worst nature walk ever

This weekend I hung out with my dad, who is doing really well with his chemo (he's barely lost any hair). We decided on Saturday to go for a walk so he could show me a nature trail in his neighborhood that he recently discovered. It turned out to be fraught with danger, and we barely escaped with our lives. Okay, slight exaggeration but actually it's not.

The trail was in the woods, the trail was damp, and it was overgrown in places. My snake sense was tingling like crazy so I was looking down at the trail to make sure one didn't sneak out of the undergrowth and bite me. I barely registered a family in front of us with three noisy girls ages 5 - 8. I almost bumped into my dad when he stopped, and I looked up, noticing the father of the girls was taking pictures. Oh, more boring pictures of trees I thought. Then my dad said "that's one hell of a snake".

I looked over to the area where the dad was pointing his camera and saw a HUGE black snake cruising along a cleared area. My brain was like "FUCK ME" but then I managed to suppress the urge to run. "You better get the fuck away from me RIGHT NOW!" I yelled at the snake (it was 10 feet away so technically not that close, but, how close is too close for a 5 foot black snake?).

The snake seemed to turn its head towards me so I made the meanest face I can, which is my serial murderer face. Surprisingly the snake high tailed it down a hole. It' looked like a corkscrew it was going down the hole so fast. I was like "you better run you fucker!" and my dad said "good job! you scared the snake!"

The annoying family in front of us was moving slow and my dad thought about passing them and then, thankfully, said "let's go up this other trail and look at the swimming pool". I didn't want to look at the pool, and wanted to pass the family instead, but I followed him. That diversion literally probably saved my life.

After we looked at the pool and the tennis courts, basketball court, and playground, we headed back into the woods to finish the nature trail. I heard shrieking coming from the girls farther down the trail. I said to my dad "that's weird, it sounds like something bad is happening and not like they're playing around". Seconds later the (I guessed to be) 6 year old girl came running towards us screaming, seriously, at the top of her lungs. "What the fuck?" I thought to myself.

She said "we were attacked! we were attacked!" I said "what do you mean?" and she showed me her arm which had 5 large welts on it. Apparently the family had been attacked by yellow jackets. The rest of the family (maybe they were idiots) were still standing in the area getting attacked. The 6 year old girl had run away.

I found more bites on her legs and back but she was so hysterical I couldn't do anything to help her. I asked where her parents were and she said "still back there!" No way was I going to go get them since I have an anaphylactic allergy to yellow jacket stings. I started yelling for the parents and then the 8 year old came up. Finally, after a few minutes, the mom came lumbering up with a toy poodle in her arms. I said "your daughter has been stung at least 10 times by yellow jackets - you need to get her out of here now!" Of course the dad and grandfather were still in the area of the yellow jackets.

We all started walking out of the woods. The 5 year old kept flipping out screaming about being in pain or getting stung again (she was right behind me and I was like oh god she is attracting bugs like crazy and they might get me). Finally we came to the trail divide and my dad and I decided to take the pool trail and walk home on the road. All the little girls were screaming and hysterical and we couldn't take it anymore.

We ran into them getting into their car as we circled around the trail on the road. The 5 year old was taking benedryll. The six year old and the father had been stung multiple times on the face (and other places). The mom had been stung on the ass. It was horrible. I don't know why they didn't run when the first yellow jacket hit the 5 year old.

As we headed back to the house I couldn't help feeling lucky that we didn't pass them. If I had been attacked by yellow jackets I might not be writing this. And I told my dad I'm not going into those woods again until it's fucking winter.

now I'm a published author

One of my students came into class on Thursday and said "are you a marine biologist?" I was like, um, no. And he said "well that's weird, because yesterday I googled your name and the first result was someone with your name who wrote a book about marine biology, and it's not like you have a common name".

I thought for a minute and then said "wait, that must be this anthology that's publishing a story I wrote about great whites". The student looked at me for a second and then said "so, you forgot you wrote a book?" I had to explain to him that I had just written one story and that the anthology wasn't published yet. He asked how I came to write a story about great whites and when I said it was a hobby he just shook his head.

That caused some interest in the class so I showed them some pictures of great whites. Now three of the students want to go on vacation with me.

Here's the link to the anthology. Oddly, if my student hadn't googled me I would have never known there was already information about the book out there.

In other news Rock & Ice turned down my gimps on rock story because they said that it "didn't have a point". I guess I could rewrite it to be an inspirational story about amputees that keep climbing despite their injuries. But, I'm not going to do that. I have too much respect for the amputees.

I hope Agent Cooper is proud of me

The best manager I can think of is Agent Cooper from Twin Peaks. The guy has better people skills than I ever will, and I like his incorporation of his sixth sense in his work. Well, he was great until he was taken over by Bob.

Anyway, after an hour interview with the manager of security and then the director of security:

Director of Security: Can you confirm that the student who complained, er, had a, er, that there was a, er
Me: (no I did not check his pants) Um, ye...um, yeah, I can confirm the story is true

the offending security guard was moved off the front desk. My student was happy again (he thinks she was fired). Sure all the female admins are bitching about me. But, it keeps them from bitching about each other which is a lot more annoying. And despite major hardware problems with 10 of the 15 laptops my company provided for the class (my favorite laptop crashes every 20 minutes and I don't have a spare to replace it even though they are supposed to send 2 spares as a backup) my class is going well. Which is to say, the students aren't trying to kill me. And because of the let's just call it the "security snafu that caused my student to have an accident" we are getting breakfast and lunch brought in at the expense of my company tomorrow.

People get so excited about free food. I brought in a deli menu for people to look at so I could put in an order for lunch but everyone decided instead of individual sandwiches to get three dessert trays (which will contain, in total, 10 brownies, 30 cookies, 15 things called blondies what ever those are, 15 little cakes, 12 pastries with fruit, 30 marshmallows (????? they are strewn across the dessert tray - decoration?), and 12 "oreo crumbles" which are kind of like brownies with crushed oreos on the top and bottom with a cream cheese center). A woman from Vietnam in my class, who's finishing up her final round of ESL classes said "fuck sandwiches!" She then said she learned that from TV, not her ESL class.

I just need to survive tomorrow. I won't even go into the story about how the overhead projector mounted in the ceiling blew a bulb (literally blew, we had a power surge) this morning so on top of all the other issues I had to talk to slides and use the white board for 20 minutes while the "education coordinator" tried to find me a new projector. Two of my students took great pleasure in building a table to put the projector on since the room we're in comfortably fits only 10 people (and we're 16) and there was no place to put a non-ceiling mounted projector. They built the table out of cardboard boxes I pulled out of the trash, empty cans, some wads of white board paper and almost an entire roll of scotch tape. Sure, there was a replacement bulb for the projector but the "education coordinator" refused to give it to me since they had just replaced the bulb a few weeks ago and she thought it would be "a waste to put a new lightbulb in". 

?!?!?!?!?!

I can't believe I have to teach this fucking class again, in the same building, in three weeks...

what am I teaching - kindergarten???

This is a disturbing story. Maybe you shouldn't read it. Don't read it while you're eating.


Today I was teaching a huge class (15 students). They all had to go through building security which takes forever.

One student, who's had 2 classes with me, was at the end of the line and he had to poop. He's in his late 40s. Security wouldn't give him the combo for the bathroom til they checked him in. So, he pooped a little in his pants.

Luckily he had work out clothes in his car so he changed. No one needed to know. But he felt compelled to tell me in the hopes I might get the woman in security that wouldn't give him the code fired.

Ech. I don't get paid enough...

jet set

I was talking to my friend Deanne the other day and she said she was jealous that I get to travel so much. Travel is not all it's cracked up to be...

