The Midnight Showing of Trisha

Decorated the House... Finally

It's only been 14 months since we moved in here, but I've finally put up our paintings and pictures on the walls.  It's actually very strange that I haven't done it sooner, especially considering our long term committment to live here in my dad's house, but it's been a crazy year.  In the last year I've changed jobs twice and gone from working in an office to working from home.  With the availability of wall space, I plotted out where things were going to go, generally, before hanging them and I have to say I think it all turned out well.  I went back and forth today between hanging things on the walls and upgrading all my installations of WordPress on my various blogs and websites, with a trip to K-Mart for shelves peppered in.

I really focused on the living room and hallway today.  Tomorrow I have plans, so I think next weekend or sometime during the week is when I'll attempt to focus on hanging the few things in the bedroom and have Dominic hang the shelves.  He also needs to fix the hole in the wall in the kitchen that was created when I removed the shot glass shelves before the fair and rehang the one still down and the new one I bought.  I'm up to four shelves and I need to get them all back up.  The shelves I bought today at K-mart are nice black shelves to go in the bedroom to put all my dolphin stuff on and Dominic's dragon stuff on.  Then hanging the shadow box of wedding stuff, the wedding portrait, and the embroidered date thingy (hard to describe) in the bedroom will complete everything, pretty much. 

Back in August when we went to New York to go to Affiliate Summit, we bid on and won a digital picture frame in a silent auction benefiting Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City.  I just got around to messing with the frame today and it's pretty cool, though with the size of the photos I'm loading onto it I'm limited to around 400 (I'd originally picked out about 1300 to go on it).  I need to read the manual to check out the optimal size and do some resizing... or go buy an SD card to put photos on, either way.  We're not sure where to hang it since the cord has to be plugged in and we don't want the cats messing with it.  So it's sitting on top of my printer for the time being.  Of  course, messing with the photos for that got me remembering that I had a bunch of photos from the fair (and since) to go through, so I did that and I'm uploading the finished photos dutifully to Flickr and Kodak Gallery right now.

Without further ado, here's some photos of the decor.  Holy shit, our house actually looks like people live here and don't just crash somewhere lol.

The wall between the bathroom door and my desk.  The lower picture is a drawing Dominic's sister Noelle drew:

The wall above the couch... all painted by my late grandmother Jean:

Hard to photograph this, but the wall with the mirror behind the TV and DVD racks:

Between the front door and the front window, photo by Bryan Wilson:

The hall to our bedroom... family & some friend photos:

Some of this was here, but I found my grad caps and some other assorted memorabilia so rearranged this:

Faulty Kits

Okay this is really pissing me off.  Now the first kit, I understand.  I bought some cross stitch kits at the dollar store, and I opened one today to find that it was missing all the yellow and orange colored thread for one of the parts.  So it was a total waste, other than I canibalized the kit for the canvas and thread and made a baby thing for a friend of a friend. 

I'm still in a crafting mood, and I had this small ornament sized kit that I've been putting off making for awhile, so I bust it out.  Now I know I got this from either Michael's or Beverly's - i.e. REAL craft stores at full price.  AGAIN, the list of colors is calling for a green and a dark green and there's only one color green in the thread the kit came with.  Also calls for a yellow and a bright yellow, and there's only one color of yellow in there.

What the fuck?!  The kits were two different manufacturers, and at least one, NeedleMagic, I've worked with a lot before and never had this problem.  It's really frustrating, and I guess I'll just use the one color for both colors called for.  At least it's a small kit and so using the same color yellow or green instead of the two variations won't be noticed that badly.  It just really irritates me that, not only did this happen but it happened twice in one day and I've never had this problem before.

Also, Posterous finally has different designs.  Swell!

Award Winning Shot Glass Collection

97th Annual Alameda County Fair Breaks Attendance Records!

July 14, 2009, Pleasanton, CA – During the first 11 days of this year’s run, the Alameda County Fair has broken attendance records in their 20+ years of record keeping.  To date, an outstanding 288,502 patrons have attended this year’s fair, according to Rick K. Pickering, CEO.  “The fair is on track to see well over 400K attendees by the end of fair,” he states.

Fully able to accommodate the average 30K daily visitors, the fair encompasses some 267 acres, making it one of the largest fairs in California, numbering 84, statewide.  Nationally, the Alameda County Fair ranks 50 in attendance among all fairs in the US.

