How I spent my Winter Vacation

Winter Classic post-game revelry Originally uploaded by erink

Or, outdoor hockey is a really good reason to visit Buffalo in January.

The game was great. It was hard to follow the action (we could hardly hear the announcements and the video screen was on the opposite side from the rink for us), but I'll get to watch it on my TiVo later. It wasn't too cold, but I was getting a bit wet by the end - somehow, it only stopped snowing during the period breaks. The snow was pretty. Score-wise, it couldn't have gone better - Crosby wins in the last round of a shootout? Unbelievable.

We sat in a section that was mostly Penguins fans - I used our season ticket holder code when I ordered them, so I expected that. But the guy next to me was a Sabres fan, and he was a real jewel - kept saying the players should break more guys' legs and threatening to "come up there and fuck up" the guy behind him when he heckled back. He quieted down after a while - apparently he had snuck in beer in in his pants but he somehow lost all but one can on the way in.

The "title sponsor" was this Amp energy drink (which I don't think I'd ever heard of before - but after a poor experience with guarana in the 90s I haven't really followed the energy drink market). But we saw an Amp Energy Airstream trailer on the highway home, which gains style points in my book, and they played this awesome ad on the stadium screen a few times:



The Sabres goalie is Ryan Miller, who's played very well (but lost) both times we've matched up this season. Judging by fan jerseys, he's pretty popular. The Kings man is former Pens goalie J-S Aubin, nice to see him again.

Another moment at the game was when a Pens fan was coming back to his seat. He yelled to his buddy from the aisle: "I went looking for Superbowl trophies and I couldn't find any!"

Back to the arena on Saturday (we sold our tickets for the 3rd). It won't be the same, but my toes will be warmer!

Waterfront Views...

Pittsburgh has the reputation of being stodgy, but actually it's changing all the time. Like today. Where we once had a road, now we have a pretty little canal.

The Tenth Street Bypass by Lake Fong 

(copyright 2007 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

This is the Tenth Street Bypass, which parallels the - uh, Allegheny? river (a true Pittsburgher never knows the names of any streets, why should rivers be any different). The baseball park is just across the real river, which is on the right in the photo. 

This street is low. And sometimes when it's wet, it floods. It's got these nice walls on either side, and that dip at the bottom. They call it the "bathtub".

You don't think a lot about floods when you live here, although we had a few really destructive ones about three years back. Most of the housing is not along the riverside, because that was used for industry, and people generally lived up the hills a bit. But every few weeks when there's a heavy rain, you'll hear on the traffic reports that the Mon Wharf is closed to parking. That's because the Mon Wharf is a little parking lot that is basically on the riverbank. The river goes up a few feet, it floods. No big deal. People usually move their cars if there's an unexpected storm. Not always. The first time I ever parked there, there was sludge and puddles on the pavement, and it was only after I got back that I put the two things together. (But I felt pretty safe, because my office building at the time looked out onto that river. I always thought that company should rig webcams for the people who worked across town.)

I also remember a strange incident when I was a child. My family was parking downtown, in a parking garage. Dad drove down a ramp, and at the other end, there was a lake. He acted like it wasn't a big deal, which was kind of confusing at the time, but was probably exactly how I would act today.  You just turn the car around.  We decided to park on a higher floor.

At any rate, back to today's flood. I almost never drive on this road, because it only connects downtown to the highways to the south suburbs. It's not for my people. But it is scenic, at times.

Online Shopping - A View from 40 Years Ago

Sweet. How do I get that "counterpart console" where the husband pays for the things I pick out?



Some more info about this video is on Snopes at http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/year1999.asp

Six More Weeks of Winter

Tuesday morning I went to my follow-up doctor visit. They took out some stitches and took x-rays and re-fitted my brace. I get to bend my knee now! I get to shower, and I get to take off my brace to do exercises and to sleep.

The only down side is I still can't put weight on my left leg - and that won't change until I see the MD in three weeks! Ack!

The really big problem with only having one leg that is I can't carry anything, except in a bag or a backpack. A cup of coffee and bowl of cereal don't fit in a bag or backpack. Making food is like doing ballet, because I can only move food as far as I can reach by leaning. If my beau's not home, I only get to eat in the kitchen. No coffee at the computer. No dinner in front of the TV. Luckily, my kitchen workspace is relatively cramped: about three feet between the fridge and the sink/island/breakfast bar, and four or five between the stove/microwave/toaster counter and the island.

