Webster Web Design, your guide to the perilous waters of the internet
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Tacoma and Gig Harbor Web Design

an artist life in high tech

webster web design

online journal

 

Your guide to the perilous waters of the internet

8-19-10

13 days without a dizzy spell. They stopped as if someone turned off a switch. Perhaps it was all related to that full body rash of poisen ivy. I did get a cortisone shot in my left ear yesterday. Ouch, that hurt super bad, though the pain was only a 15 seconds. Nothing like having somebody inside your head with sharp knives. This is the third night in a row I've woken up at 3 or four for no reason.

Today we bought a car to replace our 300,000 mile corolla. Clint, Craig and I drove it to Index, and it lost a quart of oil in one day. That was the last straw. That thing is an ecological disaster. I got serious about car shopping, brought Sue on board and today we bought a rav4, v6, 4 wheel drive. It's got a bunch of dumn extras that come with the big engine: power windows, remote door locks, tilt wheel, xm radio, 6 disc cd changer, fancy lights and mirrors in the window shades.

We wanted to have a strong car, but we didn't need all the extra stuff. I'm tired of having cars that are gutless when we take a bunch of friends up climbing.

It's weird how clear the comparison is between a cowboy buying a nice horse 300 years ago, and a computer geek buying a nice car. You are saying you value quality in your transportation, and are willing to scrimp and save to make it happen. Because we have no debt, we were able to save up almost half the price of the car, and the payments are only 332, which is nothing since I've been saving $800 a month, in lieu of house payments or car payments.

So now we are back in the car payment business for 4 years. But we have a nice reliable ride. It's like knowing we have a brand new horse out there in the barn, ready to take us on the ride over the ridge to town where we can stock up on buckwheat. I've definitely read too many Louis LaMour books.

8-14-10

8 days without a dizzy spell and counting. Perhaps I'm past the worst of this most recent relapse. I love waking up on a Saturday morning and knowing I have the whole day free, nothing planned, no one waiting on me. No pressing tasks that absolutely must be done. Sue has gone over to Lisa's new apartment to help her with homemaking. She just moved out Thursday.

I got an MRI scan of my brain Friday evening. My ENT doctor said there is a very small chance I have a tumor on my auditory nerve. That can act just like Menieres disease: it can come and go over the course of years, behaving just like Menieres. He is giving me a cortisteroid shot in the ear Wednesday morning. Hopefully it will kill the disease for another two years, as it did last time. I got one just before my first trip to Yosemite with Christine and Chris DayMartin.

I may try to find a couple tugboats down on the tide flats to paint today. I painted them years ago, and sold the painting. Love to get that feeling back, of standing by my easel, and creating something beautiful. I'm almost tempted to do a city scape where people are around, instead of working in solitude. It's very reaffirming to have stangers tell me I am a good artist. It shouldn't matter, but it does. I respect the opinions of the admiring public. They don't lie to me.

I think I'm sort of worn down by teaching. Most of my students lose interest, and it makes me feel like I'm not doing my job well, when in reality, they are simply not passionate about the subject. I guess that is debatable. At any rate, we struggle with the one year media program. Instead of placing people in jobs, it is a stepping stone to further study. The web program will place students in jobs, and I feel good about that one. Bruce and I are doing as good a job as is humanly possible under the circumstances (reduced budget, teacher layoffs, etc.).

 

8-11-10

5 days without a dizzy spell! That's much better than every couple days. Had a family reunion at white pass last weekend. Only Ed, Mary Ellen and Dad were there of the older generation. Dan died recently, Richard is in a wheelchair, and doesn't travel, while Nita is in a nursing home...and of course mom died at Christmas.

Work has been manic lately as I try to come up with new flash material. The schedule is screwed up again, and I should be working on it right now, but it's 10pm, and enough is enough. Instead I will work on the creekside website for a while. I earned $400 on it so far and spent $230 of that on a new mountain hardware minus thirty synthetic lamina sleeping bag. It has about 3 inches of loft, or less. Phil has the same bag and told me he thought it might pack down to a 10 degree bag in a year or two.

8-4-10

Super busy, saw ent doc Monday. He wanted to do the $40,000 brain surgery, but I turned him down. My dizzy spells are very infrequent, and more of a distraction than a real problem. I am dissappointed in my body for crapping out on me, but that is the life I've been given. Climbed with Clint and Sue Sunday at gunshow wall and had a great time. I was scared on bliss, but strong on all the others we had time for. Climbed at gym twice this week with Fletch and Craig, good times!

 

I'm going to re-do her website as all CSS. I need the practice and it will be the only way to get her SEO rankings up. She wants pages 5 and seven converted to html, with the sinewave image in the right side as a popup. I'm supposed to remove the link to the outside website about the spine stretcher thingy.

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