It’s been a little over a month at this point from when we left for our Bike Trip 3.0 and about 10 days short from when we returned home from it. I’m ready to go on another.
It’s basically been non-stop for me since we returned home, I actually haven’t seen Plonker since then as he’s out gallivanting the world at the moment.
While we were gone I ordered a bunch of crap for Fujupz: Printing Division (hopefully soon you can buy some Fujupz Merch!… all three of you that read this. So buy doubles, triples even, and spread the Fujupz love!) so it was like Christmas Holiday Season time when I walked through the door. I love getting packages and will sometimes order stuff just so I can get something in the mail. I mean, yeah, I usually lose interest about 5 minutes later, but it’s about getting something new and opening it up before chucking it in the corner.
So Barebones Printing Fujupz: Printing Division is starting off with sublimation printing, small pieces, particularly aluminum photo panels as I already have a client in need of that. I do want to expand in to other areas, like decals and possibly embroidery and rhinestones (Fujupz Rhinestone Decals anyone? Stick them on your computer or something. Perfect complement to the Fujupz Coffee Mugs and Fujupz Shot Glass!). I aim at add a machine shop to the Fujupz, LLC Divisions (currently named Hoffenplonker Maschinenwerks [it makes me laugh]) however, I could get into printing cheaper, and since I’m personally bankrolling this I had to go cheap.
Since sublimation printing is one of the print types I haven’t done yet it’s been a few weeks of practice, multiple failures, questioning of the cheapness of my equipment, and various changes while cursing at the YouTube videos and written instructions for making everything look easier than how it actually was going. I finally did start getting good prints, but I had to wing it on settings as the manufacturers suggestion worked about as well as a bag of shit for me.
Also while we were gone just about everything broke at work, so I was kept busy with maintenance OT, not that I’m complaining. Our Heidelberg Speedmaster had a power surge from a lightning strike while away, and when they tried turning it on there was just a loud explosion. They did call out some local electricians who determined something was grounded in the press control cabinet… and left it at that until I came back. I poked around, and while the main switch looked a little separated (I eventually removed it, cleaned it, and reassembled), I couldn’t find anything wrong. I thought I was on the right track at one point but ended up zapping myself with 280VAC of electricity. After that I was out of ideas and tried turning it on. I got the loud explosion. However, with the loud explosion came smoke, and that smoke lead me to a board with an exploded component. That component had the part number blown off of it (literally the only part that was missing), so I told purchasing we’d have to order a new board. That board, the ELK is not available by itself, but only available with another board, the AVM, both of which are attached to the BLT board. The BLT board comes in at about $28k. Plus tech service otherwise they won’t warranty the board. As I was telling the operator this, I looked in the cabinet and in the bottom back, behind wires, I saw a piece of ceramic. Ceramic with the missing part number of the component that had exploded. It’s a 3 phase bridge rectifer, Semikron SKD 110/16, I believe. We found ours on eBay for $25, we we’re sure if just replacing that would work so better to spend $25 and have it not work than $200 and blow it up. Luckily it did work. I said I wanted a percentage of the money I saved them… I’m sure the check is in the mail.
I also got sick for about a week, so, that was great. I didn’t “miss” any work though I was pretty out of it most of the time. I’m still hacking up bits of lung.
I’m also trying to learn the Adobe Creative Cloud suite AND Quickbooks at the same time. You watch YouTube videos on these things and you think “wow that seems so easy!” But then I try to adjust a god damn picture and I can’t get it to do shit. Ok, canvas is correct size. The image is clearly smaller than the canvas. Change Image size, everything changes and says the correct size anyway. Try to scale the picture, can’t figure it out. This is AFTER I had previously found a “scale” menu somewhere (I never re-found it), and had previously was able to click and drag a corner (I eventually deleted the image (the whole layer actually) and placed a new one.
I think part of my frustration (beside hacking up bits of lung occasionally) is my desk. It feels cramped, and dislike working at it. For some things I think a laptop would be better (I keep mine at work most of the time) but, I like a desktop for a good portion of actual work. It’s probably not going to change until I do my standard “fuck it” impulse buy.
Next step: Finding a spacious desk to impulse buy.
