Sam Woodfin's Micro

Reflections on the Sheraton

If There's One Thing I've Learned from Zazzle...

It's that duplicate content in less destructive than multiple links are constructive. 

In the spirit of that teensy bit of knowledge, I'm reposting my housing ad from Craigslist, here, because, damnit, we need a place to live:

Rental situation wanted for two females, one 41 and the other 79, and a disabled dog in Orange County. The 79-year-old has dementia, and the 41-year-old is her daughter/caretaker. The dog is friendly, uses a doggie wheelchair to get around when he's outside. Prefer $750/month or less. Open to room rentals, apartments, back houses, mobile homes, yurts, or pretty much anything that doesn't involve navigating stairways or elevators. We have a steady -- albeit low -- income, and are open to different types of people/personalities. Prefer a relaxed environment. 

In the case of room rentals, potential housemates must be gay-friendly. Geek-friendly is always appreciated, too!

Close to Old Towne and/or UCI Medical Center would be an awesome bonus!

Reply via email, or text or call me at 714-398-6078 if you have a rental situation that you think would work for us.

I plan to repost that ad (or links to it) in as many reasonable places as I can think of (without getting squicked about not knowing the posting rules). I also plan to write a few different versions, just to see how creative I can get while sticking to the pertinent information. Hell, I may even cartoon an ad!

If anyone has any suggestions for improving the ad, without killing all the enthusiasm I've managed to work up for writing/posting it ('cause that would suck), feel free to comment below.

Next lesson: Keyword stuffing! (No. Not really. But if anyone wants to offer me a job doing that, well... *points to Contact page*)

Wherever I Hang My What?

House-hunting is frustrating. Even when it's room-hunting. Or apartment-hunting. Or OMG-rent-me-an-empty-lot-and-I'll-sleep-in-my-freaking-car hunting. Most places are beyond my budget. Those places aside, most places that are renting rooms want to rent to one person, some places don't accept dogs, and -- most frustrating of all -- a lot of people who place ads on Craigslist just don't follow up on replies.

(I'm also convinced that some folks on Craigslist place ads for housing in order to make hookups of a different kind. Some o' y'all forget to ninja your creepy. Just sayin'.)

Due to the generosity of a couple of individuals, I now have Internet access in my room at the Sheraton. This makes actually finding available housing easier. (No! Really! I suspect there's some good in driving around, looking for signs [actually, I suspect it's more effective than the Internet, when a place is actually spotted], but I see two things when I'm driving: stop signs and my speedometer. Pedestrians in my path have just been lucky, so far. Rental signs don't stand a chance.) But it also leads to more frustration when lessors don't reply to my replies.

I spent all day, yesterday, close to the Sheraton. The furthest we drove was to the Target (yes, Target; I know) across the street. Today, I'm heading into Old Towne Orange. I'm going to gas up the car. I'm going to smoke like a steam engine. I'm going to drive around with my little notebook and pen in hand, phone at the ready, and I'm probably going to frustrate myself all over again. 

But at least I'll be frustrated in what I've come to see as my geographical comfort zone: the public parking lot on Olive, south of Chapman; Starbucks on the plaza; Rod's; and the benches where other homeless people (some of whom are not being put up at the Sheraton) and dogs hang out. This is where my homing instinct leads me.

Which just goes to show that home doesn't always fit the standard definition. It has more to do with hearts than hats. And I've hung my heart in Old Towne since my first walk to the plaza.

Today, I need to take it off the hook, and see if it still fits.

Jerry and His Wheelchair: Photos By Lisa Scarsi

These pictures were taken by Lisa Scarsi, a professional photographer based in nothern Orange County. Lisa had read this article in the Orange County Register. She contacted the Animal Assistance League of Orange County, I had a friend email her my phone number, and a few days ago, she brought her son and daughter to meet up with me, Mom, OrangeCounty Gal, and Jerry for a pro bono photo session at Hart Park in Orange.

The pictures turned out great!

