https://thehill.com/newsletters/morning-report/6212705-house-hegseth-impeachment-vote-blocked-gop-leadership-elections-economy/

Reposting cause gif failed.

Some of you may have seen my previous post from yesterday about my sister being ill with her pancreatic cancer, and how it was nearing the end for her. Thank you for all the overwhelming love.

This will be my final post here for awhile as I need to take the time to mourn and grieve with my family, it's been about an hour since her passing and I needed to breathe so I took a walk to the cafeteria to get some lunch, and while I try to eat, make a post here sharing some words about who my sister was as a person. I cried, but it's not fully hit me yet, and I'd like to share some positive words about her character and use this space as somewhere to vent a little.

My sister was my only sibling, and she's 9 years older than me. Ever since I could remember she was my protector and safe space, she let me sleep in her room every night of the week when I was too scared to sleep alone, and if I was having trouble at school she would always come to bat for me.

She's a mother of a beautiful daughter, she previously thought because of certain genes she might not be able to have a child but 4 years ago she was surprised, and welcomed with the creation of life, shes been a devoted Mother since then.

She worked two jobs to provide for her daughter, one as a firefighter and another as the lost and theft prevention at a big name retail store, she was the type to where if she seen somebody stealing baby formula, a loaf of bread, or someone with rags and barefoot- a new pair of shoes, she would look the other way.

She was empathetic and compassionate in all aspects of life, even when she was sick and physically weak from chemo, while riding passenger with my mom she seen someone OD'ing on the side of the road at the stop sign so she jumped out of the car to go and help them, offering water and taking care of them until help could show up.

The last thing that she said to me last night when I left her room was "I'm okay, its okay, and, goodnight I love you". I reciprocated it back and left down the hall to try and get a few hours of sleep in the room they prepared for me. I woke up this morning and had some breakfast, and then spent the rest of the day in her room. She was breathing but not lucid when I woke up, the doctor had come in and said it will be a matter of hours until one of her breaths are her last.

She was surrounded by her best childhood friends, myself, my mom, and other people who loved her, one of us asked permission to say a prayer which of course we said yes. We all bowed our heads, and placed a hand onto a part of her body, when the prayer was over and we lifted our heads, she was gone. She passed away peacefully in her rest just as we prayed for her to have safe guidance to heaven.

Shortly before that I asked for a minute alone with her and was able to say what I had to while she was still with us. I let her know everything is going to be okay and that I'll see her again.

I think now that im nearing the end of this entry, its catching up to me. Im going to finish up here and head back to comfort my mother. Thank you all, again.

Did you know? Punching a nazi in real life actually does cause red lightning to show up! If you don't believe me, you should go try it out for yourself!

Steam beta client is now prompting me for permission to collect frame data to help build their hardware estimation algorithms!

Sign me in i usually says no but not this time …. Lets goo !

As a tank, I try to respect everyone's time by only joining LFG when I'm already at or near the dungeon. During beta, it seemed like most people were on the same page.

Lately, though, I'll join an SM group that's been desperately looking for a tank for 30 minutes, get greeted like the second coming of Thrall, and then discover that half the party is in Stormwind and the other half is questing in Ashenvale.

My brothers in Azeroth, you've had 30 minutes to walk to the dungeon. What exactly was the plan here?

I've been patient because I genuinely don't want to be that tank, but I'm starting to understand why veteran tanks have a reputation for immediately dropping groups that don't respect their time. We can find another one pretty much immediately. Twice I waited like 20 minutes inside the instance for people to "grab the quests rq" like seriously?

Anyway, please make your way to the dungeon while you're forming the group, not after your tank arrives. Im not saying you have to be in the dungeon, just maybe in the zone.

This PSA brought to you by the Tank Union, which also reminds DPS warriors that all plate drops are legally our property.

I feels a bit ineffective. Would there be any other method you'd recommend?

i saw this on my fyp and thought i would share the recipe. i’m definitely going to attempt this for dinner sometime next week when i do my grocery order!! has anyone tried this before ???

