As I write this, Aarti, her sister Lucy, and Sonia are somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, en route to Belgium. Their final destination: Mumbai, India.

I dropped the girls off at the airport this morning. No matter how much I had prepared for today, I’ve gotta say: it’s never easy to let go. We had a nice pancake breakfast, after an early morning start, and arrived at the airport around 10.

I don’t think Sonia understood what was happening, at least until it was time for Aarti to take the shuttle to the gate. At that point, Sonia started to cry really loud. I think she finally realized what “Papa in Tampa. Mamma, Lucy, Sonia go on plane to India” finally meant.

I gotta admit: I shed a tear too. It was an emotional moment for us all.

This is Sonia’s first international flight. I hope she does well. I know that Aarti and Lucy will be there to take care of her.

I’ll be joining them in mid-December, after the Fall quarter is over. Even though they’ve been gone only for a very short time, I am counting down the days until I see them.

We’ll have Skype to video chat with, and we’re planning to do that at least once a day. In the meantime, it’s really quiet at home. I prepared my own meal (pasta with red wine) this evening. It’s certainly not the same as Aarti’s cooking…

I took care of a few chores this afternoon. I hung up my die-cast car rack, which I received yesterday. On the geeky side, I installed a new 1 terabyte Western Digital SATA internal hard drive in my Mac and burned some data back-ups onto DVD.

Now that the house is empty, it’s going to be odd to get uninterrupted sleep. I won’t have a doting wife asking me to go to bed at 10PM. It’s a crazy independence I’m not sure I’m ready to reclaim. (I’ve been trained pretty well.)

Next Wednesday, the Fall quarter starts for me. I’ll be preparing for my courses over the next few days. I plan to take advantage of the time I have to push myself even harder at work and with my personal projects. Anything to keep time moving by at a quick speed, so I can see my girls again.

-Krishna

I came back from a bike ride this morning to a voice mail. It was Aarti. Apparently, their flight from Brussels to Mumbai hit a slight detour, with an emergency landing in Budapest.

I haven’t spoken to Aarti directly, but I know (based on the voice mail) that they are okay and are in the process of arranging a local Budapest visa before resuming their course tomorrow.

I’ll be on pins and needles until they make it to Mumbai safely.

-Krishna

Aarti, Sonia and Lucy have made it safe and sound to Mumbai. I just spoke with Aarti on the phone a few minutes back.

Sonia was a real trooper – behaving incredibly well, amidst the unforeseen circumstances of a delayed flight and unplanned stopover.

Understandably, the girls are tired and excited to be back with family. I’m looking forward to catching up with them on Skype soon.

On the home front, I did some house-hold chores, finished creating Tuesdays and Thursday’s PC Weenies comics, getting all my course syllabi up to snuff, and preparing the first week of project assignments. I also reorganized my office area, making better use out of the limited space I have.

Dinner this evening was frozen ravioli. Not the best, but passable for sustenance.

Tomorrow I’m tackling a revamp of my lesson plans for my Advanced 2D Animation class. I also have to buy some groceries and run a few errands.

All in all, I feel like I’m rested and in good shape to start the Fall quarter.

-Krishna

I was in the process of drawing the model shown above while broadcasting on UStream, when they dropped my video stream and banned me from the service. The drawing was for a friend of mine, who had wanted to watch me create the image. I am absolutely livid at UStream for banning me outright, with no possible recourse. I have dropped them a note, as such, to let them know how I feel about this.

Feel free to write in with your complaints.

I am in the process of finding a better service to where I can broadcast my cartooning and illustration. UStream just lost me for good.

-Krishna

The server’s down and I don’t know when it will be back up. I’ve temporarily put a page up on the site to bring people over to UNcubed.

I’m hoping pcweenies.com will be back up this evening, but I really don’t have any information to give you at this point.

Thanks for your patience,

-Krishna

Update: It appears that pcweenies.com has risen from the grave. How appropriate for October, huh?

Today marks 11 years of PC Weenies comics. And to celebrate, I’m throwing in the sweetest deal of the day, one that will NOT be repeated.

Today, for one day only (as in 24 hours):

If you buy a regular edition copy of PC Weenies: Rebootus Maximus, you get all the perks of the Artist Edition for no extra cost!

Simply put HAPPY 11TH along with the name of the PCW character you want me to draw in your book, when you place your regular edition order. You can put that info in the “Additional Comments” field before you submit your order.

That’s it.

Every book bought will tack on one extra day to my beard. The more books that are ordered, the more you save (my beard).

For $20 + shipping, you’ll get:

• Rebootus Maximus, 120 pages of techie goodness!
• the PCW / Uncubed Sampler #1 (a $5 value, while supplies last!)
• an autographed book with a sketch inside! (Pick your favorite PCW character!)

That’s the BEST deal I can provide, because I truly believe that you’ll really enjoy the book when you buy it. Now go order the book!

(If you already have one, why not buy another? They make great holiday gifts!)

P.S. if you’d like to order more than one copy of “Rebootus Maximus”, send me an e-mail and we’ll figure something out.

Now get ordering!

-Krishna

I’m growing a beard. Read all about the “why” here.

-Krishna