10/28 Fire alarms and 3D printers

Thankfully those two subjects are not actually related. Although if we're trying to go in chronological order the 3D printer technically came first, but for the sake of making a semi-decent story to follow the fire alarms can be the first topic. Lets be real, there's not much I can elaborate on having to be at work at 5am to have the fire alarms tested, and then listen to the piercing shrieks for the next 3 hours at 6 minute intervals, all while trying to crunch business numbers and make a schedule. My Wednesday morning was not the best.

Monday, however, brought the arrival of a new-to-us 3D printer which has been by far one of the coolest purchases the boyfriend has made. Monday was Day 2 of my recovery from last Saturday night's shenanigans (There were copious amounts of beer and whiskey consumed, picking up a pizza on a 4x4, starting a bonfire with a leaf blower.....I needed 2 days to recover), and the boy also decided to take the day off just because. I'm still convinced the "just because" was actually because he knew the printer was coming, but that's another story.

We quickly blew through the basics of 1) downloading patterns/blueprints from the interwebs, and 2) creating basic shapes and designs with the construction elements provided in the programs we downloaded, and I now have a tiny fox mascot perched atop a cube-in-a-cube sitting next to a slightly asymmetrical B adorning my desk. My next project has been to make a coaster, a few festive decorations, and possibly dive into a few tiny gift ideas for Christmas. Actually, my next project will be ordering new materials from Amazon because (as expected), you fly through things much faster than originally anticipated. Also I can't be the jerk that constantly uses up the materials that the boy bought for himself even though he's kind enough to let me overtake the printer.

The designing and researching and printing has pushed ideas into my head though of things I've been contemplating for quite a while but haven't necessarily had the means to do. First being tossing around the idea of opening some kind of online shop on Etsy. Yes, there are a million and a half shops that sell crudely manufactured 3D printed trinkets, but it's still a thought.

Second being finally going back to school. I've been putting it off and putting it off for so long because "I can't afford it" and "it would interfere with my work schedule too much" but I'm kind of sick of giving myself the same excuses. I'm past the age that I have to rely on my parents, and also now that I'm out of the house I have the ability to file for my own financial aid which would be a huge factor in making that thought a possibility. The work schedule I suppose I could get around. I know I wouldn't be able to be in school full time while working full time, and I definitely can't afford to go back to part time work just to be in school full time. I don't know what I could manage, but I'm sure I could manage to work something out with the right conversations.

I've always had a half-minded interest in graphic design elements, ever since high school. For the "required" computer class elective I took a basic graphic design class (and by basic I mean the only one that was offered), and the teacher I had for that class kept encouraging me to take it further but I didn't want to listen and never did. The very short college stint that I had I took another basic/intro design class that I flew through and the professor there did the same thing but once again I didn't want to listen and thought I didn't have much interest in the matter. Turns out, after 10 years of working in an unrelated retail field I've discovered that not only do I love visual design elements, but I love anything that involves using a computer to design and create things as well. Except most software programs. Don't ask me to design a program, just give me a running and well working program to create new things with.

Who knows. We'll see, it's just a matter of time to figure things out the way I need them to go.