Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Life'll kill ya

Let's see, where were we last time I wrote to the internet? Oh yes, I'd hurt my knee. Blah blah, still riding, brakes are out on the car, daughter made me a lovely card. OK, so we're caught up on that.

The new update is it's now two weeks later, and I've been to the doctor because the knee wasn't getting better. He diagnosed me with bursitis. Which I've always thought of as something that happens to old people, like lumbago. And bunions. But, since I'm not old this clearly isn't the case. I've been taking it easy, driving to the bus station like an ordinary joe and popping Aleve. It's getting better, but the doc said it will probably take a good month to be back to normal. Great. My 5k event is this Friday, and since my knee still gets sore walking from my cube to the bathroom there's still no way I'm participating.

But my woes all pale compared to the daughter. Yesterday I get a call from my wife saying Morgan slammed her finger in the car door and they're heading to the ER. I met them there in time to see the x-rays get taken and find out that she broke her pinkey finger. Plus, while she was panicked and trying to pull her finger out of the car door (yes, it was stuck) she managed to cut herself deep enough to require two stitches. So we've got her on antibiotics and codine and her hand is splinted up to her elbow. Pretty awful experience all around. The only bright point was going to dinner with my folks (who were at the hospital as well) after it was all over and having two huge slices of pizza at Cossettas.

And to top it off, I'm listening to iTunes on shuffle and I have a duet of Julio Iglesias and Ricky Martin singing a medley of "Light My Fire" by The Doors and "Oye Como Va" by Santana. God help me, but I have no idea how that got there.

Not to end things on a down note (or a completely bizarre note, as in the Julio/Ricky thing), I did manage to get the brakes fixed on the car this past weekend. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Exciting week

So, internets, I believe I haven't been keeping you up to date with my general goings on. Mostly because my general goings ons are mostly the same day in and day out, and you've read about them before. But I did have a couple of newsworthy items of late.

1. I signed up to do a 5k. Yes, I know that's a run, not a bike ride. But, what the heck. My wife is a runner, and as she points out she rides her bike with me. Not often, but certainly more often than I run with her. And it's probably good cross training. After running for about a week I could feel a difference in my inner thigh muscles. It makes me wonder if too much cycle training has left those muscles weak and prone to injury, as I did last spring.

The down side to running is, well, I injured myself. The training was going well, I got a new pair of shoes, and I was starting to find my stride. But on Sunday after about 1/2 a mile my knee started to hurt. And it hurt more with every step. I stopped running and walked back home. The knee felt better on Monday, but hasn't improved since. I'm starting to wonder exactly what I've done to it. Fortunately it feels fine when I bike (which is fortunate, see below). But since I procrastinated starting my running regimen, I don't have the slack in my schedule to be able to take time off and still get up to a full 5k by April 17.

Tonight I went out to see how things would go if I tried running. I walked for about 1/3 of a mile and the knee felt OK. No worse than it has been for the last few days. I started running and quit after about 30 seconds and then limped my way back home. I have a feeling this 5k will be a complete FAIL.

2. Because of the previously mentioned injury, I drove to work Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday night on the way home, my brakes decided to stop functioning. I realized this when the light turned yellow and I was approaching it on a downhill while going approximately 50mph. As the light turned red and I wasn't slowing, I cranked the wheel over hard right (screeeeech!) and careened onto a lesser travelled and more level road. The combination of the turn and the flattening allowed me to coast to a stop on the shoulder while I tried not to have a complete panic attack. I managed to get turned around and make it the remaining 1/2 mile home (fortunately I live on a hill and I could approach from downhill). I eased the car into the garage and haven't touched it since.

3. The best of all is that tonight, I was making dinner and tidying up the house and my daughter, Morgan, came up and gave me a hand made card that said I was the best dad ever. And she even put a funny joke inside. She wrote "You're like a father to me. Ha ha." Which, for a fourth grader, is hilarious. Often fourth grader jokes are, um, not. Totally out of the blue, and totally made my day.

Happy April to you

This was my favorite thing I read all day yesterday:
 
Scientists worldwide admit global warming is a hoax
 
The Associated Press quotes an anonymous marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who says she knew all along that "this climate change stuff was completely bogus."

"But I played along," she said. "The opportunities for securing global-warming-related grant money were just too great for me to resist."

"Sweet, sweet grant money," she added.

 

Read the entire article about Mr. Gore's fraud.  Living as close to Canada as I do, I'll be watching for a massive infestation of polar bears.