2015-05-28:

Pretty busy today.

Worked on the bear, got a lot more of it done.

Left at 11:45 for my 12:00. She had some questions, and a messed up printer. Very messed up. Like it tried to take the whole stack of paper at once. Silly thing. I yanked it out of there but it seems like she'll have to sort of manually feed one sheet at a time into it. At least it cleaned and got rid of the streak.

Then to hinge guy, who I had a little trouble finding. I did make it there in the end, and I can actually fix his hinge. It just unscrews. He broke it in two places, the plastic holder and the metal hinge itself. I ordered the whole darn back for $30. So how about that?

Came back here, finished the bear and got everything around to go see my parents. Gave stuff. Changed my mother's email password (with some difficulty) and came back here. Sorry I came right as you guys were about to eat. My bad. Bear took longer to finish than I thought, I didn't like the heart so I did it over a different way.

Back here I downloaded some useful apps into an iMac that got dropped off, and got a guy a price on some RAM for his old Mac Pro. Once that's in I'll install 10.7, the last version that machine could use. Had to burn a DVD for it, my 10.7 flash got cooped by 10.10. Probably should have used 10.8 but whatever.

Then I started the Vista install on the Lenovo I got the cheap HD for.

Cleaned up all the bits of paper around here from cutting out the bear.

Then it was 9:00.

Want to maybe have Susan make some powered weapons like the guns from Borderlands, but there's really no rules in the book about that. The old Darkbolt book didn't say anything about technology, and the new one has a single paragraph, as that's basically where he stopped working on it.

Looked through the later chapters of the comic but there aren't many hints there either. The closest we come is some gauntlets a guy uses as arms that seem to be able to absorb power and change it.

Humm…

Wrote it up. Guess I'll roll up a few things and see if it makes sense the way I've thought of it.

Sat:
Wrote up a few more ideas for skills and making things I thought of last night.
Tried to get this stupid Lenovo working. Sees that it's plugged into ethernet, won't get an IP address.

Rolled the shotgun creation for Susan.

Ate lunch, left for 1:00 appointment.

Sadly, this did not go so well. They had a shortcut to some 2013 tax return they were looking for, that existed in their downloads folder. But wouldn't you know it, the "excellent" win8 backup didn't bother to actually, you know, back that up. So I couldn't find it anywhere. Nor could I find it on the turbotax website, under either of her logins. But I did answer some questions and did a few things for them. Sigh.

Pulled into a house looking for the number and it was for sale. There was a sticker on the door "this house was found abandoned" etc. There was a huge indoor pool, right inside the place! I want that house! I looked it up, only $241,000. And the "pool may need work." No, really? There's a huge hole in the thing, of course it needs work. It needs replacing.

There was this weird pipe outside the place just merrily spewing water all over. And some of the outdoor garage lights were on. Who's paying the electric and water bill for this house?

Anyway, got home at 3:30 and continued work on the darkbolt document.

Had dinner.

Cut the back lawn. Figured it was cool out, why wait until tomorrow when I usually do it? Then I don't have to worry about it.

Worked on, and finished, Chapter 142. They meet Mercury and things get a little bit more interesting. I think they'll meet Mars in a different way, but what that way is, I'm unsure yet. I'll probably write it in my head later tonight while I'm falling asleep, as usual.

:-)

Sun:
I didn't!

But I did think about the next chapter, where Sparkle calls SS with her concerns, and Mercury is brought up to speed.
Thought about how to meet Mars, that bus thing doesn't sit well with me. And I have the Tenma to think about.

So I think I know what's going to happen.

It was 3:00 by the time I finished that.

Read 2004 onward of darkbolt again. Get a sense of their techniques, what they could do. Dang, I didn't realize how much that story influenced Susan's design. She's Naoko. She has an evil in her soul that talks to her, and is trying to take her over. Huh. That was not intentional. In fact, I didn't even plan for the Darkness to even talk to her, it just sort of happened. After Umbrage she started trying to not lose her temper so often, and "new Susan" and "old Susan" started fighting, and I turned that into The Darkness as part of the plot to… well, spoilers.

The Darkness was from my old Sailor Moon comic, not related to the demon at all. Still, on odd parallel. Hadn't even considered it until just now.

Honest!

So guess who didn't get any calls this weekend? That's right, this guy.

Love to know what happened.

Guess I get to weed my mother's garden tomorrow after all.

