Monday, January 4, 2010

Back To Work: Staycation Ends

I must apologize for not posting much this month. I took a vacation from work and computing for 4 weeks to help my wife around the house, be a dad, and generally get stuff done. For the most part I was successful. I was able to babysit so my wife could get more tutoring in, I did get some general stuff done, and I kicked ass at fathering.

There were some shortcomings though, I had an idea that I would do one errand a day on my bike to keep things in perspective. This didn't happen. I rode a total of 4 times in 4 weeks which is completely unacceptable. The first two rides were indeed to run some errands, the third was a ride with my daughter in the iBert to take advantage of the last warm day of the year, and the last one was on the trainer in my basement just to convince myself that I was still a cyclist.

The real excitement the staycation was the rookie move I pulled the night of the big snow storm. I was putting platform pedals on my mountain bike so I could go romp in the deep snow in my warm snow boots, when the wrench slipped off the pedal sending my fist into the big ring at full speed. Two cog teeth went as deep as they could go into my pinky depositing their payload of rust and grease with them. After the pain subsided a bit I thought about my options. I might need stitches, I'll need a tetanus, and I definitely need to get the grease out of my pinky. The snow was coming down too hard to drive to the ER so I called a nurse friend of mine who came up with a rather clever solution. Boil a water bottle to sterilize it, fill it with a peroxide/water solution and flush out the wound. This was both unbelievably painful and very effective. The next morning a neighbor with a Defender 90 (totally rad), took me to the ER where they glued my finger shut and gave me a tetanus shot. I only wish there was a way to glue my pride back together.

So with some goals met and some not I am back to work, back to the routine, and back to blogging.

The trail is icy today and I suspect it's going to stay that way for a while. Not the best conditions for the Continental Contacts on the LHT (yeah you know me).


Monday, I wish I could quit you...


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