And yes, ladies and germs, I won 4th place for my shot glass collection in the hobby competition there.  BOOYA!  I haven't yet taken the pictures of me with the case and the award ribbon inside, but for your reference here's the picture I took before the case was closed the day I set it up.  This is only about 2/3 of my collection, by the way.  Next year I'm going to submit my dolphins!

AWARD WINNING, bitches!

Virus Woes

10 Year High School Anniversary

It's very fitting that my Quote of the Day widget on iGoogle showed this quote today, the 10 year anniversary of my graduation from Encinal High School.

"How my achievements mock me!" - William Shakespeare.

Fitting knowing me, no?

It's been a weird 10 years, and hot DAMN how time flies!  I managed to graduate from college, get married, and get settled in a career.  No kids yet, but I can easily see that happening in a year or two.  We down own this house, but we live in it.  I do love my two cats, Lunchbox and Muse, very dearly.  It's strange to think it's been so long.  I don't know where I thought I'd be at this point. I can imagine it probably had something to do with living in LA writing movies or acting.  I'm sure it didn't involve being married as I hadn't had a boyfriend yet and didn't know what I was doing wrong trying to get one, let alone find one and fall in love and get married.  I know I envisioned myself working at Camp Deer Lake throughout college, but that didn't happen either thanks to some ghetto bitchy girls that summer I did work there after high school that tried my patience.  I think that's why they didn't hire me again, but it worked out for the better...I got in working at the company my dad worked for and learned professionalism, work ethic, multitasking, and generally how to be successful in an office.  Something I use to this day.

Times were tough for awhile when I first graduated college while looking for a job, and a few months later when I lost that job and got a new one, and in the last month-ish while transitioning to this new job, but all that's really to be expected.  College was socially hard (not the classes, most were easy).  But moving back down here I've been able to keep the same friends I've had since 6th grade (and in Rachel's case, 4th).  I'm working with two of my fellow senior class officers to plan our 10 year reunion happening in August and it's really coming together. 

My change in direction from theatrical goals to affiliate marketing goals has afforded me the opportunity to visit Miami, Boston, Santa Barbara, Anaheim, Dallas, and Las Vegas SEVERAL times.  I'll also be going to Denver next week and New York City in August, which Dominic will be coming with me!  And along the way I was able to afford a great cruise to the Bahamas, a great 5th anniversary trip to Lake Tahoe, and several ventures back to Oregon to visit the in-laws. 

I can't say that things have worked out according to plan, since like I said my plans involved acting and writing, but it has turned out well.

Wow... 10 years ago....

As an embarrassment to them, I'm going to type out VERBATIM what a few peeps wrote in my yearbook...I see a distinct pattern in that no one remembered the 'd' in Humboldt and "

Ladies and gentlemen,
May we please award Trisha Flodye for two awards.  One award for best leading actress and best produce.  Now can we have a warm welcome to Trisha Flodye!!!!
May you get many awards in your future career, whatever it maybe.
Rachel Nuckols
go class of 99!

Trisha
Hey this year has been great.  I've known you for 6 yrs, even though it feels longer.  I'm going to miss you next year, so we better kick it this summer, a whole lot. 

always
Lorenza

They will EAT us!
They will EAT us!
What can I say?  You're now immortal because of that line and... POOR ELIZA!  Anyway when you're some big director or something, call me.  That is, if you're not to High from Humbolt.  Don't stop talking to me, and have fun next year.

always,
Jennifer Acosta
"There is a happy land far, far away.  Where saints in glory stand, bright bright as day."

There's no bizz like show bizz is right.  you and me are destined to get & make it in Hollywood.  I'll see you there in 4 years.
friends 4 ever,
Katie Shaw
P.S. You'll have to give me your # @ colledge

Hello Trisha,
how are you today?  I hope you are well and all, ready to live in reality for a bit, not going insane with the fact that we aren't Encinal people anymore.  I'm not taking that too well yet!
See ya around,
Much love,
Andrew

Hey Trisha!
Its been nice knowing you since 3rd grade.  We are finally done and over with this year!  Aren't you so proud?!  Well, have a nice summer & take care!
Bye!

Bonnie Cartwright

~Trisha~
So hey we now move on... To better things?  To worse things?  To new things!  I have known you hella long, and it's been a blast...Hope you do well in Humbolt!  I know you'll K.I.T...cuz yeah you're good like that...You my dawg Trisha...You my dawg!

Always 'n forever
Tiffany (Fisher crossed out) Harrington (heehee!)

