Long story short, I have been busy doing things and haven’t had the spoons or time to write about it, but I really wanted to. Weather has been “Texas winter” as in bouncing between extremes of cold and heat from low 80s Tuesday to low 20s with freezing drizzle Wednesday, the day I had an appointment with my brain doctor. So the doctor’s office was closed but I had a televisit over the phone, and the doctor is disturbed about my depression, which we can’t do anything about until I go on Medicare and can see a therapist, and my electrolytes which requires an in-person visit to draw blood to test my levels. We know I need to supplement my magnesium, but how much we don’t know without testing. Also I need to take the nerve meds at dinner to deal with leg twitching before I go to bed at night. Leg twitches are annoying but not dangerous in themselves, but more of a warning that other things may not be operating within tolerances. I’m basically going from 300 mg to 600 mg of the Gabapentin per day, and the pharmacy has been sent prescriptions for a 6 month supply, basically 360 pills.
In other news the race at Daytona was excellent, some equipment and parts failures that were concerning due to the lack of experience with the Gen 7 (or is that Gen7?) including wheel failures either from the lug nut not being tight enough, or the wheel not seating firmly against the hub even though the nut was TIGHT. The Penske cars have been cleaning up the wheel machining to seat square against the hub, but NASCAR confiscated 2 sets of wheels to see if Penske exceeded safety margins (and rule limits) during the “cleanup”. From what I took from the press release they took a few thousandths of an inch out of the socket for the drive pins and the ID of the pilot hole that centers everything on the hub, plus all the coatings in the area of the hub seat so that there was nothing between the metal of the wheel and the metals of the hub.
My car is also not proceeding as planned, and the lack of progress is starting to make me angry as in “Mad Scientist” angry. Reminder if you want to see progress on the Sprint-T there is a link to my Ko-Fi account on the front page of the blog and I promise to use the money to buy more parts for the car and not waste it on medical bills or food.😌No guarantees about not buying copious amounts of gourmet-quality dark chocolate which (for me) is both food and medicine. More on that later. Anywho, I still need an engine and transmission that I need to know the weight of within a few pounds to know how far to the right I need to mount them for balance as opposed to how far to the right to mount them so my feet fit between the bellhousing and the inside of the body. Hopefully the “room for feet” distance is less than the “balance left to right” distance, or I’ll have other problems down the line.
Back to the dark chocolate. Back a little over a decade ago I was part of a study on the effects of really dark (basically the stuff they use in baking without the sugar) chocolate on the body, and let me tell you if it was a drug it would be a miracle drug: it lowers systolic BP 5-10 points, it reduced the effects of stress beyond blood pressure, it’s an effective antidepressant. Any kind of real, botanical (as opposed to synthetic flavoring) chocolate can do that, but the closer to pure unsweetened chocolate liquor you get, the greater the effects and fewer the side effects like zits and weight gain. I weighed about 210 pounds back then so my dose was about 3 ounces a day of bitter chocolate or I think 6 ounces of milk chocolate, fortunately I like the bitter chocolate. If there was any drawback to using dark chocolate as a drug it’s the dose needed to see results, usually drugs are prescribed in milligrams, not ounces, and are taken in tiny pills, not in huge blocks. On the other hand the overdose limit is in the tens of pounds range , and it’s in the GRAS list of substances you can put in your body as food. I’ll leave it for the reader to calculate how much chocolate they would need to die happy, but let me just say a toxic amount of chocolate would make you so sick to your stomach that you would not “die happy”.
One more reminder that I have a Ko-Fi account you can donate through at the bottom of the sidebar to the right and I’ll put this one to bed.
Witch on a Bicycle 
Running freaking late after seeing the doctor, and the Feed
I went to the chiropractor today. I left the house at 1200 and returned home by 2030. I could have left later except Mrs. the Poet and I see the same Dr. at the same time so I have to go to where Mrs. the Poet works to pick her up and then go to the Dr. And since it was after 1800 when the first bus of many we needed to take to get home got to the bus stop we decided to stop for dinner on the way home. Otherwise we could have gotten home earlier but then had to make dinner, which would have been a pain and taken longer than stopping for dinner. As it was we got home a little later, but fed as opposed to getting fed much later at home. It’s about a 2 hour trip from the school Mrs. the Poet works to the chiropractor, and mid-day about the same from Casa de El Poeta to Mrs. the Poet’s school. #Public transit is a time sink.