But the point of the photos isn't just to point out how cute Jerry is. (He already knows that!) The point is to say "Hey! This cute guy needs to move out of the hotel he's staying in, and into an apartment/trailer/room of his own!"

Or, in Jerry-speak (as I"ve learned to interpret it): "Get me out of this (expletives deleted) crate!"

Squashing Rumors/Seeking Housing

I'm posting this from the lobby at the Sheraton Garden Grove-Anaheim South. I'm posting from this location because, contrary to rumor, my mom, my dog, and I haven"t been kicked out of the Sheraton. The people who work here have been lovely, and the managers have gone out of their way to work with people donating both points and money to keep us here. As things stand, now, we're covered until Sunday, with another person willing to extend that stay for a week after that.

In the meantime, though, we still need to find more permanent accommodations. As nice as the Sheraton is -- and it is -- the instability of staying here isn't the best thing for Mom. She's pretty damned cranky just about now. So, Twitter friends, Facebook friends, and anyone in Orange County who reads this post: If you know of a rental on the cheap, preferably near the city of Orange, that would accept a 41-year-old social phobe, a 71-year-old with dementia, and a disabled dog, for Tao's sake, let me know! (I can be emailed through this page.) And if you don't know of a place, feel free to pass this post on; maybe someone you know knows!

One thing I've learned from this adventure (and there's been plenty; more on that as I can find a chance to blog) is that you never know where help will come from. Most of the help we've received has come as a result of the efforts of the Animal Assistance League of Orange County. They're a good group, if you happen to be looking for a cause to support!

I have a ton of people to thank! But very little time to do so. Mom and Jerry are waiting upstairs while I write this post, and at least one of them lacks patience. Thanks and updates will come as I can make them happen.

Trying to Find a Way to Post from My Dumb Phone

This is almost as frustrating as trying to find a rental in Orange! If it works, though, there'll be more posts soon! (If not, you won't be able to see me cursing.)

Not Actually Homeless, Thank Tao

Technically, my mom, my dog and I are homeless. As homelessness goes, it's rather cushy version. We have a roof over our heads, however temporary. We have a car. We have food, a mailing address, Internet access, warm showers, television, a mobile phone, and a kind-hearted friend who is helping us through the transition from Missouri to California. We aren't cold, hungry, or going without much of anything.

The closest we've come to real homelessness was one night we spent at a truck stop about 60 miles east of Amarillo, Texas; in our car, and with access to money, however limited. We haven't experienced sleeping on the streets, or even the camping that I actually planned for. We haven't had to break out the tent (thoughtfully provided by Amanda and Joseph) or the sleeping bags that Mr. and Mrs. Lumsden gave us (except to provide bedding for Jerry).

But there's still an underlying insecurity that comes with not having a place of one's own. On the trip out, we always had a place to go. Even that night spent at the truck stop, and the one spent at a motel in Tucson, was part of a larger trajectory. We knew where we were headed. Nights in Conway, Amarillo, Albuquerque and Tucson were part of a bigger plan, and having an achievable end goal makes all the difference in terms of certainty and security.

The next question is "Where do we go from here?"

And it's a pretty big question. I'm using Padmapper (an awesome resource) to look for a place to live. I'm dealing with Orange County Social Services to try to get Mom enrolled in Medi-Cal/Cal-Optima. And, in the meantime, I'm looking for work I can do while taking care of her: signing up at Elance, checking Craigslist a couple of times per day, continuing to work at Zazzle, and applying for a couple of jobs that I probably shouldn't mention.

But there's one other thing I'm doing, too: I'm thinking about the person I saw on my second night in Orange, lying in a parking lot, covered with a blanket, shopping cart close by. I'm thinking about how lucky we've been to only experience homelessness on a technical level; and about how, if homelessness as a technicality can invoke insecurity, real homelessness -- the kind experienced by that person in that parking lot in Orange -- must trigger a sort of fear that most of us don't even want to think about.

And maybe that's why homelessness continues to be an issue in a country with more than enough resources to house its citizens. It's like looking away when an ambulance drives by. We think that if we don't really acknowledge it, it won't happen to us.

