Found on lawn

Found on lawn
Originally uploaded by Nollij.

I went outside to take a call & found this empty wasp nest on a magnolia leaf lying on the lawn: NEAT!

Big Brother Selle

I haven't written on my blog in.. well, well over a year now. So, to kick things off again, I'm posting a video I shot recently of my older brother Selle skateboarding down Shoreline Highway. Selle had been visiting from Sweden and he brought his new handmade (by him)downhill board. He rode Shoreline a few days before this video and the conditions were much better: no eucalyptus nuts & bark all over the road, no wet spots. He made the most of it though and had a blast doing it. For the record, I'm driving and my brother Kevin is holding the camera. Enjoy!

Mist and Nuts at Shoreline from Ray Bogh on Vimeo.

Idaho Stop in California?

It's been a long time since I've posted. I've been busy with school and life and it makes for somewhat infrequent blogging. I've been asking myself WHY I'm still doing this. While I doubt Sammy Hagar was talking about blogging when he said "to me it's all just mental masturbation", the boot fits. Is blogging intrinsically a narcissistic form of self gratification? It could be argued successfully that indeed it is, and do I really want that mantle? Cheese & Rice, I've been spending too much in self-analysis. Never-mind, here's a little piece on the Idaho Stop, which just got shot down in the Oregon Legislature. Idaho has had the law since 1982 and it works for them, so why not for California?


Bicycles, Rolling Stops, and the Idaho Stop from Spencer Boomhower on Vimeo.

Passionate about Bikes

It's been a while since I posted... been busing living my life. I read something today though that I just had to share. A friend of my mom's sent me a link to this comment because he knows I'm a nut about bicycles. He was dead on: I love it.

Give IT a read. I hope y'all enjoyed your Sunday! For the record, no, I did not watch the superbowl, I was hanging with my 4 year old and he could care less about football. Neither could I. My idea of a good sport to watch on TV is cycling, but I think that's a given.

My secret endurance bicycle racing obsession

Last week, Jill Homer's blog linked to this little article posted in the New York Times, and it got me pondering my secret obsession with endurance bicycle racing. I suppose now I've posted it on the interwebs, it's not so secret...(insert forehead slapping sound). It started shortly after I got back into bicycling, specifically, transportation cycling. Funny that I would latch onto racing when what I was engaging in was about as similar to endurance racing as apples are to oranges: they're both fruits but they taste and look nothing alike. Despite this, I was hooked after I read Kent Peterson's account of the grueling Great Divide Race. I've been following the Iditarod Trail Invitational, the Arrowhead 135 and the Great Divide Race ever since. When those races are on, I'm checking the leader boards and trail updates several times a day, and I often find myself drifting off thinking about who is where, what they're seeing and experiencing and what it would be like to do it myself. These are self supported races: there's no "support team". There's no sport network covering these races, there's no multi-million dollar endorsements, no professional video crews, no screaming fans, no prize money, just dedicated people pitting themselves against the trail and nature with their wits and their velocipedes to get them across the finish line. It's compelling and inspiring and I encourage all my readership to check it out. Many of the riders write about their accounts, my favorites of course being the aforementioned Kent Peterson and the lovely and talented Jill Homer. I just purchased a copy of Jill's new book and I look forward to reading it. I'll post my review here.

"Dry land is not a myth"

Yes, you can laugh (if you even got the joke) about the title of this blog entry, but all the global warming naysayers can eat a big fat slice of humble pie . Why? Keep reading:

The year 2008 was the ninth warmest year since instrumental temperature measurements began in 1880, NASA reported on Tuesday. (KRWB)

So, are all those scientists and engineers working at NASA wrong? Maybe you think the politicians know better than the scientists... Yeah, I thought not.

--Sent from my cell phone--

MS OBS

My friend Tara just started her blog and she's off to an AMAZING start: her first two articles deserve a much wider audience so I'm hoping to give her a little boost.

Today's article is entitled Microsoft OBS, read it and have a good laugh: I did! Someday I hope I write as well as Tara does.

