More evidence the receptionist at the massage place is sweet on me

Or that she’s freaked out by me, I can’t tell. Anyway, I get all scrubbed and shampooed and ready to be massaged, and I walk into the massage place and the receptionist comes from out of the back, and she’s all smiles and guides me to the room right away. I tell her I need to use the restroom first, so I leave my bag with my stuff in the room. Then she runs, (not just hurries, but flat out sprints) to get the massage tech to the room, and I don’t even have time to get undressed before the tech is knocking to come in. Notice at no point in this exchange has there been any opportunity for me to pay.

So I get on the table and pull the sheet over my butt and tell the tech I’m ready, and when she comes in I explain about my neck malfunction and hip problems and she asks about my socks and I tell her I have cold feet, this is of minor importance later. So she gives me a massage, lots of attention to my neck and head, also lots of work on my glutes on both sides, particularly the ones that rotate my upper thighs and make my knees point in and out on the outside of my butt. She does the hot stones on my butt (very nice, highly recommended) as well as all over my neck and back. Meanwhile the hole in the cushion I’m supposed to breathe through is mashing my chin and also my nose so I can only breathe through my mouth, but my forehead is nicely supported and my neck is perfectly aligned. This works out great for when she does my neck which it felt like she spent hours working on, but I know was only several minutes, with Arthur Dent getting a real workout. Anyway, by the end of the massage I have almost 180° of rotation in my neck.

Anyway, backside is rubbed to perfection, now comes the first “fun” part, rolling over. The tech gives me a helping hand and in the process leaves my crotch exposed for most of the operation, about 30 seconds. She looks but because of all the damage I took since the turn of the century, nothing happens, at least for me, or that I can detect for her either. Then she starts on my face and the rest of my head, really working on my scalp/skull/forehead. During this my sinuses decide to open and the sound of the pressure equalizing between the atmosphere and sinuses rings in the quiet massage room and momentarily deafens me, but the tech barely quivers at the noise. It’s mostly inside my head so it probably wasn’t even noticeable for the tech. Then she’s on to doing that “rub the back of the neck from the front” thing and works over Arthur Dent again even better this time. I think she might have felt it the first time through and decided that’s what I was telling her about at the start of the massage. Anyway, she did a (good) number on it and that’s most of the reason I had such a good range of motion at the end of the massage. And the tech did a stimulating colon massage which caused me to pass gas for a while during and after the massage, lots of work on my upper quads and lower abs that also really helped my range of motion for my legs, and she removed my socks for a really good foot massage that had my leg twitching like a frog in a Leyden jar (look it up this was the 18th century experiment that was the basis for the original Frankenstein novel) because it hit so many reflex points on the soles of my feet, then she put my socks back on.

Remember when I said I wasn’t asked to pay at the beginning of the massage when I was rushed off to the room? Well the receptionist didn’t tell the massage tech, who tried to get me rehydrated and breathminted and out the door without asking to get paid/tipped, and didn’t seem to understand when I wanted to you know, actually pay for the massage. It took a few minutes to get it across, because the usual procedure was to pay up front. And that’s the story of how I avoided getting a free 90 minute massage.

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Weather doesn’t stop to enquire about your plans before happening

Well, plans were to wrap my workout around getting my toes done down the street, but the weather has other ideas. There has been a line of thundershowers going over since shortly after noon, when I got to sleep about 0600 after putting the previous blog post to bed about 0430. That post took extra long because I would write a little bit, go crawl around in the bucket body for a while, run some numbers on the calculator, crawl around the body again, run some more numbers on the calculator, write a bit, rinse and repeat. I spent about 3 times as much time with a tape measure inside the body as I did sitting at the keyboard. And I still need to get my toes done, the nails are getting a bit on the long side, while it is still raining with occasional lightning and thunder over Casa de El Poeta preventing my walk.

On the TGS2, the mind kept going after the post was put to bed. I considered saddle tanks as well as wrap-around tanks with luggage space on top of the tank. I genuinely think the best option would be putting the Jaz Products 892-032-01 32 gallon bare cell on edge so that it would be 17″ tall, 14″ wide, and 33″ across, behind the seat and using the space beside the seat for carrying things. Unfortunately nobody I have contacted sells them, so I might have to get it directly from Jaz, which makes the price a mystery. But it is possible to interpolate a price by comparing the costs of bare cells that I can get to the costs with cap and fittings for the same size cell, then applying that difference to the 32 gallon cell with cap and fittings. I think I’m looking at $143 plus shipping. Compared to a custom tank that’s cheap. I would still need to fabricate a firewall and fuel filler, but that would be true for any tank inside the bucket body. Jaz even makes a fuel gauge sending unit to fit this configuration.

