Garrr! Tangling with the demonic (not very) WYSIWYG Wordpress editor. I’m going to have to do some research to make some of the new pages I’m putting up here look nice and pretty. Why didn’t I study something useful in school like engineering or computer science instead of something with no applicability to any daily activity (neuroscience). The brain is insanely, awesomely cool, but we still don’t know how to hack it.

Yeah, I got hit by a car today. I was riding my nice, carbon-fiber framed road bike home from work, going up a hill, and some guy in his 60’s at a stop sign didn’t look in my direction before plowing right into me. I kinda flew off my bike. It was my first experience getting hit by a 3000+ pound chuck of metal and it was pretty interesting.

It should be pretty obvious I’m not hury, otherwise I would a) be in the hospital and b) not be so nonchalant about the whole thing. Other than a bloodied knee and a couple sore places on me, I’m totally fine. And I voluntarily get myself more beat up than this when I spar with people and get punched in the face.

So yeah, no big deal physically.

I was pretty pissed about my bike though. I’m taking it in tomorrow to see whether the frame is cracked, which would mean the whole bike needs to get replaced. Luckily I got all the guy’s info so he can pay for it in that eventuality. But I totally don’t want that to happen, because it would be a complete pain in the ass to deal with. I’m already annoyed about having to take my bike in a be without it for a week or so while it gets looked at.

What totally amuses me is that yesterday I bought a new pair of motorcycle pants to protect myself when riding my motorcycle. Then today I decide to ride my bike into work instead, and I get plowed into. Grr.

Since I started my new job, which puts a big emphasis on exercise, fitness, and healthy living, I’ve been on a bit of a fitness kick. I started doing yoga again (going to a Bikram Yoga studio), I’ve been riding my bicycle the 10 miles to work, and I think I’m finally going to sign up for my first olympic distance triathlon. 

I run and I bike ride, but I don’t swim much on a regular basis, and that needs to change. So I purchased a season pass to the community pool near where I live and went there for a swim of about 2/3 of a mile today.

It felt great and left me feeling a really good sore. After the swim I rewarded myself by lounging by the pool on a deck chair and reading for a bit. That’s where the dumbness comes in.

See, I have fairly pale skin, and I burn easily. I had no sunscreen on. But somehow I thought laying out in the sun at 1pm and reading for a while would be a good idea. Then I went home and sat in the sun some more.

And now I have lobstered myself.

Why do I get older, yet still repeat the same behaviors that cause me pain and discomfort? Like drinking too much, or rolling around in Poison Oak, for instance. Dumb dumb Aaron.

My last job, in pharma sales, required me to drive from place to place to get to all the doctor’s offices I had to visit on any given day.  My territory was huge, so on some days I found myself driving for 5 hours.  All things considered, I probably averaged 3 hours sitting in the driver’s seat of Buchephalus (that was my name for my company car – a huge black Ford Five Hundred sedan – and was also the name of Alexander the Great’s steed.)

What I discoverd is that 3 hours a day sitting in the same position can mess you up if you don’t deal with it correctly.  After a few months on the job, I started experiencing tingling down my right leg, and this eventually progressed into discomfort and then pain. Basically, I was getting sciatica from the pressure on my spine. A job-related injury. In the scheme of things, having leg pain from sitting too much seems like a really lame thing to complain about.  I mean, I worked construction years ago, and that’s a job you could feel good about bitching about, you know?  It’s like “aww damn, the blisters on my hand just popped open from hammering too much, and my back is all messed up from carrying big heavy pieces of stuff all over the place.”  Yeah, that’s the kind of thing I could really sink my teeth into complaining about.

So leg pain from sitting?  Yeah, no so happy about having to deal with that.  Even so, it was a reality, and I figured out how to deal with it.

Well, now I have a new occupation, and it involves starting at a screen for many hours a day.  I’m sure most of you know what happens, and I bet many of you have expreienced what comes next – your eyes start to get worse. So new I need to figure out how to add more hours of not looking at a screen into my daily activities.  I guess I could do something fun.  You know, outdoors.  I hear there’s cool things to do out there.

Maybe I’m just getting old(er).  I hear things start to break down, and don’t work so well anymore.  Or maybe it’s just always something. Ahhh, life

I am absolutely fortunate that I’ve been able to move back home and work out of my bedroom as I figure things out.

That’s not to say there is no downside, however.

What do you say to the person on the other end of the phone line when you are on a business call and the gardener starts up the leafblower 2 feet from your open window?

If you have a good answer, please, by all means, comment and let me know.  It would help.