My Hidden Room

Yesterday, I had to go to the dentist.  It’s been a long time since I’ve had dental work.  Like 10 years long time.   So I’m behind on my maintenance.  Yesterday was my third time seeing this dentist, and the first time having invasive work done.  I highly recommend Loren Tarr in Madrona.  Great guy.  Very nice, very kind.

A couple years ago, one of my molars; which had a few fillings in it, and it broke.  I pulled the pieces out that I could when it happened, and things mellowed out with it.  It didn’t cause me problems, so I let it be.

I have a lot of work that I need done in my mouth.  Fillings on a lot of teeth.  A handful of crowns.   Lots of fun.  Maybe $9000 of work needed.  Yesterday, he did some of that work. Three fillings in my upper left quadrant of my mouth, the extraction of the old broken root-tip, and a decayed tooth that was a lost cause.  Those came out, and I went home.  He gave me a scrip for vicodin, but I don’t think I need it.  Yesterday was the only day with pain.

They asked me if I wanted nitrous oxide.  I said yes.  What a trip!  At first, they asked me if I was feeling it, and I wasn’t, so I told them no. They turned it up.   And then I felt it.  It was kinda fun, and for a while, as they were preparing to begin, things were floaty and disassociative.  But then I got to feeling that I was too disconnected from what was going on, so I had them turn it down some.   Proceedure occurred. Fillings happened.  Somewhere.  I wasn’t terribly engaged to what was going on.  Which is the point.  Time passed (somewhere).  Then I had them turn it down some more, cuz I was feeling overwhelmed.

Then we got to the extraction.  Of the broken molar in the back, that was easy, and I didn’t even notice it happen.  But the front.  Oh god.  I had him tell me what he was doing as he did it, because otherwise I would have not known.  I hate to not know.  They use a tool that presses between the tooth and the bone to move the bone a little.  Bone is softer than tooth.  It felt … odd.  And it crunched a little.  Ugh.    And then it came out.  I kept the tooth, and it’s at home somewhere.

Now I have a flipper (two fake teeth on a removeable partial plate, like a denture).    The flipper was then test-fitted.  It fit ok, as far as we could tell with half my face numb.

I hate it.   It feels weird.   Eating is weird, and now I lisp.  So, next week when I go back for the follow-up I’m going to talk to my dentist about this, and move up the priority on dental implants for the missing front tooth.  The rear one too, I guess.  But I want to be able to do without this as soon a possible.

Dental work, Ramblings, Rants and Raves , dentist, flipper, teeth

I’ve been doing a lot of self-study in Light: Science and Magic; a book about the use of light in photography. Some of that has been a study in the behavior of photographing glass on dark backgrounds. See, glass isn’t photographed by capturing what it looks like, but rather, the effect it has on the light passing through it. On a light background, the lack of brightness shows itself in dark portions. In a darkfield study, such as at the right, the glass is shown by the light reflected off of it.

The light bends through the glass, its path wrought in the camera’s sensor. The strobe shows where the glass bends the light.

A few nights ago, I set up the following still life to practice on. It’s composed of a Disk’s Working Man Brown Ale, a small wine glass full of the beer, and a martini glass full of mountain dew (for the color.)

On a semi-related note, Dick’s Variety pack of beers contains a lot of yummy stuff. They’re out of Centralia, so they’re local.

Go see the full-size image on flickr.

Food and Drink, Photography

So, a friend and I were talking about what we might do as an art project at Burning Man or Critical Massive. And we thought about the theme this year. The American Dream. And then we talked some about what that means to us today. Shopping. Today Americans are in large part defined by what they buy, and their buying habits.

So we thought, “Hell, let’s build a giant motorized shopping cart the people ride around in.” And we knew this was a Great Idea. I’ve been drawing plans and sketches of what we’ll get with this. I think that we’re too addicted to shopping. Too addicted to More Stuff. We have to have things.

So, in light of that, we’re going to build a shopping cart. Not an ordinary one, but a grand one. One that stands five feet across, nine feet long, and 7 feet tall. Out of steel. Oh, and it will be motorized. It will be steered by a large wheel mounted in the front of the basket. Drawings will be forthcoming.

Consider this the project announcement page. There will be more to come. And why not donate to our project?

Burning Man, Ramblings, Things I made