othersideofmyhead.com

I recently noticed that some of my “safe” emails have been going straight into my SPAM junk folder (which I obviously never check). While I love that Gmail has some awesome SPAM controls, I’m a bit miffed that some emails that I would have wanted to receive have been trashed. So, if you sent me an email requesting the link to my new site — and never heard back from me — try resending an email to kirsten dot lastname at gmail dot com with the subject title, “Kirsten, please send me your new website URL!” and it should go in the right place.

in about 359 days from now. The new site is up, and I’ll be sending out the link shortly (to those that have requested it). Email me (kirsten dot lastname at gmail dot com) if you’re interested in reading up on the new. Adieu, for now.

To those of you asking for the new URL via comments, IM, email, etc… yes, I will send it out. I’m currently on a tight deadline for another website project not to mention still on the domain name fence, so it’ll be awhile. Looking forward to it though. If you haven’t noticed already, I like change In the meantime, spread the love - it’s Valentines day, 65 degrees and sunny!!!

The domain for this site is up for renewal this month and I have decided not to extend it. After seven years, I’ve grown tired of the this is what I did over the weekend type posts and I feel that it’s time for a clean slate and a new blog. Since I would like to maintain some level of anonymity on the new site, I will not be revealing the new URL here.
That’s all.

Whoa, it’s been a week since my last post? Wow, time flies.
Today was my day off from work. And it was a good day. I:
Got up at 8:30 and watched reruns of Golden Girls, Frasier, and Will & Grace all while computing and slowly getting ready.
Opted to boycott the bus (for the day) and took a long walk over to Mindy’s for a visit and lunch. Dutch is nearly full-sized and incredibly well behaved now. Props to Mindy and G for some great puppy rearing!
Walked up to Market and Powell for some hooray-I’ve-got-a-job-now-so-I-can-afford-to-buy-stuff-again shopping. My “thing” is decorative tights and I found a cool pair on clearance at Urban Outfitters… good times.
It started to rain (big surprise) so I stopped by the pub for my favorite pick me up: Irish coffee.
Ended up meeting a newly married couple from Ireland visiting San Fran on their Honeymoon… shared a few rounds and conversation with them. Good craic!
Walked back out in the rain with a nice warm Irish coffee buzz on… then spent too much money on soap at Lush.
Found a new pair of boots, for cheap.
Went out to dinner with my favorite person.
And now I’m fresh out of the shower, dressed in clean-dry-warm fleece, drinking Merlot, and watching TV. Happy to be dry, happy to be seated next to my favorite person (shhhhh, he fell asleep!) and happy. Best life ever.

