So after a sunny early autumn blur back to Pittsburgh– unloading the truck (finally!), moving stuff around with Heather in the new place, meeting new friends and neighbors Scott and Winfrey, Yolanda and Charlie, Tommy and Jennifer and all of their kids and dogs (our neighborhood, Point Breeze, rules!) and taking Hunter to and from school today — I’m back on the plane to San Diego.

This plane goes through Denver, making three different in-between airports in the last week (Atlanta & Charlotte first) while juggling new business venture, new painting project, new city, new house in Pittsburgh, new temporary arrangements in San Diego– who knew even I could cram this much stuff into one month and its not even the 15th yet, especially considering I left San Diego for Pittsburgh in Heather’s car on September 1st!

Anyway, the highlight of the mural project prep last week in SD was my Friday night visit to the top of 501 West Broadway with photographer Mike Brown to research the missing views of the cityscape mural– “missing” insofar as the client wants to replace a few skyscrapers with more ocean, marina and sky.

Some of these aren’t so inspiring, but its what’s being hidden by the buildings to be removed, so Mike’s super high resolution pix and mighty zoom lens make them just what I needed.

I posted a view of these pix in real time from the roof (because the evening was too beautiful not to!) with my iPhone to Twitter and beyond, so Mike shot my portrait last thing, with my face actually lit by the phone.

What a difference ten years makes– no one seemed concerned about two artists with cameras wanting to be on the top of one of the tallest building in downtown San Diego on the ten year anniversary of 9/11.

I’ll post drafts of the revised mural drawings with all this new detail as soon as they are ready!

I’m on the road with Heather’s Subaru full of stuff, Raul and myself headed to Pittsburgh and our new set-up there. Heather and the kids flew ahead and signed the lease on our new place while spending a few days with the McGinleys, our cousins in Point Breeze. We’re very fortunate to be living within walking distance of supportive extended family!

Ironically, just as we were packing the last boxes and preparing for the moving truck last week, I landed a really cool trompe l’oeil mural project in San Diego, so I’ll be flying right back next week to paint the new project and also finish the Cafe Mundo mural I’ve written about here.

Because I’m in a hurry to get out of my motel here in Albuquerque and go have coffee with an old friend, no new mural pictures today, but I have a bunch to get of the camera, so check back soon.

If I missed you in the rush of leaving San Diego, hit me up (mobile phone and email remain the same) and we can get together later this month when I’m back.

• updated the new mural gallery page on new #WordPress blog http://johnhiemstra.com/murals #
• last video post was to FaceBook for #SanDiego #art reception this Fri http://bit.ly/10QtT1, me, wife @sdmetalsmith, http://bedfordbuilt.com #
• I uploaded a YouTube video — Heather's LifeChain, part 3 http://bit.ly/OAIOA #
• I uploaded a YouTube video — Heather's LifeChain, part 2 http://bit.ly/2pcMhW #

• complete trompe l’oeil circus #mural gallery first up on my new #WordPress portfolio site http://bit.ly/1h165m #art #lt #SanDiego artist #
• fix that link to Heather's LifeChain video http://bit.ly/6rQGs !! #
• posted second LifeChain #jewelry video http://bit.ly/qiVMT to @sdmetalsmith new #wordpress blog! #