High Transparency

While looking through my Twitter feed yesterday, I noticed an article posted by the Marin IJ about food safety. It's something I've talked about before HERE and HERE. According to the IJ, most of the counties surrounding mine have their food safety inspections posted on-line, but not Marin... not until now.

You can click HERE and be taken to the search site. If you want to do a general search (for instance, in just one town), you can fill in that field and click the search button. Interesting info: I looked up one of my favorite restaurants (Boca Steak in Novato) and was surprised to see it's had some minor critical violations. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised because I've had several friends who've worked in the restaurant business and I know all about things like the 5 second rule...

Plastic Free Bread: can it be?

I've been in search of plastic free bread, and I've found one that I really like. They are called Della Fattoria, based out of Petaluma, CA. That's +1 for Della since that places it within a 15 mile range of my home: definitely local! The closest place I can buy it is at Whole Paycheck... I mean, Whole Foods, San Rafael. That's a lengthy 9.1 miles from my house. Hopefully when Whole Foods opens up in Novato they'll carry Della Fattoria because they are less than 4 miles from my house by bicycle, slightly more by car.

Okay, enough about distances & transportation, let's talk about Bread. I tried out a loaf of the LEVAIN. Listed ingredients on the brown paper wrapper are organic wheat flour, water, organic rye, sea salt. Pretty simple really, but as always, the devil is in the details. Case in point: when I looked on the Della Fattoria website, I noticed a discrepancy between the packaging and the website for the listed ingredients on the Levain. I short phone call later and I was speaking with Kathleen. Looks like I managed to find a typo in the packaging! For the complete list of ingredients, see the website. I was looking for something wheaty, soft and tasty so that my son would like it. When I picked it up off the shelf at approximately 6:15pm, it was still soft and smelled good: a good sign! Next to it were several other brands of Artisan Bread, all wrapped in either plastic or paper WITH plastic. Jeebus... why does almost everyone do that? There are some other great bakeries in the Bay Area and almost every single one uses plastic in their packaging, which generally precludes me from buying it despite the good flavors, smells and tastes!

I brought the bread home along with my bulk legumes and grains (unfortunately, I had no cloth sacks for these items so I had to *sigh* use plastic bags.) I spent about 15 minutes attempting to chase down cloth sacks for holding grains/legumes but Whole Foods is not carrying them right now. HERE'S A TIP WHOLE FOODS: PUT THEM NEXT TO THE THINGS THEY SHOULD BE USED FOR SO THAT PEOPLE KNOW THAT THEY HAVE AN OPTION, THEN YOU WON'T HAVE SUCH A HARD TIME MOVING THE PRODUCT! DUH!

So I got the groceries home and put away (which included taking the bread and putting it in a reused plastic bread bag to keep it from drying out), finished making red beans and rice and decided to have a bowl along with a slice of bread with butter. YUM! *special note: when I talked with Kathleen, I found out that Della Fattoria bread should NOT be stored in a plastic bag: they use a wet dough and bake in wood fired ovens and it means that plastic will make the bread go soggy: follow the directions on their website!*

Now, I understand some people don't like Rye or Pumpernickel, and I can respect that, but this is good bread. It's a slightly different taste when you put the different flours together with the wheat, but I dig it: it's very hearty. I had considered the Rosemary & Meyer Lemon bread (it smelled delicious), but I was trying for neutral ground with the boy & I wasn't sure how he'd react. I'll try that next time and let y'all know how it goes. In the meantime, keep your eyes open for plastic free bread in YOUR area. If you live in Marin, check out the store finder at Della Fattoria.

______UPDATE______
Some corrections from Kathleen:

date Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 4:37 PM
subject RE: Levain Review on my blog

Hi Ian! Well, not a typo really, just sort of a technical thing related to the way the state want(sic) ingredients listed. Pumpernickel is a coarse rye, like a whole grain rye, but the wording should correctly be rye. For your readers who would like to understand better, this bread is about 60% whole grain 10%rye 40% whole wheat, and 40% white flour. I find kids usually like this bread a lot. It makes great toast and the world’s best peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The “who carries our bread list” is unfortunately outdated. We stopped serving most of Marin and San Francisco with the exception of Whole Foods San Rafael.