So making the morning coffee goes something like this:

• Hobble over to the coffeemaker and set the crutches down carefully so they won't slide onto the floor.


• Lean over to the sink across the way to get the coffeepot out of the draining rack.


• Grind coffee and put it in the filter. Set the pot in the coffeemaker.


• Lean over to the sink counter to get the Brita pitcher.


• Pour in water and push the button to make coffee.


• Get a coffee cup out of the cabinet. (This is the part where I'm really happy I decided to store the coffee cups all in the tiny cabinet over the coffeemaker.) Pour coffee.


• Lean over to the sink counter again and set the coffee down as far to the middle as possible.


• Pick up crutches. Hobble around to the other side of the counter where the barstools are.


• Stretch over the counter and get the coffee from the other side. Sit and drink and rest.

Apparently the big deal is the meniscus repair. Ten years ago I didn't have anything done to my meniscus, so I was able to start walking a bit the second week. The P.A. I saw Tuesday said I could put up to 30 pounds on my leg. I measured 30 lbs with my bathroom scale and it's nothing. I didn't mention to her the two times I slipped and weighted my foot a little by accident (both Saturday, once at the hockey game and once on the way home). Hopefully nothing bad came of it...

Also I can't drive, because I can't step on a clutch, and we don't have any cars without a clutch! (Actually, I don't have a fit car at all just now, but that's another story....) But I can't push a grocery cart or carry anything either once I get somewhere, so it's just as well! Hello Amazon Christmas shopping!

PT at the gym starts next week!

*NIX humor

In honor of my temporary return to my former employer, which makes Linux things.

Really, it's funny. Trust me.

Once more into the breach

Before and after photos of my latest project:

11/18/2007

11/20/2007

The after photo looks a little more gruesome than it is; there is a discernable kneecap under there, just the photo doesn't show it very well because it's on the inside.

Yes, I jacked up my knee playing Ultimate again. This is the other knee, I jacked up my right knee playing Ultimate ten years ago and got it fixed, then played for ten years until this July. Ironically, my mantra for Summer League this year was "it'll grow back." Twisted ankle? Wonky hamstring? It'll grow back, probably before our next game. Well, as it turns out, not everything grows back.

This injury was much more glorious than the last time. This time, I was open in the end zone, and trying to catch a long throw that was coming down at a weird angle. My defender was back at mid field, and one of her teammates peeled off his man to cover me. We both went up for the disc, and we knocked together. And then I screamed like a soprano (this part was not very glorious) and my knee hurt a lot for a minute, and then it didn't hurt any more. I only wish I had caught the disc and scored.

I was a spectator for the last few Summer League games, and limped through Pennsic a week later, but felt pretty good by the end of the week. Then for the next three months, things pretty much stayed the same. I was doing PT exercises every day and I could walk as much as I wanted, but I had trouble going down stairs (or stepping off a bus) and although I got some rail-trail bike riding in, I couldn't do any other sports. My knee was sore every day.

The doctors diagnosed a completely torn ACL and a tear in the meniscal cartilage. I think it might be the miniscal tear that gave me so much trouble - when I messed up my other knee, I didn't do much damage to the meniscus, and I remember my knee being pretty normal after the first few weeks. Not this time.

I was interested to see if the surgical technology had changed in 10 years. Turns out, it hasn't changed very noticeably. I'm sure it's progressed, but the major outline is the same.

There are three main options for replacement ACLs: patellar tendon, hamstring tendon, and cadaver graft (more euphemistically called an allograft). When my first friend had an ACL repair (in the late 80s or early 90s), he had a hamstring tendon, which was the new thing at the time and they thought it would replace patellar tendon. Well, it didn't, and they still use all three. My surgeon said they all have benefits and drawbacks. The patellar tendon leaves a bigger scar (which is almost a benefit to me, since I think I should have something to show for my trouble) and has the risk of persistent front-knee pain. The allograft has a slight risk of disease transmission, but recovery is faster (no graft site to rehab) and they get to choose a graft instead of having to use whatever they find in your leg.