Yesterday I was finishing up with my client at 3:30. I had to drive from San Ramon to SFO to catch a 6:50 flight. Oh, it will only take you an hour to get there my client said. You're going to be sitting around the airport. He wanted to talk to me more about his organization.

I sat there for 15 more minutes and then said I had to go. Clients always wait until I'm about to leave to decide they have something very important to tell me. These are the same clients that get pissed for having to pay extra charges when I miss my flight because they delay me.

I started driving on 580 and thought maybe my client was right. Even though I thought I had plenty of time I was speeding, thinking maybe I could grab a glass of wine before my plane took off.

Then traffic came literally to a screeching halt. By 5 PM I was still 24 miles from the airport, stopped dead on the highway. I hate being in those situations. Further, I had not had a chance to print my boarding pass so on top of having to return a car and get through security I had to print my boarding pass. I thought for sure I would miss my flight.

I managed to make it to car return by 6 PM. A train showed up right as I was arriving at the platform to go to the terminal but the fucking fuckwit in front of me wouldn't get out of the way on the escalator so I missed the train. It was 6:05. I knew if I missed my flight I'd be stuck at least overnight and that assumed that there were seats on a flight out. And I'm flying to Richmond tomorrow so I really needed to not be stuck in SF until Friday.

Finally I got to the terminal at 6:15, ran for security, and luckily the woman manning the line thought I was a stewardess and let me through the premium security line. You would think I'd have status on an airline with all my travels but they all expired while I was in the middle east and my company flies me on a different airline every week. It will take forever to get my status back.

The boarding was just finishing when I got to the gate and thankfully I was able to stow my bag before the bins got full. All I could imagine was a glass of red wine but the fucking plane was out. Note to people who don't travel much: airlines always run out of food and alcohol usually by the time they get to the 10th row. Don't plan your meals with the assumption there will be anything other than crappy snacks on the plane.

Got home at 11 PM last night and had to work on another project until 1 in the morning (they were doing a customer presentation today and waited until 4 PM PST to tell me they needed me to run some reports on their data - nice planning). Today I'm trying to get all my local errands done because I won't be back to Denver until September.

Ech. Life in the fast lane.

stabbed

Today I went back to Dr. Crane to get an injection in my knee to add some lubrication and hopefully alleviate some of the pain.

I didn't know what to expect so I was pretty nervous this morning before the appointment. Dr. Crane was running late but he told this other doctor that was going to do the injection that he wanted to do it. I think he likes me as a patient. A nurse painted iodine all over the side of my knee and then said "I need to get Dr. Crane's bucket". That made me more nervous but it turns out it was just a square sort of bucket thing that had all the shit in it for the injection.

When Dr. Crane came in I gave him a status report of all the things I've done since I last saw him. He was pretty happy with my progress. I joked with him that it would be hard to find a place in my knee where he could insert the needle since it's all bone and he said "even if I hit a bad spot don't kick me because I'm in a very vulnerable position". I was sitting on the examination table with my legs dangling over the side - he was sitting right in front of my right foot with his legs spread so he could get leverage on my leg to get the needle in.

The initial poke of the needle wasn't bad. When he started to work it under my femur, that was terrible. I could feel it scraping on the bone like there was a snake in my leg. Then when he started injecting the stuff it felt like my knee cap was going to blow off. He told me to look at an x-ray he had brought in of a normal knee instead of watching him wiggle the needle under my knee cap but I didn't want to look at the good knee x-ray. That's like when I cook something from a cook book and the picture in the book looks great and my food looks like shit.

When he finally pulled the needle out (the most painful part, but maybe because it was the end) I thought I might be a little sore from the poke but other than that I was expecting instant pain relief. It turns out the injection can take up to 6 weeks to start working. Sometimes the pain is worse after the injection. Sometimes the injection doesn't help at all and sometimes it wears off before 6 months (shot on average provides relief for 6 months) but you can't get another one until the full 6 months have passed. He said to take it easy and not even ride my bike for a week. I was kind of surprised at that, but I was like "okay, I'll be good" and Dr. Crane said "that will be the day" and walked out.

I hopped off the examination table (stupid stupid stupid) and the second my right toe touched the floor the pain was so excruciating I thought I was going to throw up. I was like what the fuck did I do to myself???? Then I looked down at my knee and saw it was hugely swollen from the injection goo. I couldn't straighten my right knee fully so I limped out of the office and into the parking lot. I seriously could barely drive home.

Anyway, the goo should get itself settled in a week. Hopefully. Dr. Crane thinks I will see a big difference in the pain I'm experiencing, and hopefully I can ride my bike in three weeks when I get back to Denver from a trip odyssey where I will be flying to Williamsburg, driving to DC, then flying to Houston, then flying to San Fran, then flying back to Houston all in the space of 3 weeks. Ech.

shot

Last night I had a dream that I was hanging out in this mansion like place somewhere in the suburbs. There was going to be a party and a male friend of mine (not sure who it was because I couldn't see his face - but he was someone I knew) was trying to help me pick out something to wear.

Then these two guys from the CIA showed up and started telling me about how they had given my male friend a shot so he would never get the flu again. They asked if I wanted a shot too and I said yes so they injected something into my back.

A few minutes later my friend came in and said "if those guys ask if you want a shot say no because they're testing a chemical that kills a person in a month". I was like oh fuck, they gave me the shot and my friend was like you're going to die.

Then the CIA guys came back and said "Oh, don't worry about the shot. It might not work. And it's easier because you'll never have to worry about catching up on your sleep again." I started trying to find a calendar in the house so I could figure out when I was going to die, but I kept traveling in time back to when I was 5 years old. I was standing in my old back yard, at the age of 5, in the rain, when I heard one of the guys say "time travel was not something we anticipated this drug could do." Then I started traveling through time so fast that I felt sick, like I was on a roller coaster. Then I felt a burning pain in my head and realized I was going to die.

Then I woke up.

that's the big city...

Well, things are as I expected in Houston. The trip started out insane when my fucking GPS gave me the worst directions ever to my customer site. Then my customer, who is furious at my company and at his sales person, started yelling (yes, yelling) at me the second I walk in the door. All I could think of is the episode on Southpark when the aliens are talking to the cows and the cows are like "but you ripped this other cow's ass out" and the aliens were like "oh, that was Carl, he's new" and the Carl alien goes "my bad!"

Anyway, I've managed to fix some problems, but my ability to fix problems is directly related to how much information the customer gives me. Which is little to none. Until today I couldn't even see what they were doing. He dumped a 40 page pile of the worst code written ever in my lap and I'm supposed to "fix it". On top of what ever other crisis happens. And my customer keeps saying "I think I'm confusing you" and I'm like "maybe if you gave me an actual example of what you're trying to do I could help". Ech. Also, he wants me to write code to fix problems in the release he's using (and yelled at me as if I personally released a version with bugs). He says he can't upgrade until he tests shit, and he won't let me do the testing, so that testing will probably happen next never. When I pointed out to him that if he had used such rigorous "testing" for the previous release he never would have installed it he promptly declared it was lunch time and left the meeting. Why introduce logic into an argument?

The office smells like farts, or maybe it's just that my cube mate farts non-stop. I've lost my rental car twice now in different parking garages. Yesterday I wandered around for over an hour before I found it (I remembered the floor and the area where I was parked, but it's a three part garage spread out over two city blocks and the garages aren't connected, so I went up one side and then had to walk down and go to the next side, etc.). Today I parked in a space I was sure would be easy to find. The problem was the door I came out was locked and I couldn't use it to go back in. I had to go to the bowels of the garage, take an elevator, and then try to re-orient myself. I was only lost for 10 minutes today.