Thank you for taking the time to write about us, word of mouth is the best!

Kathleen

Do the children in Guiyu cry dioxin tears?

Just in case you haven't seen this elsewhere (or on TV), check out the 60 Minutes episode about E-waste in Guiyu... and then consider where your e-waste is going to go when you decide to "upgrade". Maybe that phone/tv/computer/gadget can last a little longer? Maybe you could try to *gasp*, FIX it? Now try and find someone to repair it... that's the first hurdle and trust me, it's a HUGE one! Probably the "greenest" job you could make for yourself would be repairing things that would otherwise end up in the trash.



Which reminds me, The Green Festival is coming to San Francisco this Fri, Sat and Sun and I plan to attend. I'll let you know how it goes and what I find out. I PRAY I don't see any single use water bottles there for sale.

Holy Brawling Monks Batman!

One of my contacts on Twitter who bought a Flash Flag from me a while back posted this news item to his Twitter feed today and I just had to share:

Monks Brawl at Holy Christian Site in Jerusalem

Thanks Robert for the "Pythonesque" link... you gave me the big LOL for the day!

A little Python reference for those of you who don't get it... mix this:


with this:


and you get the monk brawl.

5 Second Plastebrity

Hey howdy hey! Thanks to Beth, I'm a 5 Second Plastebrity (or Plastic Celebrity... now that I type it, it doesn't sound so appealing... DOH!).

HERE's the article on FakePlasticFish.com.

It started when I read that Dr. Markus Eriksen & Anna Cummins were making a stop at the Marin Humane Society to speak on behalf of the Algalita Research Foundation for the "Message in a Bottle" tour. I thought "that doesn't ANY more convenient for me!" and planned to attend. It was a great presentation and I managed to record the audio, though not the video. I've yet to find a way to host it properly: most of the audio hosting services require folks to register and give away their info in order to use the service, and many folks aren't into that. I don't have the online storage to host the audio files myself: anyone know of a solution?

At the end of the presentation I spoke with Anna about the upcoming leg of the tour, which will involve riding bicycles from Seattle down to San Diego, bringing the Message in a Bottle tour to schools, community centers and other public forums to raise awareness. "RIGHT UP MY ALLEY!" was my thought, and I hope to do at least part of the ride with them, hopefully lightening their load and helping to haul along "Plastic Soup" samples and other presentation media. Now I've just got to get all healed up and my leg/foot rehabbed so I can make the ride!

On a personal note, I brought my stainless steel Klean Kanteen with me and I noted that there was NO one there with a single use plastic bottle: YEAH!

I also wore my Trogdor shirt (thanks to my friend Chris Gleason) which Beth immediately spotted and that made my whole evening because people so rarely know who Trogdor is: Trogdor the Burninator hates plastic waste!

Mental Splatter

So I'm actually editing a post I wrote several weeks ago. I had been writing about Obama v. McCain but it seems silly to publish it now, especially since it's FINALLY over! Instead I'll share my self scored "Voter Report Card" in the hopes that it will encourage others to post their own "score cards".

Offices:
President: Obama/Biden [ WIN, 59% In California, 53% Nationwide)
U.S Rep: Lynn Woolsey [ WIN, 72%]
State Senator 3rd District: Mark Leno (only choice for democrat) [ WIN, 80%!!!]
State Assembly: Jared Huffman (Democrat) [ WIN, 70%]

Measures:
Prop 1A: Safe Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act: YES [ YES, 52/48%]

Prop 2: Standards for Confining Farm Animals. Initiative Statute: YES [ YES, 63/47%]

Prop 3: Children's Hospital Bond Act. Grant Program. Initiative Statue: YES [ YES, 55/45%]

Prop 4: Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor's Pregnancy. Initiative Constitutional Amendment: NO [ NO, 52/48%]

Prop 5: Nonviolent drug offenses. Sentencing, Parole and Rehabilitation. Initiative Statute: YES [ NO, 60/40%]

