Kristen Byers

I went to 3 different orthodontists before I finally decided to go for it, but yesterday I got my braces on. I now officially look like I am 14. Oh well, they tell me they will only be on for 16–20 months, and the end result should be worth it.

Oh, and Michigan State beat Michigan in football today (for the second year in a row), hence the shirt.

Anyway, onto the financials, since part of my day zero goal was to figure out how to pay for the braces…

Total cost: $6400

• I get an educator’s discount of 10% ($640).
• My insurance will pay $2000.
• I used $2000 from my savings to make a down payment on 8/31.
• I put another $1400 into my flex savings account, to be used towards the braces.
• Which leaves the remaining $360 on my credit card, with the intent to pay it off using this month’s extra paycheck (October is a 3 paycheck month, hooray!).

Squeamish folks, thou should probably read no further.

I have gone under the needle many times (both for piercings and for tattoos), but on Saturday I finally went under the punch. My left ear has been looking empty to me for awhile now (especially compared to my right ear), and I finally decided on something to help fill the empty space. Brian Decker, who usually works out of Pure Body Arts in Brooklyn, New York, is doing a brief stint at Industrial Tattoo in Berkeley. I made an appointment to have my left conch dermal punched.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term dermal punch, BMEzine Encyclopedia defines it as such:

A dermal punch is like a round needle – think of it as a sharp, round cookie-cutter for skin. The medical industry uses them to take biopsy samples, but piercers use them to make round piercings which remove an actual piece of flesh.

Sounds scary, right? To preface this, I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to tattoos (which is ironic considering I have 5 of them), but I am a champ at piercings. That didn’t stop me from being scared out of my MIND.

I had been debating between 2g and 4g. If I went for the 2g hole, Brian would apply anesthetic, use the dermal punch, and then stitch around the hole, allowing the hole to heal naked (without jewelry). He says this method makes for a much faster healing process. Unfortunately, my ear is pretty small, and we decided that 4g might be a better choice. Since 4g is slightly too small to stitch, Brian would use a different method: the punch & taper method. He would dermal punch the ear at 6g and immediately taper the hole to 4g to help stanch the bleeding (oh yes, there would be blood).

Corner helped document the process:

He also took some video footage, which I edited to make this short movie (again, probably not for the faint of heart):

I cut the sound out and put it to music because all you can hear is the awful sound of a tattoo gun in the next room. Enjoy!

I have come to the realization today that I need to treat myself better. You know, take a breather every now and again. Take some time out to do nothing but relax and do something for ME. So here I am with freshly moisturized feet and a face mask on, sitting in bed and writing in my blog.

This past Sunday, Corner and I returned home from a 10-day vacation to Michigan. It was a much-needed break from the website redesign project at work, and I was pretty excited to see my family again (especially KC, who I hadn’t seen in a YEAR!). It was a bit of a crazy time with 5 of us staying in Mom’s condo, but everyone somehow managed to remain somewhat sane.

The first Saturday we were in town (August 8), we drove down to Indianapolis with Eric to see the DCI World Championships. Cathy was on staff with Phantom Regiment this year so we met her down there. The Glassmen got 10th place (YAYYYY it’s not 11th!) right behind Phantom Regiment, who apparently had a bit of an off year. The Glassmen’s new uniforms look very snazzy in person.

Sunday we hung out with Dad. It was perhaps the hottest day of the summer in Michigan and we spent it at the pool. We had pesto cavatappi for dinner, which I was really excited about because for some reason I haven’t been able to find cavatappi noodles since we moved to California (??).

The rest of our time there flew by so fast that all of the days blend together. We went to East Lansing and I got my hair cut at Douglas J for $16. We also went out to Woody’s with Sam & Kyle and after some sangria, Stoli around the world, and French Kamikazes, we visited Chelsea and got bubble tea at Udon.

We ate so much good food on our trip! We went to BDub’s twice. Mom & Les took us out for sushi twice; we went to Sushi Zen in Brighton and Sagano’s in Flint. We also visited The Winery and the Sagebrush Cantina in Fenton. We went down to Ferndale for the Woodward Dream Cruise and saw some cool old cars. Before the Dream Cruise we went out for dinner and I had an AMAZING chicken lemongrass pho bowl at The Fly Trap). This place was great — apparently it’s been on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.”

The second (and last) Saturday we were in town was Cathy & Eric’s wedding. Best wedding I have been to so far. It was a pretty small crowd and there was only top-shelf booze at the reception. And the DJ played Beyonce’s “Single Ladies [Put A Ring On It]“, which is still on my list of favorite songs of all time. Not to mention we went to Big Ten Burrito beforehand and Bubble Island afterwards (see? I told you we had lots of good food). Oh, and KC helped me straighten my hair beforehand so I was rocking an unusual ‘do (for me, anyway).

Nigel stayed with Rachel & Clayton while we were gone. They have been living in the area for a few months now, which is totally random considering I only lived with Rachel while I was in West Lafayette last summer and was pretty sure I would never see the 2 of them again. Then [surprise!] Clayton joined the army and ended up stationed in Monterey. They got married and now they live a few miles away. The world is so small.

I ended up shipping 7 more boxes of stuff from Mom’s basement to California (all the boxes arrived today, actually). My trumpet now resides with me, in addition to the mic stand leftover from Shelter[ed] days, which is now going to be used with Wii Rock Band.

