Sanity on a stick

We are attempting to remedy the situation. Remain calm, updates are imminent. Really this time.

*boots the dust bunnies out*

Erg. Summer of DOOM. at least business-wise. Things seem to be settling, and Rawr will (hopefully) be producing again by the end of the month - once I've adjusted to school and Caryn's done her volunteer work.

Yup.

Not that we've been totally quiet. I'll post some shirts I've done over the past few weeks as soon as I remember where I left my camera. Organization FTW!

Turns out I picked the hottest bloody room in the house for the studio. So much fun. Ditto the past month of trauma and general flailing in our personal lives. I'm glad to have things kind of back on track.

In other news, I'm really freaking happy with the new screenprinting stuff. I'll be even happier when I modify the backboard a bit so the hinges can handle a shirt. Right now it's kinda set up for paper, which is all well and good, but it means I've got my screen at an awkward angle when I get a shirt in there. But I love, love, love the hinges.

I've got nothing more to add for now. Sleep required for further brain function and rambling.

Yeah. Personal issues continue, and Cammi's update and productivity levels are screwed. Emotional roller coaster FTL.

Wank wank wank, etc, so forth.

On the plus side, I'm growing more and more pleased about the painting technique on the bags. And I'm starting to get a workable font for the hand-lettering on stuff, which pleases me. Caryn informs me that I obsess spend too much time buggering with things like line thickness far more than I should, but I don't forsee being cured of that any time soon. Besides, it means (ultimately) a nice, clean, pretty look for everything. So there.

Nothing else of interest to add. 

So much for regular posts, eh?

The last week has been a little hectic. There's been a lot going on around here, and it's kind of borked my productivity. Things seem to be settling down, so (fingers crossed) everything should return to normal shortly.

I didn't even get any significant work done on the Rawr site. Bad Cammi.

At least the weather has decided to go back to normal. The snow went away just about as fast as it came. All the same, I question the wisdom of living in this province sometimes. How do we go from summer weather to snowstorms and then back to near-summer in less than two weeks? Not that I'm complaining about the last change. I'm just beginning to wonder if Saskatchewan's version of mother nature doesn't have some kind of serious personality disorder. And how does one even go about treating a non-physical entity anyway?

Hmm. Given that last train of thought, it's entirely possible that I need to start making an effort to get normal amounts of sleep.

I've got nothing else to add for the time being. Nothing interesting, anyway.

It's only 10:30, friends and neighbors, and I've already had an epic morning. Epic, I tell you.

I knew that I had to get my arse downtown bright and early one day this week to go through the student contract for graphic design. Part of me thought the bloody thing was tomorrow, since the card with my appointment on it says "Wednesday, April 22, 9:00 am".

Do we see a slight discrepancy? Somehow, though, the fact that the 22nd was in fact a Tuesday escaped me until 8:30 this morning. Don't ask me how I managed to make the connection while still half asleep and buried under the blankets, but I did. I'm laying there, cozy and warm, when suddenly my brain goes, "Wait. Isn't today the 22nd? But that would mean - oh bugger."

So I scrambled out of bed, dug out the appointment card, and then proceeded to get dressed and semi-presentable in less than 10 minutes. Jen left long before this panic (I'd told her Wednesday, since I hadn't thought to scrutinize the bloody card earlier), so with about 3 minutes to spare, I realized I had to scrounge enough change for the bus. But my father-in-law was up and came through for me, so with the fare jingling in my (still paint-stained) paws, I ran out the door and skidded into the bus stop just as it pulled up.

Did I mention we're still in the middle of this ridiculous snowstorm?

To make a long story short, I did get there, more or less on time, despite having to take a later bus than I normally would have, and despite the four block dash through ice and snow. And now I don't have to worry about school stuff until the new student loan forms are out in a few months.

Good times. I should ramble about the business, but I'd really like to throw on something warm and dry before the other half of the Cammi-Caryn Collective gets here and another day of crafting commences. And if anyone sees my brain running around out there, please capture it and send it back, I'm really beginning to miss it.

Okay, update time.

The website is up. A  temporary version, anyway. We also have a spot on facebook and product up for sale on etsy. Go us.

Freedom from the library is glorious. And honestly, I'm pretty impressed with our productivity levels so far. Techniques are being perfected, and everything is starting to look really nice, IMHO. And the response from friends and associates (and random strangers) has been nothing but positive. And short of the occasional flying purse strap, most of our crafting sessions are going ridiculously well. There may or may not be a lot of gleeful squeals involved.

