Hi! Been awhile. I've been very active in art and writing in my spare time. I'd love to be able to do a piece for you! Check out my website at dthrocket.com
Or you can hire me on Fiverr to do an illustration or artwork: https://www.fiverr.com/dthrocket/paint-a-scifi-or-fantasy-illustration
2020 has been a nutso year, I hope to be able to share a little light and joy in these times of disease, angsty politics, and natural disasters.
7/12/20
Airship Race - My Illustration Process
1/15/17
The Passing of a Friend
Painting of Aleta on the cover of a science fiction book called "A Lion on Tharthee" by Grant Callin |
Aleta posing with the "EZ Rocket," the first rocket powered vehicle built by XCOR. |
1/13/17
Blog Reboot, Big Fun Scary Adventures
- Get back into archery
- Complete 30 paintings (up from last year's 20)
- Read 30 books (same goal as last year but only read 17... FAIL)
- Start blogging and YouTubing again. Goal: 50 blog posts and 20 YouTube videos. (My channel is www.youtube.com/user/DTHRocket)
- Transcribe 50 children's stories from YouTube in Chinese and learn the vocabulary. This is a new method I've been using to further my Chinese proficiency. My girlfriend Lulu has been helping me a lot!
I'd like to touch on one thing I've been struggling with in the past few years. If you've been following this blog since it began in 2008 you probably have a clear sense of how ambitious I've been about reaching space and going far in my field. But to be honest, starting midway through college I've felt a pull in a much different direction. Don't get me wrong, aerospace is a deep passion of mine. But it isn't my everything. After my experience in China and making so many Chinese friends, I really felt God calling me there to serve Him. I don't know what that looks like, but I'm still praying about it. Is there tension between my love for aerospace and my love for China? Sometimes I feel there is, but not necessarily.
The bottom line is that I'm staying the course for now but I'm open to wherever and whatever God leads me to. Life is an adventure, and I see now that the greatest adventure may not be in the direction of my boyhood passion. But it might.
So what's this blog gonna be about this year? Honestly I don't know. I found as an intern that I couldn't really post about aerospace because everything I was doing was proprietary, and that's still true for the most part. Perhaps the deep theme has yet to unfold. You'll just have to keep reading to find out.
3/4/14
Wo Xuexi Zhongwen
I recently decided to be more serious about learning a new language, and between the two that I already am familiar with, Chinese and French, I chose Chinese. My goal is to become fluent within six months, so we'll see how I've progressed by September 1st.
I've learned that the best way to learn a new language is just to speak it, mistakes and all. The best thing about being a college student is that there are many, many international students to practice with. I have already made several friends this semester.
Learning Mandarin is not half as hard as it is made out to be. Yeah, you have to watch your tones, but even that is pretty easy once you get a feel for it. But the grammar and vocabulary make so much sense and are much simpler than western languages. For instance, no verb conjugation or tenses, no masculine/feminine shenanigans, etc. Where it is difficult, however, is character recognition. But thanks to pinyin, the Romanized system of spelling Chinese, I don't have to worry about it until later.
1/17/14
It's Been A Looong Time...
5/7/13
It's Here, It's Finally Here! Ender's Game First Trailer
I have been looking forward to an Ender's Game movie for a loooooong long time. Finally they have made one.. Terrified to see it, because it would be so easy to turn Ender's Game into something it's not. Also the story is rather disturbing and a literal translation to the big screen would most likely earn a thumbs down from me. I hope they are subtle. That's like saying I hope it will rain in the Mojave Desert. But I can hope.
P.S. I'm writing a book right now. More than that I will not say, because I hate to build expectations before I have a finished product.