They Were Fucking With Me

(Please remove necessary 'u's if you are not old or mature enough to view such letters.)

Yesterday afternoon, right after my last post, I got a call from my doctor. He and the radiation oncologist had been discussing the rest of my treatment. My doctor had intended to follow my chemo with 4 weeks of daily radiation, which is pretty standard practice for my type of Hodgkin's. My radiation oncologist however didn't like the location of my tumors, and didn't think that radiation was right for me. So my radiation oncologist gathered up some studies showing that more chemo is just as effective as radiation following chemo, and the two of them had an arm wrestling match. I don't know if the radiation oncologist is younger, but he's in a bit better shape, so he won the arm wrestling match. So now I get 8 more weeks of chemo with no radiation. Although I was very happy to have finished chemo two weeks and never wanted to have to do it again, I guess it's for the best. If I'd had radiation, there was a good chance that end up with damage to my heart and lungs. Heart problems probably wouldn't show up for a few decades, but this is something that I'd rather not deal with. With chemo only, the likelihood of heart and lung problems is much lower. So tomorrow at 9:45, I get to go back and puke on some nurses.

Living in a Black and White World

For the last couple months, I’ll I’ve shot are B&W pics. Back in November, I bought about 6 rolls of Illford FP4 and HP5, and I still have one more left. The reason is that I have a B&W darkroom set up, but I’m bored with it. It’s time for color. Spring is coming soon, and plants are begining to spring from the cold dirt, and color is beginning to return. Last week, I picked up a few rolls of Ektachrome and Kodachrome slide film, and have them in my LC-A and new Canon. So now I need to get some color equipment. I have a color head for my enlarger, which is the biggest part of printing color. Now I need a print developing tube and some chemicals. I think I can make a hot water bath out of a plastic tub and aquarium heater, and the print developing tub I might be able to make too. I’ll have to go to a photography shop and see how they’re made. Paper and chemicals can be picked up on eBay.

Speaking of chemicals, they’re not being injected into my veins anymore. Last week I had a PET scan and CT scan, which my doctors will use to determine what comes next. Probably, I will have about 4 weeks of radiation starting soon. My doctor will be contacting me sometime today to tell me what’s up with that.

Good thing I have insurance

We actually opened a statement from the insurance company today. The envelopes have just been piling up since I started treatment, but last week we started wondering how much all this is costing. The price? The day which we have the statement for cost just over $5000 for injections and "misc expenses". I'm not sure if I saw the doctor that day, but I doubt it. So for the entire treatment, we're guessing the cost will be over $100,000. Good thing I don't have to pay for it, because I wouldn't be able to.

Snortin Norton

Mom got a dog. Here are some pics of it.

I only have 2 more chemo sessions to go before I'm done. The last two are Jan. 19th and Feb. 2nd. After that, I will have four weeks of radiation, and I will have to go to Seattle every day for that. We still haven't worked out how I'll get there but I might just get a month bus pass or something.

For New Years I went up to Bellingham to hang out with the friends that are still there. On the 31st, a bunch of us went to see La Push a local funk band at the Nightlight, the club that they were building in the basement of the building that I lived in during my last year in B'ham. What a cool town. I love going up there.

My posting's been kind of sparse lately, so I'll try to post more and keep you all updated on my exciting life.

What the heck is a BlackBerry?

And why do people actually use it?

Ai and I have been discussing this. What exactly is a BlackBerry. As far as I can tell, it's just a wireless handheld device that can send and receive emails. That's it? All Japanese cell phones can do that, and the last cell phone I had in the US could also. So what's the big fuss? Why do I need a blackberry if my cellphone can do email? Granted, my last cell phone didn't come with it's own email address like the ones in Japan did but that only meant that I could use any account I wanted to. Why don't he cell phone companies add that feature for five bucks so that people don't have to spend the extra forty to fifty bucks a month(?!) and take the business away from the company that makes BlackBerry devices? I guess I just don't get it.

Test

This sunday I have my Japanese Proficiency Test Level 2. I've been studying for it for a while. I'd originally planned on taking it in Japan, but since it's only offered once a year, on the same date all around the world, I signed up to take it in Seattle. The level 2 test is the second highest, and tests reading, listening, and about 1000 kanji.

New toys

Ever since dad went to Randy's race back in September, dad's been wanting to get a motorcycle that he can fix up and race. His goal would be to not be lapped by the person in first place. So for the last few weeks, dad's spent his Wednesday, through Friday nights on craigslist.org looking for pre-70's Honda's. So every Thursday morning that I don't have chemo, dad's been waking me up to be a carpool dummy on his way up to look at bikes that he's called on. This Thursday, he woke me up at 9 am and said "we gotta leave quick". The add that he called on just said that it was a 63 Honda Dream. He really didn't know what it was, but it was old, so he called, found out that he was the first one to contact the seller, and that the bike had a title. When we got there, we saw it under an awning at the apartment complex that the guy lived at, and almost turned around without getting out. The guy had torn a bunch of it apart, so it looked like a bunch of it was missing. But I said "You might as well take a look at it", so we got out just as the owner set down the box of parts. He was just taking his fourth call of the morning as we approached the bike. Once we got a closer look at it, we realized that it was pretty neat looking. After seeing that the tank was in almost perfect condition besides the paint, and that most of the body parts were there, dad handed him the cash and we went in to get the key and title. Once inside, the seller could find neither the key, nor the title. The key had been a victim of "organization" by his girlfriend, and what he though was the title turned out to be the title to a 38 Harley that was mistakenly given to him by the original owner... He said he would track down the key and the title. His girlfriend should know where the first is, and he knows where the original owner lives and works. Even if that doesn't work, I'm sure we'll be able to track down the registered owner through the state listening dept.

