40 years ago today, the Beatles performed their final performance on top of the Apple Records building at 3 Saville Row. Today visitors on a Beatles tour in London were permitted on top of the building, to see where the famous “roof top” concert took place! It looks just the same and I think it would have been pretty cool site to see!

The Republican Party has chosen the first black national chairman in its history today, Maryland’s Lt. Governor, Michael Steele. This is just three months after the first black president was elected.

Presidential cabinet pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle, is now another candidate in trouble around tax issues.

And as if this whole world isn’t heading towards a science fiction plot enough, a new planet was just discovered. HD80606b (how sci-fi is that!) is four times the size of Jupiter and has an average temperature of about 980 degrees. So if anything is living on, it must be scary as hell!

Today’s painting is for Sue, Happy Birthday! We love you!

So, I got a text message from my daughter that her Ipod that went through the washing machine is back to normal now! She was worried because the screen was a little dim after the wash. That’s actually pretty impressive, the guys at Apple should know this one is a quality product or she was extremely lucky!

I spent most of the day driving around the outskirts of Boston through a bunch of chamin New England taawns. The roads weren’t too bad for most of the trip.

So today in the news, The Illinois Senate voted unanimously to remove impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office.

After the resignation of the previous prime minister, Iceland is now set to appoint the first openly gay PM, Johanna Sigurdardottir.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev welcomed Cuban President Raul Castro to Moscow, Fidel Castro, was the last Cuban President to visit 22 years ago at the end of the Cold War.

I am so tired tonight and heading to bed!

29 down, 336 to go!

Boston , Day 3!

Well it happened. The crazy snow storm came and snowed me in to my hotel room all day. It was actually OK, as I have so much work to catch up on. I hope I can make up the loss tomorrow so I can get home!

Today is Jackson Pollack’s birthday! The founding father of what I like to refer to as the “splash” painting! Basically, what I consider this entire project to be a “lite” derivative of, perhaps with a little Miro thrown in. Pollack would have been 97 years old.

I had a friend who became totally infatuated with Jackson Pollack and actually had a very large original painting hanging over his sofa, it’s a long story! At the time it was worth $7 million. I haven’t spoken to him in a while but I wonder if he still has it and how he has been?

Billy Powell, the original keyboard player from Lynyrd Skynyrd, died today at age 56.

The House of Representatives passed an $819 billion economic stimulus package on a party-line vote.

Starbucks Coffee Corp. announced they will close 300 stores and cut 6,700 jobs. Boeing is also set to cut 10,000 jobs. Honestly, I can’t even keep up with the jobs being lost anymore. Is anyone paying attention here?

It also appears that the plant that processed the salmonella tainted peanut butter knew that the peanut butter was bad all along.

On a positive note, the stock market was up today!!

Dow 8375.45 +2.5%.

S&P 874.09 +3.4%

Nasdaq 1,558.34 +3.6%

Hope to be home tomorrow!

Boston, Day 2!

OK for those wondering they really do “Pack the Ka in the Yad” around here! I have always loved accents and am lucky to work with and around many people from all over the world. I love different cultures and languages without any offense to Bostonians I am not sure I’m a big fan of the Bastan accent! However, on occasion you get an actual Irish brogue “packing the ka.” Which trust me you don’t want to drive or try and “pack a ka” here anyway you say it!

So this morning I took the “T” into the city and walked literally about 15-20 miles, I feel like I am going to fall apart. The good news is that pain in my neck has been so overwhelmed by the pain everywhere else I am not sure where one ends and the other begins?

Boston is expecting some crazy snow storm tonight (don’t they always have crazy snow storms in the winter) that may change the details of this trip, although I am hoping for the best. Unfortunately, I actually have to drive tomorrow.

Today in the news, the writer John Updike died at age 76 from cancer.

In Nashville TN, A worker at Goodwill found an original Elsworth Woodward watercolor painting from 1907 in the donations bin and it was auctioned online, apparently worth over $8000. The money went to benefit Goodwill.

11,500 more jobs lost today. And the Barack Obama Spending bill has met some opposition. It seems like everyone does not feel we should continue to blindly spend billions of dollars without any recourse. Hmmm…

A man in California killed his entire family and then himself after losing his job at the health-care provider Kaiser Permanente.

And more predictions of the end of the world being 2012 (which I actually do not completely discount) more specifically December 21, 2012 to be specific, according to the ancient Mayan calendar, although there are supposed to be years of turbulence leading to it. Oh, wait a minute! Has anyone been paying attention to what has been going on in the world? They are making a movie about it! I assume it will be released before 2012?

27 down, 338 to go!

OK, So I’m in Boston now! Painting while on travel will be the true test, but for those watching, all is here and ready to go!

I have to say Boston is a cool and modern city with remnants of a small European town and a lot of hip good looking cosmopolitan people! But it has got to be the worst city to try and drive in. Luckily the majority of my day involved walking, something I need to do anyway!

As I am writing this Tim Geithner is being sworn in as the new Secretary of the Treasury. Maybe it’s me but I still can’t believe that we would have a man who “accidentally” didn’t pay his taxes for multiple years head the treasury, including the IRS. He was also at the forefront of this billion dollar bailout that is still under scrutiny? He was approved 60 to 34 so I guess not everyone feels that way?

