Woodpress

I’ve been doodling on sticky notes.

Kim, my wife, has had numbness (lack of sensation, but not lack of muscle control) in her face off-and-on for as long as I’ve known her–usually correlated with stress. On December 9th, 2009 it started again. By December 12th, the numbness was constant. She went to our doctor who prescribed a course of steroids. That didn’t help, so they scheduled her for an MRI. The MRI showed a spherical mass about 2.4cm in diameter on the right side of her head near the back, pressing on her cerebellum.

We saw a neurosurgeon, and he said that it was probably a meningioma (which it did turn out to be). He explained that the tumor could cause some symptoms she was experiencing (loss of strength and coordination, problems with balance, etc.), but that it was on the wrong side (and too far back) to be causing the particular numbness she was experiencing (jawline to hairline on the left side of her face).

After another set of MRI scans and an MRA-COW, the neurosurgeon and radiologist agreed that there was no visible cause for the numbness. Their best guess was that it was an intermittent flare-up of a virus in the trigeminal nerve.

Still, there was that pesky tumor causing other problems, and it was only going to get bigger… so we scheduled surgery.

The neurosurgeon said that they would not need to shave her head–that they could shave just a small area on the right side of her head, and that she would be able to wear her hair over the incision/stitches. Unfortunately, the tech that was in charge that morning didn’t get the message. He shaved her bald. The surgeon was not pleased. Kim was a good sport about it, saying she had always wanted to shave her head, but never had an excuse before.

The surgery took about four hours, and the only status updates we got were “everyone still looks very busy in the operating room”. Apparently it is considered bad form to interrupt neurosurgery to ask “are you done yet?” We decided that was better than “everybody is hanging their heads sadly in the operating room” or “everybody is shouting and waving their arms in the operating room.”

The tumor came out in one piece, and was benign. They replaced the removed section of her skull with a wire mesh and the fragments of skull that they removed. Now that she has metal in her head, she can’t get an MRI, so this post-op image is a CT scan.

Here is a photo of the stitched up incision.

We expect her home tomorrow (Monday).

Today I made an origami bird for one of my children, and came up with the idea of printing a bird pattern on the paper prior to folding it, so it would look more realistic. Here’s the end result:

I’ve made a few. My kids really like them.

I made the pattern by marking up a folded bird, unfolding it, scanning it, then assembling pieces of various photographs. The wings are my least favorite part. I am pleased that the bottoms of the wings match up as well as they do, though.

Here’s the pattern:

Maybe eventually I’ll put together folding instructions, as an exercise in photographic documentation. In the meantime, you can use the wikihow instructions, although they don’t include the little beak fold. I’m also considering refining the pattern further.

I made a maze for my youngest daughter. She had me make one before, but it was too easy, so I made a harder one.

A friend of mine pointed out this article about the importance of eyebrows in recognizing people:
http://jenapincott.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/why-are-eyebrows-crucial/

It made me wonder what Whoopi Goldberg would look like with eyebrows, so I decided to find out:

I wonder if people would be able to recognize her WITH eyebrows in a similar test.

I’ve had some creative energy lately, so I opened a Cafe Press shop. I have one whole product so far. Check it out!

I hope to add other products soon.

A friend of mine recently bought the new Imogen Heap album online, but it was DRMed, so he can’t play it from his Media Center Extender. In my opinion, this is not a problem with the Media Center Extender–it is a problem with DRM. Now he will probably end up “pirating” the album he bought.

I found out recently that it was possible to buy downloadable DivX movies, and I was kinda excited that I would no longer have to rip my own DVDs before streaming them to my TV. Then I noticed that they were DRMed, so I stopped short of ordering The Watchmen. Sorry, guys. You lost a sale because I wanted to actually be able to WATCH the movie I bought.

What are they afraid of? That people will share copies of the movie illegally?

Does it really make sense for it to be harder to legitimately buy and view a movie than to pirate it? I’m not encouraging piracy–I am in favor of rewarding creative efforts, but why punish the people who pay by burdening us with DRM?

MPAA, if you’re listening, please let me pay you money for the same level of convenience that the pirates get for free. Thanks.

Tuesday was our office’s annual Lagoon party. (Lagoon is a local amusement park.)

I took many photos of my family and other Lagoonishness.

I think this is my favorite:

I posted a selection of other favorites on Flickr.