Up first is a story from the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike for so long that I have lost track of how many years in a row FL has held this “honor”. Investigators searching for a driver who hit a 12-year-old girl while she was riding her bike Intersection wreck but it appears that since the child cyclist is not getting blamed for this wreck the driver of the weapon vehicle disregarded a traffic control so protocols are moot, get the infrastructure right to prevent.
A wreck in GA. Macon attorney killed in Monroe County bike accident The cyclist apparently left-crossed himself. Intersection protocols to avoid and get the infrastructure right to prevent. Situational awareness always.
A fatal wreck in IN. Evansville teen killed while riding bike and Evansville teen killed after hit by vehicle while riding his bicycle Hit-from-behind protocols to avoid and get the infrastructure right to prevent, including making hitting another vehicle moving in the same direction the fault of the rear vehicle for going too fast for conditions. The weapon vehicle had headlights so the driver should have been able to see the cyclist if the driver was paying attention to what was in the road in front of them. “Dark clothing” does not give the driver a pass for driving too fast.
A hit-and-run in IL. West Point woman arrested for leaving scene of crash with cyclist Assuming hit-from-behind because no intersection was mentioned and he cyclist was not mentioned to have been salmon. Protocols to avoid or to mitigate damages, and get the infrastructure right to prevent.
Hit-and-run (maybe) in MO. Cyclist’s body found along I-70 The thought had occurred to me that the person might have been murdered and the body and bike gear dumped on the side of the Interstate for passing traffic to destroy. No mode possible to discern due to the damage to the body and gear. And one thing I find odd is aside from identifying the victim as a cyclist there was no mention of finding a bicycle at the scene. (Gigi found that odd, too)
A wreck in KS. Cyclist Hit And Killed Near Emporia Not a whole lot of useful information in this report. About the only thing that can be safely assumed beyond vehicle types and time is the cyclist probably had decent lights and/or reflectors on the bike, because any lack of them would be mentioned.
A CA cyclist on a charity ride was whacked by a goon in road rage mode. Cyclist severely injured in SR-67 crash and Passing Bicyclist Injured in Road Rage Dispute Hit-from-behind wreck, but from the narrative there was no way for the cyclist to avoid the impact and the built infrastructure would have been adequate had the drivers had the sense [*Deity] gave a grasshopper’s behind. Prosecute both drivers to the fullest extent of the law. Don’t stop at the book, throw the entire library at both of them.
A cyclist is blamed for being the victim of a right hook in OR. Cyclist Dies after Colliding with Car Right hook so intersection protocols might have been able to save this cyclist’s life, get the infrastructure right to prevent.
Major wreck in Oz. Cyclist killed in crash with bus and Cyclist hit and killed by tour bus on NT highway also Cyclist killed in crash with bus Driver exceeding the visibility of his headlights hits a ninja cyclist, and I’m seriously blaming the driver for this one because it could have been anything out there, large wildlife, disabled car, Fake Jesus pulling a cross on a wheel, you just never know what you’re going to run into at night… The cyclist could have used some lights and/or reflectors though.
A wreck report that could have used just one more piece of information to make it (more) usable to this blog. Bibra Lake cyclist killed in collision with car Did you figure out what was missing? It was the direction of the bike when hit. Looking at the Street View and seeing a divided highway that tells me the cyclist was making a right (backwards left) turn and that somebody ran a red light. Since they are not immediately blaming the cyclist I have to assume it is highly likely the driver of the weapon vehicle was running the red light. Anyway intersection protocols would have not helped in this wreck and if the built infrastructure had been used as designed the wreck would not have happened.
Infrastructure! news from Scotland. Scottish Parliament to debate ‘strict liability’ civil law protections for cyclists
Lifestyle in the Great White North. Ghost bike left on Spadina for cyclist killed by truck
And final link, just plain stupid from CA. Only 11 percent of children are wearing helmets during bike accidents, study finds Nothing on how many wear helmets vs have wrecks, making drawing a conclusion impossible, especially with a helmet law in place.
And those were all the links that gave me fits about bicycles today.
Billed @€0.02, Opus
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Tagged anti-bike blatherings, Bike ninjas, blind driver syndrome, blind drivers, cycling life, cyclist injured, cyclist killed, Dead cyclists, Don't read the comments, ghost bikes, going to the doctor, hit from behind, hit-and-run, infrastructure, Jolly Olde, Left cross/right hook, Oz, red light runner, Scotland, signs of the apocolypse, smart LEO, smart politicians, Something smells, stupid cyclist, stupid drivers, stupid LEO