my mushy disk
Had my first new PT for the buldge and it was a learning experience. I pretty much don't sit, stand, or sleep correctly and these all contribute to my back o' love. To start I got a pretty simple excercise to help correct my current pain and it seems to provide relief... albeit for only ~20min right now. To put that in terms most of you 4 readers can understand, right now I'm a 20 minute man which is better than 3 1/2 minutes but still no
60 minute man. There are 7 exercises in the McKensey method and I'm starting with #3, which means there are 2 more levels of more pain in than where I'm at (I'm not sure if that is good or bad). I'll do the exercises and go buy my lumbar support pillows to correct my posture when sitting typing on this 'back-killer' or how I spend most of my day (I blame work! ggaahh!)
Singapore is getting close, leaving on Friday arriving on Sunday morning and a whirlwind fly by. I will undoubtebly be in the office more than anything but I will try to photoblog some for my adoring fan.
I wonder what
Maigh is doing....
I can't resist again... another Sammy photo to enjoy...
I've be caught!
Someone snapped this picture of me last week in Kansas... you can't see him in the picture, but the bad dog owner was right there too...
The MRI results are in.... I have a buldging disk in my lower back that is the root of my pain for the past 6 months. I'm happy there is a real cause of the pain, but the bummer is in the fix.... yes kids, more PT for me. The initial 6 weeks didn't do anything to help, but that was not directly to help a buldging disk problem. So there should be hope.... right?
quit looking at me like i'm smooth jazz....
I'm back y'all! Being out of touch from the world was interesting... no internet, but I did have crackberry coverage or I may have lost it. It was a great trip, heading out to Colorado always makes me wonder why I'm not closer to the mountains and makes me recall my days of long backcountry weekends with my dogs. I hear them calling, but not sure I can give up my ATX life.
Sager, how'd you do it? (BTW J, it's all love here!)
Have you ever been hunting? It ahs been quite awhile for me, but I was game for at least walking with the hunters. Western Kansas (Hoxie to be exact) was my weekend destination for PhezPhest, an annual event for my wife's side of the family. Pheasant hunting in the morning and music/beer all night. All in all it was a blast (har har, funny) and I was particularly happy during the amatuer night music on Friday. I got to sing
Robert Earl Keen to my hearts content and selected
Terry Allen classics like 'Truck Load of Art' and 'Hard Amarillo Highway'. I used to hunt dove every once in a while and would shoot whatever my Grandfather was paying for (squirrels, crows, yellow hammers, and once a mocking bird), but I've never been a big time 'killer' since ~1983.... well, other than a lady killer! booya!
My biggest pleasure was the dogs, there is something about hunting dogs working the fields that I really dig ( I do have 2 labradors ). There were a few really good dogs and 1 really bad one out there this weekend. I felt bad for the bad dog for a number of reasons... 1. she was just 1 year old 2. she was excited and it was the first hunt 3. most tragic, she had a really bad owner who had no f'n idea what he was doing. Then there was Lou, she was a good old dog with 10 years and countless hunts under her collar. She knew how to work the field and gave everything she had out there and provided the 'field and stream' shot of the trip.
What happens when the mind goes soft....
Where do the random odd thoughts come from? Is there a region of the brain where goofy things originate from? Or does this happen when too many OCD types miss their meds and have crackberry access? Hmmnn?
This entire thread is a result of a simple comment by
Maigh.... "my cube neighbor is a smacker" Which somehow fired up the goofy fold of grey matter in my mind and the random thoughts just poured out..... How would the world be different if rudeness smelled bad and was embarrassing? Would people changed? Say every time the cube neighbor smacked their gum, if a little puff of green stinky gas came out of her ears? Would she stop or just get used to the smell? Who would compile the list of what is and what is not considered rude?
Any of my hoards of readers have thoughts? Send the link to your friends and lets get some talking points and start a faith based movement! I heard Turd Blossom is looking for a new challenge....
Don't bogart the blog....
So I rode my bike today, it's really hard to call my latest efforts training since it's more about straight up back pain and suffering. Good days and bad days... today was a bad day. Supa-weak is the best way to describe it... Back to the Dr. next week for the MRI... PT didn't work, so sumpting else is up and no-one seems to be able to figure it out... sigh....
Here's how it went down....
Shoes = good
Legs look ok....
So far so good? Then I run across this and the cookie crumbles....
With the watermellon eating joker mocking me everything fades to black... this is an easy spin day right? and I got a littel ball of sweat, right on the end of my nose...
Even when I'm almost home, these turkeys serve only to mock me...
This blog is like a golf ball through a garden hose...