The good news is I have a quart of blue berries and I plan on eating the whole thing for dinner. Tomorrow, as they say, is another day. I just have to keep reminding myself to be like Special Agent Dale Cooper...

Houston

Well, I'm off to spend 6 weeks in Houston. This is probably the worst time of the year to go. As a reward for my suffering I get to spend 2 weeks in Northern California.

I'm kind of over the traveling, but it's billable work. I'm getting sick of clients who cancel engagements at the last minute (one the day before work was supposed to start) and those that screw around and decide on Friday afternoon that I have to absolutely be at their place on Monday morning.

I sometimes think clients don't understand how hard it is to be a consultant. My biggest pet peeves:

• You've known for a few months that I'm coming to town, and you made ridiculous requests about the amount of work you want me to get done. But when I get to your place you have no time to spend with me. Really, I love staying up until 1 in the morning looking at your jacked up spreadsheets of data trying to figure out what the fuck to do so I don't get dinged for not finishing a deliverable.
• Oh, you didn't realize I need a desk to work at? Where the fuck do you think I'm going to put my computer? You thought I would love balancing my laptop at the end of your desk between pictures of your kids and dog? No, that doesn't work for me.
• So your office is locked down like Fort Knox. If my movements are going to be restricted tell me before I get there. Yeah, I smoke. Shoot me. I don't think it's unreasonable that I can leave your building at least once during the course of a day to have some peace and quiet. You think it's inconvenient for you to escort me? Try being me.
• If your building doesn't have a cafeteria or a close by place with food tell me before I get there. It's not so much fun to have to go the whole day without eating. 
• All that noise in the conference room is not conducive to me being able to write code. I can block out most noise. But give me a few hours of quiet to work.
• I know I'm not the typical consultant. But that doesn't mean I want to have sex with you or spend hours eating dinner with you while you drop hints about how your marriage sucks and you haven't gotten laid in years. Not my problem. I'm at your site to work. I'm not there to entertain you. I have other clients to deal with in the evening. Except on a rare occasion I don't want to eat dinner with you. Or lunch for that matter. That's an hour of time that's precious on a short engagement, and being able to work through lunch means I'm not going to have to work until 11 at night in my hotel room.
• If because of security I can't get on the internet think of a better way to get data to me than email. If we can't exchange stuff using a USB drive email me stuff while I'm at the hotel. No, I don't want to drive over to starbucks and waste 45 minutes of my day receiving emails from you because you can't get files to me any other way. And if you send me to starbucks don't freak out that the huge file you sent me takes 20 minutes to download because I'm using free (i.e. shitty) wifi.
• If you know I have to leave to catch a plane don't bring up a major issue as I'm packing up. It's always the clients that make me miss my plane that end up bitching about the $150 fee to schedule a new flight.

 That being said, I'm sure I'm going to have fun in Houston...

my latest knee x-rays

This shows my knee cap when my right leg is bent. You can see how it's not tracking straight. The femur bone overgrowth is pushing my knee cap out, which is why it hurts when I bend my leg. Also, you can see the femur defect (compare the right, or lateral, side of my knee with the left, or medial, side). My right side is pointed. It's not supposed to be pointed.

This shows my right knee bent. You can see that the bottom of my femur is overlapping my tib-fib when I bend my knee not even 90 degrees. The white area shows arthritis.

This x-ray shows the lateral side of my femur. You can see where bone is still missing on the lateral side (compare it with the smoother, medial side of my knee). You can also see how my femur is causing my leg to go sideways because of the bone overgrowth. The amount of daylight between the femur and tib-fib that's supposed to be there is missing (compare to my medial side).

my newly relandscaped back yard

This is my old backyard. Tres ugly, and full of weeds.

Here's the new backyard. Hopefully my transplanted rose bushes won't die. It's not finished, and the tree in the back is going to be replaced, but it's a lot better than it was.

pic of people from the Lighthouse retreat, and a bear

Here's a picture of most of the people from the retreat (a few left early). I'm hiding in the back.

And here's a bear that showed up on Wednesday night while we were eating dinner. He didn't stick around long, probably because dinner that night was kind of suck. Over cooked fish and this weird breaded eggplant. That tasted like slime instead of eggplant, to be honest.

hire me, please

My brother was updating his resume and sent me this fucking hilarious email:

I was reading this article on typos people put on their resumes, and I
couldn't help but create a fake one.  All information below is
directly pirated.  It should not be read or published.  It is for your
amusement only.  If you happen to put your boss's name on it and post
it to job sites, that's not my fault.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OBJECTIVE
Seeking a party-time position with room for advancement.  I'm working
today in a furniture factory as a drawer.

SUMMARY
I would like to assure you that I am a hardly working person.  I
prefer lunch to be gin at Noon everyday.  I was an inspirational
leaper for a development team.  They described me as a perspiring
leader.  Am a real problem.  Please don't misconstrue my 14 jobs as
'job-hopping'. I have never quit a job.  Here are my qualifications
for you to overlook.


2010-2011
Voluntary work for taking care of the elderly and vegetable people.  I
was a Candy Stripper, but I don't like dealing with blood or needles.
Helped injured people process clams.  Dispensed medication and passed
out.

2010
Instrumental for ruining entire operation for a Midwest chain store.
Planned new corporate facility at $3 million over budget.

2010
Answer phones, file papers, respond to customer e-mails, take odors.
Revolved customer problems and inquiries.

2005-2010
Experienced in all faucets of accounting.  As indicted, I have over
five years of analyzing investments.  Failed bar exam with relatively
high grades.  Wholly responsible for two (2) failed financial
institutions.  Managed sex (6) units.

2002-2004 PUBLIC SERVICE
Spent several years in the United States Navel Reserve.  I am a Notary
Republic.  I'm a hard worker, etc.  I would like to work at a law
farm.  Received a plague for Salesperson of the Year.

1999
Career break in 1999 to renovate my horse. I have an excellent track
record, although I am not a horse.  I never take anything for
granite.  Reason for leaving last job: maturity leave.


SKILLS
Strong Work Ethic, Attention to Detail, Team Player, Self Motivated,
Attention to Detail. extreme experience with PowerPint, Microsoft
World.  I have lurnt Word Perfect 6.0 computor and spreadsheet
programs.

HIGLHLIGLHTS OF QUALIFICASIONS
Responsibility makes me nervous.
Bi-lingual in three languages.
Speak English and Spinach.
Exposure to German for two years but many words are inappropriate for business.
I have an excellent track record, although I am not a horse.
Achievements: "Nominated for prom queen.
I have extensive experience with foreign accents.

HOBBYS
Enjoy cooking Chinese and Italians.

EDUCATION
Completed 11 years of high school.
I have a bachelorette degree in computers.  Have repeated courses repeatedly.
Graduated from Havrad University with a Masters Degree - Graduated in
the top 70% of my class.

Hope to hear from you shorty.

umbrellas or else

At the writing conference this week I had the pleasure of meeting J. Diego Frey, a local Denver poet. His new book just came out Umbrellas or Else. Check out his web site. He has posted poems about jello wrestling with Barbara Walters, eating a milky way, and toupees.