On the bike-riding front, I’m still not riding. I do the PT that is supposed to make my neck more flexible but all it seems to be doing is keeping me from getting any worse. It doesn’t hurt to hold my head back or turn to the right, it just doesn’t go back or to the right. And I’m still getting the pain and tingling in my neck and shoulder, especially after I do my exercises. It’s almost like they never took Chris Christie off of my neck, except I have a little more range of motion especially tilting my head back. I still notice it there, and the improvement without a useless lump of fat on my neck. Every few days I check the tires on the bikes to see if they need pumping and once in a while I pump them up.

And now I think I’ll have dessert and a big cup of covefefe (CO-vay-Fay-fay). If Trump can make up words, I can make up the pronunciations.

Still thinking

One of the things that has been gnawing on me a little is I missed another Ride of Silence this year. For those new to my blog since I dropped the bike wrecks click on the tag RoS or Ride of Silence to see previous posts about it. I started missing the RoS when the tumor on my neck got so big that I couldn’t ride any bikes. But after Chris Christie was removed from my neck I got to the point I could ride bikes with a very upright riding position or recumbents, but not very far. Well now I can’t ride anything except a bus or car because Arthur Dent is causing troubles. I have a pain that starts in the middle of the dent and radiates to the end of the trapezius in one direction and up the back of my neck in the other, and makes my deltoid and rotator cuff tingle like they are trying to go to sleep. It’s very annoying but not much of an impediment except to bike riding at the moment, but it feels like it is trying to get worse.

I’m stalled on the Mid-Bucket (aka the Thunderbolt Grease Slapper 2) ATM because I lack cash for parts or raw stock. I still haven’t replaced my ID since the last time I lost my wallet, because I needed my ATM card to get the cash to pay for it. ATM card should finally get here this week and I will renew my ID early so I can go to Nashville and see the eclipse this August. When I get stalled on one project my mind starts on a new project immediately, in this case a lighter weight version of the Sprint-T with the Pentastar V6. Basically it is just the same as the V8 version with lighter components because of less weight and lower power. Remember the vicious circle of too heavy so other parts have to be stronger and heavier making the car heavier so other things need to be stronger…? Well this is the benign circle of less weight allowing for less heavy supporting and connecting parts. And the weight came to under 1400 pounds with the balance almost 50-50 I can use all the same size wheels and tires on each corner. If I could have gotten one of those free things would have been a lot easier.

Pole Day for the Indy 500 is on the idiot box so this is time to wrap this up. Congrats to Kyle Busch on winning the All-Star race last night in a masterful performance. Condolences to Sebastien Bourdais on that wreck at Indy yesterday and wishes for a quick recovery.

Opus the Unkillable

It took a while but I got my neck rubbed, and the Feed

I got up early this morning to go to my massage appointment a few miles west of Casa de El Poeta, about an hour by bus. I could get there faster if I could ride my bike there, but if I could ride my bike there I wouldn’t need to go. Anywho, I get there and the office is locked and nobody is answering the phone. a few minutes later the other therapist gets there and says my therapist isn’t in (duh!) and she’s booked solid for the whole day, and BTW the price of the hour session I have been getting has gone from $60 to $100, no haggling. I barely have the budget to pay for the original price, the 67% increase is just not gonna work. The place where I get my toes done has a neck and shoulder massage for $30, but it ignores most of my muscles to concentrate on “Arthur, Arthur Dent” and supporting muscles. It is leaps and bounds better than nothing, but about the same distance away from the benefits of a full massage. I will have to see if I can get massage at a better location/price before next week.

Up first because of proximity and number of links initially during filtering is this wreck. SANTA FE POLICE RECOVER PICKUP BELIEVED TO HAVE FATALLY STRUCK TEEN ON BICYCLE That link was completely different when I was doing the filtering, and another link from the same source turned into this link after filtering. Teen bike rider struck, killed by hit-and-run driver Two things to note here: First is even though this was late at night LEO are not making an issue about the cyclist’s visibility, or helmet, second is there was a witness that reported the driver left the road to hit the cyclist before driving off. This was not a wreck that a cyclist could avoid, in fact the victim in this wreck had done everything in his power to not be in the wreck, other than not being there. And as he was returning from his girlfriend’s home to his there wasn’t anything he could have done to “not be there”.