I also feel the need to mention how freaking amazing it is to wake up, shower, and then just head upstairs to start work. And I really, honestly couldn't ask for a better business partner/friend to be doing this with. I even love having Gabe around the studio, though he's not technically  an employee or anything, he's great for feedback and promotion. I'm surrounded by truly  awesome people.

I'm most pleased.

In short, life is really pretty damn good. I guess I should be glad for this stupid snowstorm that hit us last night (seriously, how did we go from near-summer weather to blizzard? Stupid Saskatchewan.) for I may have exploded from happy overload without something to counter it.

I've finally managed to get wireless going. The biggest problem with using Linux as one's main system is that while support for various devices is improving, documentation on getting them working is still sketchy. So I'm left to either hack through the jungles of the Ubuntu wiki (useful, but overwhelming more often than not) or close my eyes and run screaming and flailing blindly at the problem. Either way, I often end up putting off getting something working just out of sheer frustration.

I finally grumbled and set the bloody router up again today, and after surprisingly little effort, and only a bit of brow furrowing, all seems to be well. This is particularly pleasing since I took the blind, screaming, flailing approach.

Now back to our regularly scheduled Rawr ramblings.

Temporary business cards are in the works. I found a color cartridge for my beast of an inkjet in my cleaning spree yesterday, and a really good price for black cartridges at the Campus Computer Store. I'll probably come up with a test run of red on ivory and decide if I hate it, and run down for black ink tomorrow.

Business cards first, then web monkey work. There's my tentative plan for the day.

*** Edit ***

Cards are done! And while I'm not a huge fan of the ivory cardstock I'm stuck with, I have to admit the red doesn't look half bad against it. Acceptable compromise for now, anyway.

Cammi: 0, tablet: 1.

I decided to get off my lazy ass and do some designs sketches tonight, and thus fired up the GIMP, loaded my templates, and proceeded to wave the pen for my tablet uselessly about. To no avail.

For two minutes.

Only then did I bother to check and make sure it was, oh, I don't know, connected or something.

Now I have to recalibrate.

Fail.

When I'm quite finished pouting, I'll go get a pencil and do it the old fashioned way.

Also, my playlist keeps mocking me by playing every even mildly suggestive song I own. One after the other. I almost feel like my computer's making social commentary about me somehow.

Never...eating...again...

Easter is killing me. And my waistline, no doubt. I'm honestly tempted just to sleep in this chair. Except for the whole falling and cracking my head open in the middle of the night thing.

Productivity tomorrow.

I did a little research this morning (between trips to the kitchen for more ice water), and apparently I can just paint with screen printing ink. This pleases me, as now I won't have to figure out how to waterproof acrylic ink on shoes. I just have to figure out how the hell I'm going to heat set everything... hair dryer, maybe? I have a pair that I can experiment on, but I think it'll have to wait until I get back from Easter with the folks.

That, by the way, is going to be epic. We're going to descend on my parents like a horde of locusts. Hopefully, they'll be too preoccupied with having all of their kids home to notice that I'm semi-hungover.

Go me.

I think I'll go for a walk today. I don't know where. I just need some time to myself, and I haven't been on a good aimless wander in ages.

Okay, I also kind of just need to escape the chaos at home. On top of the usual insanity, the cat is indeed in heat again. Oh sweet mother of fuck, I need to get her fixed. Preferably before I snap and toss her out the nearest window. There are things that can be done to shut her up for an hour or two, but I'm not entirely sure an hour or two of peace is really worth the loss of dignity and desire to wash my hands in bleach. Repeatedly.

In other news, Gabe phoned from work today, just to make sure I wasn't having crazy lesbian sex on his bed. Honestly, while there's probably slightly less chance of a child walking in on me up there, I feel the need to point out that THERE'S NO FREAKING DOOR, and there would be far, far too much potential for permanently traumatizing my mother-in-law or my brother.

...and suddenly, I can't decide if that trauma potential is a good thing or a bad thing. Definitely time to get out of the house.

I'm writing under the influence of a mild euphoria daze, so bear with me if I ramble. And yes, I'm aware euphoric states are hardly the norm for me. Chalk it up to having four days of freedom from ye olde book repository, moderate excitement about the school I visited today, assorted ego strokings, and residual effects from the epic pirate ship building adventure last night.

I'm encouraged by the visit to the graphic design school today. The classes are teeny, and I got to meet all of the instructors - one of whom is coming from the same English background as me. The program looks pretty solid, and it sounds like I may be able to skip the communications course. The career counsellor worked for Student Loans once upon a time, and she sits down with every new student and fills the forms with them to make sure you get all the cash you can. Since I seem to have a problem with missing one arbitrary check box every time, that sounds like a hell of an idea to me. There was a slightly awkward moment for me when she asked about my marital status, but luckily, she was totally unfazed when I told her about the whole common-law wife and kids thing. Furthermore, the rest of the background questions pretty much led to an OMG PLZ COME TO OUR SKOOL NOWS!!!1! reaction from her. I would've been able to grab a spot today if I'd forked over the application fee and produced a transcript.
 
