Python Cassandra cql: INSERT timestamp and blob

General information for the business: SaaS
Description of requirements/functionality: I am writing some python code that will collect data over time. I need to store this in Cassandra.

CREATE TABLE timearchive (name_yymmddhh text, name text, ip text, time_current timestamp, data blob, PRIMARY KEY (name_yymmddhh, time_current));

I can create the table, but I am having trouble inserting various data (time_current timestamp, data blob). I cannot format it correctly. I plan to have rows broken by hour (data size should be fine in my use case) and columns with each data entry (2-3/min).

Here is my code to insert. It works if I change the format of timestamp/blob to int/text.

query = """INSERT INTO """ + osarchivebulk + """
(name_yymmddhh, name, ip, time_current, data)
VALUES (:name_yymmddhh, :name, :ip, :time_current, :data)"""
values = {'name_yymmddhh':rowkey,
'name': dcname,
'ip': ip,
'time_current': timenow,
'data': my_blob}
cursor.execute(query, values)

Questions: Code example for each

1) How do I make a cql timestamp in python:
timenow = ???

2) My data is a dict. It will be a large dict of dicts and other data.
How do I put:
my_dict = {'one': 1, 'two': 2, 'three': 3}
...
my_blob = ???
OS requirements: Linux
Extra notes: