D A T A L O G

PNW BJD Expo Video Up

2012-02-18T13:52:57Z

The PNW BJD Expo, which I'll be attending as a vendor, has put up a promotional video. It features two photos of my eyes; three lone eyes shown in a group at 0:38, and one photo of a pair of eyes in Darryl at 0:59.

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The Situation

2012-02-16T04:06:04Z

I haven't been around much since the last post about the eyes. The eye stuff is probably going to be on hold for a bit (though who knows - I might find I need the distraction).

Remember that cervical strain I had back in August, when the gang fight walked in the front door of the hospital? It hasn't gotten better, and has been causing lots of pain and keeping me from sleeping much. Also, my right hand went numb about a week and a half ago. As such, I went to see another doctor, and he ordered some x-rays (which none of the previous doctors did, for some reason) and physical therapy. The x-ray revealed that the injury resulted in a reversal of the lordosis in my cervical spine, which basically means it's not curving properly. Because of this, the doctor referred me to a physiatrist (spine specialist) and scheduled me for an MRI.

In the interim, I began my physical therapy. This resulted in a sudden and totally unexpected, extremely dramatic increase in my pain levels, constant headaches, blurred vision, dizziness, and constant (though fluctuating in intensity) nausea. The doctor put me on some heavy painkillers (Vicodin), so I've basically been mentally absent for the past week. James took several days off of work to keep me from falling apart all over the house.

This morning, the MRI appointment rolled around. Tonight, the doctor called me to deliver a quick overview of the results, to be discussed in greater detail during my appointment with him next week: reversal of lordosis; indications of muscle, ligament, and tendon inflammation; bulging vertebral disc. Also, the MRI incidentally revealed a tumor on my spine, in the chest area.

Yep, a tumor.

The doctor has no idea if it's benign or malignant. It's possible I was born with it, or have had it since childhood. It's also possible that it has only just developed recently. He told me all this while I was sitting on the floor in front of the toilet, wishing I could vomit to help relieve the nausea that's been keeping me awake all day.

I kind of want to take a break from reality.

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Junk Eyes

2012-02-03T12:20:19Z

Here are some more of my junk eyes. I'm still having problems with air bubbles, particularly during the doming process. All of these eyes have imperfections that make them unsaleable. The purple eye is the worst - it shifted in the pressure pot during the curing process, and the dome ended up moving WAY off-center, so it looks like it has some kind of growth. The darker blue eye was a test subject for several different things, including touching the resin before it was fully cured to see what would happen. The answer? Lots of tiny, tiny gouges in the surface of the dome that make the eye look cloudy. The light blue eye actually turned out the best, but again has bubbles in it. For some reason, the clear resin isn't responding well to the pressure pot (not de-bubbling, surface texture going "wonky"), while the white resin does just fine in it. I'm really hoping I can solve the bubble issue without having to build a vacuum chamber. Building the pressure pot was difficult (and expensive) enough!

Since these are junk eyes, I probably won't bother removing the stems from the back. For the eyes I actually intend on selling, the backs will be removed, resulting in a flat-backed/half-round eye.

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Making Progress

2012-02-02T01:41:09Z

My eyes have improved by leaps and bounds over the last few weeks. You may remember these prototype eyes that I shared a while back. The eyes below are the exact same pair, with some updates. (They're junk versions, full of bubbles and stuff, but I've tried a few different techniques on them and learned what I do and do not like, as far as results go.)

Getting close to the finish line, now.

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The Tatami Room

2012-01-17T14:58:41Z

Because it's snowing, and I work at a college that has a small Japanese garden on campus, I slapped a kimono onto Darryl and brought him to work with the intention of taking photos in the snow.

Of course, by the time I actually got to work, it was raining and windy.

So instead, I took him into the tatami room next to the garden and shot a couple of quick photos.

( Two more under the cut. )

We're, uh, not going to talk about the fact that it's a fairly girly kimono.

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Conversations

2012-01-13T19:52:08Z

Talon, Darryl, and Rupali have a little chat.

(This is just an excuse to take pictures, don't read too much into it.)

( Four more photos. )

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Talon 2.0

2012-01-10T02:27:59Z

Like several of my other dolls, Talon has recently undergone an upgrade to a more realistic and mature sculpt. I'm really, really ecstatic with how well he turned out.

He looks great with Darryl, too. ^__^

( Three more photos under here. )

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Wren and Darryl

2011-12-29T01:14:00Z

I broke out one of my photography backdrops, and finally got a chance to take a couple of shots of the new Wren and Darryl together. Still getting the hang of this DSLR. It's a doozy, and way more complicated than my previous cameras. It took me ten minutes today just to figure out how to turn off the flash!