Trisha,
Have a cool summer.  Congradulations on graduating.  Have a nice future.
c/o 99 Your friend,
& c/o 2000 Veronica Munoz

87 I'm okay, you're okay, we're all okay! 91
Hey now.  So yeah.  It was fun.  I doubt I'll see you in Hollywood, because I'll be such a great actor that I'll be on location all the time and living in New York.  And screw the Academy Aware -> I'm too good to go!  See ya around!
w/

Eric

Frustration

Don’t ask me to participate in your stupid crap if you don’t like the way I do it

At a loss, grappling with failure & depression

I really wish I could get to a place like this and take it with caution but optimism like most people.  People face greater challenges than this every day and handle it with far more ability than I can handle average tough situations.

So Dominic's almost done with DeVry.  The estimate is that he'll be done in October and have his bachelor's in project management.  This means so much to him and I'm so proud of him that he's stuck with this for the last three or four years to finish is degree in the evenings over the 'net.  I can't even express it.  We always knew that his financial aid would run out towards the end and that we'd have to get a loan from our bank for the rest.  Without going into an enormous amount of personal financial details, we're having issues with the bank securing the loan.  I was denied as a cosigner due to my unstable recent work history (2 mo. self-employed, 8 mo. at NEM).  Of course Dominic was all kinds of pissed off about the problems and concerned he wouldn't be able to finish school when he's so close, and had many angry choice words about the bank and my former employer and  other stuff that, while mostly not directed at ME, I took like this:

This is my fault.  I should never have left PsPrint.  I should have stayed and been miserable, but miserable with a steady job and paycheck and employment history.  Had I not taken the risk to work for NEM and subsequently been let go, he'd have no problem getting the loan.  If I'd taken perhaps another job instead of the current contractor stuff I'm doing, with better up-front pay, maybe that would override the history thing.  This is my fault.

A more rational or emotionally stable person might look at that and not understand how I could think this was solely my fault.  How could I have known NEM would fold - I was assured it was stable.  PMG, the firm I work with now, assured me they had clients days away from signing contracts, and I don't touch those initial deals so how's it my fault they haven't been able to give me another contract.  How can I be blamed for wanting out of a job that, while stable, was making me even more depressed and miserable.

But this is what I do... I internalize.  At first, after getting off the phone with the bank about the loan, I suggested that we could ask my dad to co-sign instead.  I started to call him, but then realized that with the time difference it was 11pm in SC and he was probably headed to bed, so I hung up and sent him an email instead.  Of course, after that, and more angry words about the situation from Dominic... panic attack was in full swing.  Turns out my dad was still up, just in a different room than his cell phone, so he called me to see what I'd called about, and by that time I was crying and hyperventilating to the point where I could barely talk and tried to spit out something like "Dominic applied for a loan..." and all that came out was "Dom... D... Dominic..." sniffle cry wheeze... he had to ask me if everyone was OK.  (Which later made me think that if I get this worked up over something that supremely sucks but isn't the absolute end of the world, I think I'd immediately throw up and have to be sedated if anything ever DID happen to Dominic...).  Dad assured me that he had no problem at all helping and to chin up and tried to help me calm down.  By this point Dominic had found me in the bedroom putting clothes away and trying to breathe and was trying to calm me down too.  So at this point things are still sticky with the bank, but after another talk with my dad and Dominic talking to the financial aid people at DeVry, it's not looking as bleak.

I still can't help but internalize this and try to fix it, and feel like it's my fault it's not fixed.  I put this enormous pressure on myself.  PMG has more leads for contracts but still nothing signed yet, so I actually applied for some part-time receptionist jobs to help supplement my income until they can land another client for me.  I know there's a lot of potential here to work with them and to make even double what I was making before, and it's not necessarily her fault that these clients are passing on the proposals given the economic climate we're in.  It's just taking longer to get back up to what I was making before than I anticipated.  We're not suffering and haven't had to make any serious sacrifices like cutting the fun stuff we pay for monthly like XM Radio, Netflix, etc, and haven't had any trouble paying bills thanks to savings and the little bit of Unemployment benefits I did receive in those few weeks between being let go from NEM and actually starting my contract with PMG.  I was starting, as well, to worry about my prescriptions and health.  I've cut myself back on how often I've been taking my pills when I lost my health insurance.  We tried to add me to Dominic's but hadn't heard anything back.  One positive note this week has been that we received the new health insurance cards adding me to his insurance, so I can go back to taking the number of pills per day I should have been taking and go back to the doctor soon to start getting my diabetes more in-check.