Sigh.

Mon:
Weeding!

Got a bunch of stuff at Jo Annes, and on sale too. The frames were 50% off, so I bought, uh, all of them. (3 black, 1 white).
Also found letters, yes letters and said "hey I have that yarn I'll never use, let's make another thing to sell." So I got them.
Paper.

The cashier said there was a coupon and used her phone to get it for me. 20% off. So I saved another $13. I figure I got full price $106 worth of stuff for $58.24. Not too shabby. Thanks, cashier lady. I hope the universe repays you in kind, though I highly doubt it works that way.

Couldn't go to Aldi, it was closed. Thanks for hanging a sign, like last week, maybe? Letting us know? No?

So I came back and wrapped the letters. Did it a bit differently this time, as I figured out (halfway through making the others) they must have double wrapped parts, so I did that too. They still came out looking crummy. And I still have no idea why. I forgot to ask my mother about it.

[[image file="2015-05/p1016147.jpg" alt="Love Letters" ]]

So I ate a quick lunch and got to my parent's place at 1:30 because I wanted to finish the letters. (I did.)
Did a bunch of weeding. Tons of dandelions. Saw their outdoor kitty. Saw my sister and her husband and we almost ate outside, but it started to rain. I don't think it lasted. Oh well. That was a nice get together.

Came back, started the "claptrap" plan. Got him all traced, hopefully put into the 6 layers I'm going to use, printed and cut out the guides. Assembled a "flat" copy, to see how the pieces look at least that way. Future issues: 1) How do I keep the template on the piece of paper I'm cutting? 2) How do I know where to put the cut out pieces when I'm not laying them atop a copy of themselves?

I could print a whole mess of the shape on the color, just in reverse, and cut that out. I mean I'm using the sheet anyway.
Huh, that's an idea. I was thinking of just one at a time, then how do I tell the printer where to print the next one, and I would have to cut straight across, wasting paper. But no, do tons right at the start. Might as well.
#2 though, that's going to be a killer.

Got no calls today. Did reach the person from Friday, she wants Thursday. So tomorrow it's go to Aldi and get back here to start the assembly of the real thing.
Though I did sell the laptop for all of $20. So that's a plus, right? Right? So I get to go to the post office as well.

Checked out the new phone minus a phone my mother gave me. Now to find some apps to put on the thing.

Oh, and I don't know why, but my cats are obsessed with my pants right now. They are just sniffing and sniffing. And rubbing. And biting. Get off my pants!

Tues:
Woke up this morning, immediately realized how to solve problem #2. Just print on the background where everything goes. The paper will be in front of it, and if done lightly enough, no one will see it. Brilliant.

Busy day today!

Went shopping, which actually worked. Aldi is closing to renovate, so I'll be without my bestest store for two months. *sniff*

Came home, started on the two shadowboxes. Came out okay, not as cute as the pony ones, but hopefully the Elsa one that I'll do next, now that I know the process works, will be cuter. I'll do a pony one for the last frame. I'm thinking applejack apple bucking? Don't know.

[[image file="2015-05/p1016148.jpg" alt="Claptrap" ]]

That took until about 4:00. Got several calls today, but at that time, just as I was about to put the shadowbox on ebay, Barbara called so I answered.

Went over there, looked at her printer. For some reason, on best quality, her HP says the paper type or size is a mismatch. Huh? Seems to be a driver issue, but no new drives, so you're stuck.

Said I would put together the cover for her, for her next book, so sent the picture to myself.
Also told her to take the $1000 surface 3 back and I'll get her a laptop. She just wants to do some typing. I mean, come on.

Came home, did the cover.
Then ordered her a laptop. $250. You're welcome.

Got a screen and the back bracket for the guy, so with the calls I got it should be a busy rest of the week.

That took until 6:00, so I ate dinner, started the Elsa trace, and then made my phone calls.

Didn't reach half the people I wanted to. But at least of the three calls, I returned two. So at the moment (7:30) I have two jobs for tomorrow. Back to a place I replaced a power supply for early this month. (The one with the filthy machine) It is now hung, apparently? But the caps lock light goes on? So that doesn't make any sense.

One caller got back to me, so I have three places to go tomorrow. Just have to get the parts people in there.

I hesitate to say but could things be slightly about ready to start thinking about maybe turning the corner a little bit? Because that would be great.

