ok..Time stamp

 in game its  between 1 and 1:30 AM ship's time.... the Tunnel Run isn't until 8PM..

 its  an 'event    we will have Dice rolling and such, but it gathers folks for  some competition and RP.

...also? I updated  the 'clock'  on the Fleet's first page for 'the next day , since its past Mid of night.

 good morning everyone I survived the night out omg what a blast, woman strippers love when women come in I think they can have more fun. Ok head a little cloudy will try to do posts soon had way to many bottles of wine lol.

I must admit, I would Like to see woman strippers too!

So its the next day now or did i miss something?

yeah.. its   early Morning..as soon as the other   PCs   shut down we can  go ahead  for the Mrongin stuff, ..Tunnel run is  8:00pm

Lets  tie off the rec dec  stuff  so we can get to the next  day.

ok..Roy..Lyri, Lirg and Nifty.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...d-record/ar-AA1kcbpw

too cold here to strip.  it's 1 F above at the airport (official temps there).  my house 4 hours ago when I could read the temp gauge it was -3F and it's a clear night.  colder now.  even inside it's cold, so cold it's like 'chickens done'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P33_Tl6peig

Ugh...I think I'm approaching the burn-out horizon...

One of my friends is working on a community festival to kick off the holiday season...they needed a whale puppet that could be carried by ice skaters (one as the head, one midsection, one tail)...and she reached out to me.

It sounded like a cool idea, initially.  I was working on it tonight and...I'm just not getting the same thrill out of solving someone else's ridiculous problem that I normally get with something like this.  The money's good...REALLY good, by my standards, I'm into it about $350 in materials and they're paying me $1500 for it, so I'm being amply paid for my time and effort.

But it's just not as fun as I expected it to be.  And I hope it's just the timing, this on top of everything else I'm trying to do going into Thanksgiving weekend, because I'm already slated to work on at least two shows for schools over the course of the winter and I don't want to be resenting them while I'm there working on them.

Just get it done and walk away...that's what I'm aiming to do at this point.

 well? look at the projects, and  you always have the ' will the Movie keys  work' mhanging over your head.

  The Bottom line is this. If they knew someone  who was  better than you , they would have asked them, parcel out you time, because  they  could ask you again for thier  next project, which means  more  money.

 after all these years of hearing what  costumes you made and  came up with, I figure the standards you have for yourself, is higher then  what folks are expecting.  Make it..so its  good, save 'great' when you have the Drive. I'm sure you'll see that  the patrons will be happy. and you'll be   more relaxed.

 It will now be..'The next  day.. if anyone wants to flex a post  that's  fine, but i'm moving  us on

In reply to Admiral Hack (msg # 67):

Well, I got an unexpected break on the whole thing today...in an extremely unexpected way.  Truly a "blessing in disguise" kind of thing...

For full context...I woke up this morning with a headache.  That happens fairly often, actually, partly because of sinuses and partly because I didn't eat enough or didn't eat late enough the night before ("running on empty" is one of my biggest headache triggers...)  I took some Excedrin and put a cold rice bag over my eyes and laid there for another hour or so, waiting for the headache to fade...it diminished, but never went completely away...spent all day with it in the background...

But as a result, I got up late, and was running slow getting ready so by the time I got myself fed and showered, it was past noon.  Figured I'd go to the park and take care of some stuff before going to my friends' place to work on this other project...but when I got in my car and turned the key, nothing happened.  I knew I had something that was 'off' with my electrical system, because a few times in the past few days, my car had been really sluggish to crank over.  Pulled out my battery charger and enough extension cord to reach from the nearest outlet in my apartment to my parking spot at the far end of the parking area behind the fourplex (it's winter, we can't park overnight on the street, which is MUCH closer to my apartment)...when I plugged in the charger, it said the battery was at 25%, but it rapidly rose to reading fully charged (too fast, even with a 10 Amp charger).  With the charger still attached, I tried starting my car and it kind of got about a half-crank and then nothing...I got out and looked and the charger was back down at 25%, and again rose to fully charged in about 45 seconds.  Let it sit, repeat, sit again, repeat...talked through it on the phone with my brother, who's actually one of the best mechanics I know, and of course, when I tried it to let him hear what it had been doing, the car started...

Drove to AutoZone, had them test the battery, and it failed the test.  They had a portable jumper pack, so we got it started again, and I drove it to the garage that had repaired the charging system last year (new alternator, new battery, etc).  They confirmed that it was still under warranty, but because of the upcoming holiday, they were short-staffed and didn't know how soon they would be able to fix it.  So, I began contacting the people with this event, letting them know there was a wrench in the works and I wasn't going to be able to work on this thing the way I had planned to...