Back to why I'm writing this... because I don't have a therapist and unfortunately feel like I don't really have anyone to tell this to that will honestly just listen in person... or that I'd start to blubber again and not be able to get it all out.  I feel like a failure.  My marketing blog has been around for 2 years come August and still gets low traffic.  The Google Page Rank was PR0 for the longest time to a PR2 in January... then mysteriously back to PR0 in March without me making any big changes to it, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong.  I'm speaking on a panel at a convention this month and at a convention in August, so I must be doing something right in terms of my career, but I still feel like I'm doing something fatally wrong.  Like there's something I should be doing to make the bigger bloggers in the affiliate marketing space - who mostly know me and are friendly with me - want to link to my blog in their links area.  None do.  I feel like maybe they think I'm a hack or something, I don't know.  I know there are things I could be doing, topics I could be writing about, I could be writing more often, but finding the energy to craft good stuff isn't always easy.  This, this is easy.  This is just pouring what I'm thinking out through my fingers into a blog that I don't expect anyone to give two shits about.  This is more for me, I know. 

I've always been told I'm a great asset for any company to have.  My work is excellent.  I have good ideas and work efficiently and produce results.  I have potential.  I just don't know why I don't believe that and can't help but think that I have no business aspiring to anything.  That I'm not good enough to have aspirations and should have just relegated myself to an average job at an average company long ago.  Who the fuck did I think I was, getting a degree in theatre arts?  Anything else at the time just felt too average for me.  I've always felt like I could be really great at something and known for something.  Do something notable.  I feel a lot like I can't help if that I'm above average... I've always been above average, but I feel like I'm not far enough above average to be special or remarkable.  I've always felt like I was better than average and that I'd never be happy just being average, and it terrifies me that maybe that's all I am - average.  Nothing special.  I don't know what I can do to not feel this way...all the Paxil or Lexapro in the world won't help.  And I don't say this, about being better than average, to be superior or better than anyone.  Maybe that's why I have such problems with depression and self-image, because it evens out my ego. 

Sometimes I don't know if I'm trying too hard to achieve recognition, or not hard enough.  I wish I could get more out of this turmoil than insomnia, like crazy good art or something, but unfortunately I'm not better than average in that way.

I almost lost a loved one - my computer!

When I was in college I had a roommate who claimed to, among other things, see ghosts and be slightly clarivoyant.  Not enough to blatantly be able to predict the future or anything, but enough that she'd had strange dreams or visions about things that ended up happening.  She claimed that whenever a loved one died, she had dreams about teeth before hand, like within the day before.  I don't know why I remember this, I just always have.

Last week, I had a dream that a dentist was pulling my teeth... like 5 or 6, all in the back, one by one.  I awoke remembering what that roommate claimed and it kinda creeped me out, but I ignored it.  Last night I had an even weirder dream, where I was working as like an assistant at some kind of low income/homeless dental clinic and a girl came in (don't ask me why, but it was totally that girl who played Zoey Bartlett on The West Wing) and she was getting a lot of her teeth pulled, but she also had some WEIRD fucking ailment where one of her arms and one of her legs was rotting... but, not rotting like flesh rots but a combination of that and almost wilting like a flower, so it was not as gorey as it sounds.  She didnt' think anything was wrong, didn't hurt, and could move them and use the fingers and toed, and while in the chair was talking about her father, and me and another girl helping out realized she didn't know her father was dead, and as we convinced her that her father had died, she stopped being able to use the fingers and move them and they wilted faster (like almost time-lapse camera shot sped to real time) and we realized they were her father's limbs that she'd sewn on to her own stubs (she'd had an accident and lost her arm & leg years before, or it was a birth defect or something, nothing crazy like she'd chopped hers off or anything) and that's why the limbs were bad.  But she'd been able to use them because she truly didn't believe her dad had died and truly believed they were her limbs.  Severe mind over matter.

I blame the Pink vodka I had at the club last night that was infused with caffeine and guarana for such a weird dream.  But, the limbs thing was weird but didn't really jostle me... it was that I had ANOTHER dream about teeth being pulled.  Now, at this point, all my grandparents are dead and Dominic's grandmothers aren't really that close, i.e. no real health problems other than your average "getting old" stuff.  So I remembered I have The Illustrated Dream Dictionary, and I looked up teeth.  No entry.  The closest thing I could find was that if you had a dream where your mouth was wide open, it might be a sign to shut it more often and listen to people.  And the limbs thing didn't help either; there was nothing about false limbs or limbs not working or rotting or anything.  I looked it up online and all I found was this: "Teeth: Normally an unfavorable sign in a dream.  It signifies displeasure and also shows that you are afraid of loosing someone dear to you."  Not quite the "someone will die" type of omen my former roommate seemed to believe it was, but still unsettling.

