What is awesome about Moo is that you are allowed to use up to 50 different images on your business card without any additional fees, so it is great for an artist! The cards are double-sided and have rounded corners. The stock is pretty amazing, and I didn’t even get the most expensive stock either. I am extremely impressed with the quality. The cards also came inside these black boxes, which are great for carrying around your cards. I ended up getting 3 black boxes with my order. I actually wasn’t even expecting that. I dunno, maybe they mentioned it on their site and I overlooked it, but it was a nice surprise. The blue part on the box is removable if you just want a solid black box. Also for those that care, the paper is 100% recycled from post consumer waste, 100% recyclable, and the factory that makes the cards is completely powered by wind generators.

I must say, I am pretty excited to finally have some real business cards to hand out at shows. I always felt really stupid when people asked for business cards and I didn’t have any available. I remember at the Wizard World Con in Chicago after the first day I ran to Kinko’s in the hotel and printed some temporary cards and then cut them all out by hand, haha. That was pretty sad. Anyway, I will have a handful of these cards available for the Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix in Australia in a couple of weeks and also for the Spectrum Live event, so get them while you can!

There are so many different types of swords out there from various manufacturers, so it was hard to narrow down which sword I wanted to buy. At first I bought a viking sword, but the company I bought it from was a complete nightmare. Let’s just say in the end they screwed up my order 3 times, sent me the wrong sword, and then cursed me out when I asked them to send me the correct sword that I had already paid for. So I returned the sword, got my money back, and did some more research in order to find a place that was a little more professional. It seemed that everywhere I went, I ended up back at the Sword Buyers Guide. The site has a ton of reviews and videos and I spent a long time trying to find the best sword for my money. I finally decided to go with the 1306 Medieval Knight Sword from Darksword Armory. The sword had a great review and I liked the look of the sword. Another thing that is cool about this sword is that it is historically accurate. It was modeled after the original that was found in the 14th century in the Musé des invalides, Paris, France.

You may ask “why do you need a battle ready sword?” Well, if I am going to invest in a sword, I want a real sword. I don’t want some lame fake sword that you can only hang on the wall. Sure I am buying it for reference purposes, but I always like to buy quality products just in case. Who knows, maybe the zombie apocalypse is coming soon and you know what, I’ll be ready for it.

You can read up more about the sword from the Sword Buyers Guide review. There are also some really great destruction test videos on there as well showing just how much punishment this sword can take. This sword was designed for steel on steel contact. Here are a few stats for the sword.

 
1060 Carbon Steel Blade, Tempered to a HRC of 53
Blade Length: 28”
Handle Length: 7”
Point of Balance: 4.5”
Weight: 3lbs 2oz

Considering this is my first sword, I am pretty happy. The only thing I was a little disappointed with was the scabbard. The sword doesn’t fit very well in the scabbard and rattles around a lot. The sword also falls out of the scabbard very easily since it doesn’t fit the sword. I probably won’t be running through a battlefield wearing my sword, but you always want the things you buy to be of a certain quality. I must admit though, I was walking around my apartment today wearing my sword.

It would be awesome to go chop up some bottles or chicken carcasses, but I am too afraid that I would mess up my sword or cut through my leg or something. Actually, I think I’m more worried about messing up my sword than hurting myself, hah.

This is actually perfect timing because I am in the process of painting a magazine cover of a knight wielding a sword. I shot some reference earlier today with my sword, so I hope to put it to good use later on today when I work on my painting. I think the next sword I want to buy is a katana, or maybe a two-handed sword, I dunno. Actually, I think I might want to buy a helmet next instead of another sword. Maybe one day I will have a full suit of armor, hah!

About 2 years ago my wrists and arm started really bothering me at work. Me being me, I just shrugged it off and worked anyway. People kept telling me to go to the doctor, but I did the typical guy thing and said nah. I figured the only thing they would do is tell me that I have to cut back on my hours…which I can’t do because I have bills to pay. Now if someone wants to give me a huge raise to work less hours, I am all for it. Other people live in the real world and have to work their ass off in order to make a living. Sooooo, yeah, I just kept working through the pain. As the years passed, my art improved and I started getting more and more work…which didn’t help my situation at all. Then I started getting really crazy deadlines, which again didn’t help. I finally got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore, so I made an appointment with a neurologist. For some reason my neurologist was backed up with appointments for another 2 months, so I had to wait. I finally go to the appointment and she says that I probably have carpal tunnel in both wrists and cubital tunnel in my left arm. She then schedules me for an EMG test the following day. I don’t know if you have ever had an EMG test, but they suck. You know when you shock someone after rubbing your feet on the carpet? Now imagine that feeling multiplied by 100 that lasts for almost 40 minutes straight. Oh, and the shocks are on your nerves, which causes your arm to jump and spasm every single time you are shocked. Now that is the easy part. After that they stick needles into your arms and hands, and I don’t mean they just put it in and take it out. They put it in, leave it there, and then continue to move and shove the needle around inside your muscles. The ones they put in the palm of our hands are just lovely. Oh, and they also put a needle into my neck and moved it around…that one was fun too. This goes on for probably 20 minutes…and they had to do this on both my arms. They will also ask you to flex your muscles while the needle is still inside. After the EMG test my hands and arms spasmed constantly for several hours straight. It also felt like I just worked out for 5 hours straight. Needless to say, I wasn’t able to work for the rest of the day. Oh, I also might have Fibromyalgia, so that might have exacerbated my pain. I also have never experienced any painful procedures or events in my life before (never had my face punched in, never broken a bone, never had cavities, never had major surgery, etc.), so this was the most pain I have ever felt in my life.

