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 |  An attempt at creating a daily blog. |
| I'm hoping I can turn this into a daily repository of random and not so random musings of my daily activities. Perhaps it will gel into a common thread that I may be able to work towards creating something interesting. |
| The pain in the side has not decreased any and I'm still having to munch percocet and muscle relaxers....so I'm bitchy and trying like hell to not get depressed. It is a struggle. Kami slept under the covers for much of the night but I wasn't able to sleep. Too late I realized I skipped the trazadone so I didn't take it until about 3 in the morning.I had to get up to see the orthotics folks in Pinehurst so I pretty much dozed along with tossing and turning. I tried to volunteer to assist with the boy scouts and their fly fishing merit badge in another week and a half. It turned out that I had to also do a volunteer application within the software used to register and keep tabs on time. Once I got that then all I got was a "pending" status. I still need to record my 3 hours from over the weekend in the orientation class. And I'm running on a very short fuse. I tried to refill my percocet....the script was originally called in at the end of November and I've only gotten one refill from it, yet Walgreens claims there are no refills remaining. All in all, it has not been a very good day for me. I'm tired and way past being grumpy. I guess there was a get together for the volunteers this evening but I couldn't register for it. Plus even though it was listed as being at the ed center it is actually at the Mash House. Anything there I won't go to, right now I'm susceptible to grabbing a beer, then another, and another....nope...I avoid temptation as much as I can. I got two bluebird boxes today. I'm going to put them up tomorrow on poles. I'll go get some conduit clamps and clamp them down. I also need to have something to keep snakes from slithering up the poles...I'm not sure the baffles would work plus they probably aren't inexpensive. If I could shoot staples through something that I could then anchor on the poles, that could work...wrapping barbed wire around might work too but I don't have any. I'll let my brain work on it while I'm asleep. Kami is laying along side me asleep...I hope that doesn't mean she'll be up all night bouncing around. I received the "classroom in a Book" for Illustrator today so I'm hoping to study that a bit tonight. Some woman in Ontario pretty much ruined my decal project for me...she came out with her version of the healing waters logo...it isn't correct so I'll still end up doing it. The hard part is to get it all laid out on the transfer tape with the various pieces properly aligned. And to make it for general consumption may be beyond the scope of people's abilities. The orthotics people took impressions of my feet, they figured about 3 weeks until the insert would be done...and then they will have to customize it. I was hoping to go out and walk today but the right foot is still burning. I'll use a lidocaine patch on it tomorrow and use moleskin on the left foot. I'll take Kassi out to see how things go and plan on Kara on Thursday. Tomorrow night I have the plastics rigging for bass class, then Thursday night will be fly tying. Nathaniel says he'll be the one teaching it. It should be another of the clouser minnow which I struggled with before...but I watched Charlie Craven tie it and it is actually pretty simple. The other is a shad of some type...neither of the flies would be anything I would use around here...I'm not sure they fully understand who their intended audience is. Not everyone can pick up and drive 3+ hours minimum for trout waters...and pretty much the same for salt water. They should be focusing on what might attract the warm water species, crappie, bluegill, bass, pumpkin seeds...but none of them are active yet, still too cool. Oh well, hopefully my mood will be better tomorrow but I'm about to load up on pills again so it's doubtful. Kami keeps jerking in her sleep, it must be some interesting dreams she's having. I wonder what cats actually dream about. I need to measure the desk in the fly room. Bood got a shoe rack because she didn't like seeing my shoes on the floor. They were all lined up along the wall though instead of being scattered around the living room. But, I could use something like that for my bins storage for the fly tying materials. The one she got is about 4 feet across, I don't think the desk is that wide...but I could put a board across if needed. There is 4 feet going all the way to the wall. I'll try to remember to measure the next time I get up to pee. This hasn't been a real interesting blog...but it is what it is... That's a wrap. |
