Death Chicken ’08 Tour

1 ½ days left of 2008 and I’ve got to tell you, I can’t wait for this year to end. You may not have noticed, but it became painfully obvious to me earlier this month, that 2008 has been trying to kill me!

Seriously. This has been the unhealthiest year of my life. It all started with a small filling in March and the initial shot of Novocain that zapped my tongue. Which was followed by the horrible evil horrible horrible pain that eventually led to a root-canal. Fun. At least that stopped the pain. But then I noticed the cough. Remember the cough? It wouldn’t stop. And my old doctor just kept throwing asthma inhalers at me. New doctor gave me the “liquid gold” cough syrup and eventually the cough went away. But not my migraines. They were worse than ever! New doctor didn’t like that. Started experimenting with different drugs. Again – not so fun. A couple changes and the headaches seem to be behaving better. But then my eyeballs started to rebel. One pair of reading glasses later… and ’08 decided to break out the big guns. Kidney Stone from Hell. Damn. That was not cool.

Silly me, I thought I would end the year with a nice holiday wrap-up post and maybe some photos. I even managed to download my memory card into Lightroom last night and start editing. But ’08 isn’t over yet folks and it made one last attempt at taking me down by turning last night’s dinner into “Death Chicken”*. It even made a play on Kyle. Sharon thinks it is more likely the flu that is going around but whatever, I’m not going anywhere near those leftovers.

I got a Xmas card in the mail yesterday from Michelle, an old friend in Detroit. It is probably the best Christmas card I have ever received. It says, and I quote “This year sucked! Hope your’s was better…” I am preparing to write her a long letter.

And starting Thursday, in 2009 – the Year of Health and Happiness, there will be photos, Flickr updates, posts of happiness and joy! Yoga, climbing, and air in my bike tires. Hell, in 2009 I might even master that damn hula hoop!

* Rachel has already called dibs on ‘Death Chicken’ as her band name. She is fast.

A: It’s worse.

or: How to lose 10 lbs and 1 week of your life!

Now before you go and sign yourself up, make sure you are reading that correctly. Yes, you will lose the 10 pounds within the stated 1 week, but you are also going to lose that week. As in: Work? You won’t be there. Sorry boss. Plans already made? You won’t even have a chance to cancel them. You can apologize later. Family? Well, hopefully there is someone at home who can work the can opener. And they have pictures to remember you by right? You can catch up on everything you missed at the end of the week.

Still sounding good to you? Man, you ain’t right. First off, alarm bells should have been going off at “10 lbs in 1 week”, that is not healthy weight loss. Ok, what about this: you can not schedule this little “time out” from your life. It will strike randomly, probably at the most inopportune time cause that just how life rolls. It will roll on – without you.

Haven’t lost you yet I see. Time to tell you what this is gonna cost you. Because nothing in life is free baby and this little trip is gonna make you pay big time. And that is before the bills even come in the mail. This comes right out of your very being – form of: EXCRUCIATING PAIN!!!

All from a 4x7 mm kidney stone.

Still want what I had? I should think not. Trip to the E.R. 4 ½ days of vicodin/morphine and no food. Hospitalized. Mystery surgery. I recovered on toast, broth, Jello, and ginger ale. I felt like an 80 year old. Erin’s sleep patterns were disrupted. Kyle’s grades dropped. Chris has more gray than ever. My boss now calls me ‘Stoner’.

It is 8 days until Christmas. I’m a week behind on everything. I haven’t done any shopping. We haven’t even gotten the tree up yet. This year I am Santa’s most unprepared elf.

Hey Sain't - If this was 22 years ago I would be stylin’! I would put that Dr. Milt Town to shame.

Gimme A Break

So, it should come as no surprise that JavaScript has completely cured me of any and all desire to take another computer class for as long as I live. That’s right – I don’t care how cool a program name Ruby on Rails is – I’m not going to take the class! Ever!