When I had my right knee done in the late 90s, they used a hamstring tendon. It worked pretty well, but the graft site was very painful and to this day, that hamstring muscle is weaker than it should be (it's noticeably weaker than the other, and it occasionally cramps under stress). My surgeon was inclined to use the hamstring again, because it had worked well in my right knee, but I easily talked him into an allograft. An Ultimate player friend of mine recently had a knee re-done with an allograft and said it was the way to go.

Of course, as soon as I decided my mom told me a story about a childhood friend of mine who almost died from a bad allograft...something about a bad donor that made a bunch of people sick. She didn't have any data to back it up, though.

Anyway, I have a plenty big scar now because the meniscus repair is a separate 3" incision. I'm happy to have it, because they weren't sure they would be able to do anything with the meniscus but they ended up repairing it.

I did have something new: the anesthesiologist did a nerve block in my leg before the procedure. It's supposed to help with pain the first day, and it did. Of course, it wore off in the middle of the night, but the anesthesiologist told me to expect that so it wasn't a big deal. I also had a cryo-cuff this time around, which they had 10 years ago but my HMO wouldn't pay for it. It's a nylon thing that goes around your knee and fills with ice water. Pretty spiff. And I have different drugs this time, oxycodone for pain (I hardly took any because it didn't hurt much) plus an antibiotic every six hours for like forever (6 days!), plus they have me taking two tylenol and two ibuprofen together every eight hours - supposedly for inflammation more than pain. I also got an anti-nausea drug before anesthesia, since it tends to make me puke. No puking this time!

So I'm hanging out in my TV room and Jake is bringing me food every few hours. I can't bend my leg (except doing exercises), which is annoying, and I don't get to shower until next week. I don't know why everyone says sponge baths are sexy...I guess I need a hot nurse and less self-respect. I missed one hockey game but plan to go on Saturday (not sure how I'm going to fit in a seat, but we'll figure something out). It take three minutes to go to the bathroom, and hands and armpits are really not suited for locomotion. I probably can't wear normal pants until the brace is off (four weeks or so), but I ordered $50 worth of cool thigh-high socks and legwarmers! I can't even be tempted to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving.

And I'm catching up on blog posts...more later!

More random crap I saw downtown

Part 1: Accessories for the modern wooden man?

Part 2: Because everything is better fried....

That time of year...

Safety and Convenience

Old office buildings rock!

My new favorite website

"Jikatabiya.com's English site is under construction. But this can use a little. If you hope old version, click here.
Please visit here in another day. You will find something change."

http://jikatabiya.com/indexe.html

I think machine translation would be more accurate. But this is lots of fun:

Spike Jikatabi is for workers in forest,
mountain, or any other tilt ground.
But nowadays, They are used for gardening, Afforestation,
& for The Earth.

They're like little, accidental poems.

Jikatabi is Japanese footwear.
So, their strainge Metal fittings
"HAZE" is disliked from foreign peaple and young japanese.
Velcro solved this problem.

NEW!
Jikatabi in colors
Many people wants them.
To Fashon, To Dance,
To Sports Training!!

Holy cow, I'm wearing Bermuda shorts.

Kennywood Memories (for a small price)

Every now and then I run a "Kennywood" search on eBay, and the last time it turned up this. Wow.



When I was a kid, Kennywood Park had these Peanuts themed height signs. If you were as tall as Linus you could ride some rides, mainly the kiddie rides. Then I think Lucy or Snoopy was the intermediate level, and Charlie Brown was the tallest height limit. I think you can see in the photo that it says if you're that tall you can ride the Thunderbolt - that was always the most advanced ride in the park.

After the Peanuts signs they used signs with Kenny the Kangaroo. There's one of those up from this seller too. I also vaguely remember another height sign, it was a boy and I think it looked like Howdy Doody - I don't think it was him, just some redhead with a cap or something. But I did almost all my measurement on the Peanuts signs.

I didn't go on the Thunderbolt until I was about 15, though. I was way taller than Charlie Brown by then, I just thought it was scary.

Since I moved to a different neighborhood two years ago, the right way to go to the Homestead Waterfront shopping area is to go over the Rankin Bridge. As a kid the only reason I went through Braddock and over that bridge was to go to Kennywood. Even now I think of it as the Kennywood bridge. At the end there was a big yellow Kennywood sign pointing left. Same as the small wooden signs you would see all around the city directing you to the park.

