co.uk

Check out his site and if you ever have the opportunity to see him work, be prepared to be amazed and totally impressed with his magic!

Hot on the drawing table

Just finished this last commission in time for my trip to Las Vegas!

Tonight I am drawing at a School Prom night and then tomorrow I have two weddings to draw at!

Then it is off to Las Vegas Sunday morning!

As I mentioned the other day, I hope to be able to blog while I am there but I may not be able to upload any pictures as I shall be using my iPod Touch.

I will be back here in my studio in two weeks time.

Tonight

I shall be giving an after dinner speech tonight to my local Rotary Club. I will be talking about my life and career in art. Hope it is not too boring for the audience!

I was invited by my good friend Robert who is a Rotary club member and a professional photographer.

So right now I have to put together my presentation ready for tonight, wish me luck!

Commission progress

Completed this week and the client was very happy with the result!

iLife upgrade

I am typing this in the Apple store at Lakeside Shopping Mall as I wanted to ask them a question about upgrading the iLife software from the 2008 to the 2009 version. My question was answered and this Sunday when I am at the airport on my way to the USA, I shall purchase the iLife09 software at a reduced price.

That's one aspect of the duty free shops in the airport that make flying so enjoyable, you are able to purchase items at a lower price and save some money. The really cool store is 'Dixon's', the retailer that sells computers, camera's and other cool stuff. If you purchase a large item like a television, they will ship it to your home address. So you can still make such a purchase, save a heap of cash and still fly off to where ever you are going. Very cool! All you need to ensure is that someone will be at your home address on the delivery day.

These next few days I am catching up on loose ends before we fly to Vegas. I intend to blog as much as I can while we are in the USA. So forgive me if I miss the odd day here or there but do please check back for updates.

New Car

Here are some photo's of my new car...

I am very pleased with the car and love driving it!

It is a Mercedes C320 Avantgarde CDI, Diamond Black color - 2005 model with low milage and fitted with parking sensors front and rear.

I have given my old car to my son to replace his very old first car that he wanted to change. So it was a good result for us and him!

My wife has driven the car and loves the way it feels and drives too! I may let her drive it again...!

Sunday stuff

Today I am on the other side of England in Gloucestershire, drawing at a wedding that is taking place at Clearwell Castle!

Click here for the Castles website.

The journey is over 3 hours in length from where I live but tis is going to be a joy as I now have my new car!

This weekend I collected my Mercedes C class saloon. It is a 3 and a half year old car, registered in 2005 and has low milage and is in very good condition. I am very pleased with the car and it is a real pleasure to drive. So I have the opportunity to enjoy the drive to the castle and at the same time, get to know the car!

I return home tomorrow as the wedding couple have very kindly put me up for the night and I shall make the drive home early on Monday morning to avoid the Bank Holiday traffic!

At the show

This week I was working for a client who had a stand at a show in Birmingham at the NEC. The show was all about disability and the equipment such as wheel chairs and many other facilities that are out there to hep improve the life for disabled people.

My client manufactures chairs that are powered by a motor and at a flick of a switch, can operate to raise and lower themselves to make sitting for a disabled person much easier and more comfortable.

We were there for three days.

I was almost non stop for all of the time over the three days and it was lots of fun.

It was also an eye opener to see so many children in wheelchairs and some severely disabled but they were happy and when they had a caricature drawn it seemed to make there day. That was very satisfying for me.

London Cartoon festival!

Yes, next year in London we shall have a cartoon festival! How cool is that!

This is the website http://licfest.com/- MAKE sure you visit and bookmark the site as it will be updated ongoing!