haddadadad

Filmed in Pittsburgh, this movie stars Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, and Liam Neeson. It’s a giant poster for my hometown’s city, complete with gratuitous aerial shots. I am okay with this fact. The plot focuses on Russell Crowe trying to get his wife, Elizabeth Banks, out of jail because she allegedly didn’t kill whoever they say she allegedly did.

Pirates sweaters are all the rage. The building they are alluding to as the prison is the actual county jail. When you drive over the Liberty Bridge you can sometimes see the inmates playing basketball through the windows.

THAT’S MY CITY. eeee. I wonder if they managed to make it look clean.

JP, my Himalayan rescue, can’t meow. He tries but you only hear the failed pushing of air when close enough to him. He does, however, possess a fantastic squeak. He used to only do it when I come home, but now he regularly squeaks when it’s time for brushing or the litter box is getting cleaned. I’ve seen him squeak at bugs he can’t reach as well as things in the yard through the window. He now takes to squeak singing at night, chiming in to Fiona’s already melodramatic night cries. Still working on getting a recording of that.

Note: I am not a dietitian nor did I go to school for any type of nutrition. I am working with my experiences with these two problems.
Note: To go straight to the IBS+reflux eating tips, scroll down.

Back in high school (1999-2003 for the stalkers) advertisements for prescription acid reflux medication began to spring up. I began realizing what Maalox and Pepto were for and why people use laxatives and that poop’s a problem for a lot of people. I didn’t quite get it until I was diagnosed early in college with a spastic colon, or Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS,) and acid reflux disease, or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD.) It’s a one-two punch of discomfort and pain.

IBS at its most basic describes the painful process of your intestines attempting to understand how to process the food going through them. Sometimes certain food trigger a slowdown, and shit gets clogged up. Literally. As the pressure from not being able to expel grows, your discomfort grows, until you finally push it out, which hurts as well, as you’re shitting steak knives out of a pinhole. The more mild experiences feel like a bad case of gas and are fairly tolerable.

Different sufferers experience different triggers. For myself, dairy products, red meat, and fried food are my main offenders. If I have too much of either, it will feel as though I’m trying to digest a set of small knives. The intensity is on par with ovary pain. When I’m on my period, the list of food types extends to all greasy food, peanut butter, and all meat. All I can eat safely is toast and eggs, which may explain my affinity for them. That and it makes for great morning-after-a-party food.

GERD is when the acid in your stomach churns in such a way it splashes through your esophageal sphincter (aka your throat’s ass) and into your esophagus. Left unchecked, it can damage the walls of your throat and fuck up your teeth. This erosion is a markedly seen with people suffering from eating disorders that involve purging via vomiting. It’s meth mouth for image disorders. Aside from the extremes, you also experience your food again later. Like burping, refluxing let’s you taste what you ate at a later time. A burp is short and sweet while the reflux can last for hours and has a heat to it. It’s acid, after all. This heat is sometimes referred to as a burn. The higher the heat travels, the less it can be called heartburn and the more serious the problem you have. The heat tends to be the most intense by the sternum, but the weird, almost bread-like taste of your previous meal continues to travel up your throat. Milder cases are a mere annoyance. The heat is less intense, and the taste is barely noticeable.

For me, reflux is triggered by caffeine, carbonation, alcohol, regular orange juice, lemon juice in large quantities, olive oil, fried food, barbecue sauce, tomato products, peanut butter, mustard, pickles, red meat, egg yolk, and chocolate. Chocolate-covered espresso beans might as well be poison. When it’s really bad, I can’t even have reduced fat peanut butter.

Both of these afflictions get compounded by other factors: stress, sleep, and exercise. Not exercising makes the IBS worse because my body slows down. Getting less sleep makes my reflux touchy. Stress makes both of them worse times a jillion. I’ve gone to the hospital twice for reflux that would not calm down during two finals seasons. It felt like I had chemical burn up and down my throat and the heat was going up my nose. My solar plexus was on fire. Once stressed, the two problems make the stress worse if I’m not prepared.

I pretty much hated all those feelings I was having, and at the suggestion of a doctor, I was put onto a generic acid reflux medicine and began the crackdown on my diet.

In the dorms, we had a plethora of food to choose from the cafeteria selection. I used to eat cottage cheese every day for my calcium — that was gone. I would eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches if I didn’t like the hot food on the menu — no more. I switched to soy milk for my cereal. I upped my pasta intake and didn’t allow myself tomato sauce for a spell. No more energy drinks. The biggest hit was the red meat — no more burgers. In fact, I went All the Way May into vegetarianism. Once and a while I would allow myself some lunch meat so I wouldn’t get too nutters. My roommate and I would go down to dinner together and load up our trays. We’d sit across from each other, and there was an odd difference between our trays. One night, soon after the big change, Lizzy exclaimed, “You’re food is beige!” It was. I think the vegetables were extra gross that night so I didn’t take them. Just naked pasta, bread, and maybe a potato or a hard-boiled egg.

It was sad.

But then it was funny. Let’s face it, if I ate anything else I would have stabby knife pain in one part of me and heat death rays in another. The beigeness eventually became our joke. Things picked up. I learned to not be embarrassed by pooping (everybody does it!) in a dorm situation, and I learned how to speed up the process to get out of the bathroom faster. My chest wasn’t constantly on fire. I began having days where my mouth didn’t taste like warm, soggy cereal, and there was less to groan about after meals. I would still treat myself to the ice cream, especially Sunday nights. Later I learned that fat free ice cream worked better for me, so I tried to stick to that. I had a vegetarian friend in dietetics who helped me expand my options.

I ended up not having McDonalds for a few years afterward and avoided fast food altogether. I can’t remember the time frame, maybe a full year of strict vegetarianism? Slowly I began to reintroduce meats and fast food. I tested not having the reflux medicine and discovered that I could go off it without repercussions, so I phased it out. I began to redesign my diet living in an apartment. I got to eat a lot of overeasy eggs again, which were not as fun in the dorms as scrambled fluff.

I’m explaining all of this lameness to say: MANAGE YOUR DIET. I was given loose guidelines on proper food intake by my family, and while I was given super healthy food by them at times, I still had a lot to learn. The answer to indigestion used to be taking three Tums, but it stopped working. Having all my problems has made me hyper aware of all that should be considered in a normal diet. If you’re having problems with your body, a lot can be manipulated by what you’re eating and the amount of exercise you have. Go running, walking, skating, swimming, cycling, something! Even if you feel silly doing it, what matters is you are spurring your body into motion and helping to regulate your digestive system.

Some tips for management of digestive issues:

• If _________ gives you a tummy ache, you probably shouldn’t eat it.
• If you discover you are lactose-intolerant, avoid dairy products for two weeks. If you are really missing some types, slowly reintroduce them and take a Lact-aid pill. It contains the lactase enzyme your body no longer has. If you find yourself not missing them, don’t bring them back.
• If you get constipated a lot, avoid red meat for a week. Also be sure to get some cardiovascular exercise three times a week for twenty minutes. A brisk walk can do wonders. See if that improves your poopin’.
• Apples help you poop!
• So does broccoli!
• If you’re a vegetarian, vary your protein sources. Soy milk and tofu is delicious, but try other types of protein like beans, whey protein mix drinks, eggs (if you diet allows,). If you are unsure about adding eggs, get a little less guilty by purchasing free range raised eggs or buying them from a local farm. There’s a neat little info spreadsheet on the Vegetarian Society’s website for more ideas.
• HUMMUS IS DELICIOUS and does not affect my IBS. It can, on occasion, disturb the reflux.
• Being more healthy in choosing your options will aid your body in being more prepared for old age. You’re setting up the scaffolding that will be left to hold your body together.
• Reflux sufferers who love orange juice: Tropicana has a reduced acid line of orange juice. If not for it, I would still be burning my esophagus. It has added calcium, which helps my non-milk-imbibing self.
• Limit your alcohol intake, especially beer and drinks mixed with soda pop.
• Optimally, no more soda pop.
• Salad dressing can be your undoing. Learn what’s in the dressing before you put it on or you may destroy an otherwise problem-free meal.
• Management means these problems are never going away. Once that idea settles into your brain, you’ll learn where you can cheat the diet once and awhile, but don’t cheat too often or you”ll have to start from square one. Diet management is a lifestyle change with benefits.

Again, I’m no expert. I’ve lived with these two pains in the ass for going on eight years, and I’m still learning management tricks every day.  I’ve settled into semi-vegetarianism well and have had my spurts of weakness. I still resort to the basics in times of need. If you think you’re having digestive issues, talk to your doctor about it. S/he can direct you to a dietitian and has the proper channels to get your system checked out. Medication may help heal your parts! Going to the doctor can jumpstart your road to recovery. It’s up to you to make it happen!

This post is dedicated to Lizzy and Emily, who patiently supported me eating boring food in the dorms when I made the first drastic food switch and are never embarrassed by me quizzing restaurants’ wait staff on the ingredients of menu items.

POP AND CAVITIES
CAVITIES IN A CAN Familiy Gentle Dental Care
Lactaid totally has the netscape icon as its favicon
Information sheet — protein Vegetarian Society
Tropicana

I had heard of the story of the attempted rape and say the accompanying video, but I had noooo idea Autotune the news got a hold of it.

I’d get more into the story, but I have to catch up on the Autotune news. This song better show up in clubs and bars.

The shelter had a kitty named Lil that looked this this kitty. She hated EVERYONE who cleaned her cage yet somehow passed the safer test. I ended up running into her new owners months after she was adopted, and she looooves men and hates all women. All the employees who worked with her were female as well as the volunteers. MYSTERY SOLVED.

One of our recordings is now okay to be released to the public’s ears! Here it is, “Only You Know” by Altria:

(that’s meeeee singing!)

While researching capacitive touch styluses for ipads, I came across this video reviewer with a sweet accent.

and for those looking into styluses, the final ruling on the styluses were:
mi-stylus: BOO
pogo: all around good
dagi: good, excellent for writing notes

In my next level of advertising my work, I’ve become a member of Project Wonderful, an ad company you may have seen on webcomic pages. I made the bid for Count Your Sheep!

I read this comic for about three years, but phased it out of my normal readings. I think finals season was involved with that. Anywho, SCREEN SHOT!

Several years back my college skating club tried its best to spread its skating knowledge on the internet, only to be halted by our server dying. The webmasters had no backups of our site, and everything was lost. I’ll try to get that info back up onto this site, possibly with more experience! That’s what happens as years go by, right? Let’s start with ordering your skate size.

A lot of local stores have an extremely limited selection of skates when you don’t live in a big city. The internet has a variety of reputable skate stores to choose from, and even Amazon and Ebay has a shit-ton of skates to offer. Brands of skates, just as in shoes, pants, and other clothing, tend to have different fits. Today will provide some insight in particular brands.

I’m sticking to recreational skates as I have had the most experience with them. These are the skates that people tend to generically think of when the words “rollerblades” and “inline” pop up in conversation. These skates are made for casual skating, street travel, and exercising. “Fitness” is another named associated with them, and some versions focus on the drag of lower level bearings to get more of a workout. I will not be delving into fitness skates for that use per se, but they are a part of the culture.

Before getting into each brand, you should know the parts of the skate that your feet will contact.