Ok, I'm thinking about getting a blackberry to further my addiction to connectivity.... but then I sit back and think 'do I really need to be so connected?' Some of my best days have been hiking in the backcountry with my dogs alone or with a friend, so far from anyone or anyway to connect that there was nothing to do but absorb everything around you and dig into the files in your grey matter for everything else. These hikes have encompassed the entire range from good to really bad. Since most of my readers are French, I will only tell y'all about the really bad one.
Took off from work at UC Davis on a Friday at 3 pm with my good friend John and headed for Yosemite for a weekend cut off from normal folks. Normally I preferred to stay away from Curry Village (the set of point for Half Dome for the masses) and start from a more remote area, this time the pass back to the meadows was closed and we had no choice but Curry Village. We hit the bottom of the trail at ~6:30 and hammered the bottom of the Muir trail. We hit the Little Yosemite valley as the sun was starting to set and there was not enough light to get to the base of Half Dome and a large camping area. We set up camp, had dinner, hooked up the backpacks to the rope and pulled them up out of 'bear reach'. The temperature is dropping quick and we are ready one of those mummy bag super sleeps you only get when camping. I notice there is an apple, a bag of trail mix, and a sealed cup of Motts applesauce. FUGG!! We are both really tired and decide to roll the dice by not pulling down the backpacks and putting this food in it. John takes the apple and I get the trailmix and applesauce. We get all snuggy in our tents and try to get some shuteye... the applesauce and trailmix are in the corner of the tent up by my pillow.
I'm trying hard to fall asleep, I'm using a nylon bag stuffed with a sweatshirt as a pillow. We hiked hard to get to our campsite, and my heartrate is still elevated, so much that my earlobe is rubbing against the nylon making a 'sshh... sssh... sssh...' noise that I am trying hard to block out. As I drift off to sleep, my fading mind hears footsteps walk right through our camp and I'm immediately fully awake.
"WTF!! John, did you hear that?"
"Yep, did someone just walk through the camp?"
"It sure sounded like that"
zzzziiiiipppp.. both tents open wide and John starts screaming;
"Hey, who was that? Totally uncool asshole, you don't just walk through someone's camp you dickhead!!!"
Silence... nothing... nada...zero. We are up now, we stoke up the campfire and try to figure out what the hell had just happened. John starts talking about ax murders and crazy backwoods hobo's that hunt pretty blonde dudes..... at least we were pretty?!?! There is no sounds other than the night, so fatiuge eventually gets the best of us and we decide the coast is clear and it is safe for us to sleep.
After many minutes of convincing myself to sleep I started to drift off... the 'sssh... sssh... sssh..' of my earlobe on the nylon is still there and I am trying to ignore it. Just as the sandman begins to overcome me, footsteps mingle in with the 'sssh...sssh...sssh', and suddenly my tent gets pulled violently back and forth. I am fully wake before my next heartbeat and have my flashlight on quickly enough to catch a paw with very long claws attached. I only can remember seeing a single claw less than 4 inches from where my pillow was. The claw was on top of the bag of trail mix and quickly disappeared along with the bag. As you can imagine, I am screaming "FUUUUUUUGGGGGGG! JOHN, BEAR! A FUGGING BEAR!" We both unzip our tents and focus our flashlights on a labrador sized black bear lapping up the trailmix out of the fillet bag as calmly as can be. We are both screaming at it and shining our flashlights on it, but it has no regard for us. The bear lapped up the remainder of the trail mix and then slowly ambled off into the night.... he was gone and we had both hoped our drawers were still clean.
Sitting there in my tent, I was shook up but not feeling really that scared.... then I tried to stand up.... I was shaking, knees knocking, and slightly slurring my speech. It took about 5 minutes for my body to be 100% back under my control. We quickly decided to get the hell out of there and head for the campsite at the base of Half Dome. While we packed up, John continued to talk about the ax murders in Yosemite and killer mutant bears... we started out up the trail and after ~200 yards, all hell breaks loose off to our right... lights up with two loud
"AAAHHAHAHAH!!!!" only to illuminate 5-8 deer scattering into the night... this time, I'm pretty sure John needed a skivey change....
When we got up to the Half Dome campsite, there was a huge bone fire burning with some other campers around it. We snuck up to the edge of the light and almost fell asleep once....
Umm yeah... I need you to fly to Singapore...
So I'm still surprised by the "where are the cattle" comment about my claim to live in cattle country. Just because on my photoblog day there only happen to be a klan of bad-ass goats moving in on the cattle.... I see plenty of cattle:
Normal types:
Herds of the dangerous kind, swarming just after the kill:
Cows on bikes - like CN and the Little General:
and then the best kind;