I really need to start on the backdrop stand that I've been intending to build. These things make my photos look so much better. I want to get more backdrops, too.

Darryl's head is quite a bit more yellow than his body right now (though the difference is more pronounced in pictures than in person), but I have no doubt that will change as the body mellows. It's currently still paper white.

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Darryl 2.0

2011-12-08T14:06:49Z

Just a one shot. Darryl's new self finally has eyes (of a sort). They're urethane prototypes that I made a few months ago, and have some problems, but they'll do for now.

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Job Interview

2011-12-07T23:50:26Z

Just finished an interview for another part time job. It's a substitute security officer position with the local school district. I think it went well. Hopefully, I'll be able to report "JOB GET!!!!"

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Handgun Tips for Writers

2011-12-02T18:52:53Z

I'm not a gun expert by any means, but I know my way around alright. Because of this, I've had other writers ask my advice on handguns and a few other varieties several times. This is a far better reference than anything I would think to tell you.

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Rupali in Cornwall Park

2011-11-30T09:39:17Z

A small selection of a bunch of photos from months and months ago, taken at Cornwall Park, a few blocks from my old apartment.

( More photos under the cut. )

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The Chapel

2011-11-23T01:48:00Z

I'm not sure if I have posted this here before. I do know I shared it with family and friends about a year or so ago.

TheChapel. A short film. (HDR timelapse) from Patryk Kizny on Vimeo.

TheChapel is a short film paying tribute to an exceptional protestant temple in Zeliszów, Poland, designed by Karl Langhans and built in 1796-1797.

Please enjoy also the "Making of The Chapel": http://vimeo.com/19107357

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Blueberry Banana Bread

2011-11-17T03:26:42Z

It's probably been 10 or more years since I baked anything. We had some bananas laying around that were ripe to the point of being almost solid black-brown, so I mentioned to James that maybe I would bake some banana bread rather than throwing them out. Well, he got this wonderful, dewy expression on his face, so after that I pretty much had to make the bread. However, my recipe calls for three to four or more bananas, and we only had two. Thus, I modified my recipe, leaving out the chocolate chips and substituting a couple of cups of frozen blueberries to replace the moisture normally supplied by the two missing bananas.

I don't know yet how it will taste, because I'm waiting for James to get home from work before de-panning and cutting into the loaf, but it smells delicious.

The loaf is so dark because I sprinkled brown sugar on it before baking to give it a nice, crunchy-sweet top. The weight and extra moisture of the blueberries kept the loaf from really rising, but I'm okay with that. I prefer heavy, thick breads, anyway.

We're, uh, not going to talk about the "domestication" jokes James and I were trading back and forth while I mixed this.

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Wren 2.0

2011-11-15T03:32:37Z

I'm just going to leave this here.

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Happy Halloween!!

2011-10-31T17:44:04Z

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Things are settling in well here. James and I have both been over the crud for a while now, which is good. We've also started doing P90X, which is kind of painful, but will (hopefully) eventually become less so.

About 65% of the unpacking here is done, and the living room is starting to look slightly more livable. The dolls are all unpacked and have been placed in the library. We've also just finished installing a new breaker and a new kitchen outlet on a dedicated circuit, so that we can get a dishwasher. I've applied for and have my fingers crossed on a position as a truancy secretary at the local school district.

We attended my family's annual Halloween party on Friday, and both dressed up. I wore one of my kimono, and James went as a "post-apocalyptic survivor" in my Israeli gas mask.

( Pictures under the cut! )

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Moved, Dying of The Creeping Crud, and Still (Somewhat Gainfully) Employed

2011-10-01T09:23:24Z

The move is done (essentially). I no longer have an apartment. James and I now live together, as of two days ago.

I got the job at the college back on the 15th, and have worked five shifts so far. I have three more next week. I wish there were more hours (strictly limited to 60-ish per month), but something is better than nothing. Have an interview for a second job this coming Thursday.

I have the creeping crud. My current temp is only a measly 100.2°F, but since my usual temp is 97.6°F to 98.2°F, it kind of feels like I'm dying. A couple of the new coworkers have had this (I caught it from them) and they were up in the 102° and 103° ranges. I'm hoping that doesn't happen to me.

Surgery recovery seems to be over, for the most part. Things are not totally back to normal, but healing is largely done and has been for about two weeks now.

I'm going to go crawl into bed now.

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Update

2011-09-07T17:11:50Z

Life continues to go well. James is wonderful, and spent the entire weekend up here taking care of me (this mostly consisted of watching me wander around in a drugged-out haze to ensure that I didn't injure myself or unexpectedly collapse and stop breathing, which must have been very boring).