And then when I got up and went to start my computer... one of my worst nightmares happened. It froze at the motherboard screen and wasn't loading anything.  I tried resetting, restarting, getting into the BIOS, nothing worked.  It was working fine last night when I checked my email before going to bed after returning from the club.  I turned it off and proceeded to watch Damian play Zelda for awhile before trying again.  Nothing.  I finally had to ask Dominic for help.

He did the same things I did, then unhooked stuff, pulled the tower out and used a vacuum and canned air to dust out everything.  He checked the connections inside to make sure the motherboard was hooked up to everything right.  Nothing looked obviously jostled (no "A-ha!  There's the problem" type moment).  At that point I was practically praying to the God I don't believe in...convinced that I was thoroughly fucked, and that, not only would I have to be spending money I didn't have on a new computer, or new parts, but the fear that I may have lost thousands of pictures, all of my work files since my personal and professional computer is one in the same now, and hundreds of fonts, design files, etc.

Luckily, after the dusting out and checking connections, it started up fine.  Of course that's sent me into a massive fury of backing everything up - just in case.  Something that I REALLY ought to do more often.  Despite having a DVD burning drive, I didn't actually have any software that would allow me to burn a data DVD, taking advantage of those 4.7 gb of storage per disc instead of 712 mb on a CD.  So I found a freebie software called DeepBurner that's actually working really well.  There's a pro version too, but this free version has all the features I need for now, so needless to say the burning of 10 DVDs of data is on my agenda tonight.  They take about 20-30 minutes each to burn, which isn't terrible.  I've previously been keeping my backup CDs in my big general CD file cabinet that has my other software stuff, games, etc. but I think tomorrow I'm going to head to an office supply store or the dollar store and see what kind of small CD case I can get and just keep them all in a separate, secure location that's easy to find.  Maybe now I'll be a good girl about backing my shit up.  I'm also looking into online backup stuff.  I'm beta testing a product that allows me to securely back up my files to their servers (review will come soon at TrishaLyn.com once I've tested it more a bit) so I'm using that right now, and I'm also contemplating signing up for Jungle Disk.  It's $2/month fee plus 15 cents per GB that you store and 10 cents per GB you upload.  So, it would be about $27.25 for me to get started (this beta program says I'm backing up 101 GB of data since I set the backup really broad) and then about $17.15 per month to maintain it, maybe a bit more if I upload a substantial amount of information. 

Here's what I don't get about Jungle Disk.  It's "brought to you" by Amazon and Rackspace.  There are different options for cloud backup.  If I choose Amazon S3 US, then the prices I just mention apply.  But if I choose Rackspace Cloud Files, there's no transfer fees, so it would just be the $17.15/month period.  So, I'm hoping that someone out there that reads this has some experience with Jungle Disk and can explain to me which is a better option.  In terms of security they look the same, just different pricing.  And I know that, generally speaking, both Amazon and Rackspace are trusted names and brands so that doesn't really factor in.  I'm just glad I didn't lose my computer to the gods and, now that I'm using Toodledo to keep my to-dos and stuff straight, I'm definitely adding a reminder to back everything up once per quarter!

San Leandro Historical Railway Society Open House

All bay area residents and model train or historical railway enthusiasts are welcome!

The San Leandro Historical Railway Society presents their June 2009 Open House and Model Railroad Train Show!

June 6th & 7th, Saturday 10am - 5pm and Sunday 12pm - 5pm.

Railroaders of all ages are welcome!  Raffle prizes and a bake sale.  Win a HO Model Train set or other prizes.  The SLHRS is in Thrasher Park at the 111 year old Southern Pacific Railroad Depot.  1302 Orchard, San Leandro, CA 94577.

Visit them on the web at www.slhrs.org and support my hubby's latest passion!  Donations are welcome.  On Saturday there will also be a small yard sale beginning at 10am. 

More Pictures from High School

Thanks to Rachel here are more photos from high school!

Vanessa & Latasha


Not sure who the teacher is, but that's Tina behind her!


Katrina Staten - the best English teacher ever!


Junior year all the regular history classes had the pleasure of Rachel's parents and a family friend come teach about the Civil War (we didn't do it in AP US History... probably should have...)






And oh... Andrew in a kilt junior year... and yes I recall he made a point to tell us that he was going commando...best photo of the bunch!