Prop 6: Police and Law Enforcement Funding. Criminal Penalties and Laws. Initiative Statute: NO [ NO, 69/31%]

Prop 7: Renewable Energy Generation. Initiative Statute: YES (but I meant to vote NO) [ NO, 65/35%]

Prop 8: Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry. Initiative Constitutional Amendment: NO [ YES, 52/48%]

Prop 9: Criminal Justice System. Victims Rights. Parole. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute: NO [ YES, 53/47%]

Prop 10: Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy. Bonds. Initiative Statute: NO [ NO, 60/40%]

Prop 11: Redistricting. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute. YES [ YES, 51/49%]

Prop 12: Veterans' Bond Act of 2008. YES [ YES, 63/37%]

County:
County of Marin Measure B: NO [ YES, 59%]

Distric:t
Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District Measure Q: YES [ YES, 63%]

13/18 = 72% OF THE THINGS I VOTED ON WENT THE WAY I WANTED THEM TO

Note that the text in italics is how I voted, italics inside the brackets was how the vote actually went and the percentage it won by.


Here's an inspirational music video I had to share: there's quite a few images of the plastic pollution in our oceans, a problem that HAS to be addressed in a comprehensive and thorough manner, but it's going to mean that single use plastics will have to go the way of the dinosaur, the dodo and pretty soon, the polar bear.


Alright, one last piece of politically unrelated news:
Are you a sailor? Kite surfer? Even if you're not, check out THIS post from mygreenhome.com and see how the U.S Navy is using a partially kite-powered cargo ship to reduce fuel... pretty damn cool!

LED Bulb Update

I thought I should post this, as it's good info to spread around.

A while back I posted about the problem with CF Bulbs (Compact Fluorescent). To recap, they contain mercury (Hg on the periodic table) which is toxic. To read the entry, click HERE.

In an attempt to reduce my electrical needs, I've started slowly buying LED Bulbs to replace my incandescents and CF bulbs. They are quite expensive still so I'm not rushing out to do it all at once. Someone in a forum (don't ask me where, I can't remember now) mentioned that running LED's on standard dimmer circuits can significantly shorten their life. They didn't back this up with any info, so I FINALLY decided to contact the people who make the bulbs I own, C. Crane Company in Fortuna, C.A.

Here's the skinny, according to them:

Dear Ian,

Thank you for taking the time to contact our company. Yes, dimmer switches will destroy an LED bulb prematurely. Currently dimmer switches are designed and built with incandescent bulbs in mind. These products are not good for low wattage bulbs such as LED bulbs and fluorescent bulbs. Hopefully dimmer switch manufactures will start producing a new line of dimmer switches with these low wattage bulbs in mind.

If you have additional questions or we can be of further assistance please email or call our toll free number.

John Wilder
Customer Support Supervisor
C. Crane Company, Inc.

800-522-8863
Hours of Operations
Mon - Fri 6:30am - 5:30pm (PST)
Saturday 7:00am - 5:00pm (PST)
Sunday and Major Holidays (Closed)

Sign Up For New Products and Special Offer Notifications: http://www.ccrane.com/subscribe


----- Original Message -----


Customer Name: Ian Hopper
Subject: Product Question

Comments:
I purchased a couple of your Par 30 LED Bulbs from the Green Fusion center in San Anselmo C.A a few months ago. Recently I heard that running these bulbs on a dimmer circuit was bad for them and that they needed a dimmer circuit built for LED's. I was wondering if you had any further information: I don't want to prematurely burn out my bulbs!
Thank you!

So there's your answer: don't run your LED Bulbs on dimmer circuits! Now I need to get busy replacing the dimmer circuit in my son's room so I don't burn out the new bulbs. You've been warned!

My 5 minutes of fame

My xtracycle got featured as #95 at the Xtracycle Gallery: whee! I haven't posted in over a month even though I have 3 posts in draft... DOH! Hope y'all can forgive me...

New Houbliette Fodder

Thanks to Russ Roca (the Eco Friendly Bicycling Photographer) for the newest resident in the Houbliette. Some of you may have never scrolled to the bottom of my webpage, but at the bottom is the Houbliette (or The Hopper Oubliette). The Houbliette is a place for corporate assholes who abuse all that is good and right in the world and deserve to be shoved down a deep dark hole and forgotten about forever.

