Stupid Hurts

So I haven’t been looking forward to going to the doctor ever since I got out of the hospital the last time. That is, because this is the one that would determine what the next step was as far the brain surgery was. Well that was if they had found anything. My MRI series came back clean. No lesions, no excessive scaring, basically no real reason for the seizures. I got what could be interpreted as good news to most people. That I don’t need brain surgery, but unfortunately I focused on the underlying part which was surprisingly depressing. They once again don’t know what’s causing my seizures.

My doctor told me that once again we are pretty much back to square one. My options are once again to try different drugs to see if they manage the seizures our maybe the Vargus implant. So here we are, almost a year later, and I was told once again, “you seem to be coping well, and we will keep trying.” I know all the doctors are trying, and I know it is sort of a trial and error and patience thing. It just doesn’t make it any easier. After hearing my doctor say, “I don’t know.” I had to spend the next few minutes choking down tears as my doctor talked and went through the paces.

My doctor did give me a a fairly clean bill of health which, unfortunately after speaking with Bob was not enough to get me put back on the schedule at the bike shop. He still feels like I am too much of a risk at this time. Oh well. Speaking of risk, I was asked to stay off my bicycle by my dad again, I guess I shouldn’t tell him about the unicycle or that I am in the market for a new track bike or that I am looking to repair my Allez still.

And lastly, I finally managed to get new glasses while I was in Birmingham.
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My uncle chose fairly late in the day to tell me he didn’t have anything for me to do so I essentially had a free day for a change. I believe this ruins my weekend plans. But I really shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I had felt cooped up lately and wanted to get out, several people had done little for my patience, and this would be my first time to get out and actually ride my bike hard in several weeks. So I made it a point to try and enjoy myself.
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The highlights included the fact I now have a new useless skill. I got called out over the fact I had never ever bother learning how to do “leg over the bar” skids. Which is odd, because I had taught one of the people at the shop I hang out at how to do them. My usual excuse was the fact I ride with bullhorns on my bike, but that wasn’t enough to get me by tonight. So I finally got up and pulled out a few. After learning you are pretty much guaranteed to get your pants leg caught between the bars and your hands if you are wearing wide leg jeans. I revised my strategy and got pretty decent at them fairly quickly. Only later on to hear,“isn’t that hard with bullhorns?” I also proved the fact I can sorta ride in a backwards circle. I just don’t because it is a bicycle and it goes forward.
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I also got to watch a bunch of what I am hoping were drunk cyclist play “Lean on me” in a studio. If they were not drunk, they may have been the back up band. But they are good cyclist, and they did call to check up me while I was in the hospital. I left after getting a phone call from Ben,“ we are in the fountain in Woodruff park!” There is a reason I hang out with him.

And on my way home after splitting up with everyone, I fell down a flight stairs I didn’t see while riding my bicycle.The killing part is that everyone else was drinking and I was sober. The take off wasn’t so bad, but the landing sorta screwed my ankle up.

You may be just a little bit hungry if you have ever purchased a frozen [tag]burrito[/tag], and then proceeded to eat it without unthawing it first. My face still tingles just a little from that stunt.

During my [tag]commute[/tag] home from work recently I pedaled past a [tag]spinning[/tag] class going on in the window of a gym and there was a load of people inside spinning feverishly away on the stationary [tag]bicycles[/tag]. Something just strikes me as being inherently wrong with driving a car to go ride a stationary [tag]bicycle[/tag]. I just don’t have the patience to go no where fast I think. But there here in this window there was easily 30-40 people sweating, pedaling, and staring at me stare at them. All of us probably thinking, “now thats just silly.” Even with all those people in that class I almost never see people actually outside riding their bicycles. I know about the [tag]Birmingham[/tag] Bicycle club, but they are a little to organized for me. Plus they ride almost exclusively outside of Birmingham (which just seems like false advertising.)

Maybe there are only a few people here who prefer blue jeans to [tag]lycra[/tag]. I know there have to be at least a few other really laid back bicyclist types in Birmingham. Unfortunately most of the people I meet are either guys with milk crates strapped their squeaky [tag]bikes[/tag] who more often than not reek of alcohol when we stop to talk. Or elite racers riding $2000 plus dollar bikes that are just dripping with carbon fiber who are more concerned with their split times than chatting it up at a light. (before I get another angry email. There are exceptions to both categories. Every now and then I find a drunk racer)
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But it is fun to sneak up on the racer types wearing jeans and having them sneer at me before I try to outrun them. In [tag]Orlando[/tag] I managed to drop a few. the looks were priceless.

Earlier this week while riding around in the work truck with one of my team mates, he points out the window and says, “did you see that girl?” My response was. “Yeah, her seat is too low, but I wonder what kinda shifters she is using.” It took a bit before he would talk to me again.

It has been a fairly quiet week for me, most of my time has been spent researching bicycles and networking with people to secure places to stay while crossing the country.

This weekend involved a trip up to Jacksonville, Florida for another Vitamin water promotion.
I was reminded I have no patience for riding in cars for any extended length of time. Which is odd seeing how I can pedal a bicycle for near nine hours strait without much protest

Saturday night ended with me calling an early night from fatigue but not before seeing my co-worker Chris in his Halloween costume. A Santa hat and a Jason mask.

I wonder if anyone actually rode with him in that getup.

You know after I was complaining about my bike being heavy. I saw this one chained up outside of a bookstore, wonder how does it corner