Ahhh okay it’s been a while since I’ve actually sat down and done a blog post about the things going on my life.

Last month, I landed myself a pretty exciting job at a local design studio in Oakland! I feverishly trained for several weeks, getting to know the ins and outs of my responsibilities. I spend a lot of time maintaining our client’s sites (content and design updates), have worked on brainstorming new designs for new clients, putting together print pieces, and just trying to keep my head up above the water. Barely, it seems!

When I get a new job/position, I usually go into MIA mode for a month or two to get used to the big schedule change. Which also means I’ve been maxing out in GRANDMA mode! Get to bed by 10, get up around 7:30.

I had to drop most of my classes this semester so I wouldn’t completely kill myself. I’m only taking one class now, which I absolutely LOVE–Intro to Animation Principles! I’m really enjoying the experience of creating animations. The problem is that I spend about 9 hours staring at a monitor for work, and I’m usually exhausted by the time it’s time for class. It’s so difficult to make it out, but when I get there, I always feel so thrilled about new ideas, and seeing what my classmates have created too! Unfortunately, I’ve been utterly behind on my animation work because I just don’t want to kill my eyes.

Since my eyes have been taking a beating, my weekends have just trying to chill out at home, relaxing, not straining at my computer. Just spending some good time with Brent, and occasional friends that may come over. (This weekend was the first time I saw my friends in a month! Yayayayay!!!)

I’m learning lots and am extremely fortunate to get to do things I love right now! But, as usual, the perfectionism in me just doesn’t want to fuck anything up. It’s just one of those situations where the stress that is created comes mostly from within.

Oh well… gotta HUSTLE, right?

I’ve got tons of personal projects in the queue…. just don’t know when I’ll have the energy to do everything at once again. :)

Alright let’s get straight to business.
I just hosted a LOST-themed party the weekend before September 22nd to commemorate the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, and people came with AMAZING enthusiasm! (Brent and I had a post-party discussion about why it is Embarkers have such great spirit? It can only be explained by our main principle of WORK HARD, PLAY HARD. And maybe because we know we’d all go all in for parties?)

• How to Make a Dharma “Namaste New Recruits” Banner
• How to Make Oceanic Air Invitations (Boarding Passes and Ticket Jackets)
• LOST Party Recap!
• Resources
• More LOST Party Pics on Picasa

Pre-Party Prep: Dharma “Namaste New Recruits” Banner

Modeled off of this infamous Season 5 banner (SERIOUS SPOILER WARNING: don’t look if you’re not done with Season 5), it only seemed appropriate for me to make one for the party!

This was a 100% DIY poster I made. If you’d like to make one too, this is what I did:

• Buy a roll of poster paper from any art store. I used 24in x 25yd roll of Canson bond layout paper. It was a little thin for my preference, but definitely did the job! (~$14)
• Banner is 2 ft x 13 ft
• Center points of Dharma symbols are about 15 inches from the edges of the poster paper, and halfway down from the top of the paper (at 12in mark)
• Dharma circle centers have a 6½in – 6¾in diameter
  (I used the top of my rice-jar cover, which worked out PERFECTLY, apparently!!)
• From the rim of the circle diameter border, measure out the symbol’s thick-lines that make the surrounding Dharma border lines. Not really sure what to call the lines–image below should make the most sense:
  • Space between circle and innermost “thick-line”: 1 inch
  • Thickness of each “inner thick-line:” 0.75 inches
  • Space between each “inner thick-line:” 0.5 inches
  • Space between outmost Dharma symbol border and “inner thick-line:” 1.25 inches
  • Thickness of outmost Dharma symbol border: 1 inch
  

  Dharma circle center is at the very bottom. Measure 1 inch up to begin the "inner thick-line" borders that surround the Dharma circle center

• Repeat measurement for all other sides of the circle
  
  

  NOTICE the style of the inner thick-lines change throughout every side of the Dharma symbol!