I sent this email to everyone at the conference when I got home. I was hoping more people would add stuff to it but that didn't happen. The quotes are based on the poems one of the other conference people read one night when we were getting drunk in the smoker's lounge:

I was saddened to read about J Diego's law suit this morning on the NPR web site:

FAMOUS PEOPLE BRING CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT AGAINST POET

A number of famous people have filed a class action law suit against J Diego Frey, author of the now infamous book Umbrellas or Else. The following excerpts were pulled out of the court document:

"In "Haikus to a Drinking Buddy" JD said the way I belched the Rockford files theme song was cool, and that my hair looked good. But now my wife has filed for divorce. I think he's a dick." - Donald Trump

"I was eating nougat and reading "Milkywet" when I laughed so hard I choked. It was worse than the time with the pretzel. I think JD is trying to kill me." - George W. Bush

"The back of Umbrellas or Else specifically stated that the poems wouldn't make my brain hurt. But now it hurts so bad I may not be able to run for president. Like, I can't stop wondering what part of JD is shaped like broccoli." - Sarah Palin

If the law suit is successful it will set a precedent in the writing world. The judge has commented that, besides having to pay a huge settlement, JD may also be sentenced to three years of house arrest during which he will be forced to read Eat, Pray, Love and submit a report answering all the reader's group discussion questions.

my first published article!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just found out last night that Chapter 9 of my book is going to be published in the Oceans anthology this fall. They donate all the proceeds to ocean conservation. I'll post the information about the anthology once I receive it.

HOORAY!!!!! Thanks to my pal and fellow writer Hans Hartman for passing the information about the anthology on to me. And thanks to my family for dealing with my neurotic ramblings at Thanksgiving last year when I was editing the story.

CP

Last night I also got to hang out with a new friend, Kristen. I met her Friday night. She has cerebral palsy. It's caused by a bruise on a baby's brain. If treated before the age of 2 the outcome is usually really good. Her parents didn't believe in hospitals so they didn't get her treatment until it was too late. She had to have surgery on her hip and her parents took her out of the hospital immediately afterward so she didn't have any physical therapy. She laid in a bed for 6 months until her surgical incisions were so infected that she had to be rushed to the emergency room.

She has a lot of problems she shouldn't because of her parents' irresponsibility. She has severed all ties with them because they always wanted to hide her problem. Socially she runs into a lot of issues as well. Most people see people with CP on television and think it's really severe. It depends on the person. She also has guys who have dumped her because they were afraid the CP would get worse - it doesn't. Some times people think she's mentally disabled because of her walk. She told me "I feel like I walk normally and I always hate walking by a mirror and I can see that I don't". She endures a lot of ridicule from people who don't realize she has CP but she's at the point where she just ignores it and gets on with her life.

Kristen was never much of an outdoors person until 2003 when she met a woman at the airport who asked if she had tried hand cycling. Kristen was like "what the fuck is a hand cycle?" She started attending events like No Barriers and now sky dives, hand cycles, rafts, and horse back rides. She spent every day of No Barriers doing two new sports she never tried before.

Like me she often travels by herself. We cooked up some adventure trips to go on, and hopefully we will get to do a trip together this year. Though, Kristen and I are a lot alike, and we like to get into trouble, so it might not be a good thing for us to hang out together. Or, it could be the perfect thing!

Herr doctor

On Saturday night Dr. Hugh Herr was the keynote speaker at dinner. He was a child prodigy climber who lost both feet due to frostbite (he and a friend spent three nights in -20F temps after getting lost in a blizzard). Now he designs, builds, and wears bionic legs.

After his talk paradox invited him to come drinking with us. I thought he would be a boring professor but he isn't. He told me as we sat down at a table that he had just gotten back from Geneva after giving an important talk. I was like "Oh, I thought you went there to eat chocolate" and he said "I did eat chocolate, and it was decadent".

Of course all the amps wanted to know more about his legs, and when they would be available. His legs have flashing lights on them like R2D2 and they have processors on them. I asked him if someone could hack his legs and he said "definitely" and we were joking that someone would make him walk somewhere he didn't want to go (I was picturing him being forced to walk into a sleezy lingerie and sex shop).

Somehow we ended up with two bottles of wine on the table. Dr. Herr poured me a third glass of wine and I was like "dude" because I was afraid I would start babbling like a drunken idiot. He said "you're hotel is close by isn't it? you don't have to drive" and I was like "yeah, but I still have to walk there" prompting great laughter from around the table. I was the only one there with two legs.

Then Dr. Herr said he was thinking about starting a facebook page for his legs, and that he wanted to set up an account so they could send out tweets like "Dr. Herr is walking to starbucks". I started trying to explain the episode of Wallace and Grommet called "the wrong pants" but everyone was asking him questions so I started talking to Rob about side stix.

It was a fun evening, unfortunately cut short at midnight when the bar threw us out for being too noisy. I have to say most non-profit events I've attended in the past were boring with weird people. No Barriers was like a non-stop adrenaline fueled party and I met lots of cool people that I will hopefully be climbing and hiking with in the future.

not your average amputee

I spent this weekend up at Winter Park doing a charity event called No Barriers. Mal invited me and in the evening I got to hang out with the paradox athletes. Since I'm still suffering from the parties and lack of sleep, I decided to post a few pics and write a real blog tomorrow.

You think you know what a double amputee looks like? Check this girl out. With her prostheses she's over 14 feet tall. Loved the butterfly wings too.

One of the prosthetic designers at the show offered to let me use demo boots to see what it's like to walk with fake feet. My feet are in the boots and the feet you see below the boots are two different types of prosthetics. I got to experience the difference between a stiff foot and one with ankle movement.

This is a new design for a prosthetic foot, made from a plastic called PEEK and aircraft aluminum. I told them the name they had given it was boring and suggested they rename it the Darth Vader foot.

I also am REALLY psyched that I am now the proud owner of a pair of side stix. One of the paradox athletes recommended I talk to the company about my knee problem. They gave me a pair of side stix and then I went for a half mile walk with Jon Arnow. 

We went up and down a rolling hill, then up and down a steep hill, and then up a bunch of rocks. I could not believe the difference that using the side stix made with my leg. It was the first time in over 14 years I've been able to walk down a hill without excruciating pain in my femur. And my leg was a lot more stable. I used the side stix for the rest of the day because I was on my feet (I ended up working 12 hours Friday and Saturday as a volunteer) and I was amazed when I got back to my hotel that my knee not only wasn't swollen but it was barely hurting at all.

I told Jon that I had been feeling a little bummed out because I couldn't do long hikes anymore (after an easy 6 mile hike at Roxborough I couldn't walk the rest of the day). I'm taking my stix out tomorrow to Roxborough to see how they do on a steep-ish 12 mile hike. If they work out Jon said he would do the rim-rim-rim in the grand canyon with me in september and we'll post a story on the side stix web site.

BTW, if you go to their web site you'll see this adorable guy named Nico doing an aerial with the side stix (his leg was amputated right below his hip). He's a competitive soccer player and can out run almost everyone with his stix.

The best part of the weekend was meeting a bunch of athletes that are hardly gimps even if they have a few missing parts.

Tommy's corrections

I had a bizarre (as usual) meeting with Tommy to go over his corrections to the story I wrote. In the middle of a thought he often veers off down strange mental alleyways, jumping from his accident to his truck to his family to bluegrass to children to the fiancee he lost on September 11th to prosthetic adjustments to what a bitch I am for showing up at the meeting wearing sunglasses and a hat. He also said I'm uncoordinated and that my cruiser bike is "laughable".

Here are the corrections. The story is actually worse than the initial version:

Tommy is an Army veteran. One day, while riding his motorcycle twice the legal speed limit on a winding road in Pennsylvania, he came around a turn an almost hit the back of a car going the speed limit. The car swerved off the road and Tommy started to pass it. But the car tried to pull back onto the road and the front bumper caught Tommy’s back tire. That forced him into a telephone pole. The impact embedded 10 ½ inches of his left femur and 5 inches of his lower left arm in the pole. Disks in his neck were shattered.

