I can't save a picture to a file and upload it. When I try to retrieve the saved pic, it won't read? This is so hard to troubleshoot because I can't test in the simulator…This is driving me bonkers!

Order of Events:

1) camera opens

2) take a pic and edit

3) store to temporary/local file

4) close camera and goes back to where user is inputting info

all this works fine

5) user clicks a button

6) app grabs variables and image (blob) to send via xhr

stuck here

7) sends xhr

Using the following code

        Titanium.Media.showCamera({
            success:function(event)
            {
                var cropRect = event.cropRect;
                var image = event.media;

var f = Titanium.Filesystem.getFile(Titanium.Filesystem.tempDirectory,'upload_photo.png');
                f.write(image);

                tableView.updateRow(4,{title: 'Snapped!', hasCheck:true});
                hasPic = true;
            },
            cancel:function()
            {

            },
            error:function(error)
            {
                // create alert
                var a = Titanium.UI.createAlertDialog({title:'Camera'});

                // set message
                if (error.code == Titanium.Media.NO_CAMERA)
                {
                    a.setMessage('Device does not have video recording capabilities');
                }
                else
                {
                    a.setMessage('Unexpected error: ' + error.code);
                }

                // show alert
                a.show();
            },
            allowImageEditing:true,
            saveToPhotoGallery:false
        });

here's part of the xhr (it gets sent to server fine, picture is not included – it's like it can't read the file)

var fimg = Titanium.Filesystem.getFile(Titanium.Filesystem.tempDirectory, 'upload_photo.png');
var blob = fimg.read();
Ti.API.info(blob);
xhr.send({uid:user,gid:group,media:blob,cname:nameValue,cemail:emailValue,cphone:phoneValue,cnote:noteValue,cgeo:geoArray});

I've tried setting var image at the top of the js (trying to make it more global) and using image = event.image in the camera script and again in the xhr. No dice.

Please help