Showing posts with label bike. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bike. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
christo lite
someone is wrapping stuff and locking it up around levi's plaza:
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
wear a helmet
...it happened on a friday. friday, may 29th, 2009, to be precise. i know this because it was several hours after my bike accident had occurred before i was able to answer the question "what day is it?" correctly...
cycling back to my office from a meeting in another of the company's buildings, the last thing i remember is a family unit of, what i assume to be, given the proximity to fisherman's wharf, tourists deciding to cross the street against a red light as i approached the intersection at a fair clip. i swerved, i blacked-out.
i vaguely remember spitting out blood at some point and i have faint auditory memories of being in an ambulance. i have no recollection but there is a voicemail to prove that i called stephanie to let her know i was en route to san francisco general hospital. apparently, i also managed to convince the paramedics to call my boss.
i sort of remember being rolled into the hospital and answering "yeah, ok" to a paramedic whose question remains completely unknown and whose face is very blurry...
i kind of remember someone asking "do you know where you are?"
"uuuuuhh... san francisco?" came my unsteady reply.
"good enough!" was their confirmation...
i started to realize i had a neck brace on and was strapped to a board as several people began undressing me. "please don't cut this shirt, it's really expensive!" i cried, not realizing i had already splattered it with blood and scraped a hole in the back...
i definitely remember lights in my eyes and being told to follow them while answering who the president of the united states is. "barack obama," i said, immediately. "woo!" said someone out of my field of view...
stephanie begins to melt into the memories at this point, but i'm pretty sure the timeline is still jumbled. i remember being rolled on my side for a spine exam, gripping someone's hands, telling them what hurts, having to push their hands away and having to hold my arms up with my eyes closed...
someone asked me (for the fifth or sixth time) what day it was and i struggled. "it's friday... it's not june, right? so, it's may, like, may 25th?" "pretty close," said my interrogator. "he couldn't answer that right on a normal day," said stephanie...
i refused the offer of pain and nausea medication once, but gladly accepted the offer an hour or so later. morphine is fantastic stuff...
the morphine and chemotherapy-grade nausea medicine went a long way towards stabilizing my mental state. having stephanie there helped anchor memories and establish some context for everything that was happening. my wrist was x-rayed (negative), my lip was stitched (once), cuts above and below my eye were dermabonded (glued) and then it was all about waiting a few more hours for a cat scan ("should be ready in ten minutes..."). i asked the doctor if i could have my x-ray film and she offered a digital copy for $10 that would also include the cat scan. i guess i was a pretty good patient, 'cause they hooked me up with the scans for free!
anyway, i walked away from a pretty bad wreck with some cuts, some scrapes, some bruises, a stitch, a sprained wrist and a mild concussion. considering i wasn't wearing a helmet at the time, i have no complaints... except one: the witnesses claimed i swerved to "dodge a car or something..." i can't remember a lot, but i'm pretty dang sure i remember swerving around people...
check out the gory details on flickr:
cycling back to my office from a meeting in another of the company's buildings, the last thing i remember is a family unit of, what i assume to be, given the proximity to fisherman's wharf, tourists deciding to cross the street against a red light as i approached the intersection at a fair clip. i swerved, i blacked-out.
i vaguely remember spitting out blood at some point and i have faint auditory memories of being in an ambulance. i have no recollection but there is a voicemail to prove that i called stephanie to let her know i was en route to san francisco general hospital. apparently, i also managed to convince the paramedics to call my boss.
i sort of remember being rolled into the hospital and answering "yeah, ok" to a paramedic whose question remains completely unknown and whose face is very blurry...
i kind of remember someone asking "do you know where you are?"
"uuuuuhh... san francisco?" came my unsteady reply.
"good enough!" was their confirmation...
i started to realize i had a neck brace on and was strapped to a board as several people began undressing me. "please don't cut this shirt, it's really expensive!" i cried, not realizing i had already splattered it with blood and scraped a hole in the back...
i definitely remember lights in my eyes and being told to follow them while answering who the president of the united states is. "barack obama," i said, immediately. "woo!" said someone out of my field of view...
stephanie begins to melt into the memories at this point, but i'm pretty sure the timeline is still jumbled. i remember being rolled on my side for a spine exam, gripping someone's hands, telling them what hurts, having to push their hands away and having to hold my arms up with my eyes closed...
someone asked me (for the fifth or sixth time) what day it was and i struggled. "it's friday... it's not june, right? so, it's may, like, may 25th?" "pretty close," said my interrogator. "he couldn't answer that right on a normal day," said stephanie...
i refused the offer of pain and nausea medication once, but gladly accepted the offer an hour or so later. morphine is fantastic stuff...
