Happy Birthday to Me! Sort of…

Well,  It’s my birthday today.  And depending on how you look at it:  It is another milestone in my race against Time,  Or it is another nail in my coffin.  I guess I should look at it as I was able to cheat death for one more year.  I still should have quite a few of these days ahead of me and I should treasure them all.   But, of coarse,  death wins the race eventually, no matter how fast, healthy, witty, charming, rich, poor, old, or even young you are.

Have you ever wondered how it was that you even came to this little experience called life?  I mean,  I imagine being a free spirit floating around in the darkness without a care in the world.  Or universe for that matter. Boring comes to mind.  Ever notice that Born and Bored sound alike.  What if God asked me if I wanted to be bored or born 

“What’s the difference?”  I ask.

“Well, bored is what you have right now, and Born…well,  You’ll just have to see.”

Given the choice,  I’m sure being born sounds much better than utter darkness all the time.  But then…the next thing you know, you are thrust into a bright light with strange faces staring at you and whacking your naked bottom!  You try to protest, but you can’t speak,  can’t use those limbs you see waving around.  All you can do is Cry…very very loudly!

After a few months,  you gradually forget your previous life as a free spirit and accept your fate.  Take a look at me after only 5 months! Even after a year, I was beginning to get the hang of things.  People smiled at me and looked forward to my visits.  I was fawned over and perhaps even spoiled a bit.

But then, By age 5….things change.  I have to do things called “chores” and I get yelled at all the time,  I never do anything right and my mom dresses me funny.  Basically like a farmer!  But we don’t live on a farm, we live in the city.  It’s rough!  Kids tease you,  Teachers scold you, Parents either yell or ignore you.  ( I only WISH I would have been ignored more often) And you are convinced you are an idiot… according to your report card.

Ah well,  I guess everyone hits their stride eventually.  It’s too bad it happens this late in the game.  But there is still so much I want to be before that inevitable day.  Like I want to go to Japan!   Speak Japanese!  Live by the Pacific.  Maybe even make lots of money….somehow.  ( Technically, I have been to Japan already,  We landed there while in the Army on our way to Thailand.)

In the mean time,  I guess I will stay with Origami.  I finished the Water Dragon by Brian Chang.  I think it turned out pretty good since I had to make up the crease pattern and work with dry cardstock.  It also required much glue! Cheryl was nice enough to take some quick shots of him so I could post something on the blog. I’m thinking she should take all of my pictures from now on! 

Having fun with Origami Pictures.

I have discovered a few things as of late, in the photographing of my origami items for the shop.  That is:   A cool background really helps sell the item.  Or at the very least, gives me something else to focus on in my creations.  I started out with lighting and solid color backgrounds.   They looked ok, but then I discoveres picture paper!  

Picture paper can be found at most scrapbooking stores.  they have a vast range of themes, from cartoon to real life pictures to stylized art.  I grabbed a few sheets of water for my koi pics to make the origami koi look like they were swimming.  However,  backgrounds started becoming limited to the selection in the store.   If I had an idea for some origami with a certain background, I had to find that background, or else revert back to the old standby of solid color. 

BUT THEN…..  I discovered BING image search and our big screen TV!    

I had fun today taking various scenes with my safari items.  What fun!   I really like how the background almost fools me into thinking that the model is a real animal!  Anyway,  since Windows Live Writer is BROKE and I can set up a photo gallery anymore,  I’ll have to post fewer pics at a listing.  Ahh well,   Enjoy the pics I have selected…and I will continue to wrestle with Live Writer until it is fixed or a break it.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Origami Kangaroo

Another quick post.  I have been having fun with Brilliant Origami By Darvid Brill.   Those old diagrams have taken on a new light.   But in the mean time,  I thought I would show off my Kangaroo.  To make sure my Windows live writer is working properly.  Enjoy!

Origami Shells

Why not?  I might as well show them off in my blog.  they are available in the Etsy store right now.  I have been having trouble with windows live writer.   Hopefully the pics will load up.

Origami Shells VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Chinese Dragon.

Just a quick post of my latest Origami

Cicada Emerges, And Mediacom Ticks Me Off!

This weekend has been full of fun little episodes that wear down your endurance with humanity!  I’m speaking of Mediacom And their TERRIBLE customer service.

First:  The situation.  Friday morning, a Mediacom truck pulls down our driveway not once, but twice!  No Biggy, we are paid in full and have no issues.  They leave, we have no service.   we spend THE NEXT FIVE DAYS trying to get the problem fixed.   We travel to Iowa city to get a new router.  Not the problem. 

The Problem!  Mediacom RANDOMLY switches people off!  ON PURPOSE!  WHY?   Even they do not know apparently!  I guess there are it squads that roam the country side looking fro pirated cable and they disconnect them.  Unfortunately, they MOSTLY get it wrong according to the technician.  Despite the cable box has not one, not two, but THREE security measures to prevent the random Joe from Hooking up some coat hanger with aluminum foil to syphon off free adult movie channels;  They still have the “cable police” out there messing up paying customer's service.

And then there is the “customer service”.  First  I did manage to get one person…in addition to the computer, who was the most helpful.  Grant, I think his name was.  Everyone else was TERRIBLE!   They misspelled my email,  Kept pushing the “EXPENSIVE PREMIUM PACKAGE” and asked me random stuff that had no bearing what so ever on the problem at hand.  Grant was the ONLY one who could see that there was a disconnection in the signal.  Everyone else either did not want or know how to do their job. 

Finally, today,  we got our service back.  It took about 3 minutes and most of that was the guy fixing the misspelled password and other SNAFU’s the customer service rep’s messed up.  I could theorize that this was a vast “BIG CABLE” conspiracy to get me to call and have them try to upsell me from $20 a month internet to $190 a month Internet, cable TV, phone, payperview, movies, streaming news, and Email.   All things I DO NOT NEED or WANT. I mean, they send me numerous leaflets and brochures asking me to give up more money than I can afford.  Why not force me to deal with incompetent customer service reps/ salesmen for five days while they neglect me the “bargain Package” .  I can hear it now

“Sorry to hear your service was randomly disconnected by our service team.   While you are on the phone…how would you like to pay almost 10 times what you are currently paying and get more stuff than you can possibly use or need.”

My answer is” If you guys can’t keep the $20 version up.  How am I going to trust you can keep the $200 versions running?  And how will I be able to call if you shut off the phone randomly?”

Anyway,  It has been a long time wanting to vent to my blog.  But there were moments of Zen.  The weather has been quite nice as of late.   And a Cicada graced us with his metamorphosis just outside our window.  It was fun to watch..even the cat got into it. 

My First Success with an Origami Crease Pattern

The totally Awesome Origami Water Dragon from Brian Chan.   I first saw this while hunting down a cool Oriental Dragon Pattern and was blown away!  I then was on a mission to try to find how to fold this dragon.   After extensive searcing, I only found the Crease Pattern.

 

It has been sitting on my computer for a while now, but today, I finally decided to give it a go and try to fold from the CP.

 

  I simply printed out the CP on a piece of white printer paper.  ( not the best) But I figured I would ‘trial and error” it untill I figured it out.   Surprisinngly, it went rather smoothly.  Although the details are a little crappy,  the initial form is as it should be.  I’m now confident that, with better paper,  I could have better results.  Perhaps even getting results I can put in my shop.   I imagine I will be adding a few things to it to make it my own. but we shall see when the time comes.   In the mean time…enjoy the pictures.