Refreshment

After a looooong day and night of travel to Germany, Jennifer and I ate a super hearty Bavarian feast. Oh yeah, and some beers.

Winter games, Munich style

This was a game that we saw at the bier hall in Munich over new years. It was a while back, but I'm finally getting around to posting about our adventures. It's been a hell of a month but first things first: winter is still here and nobody does winter quite as well as the Germans.

Behold, the Erfurt Slammer

In honor of my far away family, both over seas and in the middle of the prairies, I have created the Erfurt Slammer. It consists of equal parts bourbon and gin, half a part simple syrup, a twist of grapefruit and two dashes of bitters.
It is like a sweet pinecone smoking a corn cob pipe. Delicious.

Just sitting in my fainting chair

Jennifer has been huge into The National for the past two weeks or so. We've listened to all the albums, with a particular emphasis on Trouble Will Find Me. There is a song about three quarters through the album called "Pink Rabbits" in which the narrator describes a scene where he is "just sitting in my fainting chair, drinking pink rabbits."   Epicureans that we are, we endeavored to make this poetic drink. The internet lore has it that the drink is made with strawberry Nesquick, Kahlua, and tequila. I fancied it up with some frozen strawberries blended up with sugar and milk rather than the fake drink, and I went for name brand booze.

Then we gave it a shot.

Pink, with a bite from the tequila, and an oddly comforting coffee wang, they are not nearly as bad as you might think.  Jennifer prefers hers with rum, not tequila, however. We'll let her get away with a small deviation, it's her favorite band after all.

Christmas orangeaments

Merry Christmas little house.

Guess what? Bike share!!

See that, IT'S PHILADELPHIA!

Bike share has been the question and answer to about six and a half out of seven days a week for me for the last, well, for the last year at least.  A few weeks back, the good folks at B-cycle were in town to do a test with their first run of the new stations.  This was a big deal for my office, and for me particularly, since I was responsible for helping them plan the demo.  They had two small stations brought from Colorado on the back of a truck, and then installed piece-by-piece in a set of locations about 2 miles south of our house, at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.  I was down there on a daily basis, running tours and showing off the equipment to City employees as well as friends and onlookers from our partner agencies.  The weather varied from about 60 degrees on the first day, to about 25 degrees overnight over the two weeks that they were in town.  Rain, snow, sleet and the buckets of winter crap that we expect each year greeted us and the stations.  Fortunately, bike share don't give a damn.  Thankfully, though not really surprisingly, everything went just fine.  No malfunctions, minor tweaks to be made before production, and hopefully smooth sailing.


The fun part was going over the details with the head of my department.  Rina is a bold woman, though not honestly so bold on a bicycle.  She's pledged to be ready to roll for next spring, and also pledged that I'd be fired if I took any pictures of her on a bicycle.  She rode like a champ though.  A rusty champ.

Let's see if she reads my blog.  

The Bike Share Family

See, a good one

With enough practice, I may actually get some good photos of Jennifer out of the deal.

Stuffed

As usual, it was good to be home for Thanksgiving. Ian and Natalie, Kelly and Nate, the parents and the pets. We learned a valuable lesson in traveling through Chicago Midway, pack a lunch. Not a health or tasty option to be had, though to be fair, we didn't give King Wah Chinese much of a chance. Jennifer packed a bento of rice and greens on the way out, and my mom provided us with some of her awesome enchiladas on the return trip.

The founder of the feast

Aside from the standard of beers, overeating and bb guns, we had a new kitten to play with, and fat bikes to ride. Howie the cat was about as lively and rambunctious as one could possibly hope for. Though he shredded everything in sight, it kind of made me (and to a lesser extent Jennifer) want a kitten.

Since it had snowed abut 4 inches Wednesday morning, my dad had the prescience to bring home two fat tire Charge Cooker bikes from the shop. Nothing quite as awesome as monster trucks mating with mountain bikes and making babies for us to ride on.

Natalie crushing it through the back yard

I also some time time breaking in the new camera.  We got an Olympus EM-1 last month in anticipation of our Christmas trip to Germany.  As Jennifer put it, it's the first camera we've had since our Canon F-1 where it's actually fun to take photos.  It's got great depth-of-field or 'bokeh' control. This involves a LOT of photos of my feet while sitting on the bed, but also a good number while roaming around Iowa.  There's nothing quite like the sunset over the prairies, and nothing quite like taking a gazillion pictures of it.

Anyone want a cute little row house?

Jennifer and I aren't done with the new place yet, but we are hoping that the prospect of selling the mole hole out from under ourselves will get the productive juices flowing.

There are probably a thousand things to do before we move in, but at the basic level we need a working bathroom, kitchen and bedroom. First things first.

Yesterday night saw us plan the completion of the sewer stack and the insulation and the plumbing and the paint in all the necessary rooms and a couple of the unnecessary ones. Planning for progress is a good precursor to progress.

Now we just have to sell the little house. Everyone needs a deadline right?

Babysitters

Jennifer and I are babysitting for our friends Peter and Eleanor who are busy manning (and womaning) their both at the Philly Bike Expo. It's been a while since either of us has been in charge of caring for an infant. In some ways they are easy, they do about 4 things that you have to deal with; poop, pee, get hungry and cry, and the rest of the time they just sleep.

Hazel went from furious to feasting to fast asleep in 3 minutes. This behavior would raise calls of alarm in adults, but is apparently normal for children.

It's not you, it's me

Famous breakup sessions often begin with those words.  "It's not you, it's me.   I mean, it's not that I don't like, LIKE you, but you know, I don't like, want to be around you...you know?"

Work, I'm kind of talking about you.

In one view, I'm kind of in love with the work I'm doing.  I'm planning a bike share system for my city, Philadelphia, and I'm doing a great job at it.  From the specifics of where each station will go, to the graphics on the bikes, to the cost of the rides, to the way that we present the program to the public, I'm in it.  That's awesome.  So awesome in fact that I end up putting a lot of myself into the work (it's bikes plus city planning, how could I NOT).  I care a whole lot about the project and I want it to succeed.  I want to do my absolute best every day, because I think that what I'm doing is going to change the face of the city, and to do so for the better.  Again, that's awesome.

Well actually, I want to do better than my best, I want to do the best that anyone has ever done.  I don't want to make a mistake, I don't want to forget anything, I don't want to leave anyone unconvinced or unsatisfied or unanswered.  And there's your problem, folks.

And that's why it's not you, it's me.

Best is a superlative, and based on my recollection of middle school english class, it is impossible to more best, more perfect, or more invincible.  My brain has known that since I was 14, but for some reason my heart and guts are still not quite on board.  For whatever reason, the seemingly disorganized, lackadaisical Ritz clan has got quite a bit of drive in it.  Something or other is flogging me pretty hard from inside to make sure that I keep up, that I don't let the other kids get ahead of me. It doesn't really kick in around the house (who cares who the best dishwasher is) and it doesn't really make much of a difference to me in my wallet (so what if I make a lot of money, you can't take it with you) but it REALLY makes a difference to me when we're talking about that core concept of Aaron = awesome bike guy.

So this has been a learning year for me.  Thankfully, most years have been learning years.  I don't think I've gotten any dumber over each of the last 35 orbits of our planet around its star, but 2014 will stand out for a while as the time when I figured out how to work on something to my utmost.  With the possible exception of March, every month for the past 12, I have worked harder than the last.  I have spent more time, and psychic energy on the program, and I've survived it all.  I can't honestly say that I have enjoyed it, but given my natural propensity to screw off, procrastinate and winge, it's kind of a jolt to look at the amount of things we've accomplished in the past year.  Last November, I'd just put the finishing touches on the RFP that set us down this road.  I'm now in it to my eyeballs, and working my ass off, and wondering where the year went.

It certainly didn't end up in blog posts.  Most of them would have been something like, "So fucking busy, can't write much" and so they just haven't existed.  But Jennifer forwarded me something that she dug up from the japan years that reminded me how valuable the blog has been for me in recording some key points in my life.  I will make amends with the blog, I will post more, and more often.  Hopefully it will be more thoughtful than the weenie posts that have dominated this forum of late.  It's crazy to think that an online journal, readily accessible to everyone, would feel somewhat private, but there you have it.  This blog is my diary, as it exists.  I'll try to make it worth reading.

Awesome idea

For some reason my posts seem to center on wieners. This is my latest awesome idea for cooking hot dogs and okra. Dinner for a champ.

Burnt Weenie Sandwich

Work has been super busy recently, but I'm able to keep my energy levels up with proper nutrition. Tonight, from the sausage food group, burnt weenie sandwich.
Available at Chez Ritz and at Saint Alfonso's Pancake Breakfast.

Gotta say, I was sorely tempted

I was definitely tempted to head to Washington DC to ride in the US Brompton championships.  It would have been sweltering hot, but I was thinking that it would be awesome to help Greg Biche from Trophy Bikes take the win.  He was second by about 10 seconds, a decent gap, but one that we probably could have worked together to close down.  A folding bikes, what silly things.  How I enjoy thee.

Insomnia

Over the past year, I've had increasingly frequent bouts of insomnia.  Here I am at 5:01 in the morning, 3 drinks in, waiting to feel the slightest bit sleepy.  I'm not sure if it's related to getting older, the stress of advancing in my career or what, but I do not care for it.  Specifically, I don't care to feel groggy and dumb the next day, and the apprehension that such a feeling provides me while I wile the hours away in bed is probably one of the things keeping me awake.

The standard symptoms of a poor night's sleep are a busy day at work, followed by a day off of bike training, followed by an aimless evening in which I attempt to get all of my million daily ideas accomplished, processed, or otherwise catalogued away for future reference.  Over the course of this interminable night (soon to be over, as the chirping sparrows indicate) I have contrived 3 different options for hoisting the sliding glass door of our new house to the top floor where it will be installed, some new plumbing theories about how best to install a half-shitter on the first floor of our house and about 5 different ways to construct carbon fiber cycling shoes for myself.   I have likewise replayed the 5 interviews for a new temporary bike share promoter position that we're offering in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Environmental Council.  So many good people, only a finite number of jobs!

Not a bad day's worth of thinking, but I wish like hell that it would occur during daylight hours and leave me in peace at night.  I've always said that I would prefer not to sleep if I didn't have to, well, in this case I may have been wrong.  Sleep would be just the thing right about now.  Perhaps the saving grace is that I finally took some time to read through one of my recent Economist magazines.  So smart, those guys.

Subtle hints

I found this on my desk this morning, perhaps my co-workers are trying to day something about my physique.

Also, pretty awesome that muscle milk contains no milk.

First recipe down

My colleague Cara and I were taking about how much we both liked Jamie Oliver, and then, as a complete surprise, she got me this awesome cook book. I guess I'll have to order up some black pudding, or maybe as Jennifer suggested, "Go bleed a cow," and make my own.

Pollen count

My brake hoods prove what my eyes and nose had been telling me; pollen count is pretty high in Philly about now.
I'm lucky not to suffer any real allergies, but even so, there is something in the spring air here that makes it feel like I'm snorkeling in a sand box.

Jennifer's attitude to her impending doctorhood.

Squiggly Legs

After several years of working with a power meter on my bike, I still only have a loose understanding of what all these numbers mean.  I guess I’m just not that much of a numbers guy, I’m really simply a bike guy.  What those squiggles up above mean is that I pedaled my bike far, and I pedaled it hard.   My legs have been working well, like, REALLY well over the past two weeks.  Not only was I able to race without problem on a tight and technical criterium course, but I very nearly made the winning break at this past weekend’s Philly Phlyer.  Very nearly making the break is not as good as making the break, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well things went.  It didn't hurt that the weather was 63 degrees and sunny, but it would have been nice if I didn't drop my power-gel on lap 2.  Always bring  extra snacks is my new rule.

I guess that my legs just had good memories of the Phlyer,—I ended up winning the Brompton National Championships in 2010 and 2011 at the very same race.  It was also on that weekend that I got an email from my current boss asking me if I wanted to come work for MOTU.  Good memories on that park loop indeed.

Back in the saddle again

I'm pleased, though somewhat apprehensive, to announce that I'll be doing my first criterium in over 2 years. The season is upon us, and though I'm still feeling a bit slow and a bit sore, I am really looking forward to the experience.  More notes when I return with all my skin and bones intact.

Ructation

I came home from a lovely evening out with some neighbor friends to see my Aventinus clone exploding all over the fermentation vessel. Go yeast, go! Just don't go all over my floor.

From the Himalayas, with Love

My sister Claire got Jennifer and me this giant block of salt from the Himalayas to cook with.  At first, I thought that maybe you should just shave off little bits of it as seasonings, but then I read the instructions.  YOU JUST COOK WITH THE WHOLE DAMN THING!

Shrimp, meet giant slab of 500 degree salt!

Delicious, unless you let it cook too long, in which case, salty-licious.

Motorvational speaker

So, perhaps I have given my cho co- workers too much info on Jennifer's dissertation status over the past few months. Earlier this week she made brownies in an attempt to stave off working on her dreaded paper. My colleague Kristin had some choice words for jennifer when I offered her some of the spoils. The post-it note was a nice pep talk to encourage her onward. What she really said was something like, "These are delicious, but why dissent she knock it off and do the fucking dissertation?"

The brownies were a hit with everyone but Jennifer who found them inadequate, too cake-like and far from the idealized brownie in her head.  I reminded her that the best is often the enemy of the good. Advice that applies to baked goods and scholarly writing alike.

What kind of "athlon" would this be?

Took myself out for a snow ride and ski this morning. The ride to FDR park was chilly, starting temps were around 11 degrees, but by the time I had stashed my bike and gotten going, the sun had warmed things up considerably.  I broke trail for about an hour and them doubled back on my steps and did the same course in 30 minutes.

I have so few chances to ski in philly that I have to pounce every chance I get.

Some Christmas Creations

As a toast to the recently released members of Pussy Riot (and because it's a fantastic name for a drink) I innvented a pretty tasty coctail over the holidays.

To a chilled glass add 2-3 cubes worth of ice, crushed or not.
Then pour:

• 1 shot vodka
• 1 tbsp pine-flavored simple syrup
• 1 tbsb porto
• 1 tbsp Cointreau

Stir briefly, Garnish with a twist of orange and add soda water if desired.

To make pine-flavored syrup, add 2 cups of sugar to 1 cup of water in a sauce pan and heat to the boiling point.  While the pan is heating, walk over to the christmas tree and pluck off 2 loosely packed cups of pine needles.  Place the needles in the heating syrup mix and bring to a boil.  Cool and place the entire mix into a jar.  If you want to kick it up a notch, you can whack the cooled mix into the blender and then blend until all is green and fragrant.  Let the particulates settle and then strain through a sieve.

Or, if you want to be a sissy about it, you could use a good piney gin like Tanqueray.

Leg Pain

My legs hurt today and it's awesome. This past weekend I went out for two 60+ mile rides with 'the fast guys'. See spot ride. Spot rode far. Spot rode fast. Spot is tired. Spot has trouble getting up the stairs. Spot has 40 stairs to climb from the basement to the 3rd floor in his new house. Woof. After two years of dragging through the aches pains and eventual surgeries that resulted from my screwed up leg, I'm finally seeing some real progress and remembering what it's like to go hard on a bicycle again. My legs feel fantastically pummeled after the weekend, tired in a way that I haven't felt ages. It is awesome. I had the idea a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to do Battenkill again. 3 other speedy dudes from the club are thinking of tackling it, and I've got some unfinished business with that race. It will be a great goal to shoot for, and after this weekend's riding, it seems that it is actually doable. I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Yeah,I hauled that

Turns out that my trailer can haul 320 pounds of crap. Not sure if I want to do it again though, my legs did not much care for it. Also, things were groaning and creaking pretty badly behind me during the ride. Better not to push my luck until they make some lighter weight cement.

Hot stuff

In advance of the coming frost I picked about 10 ghost peppers from one of the neighboring plots at our community garden. At first it must seem like am awesome idea, growing a weaponized chili plant. But then you taste the things.    Most sensible people realize upon eating the smallest sliver of one, these are not peppers to be trifled with.

Fortunately, no one has made the mistake of calling me sensible.Tonight I made death sauce.

I wore rubber gloves and long sleeves as a precaution, but I probably should have added a gas mask to the list.  Blending up peppers aerosolizes little tiny spice particles that make for an unexpected dose of capsaicin to the air. After a quick hit with the blender the air became rather spicy. Jennifer was coughing all the way in the living room and I had to flee upstairs to escape the fumes .

Now that it's bottled, the plan is to let it ferment a bit naturally and "mellow" before blending it up once again and straining the chunks.  Anyone stupid with an asbestos palate interested in trading the mix in a few weeks?

So, more house equals more house repair.

Even though the new place needs MUCH less work per square foot of real estate than the Mole Hole, 3 times the house is 3 times the house, and we want to put our stamp on the whole shebang.

I've been spending evenings in the basement with my cement; mixing up some slurry to spluck onto the walls of the basement to shore up any crumbling mortar.  I was getting my rhythm down pretty good and then I ran out of mix, so I shifted from putting up mortar, to knocking it down.  I spent Friday night knocking a hole in the kitchen wall to open up a window from years past.  While dirty, that part is really rewarding because it satisfies my long-standing need to take things apart.  It's even more satisfying than peeling off the label on a bottle of beer.

New House

So, after about 2 years of looking we finally bought a new house.  On Friday the 11th Jennifer and I closed on a house on 15th street, about 2 minutes walk from our current house.  It's got everything we were looking for, plus about 1000 extra square feet and $70,000 extra dollars, but hey we can't complain.  The whole deal seemed set to fall apart the whole time, so I didn't want to really blab to the world about it, but we've got the keys now, and the deed so it must be for real.

There are a lot of cool original features; doors with glass paneling, crown molding, cast iron heater vents--the works.  As good as it is, we of course want to fix it up and make it our own.  The kitchen will be redone and we'll fix up one of the bedrooms (there are 7 listed) before we move in.  The nice thing is that since we still have our current place, we won't have to sleep and wake up in a construction zone.  Plus, there are enough rooms that we can simply shift our bedroom to one of the spares if we decide to re-do something.

Perhaps the biggest downside thus far is that I feel like a total douche when we've showed the place off to friends.  The house is so big and nice that it seems like pure ostentation rather than something reasonable to own or live in.  That should probably go away once we put in enough sweat equity, but for the moment we're THOSE people.

The awesome light fixture in the entry way.

 Jennifer's at the back, and I'm at the front and it is a loooong way away!

 Toasting our success and bragging to family in the second floor bathroom.

 Jennifer's favorite 'room'.  This one is either the punishment box or the 8th bedroom, depending on how you look at it.

Here we are surveying the back of our property.  Huzzah! The fence is YARDS away from us rather than feet.

Look ma, I'm in the news!

http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/homepage-feature/item/59504-bike-share-program-to-bring-more-cyclists-less-helmets-to-philly?linktype=hp_impact

Now I'm almost as famous for bike share as I was for the Brompton race!

What they actually did to my hip

I went in for my post-operation 4 week check today.  Turns out, they did a lot more work on me than I had thought.  Not only did they stitch my labrum back down to the pelvis, they also had to 'microfracture' the socket of the joint where some cartilage had pulled away from the hip.  Here's the full text.  My favorite is that I now know that there is such a thing as "bone wax".

OPERATIVE REPORT
PREOPERATIVE DIAGNOSES
1. Femoral acetabular impingement, right hip.
2. Suspected labral tear, right hip.
3. Suspected chondral lesion, right hip.
POSTOPERATIVE DIAGNOSES
1. Femoral acetabular impingement, right hip.
2. Chondral labral lesion, right hip.
3. Large chondral delamination acetabulum, right hip.
NAME OF PROCEDURE
1. Femoral acetabular arthroplasty, right hip.
2. Repair of torn labrum, right hip.
3. Removal of chondral lesion, right hip.
4. Microfracture, right acetabulum.
ANESTHESIA: Spinal.
DETAILS OF THE PROCEDURE: Following meeting the patient in the preoperative holding area and identification of the extremity to be operated on, the patient was brought to the operating room. Anesthesia was induced. The patient was positioned supine on the operating table. All bony prominences were padded. The right lower extremity was prepped and draped in the usual sterile fashion.

Utilizing a small anterior incision and modified Smith-Petersen approach, the hip capsule was exposed. An I-shaped capsulotomy was performed. The labrum was examined. There was evidence of tear from 10-12 o'clock position. labrum appeared to have ossification also. The slight ossification was removed. The labrum was reflected free of the acetabular rim. The acetabulum was exposed. There was a large chondral lesion at the 11 o'clock position, which was unfortunately full-thickness. The chondral lesion was removed. Microfracture of this region was performed. The hip was irrigated extensively. This was followed by repair of the labrum to the acetabular rim. 

At this point, attention was turned to the femoral neck. There was a large bump at the femoral head and neck junction, which was removed. Once adequate osteoplasty had been performed, the hip could be flexed 110 degrees and internally rotated 30 degrees. Bone wax was applied over the area of osteoplasty, followed by irrigation of the hip-and closure of the capsule and overlying tissues. A sterile dressing was placed over the incision.

The patient was then transferred to the postanesthesia recovery unit. The patient tolerated the procedure well and there were no intraoperative complications. Dr. Parvizi performed the entire procedure. Three Arthrex Biotech anchor sutures were utilized for repair.

For the near term, it means that I can continue letting pain be my ever-vigilant guide.  I've been cleared to do anything that doesn't involve high impact, like running or tackle football.  Fortunately, I've got a bike that needs some riding.   The pain should generally subside over the coming weeks and months, and I should see an increase in range of motion and strength after 6 weeks when the bone is fully healed.  The doctor said that 6 months is when the labrum should have reattached fully and any replacement tissue from the microfracture should be in place.  This means  I should be essentially back to 100% by February and in time to actually race bikes next year.  Cool.
Long term, this also means that I'm at a higher likelihood of needing a hip replacement down the road, but probably not untill well later in life.  Dr. Parvisi thought that some time between the age of 65 and 80, I'd likely need a new joint.  Not so cool.  Also, I'll need to keep an eye on my other hip for similar pain so that we can catch it early on.  If we had gotten this one figured out earlier, it wouldn't have required removal of that chunk of cartilage, which would be better long term.  Now that I know what I'm looking for in terms of pain, I can hopefully catch that one in the early stages and save a lot of pain and annoyance.

For now though, I think I'll focus on a nice easy bike ride this weekend.

Let Pain Be Your Guide

I am pleased to report that I'm limber enough these days to ride back and forth to work.  My leg still isn't really working all that well, but certainly well enough to make the 1.5 mile trek in to the Municipal Services Building from home.  The doctor said, "Let pain be your guide as to what you can do."

Turns out my pain management strategy involves bikes, surprise surprise.

Since I'm not supposed to be bending my right leg past 90 degrees while riding, some modifications were in order-- I added a stem extender which moved the handlebars up about 4 inches, and then added a 80mm stem which I turned around backwards.  

Position so upright that it would make a Pashley Roadster blush.

BE HEALED

So, surgery went well I think. It's 7 days later and I am hobbling around pretty well without a crutch, though I still take one while walking to the subway and for longer trips.  I took last Tuesday through Friday off of work, expending some of my 42 remaining sick days.  An easy decision to make.  I had initially intended to go in to work on Friday, and probably could have managed it except for one critical oversight: poop.

I learned a valuable lesson in medicine this past week.  Opiates jam your shit up, very literally.  Since getting a drink of water was a pain, and going to the bathroom a bigger one, I didn't drink enough liquids on Wednesday or Thursday.  Also, I was enjoying the prescription of Vicodin that I was on, and the liberal instructions allowed me as many as 8 of those babies within 24 hours.  Well, as it turns out, that was dumb.  Friday morning I found that I had to take a poop but couldn't.  Not just a little constipated, but seriously impacted.  I've always had a pretty speedy digestive system, and this worked to my disadvantage this past week.  I spent the better part of the day on the toilet heaving and screaming and the like.  Look up "impacted stool remedy" and you'll get an idea of how things went.  I tried everything that they suggest on the websites and eventually succeeded to a degree, but gave myself a painful hernia in the process. Nice. The whole time I was sitting on the toilet I was paranoid that I was going to a) explode and b) wreck my surgery.  The one strict doctor's order was not to raise my leg to 90 degrees or greater if I could possibly help it.  I defy anyone to squeeze out a frozen cliff bar of poo with your legs at an obtuse angle.  Can't be done.

As for the surgery, I was in at 5 in the morning for pre-operation prep, was drugged up around 7 and was out of the operating room around 7:50 when I woke up to some paralyzed legs and a cozy hospital gown with heater built in.

It took about 6 more hours for the spinal anesthetic to wear off and for me to be able to move my toes again. Once that happened I was encouraged to see if I could move, pee and be on my way.  I still can't believe that i was able to walk out of the hospital some 9 hours after surgery.  Granted, I had crutches, and wan't particularly comfy at that point, but given that I'd just had hip surgery, doing pretty good.

What appeared in the MRI last month to be a torn labrum, actually ended up being a knob of cartilage on the ball of my hip and a matching cyst on the labrum.  Whenever I would bring my leg up to a seated angle, the knob of cartilage would bump into the labrum and throw my hip out of alignment.  This is certainly consistent with what I felt; it seemed as if I had a small gummy bear jammed in my hip joint whenever it moved.  Dr. Parvisi excised the nubbin and the cyst and put me back together.  I am supposed to let 'pain be my guide' and can start riding my bike as soon as tomorrow, if all goes well.  I'm going to make a test ride later this evening and we'll see how it goes.  Whee!

Under the knife

Well, a week can make all the difference.  I went to Dr. Wenneker again on Monday expecting some sort of head scratching and song and dance about what might be wrong with my leg.  To my surprise, he took one look at the report from the radiology lab and said, "Oh here it say's you've got a torn labrum."

Umm, isn't that what I was calling about all last week?

Apparently Jefferson Hospital is just as dysfunctional as the rest of the medical profession; Wenneker was never notified that the MRI that he'd requested for me was complete.  What the fuck.  At this point though, I'm honestly happy that they found something, anything that could be at the root of all of the problems that have kept me from my beloved bike riding for the past 18 months.  Let's get me into surgery and get me recovering and make this happen.

I called the surgical specialists at the Rothman Institute, the orthopedic specialty clinic at Jefferson, and was expecting a long wait.  Every other time I've tried to schedule an appointment with a specialist it's been a 4-6 week wait and I expected something similar here.  Nope, called on Monday, in on Wednesday.  I got in to see a guy who specializes in hip surgery at one of the top ranked clinics in the country in 2 days.  Once I got to my appointment, I registered on a touch screen and they called me up to the desk within 1 minute.  Then I completed my patient questionnaire on an Ipad and was ushered into the doctor's suite within 5 minutes.  Totally night and day difference in customer experience.  I did have to wait a fairly long time once I was in the room, but at least I was there, getting seen.  Maybe my standards have been lowered too far, but whatever, at this point it doesn't take much to make me happy.

Once he came in, Dr. Parivisi went over the MRI, X-rays and my patient report, flexed my leg around a little, listened to my symptoms and gave me 2 options.  Option one is to wait for it to see if it heals on its own, with maybe some anti-inflammatories.  Option two is to open me up, clean out the chunks of gristle that are all torn up in there and smooth out the cartilage on my hip.  I figure that if 18 months of pain is probably enough to convince me that time is not going to help.  We're going to go for broke and open me up.  This seems like the only reasonable option at this point, particularly since the last month has seen my hip pain get worse and worse.  I'm now taking 4-6 of my pain pills a day, rather than 2 every couple of days.  Sitting hurts, standing hurts, riding a bike hurts, sleeping hurts.  Time to get this show on the road.  I go in to surgery on July 30th and should go home the same day.  Dr. Parivisi said that I should be fairly mobile with crutches for the first week, and then weight bearing after that.  He expected I'll probably be able to get back on a bike within 3 weeks  and start aggressive physical therapy after that.  Full recovery is rather long though, 3+ months before I get full range of motion and strength close to normal.  Whatever.  I can deal with 3 months of improvement after 18 months of decline.

Fucking leg

Just a place holder here for what will probably be a diatribe.  My leg continues to hurt unabated.  I had an MRI a few weeks ago to determine if there was some tearing of the labrum around my hip joint.  After 5 calls, finally got word from the doctor that there was nothing to be found.

Motherfucker.

I was serioiusly pleased at the idea of something that someone could go in and fix.  Now I'm back in no-man's-land with damaged goods and no way forward.

I repeat; Motherfucker.

My RAAM experience was so much better than I anticipated.  I'll post a full synopsis when Meurig finishes, probably some time tomorrow.  In my time back home, I've basically been glued to the live tracker.  You can share the same experience of watching little dots move on a great looking map here:

http://www.tractalis.com/raam2013/ 

Seriously Colorado?

Found this stand in the Denver airport. Did not make a purchase.

RAAm Approacheth

I head out for California tomorrow to start the final prep for Meurig's RAAM attempt.  I'll be working the 12 hour night shift with Meurig's wife Kristie and a bike club friend Kevin the ex-seminarian psychologist.  Should be good times between 7 and 7.  There are 10 of us on the crew all told.  3 person night crew, 3 person day crew and 4 people running logistical support with an RV where we'll do cooking, some sleeping and some washing.  Conveniently, Kristie's cousin is a massage therapist and will be on hand to pummel the cramps out of Meruig, and maybe the rest of us.

I'm kind of on the fence about how enjoyable I think the experience is going to be.  I've seen Bicycle Dreams, and it looks like the majority of the trip will be pretty dull, interspersed with moments of panic or frustration.  That said, I have absolute faith in Meurig's ability to get the job done.  The guy is looking fantastic and has the constitution and mental strength to get across the country. As he put it "I'm just an engine, mate."  You can check out the crazies that do this thing in the trailer here.



Despite the anticipated boredom, I'm actually a bit bummed that I won't be crewing the whole event.  My Cadillac benefits package from the government is pretty crummy when it comes to vacation time and I was only able to take 5 days of vacation for this.  I'll be bailing out in Wichita KS.  The flights hopefully won't be too expensive and I'll take a moment to scrawl an image of the divine Flying Spaghetti Monster on the road before heading home.  The cool thing is that we're going to try to give live updates as often as possible on our way across the country.  I'll be twittering the shit out of the ride at 3 in the morning, so make sure your phone is set to silent mode if you follow along.

New/old leaf

I just bought myself the first new pair of running shoes in 7 years. Asics 2000's seem like a worthy heir to the 10 or so pairs of 1030s, 1040s, 1050s and 1060s that I bought over the course of my college running days.

As an interesting aside, when writing this post from my phone, the word running always seems to come up as "ruining".  Maybe there's a message there.

If bike sharing looks even half as good in real-life as it does in this picture, we can declare success.

Mayor Nutter, testing out bike sharing around Rittenhouse Square last Tuesday.

I'm quasi-famous

So, it seems as though I've got a lot of life to commit to the blog as of late, since time keeps on passing.  Here's an article written about some of the work i'm doing in philly published in Urban Velo magazine this month.  Glad to have been mentioned.  Check out page 61 to read about Philadelphia, and page 65 to see a picture of me in action.

http://www.urbanvelo.org/issue36/p60-61.html

Back on the horse, a little.

This past weekend I did 2 good bike rides in a row.   That's a first in over a year.  Saturday I hung on for the entirety of the ever-crazy, ever-dumb, Saturday Morning World Championships called Vino-Velo .  The basic idea is that you and about 20 of the fastest people who aren't actually racing bikes, but who think they are, get together and ride a set course through the suburbs of Philadelphia.  There are sprints, traffic lights, stop signs, hills etc.  I have avoided it primarily because it's a great example of why drivers hate bike riders here, but it is awfully fun to go fast with other people on bikes.  My knee/hip/leg pain was manageable for the whole ride but I was pretty sore later in the day.  I imagine that's the expected effect of not riding hard for 14 months.

Sunday Jennifer and I went out for a  nice ride through the hills to the northwest of the city on Sunday.  Happily, I wasn't suffering too bad from the ride on Saturday and Jennifer took it easy on me.  She does love to attack up the short hills though.  I'm sure that if it weren't for the whole fear of crashing thing, she'd make a good bike racer.  Now, hopefully the trend keeps up since spring is here.

So, I guess we are a bit wussy in the cold now.

Jennifer decided that she needed her hat in the shower.

A video from when men were men and bicycles were made of STEEL!

Nice sunset

For some reason I really love winter sunsets. This was out near Haverford on a ride yesterday afternoon. For the first time in a long time it felt like my knee was working well. Not anywhere close to 100 percent, but moving in a good direction and that made the sunset all the nicer.

Beaten

Yesterday was my third treatment by a new doctor who has an "alternative" form of treatment for my knee pain problems that have plagued me for the past year.  He does a treatment called IASTM (Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization) which is a classy acronym for pummeling the shit out of my legs and butt.  For decency sake, i'm not going to post the gruesome pictures of my ass bruise, but basically Dr. Wenneker takes something like one of these:

And then does some of this to my leg--

The process is a lot like squeegeing out all of the scar tissue from the muscles and tendons.  Let me tell you, it hurts.  It hurts a lot.  He is also big on something called 'dry needling' which basically sort of surprises your muscle into relaxing and becoming more flexible.  The process involves taking an accupuncture needle and inserting it into the skin over a knot in the muscle, then you stab it in and out at various angles to trick the muscle into relaxing.  That sounds a lot worse than it feels.  Really almost no pain on that one until I watched them doing it and it was basically like watching a sewing machine needle disapear into my flesh.  Weird.

At the end of the day, I really don't care how much the process hurts, as long as the results are there.  So far, so good.  I definitely feel improvement in my mobility, and the tightness and pain around my hip have diminished a lot (except where I got jabbed with the corisone shot yesterday) and I'm hopeful that with some extra strengthening and stretching, I'll actually be able to keep the gains and start riding more.  Fingers crossed.

Go big or go home

That's right folks, Jennifer just received 5 pounds of gummies. Should last  a week or two.

Looks like this guy made a little trip to the hammer store...

I have no idea what was up with the 10 oz claw hammer slung into the chain around this guy's seatpost, but I'm just glad he checked it at the door of my building.

Stoked for snow!

So, while Philly 'endures' these terrible chills into the 30s, Iowa is going to have snow for Christmas!! Here's the forecast for Ames tonight!

Snow with areas of blowing snow. The snow could be heavy at times. Low around 22. Windy, with a east northeast wind 14 to 19 mph becoming north 24 to 29 mph after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 39 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 7 to 11 inches possible.

Bad day at work cured by good sake at home

This bottle was made about 100 kilometers south if our place in Nagano. We got it on the trip to Vancouver last April. It was my little birthday gift to myself.
Totally hitting the spot now after a trying day at work.

Little shout out to Lara-chan and my onsen buddy Shane. Hope you are doing well wherever you are

Physics

Last Friday my coworkers had a small sendoff party for my boss who's going to be away for the next month on an Eisenhower Fellowship.  Lucky guy.  Well, smart guy really.  Anyway, in honor of Halloween as well, they got a cooler full of dry ice for making party tricks and spooky drinks etc.  By the time the sendoff wound down at about 12, there was still 3/4 of a cooler full of solid CO2 left, and I decided that I might need to take some home with me.  I filled a Tupperware with the stuff and then headed back home.  When I got back, I thought, "Won't this stuff stay frozen a lot better if I put it in a thermos?" 

Check out the dented metal cap.  Probably where it destroyed the light fixture.

Getting out my trusty stainless thermos and dropped in the dry ice cubes.  I sealed the cap nice and tight to make sure that the air didn't get in to warm up the cubes and then Jennifer and I headed off to bed.

Glass Shards EVERYWHERE

At about 1:30 in the morning we were awoken by a giant exploding thud followed by some broken glass shattering down stairs.  "What the hell was that?"   We headed down and found exactly what anyone who has half a brain and understands physics just a little bit would have known.  The plastic cap from the thermos had failed (thankfully) and blasted the top of the thermos off, up through the light fixture and through the drywall into the ceiling.  We never found much of it, just a ton of glass and plastic shards as well as the metal cup/cap thing.

3 inch hole in the ceiling.

Soooo, I spent my evening picking glass shards out of the ceiling and did a full kitchen sweep.  Not like I should have been surprised by this, since I spent much of my teen years thinking of ways to make things explode, I should have known better, or at least put the thermos in someone else's house.

My favorite sport is run by cock smokers

I must say that I've really been enjoying the combined cycling media communitiy's coverage of the UCI defamation suit against Floyd Landis.  It seems that pretty much every story includes the laundry list of things that Floyd Landis can't say about Hein Verbruggen, Pat McQuaid or the UCI.  

For example, this from Velonews

"Piguet’s ruling forbids Landis from “stating that the UCI, McQuaid and/or Verbruggen have concealed cases of doping, received money for doing so, have accepted money from Lance Armstrong to conceal a doping case, have protected certain racing cyclists, concealed cases of doping, have engaged in manipulation, particularly of tests and races, have hesitated and delayed publishing the results of a positive test on Alberto Contador, have accepted bribes, are corrupt, are terrorists, have no regard for the rules, load the dice, are fools, do not have a genuine desire to restore discipline to cycling, are full of shit, are clowns, their words are worthless, are liars, are no different to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, or to make any similar other allegations of that kind.”

Similar stories can be found all over the media sphere, which kind of makes me wonder, isn't the reporting of this case merely magnifying and repeating all the allegations that Landis has made against these dudes?  Well, if so, good.

It reminds me of a story from Alf, my old roommate:  It was a new school year and the principal of Alf's high school called an all school assembly to address what he considered to be a plague of swearing that was sweeping through the student body.  The principal took the podium and after describing how it was disrespectful to use vulgar language,and how stiff penalties would be levied against anyone using swears in the halls or classrooms of the school.  he then proceeded to enumerate all of the words which would not be allowed.

"Students of Shorewood High school will not be allowed to say the following:  fuck, bitch, shit, fag, pussy, whore, cock smoker...."

And all the kids were like, "Cock smoker?  Nobody says cock smoker?"  Guess what the most popular swear was for the following year.  That's right.  

Maybe the UCI is run by a bunch of cock smokers after all.