So what am I doing about it now? Well, I’ve been wearing these wrist braces on both wrists while I work…which can be extremely frustrating. The braces have palmar stays, which means I can’t bend my wrist. It also means they are pretty bulky and it is tough holding the stylus and pressing keys on my nostromo. My work speed has decreased significantly since I started wearing them. I am also supposed to avoid bending my arms while I sleep, easier said than done. I have had many people tell me to stop bending my arms while I sleep…but I can’t exactly remember to do that when I am asleep now can I? I tried putting pillows on both of my sides to try and prevent me from rolling on to my side –> fail. I wrapped bath towels around both of my arms to prevent me from bending them (I looked like Megatron) –> fail. I wore my wrist braces while sleeping –> fail.

I also started using one of those stress balls to try and increase my grip/wrist strength. I keep one with me at work and one at home. Squish squish. My good friend Tom Scholes also told me about a nifty little program called Workrave. Workrave is a free program for PCs that reminds you to take breaks. You can set the timer and specify how long the breaks are. I have mine set to remind me to take 30 second breaks every 15 minutes and 3 minute breaks every hour. Workrave also shows you some stretches you can do while you are taking your break.  Now I need to find a good one for my Mac. There is one called Workpace, but it is $70.

Ahhh, medication time. After my diagnosis, my neurologist put me on Cymbalta to treat my nerve pain (even though Cymbalta is used to treat depression). Let me tell you, Cymbalta sucks, or at least it did for me. Let me preface this rant by saying that I was only on Cymbalta for a week and a half, which means I probably wasn’t on it long enough to receive any of the benefits because it didn’t help my nerve pain at all. Instead I was beat down by numerous side effects.

Side effect number 1 - Nausea. Nausea is supposed to be the most common side effect of Cymbalta, weighing in at 30%. From the time I woke up in the morning until the time I went to bed at night I felt like tossing my cookies. You don’t realize how debilitating nausea can be until you experience it for 12 hours straight, 7 days a week. Sitting down seemed to help some. I also tried taking the medication at night so that most of my symptoms would occur while I was asleep, nope…didn’t help.

Side effect number 2 – Drowsiness. Drowsiness is the second most common side effect at 21%. When I say drowsiness I don’t mean I felt a little sleepy, I mean by 3-4pm I was falling asleep and by 7-8pm I was completely passed out (many times I passed out on the floor). I was so out of it that I would wake up and not know where I was or how I got there, which I don’t remember happening. Imagine getting home from work at 6pm and by 7pm you were out for the rest of the night. I wasn’t able to work on any of my freelance work…unacceptable in my book. Oh, did I mention that most of the side effects of Cymbalta have opposite reactions? You could experience weight loss or weight gain, constipation or diarrhea, chills or sweating, extreme elation or thoughts of suicide, drowsiness or insomnia. Why oh why couldn’t I have had insomnia instead of drowsiness? Curse you Cymbalta!

Side effect number 3 – Dizziness. Yup, I had trouble walking from time to time.

Side effect number 4 – Yawning. Considering I was sleepy all day long, yes I yawned…a lot.

Side effect number 5 – Headaches. Yup, I had headaches. I seem to experience headaches a lot anyway, so I dunno if it was from the medicine or from something else.

Side effect number 6 – Sweating. I would start sweating even when it was cold or when I wasn’t even moving around.

Side effect number 7 – Weakness/fatigue. I felt like a walking zombie all day long but without the insatiable need to eat brains.

Add all of these side effects together and you get crap. I could’t wait around to see if my body would adjust to the side effects, it was completely destroying my ability to work. I contacted my neurologist to see if there was something else I could take ,like Gabapentin, or if there was something that I could take for the side effects, like Provigil. She said that Gabapentin is very good, but it will also make me sleepy. She also said putting me on Provigil was a bad idea, but didn’t explain why. Instead she suggested a new medication called Savella. Savella is used to treat Fibromyalgia and guess what, it has almost identical side effects as Cymbalta with the exception of drowsiness. I started out with a very low dose, 12.5mg. I am now up to 25mg. So far I haven’t noticed any adverse side effects, but I also haven’t noticed any improvement in my nerve pain.