I’m done. I’m over it. I can barely muster the strength to finish the class I’m in. But I will. Cause I’m no quitter thank you very much. Although I will still be throwing something at my mother-in-laws head at some point this weekend.

And then next semester – nothing. I’ve decided to not even take Photoshop like I had planned. I am taking the semester off, so I will have absolutely no homework. No assignments. Nada. Nothing to do but whatever the hell I want! Freedom. Sweet glorious sit on my ass eating raisins freedom.

Did you notice that if it hadn’t been for Halloween (and Erin’s sudden football love) I wouldn’t have picked up my camera at all this semester? No flickr action? Nothing but headaches and reading glasses here. Programming is no way to live people.

But let’s just be clear about this programming thing. I could do it. I just choose not to. Cause it sucks! I will stick with making the internet a pretty place. I’ll leave it to others to make it function. I want no part of that action.

So, come Dec 13th I will get my life back. I will take more pictures, and actually have the time to edit them. I might even vectorize a few of them. Cause that was fun! And I like fun! And I will do more yoga. I encourage Chris to add another section to the climbing wall so that there is someplace to go. And I will bury that evil text book I’ve been lugging around for two semesters in a deep dark corner of the garage, and I will live…

Hey, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Equal Time rule

Because there was a helicopter circling our house when we came home this evening.


This is second Illustrator project we did for my Intro to Digital Art class. I took this photo and turned it into a vector illustration. Pretty damn spiffy eh?!
More tomorrow...

For Grandpa

Some frosting for the 49er's win this afternoon...




Erin was playing with that football all morning. Even took a nap with it.
Silly girl.

Worth a 1000 words

I had a blog entry partially composed in my head this morning, but never got a chance to type it out, and now that bird has flown. It's so typical that my big dumb brain (henceforth to be referred to as BDB) only kicks into creative writing gear when I ought to be sleeping or some other equally inconvenient time. And you and I both suffer for it. I remember the jist of the post, but I don’t have the creative juice to recreate it right now which has me feeling a bit… oh, what’s the word… frustrated!

And BEHOLD! Intro to Digital Art Project #2 - My homage to frustration ~

It’s actually a pretty big file. Go ahead and click the photo and really get in there and experience my world, up close and personal. I dare ya. I double dog dare ya! And if you want the complete experience, go back to this entry and play that second video in an endless loop in the background for the soundtrack to my image. And that is my world.

Ok, that’s not my world all the time. But it wasn’t hard to piece together. Kyle has been having a rough couple weeks at school. And we have a couple parent/teacher conferences next week. But he is still a great big brother. And was a huge help with my Illustrator project when I had to design a logo and letterhead. That boy has a lot of design talent. Erin is a crack up, but I could do with out her need to climb on everything. And it has been determined that blame can be aimed squarely at Chris for that trait. I’m still not sure where the opera singing comes from.

On a personal note, the reading glasses really seem to be helping. My eyeballs have not threatened to leave my skull since I started wearing them. And that is a good thing. There have been a couple days where my eyes have felt extra tired and I’ve gone out of my way to rest them (read- nap) but in general they are feeling much better.

Head has been feeling ok too. Shh.

Because the candy is gone

yet you still crave something sweet. Baby, I can deliver. Zero calories and guilt-free, what more do you want?!



Me? I suddenly have a yearning for some hot chocolate. Go figure.

JavaScript broke my eyeballs - I've got a Dr's note

Left ya hanging again. Sorry. But I am happy to report I’ve not been in headache pain since that last post. Just busy. You know. With stuff.

