If you both ride...

I was looking at my anklet today and the idea popped into my head that the links on it could be engraved with something special...kinda like we got our wedding bands engraved on the inside with something meaningful to us, it would be cool to do the same for a piece of jewelry made from a bike chain, like mine is.

I was looking at the links wondering too if I could make an eyebrow ring out of one, but that would be huge and weird looking. :D But earrings could be made out of 2 links or a ring could be made out of one link. Wouldn't that be a cool setting for an engagement ring? :D

You and your chain tool

A chain tool is a good thing to have in your pack when you ride. Why? No fucking clue. But the man on expert village told me so.

See, I wanted to learn about my chain (since it gets yanked so much :P), so me being the Internet Guru I pretend to be, I looked for help online. And found a video that said "Jodey...use thy chain tool on thy Crank Brothers 50 gajillion piece tool thy has in thy new Camelbak." So I did. And now I understand how a chain is put together.

I think a lot of bike maintenance is learning by fire...just dive in, try it out and hope like hell you don't fuck it up. And if you do, thank God for the guys (and girls, of course!) at your LBS.

I am kind of excited that I figured this out by myself. Gives me hope that maybe I'll be able to change my own tires when I decide to go to those Small Block 8's I've been eying....or if, God forbid, I have a flat on the trail.

Bikin' Babes Bunco Night

We all had a great time over at Maggie's house this past Friday! It was so nice to get together with a bunch of other women who RIDE!

Anyway, enjoy the slideshow peoples!

The Obama Llama Song

Can't remember if I posted my new favorite song here - the llama song from Weird Al. But tonight, just as I was thinking "HEY! Obama rhymes with llama! There MUST be a song!"...lo and behold...

The Obama Llama Song!

STFU....gotta love Dennis Leary

This makes me laugh at myself.

ME: I'm just not happy.
LEARY: Shut the FUCK up.

Crazy Meds

Thank God for my crazy pills...that's what we call them here at the house. I suppose they really should be "anti-crazy" pills, since they keep me sane...or at least my version of sane.

But even though I'm extremely sad these days, it doesn't overwhelm me like it would if I weren't taking the Seroquel and anti-depressant. I haven't felt this even in a couple years. It's kind of a nice feeling, actually.

Now, if the rest of my life would stop being so damn crazy...

Just a little sad

Found out some things today that didn't shock me, but didn't make me happy. More like resigned and somewhat relieved. Who knows what will happen? Not me. But I'm sad. Life has a way of not turning out the way one wants or expects it to. Those damn expectations will get ya every time.

Sigh.

Laters people.

My Big Fat Fun Ride

I met a girl a couple weeks ago by the name of Katherine. I had stopped at REI to exchange a broken air pump and the people in the back sent me to the bike shop to have them check out the pump. Camye and Hormis were talking to her, I believe, and me and my big mouth joked about something with them. I got my stuff, and as I was walking out the door, Katherine was coming back after a test drive on an awesome pink Marin. She and I started talking, ended up exchanging info and saying that we'd get together sometime soon for a ride, once she got her bike and gear.

Fast forward to earlier this week and an email from Katherine asking me to ride. Hell yes I want to ride! We decided to go to the Tobacco Trail so she could get acquainted with her bike. So we met this morning there...and rode and talked for 1 1/2 hours...a little over 11 miles. This was my longest ride to date and it was wonderful!

And it is such a small world - the place she works was recently merged with a company I used to work for (about 8 years ago) and she knows a couple people that I know! Weird, huh?

Anyway, I'm amazed that I was able to ride that far. I feel great! The last mile was hard, but I refused to stop pedaling.

It was a good ride. Thanks Katherine! :)

Gustav before the ride:

Hospital Bill

Holy shit! We got this the other day...and thankfully it's NOT A BILL!

This is from our jaunt to the emergency room a few weeks ago when J broke his elbow:


So...the pharmacy charge was for ONE dose of lortab. We got a whole bottle of the stuff for $10.

The central supply charge was for the SLING, which was a piece of shit and wouldn't stay on...$47 there.

$171 for the Radiologist to read the x-rays.

And a bargain at only $1544 for everything else in the Emergency Dept.

Yes...insurance is our friend. We'll see how much it costs us...I think $50. Let's hope.

Wow. Just wow.

I can't shake my head fast enough to clear the bullshit people spew.