70,00 jobs were cut today from major companies including, Pfizer Caterpillar, Sprint, Nextel, ING, Home Depot and HP.

On the Massachusetts front, Speaker of the house and state representative Salvatore DiMasi resigned, apparently due to ethics issues.

Also of interest (although not on the back of the painting) Chicago Governor Blagojevich’s impeachment trial started today on allegations that he was going to “sell” the senate seat occupied by President Barack Obama. He did not show up for the trial but is instead doing a media tour including Larry King.

Is it just me or is there any other people actually paying attention to the state of our world right now?

Talked to my daughter tonight, she was going to watch a baby horse be born, sounds better than all of the other stuff going on in the world.

Lots of walking has made me tired tonight! Need to finish up some work and get some sleep tonight for the long day ahead tomorrow!

26 down, 339 to go!

So Today, I am getting ready to go to Boston! Right after painting this, I’ll be heading to the airport. I’ll be bringing my canvases and paints as well as my video camera to keep up with the video blogs and I hope this will be easy.

Iceland's Minister of Business Affairs, Bjorgvin Sigurdsson resigned today, three months after the collapse of Iceland’s banks and stock market. He said the Icelandic government failed to restore confidence following the crisis. Sound familiar, I think the whole world is chanting this mantra. Although on a positive note, tourism to Iceland has been up and the cost of being a tourist there is about 1/3 what it was a year ago!

News today says that investors should gear up for more bad market news with continuing weak earnings and the biggest plunge in GDP in 26 years! Analysts say if the Dow can hang on to this level in the weeks ahead, this would be a good indication that the bottom has been set.

Miss. Indiana has become the new Miss. America!

Today starts the Chinese New Year, The year of Ox. Predictions are, as with previous year’s of the OX, for turbulent times ahead. I don’t think we needed an OX to tell us that!

Today I had a bunch of errands to get ready for my trip tomorrow. This also included preparing the remainder of this month’s canvases. Only one week left until the first month is done!

The salmonella scare that happened earlier this month has become a growing concern and has now been linked to products containing peanut butter! The funny thing is I have been really craving peanut butter lately and actually just bought peanut butter ice cream, so if I get salmonella you’ll most likely know where it came from.

On Wednesday, a wheel fell off a truck being towed on the DC Beltway, crossed the median, struck the grill of a tractor-trailer and ricocheted back across three travel lanes before landing on a woman’s car roof and front windshield, killing her. She was a University of Maryland senior on her way to a prenatal massage appointment.

Today a beautiful 20 year old Brazilian model also Ms. World, whose hands and feet were just amputated in hopes of saving her from a deadly, little-known illness, died. She originally had a urinary tract infection that went untreated and suffered from necrosis caused by septicemia triggered by a bacterial infection, causing her organs to fail.

Crazy, unexplainable things like this happen every day leaving me to always believe that

it’s important to make the most of our time here! All we can do is work to leave behind some love, hope, positive energy for future generations and perhaps some music and art to beautify the world as well!

OK so the doctor didn’t say I couldn’t go on my planned trip so at this point I’m going. Today was another crazy day at work, I didn’t think I would ever get to leave. There was so much to do plus I needed to get ready for al the traveling I have to do the next few weeks. I have my doctor appointment in-between and will find out more during that visit! The next few weeks will probably be the most challenging of this project so far. I knew that the travel was heading this way and made the appropriate concessions for the paintings but the added pain isn’t helping. I’m ready though! So, we’ll see how it goes!

According to GDP numbers released today, the British economy is officially in recession. The traditional definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. They join an increasing number of countries throughout the world facing similar issues, including the United States.

It’s funny because I saw an old friend from London today and on our drive to the airport she mentioned how the British economy has been suffering. It’s funny how people only relate to their own situation and seem to forget about the rest of the world.

The stock market was a little bit up today although you wouldn’t notice. And the new government (much like the old) seems to be spending billions of dollars on numerous unjustifiable programs and business. One day we are going to need to cash in on this debt and it isn’t going to be pretty.

I am so glad I get to sleep in tomorrow, if I can sleep. Before all the running starts!

23 down, 342 to go!

Today the reports from my MRI's were sent to my doctor. I have been so worried about this pain and knew that something was very wrong. My fears are just now slightly being realized. Although I won’t go into details today, the results were not good and I am now being sent to a neurologist. However, I did find out that it is unrelated to the infamous tick bite that ultimately encouraged me to go to the doctor to begin with!

I have so much planned during the next few weeks including a lot of travel for work and I will now hear tomorrow if the doctor will even permit to go. Either way it seems like surgery is inevitable. As I have said before, I am not a good patient and all sorts of things are racing through my head now, including three weeks into this project if these paintings will be done from a hospital or even cut short? No speculation though, I will wait until I hear from the neurologist tomorrow! Only positive energy!

Microsoft said today that they will cut 5000 jobs over the next 18 months. Shares in the company dropped $2.27, down to $17.11 today after the news! The stock market in general is still down, this, 3 days into the presidency of Barack Obama.

Hope to sleep tonight but so much is on my mind.

22 down, 343 to go!