Nothing happens, but I still write a lot

I spent way too much of today wasting inkjet ink. The photographer business card template was based on my joke personal card, which has writing around the edges. There's enough white space top and bottom that the cut between each card looks clean (I use an Avery 8877 form, 10 cards to a page, 2 columns of 5). But the photographer one needs to be borderless, and since it uses a model's head shot filling the whole card, any overlap between cards will make them uneven and unprofessional.

It took a couple of prints before I realized I had to nuke most of the border guides which were needed for the regular card. And I re-measured the margins of the form, which were also off, also done to make my regular card print correctly.

And then the Epson printer decided that if I set it for best photo quality printing, instead of printing what Adobe InDesign told it to print, it pushed out a macabre series of stretched, overlapped images.

So I switched to the Canon printer, which I don't like to use for card stock because it feeds from a bottom tray, and bends the paper upside down to feed it into the print head area. And as I suspected, that meant no two prints came out the same. A very few cards from today's run are usable, and now the Epson is low on ink (I just put new cartridges in yesterday) and I've run through about a dozen Avery forms.

I still have 3/4 of a box of the forms, but it actually cost less for 250 professionally printed ones from printingcenterusa.com which also accepts InDesign files, so I cut and pasted a single front and a single back design from their template, uploaded those to them and ordered a set. These are the folks who print my calendar.

My new regular non-joke business card is a lot simpler, and was finished yesterday. I have more Epson ink on order too.

---

It was a late night, so I made it a late morning, finally woke up around 9:30, didn't get out of bed till 11, between reading on the tablet and watching TV.

Too many Geico ads. They must have horrific claims service and huge turnover if they think they need to spend so much on carpet bombing us with ads. Very high production cost ads. TV and radio, several times an hour on all stations. Progressive is almost as bad. And I canceled my Allstate coverage, which I'd had since I was 22, because they shifted from that wonderful positive "In Good Hands" theme to the horrible fear-mongering "Mayhem" theme.

---

At about 5 I finally shut down the PC and drove to the Mercado. Starbucks was packed, so I'm reinstating my unemployment rant. I was in time to see Masterminds, but didn't feel like being in the movie theater. Went across the parking lot to Krispy Kreme which also has seating and free wi-fi, had a couple of custard-filled donuts and a hot cocoa. The donuts were horrible, as usual, but the cocoa was good.

Drove home at about 6:30. I'd had a snack in the afternoon of a Banquet chicken piece and a reheated turnover. I'd made a dozen last night, ate two, put the rest in individual sandwich bags, and threw them into the fridge freezer.  Dinner was a small beef and rice frozen dinner and a fudgesicle.

Watched PTI and episode 2 of Timeless. The latter is still holding my interest, they went to Lincoln's assassination this time, and changed it around a bit. One FAIL is they have a time machine, yet they rush the protagonists into the past with minimal preparation. But I like that they make fun of themselves, and work into the script how they corrected some of the mistakes they made last week.

While I was working on the cards, Spook kept clawing my chair, and me, which usually means she thinks it's treat time. So I went to the kitchen and instead of giving her the usual treats, I grabbed a Sheba meat stick and held it out to her. She wasn't interested. I took it into the office and put it on the top tier of the cat tree, and after thinking about it for a minute, and grooming herself to show she didn't care, she climbed up there, batted it to a lower level, then grabbed it in her mouth and chomped it on the floor. Weird cat.

Late in the day, NOVA emailed that I've been approved, and can go online to book an appointment after noon tomorrow. So that's on my calendar. They also said they have money for training grants. Yay!

SF Giants blew a lead so the Cubs are off to the next playoff series. Maybe they will make this song obsolete:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xBxZGQ1dJk

Delivered was a big box from Amazon. Body wash for dry skinned people, doctor's suggestion. And another dozen Kind bars. In other Amazon news, I found a Thai/English USB keyboard and ordered it. There are lots of them on Thai sites, but the shipping is more than the keyboard. I have a couple of friends in Thailand who could probably buy one for me but postage would be an issue. The Friends of Thailand prez could probably bring me one the next time she goes there (she lives on Treasure Island) but that won't be for months.