• Trick to measuring the diagonal sets of lines: the center of the set should be at a 45 degree angle from the horizontal line that runs thru the center of the symbol. (Estella used MATH for this?! Let alone a PROTRACTOR?! GASP!!!)
• To duplicate the Dharma sign again: you can use some tracing paper + transfer/carbon paper instead of re-measuring another symbol. You can also use this to recreate a few other Dharma signs around the party ;D

Measuring the banner text:

• Center of the WHOLE poster is at 6.5ft
• Lettering has 3.5 inch margin from top and bottom edges of poster paper
• Font-weight (width of each letter’s stroke) is 1 inch thick
• Kerning (space between each letter) is about 2 inches. Exceptions: less kerning around round letters (o, c, e) and more for stick-ish letters (i, l)
• Leading/line-spacing (space between the row “Namaste” and the row “New Recruits”) is 3 inches
• Letter height: 7 inches
• Letter width of each letter is about 6 inches. Exceptions: M and W are bigger, measuring 7 inches.
  
  

  Breakdown of measurements of letters and spacing

• NOTE: You may notice that the kerning/letter-spacing is different for the top “NAMASTE” line. That was my bad. ^_^ I prefer using the 2inch kerning as I did for the bottom row of text. :)
• Then, hire a minion to paint it all in for you:
  
  

  <3! Thanks for all your help, Janelle! :D

The result?

Pre-Party Prep: Oceanic Air Invitations

The Boarding Passes

As mentioned in my previous post, Jon Griffith’s site was extremely awesome in posting a boarding pass mock-up for printing! I made a few tweaks to match the Oceanic dates/times, but it served to be a GREAT starting point! Here are some notes for the boarding passes:

• Griffith’s original boarding pass printed out (for me?) as a 11 x 4.6 inch boarding pass, which is way too big, compared to actual boarding passes. To print smaller, changed the size of the boarding pass images to 500 x 208 pixels (6.94 x 2.89 in). (Actually, the size I altered mine to is slightly too small, for those that care!)
• Print them out on 65lb. (or heavier) cardstock paper. You can copy/paste multiple boarding pass images onto one 8.5 x 11in canvas in Photoshop so you can print three at a time.
• Use a corner rounder to punch out the corners of the boarding passes! :D You can get a round corner punch at Michael’s or any other craft store.
  

  Round-cornered OA815 boarding passes!

Oceanic Airlines Ticket Jacket

Gotta go all the way, right? (Guys? … Guys?????)

I spent some time studying this image of Claire’s Oceanic ticket, staring at the ticket jacket in the background.

But then I stumbled upon Catchpenny’s LOST party photos, where one of their friends (a graphic designer) had created their own Oceanic ticket jackets! AH-HAH! This is TOTALLY doable! So I got to workin’!

Not much time left before the party, I threw together a few of the Oceanic logos, and trial-errored with a few print outs. Here’s what I came up with:

DOWNLOAD the Oceanic Air Ticket Jacket (PDF). Feel free to use! Please link back to this post--thx! :)

Folding the Oceanic Ticket Jacket
Here’s how the Oceanic ticket jacket looks. I’ll walkthru how to fold, cut, and paste the way I did it!

The Ticket Jacket is a trifold of a standard 8.5x11in paper. Flap A has the small Oceanic logo at the bottom center. Flap B has the large words of "Oceanic Airlines." And Flap C is the plain blue, inner envelope flap of the jacket.

• Position the paper in front of you so that the underside/white side of the paper is facing up, and so that the white underside of Flap A (with tiny Oceanic logo) is on your right side.
  
• From the left side of the paper (which is the white underside of Flap C), measure 3.25 inches towards the center of the paper. This is where you will fold Flap C over, towards the center. This will create the inner envelope of the jacket! :)
  
• Take the right side of the paper (Flap A) and fold it over, towards the center and over the previously-folded Flap C. Tah-dah! Half way there! :D
  
• Open up the envelope and cut between the top Flap C and B borders so you can stylize the inner jacket fold however you’d like~ I cut 3 inches from the top, and just did a diagonal cut. Then, I just rounded off that diagonal cut corner with scissors.
  