More on another possible case of “affluenza” in AK. Anchorage teen who hit, killed cyclist in court Friday and Sentencing for killer of bicyclist begins in Anchorage This was the princess who “celebrated” getting out of drug rehab by throwing a party with alcohol, pot, “molly”, and cocaine. She was still drunk and high according to toxicology results of a blood draw taken almost 3 hours after the 1000 wreck.

Another link to that brutal hit-and-run a few hours west of WoaB World HQ in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell. Bicyclist killed by hit-and-run driver in Haltom City Again, the bike in this wreck was so mangled by the driver driving away with it trapped under her vehicle that I can’t determine any useful information from it.

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Reflections on crappy cyclist, sailor charged in fatal hit-and-run, and more Mobility madness

Another nighttime hit-and-run where cyclist visibility was not mentioned. Bicyclist killed in Phoenix hit-run crash In fact about the only thing known for sure in this wreck was the driver left the scene and left enough bits and pieces around that they were able to find the weapon vehicle in short order.

Another Upstate NY cyclist is killed. Cyclist Killed In Accident Identified and Update: No Charges in Hammond Bike Death Given the narrative I’m shocked! (not shocked) that there were no charges in this wreck. It’s as if nobody in this burg had ever heard about the oldest traffic law on the books, not to drive any faster than you could stop in the distance you could see clearly.

Update on the psychopath who has been assaulting Mpls cyclists with thrown objects, usually chunks of concrete, thrown from either a Ford Bronco or a short-bed pickup truck with a bed capper and one rear window replaced with plywood. Police reveal new clues in hunt for driver hitting Mpls. bicyclists with concrete and as People magazine discovers the story Spree of Attacks on Bicyclists in Minneapolis

Hey they caught the guy that killed the kid in NJ. Arrest Made in Hit-Run That Killed Teen Riding Bicycle in New Jersey It is no surprise that the killer did not have a valid license when he left the scene. Maybe this time they will take his vehicle instead of the license that he does not have.

I’m not the only one to notice that SFPD has different standards for people on bicycles and people in cars. The SFPD’s campaign against biking There have been 2 deaths caused by cyclists hitting pedestrians this century (or in the records of the SFPD going back to the big quake), but obviously the problem is bikes, not cars.

Just weeks before the World Cycling Championships, motor vehicle mayhem in Richmond VA. Cyclist injured after being hit by oncoming car The only witness never mentions seeing a weapon vehicle just the aftermath, so I’m going to say this was probably a hit-and-run, and since the bike was hit from the side at the back of the bike I’m thinking the driver of the weapon vehicle failed to obey a traffic control or they would have stayed at the scene.

Just because an idiot driver almost kills you and then jumps out of the weapon vehicle to make it personal doesn’t mean you should keep hitting him until he stops trying to hit back. Corte Madera man sues cyclist over road-rage beating in Mill Valley It gets even better, the driver of the truck that hit the cyclist was drinking the day he hit the cyclist.

Well, at least this GA cyclist gets a little compensation for her pain and disfigurement. Injured Athens cyclist lawsuit settled for $850,000 I wonder what my lawsuit would be worth, had they ever caught the driver tht almost killed me?

There may be some infrastructure changes coming for Beantown. After Fatal Bike Crash, One Expert On How To Make Boston Safer For Cyclists and Plans Underway to Revamp Boston’s Seaport Traffic If I make a small suggestion, severely restrict semis with long trailers, they seem to be over-represented in the death statistics. I would go with the bicycle outriders mentioned in earlier posts about the cyclist hit by the deadheading semi towing the flatbed trailer as the best compromise over an outright ban. Also this would lead to higher employment for people who can ride a bike fast.

While we are discussing infrastructure, here’s a shitty “deal” offered Portland by ODOT. State’s proposal to improve bike crossings of Powell: Remove bike lane from 26th

And thanks to helicopter parents the child death rate on bicycles has gone down. Report: Bicyclist Death Rates Fell for Kids, Rose for Men

Drivers in West Canuckistan forget they are supposed to be “nice” Canadians. Cyclist hit on Lower Springbank Road shows clashes are continuing with drivers Combine this with the several earlier reports of deliberate assault with motor vehicles, and things look grim.

Things are getting nasty over on the Emerald Isle, too. Experts warn 100 people could be killed on our roads before end of year If that seems like a rather low number remember that Ireland is about 3/5 the size of Arkansas (32,595 sq mi compared to 53,179 sq mi) and 100 deaths would be … not very much for Arkansas .