He was in a coma for 3 months and in the hospital for 15 months. Doctors tried to save his leg for over a year, performing 15 surgeries. Finally the doctors told Tommy they would have to do an amputation because his foot had gangrene. The doctors wouldn’t tell him how much of his leg should be amputated, and gave him the choice of half his foot, his foot below the ankle, his leg below the knee, or his leg above the knee.

Tommy’s father, Daddy Joe, told him to let the doctors cut the leg off above the knee. Due to the severity of his injuries any amputation lower down would have left him unable to walk. More importantly for Tommy, he would have been unable to drive his Ford Ranger truck.

Meanwhile, the guy who lived in the house up the hill from the accident site pulled Tommy’s leg and arm bones out of the telephone pole to put over his garage door as decoration. Tommy’s siblings were so pissed they went to the guy’s house, ripped the bones off of the garage, and then beat the guy up. Tommy said his family was very protective of him even though he doesn’t think about being an amputee.

After we got the story straightened out I had a grilled cheese sandwich and Tommy had chicken wings with no sauce on them (even the waitress thought this was odd). He told her I was a bitch who wrote a story about him being a player which was not true, and then he hit on her, calling her "honey". Somehow his twisted charm convinced her to comp our last round of drinks. 

He also taught a little 2 year old girl how to toss a bean bag (we were at Vine St. pub and they have a bean bag toss game in the back - drinking and throwing things - does that ever work out?). He also showed her that the inside of the bag was stuffed with corn so she started pulling corn out of all the bean bags and bringing it to Tommy. She would put the corn in Tommy's hand and then Tommy would clap. I found myself thinking if the game went on much longer all the bean bags would be destroyed. The little girl's parents decided to leave and the little girl gave Tommy a high five and stood next to him on the sidewalk, refusing to go with her parents, waving good bye to them instead of Tommy.

Tommy made me a bouquet of flowers, and as we were leaving also rescued to damsels in distress (they were from the south) with his bike pump (one had a flat tire).

But I still think he's a little shit.

my own tree!

I'm having my yard redone, finally, and I'm getting my own tree. It will be a little tree with flowers.

I was planning to put a hummingbird feeder in the tree, but some fuckwit friend of mine who I guess was trying to rain on my parade said hummingbirds won't show up unless I'm fat and wearing a floral print dress. Like, they're birds. Little birds. Their brain, I doubt could process whether I'm a fat floral lady or not. All they want is sugar.

Sometimes, I question my friendships.

I'm still excited about my new tree.

gimps on rock - day 2

7 May 2011, Saturday

First, I hear a dog bark. Then I hear Chad’s voice. Then I hear Timmy’s voice. The sun is shining brightly through the tent fly so I figure it must be at least 8:30. I get out of my sleeping bag and open my Coke. The top is covered in red Shelf dust. I pull on my climbing clothes and then turn on my Blackberry. It’s 6:30 in the morning.

Cursing at being up at such an ungodly hour, I exit my tent and find Timmy and Chad in the middle of making eggs for breakfast. Though everyone in camp gets up soon after I do, we don’t end up making it to the trail head until around 9 am. We’ve decided to climb at the Menses wall and Gabi consults a map in the guide book to figure out the best trail to get there.

I’m confused about the discussion on terrain until Rob explains to me that rocks and loose gravel present a serious obstacle to walking, and that up hills and down hills can be difficult to hike with a prosthetic. We elect to go left, taking a trail that’s longer but, according to the map, less steep.

It ends up being the worst decision ever. The trail is just as hard as the one to the right, and it’s longer. The group becomes strung out because the athletes walk at various speeds. I decide to stay with Rob, who’s walking in the back of the pack. He’s not in a huge hurry to get to the crag, and he’s a captive audience for me to talk to while we hike.

Rob gives me the low down on how prosthetics work. I’m surprised when he tells me legs are held on just by suction to the stump, the term most people use for what’s left after an amputation, though the technical term is “residual limb”. A stump can change size even over the course of a day, so there are things called “socks” that he uses to make sure his prosthetic stays put if his stump changes size because that affects the suction and the athlete’s ability to keep the prosthetic leg attached. Rob has what appears to be an endless supply of socks in his backpack. Some are sort of like tube socks and they hit him mid-thigh. Others are really small and look like those caps they put on babies in the hospital. He also has neoprene looking socks that have a spike sticking out of the bottom of them.

After walking for a bit Rob would stop to repack his stump – that means he would take off or add socks to keep his prosthetic situated. A pattern emerged when it was about time to repack. Rob would start going “Fuck, shit, fuck!” The socks would come out of his pack. He would take some socks off and put different ones on, all the while patiently explaining to me why he was using a particular configuration of socks. I thought the neoprene spike socks were the best but Rob kept taking them off, I guess because they were making him sweaty.

He apologized often for his language, and I pointed out to him that I often use the f word even when it’s not needed. Rob suggested maybe I shouldn’t use the f word so frequently. I agreed, and was silently thankful he wasn’t lecturing me about smoking instead of my profanity usage.

At one stop to repack his stump the topic of shark week on Discovery channel came up because we had been talking about orcas attacking great whites. Rob told me how he was thinking about applying for a job as the commentator for shark week (Discovery is looking for someone). Rob is very handsome in a James Bond way, and I told him I thought he would be an excellent commentator. As he pulled himself to his feet with his walking poles he said “I don’t know how good I would look in a wet suit. But at least they wouldn’t have to worry about a shark biting my legs off.”

When we reached the crag the other climbers teased Rob about being late. I told them we had been talking and taking our time, and Rob pointed out that actually I had been talking. I apologized for monopolizing the conversation and Rob said “Well, what could I do? Run away?”

We had been joined by a photographer/journalist named Caroline. She interviewed the Paradox athletes and talked to them about their stories. I had found out on the hike in that Rob had lost his legs to a random invasive strep A infection. He went into a hospital on a Saturday with what he thought was the flu. He awoke from a coma two weeks later with no legs.

Rob has a theory that that’s one of the reasons why he doesn’t experience phantom limb pain. He thinks that since he didn’t know he would lose his legs, and that he never had to make a decision about whether or not to lose them, his brain some how more readily accepted the fact that his legs were gone. He considers himself lucky because he knows a lot of amputees who have debilitating phantom pain.

Hiking with Rob provided me with great information about how prosthetics work and it also made me feel more confident that I wouldn’t say or do something stupid, as I normally do in social situation. On Friday night I had feared asking any of the athletes how they lost their legs, or anything about their prosthetics, though I was extremely curious. But all the athletes I talked to were totally open about their stories and their equipment. And they had no qualms about making fun of each other. I didn’t meet anyone that weekend that was self conscious about their prosthetic. To them it was just another piece of climbing equipment.

#

Climbing with the Paradox athletes is like climbing with a group of nerdy robot engineers. They test out each other’s prosthetics to see how different prosthetic designs feel. They are always looking around for wrenches to make minor adjustments. They also give each other advice and tips, some of which are followed and some of which are ignored.

One thing I noticed immediately was that Christa, the sole female athlete, would pick her prosthetic, put it on with a wrench in a speedy and efficient manner, and make adjustments after a climb to improve the fit.

The guys, however, seemed to spend forever putting on their prosthetic. They would pick up the foot they were thinking about using and examine it as if it were some new object from outer space that they had never seen before. Then they would have long discussions about rubber, size, angles, stiffness verses flexibility, and length. Then they would keep tweaking the various bolts with the wrench, making what looked like miniscule adjustments. I thought about how guys always complain that women take so much longer to get ready, and realized that in this situation the reverse was true.