• Next, glue the bottoms of Flap C and B together. This will create the envelope for your ticket jacket! :)
  
• Tah-dah! Oceanic 815 boarding pass ticket holder! :D Happy crashing!
  

Puh-puh-puh-PARTY TIME!

Much to my surprise, everyone went ALL. OUT. for the party! It made me sooo happy and proud!

Most memorable moments:

• Norvelle coming over at 11PM the night before, cutting up labels until 3AM(!!!)
  
• Shultsy came as Dr. Jack! I’ve missed my sugar-parent-husband!! <3
  
• Craig’s MR. CLUCK’S CHICKEN was put together so well! Even matching bowl colors! (Plus Janelle’s waffles to go with the chicken! mmmm!)
  
• The ever-original Christine came as BAD ROBOT! What a GREAT choice, knowing that no one else would come dressed as… that? it? ze??!
  
• An AWESOME Custom LOST Orientation Video by Brent!
• Little Walt. (No. You cannot have any of our tampered, generic-looking Dharma soda at our cultish-looking party without your parent’s consent.)
  
• I guess the trivia crossword was kinda hard huh??
  
• Grant as Dr. Artz: “Do you KNOW what happens to nitro glycerin when it’s been sitting in the sun?! You have to be CAREFUL! *whips off scarf*” lololol
  
• Gilbert’s stupid costume-winning streak: “End of Season 3 Jack”
  
• Savina’s uber delicious BOAR stew!
  
• Glow-in-the-dark LOCKDOWN painting–oops… how many ppl did I scare with this? Don’t worry. Me and Norvelle saw something totally creepy before I finished the painting. Not talking about it…. (Forgot to take a pic of it on the back of our bathroom’s sliding door :( Did anyone get a snapshot of this in action?? :D)
  
• Sofa turned First Class seats! Complete with oxygen masks, little vodka bottles, airplane seatbelts, airplane snacks, pillows and blankets! I tried to get airplane seats… couldn’t get em… hahhah (Thanks, dad! hahahah)
  
• The GREAT company of friends, old and new!

Yay! THANKS for such an awesome LOST Party, everyone, and for celebrating with me!! Don’t forget to enroll at LOSTUniversity! Only THREE more months until the last season of LOST. We’re almost there!

Resources

Here are the sites I used and reference to bring all these ideas together! THANKS so much for posting your party pics, ideas, and creations to inspire the success of mine! :D

• Oceanic Boarding Passes – http://www.jongriffith.com/boardingpass/
• Oceanic Ticket Jacket ideas – http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=lost&w=89714698@N00.  These Flickr pics helped me a lot in creating my ticket jackets! Click here to download my ticket jacket PDF (Please link back to this post! ^_^).
• The motherload site for ALL your Dharma label needs (no exaggeration) – http://maxpictures.com/weblog/2007/04/10/lost-labels-for-your-dharma-initiative-needs/
• Hatch countdown timer for your computer – http://www.cagriaksay.com/?p=19 More can be found here: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Fan-made_countdown_timers
• Squidoo.com – Hosting a LOST/DHARMA Party
• KungFoodie.com – Love is a Lost Fish Biscuit Cookie (Instructions and Recipe for making Fish Biscuits!)
• Neatorama.com -  15 Details to Help You Throw a LOST Party
• Dharma fonts: http://www.dafont.com/lost-font.font and http://www.dafont.com/dharma-initiative-logos.fontseafood
• JonGriffith.com – How to Throw a LOST TV Show Theme Party
• Fun-Theme-Party-Ideas.com – ABC Lost Party Theme
• And SUPER special thanks to Brent, Janelle, Jo, Craig, Norvelle, and Damian for all your help with the party! It wouldn’t have been so fun and successful without all of your help! <3

Na.ma.ste!

MORE PARTY PICS ON PICASA – Feel free to comment and “Like” the photos! ^_^

Next month is September, which means one thing: time to celebrate the plane crash date of Flight 815!

