Back Pain Revealed

On Monday, I had an MRI on my back. Some people freak out from being enclosed, but I just closed my eyes and pretended that the vibrations I felt and the noises I heard through my earplugs were from a massage chair, although lying in the MRI machine was far less comfortable than one and my back pain flared up for the rest of the day. I dosed through most of the MRI. Unfortunately, I didn't get any cool pictures, like when I had the bone scan of my ankle. I got the results of the MRI this morning. I do have a herniated disk. The next step is to make the rounds of specialists. Last year, I had similar pain, which was worse in my back, but not radiating. Hopefully, physical therapy will help again. I should also get serious about losing weight, which could take a lot of pressure off my back.

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Sobe Nirvana Poison Beverage?

I purchased and drank Sobe Nirvana for the first time this morning. As I finished this delicious "mango melon flavored beverage," I noticed the key ingredients listed on the front of the bottle Ashwagamdha, Ginseng, and Astralagus. I've taken Ginseng before. I usually avoid it because it makes me a bit more hyper than caffiene, but it is otherwise harmless. Ashwagamdha is not in the Sobe ingredients glossary and a Google search on it only turned up sites that tried to sell it to me or tried to install adware in my browser, all with no infomation. The Sobe ingredients glossary only says that Astragalus is an herb from Asia, but another site says that some Astralagus species are addictive, poisonous, selenium concentrators, consumption of which can lead to ataxia and death. I sent Sobe an email asking why Ashwagamdha and Astralagus are included in the drink. While Sobe Nirvana is quite tasty, I'll need a clearer explanantion of what these ingredients are for before trying it again. In the meantime, I'll stick with Sobe Liz Blizz with immune system booster, which always makes me feel better when I feel a cold coming on.

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Monarch Butterfly Exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden

Twice a year, for about a month in the spring and fall, the Desert Botanical Garden has a butterfly exhibit. Currently, there are Monarchs (Mariposa Monarca) on display through November 6. Admission is free for members of the Desert Botanical Garden, or $2 in addition to general admission for non-members. My husband and I went with friends with this weekend and were thrilled. I've just started going through the hundreds of photos I took and am working on getting them posted to Flickr. Soon, they will be available from my Desert Botanical Garden tag. I recommend that anyone in the Phoenix area take advantage of this exhibit and experience the fun and beauty of being surrounded by butterflies.

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Resolving Flickr color saturation loss on upload

sRGB and Adobe RGB are colorspaces, which are interpreted to define the range of colors that a device will display. sRGB is a smaller subset of possible colors than Adobe RGB. The problem I've been having with my photos on Flickr is that, although I was taking them in sRGB, I was editing them and uploading them in Adobe RGB. Unfortunately, Flickr strips the color profile information and assumes sRGB, altering how the colors in my photos appear online versus what I intended to display. This results in comments like, "This photo would be great if it were more saturated," which is very frustrating when I know that the original image I produced is more saturated, but Flickr isn't displaying it properly. The fix is to convert the photo from Adobe RGB to sRGB in Photoshop before uploading because Photoshop does a better job of interpreting the colors than Flickr does. Although the color is still not exactly what I intended because sRGB doesn't have the range of colors that Adobe RGB has, my photo is now a lot closer to what I intended because Photoshop does a better job of interpolating the colors between the colorspaces.

Below is an example of the same photograph being saved in the two different colorspaces and uploaded to Flickr. Although the first is not a bad image, one can see that it is less intense and looks more brown than the second image, which looks brighter and redder. The results are a bit counterintuitive because sRGB is a subset of Adobe RGB. However, because of the way Flickr handles uploads, it is best to save photos in sRGB before uploading to Flickr.

Adobe RGB



sRGB



The staff of Flickr has posted that they plan to stop stripping the color profiles from JPEGs, but this has not been implemented, yet, and there is no ETA. This is probably low on their priority list because it will increase data storage requirements if they stop stripping color profiles.

If this entry was helpful to you, digg it.

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Phoenix Zoo

This weekend we spent Sunday morning at the Phoenix Zoo. We had a great time photographing a variety of animals in the exhibits, including turtles, pigeons, ducks, owls, a bobcat, a mountain lion, lizards and pronghorns, as well as other animals - pigeons, dragonflies and butterflies - and plants on the grounds. I'm still working on getting all of my photos uploaded. Any of my Phoenix Zoo photos can be found via my Phoenix Zoo tag. We purchased a membership and plan to go back regularly since we enjoyed the exercise.

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