After we had done a few climbs Chad and two other climbers showed up. The first climber was a guy named Craig. He lost his leg after falling 100 feet in a climbing accident. But I didn’t even notice he had a prosthetic until I looked at his feet. Craig moves with the grace of a phenomenal athlete and walked faster than everyone in our group.

The other climber looked like a member of Hell’s Angels who had recently escaped from jail. He walked up to the rock where I was sitting and said “you know what I really need to do? I really need to take off this fucking pack!” As he settled down onto a rock Christa said hi to him and they chatted briefly while Caroline took pictures.

Wait a minute, I thought to myself, how is it possible that Christa knows this delinquent? Christa is a tiny blond, with size 5 shoes. She always has an expression on her face like she is going to start laughing. During the whole time I spent with her she always smiled, even when the trail got rough or her shoulders got sunburned.

While the degenerate was distracted by the photographer, whom he began flirting with the moment she got near him, I asked Christa how she knew the Hell’s Angel looking character. “Oh, he taught me to walk,” she said. They were also on a television show together. I found that hard to believe so I said “He, that guy over there propositioning the photographer, taught you how to walk?” Christa said “Yes, he saw that I was ready and he helped me learn to walk.”

Finding that out brought up another question. I had never asked Christa what happened to her leg, only hearing smatterings of clues such as “after the earthquake”, “commissioned the plane”, and “Christa was the twenty fourth most googled name after the accident”. I hadn’t wanted to ask what happened, mostly because her prosthetic seemed to be an afterthought to her as she climbed, like someone putting in a retainer before they go to bed. I felt like if I asked she would give me a puzzled look, as if I should be more interested in her 3 month old puppy rather than something as trivial as her leg.

But I figured it was as good a moment as any, so I asked. She cocked her head as if she was trying to remember something from long ago, like the name of the first street she lived on, and then she said “A house fell on me.”

It wasn’t the response I was expecting. In fact, I was shocked. So I clumsily said “wow, that’s so Wizard of Oz”, and then wished I could crawl into one of the rock cracks until the weekend was over. But Christa laughed and said “yeah, I have to figure out how to include the Wicked Witch in my story”.

Christa was a volunteer in Haiti when the earthquake hit. She and a colleague started running out of the house they were in, which was the only place with an internet connection. With the slightest catch in her voice she said “I didn’t make it out”. She was trapped under the house and it took a long time to get her out. She waited 30 hours with no pain medication for a plane to evacuate her. The woman whose house she was staying in collected up Christa’s toothbrush for the flight back to the U.S but failed to grab her passport and other useful papers. When I expressed confusion about that Christa said “That’s what it’s like living in that part of the world. Papers mean nothing. But a toothbrush, which is hard to get, is important.”

I noticed that Chad had gotten on a climb, and Christa and I watched as he made his way up the rock face. Timmy was belaying him. On another climb Rob was almost at the summit when suddenly his prosthetic came loose. Rob asked his belayer to take while he fixed the problem. Timmy looked over and said “Your leg is falling off? What, are you made of legos?” Chad chimed in that he had attached his leg to his climbing harness with a sling because a few weeks earlier he had dropped it on a multi-pitch climb.  He succinctly summarized the event: “Lost my leg, got a sling, hooked it to my harness, problem solved.” He’s a Capricorn and they are very project oriented.

After everyone had taken a few laps on the routes that were set up the group came to a consensus that it was too hot in the area where we were. The sun was blazing down on us and the paler members of our group had started turning red. We gathered up our belongings and headed to some new routes in the shade.

That’s when the afternoon began to deteriorate. Timmy began a monologue that went from “Total Eclipse of the Heart” to how a cheese stick I had given to the Hell’s Angel climber, whose name I had found out was Tommy, looked “flaccid and oily”. People told me to stop laughing so Timmy would end the monologue but I couldn’t help listening. He’s like a really annoying pop song that gets stuck in your head, playing itself over and over again until you want to set your brain on fire.

Craig led a hard 5.11b and then Timmy led an easier route for the rest of us to climb. When he finished the route a 10 year old girl came over to our group. It turned out she is a huge fan of Timmy’s but was too timid to approach him.

Sensing an opportunity to ridicule Timmy we encouraged her to go over and meet him. She called him “teacher Timmy” and said she watched his DVD all the time. The guys in the group made fun of him for the rest of the afternoon for being famous and having a fan club.

Craig did the best job of making fun of Timmy, espousing great one liners effortlessly. He, like all the other athletes I had met, became involved with Paradox Sports because he was contacted by Malcolm Daly after his accident. Malcolm, who is on the board of directors and who is an amputee, puts a lot of effort into tracking down injured athletes and bringing them in to the Paradox fold.

Sometimes he does that in interesting ways. Craig told me he was in the hospital just days after his accident when Malcolm showed up to his room. He introduced himself to Craig and then took off his prosthetic and put it on Craig’s bed. “I wasn’t sure where things were going after he did that. I was wondered why this guy was putting his leg on my bed.” After talking with Malcolm Craig decided to get involved with Paradox and he does as many events as he can.

While I was talking to Craig Tommy had meandered over to my end of the cliff, mostly, I suspect, because that’s where Caroline was. She took a picture of him and he said in a wounded voice “Hey, you’re only taking a picture of my leg.” Caroline took her camera over to Tommy to show him she had gotten all of him in the photo, but I think he knew that and was just trying to get Caroline to come close to him so he could try to look down her shirt.

Tommy was the only Paradox athlete who had an amputation above the knee, meaning he can’t bend his leg. When he climbs he climbs with a very short prosthetic. As he ambled over to a route with his short leg on Timmy kept saying “Oy matey, I’m a pirate” because Tommy did kind of look like a pirate with a peg leg.

Around 7 pm we headed back to camp. Gabi and I walked with Rob, who seemed relieved that the trail we took back was shorter and a little easier than the way we had come up. There were a few places where he had to walk around big boulders because he couldn’t scale them, but he didn’t seem too stressed out about the descent even though that’s hardest for the athletes. We arrived at his van to find that he had packed a cooler in the back with beer, which was ice cold. He gave me a blonde beer and that was how I rehydrated after climbing all day.

We arrived back at the camp after everyone else. There was a festive atmosphere and Timmy was cooking teriyaki turkey meatballs. I decided to move my tent to a better position before I had another drink. Chad built a huge fire and then helped Timmy cook the spaghetti that was to accompany the meat balls. Gabi was enlisted to make rolls, and then a lemon cherry strawberry cake, in a dutch oven. I have to admit I was surprised at the meals Timmy and Chad managed to prepare with just a dutch oven and two stoves.

Once the angle of my tent was squared away I went to my car and got out a huge bottle of Yellow Tail wine. Rob had also brought some wine, so I drank a glass of the good stuff before hitting the Yellow Tail. Five more people had joined the party, bringing us to 14 people.

Everyone was sitting around the fire eating spaghetti and exchanging climbing stories. I was hanging out with Gabi, who had been given the position of Timmy’s sous chef, to pick up some cooking tips. I was fascinated by the technique Timmy used to cook in the Dutch oven. He would put coals below the oven and on top of the lid. Then he would keep opening the lid and rearranging or removing the charcoal. I don’t know exactly how he knew when to add or remove charcoal, but everything cooked perfectly.

