Drafts - Work training

     As the year/ decade gets closer to the end, a lot of people are doing a 10 year look-back, mostly on Facebook and with pictures, comparing where they are now to where they were in 2010. While I'm not particularly interested in how I've physically changed, I decided to look back through old drafts that I started but never posted. Here's one from when I started my current job, in 2014 (updated to current time).

     Let me preface this with the insight that I had a LOT of jobs when I was teens/20s. I worked various roles at a couple Renaissance Faires, did temping/ office work in a wide variety of fields and locations, drove a range of trucks from pickups to 18 wheelers, food service, IT, customer service... basically I wasn't 100% sure what I wanted to do, so I just tried everything. Most of those jobs were entry level/ low skill, so training was on-the-job if at all. Every single job, barring trucking, went like this at the beginning:

Thor cosplay: Helmet

     The final piece for the Thor cosplay, once I made sure everything else worked well, was the helmet. I have always had difficulties finding hats and headbands, because my head is larger than "one size fits all," and it turns out that cosplay helmet patterns have the same limitations. I started with a motorcycle style helmet pattern, but both it and the material I started with (1/4" thick foam covered in Worbla) just didn't work well. It was huge, hard to fit, and heavy, which is a shame because it took many hours getting to that realization point:

Fun with leatherworking: lightsaber holder

     Had some free time today and decided to try making a lightsaber holder for the Jedi outfit. I ran out of time on the original outfit and just braided twine together, made a slipknot, and hung it off my belt that way, but it wasn't really solid and looked kind of silly up close.

     Since I've gotten some experience in leatherworking with the Thor costume, I figured I could at least make an attempt at a nicer holder. I'll skip the obvious fails - where I learned what thickness leather to use, why fabric snaps don't work on thick leather, and that metal snaps scratch up a metal lightsaber handle - and stick to the winning learning process. Started out with a paper pattern, made sure it was long enough to loop over the thicker-than-average Jedi belt, then added arms to wrap around the thinner areas:

Geeky proposal

     Set this up back in March: my proposal to the gentleman.






Started on the whiteboard in the kitchen, one of the first places we both go when we wake up.

Workplace noise

     Long ago, I heard the phrase "high-scan vs low-scan" for people who cannot ignore noise vs people who can. I haven't been able to find evidence of that as a thing since then, but it stuck in my head, because I am high-scan: small noises that other people tend to overlook are difficult for me to ignore when I'm trying to focus or relax. A month or two ago, a squeaking noise start up in the ceiling at work, and of course, no one else paid attention to it until I pointed it out (although to be fair, all of my coworkers either have or have had small children, so I guess ignoring noise is a skill you pick up at that stage in life). Naturally, it was situated directly over my desk, so no one else thought it was loud enough to do anything about until I complained.... a lot... This is the result: