Update this Weekend

Yeah typing with one hand sucks

-c

I Have the Worst Luck

So I should have taken a hint after last weeks incident playing softball that perhaps I should have stopped while I was ahead.

But being the slow learner that I am I didn't and now my softball season and majority of my summer is over.

So Thursday I was proving that I was the ultimate utilityman and was playing catcher thinking that I would not get hit in the face with the ball since I would be wearing a mask. During the bottom of the 3rd inning when we were batting I said that I could catch one mote inning then someone else could because my knees were starting to hurt. So I went up to bat and had a nice solid single into the outfield. The batter after me drove one deep into left field and the 3rd base coach waved me home. As I was running down the baseline towards home I saw that the catcher was standing in the baseline 5 feet in front of home and I ran to the inside and not sure what happened next but Iremember falling then hearing a "POP" and next thing I was on the ground with people around me and I was holding my right arm. Then it goes blurry and somehow I was moved over to the bench and was so dizzy and could make out the shape of one of the guys standing in front of mebut no details so they called the ambulance and laid me on the ground with my feet upon a cooler. The ride to the hospital was painful as I think we hit every bump on the road. About 5 minutes away from the ER I was talking to mom on the phone and the ambulance hit a very rough patch and I screamed loud into the phone.

When we got to the hospital I waited about 20 minutes before I got a treatment room in the ER and it was a chair not a gurney. Apparntly it was convict's night at the ER since there at least 4 or 5 prisoners with guards attending also waiting. Once I got in the room I kept asking for water but they wouldn't give meany since they didn't know if I needed to have surgury or not but I got an IV with morphine and valuim so I guess I did alright in the end. I went for x-rays and then had to go back for more since the orthopedic drs needed more pictures. Finally they came and doped my arm up and put it in traction before they came in and literally pushed and pressed my arm to set and cast it( have a picture on my phone of how out of whack it was). I screamed and screamed as this happened.

It turns out I broke my wrist and fractured my hand and going to be in a cast for 6-8 weeks. hat makes it more difficult is that I am right handed and my thumb is immobilized so I am almost useless. So far I have managed to survive hopefully it will be better when I get another cast June 5th but until then I am stuck with the club.
So I have to rely on my left hand now and drive with one armed and stuff like that.

Top five things I can't do now:

1. Tie my shoes
2. Workout (might try spinning in a few days though)
3.Write stuff down or Sign checks and receipts in a legiable fashion
4. Open caps off off bottles (it took me 15 minutes to open a bottle of Gatorade yesterday)
5. Open the back door to my house due to the lock being difficult


So my summer is pretty much over.

*this post typed left handed so ignore spelling mistakes and no sunglasses were harmed in this accident

-c

Sunglasses

I have had the worst luck with my sunglasses since my grandfater closed his optical shop

Growing up in a family who is in the business of making glasses has many benefits. One being that whenever I had a need for sunglasses or have them adjusted or repaired I just went to my grandfather, aunt, and my dad. When I was younger I probably went through sunglasses like candy so I never had a nice pair of sunglasses. I got my first nice pair my jr. year of college and since then I have had 2 more nice pairs (polorized RAYBANS) of sunglasses which I still have. Last month my grandfather closed his optical business after 60 some years and retiring at 94 years old.

So a week or so after the office closed I was at the gym and was rushing a bit to get dressed because I had to get to Bible study and I did the spinning class and was running a bit behind. So I had my good Raybans in the locker and reached up to get them and they slipped out of my hand and hit the floor and cracked the lens. Now I was going to send them to my aunt to before I dropped them because the lens popped out but I was able to get it back in but not sit correctly. So I was down one pair of glasses and went to my Raybans which I had for 3 years before I got the new pair.

So I had been using my old pair prior to breaking the other ones during softball games. Well last Thursday I was in the out field shagging fly balls before the game and I went to catch one and this happened>>>

I am not sure if the ball hit me or hit my glasses which cut my face but it hurt and still does (my dream of being a professional model are over). The first thing I did after I got focused was looked for my sunglasses which were laying on the ground with the temple broken off. So after cleaning my cut and putting a strip (no stitches here) I sat out the first inning before going into the game and playing second base and going 3-5 with one run. I drove to Cleveland Friday wearing the glasses with one temple until I was able to buy some crazy glue and patch them up....luckily it was a clean break. So Saturday I talked to my aunt who is ordering me new lens for my other pair, unfortunatly they do not make the polarized lens for those anymore so I just have my one pair which I have to becareful with now.

I guess I just find it ironic that I take good care of my glasses and then when it is most important that I keepthem in good shape things like this happen.

-c

Boston, Softball and the Gym

So I am going to try and update this every Sunday

Past 2 weeks have been alright I guess

Last weekend I was over in Boston visiting my friend Craig. I left work early on Friday becasue I had to go get a new tire for the car after I came out of the gym Wednesday morning to find the back right tire flat. Apparently not a square inch of tread on the thing (i get my money's worth out of stuff). On Saturday we did the Asthma walk and I got to meet my hero:
It went something like this...
Me: Look! Spongebob is here!
Craig: Dear lord ::shakes head::
Me: I want my picture with SpongeBob ::runs like a dork over towards SpongeBob::
SpongeBob: Please don't hurt me!

Toyota was also there and if I had money they would have made a powerful enemy by not giving me the flashlight I deserved after going through their brainwashing machine. The rest of the weekend was spent drinking and brewing beer and listening to the Red Sox game.

Started playing softball on my churchs team. It is obvious that it has been about ~2 years since I last played. My first game I was 1 for 3 and this week I was o-2 with a RBI. I am the foul ball king ...just not used to using a metal bat would prefer a wooden one. Been playing third base and center field so I am the uber-utility man. My shoulder is a tad sore after jamming it my last time at bat on Thursday but it is getting better.

May 1st marked 6 months that I have been going to the gym twice a day. I am considering doing a local triathalon in July only problem is I don't have a bike and not a very strong runner. As Craig said " the only reason to run is if someone is chasing you." If I do it I just want to finish not try and be the top finisher.

Anyway next weekend I am going to Cleveland so that might be interesting.

-c

Friday

So this past Friday was weird.

First,
After the 5:30am Spinning Class at the YMCA I was leaving the excercise area when one of the trainers stopped and talked to me. Apparently on Tuesday two ladies made a fuss about the smell in the spinning class room and attributed it to my gym clothes. At the time I just listened to the guy and said that I would try and take care of the problem but the more I thought about it the more silly it sounded to me. Now granted my gym clothes might not smell the freshest but I think I was getting the raw end of the deal.

I am very conscious about my gym clothes becasue I know that going twice a day they might not always smell the freshest but I do take steps to make sure I don't offend anyone. I wear a running shirt and biking shorts when I work out and the only cloth that really retains any odor are my boxer briefs which I wear a new pair everyday. Along with this I wear also swim in the shorts I wear to workout so they get rinsed after every use (I shower before going in the pool). After I am done in the morning I spray my clothes with Frabreezs and hang the in the locker so they can dry out and be ready for my evening workout (Lockers are venilated). Now I know that this is not going to get rid of all the stinch but unlike most people I start my workout before class starts so somedays I haave worked up a good lather by the time class starts. I am sure the fact that the spinning room is a 20 X 15ish, unvenalated room has nothing to do with it also...but the thing I wanted to tell the trainer (but held my tounge) was that duh, its a freaking gym not Bath and Body works. I don't know I think it odd that I have been going for as long as I have and this is the first time something has been said, and yesmy clothes have been washed every week.

At work:
The new comissioner was on our floor introducing herself and saying hi. I was in my cube "working" and when I heard the announcement "comissioner on the floor" I closed my laptop which I sit in the window and closed the media player with Justice League cartoon playing. When she got over to my work area she saw the few (::snicker::) WV things I have up (map, flag, calander, ect) and turns out that she used to spend her vacations in Southern WV visiting family. I now have an in with the new Commish.

-c

Superhero Workout

Every morning before work I do the 5:30 am spinning class. This morning the instructor’s workout was the “Superhero Workout.” Before we began the warmup she passed around Justice League stickers and told us to choose one and put it on our shirts. Now usually it takes me awhile to get motivated to start the workout since I get up around 4:20 am so I can get to the gym and ensure a spot in the class (only 20 bikes available) but this morning I perked up a bit when the workout theme was announced. So the sticker I chose was The Flash (unfortunately Animal Man or Question was not a choice).


At this point I was still suppressing the geek side but as the class went on I basically said screw it. I explained who Martian Manhunter and John Stewart (Green Lantern) was to the other members of the class who wondered who they were. I also had a short debate with the instructor who was ragging on Aquaman. I conceded that talking to fish is not a real superpower but that Aquaman was in fact probably one of the strongest heroes out there. I used logic that I knew she would understand and told her that Aquaman lives and fights underwater (resistance) so when he comes out of the water he is going to be really strong since there is not the resistance to hold him back (yeah I know but I had to break it down into something she could identify with). After this I decided to focus more on the workout. Songs that were actual comic reference/related in the mix were:
Superman Movie Theme
REM –Superman
Batman TV show Theme
Wonder Woman TV show them
Kryptonite: 3 Doors Down
Superman – 5 for Fighting
Aquaman – Grandpa Griffith (Funny song that can be found on iTunes)
Spiderman Cartoon theme song

During the cool down and stretch we talked about Underroos and how cool they are. Afterwards I talked briefly with the instructor and suggested next time the following songs could be used(just off the top of my head at the time):
Barenaked Ladies –One Week (Aquaman)
Superman’s Song-Crash Test Dummies
Newclues - Jam On It
Jim Croce -Don’t Mess Around with Jim –
Genesis - Land of Confusion
Spin Doctors-Jimmy Olsen’s Blues



Anyhoo,

-c

Reports of My Death....

So it has been about 2 months since my last posting and some might think after the last post that I had dropped dead, sorry but I am still here. I know some of you are probably disappointed but oh well.

Not much has been going on here that has been deemed blog worthy.

In March I went up to Lake George to see a friend race his '69 Corvair in the Ice Races they have up there on the frozen lake...it was cold and pretty interesting to be standing out on a frozen lake watching cars race.




After my first experience with the chest pains I had a few reoccurrances and eventually had to see a cardilologist and have a stress test. It has been 2 weeks since the stress test and have yet to hear back from the doctor so I doubt I am going to be dropping dead anytime soon.

I have still been going to the gym twice a day and have been doing the spinning clsses in the morning and evening. So basically I am up around 4:15 and at the gym by 5 since the class is very popular and there are only 20 some bikes availible.

Spent Easter in Boston with my brother, his wife and her family and got to eat ALOT of good food. Last week I went to Indianapolis for my Fraternity meeting and was reelected as National President, this will be my last term in this position so I can pursue other avenues within the fraternity.

Well hopefully I will be blogging more on a regular basis but will not bore people with my mundane life.

-c

A Night in the ER and the White NorEaster Death

Not that I have really tried to make my life more interesting it just seems thing just happen.

Monday night leaving the gym I started to feel a mild pang in my chest. I thought nothing of it and headed to my weekly Bible study. About five minutes into the drive it really started to bug me and get worse. I started to get mildly dizzy and thought I was going to have to stop and pull over on this two lane road where there was really no place at all to do so. I made it to the house where the study was taking place and it was really bothering me by then but when I got inside and sat down it subsided a bit so I thought it had passed. Just before we started the study it started again and it felt like someone was repeatedly stabbing me in the chest with an ice pick. I got up and got a drink of water, got dizzy and laid in the floor with my feet in the air...nothing helped. Finally I went in the bathroom and it got so bad that I was laying in the floor sweating profusely. By this time the people who lived there were trying to take my pulse and calling the ambulance. So Finally the EMT's got there and started working on my and concluded I was not in any danger of shuffling off this mortal coil. Soon there after the ambulance arrived and took me to the ER where I spent a good 4 hrs. They did 2 EKG's and took some x-rays and "concluded" that it was a muscle strain. If nothing else I got some nice drugs out of the whole deal.

Tuesday the whole Northeast went into panic mode due to the predicted NorEaster. People at work were already making plans not to come into work Wednesday and what not. I figured that I would wait and see given the fact that most storms like this one where they predict huge amounts of snow sometimes turn out not to be as bad as they are predicted to be. So I went to the gym that night and did a easy workout since I am under dr's orders to take it easy for awhile and then stopped at the store to get a few things I needed (just in case we did get the predicted snow)...my storm items were eggs and toliet paper (already had milk). So I go home and go to bed at my usual time (9:30) and figured I would access the situation in the morning.

So I wake up at the usual time (5:15am) and looked out the window and could tell there was snow on the ground so I figured I would go back to sleep and go to the gym about 6:30 (since I can't excercise). So waking up at 6:30 I could see there was about 1 foot of snow on the ground so I went back to sleep until 7:30 and called the office and told them I was taking a sick day(the one I should have taken Tuesday after being in the ER half the night before) and wouldn't be in to work. I woke up again at 8:45 and got up and went downstairs to have a bowl of cereal. BY 11 am I was stir crazy and suffering from cabin fever. I was going to do laundry but only had enough Tide to do one load, I then cleaned a few dishes and surfed around the internet until it decided to stop working. I got dressed and went out and shoveled the snow from around my car (just to do something).
The rest of the day was spent inside pacing back and forth trying to find something to do as a way to pass the time. I did know that one way or the other I was going to be at the office today becasue I doubt I could have spent another day in the house with out goinng crazy and snapping.

So anyway the trip into work this morning was not that bad until I got into Albany and the roads were still pretty crappy but I had no major problems so I was glad. So this week has pretty much screwed up the whole diet/excercise routine which means I am not weing myself this week.

Hopefully next week I can get back into the old routine...ahhh...routine....

-c

The Fortress of Solitude

First off no one go into shock by seeing two posts in less than a week.

So I call my house the Fortress of Solitude (for those not getting the reference check out Wikipedia) and this week it was very close to resembling the actual place as it has been depicted.

Thursday morning I woke and was going to wash my face before heading off to the gym and work. After waiting for a few minutes for the water to warm up and getting nothing but ice cold water I ran down to the basement to check the oil tank which turned out to be low…very low. So after I got to work I called the heating oil place and told them I needed the tank filled up and the guy said he would send someone out that afternoon to do it, so I figured that I had taken care of the problem and would not have to worry about it while in Cincinnati for an extended weekend. When I got home Monday evening I hardly noticed the temperature in the house mainly because I was so tired from traveling, so I just hopped in bed and turned the electric blanket on and went to sleep. When I woke up Tuesday morning it was bloody COLD. My first thought was to check the pipes both upstairs and downstairs to see if they had running water. After seeing that both were still working I decided I would get home early that evening and tell the landlord who lives next door. Well when I pulled into the driveway no one was home so I went inside and was going to wait for her to get home. My first inclination that something was wrong was that the bowls in the sink were frozen solid and I tried the faucet and nothing happened and was like Oh Crap (that’s the PG version). So I ran upstairs and checked the bathroom (both faucet and tub still had running water) and went back downstairs and that’s when I first noticed I couldn’t feel my hands and could see my breath. After spending a good hour with the heat gun pointed under the sink at the pipes and in the basement trying to find the frozen pipe I gave up and left a note on the landlord’s door that the furnace was not working and that I had frozen pipes in the kitchen. I then headed to bed which was just like a winter camping trip (with an electric blanket) and got up in the morning and found the note from the landlord saying she would check it out and that the fuel line might just need to be bled out on the heating oil tank. So I went to the gym and my training (ugh) and called my landlord to see what she was able to determine about the furnace. She said that she had checked it out , bled the line which did not work and called the maintenance people to come and look at the tank. She said it could be dirt in the line or might have to replace the whole thing since it was old and there when she bought the house. So I am sitting in training thinking I am going to be able to make snow angels in the living room before going to bed (she did offer me a spare bedroom on her side of the house if it was a major problem).

She did call about 5:30 to let me know that the heat was back on and the guy was finishing up repairing the pipe that busted so I had to cancel the staircase bobsled competition and the hockey game I had planned for that evening.

When I got home last night it was a comfortable temperature and I could feel my fingers.

The house has gone back to being the Fortress of Solitude sans cold and ice.

-c

I'm a Loser

Well I guess it is time to finally make a new blog post.


From the title of this post you might think that I will be talking about my social life or lack there of but I am not going to...at least right now.

Since the beginning of November I have been consciously trying to drop weight. I have changed my diet and been working out at the gym religiously. In October I had my first physical in a long time. According to the scale at the doctor's office I was somewhere around 250lbs, although when I joined the gym a few days later and weighed myself there I was 243lbs but that is beside the point.

Once I joined the gym on the first of November and starting my 2-a day workout session I have really gotten into shape. At the end of 3 months I have lost a total of 32lbs. So far I have lost weight every week except for 3 weeks where I have maintained and the week after Christmas where I gained 1.5 lbs (I was working out at an inferior gym while home for the holidays).

I still want to lose about 15-20 more then start toning. In additon to my running twice a day I am going to start spinning and swimming in the Master's Swim program at the YMCA.