Got Elsa traced. Should be the background (with the castle) and 3 layers of her. A few more colors there, though. Now to break her apart.

Wed:
Good start to the day. First one was "hung" so I wanted to take the side off and see if maybe I missed some bad caps when I was changing the power supply and such. Hit the power switch on the back. Sigh.

Turned it back on in safe mode, ran some stuff, machine just went blank. HD was still working, but couldn't do anything. Shut it down just with F4 so I know it was still working. Sigh.

It tried to run CHKDSK but gave up with "unspecified error" so I ran the WD tool and CHKDSK from my flash drive. Both passed fine.

Back in normal mode ran mbam (40 minutes) and it stayed up wonderfully. Huh. Shoot, forgot to tell them to leave it alone while it updated. Oh well.

On the way back home I stopped to buy paper. Another good deal, as it's on sale as well. Got $9.44 worth of stuff for $4.48. The pages are 12" x 12" and some of them are 2.49 and some are .99 and there doesn't look to be that much difference between them. Anyway, thought about how to get the shapes cut out without being able to run them through the printer. Like cut them down? I hated to.

Printed the pieces on paper. I'll cut them out, trace them, and then cut them out on the good stuff. I hope.

Ate and started tracing. Left at 2:00 for the furniture place by the mall.

That took far too long. They had this machine from 1995 that was still running. Well, not anymore, I mean. I made sure the HD was dead (it was) and checked a few other machines for them. Brought one home to reload.

The last one was easy, just setting up one of those cutter machines I was looking at for someone. She wants to use with an… iPad? Huh? How are you going to design anything on an iPad? Well, whatever.

Back here, ate dinner. Couple of calls today, but mostly it was just people calling me back. Two people want Friday night. Friday night? at 5:00 and 7:00? UGH. But whatever, I guess. Going to my parent's house a bit early that day.

Back to cutting stuff out.

Got the background done and most of the rest cut out. The one color I chose was too green, but I guess it'll work.

Oh, and I'm doing a sonic rainboom Rainbow Dash as my pony one, I picked out how I want it to look, and in the 3D layers it should be pretty nice!

Thurs:
Most were quick, as I anticipated. Number one just lost internet, so hardly worth the bother to go over there.

Came back here, did more cutting and a tiny bit of assembling.

Then out for my 11:00 which was slightly more involved. All her .lnk files, in other words windows shortcuts, had been switched to open in windows photo viewer or something, which of course wasn't working. Fixed that, but the icons weren't fixed. Had to erase the "icon cache" and let it be rebuilt, because I guess that's a thing on windows. Mbam took an hour and wasn't finished, so I just cut it off. It had scanned more than a million things, and usually 300,000 is about it. Huh?

The last one was also quick, just resetting a password for a website and she said something about her mouse, but I didn't see it.

Not many calls today, only one really. I did finish Elsa. Tell you what, I'm going to put the original and mine here, see if you can see which one mine was.

[[image file="2015-05/elsa2.jpg" alt="elsa top" ]]

[[image file="2015-05/elsa.jpg" alt="Elsa Bottom" ]]

Did you guess? I'll tell you at the end. But I think it's pretty obvious. I don't know why I even try. I think (if this one sells) I might do something a little different. Cut out a negative. In other words, print her out, cut her out, then I can lay the page with the hole in it down and see where things should be. That was my biggest problem this time. Oh well, maybe someone will think it's cute enough during one of our many sales.

Now we start on Rainbow Dash.

Ate dinner, made my phone calls.

Got one more for tomorrow (so three total) and one even for Saturday.

May be going somewhere at 1:30 tomorrow, he hasn't emailed me back.

So, looking to tomorrow, at least one in the morning, then my parent's about 3:00, then two jobs after that, hopefully getting home around 8:00. Probably won't cut the lawn this weekend, rain is expected both days. But it looks like they downgraded the chances on Sunday from when last I looked.

Probably do writing and get at least a start on the rainboom. That's about it.

At least I'm slightly more upbeat at the end of this week than last. Hope you are too. See you all next week.

The lower one was mine.

Oh, did I ever show you guys Mizzy's gift from way back? I don't think I did.

[[image file="2015-05/p1016119.jpg" alt="Earrings" ]]

Yeah, they came out way too huge. I wanted to avoid the stupid "thin walls" or whatever plagued me before, but that was excessive.