I'm not trying to get on anyone's cool list, come down on the side of right or any of that. I'm stating MY opinion, and my opinion is that I am amazed, yet again, at the intolerance people can show to others.

I'm certainly not saying I'm perfect. I laugh at things everyday that might offend others. I curse, think coarse things, etc etc ad nauseum....but it is MY CHOICE to do those things. I will say that this incident has made me think about things a little differently. I still think certain religiously based groups are funny as hell and I'm not likely to stop thinking that anytime soon...but I think I understand the motives of the people in them a bit better.

Everything in this life that we think we can control is a CHOICE. We make choices every minute of every day, perhaps without even realizing that we are indeed making choices.

How appropriate that Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb is playing right now. I think I'd be a bit more comfortably numb if I'd had that beer I wanted earlier. Too late now.

It's likely few of you will know what this post refers to, and that's ok. That particular drama need go no further in my opinion. It's been beaten to fucking death like the proverbial horse.

But I'm still shaking my head.

I so wish someone would post one of these...

...I'm not willing to get into a flame war with some of the lovely people over on mtbr, but damn, I so wish someone would post these over there on a couple threads. It would sure make me laugh. :D

I had to go over and read updates on the threads I was reading yesterday and they're even better than they were before!! Where's my ?

Pissing Contest

I swear mtbr hosts the BEST pissing contests. Truly EPIC.

It simply amazes me how many people there need to whip their dicks out and see who has a bigger one. Invite me next time...I want to be the Official MTBR Dick Measurer.

But hey...it's entertaining. I certainly get my chuckles over there.

Well.....

...I rode a couple miles yesterday. Not a smart idea, most likely. My foot hurt for the rest of the day and that tetanus shot has kicked my ass. My arm is sore, hot and itchy at the site of the injection and I have had one bitch of a headache for a couple days, as well as feeling run down and tired. I NEVER take OTC painkillers and I took Tylenol TWICE yesterday...and it barely touched the pain in my arm.

Absolutely bizarre, if you want to know my opinion about this reaction to the shot. Course, I react strangely to most meds....so I shouldn't be all that surprised.

Pictures

Of J with his cast and the teddies with theirs (the dark teddy belongs to the Ortho's office, the light one is the one my Mom casted and gave to J)

Like I said...BRIGHT orange:


The teddies:

Nailed My Foot & Update on J

Literally. I kicked my foot into a nail that was sticking up from the board on our back deck yesterday morning. Just fucking great. I wanted to ride yesterday since I didn't get to ride Saturday (cuz I was way tired from walking around - and having fun, mind you - I'm not complaining about that - at the trail workday). Yep...I took my cup of coffee out to enjoy the beautiful weather and ended up bleeding. Not pretty.

Today we had an appt to get J's cast on at 9:15am. Well...after being called back and 9:30am and not seeing the Dr. until 10:30am, at which point we were told he didn't have time to do the cast b/c they only do casts in the middle or at the end of the day, we left. Thank GOD my Mom came...

I ended up getting an appt with my doctor to look at my foot b/c my Mom said she really thought I needed a tetanus shot. Not only did I get a Tdap (Tetanus, Diphtheria and Pertussis) shot, but antibiotics as well. I have a low grade fever and the site of the wound was really painful to the touch. I guess all that can equal infection? In any case, hopefully keeping it clean and taking the abx will keep it from getting infected.

My Mom took J back to the ortho at noon, while I went to another appt. She said they did 4 xrays and everything looked like it was healing well. When they took the half cast off and the ace bandage, his arm was all bruised at the site of the fracture. :( Poor baby. But she said J did a really good job getting the cast on. The people doing it said he was "perfect." He picked BRIGHT orange. I will post a pic when I get one. He seems no worse for the wear, which is great.

I am going to try to ride tomorrow. Hopefully my foot will handle it ok. Right now I have a sterile pad folded into fourths with a bandaid over it and it's pretty cushy. But I'll test it out and see how it feels later tonight.

Eagle Scout/TORC Trail Workday 3/7/09

Here's a slidey-show for ya! Photos in no particular order, I don't think.

Update on my kid

Took J to the Ortho this morning. They took more x-rays. The Dr determined that J will stay in the half cast/sling combo for the next week and will go into a full cast next Monday. It will go from shoulder to hand. He'll be in it for 5 weeks. Sigh. Fucking birthday party. *grrr*