Timmy’s tent pitching skills were in sharp contrast to his cooking. Gabi and I were standing next to the dutch oven waiting for the lemon cherry strawberry cake to finish when I noticed a tent blowing across the campsite. I grabbed it as it flew past me and Gabi asked the group whose tent it was. Only after everyone else denied all knowledge of the tent did Timmy say “Oh, I think that’s mine!” He had forgotten to stake it to the ground.

The lemon cherry strawberry cake had to cool for some time before it could be frosted. While waiting I decided to harass Tommy about setting up his tent before it got too late. The sun had gone down and the moon was a small crescent, so there wasn’t much ambient light. By the time he got his tent situated and I returned to the cake Gabi had already iced it. I noticed that he made little peaks at the edges to make it look like sharks were circling the perimeter of the cake. I thought it looked cool but no one else seemed to notice the shark fins.

At some point a big bottle of vodka came out of someone’s cooler. People were mixing Izzi juice and vodka. I tried a sip of a drink someone had made for Gabi and decided I still hate vodka, even when combined with grapefruit soda. We could see shooting stars and helicopters flying low over Shelf, looking for forest fires. Everyone was tired, but not too tired to enjoy the party.

#

Some time around 2 am I decided I should think about going to bed. Chad, his girlfriend Lindsey, Tommy, Gabi, and I were the only ones still left around the fire. Lindsey and I had just had a long conversation about shoes and strategies for finding expensive shoes on sale. I found out about her love of shoes after she told me about a city in Colorado that is the transvestite capital of the US. From shoes we went to geometry, spheres, and chaos theory. Then Tommy told me about his accident.

Tommy is retired Army. One day, while riding his motorcycle on a winding road in Pennsylvania, he encountered some stopped traffic and swerved off the road. He hit a telephone pole and left 9 inches of his leg embedded in it. Doctors tried to save his leg for over a year, until finally Tommy’s grandfather told him to let the doctors cut it off. Tommy was mad that the doctors never suggested that as an option and instead subjected him to multiple surgeries.

Meanwhile, a friend of Tommy’s pulled his leg bones out of the telephone pole to put over his garage door as decoration. Tommy’s siblings were so pissed they went to the guy’s house, ripped the bones off of the garage, and then beat the guy up. Tommy said his family was very protective of him even though he doesn’t think about being an amputee.

He laughed about how all the amputees at Paradox call themselves gimps, but that people with no amputation would lecture them about how it’s insulting to call someone a gimp. Chad brought up the gimp in Pulp Fiction, and there was a discussion about how some people associate the term “gimp” with sexual deviants wearing black leather masks. At that point I decided if I didn’t brush my teeth and go to bed I would be up all night.

Chad started to kill the fire. Then he kicked back in his chair and said “I really needed this weekend.” He turned to Lindsey and she confirmed he was much less stressed out. Then he said “You know what I love about these Paradox outings? This.” He spread his arms and encompassed all of us sitting around the camp fire.

gimps on rock - day 1

Finally finished my gimps on rock story.

6 May 2011, 7 PM

I drive down the dirt road that leads to the Sand Gulch camp at the Shelf Road climbing area looking for the Paradox Sports camp site. I’ll be spending the weekend climbing and hanging out with a bunch of athletes that wear prosthetics. I have no idea what to expect, and I don’t know anyone, so I approach the group cautiously. I don’t want to do or say anything stupid for at least the first five minutes of the weekend.

I walk over to the campsite fire pit and see a bunch of people sitting around drinking beer. The first person who talks to me is a guy named Rob. He says “You’re sneaky. We didn’t even hear you pull up.” I am surprised since I had, moments before, been blasting the Buena Vista Social Club. I am not sure what to do next, so I say “I’m here for the Paradox event. Is this the right place?” Laughter ensues from the group, and that’s when I notice that Rob is a double amputee. I feel like an idiot.

Chad comes over and saves me from further social embarrassment by introducing himself and welcoming me to the group. He’s the organizer for the event. Since the sun is going down and the first thing I’ve said was stupid, I decide to walk away from the group and put up my tent. Chad waves his hand around the campsite and says to pick any spot I like.

I find a place behind a tree and begin setting up my tent. The evening before I had taken it out of its sack and tried to set the poles up. I thought, at the time, that I was unsuccessful because I had had two glasses of wine. But now, with the wind picking up, I realize I’m just too uncoordinated to get the poles in the right holes.

My tent is flying around like a kite on the beach. I’m glad I’m behind a tree where no one can see me. I realize I’m going to have to ask for some help. I shove the tent in a bush so it won’t blow away and walk over to the group. “Are any of you experts at putting up a tent?” I ask. Everyone stares at me without saying a word. I imagine them wondering who invited the moron who can’t put up a tent even though she has two legs. Then Chad comes over and says he’ll help me. The two of us manage to get the tent poles in the right holes. I joke “it’s a two person tent because it takes two people to set it up” and Chad laughs. He’s probably being polite but it makes me feel better.

#

Chad and Timmy O’Neill make curry for dinner. It’s the last time that weekend that I get to use the fork I brought because it gets appropriated by the kitchen crew for food preparation. Unlike the rest of the group, who for the most part brought plastic camping utensils, I brought a real fork. I feel bad watching them work but Chad insists that he and Timmy will cook the food and do the clean up so we can all relax and enjoy ourselves.

Timmy is one of the founders of Paradox Sports, and possibly one of the funniest people on the planet. He’s also an amazing climber. I looked forward to his obnoxious comments as I attempt to climb something Saturday.

Chad builds a fire and we settle in around it. I sit on a bundle of wood because I don’t have a camp chair. Puppies and dogs wander the camp site. We’re just starting to talk about climbing plans when a crazy woman comes up to the site and says there’s a fire ban, and that if we don’t put out our fire immediately we’ll get a hundred dollar fine. We have a quick discussion about how we could split the cost of the fine between the 10 of us. Chad decides to be responsible and put the fire out: “It wouldn’t be good if it got in the news that Paradox set Shelf Road on fire”.

We’re all sad because the wind is picking up and the temperature is dropping. Christa, one of the Paradox athletes, suggests we put a lantern in the middle of the pit and pretend it’s a fire. Meanwhile Chad calls the sheriff’s department and finds out the woman is incorrect about the fire ban. Although there is a fire close by that they are monitoring we are allowed to build one as long as it’s in a ring.

In a few minutes we have a fire again and after discussing our climbing plans the conversation turns more personal. Most of the people in the group know each other so they talk about past Paradox events. I start talking to Rob about traveling in Greece and Turkey. Then Gabi, a ski instructor who works with amputees, joins in the conversation. He, like me, showed up alone and is a first time attendee of a Paradox event. He’s hoping to develop a relationship between his organization and Paradox.

Most of the group turns in early. A few of us stay up talking until midnight. I finally head to my tent and climb into my bag. It’s my first time sleeping alone in a tent and I can’t get warm. The wind blows the tent fly and it sounds like monster foot steps outside. I wonder if there are bears at Shelf and if bears are attracted to cans of Coke, since I’ve stashed one outside my tent fly. Further, I’ve accidentally set my tent up on a slope, and find myself waking up every few minutes because I’ve rolled off of my sleeping pad and into the side of the tent.

Around 3:30 in the morning I hear Chad talking in his sleep even though his tent is a fair distance from mine. He’s saying words, some real, some nonsensical: “apple” “four” “spoon”. I pull my bag around my face and try to sleep.

and that's why I ordered a new pair of hiking shoes!

I had my appointment today to see this uber knee doctor (he's the doc for the Denver Nuggets) about my knee. I have been dreading it since the prognosis looked like it was going to be surgery.

I immediately liked the doc (Dr. Crane) because he started talking about the stuxnet virus and asked if I knew who wrote it. He told me a story about a friend of his that, he said, "worked in black holes". So we talked about that for a few minutes.