So, without further ado, I submit to you THIS video. If you don't "get it", try reading back a little in my blog and see if you can figure out why I put AutoZone on permanent time out.

Waste or wasted?

This was eerily appropriate considering I'm having to use pain killers right now for my leg & shoulder damage. If I have left over painkillers I will be taking them back to the pharmacy for them to be properly disposed of!

V.ENVIRO The most tightly controlled drugs like painkilling narcotics are the ones that often elude environmental regulation when they become waste. (AP)

--Sent from my cell phone--

Just call me "Crash"

I'm thinking of changing my name to "Crash".

On August 29th (yes, I know that's 15 days ago) I talked to my brother in Sweden via Skype (god I love those free video calls!) for well over an hour. We talked about family stuff and skating. Mostly skating. He's been riding skateboards since he was about 6, and he's 46 now: you do the math. He's also been racing in slalom and Giant Slalom for many years and he's quite good. When he was here in July of 2007 with his family, he brought me a deck of his own design AND manufacture and I was so touched. It's a beautiful lightweight slalom race board, and I built it up with his coaching and advice. It's a blast to ride and very lightweight. It is also rather fragile, as it's made from foam and carbon fiber!

I started riding it around on my little cul-de-sac and enjoying it more and more. I started thinking about the giant steep hill I lived on and riding down it, but the concept was way too daunting at that point.

In January of 2008 I went to London with my mom to visit family there and attend a christening. I figured since I was already half way across the world, I might as well take the opportunity to go visit my brother in Stockholm. It was a short trip, but a total blast and we went skating with some of Sweden's premier skaters. It was just a routine practice day for them, but it was the first time I'd skated with anyone good and I was blown away by the talent there. I managed to pull a calf muscle, but not too badly and I was able to continue skating, using my other leg to push (I'm goofy footed and push mongo, and I had to learn to push regular that day: good practice!). We went to a skate shop the next day because I had started getting a speed bug, and my little slalom board was not really appropriate for bigger hills and the kind of cruising I was thinking about. Let me start by saying that the guys at the Kahalani skate shop are the most professional, knowledgeable and sincere skaters I've ever met. They make some of the worlds most sought-after trucks, seen HERE. They are ridden by many of the worlds top downhill riders, and some mere mortals as well (my brother Selle just joined the ranks of the elite with some Kahalani's on his new board). Back to the story: Dan (or maybe it was Mike) helped me pick out a beautiful board by Fibretech along with some Holey trucks and Retrotech Big Zigg wheels (the Lime 78a, 75mm ones), Khiro angled risers and and a couple different Khiro bushings for different conditions. I couldn't wait to ride it, but I didn't want to dirty everything up and then have to pack it into my bag with my clothes, AND I wasn't going to have time to ride it when I got back to London, so I left the board unbuilt.

Getting the board home was a bit of fiasco with the airlines, but we got it sorted out eventually. (Airlines do not seem to like anything that's unusual in the luggage dept. so I had to do a fair amount of jedi mind tricking).

When I put the board together and rode it, I realized I finally had a board that would go as fast as I wanted to and was durable enough to survive my totally greenhorn downhill status *cue ominous music*.

I've been riding the shorter, lower-pitch grade at the top of the big hill and getting comfortable with the speed and feeling a lot more confident on my longboard. On the 29th, I talked to my brother (yeah, I mentioned that in the 2nd paragraph.) I got all amped up on riding and going fast hearing about what he's been up to lately (he and I are inspiring each other to try some new things). He's been practicing his downhill and he's getting better as well, though he's crashed a bit too. What i keep forgetting is his 40 years of experience. Yeah, that's 40 years of experience, which is about 38 more years than I have. You can see where this is going right?

So that night (the 29th) after we'd put the munchkin to bed, I strapped on my pads (knee, elbow), my helmet and my new Loaded Slide Gloves. I told the wife I was going to go out for a little skate seshion. She didn't think much of it and wished me well.

