Tax Evasion

First shock of the day, Domino pooped in the piano room. :-( The litterbox was not that messy.

Busy busy day.Went to Aaron Brothers Art with three items on my brain:
1. Plastic flat-fold hangers for posterboard art
2. Shoebox-sized boxes to replace the disintegrating ones in which all my 1970's negatives are stored
3. Box for storing my 8x10 proof sheets from the 70s, Most of them are in enlarger paper boxes one year to a box, but some are loose.
(It would be nice to be able to store #2 and #3 in one large box)

Bought 12 of #1 for $4.50. Bought 6 of #2 for $10

Went to Michael's a couple of blocks away looking for more #1 and #3. Bought 6 more #1 for $1.50. Both places keep those in the back room, they don't sell them on the main floor. Wasted my time. Almost found #3, but they were all over-priced printed boxes (Themes like Paris) which were too shallow.

Home, FFed through 6 hours of Olympics to see the finals for skeleton and luge, and was distracted momentarily by some epic crashes on the women's ski jumps.

3 pm Little Shop of Horrors scripts were given out, for an exorbitant $50 deposit. I was not told about the deposit, but most groups do this for $15 or $20.

The read-through/sing through was pretty ragged, and my part is HUGE and difficult and I am scared. There are some very cute women in this show, but I still like the ASM the best. And I still don't know her name because we didn't get a cast/staff list yest, and her name is not on the web site. Leading lady is tall and skinny while leading man is a head shorter than me. She may have the voice for the part, it was hard to tell. The trio and the dentist did not impress me, but the voice of the plant is effing amazing. Also got the first two weeks of rehearsal schedule. I'm not called till the 27th, and that's a dance rehearsal. BIG mistake. By the time we doa  run through of Act I I will have forgotten it.

CU for cash and Safeway for fried chicken for the potluck and Thin Mint ice cream for me. Home, slapped the ice cream into the freezer, took a leak and then drove to the potluck in very far away south SJ. I was 5 minutes late because the GPS took me to the front of the park instead of the cleverly hidden parking lot about 3/4 of a mile away. The chicken was a hit, there was a lot of good food, and some of the desserts were to live for. Friendly group. There was no speaker, just the potluck and elections, and some certificates of appreciation went to several surprised recipients.

Home, my brokerage paperwork was in the mailbox, and for a change Turbo Tax was able to download it all. According to the software, I only made $37 on all my stock sales. Strange because that's where the downpayment on the house came from, and there was supposed to be about $2k owed on sale of Google stock which was part of last year's company sale (I was given 8 shares worth about $800 each). But now that I think about it, that grant was after taxes. I think. Maybe.

Also dug out the info on my loan company so I can call Monday and find out what the deal is with the new insurance. I'm expecting about $5 a month more deducted by them, but so far nothing on paper.

Meanwhile on the Internet Radio I am listening to Thailand Music Radio which is amusing as heck. The music is mostly Thai pop, with occasional Thai rap (amazing how Thug they can sound) and sometimes an American tune. For the most part easy listening. But then there are the commercials which are LOUD as in 3 am US used car salesman x 100. As in Motorcross ad x 50.

Plans for tomorrow:
11 am photo shoot (group shoot with a model who needs more pix in her portfolio)
3 pm library talk on Fololi gardens
4:30-ish Janice's to help her recover from the damage the Comcast tech has done. I already had her call them to take the $8/month modem charge off her bill because tech used her own modem.
If there's time, Kinko's and copy the script. I can't highlight in the rented one, and there's no room for stage directions.

Sunday Shoot em up

I'm writing this Monday because Sunday went by too fast.

Morning photo shoot started late because model took Amtrak from Hayward to Santa Clara. Bus would have been a better choice. Amtrak as usual got delayed in the Alviso flats as Union Pacific messed with the signals.

The model was great, very in shape woman with all the right curves. And smart, but married and lives in Long Beach.

Once again the host decided to go all artsy fartsy, so my whole first set was crap, severe side lighting totally wasted having a beautiful model. As did the second set in front of a diffused light. The next three were better, normal studio lighting against a white background, with the model on the floor, then on a hawser hung from the rafters and finally on a big metal ring hung from the rafters. Host doesn't understand the physics of hanging things, so both the rope and ring rotated out of control a lot.

Photos are not work-safe, but if you are my flickr friend you can see them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/sets/72157641099388985/

There are two work safe ones I'll try to post
( Read more... )

Because we started so late, we ran way long so I missed the talk at the library at 3. Instead I stopped off at Starbucks near Janice's to kill half an hour to be at her place by 4:30. She needed some help putting her bed back together, and her love life. And she needed lessons on how to use her remote to control the new setup Comcast installed. She claims she always had a Comcast box in the mix, but she didn't. She had been directly connected to the wall, and used the TV tuner to get the 3 channels available, which no longer are because Comcast is all digital now. Unfortunately her remote is so old it doesn't support the codes for the new Cisco/Comcast box. It's a digital to analog converter, wired to plug into the TV's antenna input. It would have been so much better if it was a straight digital box which could plug into one of the three HDMI inputs. So she is stuck with using the two remotes.

The day after Valentine's Day she pushed her SO too far and he broke up with her. Pretty stupid. As usual, she can't see that she says she wants friends with benefits while she really wants monogamy. Wimmin.

Home, joined the Little Shop Google group, which had a lifesaver - the whole script on PDF. I printed that out, which saved me a ton of work at Kinko's. I still have to copy the music, though. And I need to 3-hole-punch it all and folderize it.