Then he asked to see my knee. I was a little embarrassed because the skin from my ice burn was still peeling off. He looked at my shins, which are covered in scratches from when me and my brother cut down some trees last Friday. Then he looked at my foot, which has scars from my flip flops. He said "Hm."

Then he said "There are no good options for you." There's a new surgery where they cut off the entire top of the femur and replace it with cadaver bone. The failure rate is 70%. If it fails I'm stuck with a titanium rod in place of my knee. He could give me a mechanical knee, but he said "Let me give you a boy analogy on what would happen if I do that. It would be the equivalent of buying a brand new corvette with the best tires and giving it to an 18 year old. There's going to be a lot of smoke from the tires, and they aren't going to last long. Judging from the current shape of your leg and foot (pointing to all the scratches and scars) I'm going to guess you would trash a mechanical knee in a few years. Actually, you might be capable of trashing it in 3 months." He sounded kind of proud of me when he said that though it sounds insulting.

Instead he gave me a list of things to do to buy time for my leg. He said if I'll show a little more moderation and wear special inserts and shoes I could maybe keep my zombie knee for another 20 years (he said "the best footwear for you would be shoes made out of marshmallows" - hee). I'm not allowed to do lunges, squats, or wall sits anymore though (I was like "what about push ups?" and he said "those are fine" and I was like "damn" because I hate push ups). He's going to give me injections every 6 months to add some viscosity to my knee.

He checked out my knee movement and told me I'm getting knock kneed (attractive). So I have to keep a board and measure the distance my foot moves away from my other foot when my knees are together once a month. Eventually it will get so bad I have to have surgery because if I don't the medial ligament on the side of my knee will be ruined and it will make the knee replacement less successful. Basically, once my right leg is about 6 inches away from my left it's cutting time.

He wrote me a prescription for work saying I have to only wear running shoes (hooray!). I have to get inserts and an unloader brace. He said I'm lucky because most women can't wear the brace because their legs have too much fat on them (and he said I have attractive legs).

He weighed me so he could figure out how much glucosamine I need to take every day. Then he said "you are the first patient I've had that I've told to gain rather than lose weight". I haven't been eating much lately because of stress from everything going on. He said I should put on 5 pounds or 10 if I can.

On a final note I asked if I had done something wrong to make my knee go bad. He said he was surprised that it's lasted me as long as it has. Cadaver bone replacements are usually not successful. There was nothing I could have done to prevent what happened. I also told him how I told my other doctor that I was going to cut my leg off if they tried to give me a titanium rod and he shook my hand and said "you made the right decision, because if you had the rod in you would be in a much worse position now".

I'm allowed to hike, bike, climb, and ski. No more running though. I'm willing to give that up for 20 more years with my dead body parts.

And that's the more or less happy ending to the story.

see, I haven't changed much

I found these old pictures when I was at my parents' this past weekend...

Here I am at my first writing desk. The papers on the corner are a story I had just finished about a girl who ran away from home. I put my stuffed bear at the desk next to me. I'm playing with play doh making a frog. Note my science experiment in the window sill. And my horrible outfit...

This was my favorite birthday present. A pink rain coat with a matching hat and umbrella. I ruined the umbrella the first day I had it by trying to do a Mary Poppins imitation jumping out of the tree. I wore the hat and rain coat almost every day even if it wasn't raining. That's my sister standing next to me.

I love spaghetti. And no, I don't use my utensils properly.

Me with my two grandfathers and my brother Bob. I wore my ballet costume every day until it didn't fit anymore. Do I get style points for wearing socks with it...um, no.

My cooking skills haven't improved much since my first mud pie at age 5.

breaking news - broccoli worst food ever!!!!!

Okay, maybe not, but check this out. Is it worth it to be healthy if you're farting all the time? And how about the resulting "awkward beach photos".

#4: WORST SNACK
Broccoli with ranch dressing  (1 cup broccoli and 2 Tbsp dressing)
170 calories
14.5 g fat (2 g saturated)
370 mg sodium
Broccoli, like cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage, falls into a class of produce known as cruciferous vegetables. These vegetables are among the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet, and as such, they should be consumed as often as possible. That said, you might want to hold off your day's broccoli until you're off the beach. Cruciferous vegetables contain a sugar called raffinose—the same sugar that gives beans their heavy-winded reputation. In your gut, raffinose is fermented by gas-producing bacteria, which can make you feel bloated and gassy. That's not necessarily unhealthy, but it might lead to some awkward beach photos. Instead, if you're picking beach-bound snacks, pair high-fiber tortilla chips with low-calorie salsa.

http://health.yahoo.net/experts/eatthis/5-worst-beach-body-foods

And for more, a friend sent me this which is an amusing song about farting, if there could be such a thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7I9KzoJTrE

"I think I'm being watched"

The funniest thing just happened...

I was standing outside my hotel smoking a cigarette (sorry dad) and thinking about the plot line for this spoof movie I want to make with my brother to make fun of a movie a robotics guy my brother doesn't like just put out on YouTube. I was pacing back and forth when suddenly this couple came out of the hotel.

He was a good looking older guy with gray hair, obviously married, with a younger blond who definitely wasn't his wife. He was saying good bye to her and they were having an annoyingly stupid conversation and there was obviously something more than friendship going on between them. I looked up at them in the hopes they would shut up or go somewhere else when the guy started acting all paranoid. I paced away from them and then decided to check my work email.

When I looked up from my crackberry they were talking in whispers and looking at me. I thought maybe it was because I'm wearing the same clothes that I wore to weed my parents' yard last saturday (I didn't wash them and they are dirty). Then they started walking by me towards the parking lot in a hurried manner.

As the guy walked by me he said in a loud voice "I think we're being watched. I don't like being watched." Haha! Like I'm some under cover detective who gives a shit about his personal life. I started laughing so the woman turned around and looked at me.

To the blond having an affair with the idiot, trust me, I don't care what you do with your personal life. I think it's sad you're fucking a passive aggressive moron, but that's your business.

Maybe I should quit smoking...

I hope you aren't eating

Here's the blister on my knee.

I told you it was gross.

SIQ

I have a sikh in my training class this week. Today he told me I was a child prodigy. When I pointed out that I'm 41, so a little past childhood he thought for a minute and then said "Then I guess you are an idiot savant."

Um, okay.

He's very kind and brings me soya nuts, dried cranberries, carrots, cherries, and today guava fruit. It's his favorite fruit. He offered it to me so I took a piece and he said "you must take enough for both hands" so I had 3 more pieces.

He's bringing me flax seeds tomorrow for my arthritic knee, which you don't want to see. I burned it with ice on Friday night and it has a palm sized blister on it that leaks (my mom can confirm - leave a comment about disgusting it was when I kept showing it to you).

Sick.

The charming sikh is making up for the disaster my company made of this class. They sent laptops with passwords and didn't give me the passwords (good thing I'm psychic at guessing passwords). The training coordinator didn't set up the laptops in the class like she's supposed to so I had to do it myself (sort of a hardship since I had to pull them out of a packing crate that weighs more than me, and I can't really bend my right leg). Then I asked her for a class roster (can't bill a student for the class unless they sign in on the roster for some unknown reason) and she emailed it to me knowing I have no way to print it out. And even though I'm using my own company's facilities they charge me by the day $20 to use their shitty wireless internet. I can't bill the $20 charge because it isn't in the class contract so it's making training challenging because I can't show certain things.

I think the only way my company makes money is by charging itself for stupid shit.

If I could, I would be SIQ.