APNARCOPLEXIC

This has been kind of a strange weekend.... but it all started on Thursday, July 25th, when I got a Facebook invite from Julie Flygare to some "Narcolepsy: Not Alone" Event....

Reading the details about it...it seemed complicated, since I'm still alone....but I soon decided that I was going to do it and starting putting the plan into motion. And, I knew just the gadget to help make this possible....on July 28th, I remembered to go online to look for it. Fortunately, the first place I thought of had it...though sadly its no longer available: http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/collapsable-camera-extender/ (unless it comes back...)

Free shipping gave a range 10-15 days (Aug 7-12?), though in reality it didn't take that long...arriving on July 31st....just under 1.5 days in shipped to delivered.

I then worked on the other details of my plan. I was going to start with the provided sign with a small tweak....though the sign is centered, so I needed to move the text up a bit to make the tweak fit. I wanted to drop a safezone symbol onto it. Though finding a safezone graphic was harder than I thought, but eventually I found something. I used gimp to lay the images together and printed it out.

It looked good, though the "Narcolepsy: Not Alone" was kind of light. I figured I would just need to reprint it later using high quality mode on my inkjet printer. The next step was to figure out when I would actually take this picture.

Well, taking an extended weekend....the plan started moving forward. I had on my calendar to get a haircut on Saturday...but, wasn't sure how to work the timing since last weekend was messed up by waiting for a delivery that never came and now having to hopefully get it this Saturday...while making the trips. When I had the delivery rescheduled for this Saturday, I didn't know that I was going to take Friday off...

So, I did my trip to the mall on Friday....got my haircut, did some shopping, made it over to Wal-Mart to finally get some new TrueAir filters that help keep strange smells that come in from my neighbors out of my CPAP. And, home....

With that out of the way...I wouldn't need to go out Saturday if it came to that. Though the delivery came and there was plenty of time. So, I decided that I would scrounge up some change and to shop at Target. Considering that I had thought of getting a clipboard to help hold the sign, but spaced on looking for one on Friday.

When I got to Target, I decided the first thing I would do was find one....in case I'd forget later when I'm rushed. Though I wasn't...since I opted to not make the next bus... though that meant I would have an excess amount of time to kill when I'm done. Which wasn't that bad...I could indulge in some chicken fingers at the Target Cafe.

Though coming home was a bit of a struggle...the walking and standing problem was pretty bad, and it was pretty bleak when I transferred to Red for the final bus home...it was full, and there's no priority seating on the ATA buses...so it wasn't like anybody had to give up a seat...but I wasn't going to try standing on the bus. Since everybody was getting off at the next stop, the driver decided that he would take them to there and the come back and take me directly to my stop (the next one after).

Wonder how I'll be for making it to where I wanted to take my picture?

So, today...I got up, I'm feeling sore, and lately the sleepiness has been intruding into my days again... But, after spending some random time on the computer, I decide that I'm going to do the sign and go for it.

I tried printing it again in high quality mode...but its still coming out grey. Not sure if the source graphic is actually grey or if the ink cartridge has passed its expiration date. No worries...I had a backup plan. Print the words using my laser printer and then add the safezone graphic with the inkjet. Got it in the first try. So, I'm off to walk to work...actually further.....turns out to be warmer than I expected. But, I make it.

Though it turns out to be much harder than I expected to take picture of myself..... Its one thing to get me in the picture, its another to try and capture the sign and the background correctly....without being able to see what the camera is seeing....back in the day, I was pretty good and aiming cameras at scenes without looking through viewfinder to capture things, but I'm on the wrong side...and, I've noticed that my peripheral vision seems to have gotten pretty bad lately....another something I need to get to doing.

Anyways...I snap a bunch of pictures...all seem bad to worse, hopefully there's something I can salvage with tweaks with Picasa.

But first I need a drink and a quick rest, before walking back home. Thought about slipping down to my office to nap, but decided not to....why break my 'mini-vacation'.

Well, all the pictures that came out were pretty bad....but I eventually settle on 3 possibles and finally picked the one shown.... Though did a little tweaking with GIMP....The full resolution image is ~2MB, but resaving it web optimized from GIMP got it down to ~620KB....