Parts of the skate

Most recreational skates today are made with an inner, cushioned boot and a hard shell that connects to the frames. Parts of the cushion are attached to the shell while others are free to give as you move. Beginners’ and cheaper skates tend to have the hard shell all over the skate to provide a more stable environment for untrained ankles and feet. The stiffness the plastic provides teaches the skater’s muscles how to stay in position while moving, strengthening the necessary parts, eventually leading to safer ankles. Without the support, those who are less sport-inclined are more liable to end up with a sprained or broken ankle.

The frames are the track the wheels and brakes are connected to on the bottom of the boot. They range in length based upon how big of a wheel will be used. Bigger wheels = longer frames.

The clasp on the ankle can be at different levels depending on the specific designated use of the skate as well as what is in style. The Velcro strap over the instep of the foot helps tighten the skate after being laced up by zipcord or shoelace.

How a skate fits

A skate needs to fit similar to a running shoe. The soft boot needs to be small enough to keep your foot secure during strides but leaves enough space to not create weird pressure points on your arch, toes, heels, or instep. The clasps on the ankle part need to be snug. How snug depends upon the location of the clasp in relation to your ankle as well as how thick the cushioning of the inner boot is. The higher up the clasps are on the leg, the less snug they should be. If your clasps are clicked too tightly, you will get excruciating shin splints and your feet may start hurting along with your shins while skating. The shin splints take a few days to recover from. I suggest avoiding them because they hurt like hell.

Da Brands

Today we’re going over the three big brands for recreational skates: K2, Salomon, and Rollerblade. Sizing in relation to shoes will be based on running shoes like Adidas and Asics.

K2
This brand gets first dibs as it was my first pair of legit skates. K2s are true to shoe sizing. I have wider feet than the average female, and their mens skates fit my feet well. I tend to gravitate towards mens athletic shoes to avoid the width issue, and it serves me well with this brand. I have been told by those with womens skates that they also fit true to size.  The softboot is thick and fits like a hiking boot. The ankle clasps usually require a tighter click at their lower height. Their skates are built well, but parts like the velcro strap and the laces break down with heavy use. My laces and straps broke after a year or two of constant use. The laces are easily replaceable… the strap is a bit harder.

Salomon
This Danish brand pretty much stopped its production in the United States in 2005-2007, and according to their website, they no longer make skates I’ll look into it.  If you have the option of trying them, I suggest you do. The skate is fairly light overall, very breathable, and built with care.  The Salomons I own are a womens sizing, and I find the skate half a size larger than true shoe size. I wear a 9.5 US Womens, so I ordered its Mondopoint conversion (26.5 cm), and the boot is a little loose all over. The boot is wider than average, too wide for my own foot, and I have a bit of space at the toe, leading me to rate this brand at a half size larger than printed. So, for you, buy a half size smaller than your actual shoe size and you should be fine.

Rollerblade
Having not owned a pair of my own, I’ve gone by what my Rollerblade-owning friends have told me. Their skates tend to be much larger than standard shoe sizes, up to one and half sizes larger. I’m not sure how wider feet fair in their boots. I’ve never heard complaints about how their skates fit. Order at least one size smaller than your shoe size.

Anyone have anything else to add? Any other brands you fancy or have experience wearing?

As the summer months are drawing closer to an end, a new beginning for Haddad Ink has arrived! A gothier front page will now entice potential clients into my artwork, bwahaha!

Actually, things like image examples and contact information are pretty good things to have on the page that is the first impression of this business. I have a link set up for those on mobile devices to still be able to view images with a link to my crafthaus albums. The photography page got a mini revamp as well, registering my stuff with a Creative Commons smackdown licensing, links for mobile album users, and some featured galleries.

The middle of the front haddadadad page is a rotating slideshow of some of my work, including the commission painting on this snapshot. That thing is five feet wide! I like making bigger paintings. They are the most rewarding to see finished.

I’m shooting a wedding this weekend. Expect a new example album in a few weeks!

The band is finishing up two tracks, “Only You Know” and “Follow You,” to be our demo tracks that actually sound like we know what we’re doing. They’ll be going up on the Bandcamp as soon as they’re cleared.