Once we got it home, we started to track down what it actually is. It turns out that it's not a Honda Dream. This seems to be a common misidentification. I found the engine serial number, and from that found out that it's a Honda CA95 Benly Touring, a street bike that did only okay in the US, but quite well in Europe and Asia. It has a distinctive frame stamped out of sheet metal, forming a solid frame from the head to the tip of the fender. It's no racing bike, but it's such a cool little thing that dad and I are going to restore it. We've already found quite a number of parts for it. Obviously, at least once we got it home and started looking at it, we'll have to find the correct seat. The one that's there is in pretty good shape for an original seat, but we don't know what bike it's actually for. We should be able to sell it and buy the correct seat. It's also missing the tool kit and battery covers, and the head light. One thing that we have that's probably very rare to have is the frame mounted tire pump, in working condition. I think this is going to be a fun project, and I hope that it's not going to be too hard to tack down the title.

First is a picture of the bike sitting in the garage. Most of the body parts are in the plastic bin on the left. The body had been painted white, by brush, and the guy we bought it from started to sand it down and primer it.

The next picture shows what it looks like in original condition. Ours was originally white, but they came in black, red, or blue (And in rare cases, pink).

Here is another example of the Benly in white, the original color of ours.
In other news, Ai just got back from a trip to Hong Kong with her mom. You can see her Hong Kong pics at her page.

The night before Halloween...

Last Sunday, Kelsey picked me up from Bonney Lake and brought me to Bellingham for a few days. I'd kept saying that I'd be going up there, but didn't have a way to get up there until last week. The first night, I slept on Kelsey's couch, but it's way to small and uncomfortable, so I found a real bed for the next two nights. Lyle, from Tokyo was also in town, and he'd just bought a new bike, which he let me ride around the block. Very fast!

I also met Rick and Susan from my old job at ATUS, and went out to lunch with them. I also spent a good part of two days in the computer labs scanning negatives. Later that night, I was going out to Korean food with a friend, and we hit a road biker. He was okay, but his bike was bent up pretty bad, and it was scary watching him do a cartwheel through the air into a hedge. Now my friend, who hasn't really ever ridden a bike, hates bikes, so I want to buy her a bike. I think she needs it.

That kid in the picture moves too fast. He's hard to get a picture of.

Working in Wood

For my warmup to building a 4x5 view camera project, I've started building a pinhole camera. Dad's got tons of scrap plywood out in the shop, so I designed a camera to work around my 4x5 film holder. Last weekend I researched how to make a box joint, and after a few practice runs yesterday, got a working jig. Today, I adjusted it a bit to make it cut accurate 1/4 inch cuts, cut out the frame of my camera. The picture shows the box before I glued it, with the film holder in it to test the fit. Sitting next to it is a piece of coke can with a .23mm hole in it. Once the glue dries, I will mount the front and figure out how I'm going to hold the film holder in place.

Okay, I'll post...

I haven't posted for a while because I was feeling crappy right after chemo #3, and after that, I've been keeping myself busy. I'm finally on the way to emptying out my apartment in Tokyo. Hopefully, that will happen in the next week or two. Since about a week before my last chemo, my hair started slowly falling out, but not enough that I wasn't going to have any any time soon, or even that anyone else would notice it probably. But it was annoying to shedding hair everywhere, ( although Ellie does it all the time) so I cut it all off.

I've also been working in my darkroom, but I don't have enough film to keep up with my printing, and I left my two favorite cameras in Japan, so I started playing with a 95 year old Kodak Brownie that we've had forever. The pictures it takes are in what was called the "postcard" format, about 4x6 inches, and no film company has made film for this format for a long time. So I took a piece of photo paper and cut in down to 4x6 and put it into the camera. This way I can make negatives on a sheet of paper, then contact print them onto another sheet of paper.

Playing around with this inspired a few more projects. First, I need a contact printing frame, which is for printing negatives directly onto a sheet of paper without using an enlarger. This is pretty simple to build once I find a piece of glass I can use. The second project is a view camera. Typically, they use either 4x5 or 10x12 inch film, and many are made fairly simply out of wood. To buy a new one often costs over $1000, but a fairly nice one can be built much cheaper. The first project, is one that many home builders don't make on their own, the bellows. By studying a few websites and the Brownie, I was able to make a small paper model. After a few attempts, I was able to make a symetrical tapering bellows, but it's rectangular rather than square as I'd hoped. It makes sense that it's rectangular, but I still need to figure out how to make it square.

Printing

My darkroom is running! On tuesday, I finally settled on a layout and got it approved with the Boss. I put a board across the washer and dryer for the developing trays, set up a small table for the enlarger directly across from the toilet. Tuesday night I mixed up all my chemicals. Last night when dad got home from work, we went to the hardware store for some weather stripping and plumbing hardware, and I made my first prints last night. I was lucky that the guy who sold me the equipment had some boxes of paper and some paper developer that wasn't too old. I think today I will get out the negitives of Kelsey and I that I wasn't able to finish printing before I graduated and left for Japan last year.