Stupid Hurts….trust me I know!

While walking into the device support center for my cell phone I knew this was going to be interesting. Luckily our exchange was brief, but I could tell the agent was trying his best to stifle a smile the entire time as he handed me my a new phone.

Earlier that day I dropped my phone off for repair due to a short it had in when I made calls. Right after I walked out of the device support center, I remembered the video clip of a chick getting a Ecstasy pill shoved of her ass, a friend of mind sent me, and the very graphic drunk text I recently got, I recently got from an ex.

Seeing as they both goth transferred over to the new phone. I can only assumed at least the video got watched. This then reminded me of my associate who works at a local camera store who usually has awesome stories and copies of pictures he assumed people forgot they had on the roll.

	sometimes it's the destination

Speaking of which I made it a point to take a few minutes to get out and take a few pictures. This is the second time I have gotten out to shoot recently, but I lost the entire first batch because my ISO settings where incorrect for the lighting conditions. I think once I get back into the habit of shooting on a regular basis I will be less likely to make such a simple mistake.

I was talking to Sarah a few nights ago and I pointed out the fact that it has been a year since I started having seizures, and ended up in the hospital. We also came to the conclusion it has been a pretty long year and me getting sick was a catalyst for a hell of a lot things at once. Unfortunately or fortunately, I haven’t really figured out which yet, every time I tried to properly feel sorry for myself I ended up having to deal with some new issue. I keep getting told hold I am handling my issues really well. I’m not really, I just don’t talk about it too much.

I also realized last night that I have been to the Emergency room enough times in a short enough of time span to lose count. Scary no? I know I have been more than 6 times since I got to Atlanta, and more than 6 times before I left Birmingham. I don’t always blog about it, sometimes I walk out, or they happen so close together; (like on my birthday ,and the day before when I went to two different E.R’s). My real thought is if everyone knew how often I crashed, I doubt they would continue to allow me my personal privacy or freedom. It is only the last time where I near destroyed my fixed gear and got hurt that I was really forced to cut back.

Lastly I was told recently “When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Usually, that individual is crazy. ” Considering I have been commended for my ability to take control of situations when things get out of control, and I have also had three separate doctors recommend therapy or a psychologist. Maybe there is a connection.

I have basically been home sick for the past four days, that is part of the reason there really hasn’t been much going on in my world or on the site lately. I did make it out to Food not Bombs to help cook and feed people. But most of the nights this week my arms have draped over my toilet while I lamented how much I hate my life. Luckily I feel much better now, and hopefully this will last a while.

One of the more useful things I got done this was to re-write my Tour de Stupidity. I had been putting it off for some time, but honesty it was pretty embarrassing. So I took the time to take care of grammatical errors, make it much clearer, and add pictures.

	The endorphins have kicked in

Walking out of the train station I was a just little pissed. I had just found out there would be a 30 some odd minute delay until they would be unloading luggage from the train. Which meant I would have to wait to get my bicycle back. This is why when I travel, I normally never check anything.

I was calling Bobby to change our initial meeting plans when I passed a girl who sounding frustrated as she talked and waved at her cell phone in a language I didn’t catch on my first pass as I walked towards the corner. On my way back I over heard her conversation now with a taxi driver, and found out she and a friend were headed to the youth hostel. Assuming she was a backpacker from Europe and remember how well everyone took care of me when I was over there. I stopped and asked if she needed helped.

It turned out she did. They didn’t know where the youth hostel was, and the taxi driver was attempting to charge them $20 dollars for a half mile rile. Since my plans for the evening were pretty much only meeting up with Bobby who is also a backpacker and going to a bar to complain about women for, I figured we should try and help them out.

	Me bobby and joanne at wendys

We took the girls to their first Wendy’s restaurant for milkshakes and talking about their trip so far before delivering them to the youth hostel. Turns out they just recently gotten out of school in Amsterdam, Holland, and they are taking a train/bus trip all the way around the Untied States. Their pictures can be found here. The next morning I went with both girls to the Martin Luther King jr. memorial before they caught their next train to Savannah, Georgia.

	me with Joanne and Merel

So I made it make to Birmingham and I was already up to no good. Basically I walked into the bar I used to work in, and asked the security guy, “Who can I beat the shit out of. and it not be a hate crime?” He responded with, “you want to work tonight?”
Sweet, power to abuse!

Unfortunately this sounded like the beginning of a bad joke.

What do you call someone with epilepsy working security at a bar on tecnho night?

A Bouncer.

The night went quietly, but I was exhausted by the time I left to go home. Throwing out underage drinkers proved to be hard work. I was several hours getting caught up on bar drama, then several of the drag queens walked out.

Like I said………. a bad joke.

After the wreck. I ended up with a mark on my right cheek about two by four inches. I hope it won’t scar. We will see.

Looking at my bike. Looks like I did a bit more damage than I thought I did.
The handle bars are bent.
My front wheel actually is bent, and I impacted the hub.
I have to rebuild the front end again.
I twisted the seat.
And after all that time saying how awesome Soma toe clips are, I broke one.

Mostly…..

So I entered into Wonderkat yesterday. I made reference to it a few days back . Aside from a headache I felt amazing. So in an uncharacteristic move for me I popped an Advil and got prepped to raced.

I was first off the line and carried the pace for the first half mile or so, but was soon forced to drop back and let several people in front of me who actually knew the way we needed to go. I was one of the first three people to the two check points I made it to. Even though I entered the Sopo parking lot on a sprint and off my brakes and over shot my mark. Unfortunately between the Freedom park stop and the High Museum, I don’t what happened. I am confident I had a had a seizure, passed, out and crashed my bicycle. Several people including the checkpoint worker told me they the heard sirens when I spoke to them later on that night. Unfortunately I have no clue when I went down or how long I was out for, but I was unconscious long enough for them to get me to the hospital and get an I.V. in.

When I woke up, I took stock of my situation, I was in a strange hospital……Again. I at least had my wallet and my cell phone, but I didn’t have my glasses. Looking around I could think of several better places to be. Lots of the people on the beds where wearing blue faces masks and so were several nurses. Considering that not everyone was wearing a mask the problem must have still been endemic, but still fairly infectious. So I made sure I could still walk, got up. And then read my name on the wall chart to see where I fell in the triage rotation. When I saw it was fairly fair down I pulled the I.V. and then walked out.

Looking at myself I saw was bleeding from both legs, my shoulder, and face. The large blood stain running down the front of my jersey came from mouth where I split my lip. Placing a few phone calls I was able to track down my bicycle and my glasses. Just the matter of riding the Marta a few miles and the walking a few more miles to pick them up.

Well happy birthday to me. Looks like a few days off my bike while I rest this time.

On a side note. Wonderoot’s grand opening was amazing. I really expect big things from them.