Today (Thursday) is my day off from work. Kind of weird to work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday then get a day off then go back in on a Friday (or, at least for this week: only work Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday) but until I’ve proved my worthiness as an employee (that, or a win a spot for a Friday or Monday – mental note: get some co-workers fired) then Thursday it is. How can I complain though, a day off is a day off!
And what did I do on my day off? Well, I had a whole list of tasks that I needed to tackle, and I managed to complete some… but the big “to do” was go to the freaking eye doctor. I’m normally very good with getting my eyes examined once a year (I wear contacts), but since I lost my eye coverage (along with my job) last year… I’ve been putting it off until I have better insurance again. And that worked well for me, until I tried to order a new box of contacts last month and dammit, my eye doctor (in Rochester!) refused to validate the prescription without an exam. Darn it all, they’re just contacts!
My new health coverage doesn’t begin until 90 days after employment, and I’m now down to my last 2 lenses. Oh what to do? Well, I’m quite particular about who looks at my eyes, ever since I was about 5 years old and a terrible infection nearly blinded me in my right eye. While I can see pretty well out, there is visible damage. So yeah, I get a little nervous about just anyone looking at my eyes. Then I gave it so more thought, and after 25 years without any eye issues (aside from needing corrective lenses so I can see beyond 1 foot) I realized that I’m too vain to be wearing my glasses in public for the next few months, so I scheduled an appointment with a chain eye store.
Well, I must this chain eye store had some lovely, friendly people working there. They took me in at a moment’s notice and quoted me a reasonable price for the exam since I’d be paying out of pocket… and off we went!
I’m not typically dilated for a contact lens check up, but they insisted that I get photos of my retina taken since it’s been 3 years since my last “big” eye exam. I agreed and the drops went in. Having your retina’s photographed is a pretty cool experience, because the retina can tell a lot about a person’s overall health. That, and I love to see pictures of my insides. While working on my degree in biomedical photographic communications years ago, my concentration was in ophthalmic photography… where I learned about every possibly disease that can effect the eye, and what it looks like. More importantly, I worked with special big expensive cameras that focused on the fundus, through a dilated pupil and exposed the image onto film (yes, film). And only after the film was developed (typically slide film) a doctor would closely examine the images and provide the patient with a diagnosis. And while we did use some digital technology at that time, it was still a big song and dance.
And after paying $$$ to learn all of these severely underutilized skills (aside from being able to diagnose my own eye), today, I had a mere eye tech effortlessly smooch my eye up against a plane of glass and asked me to press a button once properly aligned. Within one second – my retinal images were on the computer screen. The whole experience made me realize that leaving my 4 year degree in medical photography to pursue a now 8 plus year career in web development and multimedia was a smart move. Nowadays, a monkey could photography your eye (oh the hilarity). I often wonder why my previous major even still exists.
Aside from the newly discovered astigmatism in my left eye (I only had it in my right before) everything is grand in the vision department - and that makes me happy. As for the rest of my day off… useless. I couldn’t bloody focus on anything and my dilation made me feel all wonky. So I took a 3 hour nap, which after consuming a plate of huevos rancheros for lunch… not a good idea for the tummy. Anyway, groggy and acidic or not… V just popped in to tell me the Sabre’s game is on so I’m off to see if I can focus on the TV again. Good day off.

Oh so brain dead. New job is sucking all my brain power. I cannot seem to form good sentences no more. Ouch.
No worries, it’s a good thing!
Anyway, M an I both had Monday off so we spent the long weekend up North, exploring both the Russian River Valley and Mendocino county. Our trip was fantastic, and since I can no write… here’s a summary in pictures.
Did a lot of driving:

Saw lots of big trees:

Enjoyed breathtaking views (this is from the deck of our room in Guerneville):

Drove along some wind-y, kinda nauseating, but very scenic routes:


Played in ze’ ocean:




Then returned to our hearts back rainy, cold San Francisco (where’s the heat!?!?!)

I think my iPod finally bought the farm. Oh sad day.

Not only is this mind blowing, it’s become a new way to waste time: here’s where I live, here’s my laundromat, here’s where I work… this is the bus stop where that homeless woman told me to screw off because I am a whore (she’s not in the picture, surprisingly).
What’s next, Google Maps XRAY?

Well the title says it all. Today was my first day at my first (read: real) job here in San Francisco (er, read: real job in awhile). While I spent most of the morning filling out a poop ton of paperwork and meeting people, my afternoon was devoted to actually doing work. Heaven forbid I work on my first day… but it’s close to the new semester (I work for a well known San Franciscian based Art School, if you must know) and it felt good to jump in. Oh, and I have a pretty sweet set up (dual flat screen monitors, Xeon processing and CS3 everything!) and I only work 4 days a week (ahhhh, West Cost work ethic). I’ll have pics to show in a few a few days, especially of the view… I’m right across from Pier 39 (I can see sea lions!) and Alcatraz. Not too shabby, not too shabby at all.
I still don’t know what to do in the event of an earthquake though.
And after all of that, I drank a few Californian Pinot Grigios and listened to And They Know Us From The Trail Of Dead. Getting up (read: early!) to go to work is hard, but I’m happy to be involved with it again. Ahhhhh consistent paydays (and benefits… oh how I missed you!)