Been busy!

Wow, I kind of got away from the blogging thing for a while.

Anyways, been busy with the family for the most part. I haven't gone to an ACTS match in (I think) 3 months. I have been spending a lot of my time riding dirtbikes with my kids. They are growing up so quick and they will leave for college soon so I'm getting as much quality time as I can.

Unfortunately, I have been down for the past three weeks. I took a nasty spill on my KDX and broke a bone in my right hand along with two ribs on the same side. Bad thing was I was in the middle of nowhere and had to ride my bike out in excruciating pain. One thing I have figured out is that I'm not a kid anymore. Get hurt really sucks...BAD!

BTW, a few pics!

My street legal '90 Kawasaki KDX200...



My son's '02 Yamaha TTR125L...



My daughter posing on her '79 Honda XL75...



My son tearing up a friend's yard on the little Honda...



Man, I wish I could heal quicker. I have at least another 3 weeks before I can ride again. (sigh)

CARS.gov website...scary sh*t!

Please, what ever you do, do NOT visit the cars.gov website unless you wish to allow the Feds unrestricted access to you computer! Watch the vid and pass it on!

New Time & Money Consumers

As most have probably noticed I haven't been online much at all lately. Well, I have been busy with another hobby of mine. That hobby would be motorcycle riding.

Now, I have been riding MC's since I was a kid but sold my last bike ('74 Yamaha RD350) when I moved to AZ 12 years ago. I have been itching to ride ever since so I decided to do something about it finally and purchased me a new (to me) toy.

What I picked up was a '90 Kawasaki KDX200 "enduro" bike. No, it is not a street bike but for fun in the dirt. I have about $550 in it as it sits (trade deal) and it is a great running bike. At the same time I managed to score an old '79 Honda XL75 to teach my kids how to ride! Now if I can just find good (and legal) places to go riding in the desert!

My hero, Uncle Ted!

Straight and to the point. You just gotta' love Uncle Ted!

What did you do today...

...for Freedom?

ACTS Match - June '09

Wow, what a great time at the range today! We had a whopping 28 shooters today and everything ran pretty smooth except for the Stage I props being blown over repeatedly due to the wind. The temperature (94°) wasn't too bad suprisingly.

The best parts of the whole thing was that I didn't have to worry about running things and I actually shot the match for once. Now, I didn't do great but I know it was my handgun skills that let me down. I had a couple of large penalties on one stage that put me near the bottom of the pack. Oh well, I'll be better next match!

One last thing of note. I shot the match today using the wife's AR instead of my usual HK93 clone. Her rifle shot extremely well and functioned perfectly all day. On Stage II, in which you had to engage a target 5 times in 7 seconds at 175 yards, I managed to get 3 shots on paper out of 4 fired. Yeah, I ran out of time before I could fire the 5th shot. Stage II had a second string to it that required 2 targets to be engaged with 5 rounds each at 100 yards in 7 seconds total. On this string I got 10 out of 10!

I'll shut up for now. Here are a few pics from todays match.

(EDIT: Here is a link to 213 pics from the match! June '09 match pics - full set)

It is done!

Yep, the AR kit I have been waiting on since January 30th finally arrived on June 12th! I assembled it that night and it passed all function tests. I will be shooting it this week to sight her in and then using it at this months ACTS match.

The kit was ordered through J&T and I must say I am very happy with the kit. My only complaint is that the front handguard does not match well to the buttstock, PG, and mag. The buttstock color is off a bit also but not as bad as the handguard. If someone knows where to purchase one that matches well with P-mags please let me know.

As for the specs...

16" Lightweight, 1x9 chrome lined barrel, 5.56 NATO chamber, A2 flash suppressor
A3 Upper w/Tac-Latch, chromed bolt and carrier
Sun Devil billet lower with HK type pictogram markings
M4 six position stock, CAR handguards, A2 pistol grip - all in Coyote Brown
I will be using P-mags and have already mounted my Fakepoint to it. No BUIS at the moment as I haven't decided on which one.