Out in the street, I thought I'd try working on the lower section of my hill, as my goal is to eventually ride the whole thing top to bottom. After a short run at the top (just to test turning and my own comfort) I realized I was in over my head and I needed to start WAY lower on the hill. So I walked down to the park and started from the top. What I SHOULD have done was to start at the bottom and work my way SLOWLY upward, but sometimes my brain writes checks my body can't cash (to misquote James Tolkan "Stinger" from Top Gun). I got to the bottom of the park and realized I need to blow off some speed. My MISTAKE was not using the slide gloves at this point to assist me in performing a powerslide. Instead, I tried to take a toe side turn onto a side street that goes back uphill. My line was all wrong and I cut in towards the turn way too early. Near the northeast corner of Pacific and Highland I got a speed wobble, which I managed to correct, but I panicked and target fixated... and those of you who known what target fixation means can probably guess what happened next. CRASH. I hit the curb/drain near the southeast corner of Pacific & Highland and flew on to the lawn across the sidewalk. As I lay there with my left arm lying agonizingly underneath me and my ankles/feet screaming out in pain, I thought to myself "Fuck, that was NOT supposed to happen, what have I done?". I managed to sit up with no help from my left arm (something was VERY wrong with it) and I nearly passed out when I jarred my left shoulder and left foot. It was no easy feat getting my slide gloves off (the palm pucks had diverted the abrasion damage, and the wrist support saved my wrists) with one hand, but using my teeth, I managed it. After that the helmet, and then I managed to get my backpack off. I retrieved my cell phone (glad I put it in an armored case!) and called my wife.

Now, getting a call that your husband has just chowdered himself on a downhill run can't be fun, especially at 12:35am. Yes, this was the middle of the night. She jumped in her car and came and found me, but it was one of the longest 8 minutes of my life.. I was in a bit of shock. She was visibly and vocally displeased with me and I felt bad for making her resuce me, but I was in no shape to rescue myself. My head was WAY out of it, though I never hit my head (pain can do funny things to your mind). Just after I'd got in her car, I thought maybe I would try sleeping it off with some ibuprofen. Then I mentally slapped myself and made the decision to go the hospital.

Just an aside (because so many have asked), I was riding this late because there are no cars on my street at that time of night, which makes for safer riding for novice downhillers like me. As well, it had been nearly 100˚F all day: too hot to ride!

So.. we get back up to our house and we discussed how to deal with getting me to the hospital. It was decided a taxi was the cheapest easiest way because she'd had a few drinks, I was in NO shape to drive and an ambulance is EXPENSIVE.

I sat in the driveway waiting for the cab. It was another VERY long 10 minutes.

I managed to get in the cab (somehow) and off we went, the driver taking corners waaaaay too fast and slamming me all over the vehicle. I finally had to ask him to take it easy on the corners, as the G forces felt like hot ice picks in my shoulder and ankle. He went a little over the top and started driving like my grandma, which of course lengthened the trip. We got to the emergency room and I had to ask the driver to go in and have them bring me out a wheelchair. One of the guys in admitting came out with a wheelchair while I threw money down for the cabbie. I was rolled inside to the ever-unpleasant glare of overhead fluorescents. I honestly believe the fluorescents are half the reason that A) everyone looks bad in a hospital and B) most people abhor hospitals. The guy admitting me asked what happened and relayed his own motorcross shoulder dislocation stories (3 on each side: OUCH!) while assuring me that they'd get it all fixed. His positive energy did wonders for me and I worked on being as jokey and positive as I could.

After being checked in with no delay, I gratefully realized that it was friday MORNING, not Friday night. I've been to emergency rooms on Friday nights/saturday mornings, and you better be bleeding bad or they're not going to see you that fast because EVERYONE seems to get hurt on Friday or Saturday night.

Got into a bed, and they gave me 5mg of Dilaudid, which did wonders for bringing my pain levels down, but started to make me nauseous, so they gave me some Zofram to get rid of that. On to X-ray and then back to the trauma room. Xrays revealed a dislocated shoulder, but no breaks in the ankle. The doctor used a mild technique called the Hennepin Technique to put my shoulder back in place. It didn't hurt much more than the pain I was already in, and I appreciated that. The nurses were amazed at both the doctor skilal and my ability to breathe through the reset process.