Turns out, the rehearsal I thought I needed to have it ready for (tomorrow night) does not include the skaters who would be using it...they don't rehearse until Wednesday, and then because of the holiday don't rehearse again until a week from tomorrow.  So, I let their choreographer know that I would try to have it finished by Wednesday (but I have to work at the movie theater Wednesday night, so delivery would be an issue), but I would FOR SURE have it done by next week, and she was fine with that.

The kicker?  Because the battery was still under warranty, they expedited my car.  Less than an hour after I dropped it off, they texted me to let me know it was ready.  I haven't told my friend or any of the event people that I got my car back already...at this point, I figure there's no reason to change the easier timetable I've managed to finagle for myself.

(The ironic thing is, most of the relief I gained in getting more time to work on the freelance gig got burned while I was at work, because someone relocated a bunch of boxes I had set aside to store some LED strobe lamps that we used this year.  And by 'relocate', I mean I strongly suspect someone said, "Why do we have these empty boxes here?" and threw them away, even though the boxes weren't all empty...we had several extra lamps plus a bunch of adapters that would let us use them in standard light sockets...I spent the better part of an hour going back and forth through the building all the lighting stuff had been stored in and couldn't find ANY of the boxes, but I remember specifically stacking them with all the lighting cable cases because I knew I would need to grab them when the Halloween season was over and we were tearing everything apart to put back into storage, and they were nowhere to be seen today...

<sarcasm>I love it when people make my job harder than it needs to be...</sarcasm>)

geez...

 how  big is this whale thing? can you even  move it to get to the place it needs to be?

as  for the park.. I think you need to  ask for  some square footage that you can store 'your stuff' that you need    so no one throws  stuff away.

The whale is in three sections, plus fabric that goes between each section.  The head is about 4' long and 3' in diameter, the mid-section is 3' long and tapers from 3' to 2', and the tail is about 5' wide.  Plus, it has two flukes (fins) that are each about 5' long that will be connected on-site.  I had that in mind when I designed it, having had a project or two in the past that I made almost too big to fit in my car.  Even at that, I may not be able to fit it all in my car at the same time, but my friends have a truck and can haul whatever I can't fit.

And we're actually working on that.  The Operations and Production Managers have decided to take us in a different direction, as far as costume storage goes, and while it has caused me some certain degree of anxiety, they dredged out our main costume storage area and we're turning it into lighting storage and shop space for me to be able to set up some long-term work space in.  So there will be a place where I can put stuff like that and, theoretically, nobody should be coming along and throwing away anything I've left in there.  (I'll just have to deal with people saying, "I don't know where this goes, so I'm going to put it in Curtis' area and he'll make sure it goes home," although that should become much less common since that shop space will be in a completely different building than our rehearsal and general work space.)

Now I just need to get them to acquire a few benchtop tools, like a bench grinder, a band saw, and a drill press.  A table saw and a router table would be nice, but we don't use those as often as we'd use the other stuff and there are other places on the park where we have access to table saws (big, industrial-grade ones, with high-powered dust-collection systems...), so those are down the priority list a ways.

Sounds like things are working out in a mysterious way for you, Roy.

Here, spent the morning fighting with our bank. Went to make a bank transfer to someone we haven't given money to in a while - and found that the preset transfer details for bearly everyone we have occasion to send money to had vanished! After a long fight with one very poor support person who started off with, "Oh, they've been cancelled" but couldn't explain who by or why and then refused to reinstate them although the old records were visible to them, then tried the complaint line (I have stored all these numbers the bank doesn't hand out but which I trap...) where someone else reinstated them straight off, no messing.

Or did they?

Tried the transaction we wanted to make - paying off a charge to our AmEx card - but every time we went through the process it came up "Sorry, the transaction could not be completed". Couple of frustrating calls later, nobody could understand what was going on.

Went to the AmEx website, set up the debit card from our main account and paid them off straight away :)

Wasted an entire morning. Mercifully the 2 students who should have had supervisions cancelled. One's ill, the other has issues with her drains and is researching how to unblock them (landlord non-responsive) instead of researching computer science...

And now our Head of Department has just announced that she is leaving the university.

Well, the bank called back. They said that the bank transfer didn't work because their bank transfer system has broken. No idea what's wrong or when it will be fixed. And then gave us £50 for our trouble!

 should have had your wrist chip scanned!

  Lizzy..there is a PM  fro a bit ago  that said  when you are to meet the  Captain.

There was oh crap I will check opps.

In reply to Mila (msg # 73):

Hum £50 was that reasonable?

Well, it was unsolicited...

... there again, if I'd charged for the time spent on the issue they'd have been in the hole for somewhat more, never mind that both my husband and I were involved in trying to get things sorted.

Shall we say it was over a third of the AmEx bill we were trying to pay, and go off smiling...

... and in Mila's case, wagging her tail.

In reply to Mila (msg # 78):

That's about what I thought

getting another Old Character  back..

 welcome LT  Angela Morsan

ello!