Plans for tomorrow:
Manicure
NOVA
Maybe downtown (a few blocks from NOVA) for Ingress and Starbucks. 

Nail Day

Was up & out of bed by 8:30, and at the manicure place right at 10. Two of the employees were already working on hair and a pedicure even though 10 is the official start time. I waited for about 10 minutes for someone to show up to do my nails - traffic was bad. And it was - I'd been hearing about it all morning on the radio. It's Yom Kipur, apparently, one would think there would be fewer cars on the road, since driving is forbidden for the orthodox. Or else they are in the "fast" lane.

Nails person speaks excellent English, she said she spent time in a Thai refugee camp, and managed to get here after extensive interviews, she had no documentation. I told her the "lunch" joke, she loved it.

Took my laptop next door to Specialty's and checked LinkedIn and email. At noon I logged into the NOVA site, applied for an in-person "first" interview, with a note I wanted to talk about training grants. It said they would get back to me by 4:30 (I asked for email, not phone).

Home, did some more job hunting, some Facebooking, and email arrived from the printing company, they needed the font and the images. And there was a problem with guides. I phoned, they got me in touch with a layout person, and it turned out they had the fancy font I thought they were asking about, but they didn't know about Microsoft's Arial MT font, which is Arial but with some tweaks for Windows. I told him use plain Arial. Their directions made it sound like the template they sent would embed the images, but it just links to them, so I uploaded all three. The guide thing turned out to be their problem. Their template has a red "safety" border, which is supposed to not print, but somehow it was showing as printable.

Later that same day I received a PDF of the project, and it looked fine. Won't get the cards till the 25th or thereabouts.

At 2:30, NOVA emailed they have set me up with an appointment for tomorrow at 1:15.

It has become overcast and chilly, just the right weather to do some gardening. I took out the tools and put on gloves and harvested all the mint. Some of it had burrowed under the concrete divider and into the neighbor's white pebble non-lawn, so I harvested that too. This year's mint is darker and smaller than last year's, but more aromatic. I shoved it into a tall kitchen bag, and it will sit outside next to the recycle bin until it is dry enough to separate the leaves from the stems.

While I was at it, I chopped off a big branch of the Russian sage which has been growing rampantly, the branch which was overlapping the neighbor's space. It is now planted in the front garden, and with regular watering and maybe more compost, it ought to recover. The bees and hummers love that stuff. The effort knocked the Hgl out of me, it took a turnover to stabilize me, and I also needed to hydrate. DVR time.

DVR playback today was PTI and Who Do You Think You Are? in which we discover actress Cynthia Nixon is descended from an ax murderer, the second woman to ever be incarcerated in Missouri State Prison, and the first to give birth there. The ending is very touching. As usual, superb camera work, and a long trail to follow, proving what a poor tool ancestry.com is.

No actual lunch today, the huge criossant at Specialty's filled me up.

Dinner was a two-fer. One small chicken Alfredo followed by a small spaghetti & meatballs. Who was Alfredo, and was he ever punished for his saucy contribution to high cholesterol cuisine?

Watched DVR again: Below Deck, in which the captain is just a short step away from manipulating three metal balls in his hand. The men on the crew are spending way too much verbiage on which of the women they want to get close to. Meanwhile the head stew's 6' tall female soccer player girlfriend pays a visit and the PDAs are off the chart.

As I was watching, my phone beeped, there was an event at the library I had on my calendar. Stargazing. But it's overcast and chilly, and even though I could have gotten there in time, what's the point?

At 7:59, OnTrac dropped off the Epson ink I ordered very recently. It was due by 8.

Bangkok Post reports that the Royals are all gathering to the royal hospital, and the report they published from the hospital on the King's health looks grim. Dialysis, liver issues, low BP, and while they tactfully say the doctors are treating all the symptoms, they also say his condition is not stable. Dec. 5 is his 89th birthday.

Plans for tomorrow:
1:15 NOVA session with counselor
Football