Too vague? Fine. The long version:
After that last post I was avoiding the computer because my eyeballs were hurting. They felt like they were going to fall out of my head! And that’s not pleasant. And I was particularly concerned because the new preventative migraine med’s info sheet states: in case of eye pain contact doctor immediately. Great. My eyeballs are going to fall out. Luckily I had an appointment with my doctor the next morning. He was also duly concerned about my eye pain, and sent me straight to the optometrist next door to have my pressure checked and my tires rotated. Now I haven’t been to an eye doctor in like forever, cause up until a couple weeks ago I had perfectly good peepers. Clearly it was either the Topamax or the JavaScript causing the problem and I was ready to give up both! Neither being worth the potential of a stray eyeball rolling across the floor. So I get a complete eye exam. Passed the distance test. Yay! Did not enjoy the pressure test - don’t poof air in my eyes! But I passed, my pressure is good. The result is that I do not have glaucoma (which was the doctor’s concern) but eye fatigue and I need reading glasses. Oh. And then they dilated my pupils and sent me on my way. And my doctor was happy and upped my Topamax dosage.

Stop Making Sense

Welcome to day 6 of my headache. I thought I was feeling well enough to finally type out some of the mad thoughts bouncing around in my head. Because whenever there is a lull in the migraine pain, my brain always perks right up thinking it time to get busy! Doesn’t care if its 2 in the morning when the meds and sleep have finally done their job, if the pain is gone, the brain does a few warm up stretches and gets to work! “Let’s think about next semester’s classes, write a few emails, hey – how about a blog post?!” Stupid brain.

But now that I’m here in front of my computer, all I want to know is why I can’t change the “page” in Office to a nice 18% gray instead of white. Cause my eyes are watering and I’m thinking maybe I should just go back to bed.

OK, I went and got my sunglasses. That should give me just enough time to tell you that on Tuesday, day 1 of the HeadacheWeekFromHell-Oct08, during a telephone call with the Sain’t, I told him that I hoped a pony would poop on his shoe. Don’t mess with me when I’m in pain yo.

And then on Friday I sent my family to Santa Cruz without me. And it wasn’t a ‘happy happy joy joy I’m all alone for a weekend’ stay behind. And that pisses me off. But anger hurts my head so I was stuck with being sad all weekend.

The End.

But come back and I’ll tell you how my sick brain can connect Rachel Zoe with William Burroughs!

Trapped - like a rat

I just put Erin down for her nap. I’m tired and thought about taking a little nap myself but I’ve downed too much coffee already so here I am.

Its day 3 for me, Erin and Playhouse Disney; and it’s starting to take a toll on my nerves. Well, except those Imagination Movers – they’re ok in a peppy primary color kinda way.

Jen, Erin’s baby-sitter, went on vacation Thursday and left me working from home the last 2 days. Not as fun as it sounds. It messes with my morning routine something awful. I should get up, get the kids ready and out the door, listen to NPR on the drive to work and then read blogs while I leisurely sip my coffee at my nice quiet desk. Aaahhh. Peaceful. With Kyle at camp all week, my mornings were already strangely quiet. So for the last couple days, I got up when Erin did, and we spent the mornings hanging out downstairs. Complete with the running around and squealing, banging lids and spoons, the tossing of balls, and leaving trails of cheerios for later(Erin probably had some fun too). When she went down for her morning nap, I would hop on the computer and try and get some work done. Today is just more of the same. Kyle is at his dad’s this weekend (he was home for maybe an hour yesterday), Chris has gone in to the office, so here I am. Feeling a bit stir crazy. And Jen won’t be back until Tuesday. If I was at the store right now, I would be standing in the Hallmark aisle, eyeballing the ‘Missing You’ cards, with an arm full of roses.

One of the problems is that Erin is... how can I put this... a pain in the ass. “Hey! If you’re mobile and you know it – stomp your feet! And throw a fit! Especially if someone tries to put you back into a stroller after you've tasted freedom - sweet glorious bipedal freedom!” Get what I’m saying? I can’t just take her with me places in the stroller anymore. She wants to walk! And if I do take her somewhere, say the park or the library’s kid section, and let her run around and play and then try to put her back in the stroller or even the car seat?! Well, may god have mercy on my soul. It’s not a pretty scene. And that baby is getting big. And strong. And when she is arched into a backbend (and screaming – don’t forget the screaming) it is physically impossible to get her strapped into anything. You need some sort of way to bend her the other way. Maybe a big stick. I won’t take her anywhere now without an engineer with me. I need back-up. Preferably in the form of a big strong daddy type.