I'm going to think about it for the week I have,  and talk it over with everyone affected by whatever I ultimately decide, but I'm reasonably happy with what I saw today.

Also, Gabe surprised me by cleaning up the studio/bedroom yesterday, so as soon as I come up with a way to keep the damned cat off the table, and thus my screens, studio space is good to go. Even better, my brother seems to have found himself roomies for May. *happy dance*

I needs loud music for drowning out the cat now. I think she's in heat again. Fuck.

And coffee. I need coffee. Lots of it.

Screen printing equipment is in my (ink-covered) little paws, and the first test print is a success. All hail the art monkey.

I will admit that the first print isn't quite as dark as I had originally planned, but since the effect I got actually looks pretty cool, I'm happy. And the transparency issue would be easily solved with a few additional passes with the squeegee.

Pics will be added when I figure out who ate all the batteries in the house.

I never really had an excuse to post these elsewhere, and I think they're close enough to relevant. I'll add shots of my personal favorite just as soon as I a)find the ones I already have or b) take new ones. These are older designs, since I'm reasonably sure I made them late 2006/early 2007. Oh, and just so as not to get my ass sued, the back of the black shirt came from Generation T, an awesome book by Megan Nicolay that you should go out and buy before you even bother to finish reading this post if you have the slightest interest in deconstructing your old tees. Seriously. I'll wait while you run to the store.

...done? Good.

Constructed entirely of empty beer cans and bottles. Seriously, my head starts hurting again just looking at it. I am, however encouraged by the seemingly coherent scribblings in what I'm just going to deem my Rawr book. Apparently real business planning was going on amidst the other chaos. Go us.

Thankfully, I've discovered an amazing combination of white tea and crackers that seems to magically speed the recovery process, leading to far more productivity than I'd imagined possible upon waking this morning. To that end, I'm making finding some kind of accounting software in the open source world my project for the day. I'm currently playing with Grisbi, but I think I may have to rip it out and find something that doesn't induce eye-crossing and glazing over. There has to be some kind of idiot proof accounting software.

And I'd probably still be incapable of running it.

Also, I need to squash the urge to waste time by installing a bar code generating/printing program that keeps popping up in my searches.  I don't have a practical use for it. I'm not even sure why it intrigues me so, but it looks so shiny. Must resist urge to wallpaper studio with bar codes...

But first you have to find us! MWAHAHAHA!

Seriously. Every shirt wholesaler that looks promising seems to have broken websites. For this reason alone, I'm leaning further toward American Apparel. But they'll only give you pricing info if you register. I have to admit to being slightly bothered by that. Okay, they don't know I'm not a spy from a rival company or something, but still. They're shirts, not government secrets.

...I wonder if they'll give away one of their underwear models with a large enough purchase? I'm reasonably okay with selling a kidney for that.

On an unrelated note, no start date for the graphic design program until August? Seriously, I don't know if my sanity will hold out that long.

Since I'm going to have to put off purchasing screenprinting equipment for another week or two (funny how having to pay for company health insurance makes me feel a bit like I'm severing a limb , or at least like I should just to justify the amount I'm paying), I'm devoting whatever spare time I have to the following (in more or less chronological order):

a) Cleaning out the spare room and transforming it into studio space. Given my usual attention span for organization, this will occupy me for days. possibly weeks.
b) Painstakingly converting sketches into usable artwork for stencils. And finding my Illustrator CS disc before I rip apart my PC and attempt to move to XP.
c) Should be obvious - back up old files. Install XP. Spend quality time in command line land restoring the inevitable destruction of my boot record. Reinstall all software/games. Sob because I forgot to back up all my custom Sims files. Resume sketch-stencil conversion.
d) Mild nervous breakdown.
e) Sleep

On a completely irrelevant note, microfiber couches are the well from which all static electricity springs. Fun experiments include rubbing feline companions on said couch until they become sentient, mobile tasers and loudly proclaiming yourself Electro Queer whilst shocking your cohabitants. It should be noted that the author does not approve of, nor has she ever participated in, these activities.

Maybe.

I came across this while I was digging through some old files for inspiration. There's a nearly sane story behind it (honest), but more importantly, I thought we might be able to rework it.

This is where a witty introduction would go, if my brain wasn't mush tonight.

Seriously. Nothing. To. Say.