Oh, what?
Sept 22 is on a Tuesday!?! Damnit!
Bleh… okay fine, we’ll have it on Sept 19 since it’s the Saturday before the 22nd -_- *mutter mutter mutter*

Anyway, I’m planning a LOST party and I wanted to share my resources and finds with everyone!

Why a LOST party? Well, especially since it’s LOST’s last season in 2010, I’m taking extensive measures to fully take on the LOST experience to the max! I love the show, how it’s educated me on a lot of topics, and how it’s the first tv show to make me THINK on a completely new level.

Last year, Brent and I went on an all-out LOST tour on Oahu, driving around to the various spots where they’ve filmed the show. This year, we’re hosting an all-out LOST-themed party!

Also, I think it’ll be nice to celebrate LOST while we’re patiently waiting for its return in 2010. Gotta keep ourselves busy and entertained!

Contine Reading More… »

NOTE: If you’re not caught up with LOST (end of Season 5), this post WILL contain spoilers. Why haven’t you caught up yet??!

Those that know me know that I’m a HUGE LOST fan. It should not be a surprise that I went to Comic-con this year primarily for LOST’s final panel at Comic-con, in preparation for their last season. [Insert uber sad face here!!!] It should also not be surprising that I also woke up at 5AM on Saturday morning to get in line for the 11:00 LOST panel.

Of course, I duly bow-down to those hardcore fans that really go the distance: some folks began camping out at 7PM on Friday night with sleeping bags and tent. For their true dedication and love for the show, the campers definitely deserved the closest seats at the front that they diligently earned. At that, I know that I can only self-identify as a “medium-core” LOSTie fan. Much props and respect to the TRUE hardcore fans! <3

Here is my summary of the LOST panel at Comic-con 2009 with the help of various videos that I’ve been able to find and compile from the net. Hope you enjoy it!

Standing In Line

Brent and I got to the line by 5:45AM, where there were at most 300 folks already lined up for the Hall H panel. Hall H has a 6700 person capacity, but with factors like front seats and spot-holding, I was more than willing to try to get a decent seat!

Around 6:45AM, JOpinionated started giving away some LOST paraphernalia by asking some TOUGH LOST trivia questions:

1. Who broke their leg while skiing?
2. Who is Maggie Ryan?
3. Who are the 3 Flight 815 passengers (that are on the island) that know that Locke was in a wheelchair before?

Do you remember the other trivia questions asked while in line, or who asked the questions? Please let me know!!

We sat, napped, and waited with some pretty chill people, a lot of whom were single fans without friends to accompany them–TRUE dedication, see? Friends or not, the LOST panel MUST be experienced! Someone from Nashville, someone from Ontario (Canada), we sat and chatted to pass the time.

Going Into Hall H

Around 9:30AM, they started letting folks into Hall H–w00t! We got in around 9:45AM and got pretty good seats near the front, center (relatively speaking since Hall H is HUGE?).

While coming into the Hall, we got some sweet LOST freebies, advertising the new ARG (alternate reality game, aka official game for LOSTies to pass the time to research more between seasons). The new ARG is LOST University!

The LOST Panel

Shortly after 11AM, the Hall’s lights dimmed and this ad for LOST University was shown:

How cute! Polar bear as the school mascot! Be sure to go to http://lostuniversity.org/ to find out more info! Enrollment begins on September 22, 2009–the day of Flight 815’s crash!

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Most of my life, I’ve always been thought to be one of those always-happy people. Lately, I haven’t felt very happy.

Not that I’ve felt mostly sad or depressed, but I don’t have the HIGH on life that I used to have in my day-to-day life.

Is the effect of my living in limbo, right now? Is this because of my many insecurities? of myself?

Whatever it may be, I’ve been stuck here for the last few months. I don’t seem to laugh as much, don’t seem to smile as much, don’t seem to enjoy my time as much. A shame, really. I WANT to live every day up, but it’s become fairly mundane and…. un-exhilarating. Unchallenged, every day a slight variation of the past, I’m living the cycle of what I criticized most from the corporate, day-to-day jobs that I disliked. Ironic, since now I have all the freedom to do whatever I want.

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