Mysterious Hair Tie
I saw another hair tie in a parking lot yesterday. This one was special because it was touching the white parking lot lines. As you can see from the photo, this hair tie also looks a lot like the number 13,000.
Labels: Hair_Ties, images, mysterious, weird
Hair Tie
This is a mystery. Or maybe a miracle. Twice a week, I go to the same parking lot. I've been going to this parking lot since January of 2007. The first day I went to the lot in January, there was a little hair tie on the ground in one of the parking spaces. I noticed it on my way in. Then, I noticed it was still there on the way out. Not too big of a deal, I was only there a few hours. But the next week it was still there, in the same parking spot. And the next week after that. And the next month after that. And it's still there as of last night, in the exact same spot. That's a long time to be in the same spot.
In other news, I can't remember what I did with the remains of the original dead rabbit. I am not sure what happened to them after I put them into my truck.
Labels: Hair_Ties, images, mysterious, weird
Mysterious Damage 2
I finally found out what happened to the sign at Campbell and Roger, the sign I showed in the post called
Mysterious Damage.
I called the number on their website and the guy there told me that somebody hit it with a car.
Labels: Accidents, images, mysterious
Mysterious Damage
What happened here?
The University of Arizona has a farm. Several of them, I think. This one is officially known as the University of Arizona College of Agriculture
Campus Agricultural Center. It's in an odd place for a farm, sort of in the middle of an urban/suburban environment.
The U of A has a sign for their farm. The sign is at the northwest corner of
Campbell Ave. and Roger Rd.A few weeks ago I noticed that the sign had taken some pretty serious damage. I don't know what happened or how long ago it was, but it looks like there was a lot of energy involved, fire, and moderately intense heat.
There are three competing theories for the cause of this damage:
- A car went through the fence. Maybe it was traveling north on Campbell, tried to make a left onto Roger, and then the left went bad for some reason. Maybe it caught fire at some point and that's what burned the sign.
- Lightning. Maybe the sign was struck. The fence and reflector posts bent toward the sign make this less likely, as does the presence locally of several taller metal poles.
- Gas Problem. There is exposed plumbing visible poking up from the ground in Figure 2 and Figure 4. Is it gas plumbing? Could this have caused or contributed to the problem?
I am going to try to get to the bottom of this.
Figure 1: Looking west across Campbell at Campbell and Roger
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Figure 4: From Campbell. Notice the reflector post to the right is not bent, but the one to the left (between the two white posts from this view) is bent.
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Figure 5: From this angle, it looks strange that one reflector post is bent but the other is not. Figure 4 makes it more clear why that is.
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Figure 6: I wonder if somebody stood the white fence back up a little bit, because it seems like if a car went through it, it would be flat to the ground.
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Labels: images, mysterious
Mystery Wound 11
The Steri-Strips are off. They came off at about 7:30 pm 12 July 2006. As far as the contest goes, it's sort of too close to call and I think we have a three-way tie. Well, unless the prize is expensive, in that case I will "randomly" choose the lucky winner from among the correct entries received from aerospace engineers living in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
The wound itself is looking good. Too good, as a matter of fact. It looks so good it's sort of boring, so I developed (actually refined, since I used a similar process once before) a process I call "Zombification" which is designed to make relatively non-disgusting wound images look like disgusting wound pictures again.
The proprietary Zombification process whose mathematical description is a closely guarded secret is now fully automated and reproducible. The automation of the Zombification process allows for different images to be Zombified in a systematic way, providing for detailed comparison and analysis.
Figure 1: This is the standard view of the wound taken after the Steri-Strips came off.
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Figure 2: This is a close-up of the left side of the wound.
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Figure 3: This is a view of the right side of the wound.
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Figure 4: This is the Zombified view. Note the generally Zombie-like appearance of the skin and the amplified redness.
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Figure 5: For comparison, this is a picture of the wound right before the sutures came out. I applied the proprietary Zombification process to this image to give you a frame of reference for what the process does to an image.
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Figure 6: Zombification of the wound when the bandage first came off.