So, we are kinda stuck here for now. Oh well, I’ve got that collage to work on. And there’s always laundry to do. Hey! I think I just found a shiv in a pair of Kyle’s dirty shorts. Rough camp.

I'm back!

I was just talking with Chris on the phone and started ranting about Milton Friedman and free market capitalism! Oh thank god. The Elavil is apparently out of my system! Now this new drug has both my hands numb so that might not be good. But as long as I can scream about Pinochet and the oligarchs in Russia and how well all that worked out, I know I’m back to my sunny self. And it feels good.

Now tingling and/or numbness were listed as possible side-effects of this new medication. Also vision problems. Joy. But the other theory being floated around is that I’m having an anxiety attack; because you know Kyle left for camp this morning. And he’s using my duffle bag. I really love that bag.

Admission for one please

Alrighty then. What I didn’t acknowledge in the last post was that after I mentioned restoring an old photo, I thought about putting up the before and after shots. Wait – that’s not the bad part. Where it really gets sick is that my next thought was – “Can I write a JavaScript program to change the before image to the after image when the user’s mouse moves over the photo?” And then I seriously considered attempting it. I am not well.

So to distract you from my shocking confession, I give you this:



Cute eh? Well, I wasn't kidding about that feedback!

Paint it black

Hot-damn. This Palin-pant-fest post by my dearly demented Sain’t has given me the energy to scale the Elavil induced wall of inertia I’ve been trapped behind. … Wow. How’s that for a sentence?! So, quickly, while I still have the energy to type, what shall we talk about? I am in no mood for the election. I just want it over. Ditto for the financial crisis. I’m pretty sure you don’t want to hear about JavaScript. There’s not much else thanks to the dulling effect of this damn medicine. I placed a call to my doctor yesterday to talk to him about it because it is just not working for me. Not even a little bit. And I want off it asap. And then I can be my happy chatty self again. I’ll take the headaches over this crap any day thank you very much. He hasn't called back yet. Can you tell?

In local news, the TBMS 6th grade class goes to Shady Creek Camp next week! That should be fun for Kyle. I will admit that I’m not going to miss having to micro-manage his homework for a whole week! Gads. That sucks.

I tried to get a video of Erin spinning around like I mentioned last week. And I might have caught a rotation or two, but what I really ended up with was a lot of footage of her reaching for the camera and throwing little fits of frustration. This may help me with the second assignment in my ‘Intro to Digital Art’ class. The first section of the class has been Photoshop (Illustrator and InDesign are next) and the first assignment was to restore an old photograph. Easy enough. But now we have to put together a collage. And we need a theme. Of course the theme can’t be something simple like the beach, or dogs, or even Christmas. It needs to be more of an abstract concept or feeling. Like sadness, chaos, or imagination. What the hell. I’m annoyed already and will probably take this someplace dark. And I’m pretty sure that’s not the pills talking. This project is a little too scrapbook-y for me. And I sincerely mean no disrespect to any scrapbookers out there. I’ve seen some pretty cool looking pages. I only mean that scrapbooking is something that I never got into. My brain/creativity just doesn’t put things together that way. And I’ll just stop right there before my drug-addled brain goes too far with that train of thought. Back to my project. I have kids and both of them act out in frustration more than I care to think about.* I already have more than enough photos showing this charming side of their personalities. So, I think that’s it. I will put together an angst-ridden montage of frustrated youth. Hmm, I’ll need some sort of background layer, how would you represent amplifier feedback visually?


* 1 ½ and 11 are not that different. I’m pretty sure if Erin was capable of expressing herself in words; she too would be calling us stupid and wanting to run away - all because we wouldn’t let her touch the oven when it was hot.

Kyle and Erin are both wrong. This is stupid. Man, sometimes I really miss drinking.