Are cyclists treated differently by the courts in Oz? Canberra cyclist appeals against order to pay fellow rider $1.7 million for crash Let me get this straight, a cyclist hits some road trash and wrecks out and takes a second cyclist with him and the second cyclist is hit by a car, and the first cyclist is out $1.7 MILLION?!? How much did the driver of the car have to pay?

An art installation/bicycle repair station honors a fallen CO cyclist. Duggan: Trail-side sculpture honors man gone too soon

And I’m outta links finally. Sleep now, Opus tired at 0346

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Unkillable Badass Poet

Too tired to make a full post, so I’m doing a post about the dent in my neck

Let’s just say that the trip to the surgeon’s office could have gone better. I had the time wrong for the appointment and got there 4½ hours early which meant that I got back to the house with just enough time to swallow a sandwich and a glass of tea before I had to leave again to get back for my actual appointment.

The actual appointment was peachy, mostly. The pathology report was the mass massed just over a pound, and was all fat and blood vessels, i.e. NO cancer. Now the bad news. in order to keep the dent from filling with fluid and getting infected they are leaving the skin sutures sticking up out of the back of my neck in the middle of “Arthur, Arthur Dent”. I would take a picture except you couldn’t see anything in one I could take and Mrs. the Poet is like the world’s worst cell phone photographer. She has other qualities that make up for this shortcoming by a wide margin. The deal with the sutures is they are keeping the dent compressed so it doesn’t fill with fluids by going down into the muscle under the dent and up over the skin with other sutures that wrap up the muscle and everything is made from various sizes and formulas of dissolving sutures so that it will take 2-3 months for everything to come loose and let the muscle expand.

That means I will still have limited range of motion in my neck (subject to my legendary pain tolerance) for the rest of the summer but that range will slowly expand week after week. Another thing that means is I will have some level of discomfort lower than with “Chris Christie” for the next 6-8 weeks. It will still hurt (a little) to lean my head back or turn all the way to the right, but it will be because the stitches are getting pulled on as the muscle contracts. Leaning my head slightly forwards and to the left will stop all the pain instantly.

And because I know you have been waiting for a long time for links, here’s Our Daily Ted. Update: 66-year old woman killed riding her bike in Laguna Hills

And now I want to go to bed.

PSA, Opus

I had an RPG yesterday and “other stuff”

The “kinky RPG” group met yesterday, so my Warlock5 in that game got to get some exercise. Since this was the “kinky” game and this is (mostly) a family-safe blog I won’t be recounting this game session. That means we have to talk about the “other stuff” going on in my life.

The main thing going on right now is “Arthur, Arthur Dent” taking over from “Chris Christie” on the back of my neck. “Arthur, Arthur” is much better behaved than “Chris” ever was. As a matter of fact, the biggest problem with “Arthur, Arthur” is all the loose skin wrinkling up the incision site, followed closely by all the steri-strips getting all crumpled up over the incision. The combination is not very comfortable, but stilllll, orders of magnitude better than having the lump sitting on the back of my neck. I finally got all of the adhesive residue off from the dressing they put on after the surgery which was the most aggravating thing I had before. And when having a layer of sticky, gummy, residue on the back of your neck is the most aggravating thing about your surgery, your life is relatively fantastically great. I mean think about it: “The back of my neck is all sticky” compared to “I have a huge lump on the back of my neck and I can’t look up or to the side” is a massive upgrade in the quality of my life.

So, other stuff going on, I’m trying to get back on a bike, any bike. I have Blue “up on jacks” in the garage for repairs, and all Francis/es needs is the tires pumped up as soon as I can get the pump to it I’ll be able to ride it. I’m still not “clear” to ride until after they pull the stitches out tomorrow, and I’m just aching to get one out and ride it. But I will have to wait another day. Talk about anticipation!

And there was an interesting collection of racing on the tube today, GRC from St. Petersburg FL, Sprint Cup from Dover DL, and Indy Car from Belle Isle in Detroit MI. Ken Block (of Gymkhana video fame) won the GRC race, Jimmy Johnson won the Sprint Cup race, and Sebastien Bourdais won the Indycar race in Detroit that was shortened by numerous yellow flags and one red flag. Several cars ran out of fuel on the cooldown lap after the race with the winner running out of fuel during the victory donuts in the IndyCar race. That’s cutting the fuel mileage really close.

And I have to go to a church meeting now, so I’m stopping here.

PSA, Opus