I had a very weird week. I was bitten by a spider while in bed last Sunday. By Wednesday the wound had grown very large, swollen, and extremely painful. So I went to urgent care to have it looked at. The Doctor took one look and immediately sent me to the emergency room at the hospital. I spent until almost midnight there getting treatment. They cut the area open, drained it, and gave me a lot of antibiotics IV. They wanted me to stay, but I talked my way home. They now send a nurse once a day to do IV antibiotics, and would care, and a doctor holds a video appointment to check things live with the nurse. Amazing how well this all works.. I am happy to report that things seem to be getting better.
Of course all this crazy has kept me from being out shooting, so not much image posting. I can't believe that a spider bite can turn into such a huge ordeal. One small side effect I can't really explain however. Since the bite I have had an irresistible urge to wear brightly colored tights, and go climb the outside of tall buildings. It's really weird, but I have decided to just go with it. I will start taking my Leica and getting images from a unique perspective I think.
I took a selfie this morning. Weird, really weird...
In the continuing saga of the spider bite, the home care nurse was not happy about the way the wound looked on her visit today. She wanted to check me back into the hospital for more intense treatment. In the end, we decided to let a Doctor make the call tomorrow. I really don't want to go. I can't believe this is happening!
My new super powerful editing laptop arrived last Wednesday along with my new DAS RAID box. So, I have been spending my stuck at home time installing software, organizing and moving my data and images to get it up and running the way I wanted. The good news is that it all went smoothly, and the performance while editing even the largest files is everything I hoped for. It is also nice to have a well organized image management system, with good backup for the first time.
Below is my first image edited on the new system. This beautiful Woman was walking the boardwalk as I was practicing shooting my long lens on moving subjects. Still working on my manual focusing skills. Shot at f/2.8 to keep the challenge level reasonable.
I was feeling well enough to go to the last day of class before Summer break of a class I teach. I went for a walk around the park first. Charles is an author. He writes humorous novels. He is currently working on one situated in Balboa Park. He is an interesting person to visit with. He often sits in the Park just watching people to capture interesting things about the way they walk, talk, dress, atc, to base characters on. Today I found him sitting in the Sun on the main steps to the natural History Museum. I thought the setting and geometry of the steps interesting so made an image. My first image since being bitten by that evil spider.
