Apparently I'm highly sensitive to Poison Oak.......

The last week of my life has been quite interesting. I've spent more time sleeping than awake. It all started on Sunday afternoon, the 17th of February. My lovely girlfriend Chelsea (pictured below) and I decided to take a walk on the horse trails behind her neighborhood in Jeffery's Ranch. As is my nature, I coerced her to wander off into the bushes because a small creek was flowing. We found a really cool area with wild mushrooms, plenty of loral sumac and wild cucumber. I was telling her all kinds of facts about native plants I had been learning. Anyway, as we made our way back to the established trail, I pointed out to her what looked like a large patch of poison oak. I of course, stayed clear, and showed her how to identify the plant (leaves of 3, leave it be..) for the future. Having lots of experience with being in poison oak environments, I had no second thought that I may have come in contact. Well... it was Monday afternoon, and I was driving with the fabulous Gavin Barnes, and Jessica Prinz when I noticed a sore on my chin. Thinking of it as a menacing blemish, I of course picked and prodded at it, however, it did nothing but ooze. Later that evening, as it became a much larger sore I started to get suspicious. Well.. I woke up the next morning with a swollen chin and the area around my right temple was extremely swollen. I didn't go to work, nor any of my normal routines, and have spent the 7 proceeding days with a swollen, soar covered, insanely itching face and body. It covers both of my fore-arms heavily, my chest in scatters, and at 2 different points, my right eye was swollen shut. I have some pictures below for those that wish and I honestly don't mind admitting that I look scary. After all, the clerks at my local 7-11 had no problem (seeing me normally on a daily basis), saying "What the *&^$ happened to your face?" Anyway, thank you doctor Ryan of Tri-City urgent care for an oral steroid and anti-biotics for the secondary infection I accrued, I am on my way to recovery. I have learned one very important lesson; when there is the SLIGHTEST chance of exposure to poison oak, wash yourself and any clothes. That is all. I may or may not be in class this week >.<

Rincon

Today, we ventured into the wash-area on the Rincon Reservation. I lugged out the panorama tripod and attempted my first even "official panorama." I went for the full 360 which was a bad idea because I didn't have the manual settings adjusted properly to get an even shot, but I cropped it and took out a piece of which I'm moderately satisfied. I retook the same pano with a darker exposure to practice dual exposures.. I have yet to combine the two images, so the one pictured, is of the foreground focus. I was moderately unimpressed with the selection of plants to document. Possibly because of following our trip to Indian rock where there's a wealth of variety. Nevertheless, I did find a few natives, and some interesting compositions to photograph.

Indian Rock

Today, we visited Indian Rock, in Vista, Ca. I didn't end up having my camera with me, so rather than let that deter me from learning and experiencing... I took 3 pages of notes, scrambling rapidly to keep up with our enthusiastic speakers. What they had to say was very in depth and amazing that there is so much to know about 1 single subject. i.e. California native plants. If you were to walk up to a random person and ask them what their knowledge of such things is, it would be similar to if you asked someone if they knew how "super-glue" was made (what's in it).Anyway, I was absolutely amazed at the depth of knowledge of these people, particularly Greg Rubin. 1 crazy fact I'd like to mention after looking back over my notes, is that in every square foot of ground, there lies 10,000 dormant weed seeds... Yikes, no wonder we're inundated with weed cover. Anyway, what I did end up doing is taking some pressings. Something I've done much in the past with flowers and such, but decided to do some with plants that could afford a piece to be plucked, or in the case of the Lupen, a plant that had been marred by the trafficking of feet. I really enjoyed using the scanner as a HUGE camera to zoom in and really get an image of the textures within the plants, not just the plants.