If you have a full-time job and you develop carpal tunnel while on the job, be sure to file for workers comp. I filed for it a few weeks ago and they sent out an ergonomics expert to evaluate my workspace. Since many of you are freelancers and might not have the luxury of having an ergonomics expert pay you a personal visit, I figured I would share his input. He started out by taking my history and then measured various aspects of my workspace (chair height, monitor height, table height, etc.). The first change he made was on my chair. He moved the seat of my chair forward so that there were only 2 finger widths, instead of 4, between the back of my knees and the front of the seat. This change was to add more support and decrease the amount of pressure being put on the back of my legs. To the left you can see the awesome drawing I did of my workspace and the changes he made. My many years of art school training allowed me to create that awesome drawing. The first drawing is of my original workspace. I have one of those angled desks where my computer is in the little nook. Directly in front of me is my tablet with the keyboard in front of that. The mouse is next to the keyboard on the right and my Nostromo is to the left of the keyboard. In front of those are my three monitors. The arrows depict the angle of my arms when I am working. Since my tablet is in front of me, my arm is bent at an angle (maybe around 45 degrees). My Nostromo is pushed back pretty far, so in order to use it I have to extend my arm quite a bit. I also have to extend both my arms in order to type. These are all big no-nos. Extending my arms like that for significant periods of time puts stress on my ulnar and median nerve. In order to alleviate the stress, the PT pulled the Nostromo a lot closer to my body so that my arm is bent instead of extended. He also raised the arm of my chair so that my elbow rests comfortably while using the Nostromo (before my elbow wasn’t resting on anything). He then moved my tablet to the right so that my arm was resting straight out instead of at an angle. I then moved my monitors to their maximum height so that I wouldn’t have to look down (to avoid stress on my neck). Next he took a look at my stylus and suggested I use one of those squishy pencil grip things that were popular back in middle school. I think that is the technical term for it, squishy grip thing. Although I am not sure how that will work since I won’t be able to use the trigger on the stylus. He also suggested that I drink a lot of water during the day and he stressed that exercise is very important, cardio in particular. I know I know, I never exercise anymore, but the last thing I want to do after working 80-100 hours in a week is workout. I dunno, maybe I will start skating again.

Anyway, I hope this wall of text helped inform some of you of the severity of carptal/cubital tunnel. I know when I was younger I didn’t really care about it because I had that teenager mentality that nothing bad could happen to me. All you have to do is take breaks every so often and stretch/exercise. It may seem like a lot for your busy schedule, but it is worth it. You definitely do not want to end up in my position. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know. Thanks!

I woke up this morning and realized that I had a package waiting for me in the front office. It actually arrived the other day but the office was closed due to the holiday, curse you holiday! I threw on my clothes and braved the blistering cold wind, and let me tell you, it was worth it. I now have in my possession 6 boxes of Morning Thunder, the bane of fatigue. Here it is in all of its cardboard boxness glory, quite exciting I know.

Why 6 boxes of Morning Thunder you ask? Wegmans has been sold out of this tea for about two months now. I actually had to resort to drinking wheatgrass! Wheatgrass! Yes wheatgrass is healthy, but the taste is a little lacking…unless you like drinking freshly mowed lawn. I am still not convinced of the energy inducing powers that wheatgrass is supposed to have, although I was able to work until 6:00am yesterday after drinking a shot of wheatgrass. I am not sure if that was due to the wheatgrass or my stubbornness to finish my video tutorial…I chalk it up to stubbornness.

The reason I started drinking Morning Thunder in the first place was because I was addicted to energy drinks. I used to drink 1-2 energy drinks per day. I’ve heard of people drinking 8+ in one day, but that is just crazy. Drinking energy drinks made me extremely tired when I wasn’t drinking them, cue zombie mode. Usually the next day I would completely crash, so to remedy that I would drink more energy drinks, thus feeding the vicious cycle. I actually got to the point where I would fall asleep while drinking an energy drink. Call me crazy, but that didn’t seem good. After a few posts on Facebook, Tyler Walpole, a fellow illustrator, told me to use Morning Thunder as a replacement for energy drinks. Morning Thunder is a zero calorie black tea that contains caffeine. How much caffeine does it have? It has less caffeine than Cola. I can drink one cup of Morning Thunder in the morning (:O) and feel awake and refreshed for the entire day. Thank you Morning Thunder, you have saved my life.

If you are looking for my old blog, you can find it here.