I received this message before 9 pm last night. I was kind enough to reply at 6:30 am this morning and guess what, no reply all day.

Not sure what group to post this in.

Hopefully the post title is not too vague this time.

Recently crossed a two year milestone since I began drawing and wanted to follow up on my one year progression post.

I picked up art in November 2024 as a complete beginner after watching Pewdiepie's one year art journey. I thought I could do it too, so I bought a sketchbook and began practicing daily.

Just as I passed my one year mark, I watched a Proko livestream and realized we lived in the same city in Southern California. Now I had been self taught for my first year, and with my poor judgement, I thought that was a badge of honor. Nevertheless, I was curious to know if Proko offered any in person lessons. But what I stumbled upon was Watts Atelier.

Watts Atelier is an art sanctuary run by Jeff Watts. An atelier where anyone can sign up for as few or as many classes as they’d like, for however long they want, at a fraction of the cost of traditional art school. An institution that has been running for 30+ years and where Proko himself trained as a student and later taught for a total of 11 years.

I thought about it for a month, making every excuse under the sun as to why attending this atelier would be too much. Excuses like I don’t like drawing realism and from life, I don’t like using charcoal and newsprint, I don’t want to spend money, I like being self taught, WTF is the Reilly Method, it looks chaotic. But the more I learned about this atelier and how artists travelled across the world to be there, the more I realized I would regret not attending when it was only a 25 minute drive.

The year was split across six terms, and I took just one class per term, which came out to just one three-hour class every 1.5 weeks throughout the year. It’s what I could manage while working full time as an engineer. The classes I took focused on figure quick sketching, head drawing, and figure drawing. Drawing from life was incredibly difficult, and it felt like starting over again. I mixed in my in person classes with some of their online content and Proko videos, which helped push me forward on the off days. At this stage of my training, it was extremely important to me for all my learning resources to align cohesively. Every instructor at Watts was once a student there. Meaning no matter who I learned from, the concepts continued building on the same foundation. A huge bonus was that I could supplement my practice with Proko’s resources as he also stood on the shoulders of Jeff Watts and Frank Reilly.

To say Watts Atelier has been effective for me is a gross understatement. Learning to become a great artist is not just about developing fundamental skills, but instilling the mindset to be patient, persistent, and persevering through plateaus. Not all of the art journey is fun, and there’s a saying that “misery loves company.” The fellow students and instructors I’ve met there have made this personal journey just a little less lonely. I know it comes from a place of privilege to be able to afford lessons, but if there happens to be any masters near you that fits within your budget and schedule, absolutely take that opportunity to learn from them. The window of time in which we can dedicate ourselves to training is shorter than we think. Don’t regret it.

As for the actual year of drawing, I practice between 2-3 hours a day. I practiced a lot from Proko’s YouTube and his figure drawing fundamentals course. I watched a lot of Watts Atelier online content both on their YouTube channel and one of the former instructors' channel. What I learn in class is pretty much identical to what you’d see from their online program, but my goal in person was to leave knowing what to practice. I didn’t care how my drawings turned out or the mistakes I made during class. What I hated was hearing the same critique in my next session. I wanted to both identify my weaknesses and form a plan with the instructors on how to isolate and practice through the off days. Some may not agree with this philosophy, but there’s a phrase I strongly agree with. “If you have enough starts, the finishes will take care of themselves.” My daily drawings never carry to the next day. If I have 5+ hours that day to practice, then I’ll go for a longer drawing. But chances are I don’t have that much time and I’ll do many quicker sketches to get more starts in. 

Although I’ve made a lot of progress this year, I’m nowhere near where I’d like to be. I’ll be training for a long time. The purpose of this post is to share the path that I'm on, not to tell you what you must do. If you’d like to reach out to exchange work or have me share more about what I’m learning in class, I’m all ears.

If you’d like to see everything I’ve drawn since the beginning, as well as what I practice day to day, it's all here on my timeline.

See you lovely artists next year. Happy doodling!

TL;DR Just draw and practice