The complete rifle with scope and empty mag weighs in at extactly 7lbs! That was the reason I ordered this rifle in the first place. My wife and kids said my HK93 clone was too heavy to shoot for more than a few rounds unless using a shooting rest. I thought it would just be cheaper for them to get stronger but they didn't go for that idea! My rifle weighs in at only a pound heavier but I know the bulk of the weight is further forward than an AR which makes it feel even heavier.

Here is a really crappy pic for now. I plan to take some better ones this week.

Woohoo!

Just got an e-mail from J&T Distributing that the AR-15 kit I ordered is ready to ship! Hopefully I will have it assembled and ready to try out at the next ACTS match! More to come after it arrives!

Personal Vaporizers (a.k.a. E-cigs)

I have been a cigarette smoker for far too many years and have tried to quit many, many times. However I am weak when it comes to beating this addiction and always seem to relapse. Yep, being dumb in your youth still can haunt you in your adult life. -sigh-

Low and behold a new product comes on the market to help people get away from cigarettes. Enter the personal vaporizer (PV) otherwise known as an E-cig (electronic cigarette).

Here are a few pics...










An "E-cig" is an electrical device that creates a vapor to be inhaled which contains varying strengths of nicotine or even none at all. They come in many sizes and color configurations. Some look like real cigarettes and others that look like something from your toolbox! No, they are not the asnwer to nictine addiction. Just a safer, arguably cheaper, and public friendly way of receiving the nicotine that one is addicted to.

Now, the first thought everyone has is "What is the point? You are still feeding a nicotine addiction!" Well, that is true. However, by using a PV you are eliminating the other 400+ chemicals you were putting into your body. That includes carbon monoxide, tar, arsenic, formaldehyde, and many other known carcinogens. I think simple logic would indicate this has to be healthier than any tobacco cigarette on the market.

I have decided to give these things a try to just see if if they can get me away from the real thing. I suggest that if you know a smoker that wants to quit and has tried all the different methods without success that this might be something for them to look in to. For more info they can check out the E-cigarette forums. The one piece of advise I can give is to do as much research as possible on the subject before just jumping in.

Time To Move On

As some of you may know, I was the match director for the Arizona chapter of ACTS. The operative word there is "was".

I had been wanting my assistant to take things over for the past 4-5 months but he wanted no part of it. Frankly, I don't blame him. For the most part it is a thankless job and a lot of responsibility and headaches. The very reasons I wanted out myself. I am happy with and proud of what I accomplished for our chapter. It has survived and grown in every aspect but it was time for me to move on.

Anyways, a situation arose that allowed me to pass the torch to another of the core members. I know the match is in good hands with him. We already have a great crew in place and he, the new MD, has the vision to see what makes a match good. Over the past 15 months of me being the MD ACTS has grown more than I had hoped for and I see this trend continuing under the new leadership. I think we are in for some great matches here in the very near future!

The Unreasonable Man

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him...
The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself...
All progress depends on the unreasonable man."

George Bernard Shaw

FREE NRA Membership

If you haven't joined the NRA because you don't have the money, now is your chance to do it for free! Yep, a free 1 year membership.

Now I'm not a huge NRA supporter but they are the largest organization out there for firearm owners. Maybe if we get enough of us "no compromise" people in we can change them for the better!

So, join up and let your voice be heard by clicking the link below!

FREE NRA Membership

This was posted by a member on a musician forum I visit but figured it could help plenty of other people when doing transactions on the internet. Hope it helps someone!

I get about 2 or 3 requests a month from people asking me to help them track down someone who has ripped them off on a transaction on eBay, HC, Bassgear, etc. I'm more than happy to help out, but the one thing I have noticed is that a lot of people don't protect themselves as much as they could. Here's a little checklist to go through that I posted over on the Dudepit that can help you guys avoid a lot of grief when doing a deal with someone you don't know.

In the future, I hope everyone here checks out people before they do business with them. A lot of you guys here buy and sell a lot of gear, and if you know the person...great. But if not make sure you get a home phone# a work phone # a cell phone# home address etc. check out the info too. Call the person. If you think they gave you a cell# as a home or work # - check it out here:

http://www.fonefinder.net/

It will tell you if it's a land line or a cell and what city it goes to.