So hi to all of my Michigan friends I got to see: John, Eric, Cathy, Ashley, Jessica, Sam, Kyle, Heather, Chelsea.

And hi to my Glassmen friends who hung out with me in Indy for a few short hours (Geoff, Hardik, Chris, Mike, J-Fran). I miss my G-fam like CRAZY and wish I could bring you with me everywhere!

And to all of the friends I didn’t get to see (including but not limited to Matt (the Legend), Matt (the Master), and Emma), I better see you when I am in Michigan for Christmas!

I’ve been thinking about embarking on the 101 in 1001 days challenge. Then someone suggested I make it 300 before 30. I am very intrigued.

I have also decided (for the moment, at least) on fonts for my personal branding project! More on this later. Onto the plugs I wore for the past week:

Gwen Stefani encouraging some audience participation during “Just A Girl”:

Ending of “Just A Girl”:

Corner is working out of Sacramento for the week so things are a bit boring on the homefront.

Things at work have been pretty busy since we are in the midst of redesigning miis.edu. I actually wrote a blog post yesterday that documents the design process so far.

I have been exploring fonts for my personal branding project, but the problem is there are just too many! So my progress has been rather slow. I expect a breakthrough (and an accompanying blog post) in the near future.

Until then, enjoy the latest installment of my July plug challenge:

As promised, the 2 pairs of Anatometal solid gem plugs have made their way into my collection! In fact, I love them so much that I wore both pairs 2 days in a row. This will probably skew my month’s data in favor of these plugs, but I’ll chalk it up to the fact that they are new (not to mention beyond gorgeous)! The ocean jasper weights are one of my favorite pairs, too.

Feel free to click on any image for a larger version + an exact description of the plugs.

I am documenting the plugs I wear every day for 1 month, mostly to see which pairs I wear the most/least, but also as an excuse to take some photos with my new camera (I got a Canon PowerShot SD990 IS! It’s hot!).

I’ve got 2 pairs of Anatometal solid gem plugs on the way (should be here by the end of the week), so expect to see some giant aqua and amethyst sparklies permeating my collection in the near future.

In other body modification-related news, Brian Decker will be in Berkeley in September and I will most likely be acquiring some additions from him. If you aren’t familiar with his work, I suggest you consult Google immediately.

Enjoy!

This past week I decided to tackle the first task on my list: exploring color theory and creating a color palette for my new personal brand.

Palette Requirements:

• should consist of 4—5 colors
• must include 1 or 2 colors that are subtle enough to use as an accent color within my resume (yes, I want to use color in my resume, how bold of me!)
• must be web- and print-friendly

Past Color Schemes

This is the color scheme from the very first iteration of my portfolio. I thought it was pretty nice, but received several comments from friends and colleagues suggesting that the pastel colors weren’t very representative of my personality. To be honest, I chose purple and green because I like them and pink because it complements the other 2 colors. This is actually a fairly “correct” compound color scheme but I eventually chose to abandon it in favor of a bolder color scheme.

This is the color scheme from the current iteration of my portfolio. As you can see, I tried to get away from the pastel shades, but somehow green managed to stick around (what can I say, green is my favorite color!). Yikes. When I put these colors next to each other, they look pretty gnarly. Maybe it’s just the goldenrod, but I’ll be the first to admit that this palette needs to go!

…but where to start as far as choosing new colors?

Selecting New Colors

I typed “what is my color” into Google and the first site I found was COLORSTROLOGY. I navigated to my birthday (June 8) and discovered that my color is golden apricot. It’s really a lovely color, and its description is rather nice as well, so I decided to start there.

I checked my Delicious bookmarks for some color resources I could use to make a palette.

Using Adobe’s kuler, I generated some color palettes, which I then posted to both kuler and COLOURlovers so that other users could vote on them and provide me with feedback. I made some palettes that included the golden apricot color and some that didn’t.

Verifying Printer-Friendliness

One of my palette requirements states that the colors must be both web- and print-friendly. I knew that the colors are web-friendly, but I have not worked with print documents a lot and wasn’t sure how to verify if colors would be printer-safe. A quick Google search informed me that in order for my colors to print accurately, I must choose colors that are in-gamut.

So I consulted my good friend Photoshop to see if my palette was indeed printer-safe. I learned a pretty easy way to do this:

With your Color Picker menu open, use Ctrl-Shift-Y to see which of the colors in the selected range will be printable.

The grayed-out areas will not print accurately. Hit Ctrl-Shift-Y again to exit this view.

I had to tweak a few of my colors to make sure they were suitable for both web and print documents, but this Photoshop trick made the tweaking pretty easy.

Proposed Color Scheme

One of my highest voted palettes was a palette I affectionately named “Not So Subtle.” It’s a bright set of colors and reminds me of fruit, something a company like Jamba Juice might use. Without further ado, I present to you my proposed color scheme:

(Once again, green made the final cut.)

I would love to hear your feedback on the new color palette. Good, bad, or otherwise. I’m still open to revising my color choices since nothing is set in stone.

Next up, I will be tackling typefaces. I’m a big typography junkie, so I’m looking forward to it. If you have any resources to pass along to me, feel free to do so!