So, yesterday I went and picked up my freight. My friend Tyson has a van that he uses to help out Hladno Pivo with shows and such and he was gracious enough to help me out.

My stuff actually showed up on January 25th, but they required some additional paperwork to release it. Translated packing list and stuff like that. The main bummer, though, were all the fees. I valued my stuff at $2495. I figured customs would charge me $500 or $600. But, with all the warehouse fees and customs, it actually ended up being around $1300 to pick my stuff up. Fuck. It was about the same price to SEND it. It's a lot of money. But now I have 4.5 cubic meters of my stuff here in Croatia. Which means it's not sitting in a $200/month rented storage space in LA. So, I guess after 13 months it will have paid for itself in a way.

Plus it means I have my stuff with me. Which is cool. My trip LA in December was all about getting rid of stuff and sorting through things to decide what to keep.

Among the stuff that I shipped to Croatia is:

My brewing equipment for making beer. Not ALL of the equipment, but many of the large, heavy and expensive pieces like my computerized mash tun and boiling kettle. Tyson and I will make beer sometime in the not too distant future.

My drums. I have a nice wood hoop Ayotte set from Canada and a great DW double bass pedal. I'm not into double bass at all, but it's great for exercises to keep those feet equal. I hope to rent a practice space sometime after my visa is renewed.

My comics. 3 long boxes and 2 short boxes totaling around 1200 comics, 95% of which are comics that I worked on. Been coloring comics for 17 years now, so they add up.

Kitchen wares. I have some decent stuff I didn't wanna get rid of. Nice silverware, a food mill, mortar and pestle. Simple stuff that I use a lot.

Books and DVDs. Lots of collected hardcovers of comics, drumming books, some software books etc.

Comic art. I still have maybe 100 pages of painted blue line colors from the Grendel book I did with Edvin Biuković and Darko Macan. I'll give one to Darko. Darko? Any preference? I'll check if I still have whatever page you want. Or you can come over and look through them.

Golf clubs. Yeah, I used to do SOME golfing. My buddy Dave and I would mostly play 9 holes or go to the range, which was fun and an excuse to drink the rest of the day.

Computer. A back up PC that's pretty decent, a printer and scanner that always did right by me.

Scuba fins and snorkel. For the sea in the summer!

And various clothes; a suit, several pairs of nicer shoes etc etc. And various knick knacks. They add up, but I got rid of most except a nice little Buddha statue that I've had for 20 years.

Nice to have my stuff. I'm not much of a pack rat, but it's a feeling of relief that it all arrived and it's all okay. Nothing was broken or fucked up. It arrived in better condition than most mail I get. So that's something.