I would love to have the Charlie Brown, but it's probably not a $2000 investment for me. Maybe not for other people either, since it didn't sell the first time it was listed. I wonder if I can find an old Kennywood direction sign for a more reasonable price....

Seller's other items:
http://myworld.ebay.com/djcuffin/

Here's a great Kennywood tribute page with lots of old stuff:
http://piacasdad.tripod.com/id84.html

Avatar Sociology 101

NPR has discovered online avatars: Alter Egos in a Virtual World
The story is a little cursory, but it has its moments.

Like the bit about the woman who made her City of Heroes avatar "the biggest, blackest guy I could find" and found out that her fellow players gave her a lot more respect and less lip than when she played with a female avatar. I'm fascinated because it's like a controlled experiment on how people automatically discount what women say just because of how they look.

It makes me wonder about men who use female avatars. Do they think that people discount what they say and do, or are they just too busy staring at their character's boobies to notice? Or do they get caught up in "acting like a girl" and think that's part of the fun? Apparently it's hard for people with privilege to see discrimination even when it's directed at them.

There's also a picture in the story of significantly disabled man with Duchenne muscular dystrophy who plays Star Wars Galaxies as a mysterious, armored (possibly robotic?) fighter. His online avatar is ironically like his real body, except that it's hard metal that hides the avatar to its eyes instead of twisted, immobile flesh encased in medical equipment. Online gaming is a unique social interaction for him, the player says, because he gets treated like an average person online.

This wasn't a new concept for me, but I still feel I should apologize for my somewhat uncharitable reaction: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

Our Quarterback Throws Like A Girl

A passion flower I photographed at the Pittsburgh Zoo a few weeks ago. I'm posting it in honor of the Pittsburgh Passion football team, which just finished off its undefeated season with a blowout 32-0 championship game against the Columbus Comets to win the National Women's Football Association title.

I'm really no football fan at all - actually I think football is kind of silly - but I think it's pretty cool that people were interested and committed enough to start and support a professional women's football team around here. Chicks should be able to play football if they want to.

And any time my local team can totally crush the teams from the rest of the league, well, that's worth noting.

Rock on, ladies.

News about the championship: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07203/803626-66.stm
Team website: http://www.pittsburghpassion.com/
They really do sell a bumper sticker that says that: http://www.cafepress.com/pghpassion.38081973

Snap Down Only To Eat Child

Snap Down Only To Eat Child
Originally uploaded by erink

Parked next to this in the Home Despot lot the other day.

Phase One: Snap Down Seat. ...

No iPhone? No Problem!

Today's Post-Gazette brings us a detailed story on how inmates at the Allegheny County Jail use their toilets as a telephone system.

Clever little hoodlums, eh?

Here is the Post-Gazette's fabulous explanatory graphic. I bet the artists fought over this assignment.



I especially like the person at the bottom of the picture who is lounging comfortably and listening to his toilet.

Read the rest of the story at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07179/797810-85.stm. (It's worth clicking through just for the potty puns in the headlines.)

Been There, Done That

Or maybe Been There, Been That. If I do say so myself.... This is an Australian comedy band named Tripod; you can download their album from iTunes (or buy it on Amazon for three times more).

P.S. Definitely Spiderman.

Eat'n Park Goes Smoke Free

Smiley
Originally uploaded by erink

After a court ruling ended our 12 hours of smoke-free bars and restaurants in Allegheny County, I was bummed. But now I have hope. One of the biggest regional family restaurant chains has voluntarily gone smoke-free.

Eat'n Park is a Pittsburgh institution. It has good breakfasts and huge salad/brunch bars and some locations are open 24 hours. They have nice blueberry pancakes and this amazing thing called "grilled stickies."

The smoking ban apparently affects 68 restaurants in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. They also have restaurants in Ohio, where there is a statewide smoking ban. They serve 350,000 customers a week in southwestern PA.

I'm not sure where all the pouting teenagers will spend their weekend nights now, but I'm sure some of the waitstaff is not mourning their business.

I went in specifically today to buy baked goods because I thought I should reward them with some business. I realized that I haven't sat in the left side of the Squirrel Hill restaurant in about 20 years. Once they get it cleaned up I'll have to try that.