the morphine and chemotherapy-grade nausea medicine went a long way towards stabilizing my mental state. having stephanie there helped anchor memories and establish some context for everything that was happening. my wrist was x-rayed (negative), my lip was stitched (once), cuts above and below my eye were dermabonded (glued) and then it was all about waiting a few more hours for a cat scan ("should be ready in ten minutes..."). i asked the doctor if i could have my x-ray film and she offered a digital copy for $10 that would also include the cat scan. i guess i was a pretty good patient, 'cause they hooked me up with the scans for free!
anyway, i walked away from a pretty bad wreck with some cuts, some scrapes, some bruises, a stitch, a sprained wrist and a mild concussion. considering i wasn't wearing a helmet at the time, i have no complaints... except one: the witnesses claimed i swerved to "dodge a car or something..." i can't remember a lot, but i'm pretty dang sure i remember swerving around people...
check out the gory details on flickr:
Monday, December 01, 2008
commuting by bicycle without any dignity
BikeSnobNYC has a recurring piece on the indignities of commuting by bicycle. in honor of the snob's fantastic coverage of that harsh reality, i offer up the following anecdote regarding a cyclist commuter who is A: doing it wrong and B: blowing it for the rest of us.
the Bay Area Rapid Transit system has a reasonable set of rules for cyclists that is clearly communicated to the ridership via their website, signs in the station, signs in the trains and regular announcements over the PA. while the following gentleman wasn't technically breaking any rules, he was trampling rather heavily on generally accepted "bikes on BART" etiquette.
most cyclists hang back and let the pedestrian riders board first, he clearly chose not to. to exacerbate matters, he also chose to line up for a car that i had already been waiting at for several minutes, not exactly the most generous of gestures. you may be wondering why i'm taking such offense, as this picture obviously shows it was not a very busy day on BART anyway. you'll have to trust me when i say that there was a fair number of other commuters that simply wanted to go nowhere near him. i can only posit that this was due to A: his blatant disregard for "bikes on BART" etiquette singling him out as a weird guy and/or B: the fact that his gnarly long hair was still dripping from his shower (i hope). or perhaps it was C: the part where he pulled out his norelco and started freaking shaving right on the platform...
the Bay Area Rapid Transit system has a reasonable set of rules for cyclists that is clearly communicated to the ridership via their website, signs in the station, signs in the trains and regular announcements over the PA. while the following gentleman wasn't technically breaking any rules, he was trampling rather heavily on generally accepted "bikes on BART" etiquette.
most cyclists hang back and let the pedestrian riders board first, he clearly chose not to. to exacerbate matters, he also chose to line up for a car that i had already been waiting at for several minutes, not exactly the most generous of gestures. you may be wondering why i'm taking such offense, as this picture obviously shows it was not a very busy day on BART anyway. you'll have to trust me when i say that there was a fair number of other commuters that simply wanted to go nowhere near him. i can only posit that this was due to A: his blatant disregard for "bikes on BART" etiquette singling him out as a weird guy and/or B: the fact that his gnarly long hair was still dripping from his shower (i hope). or perhaps it was C: the part where he pulled out his norelco and started freaking shaving right on the platform...
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
a tale of triumph
some nights you stay up too late playing new map packs for halo 3. thus, some mornings you wake up real tired and cranky. then, as you wait for the light to change at embarcadero a kid on a fixie goes by in the direction you're headed. at that point, something in you decides you're gonna catch him, half-mile lead be damned!
and you almost do, but you have to turn up north point and he keeps going straight. suddenly, you don't feel so tired and cranky anymore.
the end,
by matt
and you almost do, but you have to turn up north point and he keeps going straight. suddenly, you don't feel so tired and cranky anymore.
the end,
by matt
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
i need new pants
because the ones i'm wearing have some holes now. remember kids, rain and streetcar tracks are NOT your friend whilst riding a bicycle:
it looks a lot worse than it feels. fortunately, they keep the first aid boxes well-stocked here in the office. nobody tell steph, ok? oh, wait...
it looks a lot worse than it feels. fortunately, they keep the first aid boxes well-stocked here in the office. nobody tell steph, ok? oh, wait...
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
invisible
time change = dark and scary ride home. i need one of those flashy light things for my butt or something.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
argument against rushing a job
i popped my new tube whilst putting my new tire on the rim...
EPIC FAIL.
EPIC FAIL.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
i want to ride my bicycle
my birthday present, IRO Angus 59cm fixed-gear bike:
shane and i rode from the shop up to barclay's for dinner and some guinness, then up to ici but the line was too long, so back down to ben n' nick's for some guinness, then home. i can't wait to ride it to work tomorrow! and then ride it somewhere for lunch! woo hoo! bikes!
shane and i rode from the shop up to barclay's for dinner and some guinness, then up to ici but the line was too long, so back down to ben n' nick's for some guinness, then home. i can't wait to ride it to work tomorrow! and then ride it somewhere for lunch! woo hoo! bikes!
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