Long Overdue

Todsy I went and FINALLY got myself a decent lamp for my drawing table/easel. (My old one died a few years ago and I just made due for a while.)

It's daylight spectrum magnifying glass! I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!!



Oh, and my friend does love her painting. :)

Mikayla

My co-worker's daughter Mikayla turned one and today we went to her birthday party in Brooklyn. It was a ton of fun. She has a pool in her back yard and Daya had a blast.

As a gift, I did a portrait of Mikayla as a faerie. In watercolor, 11x14. I haven't used watercolor for about 15 years. I'm not sure if I should stick to oils and leave the watercolor alone yet...but w/c really is perfect for these types of pictures. Still not sure how I feel about the painting- I would have liked a few more days with it. It has some issues but I hope it's ok anyhow.

Here is the drawing (9x12):



I transferred it to 11x14 via the light box, painted it, then framed it.



I hope my friend likes it. (We didn't open the presents during the party.)

Political PRT?

Check this out from CNN! August Curse!

Maybe they should know about PRT; it might help.

More PRT developments:
I submitted an expense report on 8/8. I submitted my receipts 6 times. The system wouldnt recognize any of them, not even for the help desk. They don't know why. I uess they put it through because it finally made it to my anager for approval.

But I still haven't been paid. *sighs*

PRT Buffer # 2

Just in case anyone is still doubting WHY I encase myself in the buffer of Pigeon Risk Time (PRT), here's a good story.

Tonight I had a disk in my DVD drive. Suddenly, I heard a very loud CRACK!! (it scared the cat)

Would you believe that a cd shattered- and I mean shattered- in the drive while it was playing???

Of course the drive is ruined. Which is a shame, it was not cheap.

Here is the photographic evidence:
(Game Time! Count the pieces of shattered cd!)


I called Jason, my computer-savvy friend in Georgia, to run this by him. (He had, in fact, heard of a zombie hard drive but had never heard of this!) Like many computer-inclined people, Jason has a lot of assorted computers and computer parts sitting around. In fact, he said it was on his list to ask around to see in anyone wanted parts. So he's sending me a new DVD drive!

Isn't that really nice of him?

I think so. Thanks, Jason!

And that, friends, is how PRT is a good buffer. Sure, the drive freaked out but I don't have to spend $$ on a new one. The CD wasnt really important and will be easy and very cheap to replace.

*****
Also, I got a note from my bank in the mail today. Apparently I went overdrawn for $2 and they charged me $34 a week and a half ago. What I think they do is mess with time stamps on activity so that debits come right before credits. They have charged me fees before claiming that my paycheck hit the account a half hour after a debit, so in their eyes there were not funds in the account. A half hour.

Fuck you Citibank.

Moving On

What else is there to do but pick up a brush and fix it?

I put in about 3 1/2 hours tonight...not too bad actually...I'm about halfway done fixing it to where it was before the water puddles.

Thanks everyone for the commiseration. It really helped. :)

This morning Daya said "I'm sorry about the painting." So that's good, she gets that she did something bad.

Really Mad

I need to be mad.

Because Daya knows to stay away from my drawing table.

Except she didn't, and that's why an entire cup of water was spilled on my artwork, which I have spent MANY HOURS on and now it's ruined. I'll have to essentially re-do most of it.

PRT Buffer #1 Update: The Zombie Hard Drive

A while back I put a new 400 gig hard drive in my puter. I used the existing 80 gb one as a backup. The 80 gig died though, and has remained inside my computer because I was too nervous to take it out. Because I think I did something that killed it when I switched things out. Not really a big deal, I didn't lose any data, it has been sitting there dead and unused for a long time, except when I boot up I get a message that the drive has errors.

Except last night the clicking started. All googled results said impending death, badness, destruction, back-up-NOW kind of thing.

Then the constant clicking stopped but every few minutes it started clicking AND beeping!

Restarting the computer three times gave me three different experiences, until finally it refused to boot altogether. I could not pass the message about the slave hard drive having errors. So, I shut everything down and took the damn thing out. Ran CHKDSK which reported no errors.

So, can anyone explain why my dead hard drive came back to life just to say "I'm DEAD please remove me!"

Ratfest 2008

The most amazing thing about Ratfest is that it's been going on for SEVEN YEARS.

Matt and Dru and I took the bus from Port Authority. Oddly enough, there was a pigeon wandering around the lower gates. I think he wanted to come to Ratfest too.



Once again, I made the cake this year. Fun with Fondant!



Here I am doing rat portraits again.



As always, I got next to no sleep and was completely jacked up on caffeine. Here is one of the pots of tea I drank. My friend special orders it from France. It is AMAZING.



This year we had a special performance of Everybody Likes Yogurt Drops by Matt and Jane!

Click Here to see the picture that inspired it all! (copyright Matt Kaplan)

Click Here to watch the video!

We all got home on Sunday. I took Monday and Tuesday off. I literally slept all day Monday, and today I had a good long nap as well. Also, Daya the Mermaid is almost finished!

PRT Buffer #1

I'll post update and pics from the weekend in a bit.

But first, let me tell you what just happened.

My hard drive started clicking.

That is not good. In fact, it is a sign of impending HARD DRIVE DEATH.
And it is a fairly new hard drive. I shut everything down and re-booted. The disk would not start up.

Of course I freaked out. Then went to The Google (on the laptop) to see what to do.

I turned the puter on and waited a looong time, and it started up. I ran CHKDSK and it did something, moved something around. Then...

....the clicking stopped!!

I have a second check disk running just to be sure.

But...if this isn't a crazy August badness TRYING to happen then I don't know what is. Thank Goddess for PRT!!! Things seem to be fine, keep your pigeon toes crossed for me....