My ankle on the other hand was another issue. They tried to put me in a moon boot and have me use a cane, but the pain was intense (probably an 9 on the 1-10 scale). I went back for more xrays, this time on the foot and to check that the dislocation was reseated properly. They conferred with some podiatrists while I was sleeping and when they woke me up I found out that I'd supremely crushed my left foot. They decided to do surgery that evening, so around 9:00am I was admitted to the hospital. Spent the day wacked out... several friends and family came by to see me, but I don't remember too much of our visits. I was told the operation would be at 4:30 but it didn't happen until 6:30. Man, operation rooms are weird places, especially when you're the patient. I woke up in my room around midnight, disoriented and ornery as a wounded grizzly bear. They had put a catheter in me (my first, and hopefully my last) and I was sweating buckets under all the blankets they'd put on top of me. While cursing and ripping blankets off (or attempting to) I discovered the catheter and almost ripped it out (good thing I didn't because it was stil balooned... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!)

Finally made it to sleep... woke up in the morning and insisted they remove the catheter so I could pee normally. Part of me just wanted to affirm that I wasn't dead and that I still had some locomotive power under my control. I have to tell you, I hate catheters with a passion now. HATE them. I don't HATE a lot of things, but I fucking HATE catheters.

The doctors came back in the morning to tell me that I had pulverized the navicular bone in my foot and they were only able to salvage a couple of small pieces which were screwed back together. 2 pins and a bunch of bonegraft and they stitched me back together. He said the navicular bone looked a bunch of sand in my foot... wow. I hit the curb hard enough to turn a bone in my foot to sand. They asked me again how fast I thought I'd been going. I refrained from pointing out that my skateboard doesn't have a speedo on it and told him between 18-25 mph, but honestly, I have no idea. I'm used to much higher speeds on my bicyles when coming down my hill, and it's much harder to tell speed in the dark.

The nursing staff at Kaiser varies greatly in their abilities. My favorite (and very best) nurse was Susie. Thank god for susie: she made me laugh a lot, and she's not just a nurse, she's a healer. Susie, if you ever read this, thank you thank you thank you so VERY VERY much for all that you do!

They kicked me out on Sunday around midday. Jessi came to bring me home but lo and behold, the wheelchair didn't fit in her car. My mom was nice enough to use her SUV to bring it to my house for me, so I'm now a wheeled menace again. It's been 15 days since I crashed, and yesterday was the first time I let the house in 12 days. Went to a doctors appointment with the orthopedist yesterday at which time the informed that me that I need to be careful with my shoulder, as if I screw it up, recurrent dislocations due to instability in the shoulder can develop. Lovely.

I'm off to see the foot surgeon shortly... they are going to pull the staples an sutures, put on a lighter fiberglass cast and xray my RIGHT foot and leg. Why? Because while we know I sprained my right ankle, I woke up this morning with my right foot in AGONY. Ran the ice machine on it and took some ibuprofen and that helped, but all of a sudden, it's getting worse.

Wish me luck folks... hopefully I'll have gross pictures to follow later on tonight.

Beth sez it better...

... than I could. She's a plastic reduction pro. Please stop reading me and go read THIS

Green Reesus

I was just watching TV (not something I normally do, but I've got a broken foot and a dislocated shoulder & things that keep my mind off the pain are appreciated right now: mindless TV is just the ticket.) So I was watching Spike TV, the king of "guy's TV". They were running an ad for Reesus Peanut Butter Cups, The ad copy went: "Stop Global warming now... Or all the reesus will melt." Now, I try to keep my refined sugar consumption to a minimum, but I love Reesus Peanut Butter Cups. L O V E them. It's got to be the best use of"green" marketing I've ever seen. Thanks a lot Reesus, now I'm jonesing for a Peanut Butter Cup. Good thing I can't drive quite yet...

--Sent from my cell phone--