Here's their press release. http://www.eatnpark.com/newsDetail.asp?NewsID=117
And more info about the county smoking ban: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07143/788180-85.stm

What's Up

In the absence of actual inspiration, here's a random sampling of what I've been up to recently.

Reading Sandman.

I'm finally reading the Sandman comic series, for the first time. Yes, even though I collected comics all through the 80's and 90's I never managed to read Sandman. I don't know why, maybe because it was a DC book and I was a Marvel girl; it was expensive and I was cheap; it was pretentious and I favored mutant super heroes in primary-colored costumes. I picked up a bunch of the collected books at Pittsburgh Comicon and I've got through the first few now and ordered more from Amazon. It's keen.

Wearing Geta.


I bought a pair of these traditional Japanese sandals in San Francisco on a recent trip, and now I'm practicing wearing them so I can wear them with my Japanese outfits at Pennsic in August.

These are a bit big for me, but I was happy to find them at a reasonable price ($12) since I'll never get around to making any myself.

Running.

I'm in the worst shape I can remember, and without an ultimate frisbee team to whip me into shape I'm on my own. I have two more out-of-shape buddies and we've been guilt tripping each other into running a few times a week. Last night was the least horrible, and it actually was quite pleasant, but the other three times I was sucking wind big time.

Feeling Lush-ous.

I ordered some of these froofy natural-handmade-boutique skin care products from Lush. No bath bombs (I don't remember having a bath in my adult life), but I was intrigued by the solid shampoo and I ended up also getting a pretty soap and a facial scrub and a moisturizer. True to form, I chose the one moisturizer designed for men. The face scrub and moisturizer feel a little oily but they seem to be working out.

Ironically, I've been getting Lush catalogs since I moved (the previous homeowners apparently were fans), but it all seemed too neo-hippie pretentious until I heard actual People Who I Can Vouch For As Reasonable Folks gushing over their products.

Thinking about Buying a Mac.

The idea of switching teams is kind of scary, but I do need a new laptop, and they just seem like less work and more fun. They're big and heavy (same size as my 6-year-old Sony Vaio) and they have a funny shaped screen, but I hear they can run all the apps I need now....

Meeting Chewbacca.

At the aforementioned Pittsburgh Comicon, Peter Mayhew was one of the guests. Not that he has anything to do with comics, but hey, maybe I wouldn't have gone if he wasn't there. I paid $20 for an autographed photo, which is silly, but whatever. He seemed like a swell guy.

He told a nice story about playing Chewbacca in Revenge of the Sith. Of course since it was 20 years later they'd improved on the original Chewbacca costume, and they'd added all these robotic/remote control elements in the head and face. So they had puppeteers running facial expressions for all of the Wookies, and Mayhew said the whole time they were running film all he could hear was the whirring and buzzing of the robotics. They finish up their action scenes and they go to shoot the close-ups with Chewbacca. They start shooting and all of a sudden the motors stop making noise. Mayhew says hey, what's up, the gadgets stopped working. And George Lucas says no, we turned them off. You don't need them.

Mayhew is actually quite knock-kneed, which you can see in Chewbacca too. I was wondering if he has medical problems from being so big (and he's over 60 now), but he seemed fine.

Go Sens!

Ottawa is within a game of eliminating the Sabres in the Stanley Cup semifinals.

Not to jinx it, but actually they're within a game of sweeping the Sabres.

The Buffalo Sabres. The juggernaut of the 06-07 regular season. The team that dominated the entire league from day 1, winning their first 10 games. By mid-December they had just seven losses on their record and had not lost consecutive games. Yeah, they came down to earth a little at the end of the season, but they still won the Presidents' Trophy, and they beat the rest of the Eastern Conference by six points.

And Ottawa? A team that's named after politicians. How tough can they be? Apparently, pretty damn tough. Tough enough to knock out New Jersey, who finished at the top of our division (and second to Buffalo in the conference).

At any rate, Pittsburgh's elimination (by Ottawa, in round one) is looking better and better.

P.S. In other hockey news, Colby Armstrong scored the gold medal game-winning goal for Team Canada in the IIHF World Championship yesterday. Go Armpit!