 

A Week With Linux Mint

Or maybe not a week. It's been a long time since I was good at distinguishing one day from another. But "About a Week, Maybe..." makes for a horrible post title. The point is that I've spent several days on this new-to-me computer (courtesy one nail-spitting rat bastard), and I haven't learned a whole helluva lot. That's because Mint is (mostly) user-friendly. There hasn't been a steep learning curve -- it's more like a learning flatline -- for basic use.

That said, there are a few things I've found that I like quite a bit, and a few things that I still don't understand. I'm still not sure how to install software through any means other than the software manager. I still don't know what, exactly, the package manager does. I still have some trepidation regarding the terminal. But I know enough to make a couple of recommendations.

And my strongest recommendation for Mint software is Gnome + Do. It's quite smoothly taken the place that Launchy held for me under Windows, and made my OS transition an easy change.

My second recommendation is MyPaint. This does not, unfortunately, replace Paint.NET. I haven't found anything that does. But it does replace Corel Painter Eseentials 4, and to some degree, LiveBrush. For how I draw, it may actually be better-suited than either of those apps. And that's a very good thing, indeed! The only down side is that I can't get it to save to anything other than scrap. I can't choose filenames when saving to scrap. I can't change where files are saved, even though all of those options are supposed to be available in the software. (But it's still an improvement on using Xara Xtreme, which won't save or export, at all.)

Inkscape and The GIMP should be part of any artist's Mint repetoire, as they should be on Windows, if one can't afford Adobe.

One of the main pleasantries about switching to Mint has been that I can use Chrome again. Or, in this case, Chromium. That's something I haven't been able to do since upgrading Windows XP from SP2 to SP3! 'Least not without constant BSODs!

And the thing that I miss the most? Gmail Notifier. Sure, there's a Linux alternative, but it doesn't include alert sounds. I need alert sounds! Under Windows XP, I was able to hear email alert sounds from anywhere in the house. Now? Sorry kids, but it may be a while before I reply to you, because I have no audible signal that you've emailed me!

And here's a bonus quick tip: Go into keyboard shortcuts and disable Alt + Space. I can't tell you how many times I've lost my window menus by accidentally hitting that combo when I was aiming for Super + Space!

But the best thing? The absolute best thing about switching to Linux Mint? I plugged in my Wacom Bamboo Fun, and it worked. I didn't have to install a damned thing. The same applies to my Creative Zen mp3 player, and my Canon PowerShot SD1000 digital camera. 

To steal a line from my days on Mac OS 9, "It just works."

New Products: Woman in the Moon Abstract/Female Face

Woman in the Moon Abstract Face Round Keychain	Woman in the Moon Abstract Face Square Sticker	Woman in the Moon Abstract Female Face Plate
Woman in the Moon Abstract Face Round Stickers	Woman in the Moon Abstract Female Face Coaster	Woman in the Moon Abstract Female Face Tile
Woman in the Moon Female Face Cork Coaster	Woman in the Moon Female Face Square Ornament	Woman in the Moon Female Face Square Keychain
Woman in the Moon Female Face Round Button	Woman in the Moon Female Face Square Button	Woman in the Moon Female Face Round Magnet
Woman in the Moon Female Face Square Magnet	Woman in the Moon Abstract Female Face Gift Box	Woman in the Moon Female Face Premium Gift Box
Woman in the Moon Female Face Round Necklace	Woman in the Moon Female Face Square Necklace

WIP: Face "Drawn" in Inkscape

One of the biggest differences about moving and using a new computer/operating system is figuring out how I'm going to do graphic work. Freehand drawing, with a pen, on paper, isn't the most convenient option, right now, so I'm trying to adapt to "drawing" in Inkscape with the pen tool, which frankly, doesn't feel like drawing, at all.

I can't use Paint.NET on Linux Mint, either, so I'm mirroring manually in The GIMP.

This is definitely a work in progress, and really just an experiment, so I'm not sure how it'll end up. I much prefer the flow of actually drawing, but I like the dramatic jaggedness that comes from drawing without curves.