Surgery recovery is sucking big time, but I'll live. And it could be far worse.

In other news, I have a job interview tomorrow (another security position, but at a college, not a hospital). I also have a job interview next week (bank teller). I am enthusiastic about both of these positions. Since they're also both part-time, I'm hoping that I can land both of them.

The sad news is, I have had to stop taking my prescribed painkillers so that I can drive down to this security interview. This sucks. The painkillers were only just taking the edge off, and the Ibuprofen and Tylenol that I'm stuck with now really aren't cutting it. Lame.

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Checking In

2011-09-01T13:37:02Z

Heya folks! Sorry that I have continued to be out of touch, but life has been hectic. On top of the moving preparation and job-searching in soon-to-be-new-county-of-residence, I've been going through some stuff, health-wise. And work has been fucking crazy. We've had more violence in our area - and thus, rolling in the front doors of our hospital - in the last month than we have in the past year and a half.

Long story short, a few weekends ago we had a quadruple stabbing walk in our front door, squirting blood everywhere, and my partner and I got to deal with all four of the victims (one of whom was very combative) and their many gang-banger friends, all of whom were drunk, by our little lonesomes. In the process of getting all of the stab-happy, blood-spraying, angry gang members in our foyer under control, I got elbowed in the face. It rung my bell but good, but that wasn't a big deal - I was disoriented for maybe ten seconds, tops. However, I also now have yet another case of whiplash (making this number four), and also have two chipped teeth and a possibly-cracked tooth. On the plus side, all care is covered by L&I. Also, my partner and I received a commendation from the clinical staff for our actions. (I especially liked it when they wrote, "At that time I witnessed the courage and dedication of our security team as they held a parameter of safety[...]" and "Armed with only a flash light and a pair of handcuffs our officers wrestled the most violent of the group to the ground." Also, it was pretty accurate - I was carrying handcuffs on my belt, and had to put them on this guy to get him under control enough that they could bring him inside and start treating him for his stab wounds, while my partner was holding off six angry guys by himself using only a 4-cell Mag-Lite.)

The next weekend, we had a quadruple shooting at the local county fair. At least THEY were brought in by medics, rather than arriving in cars being driven by their drunk and pissed-off buddies. My partner and I spent the night herding distraught family members, and trying to keep them separate so that they wouldn't start fighting (this was also gang-related).

Between these two events, we had several other smaller violent incidents (including another stabbing, another shooting, and a guy who brought a knife in and started threatening people in the ER) during times when I was not on duty.

Immediately after the quadruple shootings (a couple hours after my partner and I got off duty), we had a bomb scare, though it turned out to be a false alarm.

Hospital administration insists that we don't need defensive weapons (tasers, batons, kubotans, etc - we're not picky, we just want something to give us an edge), or any kind of standardized department-wide defensive tactics training. In our "debriefing" meeting with our director (which was apparently supposed to be for stress relief and a time during which we could all talk about our feelings, but which turned into a problem solving and planning session, because seriously, we're Security, and we don't stand down), we were told we "have to earn the right" to defend ourselves and that we "need to behave." Also, the director mentioned that we should all be "thankful no one was injured in the recent violence," immediately after we discussed (as a group) my injury and how it's not uncommon for us to be hurt in these situations, especially now that they have cut our staffing down to just two officers at a time. I am SO glad I am leaving.

Also, I'm having surgery tomorrow. Outpatient, relatively minor with a sucky recovery. It does mean that I can't do any heavy lifting for a couple of weeks, while things heal, so moving should be even more exciting than anticipated!

I swear to the powers-that-aren't, I have been to see more (different!) doctors more times this year than I have since back when I started going to college, and it's getting ridiculous. If this is what it means to get old, I am officially protesting.

James is wonderful and amazing and I am so, so happy that we found each other.

I have WAY too many books. Seriously. How did this happen?

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Mio Amore

2011-07-14T13:37:10Z

So I know I've been largely incommunicado the last few months, and even more so in recent weeks. I apologize for that, but am delighted by the cause.

You see, there's a new man in my life. A wonderful, amazing man.

We met the first week of April. I plan on moving down to live with him (and thus changing jobs) by the end of September at the latest.

As you might imagine, I've been a bit distracted.

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Shrooms

2011-06-28T00:50:51Z

I just scored an Elemental Guardians Erzulie mushroom wig for toddler-Aiko. I'll give you three guesses as to who will be dressing as Amanita muscaria for Halloween this year, and the first two don't count. ^________^

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The Double Positive

2011-06-24T08:28:04Z

A Linguistics professor was lecturing his class:
"In English, a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."