Present and accounted for

Apparently people have noticed the lack of inane chatter coming from my direction. The always lovely Julie T actually called me yesterday morning to check up on me! Too much quiet broken only by vague tweets and cryptic Facebook updates had her worried.

We then proceeded to natter on about the current financial crisis; concluding with the obvious need to exhume Milton Friedman and beat him about his rotting head and shoulders with copies of the $700 billion dollar bail-out package.

Oh yes, I can paint a pretty picture.

But I don’t want to get into that here. It is affecting my little family in a very direct way and the past couple weeks have been stressful to say the least. So between all that and being busy with school and kids, I just haven’t had much to say. I also wonder if my new medication (trying the preventative thing for the migraines) contributes to the quiet. It hasn’t really stopped the headaches yet but it’s only been 10 days. So we’ll just give it some time.

Still struggling with Kyle and his homework. Is it really that hard to put your name on a paper? Really? But he hit a beautiful double out to right field during his game last Wednesday. That was cool. And Erin is a crazy baby. She started spinning in circles yesterday. Thankfully it was her whole person spinning around and not just her head! I wonder about those 2 sometimes. I’ll try and get a new video up over the weekend.

And my Web Programming class has taken a turn to the hard. No more HTML/CSS here is how to make the given content pretty. Oh no, lets move on to some actually programming! With JavaScript we can make things happen! Like causing my brain to actually have to think. Damn, I remember that unpleasant feeling. And what is that smell?!! Of course, been-there-done-that Chris snickers from the side-lines.

My office building is filled with toxic fumes. I came home from class last night and WaMu was gone. I think that covers everything.

Wiped out

Wow. Didn’t mean to disappear down a black hole on ya. But this has been a strange week and I don’t think I’ve fully recovered yet. And really, I don’t even know what I would be recovering from. Headaches, new medications, stock market woes, JavaScript, being a brunette… wait – that change is good. I think. Hard to tell when no one says anything either way. Kyle is calling me Goth, which is pretty damn funny. Hey, is it too soon to give him the Sandman books? I just added Neil Gaiman as a friend on GoodReads. I’m rubbing bandwidth with the big boys now.

What else. Didn’t see Coleman Barks. Totally ok with that. (I’m not ok with the fact that I can’t find the copy of his CD I made years ago) We went to the circus last Friday. Fun, but exhausting. Erin does not sit still even for lions and tigers and bear oh my. Or the tigers, elephants, and small white horses that we actually saw. I took some pictures –shocking, I know. Look for them around Thanksgiving. Tonight I have to take my Chapter 10 test. JavaScript really gave my brain a workout. Wish me luck. Cause when I do poorly, Chris suffers.

Back-up dancers: Prefer anonymity

Because code isn’t geeky enough, how about some particle physics?

Today was the first test of the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) built by CERN. I haven’t been paying much attention to it because my brain has been focused elsewhere (Cough laissez-faire). But I have been hearing about this video from different sources for days now. It is a rap about the LHC and the comments are all positive and stating that the science really holds up. So this morning I finally watched it, and it is just a good as everyone says. Well, not the actually rapping and dancing (HA!) but the science – this is the kind of stuff I love. In fact, I can see myself spending a bit of time surfing around CERN’s website this morning. Chris is now feverishly praying that I abandon my PolySci kick and start reading about quantum physics again. Never did I spit venom whilst reading science books. Well, there was that one time with Stephen Hawking…

Large Hadron Rap

Dodge this!

I had big plans to write a new post for you today. Tell you all about how Kyle is trying to kill me has his first school dance this afternoon 3-5pm (for the 6th graders. The 7th and 8th grader’s dance starts at 7pm) and then his first baseball game at 6pm. And tomorrow he has a double-header! With the second game in Foresthill. Which is, I don’t know, an hour or so away! Nice. And hey, its gonna be 101° on Saturday.