Reverse the phone#s and addresses they gave you to see where they go. Argali is really good for this. You can also reverse the address.

Just go to http://www.argali.com/ and download their program.

If you think the address is a mail drop you can check that out as well at http://www.finaid.com/scholarships/maildropsearch.phtml

If you want to find out who owns the address they give you to send payment to you can also go to http://www.skipease.com/property.html

Select the state and county of the address. A lot of them have online databases, but you can call the tax assessor as well and find out who owns that property. These are just a few of the free online resouces you can use to protect yourself and verify the information the seller gives you is accurate. Ask for references from other people they have done business with. If I'm shelling out $100 for an effect pedal or $3000 for a bass, I want to know if the person is honest or not, Make sure the info they give you checks out before you give up any of your hard earned cash. An honest seller won't be offended in the least when you ask them for this info.

Also, using https://www.escrow.com/index.asp is a good idea on any large purchase.

Sorry

Sorry but I have been rather busy lately. I promise I will post up something that is almost readable in the near future!

Help The Little Guy!

I'm sure most don't know that I'm also a musician. I have several works that are protected by copyright and the following story really bothers me. For any author, musician, graphic designer, videographer, etc. this is your worst nightmare coming true! It is a long read but I think it is worth it.

If you would like to help a legal defense fund has been set up for Jon. I have linked it at the bottom.

Today has turned into a real-life nightmare. I wish I could wake up. This nightmare started 9 months ago and has been recurring ever since.

First, a little background. I’ve been designing professionally for 11 years. I started by designing for my church and before long I landed my first design job with Bill Gordon & Associates, an Albuquerque law firm. In January 2000 I formed Relevant Studio as an umbrella for all of my freelance work. I was able to find consistent work through sites such as elance.com, guru.com and designoutpost.com. I began freelancing full-time December 2002.

I’ve known since I was a little boy that I wanted to be an artist. I knew from the first time my preschool doodle went up on my great-grandma’s fridge exactly what I wanted to be. I was introduced to graphic and web design in high school and fell in love with it. I went on to attend The Art Center Design College and The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, all while freelancing on the side to pay the bills.

My first big client was the Warner Brothers TV network (now The CW). They gave me a chance to work on the Smallville launch. Being a comic book geek and TV junkie, I couldn’t have been happier! Because the posters and ads were successful, I was contacted to work on the launch of Birds of Prey as well. That show barely lasted a season, but I enjoyed designing for it anyway. Those ads opened new doors which led to ad work for Alias, CSI and Lost among others. Those jobs were a dream come true for me.

More than anything, the TV ads were a validation for me. They were a sign that I’d picked the right career for me. I haven’t doubted for one moment that I was destined to be a designer. Until today.

This morning I received a message from a friend alerting me to a discussion about me on one of my favorite sites. I tried logging in to see what was going on to find out I had been banned. I emailed the site owner to see what the issue was. His response was that someone had contacted him to inform him I was being investigated for copyright infringement. One of the logos I’ve been accused of stealing was for a client of this site. In order to protect himself from a lawsuit, he had to boot me off the site and distance himself from the problem. I’m not happy about it, but I understand. He wasn’t left with much of a choice.

This morning’s shocker is just a sympton of a larger problem, a HUGE problem, that I became aware of July 2008. I’ve been quietly dealing with it for the past 9 months and thought I was making some headway. Today they crossed a line and have done irreperable damage to my business and my reputation.

I was first contacted by a stock art site in July of last year. They hit me with a bill for a whopping $18,000! I had an account with the site. Years ago I purchased an illustration of a chef’s hat for a client’s project. So, I thought this was some accounting mistake. Nope. This was a bill for new images. Very familiar images. They were images from several of my logos; 65 of them in fact. That breaks down to about $275 per image. They actually wanted me to pay them $275 for each one of MY images!