| Once again, like a bad penny I keep coming back! It's been a busy time since my last visit. I've gotten into fly tying and have been ordering materials left and right. I finally have enough now to tie quite an assortment of flies, now comes the need to sit down and do it. I started tying a pattern the other day but found I was missing one item. I got in something similar today but none are the right color, black. But some of the pieces are transparent so I'm going to get out my fat pointed sharpie and make it black. I don't need much...and using sharpies is a highly recommended method to get the colors you want. I also got a Cricut machine. This is basically a cross between a laser engraver and a cnc machine. I can install pens to create all types of designs or I can install various cutting knives to cut out designs in vinyl, cardstock, paper, cardboard or even very thin balsa wood. It uses a rather crude software which utilizes vectors for drawing. The advantage to a vector system is you can resize your object without distortion. If you paint or draw something and try to enlarge it, at some point it will begin to distort and show small blocks (bit mapped graphics). Unfortunately, it seems to be rather simplistic. Therefore I am in the process of learning how to use Adobe Illustrator. Adobe is the famous name behind Photoshop and since I use many of the applications, I am somewhat familiar with the user interface. Of course, drawing uses different terms for common items...such as "art board" for the canvas associated with Photoshop. Since I am paying for the suite of Adobe products, I might as well use yet another. There is also Inkscape, basically the same as Illustrator except it is free...always attractive. But, I had to flip a coin and since I already have access to Illustrator as well as it being an industry standard, I went with it. So today I was working on a tutorial for it. Unfortunately, I spent a lot of time looking for things. One of them being my graphics tablet. Actually, I have 2 of them but I was unable to find either one of them. I hope tonight the gremlins will bring them back out of hiding. I want to use one because I have a logo that I wish to cut into vinyl to use as decals on vehicles. It isn't simple though and will have 4 colors, white, blue, light blue and red. And of course, one piece of vinyl won't do it, I'll need to do what they call "layering". I have a vague concept of the idea but other than that, I know little more than the word. However, Youtube is full of tutorials. There are thousands and thousands of "makers" in the world doing this type of stuff...and that means there are at least hundreds of videos of how to do it. All I need is time and motivation. Motivation is a current issue. I developed a pain in my side and it isn't going away. It gets to be a major issue when I am laying down. I had an ultrasound done last week and the liver, pancreas, gall bladder, bladder and right kidney all appear to be normal. Meanwhile, I've been taking pain meds. Those reduce my motivation and also lead towards depression so I try to avoid them. In this case though, things aren't working out that way so I contacted the doc today and she is putting in an order for a CT scan. Right now she doesn't have a good idea of what is the issue...I don't seem to be able to make any movements that make things any worse...or any better. My shoulder has flared up as well. I saw the shoulder doc early last month and everything was good. A week later though it became quite tender. I'm a shoulder sleeper so by the middle of the night, between the shoulder and the opposite side, I'm not a happy camper. Meanwhile, I also became incorporated. I'm hoping that at some point I can generate some photos/videos that people would be willing to pay for. I don't have any delusions of becoming an overnight sensation but perhaps I can get something with an emotional appeal. I see a guy on facebook that I believe lives in Louisiana and he takes photos that really draw me in. I feel nearly anyone can take the "post card" type images but this guy has images that really trip an emotional button in me. These aren't exotic photos taken from far away places but are all local to his area. I would love to be able to create images like those...and those are ones that I feel I could actually sell. Time will tell. As if all that isn't enough, I am doing an online course for starting a business as well as one for magazine writing. I'm hoping to put all these things together successfully. Only time will tell. I think that is a wrap for today. |
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It is nice to see someone here with similar background interests. I too like to ride my adult tricycle, spent time on Guam Island in 1968, and held a ham radio license. I was known as The Stork because I was an RN in surgery in charge of the OB/GYN Department. Hubby was known as The Bodyman{/] because he repaired and painted car bodies, and my son was known as 10 Speed. What better way to describe a teenage boy. 