I'm shrinkingggggggggggg

Tried on my new unis last night & noticed the right sleeve fit tighter than the left. Broke out the old tape measure to confirm. Right arm a massive 12.5". That's right welcome to the gun show! Left arm has shrunk to 11 7/8". That a 5/8' loss in muscle mass on my bad wing. I know 5/8' isn't much but to a guy with massive guns like myself every little bit hurts. Hogan even made the comment @ the Dogwood his kid could kick my ass. I have no doubt he could if he could catch me. I discovered I could run fast by running away from people who wanted to kick my ass.


The Dogwood was Sunday. Pretty good turn out. I hated not racing but I drove a wheel truck behind the 3's race. Pretty entertaining with an uphill crash & 2 wheel changes. In the last 4 years I've raced twice & drove a truck twice. Was a little put off with all the whining & bitching going on. I was hoping seeing everyone & watching a race would remotivate me but it had the exact opposite effect. Made me upset with the whole scene. Kind of glad I'm not racing or riding for that matter right now.

New OCC unis are pretty cool. Curt did a bang up job. I like them even though a lot of fit issues were being voiced. I guess some people put some weight on this winter? Not me, mine are a little loose. Go figure. The shorts came the wrong color but I guess that was @ the other end & they are fixing it & giving us a free pair in the process. Makes me happy.

Cool new design.

OOPS. Somebody in OCC still likes Shane. I do what I can.

Another trip to the Ortho

This trip to the Ortho took a round about route. My originally scheduled appointment got cancelled & rescheduled. They chose a time for me which of course was in the afternoon. That sucks for me since everyone else's PM is my AM. After many attempts to talk to a human to reschedule, I gave up & decided to just get up & go. Best laid plans and all I slept through that appointment so I had to call & reschedule once again. This time I got to talk to a human but the only AM appointment wasn't until April. That wouldn't work since I get new insurance in April which is through Cox. The only accommodating appointment of course was in the afternoon.

OK long story but I managed to get out of bed & drag ass to the Doc, really his PA. Lots of good news. The best being I have a screw backing out. This explains why the bone stimulator was hurting so bad to use. I actually quit using it because it felt like it was trying to suck the plate out of my body. Not a nice feeling. Really it was trying to suck a screw out. You can actually feel the screw head starting to stick through the skin. The PA says nothing to worry about since it is considered "normal". How "normal" will it be when I'm walking along & a damn screw shoots out of my shoulder? Guess I'll have to wait & see on that one.

Get to start some range of motion exercises. Opted out on the Physical therapy route since I can do most of it @ home with my Massage Therapist... AKA Amber. Lots of stretching my arm. The PA actually raised my arm above my head. Amber didn't know if I was going to pass out or punch the PA. Luckily it didn't hurt that bad so I wasn't forced to hit a lady. On my own I can only raise my arm to straight out so I've got some work to do.

Amber's been working her hiny off lately so I've been watching Mia a lot. Amber is a few more regular clients away from being able to become a full time contract Massage Therapist. With Amber working two jobs & me working nights it makes it rough on the parents. Unfortunately we've broken down & put Mia on a waiting list for daycare. We've been trying to avoid it but a guy has got to sleep some time. I guess we can't complain we've kept her out of daycare for 10 months. If I didn't work nights we would have had to put her in all ready. I guess that's one small bonus for nights.

Still in job limbo. Each day they have been supposed to tell us gets postponed. If they postpone it much more I won't have any employees because they'll have given up waiting & gone else where for employment.

****** As of 7:30am I've been rehired for my current job. That was a fun couple of weeks.

A day in the life of Mia

Yesterday I was pretty tired when I got home from work. Mia was already taking her AM nap so I went straight to bed. I guess I was a lot more tired than I thought because I managed to sleep till 9:30PM. Since I can usually only sleep 4 or 5 hours during the day 13 is pretty impressive. Unfortunately by sleeping my day away I missed out on hanging out with Mia. The one thing that sucks about working nights is during the week I only get to see her for a few hours in the AM & then a few hours when I get up before she goes to bed.

Yesterday I missed all this:

Mia trying to thwart the baby proofing.

Her first time in a swing. This is in the park across from our subdivision. Amber & Mia took a walk to it.

After swinging she insisted on having one of Amber's pretzels. How could you say no to that face?

Mia & The Mansfield Lion

This is as close to being a Mansfield Lion as Mia will ever come. Not a big fan of their school system. Mansfield just so happens to be in the Class 2A Basketball final 4 for the first time since 1984.

Why I hate NASCAR

I dislike most motorsports, but I really hate NASCAR. Lets face it, it's not a sport just an excuse for a bunch of rednecks to get together & make fools of themselves(sorry dad). My sis & brother in law were at my house yesterday & he wanted to watch some of the race. Being a good host I gave up the clicker. I figured I could watch a few hundred left turns, they do have cool tool boxes in the pit.

I saw something that completely turned my stomach. A car sponsored by the Army. My brother in law informed me that the National guard & Air Force have cars as well. I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure that all military funding comes from my taxes. I'd call this a bad use of my taxes, especially with the state of Veterans hospitals. I'm not sure how much it costs to get your logo on a NASCAR car but I bet its millions. That's millions that isn't going to help heal injuries of our soldiers who are just doing their jobs. Talk about pork.

To lighten up your Monday & lessen my hate here are some pics of the kid.

Mia got her first balloon @ Lambert's on Saturday. The balloon was worth the trip, the food not so good this trip.

After a long weekend of play

Out of competition drug test

This week I found out the maintenance company I work for had lost their contract & a new company would be taking it over. No big deal this will be the 3rd company I have worked for in the 5 years I have been at Carlisle. Since the new company isn't allowed to view other companies personnel files each of us had to reapply & interview for our own jobs. Dumb I know but that's how it works in contract maintenance. After all this I had to go take a drug test. That's 3 hours of my life I'll never get back. I literally sat & waited 2.5 hours before my name was called. We sent 80 people to the lab to get tested & everyone of them had to wait that long or longer. How long can it take to bottle up piss? No wonder WADA is all screwed up. Next Thursday I find out if I get rehired or not. Not too worried about it but it does leave a tinge of anxiety. Everyone in the maintenance department is pretty nervous. Rightly so, since we have a bunch of under qualified people who got hired through the good old boy network.

On the recovery front I'm doing pretty good. Range of motion is increasing everyday. Can now ride the trainer with both hands on the bars for the vast majority of the time.

Mia has become a handful. It took her no time to figure out drawers & cabinets. The big weekend project is baby locks. Had been putting it off for convenience to the adults in the household. No more its full baby lock down time.

Get in my belly!

Sometimes its easier to hose the kid down than change clothes 50x a day.

Moving right along

Mia's crawling every where now with speed. Her favorite post is in front of the back doors so she can say her new word "doggie" while beating on the glass to get their attention. They loose interest pretty fast when they figure out she's not going to let them in. Mia also got her own Mansfield Lion from her Nannie yesterday. The thing is bigger than her. I'll have to post a pic.

This week has been a bit of a struggle for me since I caught Mia's cold. I thought I had it beat in a couple of days but like an idiot I over did it on the wind trainer Tuesday. It caught up to me Wednesday when I had to crawl off the trainer early. Then last night I was so wiped I went back to bed before work instead of getting on the trainer. Hopefully after a good sleep today I'll be back @ it so I can keep my progression. I won't hit my goal but I'm hoping to @ least match last weeks number's.

Graph for Skip & his love of graphs.It shows from my surgery till now time on the trainer. Week 9 I hope will at least match week 8. Then next week I'll cut back a little before a couple of weeks of harder efforts. With luck I'll be able to get my TT bike on the trainer in a few weeks to change things up some.

Each day my range of motion is increasing. My neck & back muscles are still insanely tight on the left side. Amber was able to massage them a little this morning which helped. When I broke it by this time I was able to lay on her massage table. It'll be a few more weeks till I can this time. I figure it will be another month before I can move my arm enough to be able to ride outside safely.