Once the sticker shock wore off the obvious question came to mind. Where the hell did they get these from? It seems as if most or all of them were lifted from my LogoPond showcase. They especially seemed to favor the ones that made it to the gallery.

My theory is that someone copied my artwork, separated them from any typography and then posted them for sale on the stock site. Someone working for the site either saw my LP showcase or was alerted to the similarities. They then prepared the bill and sent it to me. The good thing is that the bill gives me a record of every single image they took from me. That helps me gather dates, sketches, emails, etc to help me prove my case. The bad thing is that despite my explanations and proof, they will not let this go.

When I refused to pay the bill they hired a law firm specializing in copyright infringement. The attorney called and offered a settlement of $18,000. How is that any different than the bill? I refuse to pay THEM for work I created. That is the epitomy of ridiculous. The attorney didn’t like my response. He threatened to sue. I say BRING IT ON! I have no doubt I can win in court.

Here’s the link to the newly revived LogoPond discussion from August 2008: Copyright Lawyer

However, the new tactic I discovered this morning is so much harder to fight. They are calling or emailing every one of my clients they can find. They inform the client that I’m being investigated for copyright infringement and that the logo I designed for them may have been stolen from their client. After discovering my ban from Design Outpost I began contacting clients to see exactly who they’ve been in touch with. So far, I’ve heard back from three. In every case so far my client is furious with me. They took the lawyer’s warning at face value without bothering to contact me. I understand their reaction to an extent. I’m sure they’re worried that they may be sued as well for using ’stolen’ artwork and the best thing they can do is distance themselves from me.

I feel like this is nothing more than an underhanded campaign meant to demoralize me and destroy my reputation. If you read through their website you can see they work on contingency. This means they don’t get paid if their client doesn’t get paid. I’ve also made it very clear there’s no way in hell that I’ll ever pay up. I’ll declare bankruptcy and go to work for McDonald’s before that happens. Are they thinking they can beat me into submission? Do they think I’ll agree to a settlement to make it all go away? Guess again. I have the truth on my side and I will NEVER pay a rip-off artist or their extortionist lawyers.

Thankfully, I have a lot of incidental proof. I would never have thought to plan for something like this, but now I wish I had. Beyond timestamps this becomes my word against theirs to a degree. The logos on LogoPond have a date stamp showing when I uploaded them to the site. This is good, especially if the designs were stolen from my showcase. My submission date will always be earlier than theirs. Even if its only by a day, first is first. Kode ( @kodespark) suggested looking at the meta data in my source files. I didn’t know about meta data before today, but there are timestamps on the files as well. All of the meta timestamps pre-date my LogoPond submissions.

What do they have? A bill and a bulldog lawyer. They refuse to give me upload dates for any of the images in question. If they believe they’re in the right, then why would they hide that from me? I have asked time and again for the name of the artist who uploaded the stolen work. I finally received an email which is less than helpful:

“Sir, it is not a question of one artist, but several. It is quite obvious you’ve been using the site as your personal reservoir of stolen works.”

I find that extremely hard to believe. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that a group of people came together to form a cartel of logo rips. They are skirting the issue and won’t give me a straight answer about anything.

So what do I do now? How do I fight back? I hope that making the issue public will help. If they’ve done this to me, they could do it to any one of us. It seems that every day one of us finds a new rip-off artist displaying our work as their own and I’m absolutely sick of it! If you don’t have any artistic abilities, then please find a legitimate line of work. I just don’t get it.

I know this is a long post, so I’ll wrap it up. I hope the issue is resolved soon and will be sure to keep everyone updated with my progress. Big big thanks to everyone who’s shown their support on Twitter, Logopond and Facebook! I love you guys and would have given up the fight without your support.

A lawsuit I can handle, but this has hit me hard. If they were shooting for demoralizing, then mission accomplished. I was so upset about this that I almost threw in the towel. I wanted to shut down my site and delete my LP showcase and go find a job doing anything else. If it hadn’t been for my friends, Mike and Kode, I probably would have. They started a #SaveJon campaign on Twitter that showed me now is the time to fight, not walk away.

Story: http://digg.com/d1nxBm