Enlarge Photo Labels: images, mysterious, wounds
Mystery Wound 10
The
Steri-Strips really put a damper on my attempts to document the wound healing process. They're not going to be on much longer, though. How much longer do you suppose? Make a guess and send in your answer using the contact form to your right. I will "randomly" choose a winner from among the entries which most closely predict the date and time that the Steri-Strips will come off. That lucky winner will be eligible to receive a fantastic prize or prizes, possibly even one of the popular www.thinksimian.com T-shirts emblazoned with images as seen on this site.
Labels: images, mysterious, wounds
Mystery Wound 9
Getting the stitches out yesterday was a huge disappointment. The actual process was a little uncomfortable, about what I expected, but after she took the sutures out the nurse put adhesive strips over the wound to keep holding it together a little. The strips are supposed to stay on for a week.
I was disappointed because I wanted to get a picture right after the stitches came out, and now I can't. The irony of all that is, I hardly ever have my camera with me in the car because it's too hot to leave it there, but yesterday morning I took a picture of the rabbit and slipped the camera into my pocket, then I was in a rush to get to the dermatologist's office on time and I accidentally took the camera with me. So I could have had a picture right there in the dermatologist's office. But I didn't. And now it's too late.
Labels: images, mysterious
Mystery Wound 8
This is it. Today is the last day with the sutures in. They'll be out at 8:30 am tomorrow.
It's not going to be too much fun getting them out because they're a little overgrown. I think I should have gone in last week to have them removed.
Labels: images, mysterious
Mystery Wound 7
The wound is starting to show some redness today near the sutures.
Figure 1: The sutures are getting embedded into the skin.
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Figure 2: The skin is getting irritated around the sutures.
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Figure 3: This image has been enhanced to show the exact location of the irritation. Nothing has been added to this photograph, but all colors other than red have been desaturated, the red saturation has been amplified, and the red hue has been altered. Note the strong correlation between the location of the sutures and the redness, and also note that the redness does not correspond at all with the original wound.
Enlarge Photo Labels: images, mysterious
Mystery Wound 6
Things are going well with the wound repair. It looks to me like the stitches could come out now. They're getting kind of embedded in the skin surface. I feel like getting a little suture removal pack and showing my niece and nephew how to take the them out.
Labels: images, mysterious
Mystery Wound 5
I used spot metering today. It seems like I got a much better exposure than I was getting with the multi-field metering I was using before. I had a much easier time getting pictures in focus with the spot metering, too.
I still wish I didn't have to use the flash because I keep getting those hot spots I don't like. In order to do that, though, given the light I have I'd need to use the tripod and It would be kind of cumbersome to do that.
Labels: images, mysterious
Mystery Wound 4
Today I took the bandage off closer to photography. The reason the wound is glistening is because I apply Vaseline to it each day as directed. On the other days, I took the bandage off a few hours before I took the pictures but today due to my hectic schedule going to AJ's twice, getting Brain Age at GameStop, going to Burger King twice, going to the Hallmark store, getting gas, and doing some other stuff, I didn't take the bandage off until right before I took the pictures. Bandage removal today was more painful than any other day, too, probably because I applied the bandage too medially yesterday and it got into some hair.
There is some bruising that's starting to look greenish-yellow in person that I'm not sure is showing up in the photos, at least not this close up.
Labels: images, mysterious
Mystery Wound 3
Today is day 4 following surgery for removal of a mole from my abdomen. Dr. Colin Trout of
Ironwood Dermatology on
Skyline Drive performed the procedure without incident. Dr. Trout removed the lesion through an approximately 2.5 cm by 1.5 cm elliptical incision under local anesthetic administered by Patricia. The block was excellent and I didn't feel any pain whatsoever throughout the duration of the procedure. I did feel some tugging and pulling, but no pain at all. Dr. Trout closed the incision with seven sutures.
The next day after the surgery, Dr. Trout personally called me and left a voicemail on my cell phone asking how I was doing following the procedure. I was impressed that he took the time to do that and I will definitely be visiting Dr. Trout regularly in case any more questionable moles happen to pop up.
Labels: images, mysterious
Mystery Wound 2
As it was written, so it was done. On the third day after sustaining this damage, the wound is revealed.
Labels: images, mysterious
Mystery Wound
There are only two days left until you know what's under this bandage.
Labels: images, mysterious