From the back of the class, a student spoke up:
"Yeah, right."

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Getting All Mathematical

2011-06-16T10:33:28Z

So I've been thinking about the doll crew. Big surprise, huh? Anyway, I've been specifically thinking about the heights of the characters, and the relative heights of the dolls that represent them. Because these are the kinds of things that are important to me.

Wren is always supposed to have been 5' 7" tall. Jian Yuan's height has shifted a bit over the years (he and Wren were originally the same height), and he is supposed to be 5' 4" tall. Darryl has always been right around 6'. Talon has fluctuated a bit, but is generally right around the same height as Darryl, as is Tekla. And so on and so forth.

Wren 2.0 is a 60cm doll. Darryl 2.0 is 65cm, the intended Talon 2.0 is also 65cm, and Tekla is 65cm-66.5cm depending on what feet and shoes she's wearing. Since Wren is pretty much in the middle of the group, and since the height of the doll is a conveniently even number of centimeters, I worked off of her. 5' 7" is 67". There are 2.56 centimeters in an inch, so Wren is 171.52cm tall. Dividing the height of Wren 2.0 (60cm) by 171.52cm gives us .349813432, or thereabouts.

Now it's time to check this. If Darryl is supposed to be around 6' tall, is 65cm the correct height for the Darryl 2.0 doll? 65cm divided by .349813432 is 181.82cm. If we divide that again by 2.56, we end up with 72.59", or 6' ½". So yes, Darryl 2.0 is (delightfully) just the right height. From this, I can infer that Talon 2.0 and Tekla are also the right size without having to work their exact heights out.

This means that my formula for determining the necessary height of a WUNPO doll based on the height of a character (when "C" is the height of the character in inches and "D" is the height of the doll) is:

(C x 2.56) .349813432 = D

By this formula, the total height of Jian Yuan 2.0 needs to be 57.3cm. We can also reverse the formula, as we saw with Darryl, to determine the height of a character based on the doll that represents them:

(D ÷ .349813432) ÷ 2.56 = C

Using the reversed formula, Rupali (doll is 58cm) is just a hair under 5' 5" tall, which is perfect for her character (she's supposed to be between Wren and Jian Yuan in height, but I never set a specific height for her). And Rafe is 5' 9½", while Laith is just a smidgen over 6' 6". Again, perfect for the characters (I had been concerned that the Laith doll was too tall, but he's supposed to be 6½', so that's spot on).

The awesome thing about this isn't consistency in the doll collection, though. It's the fact that I can apply this formula to anything that I want to make for the dolls, to make sure it's in scale, as long as I know the full-size measurements of the item. For example, a WUNPO doll-scale AA12 shotgun would be 34.67cm (13.54") long, and the seat of a dining chair should be 16.12cm-17.91cm (6.3"-7") high.

This entire thing was brought on by the fact that I'm at work, and am supposed to be studying for my first attempt at an IAHSS certification, which my job now requires. I test in four hours. So far, only two of the six officers in my department who have taken this test have passed it. If we fail it, we have thirty days to prepare for a second attempt. If we can't pass on the second try, we're fired. I haven't read the book yet, and it's 38 chapters long.

Yeah. To say I'm unenthusiastic about this textbook would be an understatement.

EDIT: Passed the test. It was actually really easy (and I still haven't read more than five chapters in this book). Not sure what all the fuss was about, but have a feeling I'm going to be tutoring several of the guys over the next few weeks.

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Movie Recommendation: Hanna

2011-06-12T21:46:00Z

I saw the film Hanna today with my friend, and I highly recommend it to...well, just about anyone who has ever had or will ever have the opportunity to watch a movie. Ever.

I'm not going to say anything spoilery, but I will say that this film has amazingly interesting and believable characterizations, excellent acting, and the most fascinating and unique use of sound - both environmental/ambient and in the musical score - that I have ever come across in television or film. I'm also still trying to wrap my head around the fact that this is the first screenplay the writer has ever done, and that he wrote it while in school.

I am SO getting this on DVD when it comes out. I hope there's an extended version, or extras/deleted scenes, or something like that.

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In Which Rupali Wears Dreads, Zsuzsa Glitters, and Darryl (2.0) Looks Disturbingly Like Motoko

2011-06-07T17:55:02Z

I made a dreadlocked wig for Rupali. It still needs some work, but I'm pleased with the results thus far. (Rupali wears her hair short, but in her downtime she sometimes puts on a wig with big, chunky dreads.)

( Look under the cut for another shot of Rupali, a couple pictures of Zsuzsa, and two photos of Darryl 2.0. )

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