But I can’t tell you these things because I am too damn tired. Sure, I got out of class 1 ½ hours early last night, but I had caffeinated myself to be up and alert until 10. So the sleeping? Not so much. And when I had finally tired myself out surfing the internet late into the night, I made the mistake of logging into Photophlow instead of logging off. Another hour or so later the laptop battery was dying and today – so am I. Dragging hard. So tired that my eyes are little slits. And red. And it is not helping that my mascara seems extra clumpy today and my eyelashes keep sticking together. Which I am taking as a sign from above to close my damn eyes and get some sleep.

I would take a nap during the 3-5 dance window, but let’s be real. I am not a napper. And I have to have dinner ready by 5 so that I can de-spin and feed Kyle in the 17.5 minutes we have between him coming home from the running around the gym like a maniac with his posse dance and taking him to the baseball field. Fun. Go Dodgerzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Utata Speaks '08

So, did anyone make it through the whole 81 minutes of that Library of Congress webcast? Yeah, me neither. I barely made it through that lady's introduction. Man, she was putting me to sleep. But I'm going to make it up to you right now, with an even better way to spend your valuable time - Utata has published its big annual project!



Yay! Photo essays from my favorite Flickr group. I submitted a personal essay singing the praises of drive-by shooting in Santa Cruz - and then didn't shoot at all while we were there this past weekend. But that is no reason not to go and check out everyone else's entries. (helpful tip of the day - that banner is a link, click it!) I haven't had a chance to read many of the essays yet (still folding laundry thank you very much) but between kid-wranglin' and homework I might have 5-7 minutes free this evening. Wait... Kyle has baseball practice tonight - did I wash his uniform?

Well, I would love to tell you more about our weekend and the CIA, but I’ve got to call and sing Happy Birthday to the lovely Julie T’s answering machine.

Love Dogs

I just found out that Coleman Barks is coming to Grass Valley next month. I am so there!

If you are unfamiliar, Coleman Barks is a poet and renowned translator of the ecstatic poems of Sufi mystic Jelaluddin Rumi. I saw him with Robert Bly in Ojai years ago and it was an unforgettable evening. Attending one of Barks’ performances is the only way to truly experience Rumi’s poetry. Prior to that evening, I had read some Rumi and it honestly didn’t do that much for me. Hearing Barks recite the poems to music was a whole 'nother world. It was absolutely amazing.



And if you’ve got an extra 81 minutes lying around, I found this webcast from the Library of Congress that you could watch. But, if you do have that much spare time, I recommend that you do something productive with it – like come to my house and fold some laundry! Slacker.

I want to verse you

You heard that little birdy right - my new photo site is up and running. It took several days of downloads, databases, mySQLs, phps, uploads via FTPs, and several small sacrafices to Al Gore, but I did it. So, without further ado, I give you -

dawnblanchfield.com!

Sure, there are only a few photos there now, but I've got a whole second hard-drive full of images, so I'll try to add one a day for awhile. Of course there will always be flickr for you baby-viewing needs. In fact, after a few more 4th of July beach shots, there is quite the run of family photos to be uploaded. Including before and after shots of Paul's head.

And speaking of haircuts, I did a few more things this weekend. There was the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk on Saturday morning in Old Town Sacramento. That was alot of fun and I met some very cool people. I'll have those shots up on Flickr by next Tuesday. And when I got home I did this!

Kyle on the first day of Middle School:

Kyle after I gave him a haircut:
Yes, I cut Kyle's hair. And I think I did a pretty good job of it. Of course, Kyle thinks it's too short. But after what I went through before the haircut (I don't want to talk about it) he is lucky he has any hair left at all! Hey, I had even forgotten that he had eyebrows.

So, regarding Me vs. my To-Do list, the tally is:
Me: 3.5 tasks completed (I finished my dad's cd, but still haven't mailed it)
To-Do List: 2.3 million things left to do. The bulk of that being laundry of course. And hey, my Fall Semester starts tomorrow so yeah... I'd best get going.