jawqore

well, it's a year ago today that i broke my jaw while racing bikes up in wisconsin.  yeah, traumatic to say the least - i was in the hospital on morphine for several days, and my mom had to come up there to help me back to san diego (thanks again, mom).  jaw was wired shut for 6 weeks while it mended - that meant a strictly liquid diet for me.  i experimented a lot - i ground up pop tarts, burritos, bratwurst, you name it.  anyway, in memory of that i went and had the 'breakfast of champions' today.  that was pretty much the first oddball creation i came up with - it tasted great back then, and it still tasted great today.  i don't think i'll go back to grinding up burritos, though - they weren't that enticing...

 

 

breakfast of champions (1420 calories)

 

2 chocolate chip pop tarts

2 chocolate boost plus bottles

2 cups 2% milk

2 tablespoons powdered fiber

 

blended down to a pure liquid - no particulate allowed

the achilles

so i was out riding today and i think i finally figured out how i injured my left achilles tendon while i was cycling back in october.  i was climbing a short steep hill today in a pretty heavy gear - so the rpm's were really low - and the 'pulling up' action in my left foot was - shall we say - less than comfortable when i was ripping as hard as i could.  doesn't help that i hadn't ridden in a week and a half, and then that was only 1 night of track racing (high rpm racing) and that i hadn't ridden for an additional week and a half before that.  so yeah, low rpm, high stress pulling up movements in my left achilles.  not so good...  you can think of the pulling up movement being the opposite of a calf raise exercise - instead of your calf working to push the weight down, you've got the calf/tendon working to pull the weight up.  and so back in october, i had just come off a lot of high rpm track training and went in to lower rpm road training - especially climbing hills in really low rpms - and in retrospect, i totally know the moment that i strained that tendon, too.  wow, such hindsight...  but hey, now i know - and knowing's half the battle.

catcher in the dfw

so i'm just sitting in DFW killing time waiting to go home.  my flight outta jackson was on time - even early getting in to dallas, and it looks like my final flight home will be a-ok.  truly, a minor miracle.

 

anyway, i finished reading 'the catcher in the rye' a couple days ago on my flight out to vicksburg.  not totally sure whether i liked that book or not...  i mean, i never really struggled to get through it - but i wasn't really dying to turn the pages either.  and then you're getting toward the end and the tension keeps on building, but then the book takes a right turn and just dumps you.  huh.  but i guess i can appreciate the theme of confusion throughout the book.  a longing for more.  or maybe just a longing for something different.  but sometimes a longing for more, sometimes a longing for different, sometimes a distaste for everything that surrounds me and the constraints of american society and human nature.  that's the story of my life.  huh.  maybe i liked that book after all.  not so much in the actual words written down on the page, but more so in retrospect of the overarching themes covered.  wow - i totally wasn't expecting that.

 

 

seriously, what happened to the airline industry?

flying out to jackson, ms acouple days ago for the reid visit.  7:25am flight, and the taxi was late getting to my apt - really, not my fault this time - so i was just pushing that 30 minute check-in time barrier.  just made it and got on the flight - american routed through dallas.  but the taxi ride sucked - chatty driver who drove slow - there were other taxis passsing us on the way to the airport.  hellooooo?  trying to get to my flight here....

 

taxi driver:  you ever watch 'to catch a predator?'

me:  yeah, i've seen it before

td:  i love it when they get to the place and get on camera.  what were you gonna do with that girl?'  'nothin.'  they always be saying 'nothing'!  cracks me up every time.

me:  yeah

td:  and they're good with that camera too, man.  usually on tv you just see trained actors, but this is real - you can see right in their eyes...

me:  yep

...

td:  well, i don't know if you're religious or anything...  but it's all about that s-e-x.  i'm saying if there's a sure thing out there then you're just gonna go for it.

me:  hmm

td:  most of the time it's 50-50 you're gonna get it or you're not, but if you've got a sure thing - woooeeee!  i don't care how old she is!

me:  huh

 

yeah, i think he's gonna be on a future episode.  wow.

 

 

so i got into dallas to make my connection to jackson.  get through the labrynth of dfw and get to the gate to find the flight is delayed by 10 minutes - no big deal.  then they announce that the flight is overloaded - with luggage?  they are going to have to bump 12 people from the flight in order to make the weight limit.  huh.  well, i'm not interested in the voucher - i just want to get back to see the reids.  a couple minutes later, they call several people up to the gate - including me - and tell us we've been bumped!  what!  pandemonium ensues.  it doesn't matter that we paid for our tickets - have assigned seats - etc - someone's gonna lose.  the flight wasn't even oversold - it was just too heavy...so there's like 7 of us haggling at the counter for a seat.  the agents are adamant that no one is getting on board.  i lose my cool and have to walk away to simmer down.  then i walk over to the next gate to talk to the supervisor.  standing in line, and then all of a sudden i see 3 of the guys that were waiting for seats walk on board the plane - WHAT?  i get back over to the gate and one of the agents says she's trying to find a seat for me and a seat for this lady.  and snap - i totally just missed out on the 3 seat free-for-all that just went down - wow.  well, the lady is starting to throw a fit, and then the gate agent finds her a seat and ushers her down the entry.  supposedly there's one last seat up for grabs but it's going to this other guy - not me.  huh?  whatever.  gate agent walks down the entry to the plane and comes back with a woman in tears!

 

pulled from plane woman:  but you don't understand - my daughter is in labor right now!  i've got to get on this flight!

me:  ...

agent:  [to the other guy]  ok sir, you're next in line

guy:  ok!

baby mama:  but you don't understand!

agent:  i'm so sorry...

guy:  what'll ya give me if i stay?

agent:  a voucher for $200 on american

baby mama:  i've got to get to jackson!

guy:  hmmm...  no, i'll get on the flight.

agent:  oh...  okay.

baby mama:  nooooooo!!!

agent:  i'm so sorry - we'll give you a voucher for $200.

baby mama:  there's no amount of money that can make up for what i'm missing.

agent:  ...

 

yeah, that was really something.  made me want to pay the guy myself to stay so that the mother could get back to see her daughter.  made me feel like dirt, even though there was nothing i could do.  but that was that.  the agent helped her out and got her a ticket on the next flight (3pm) out to jackson.  now it's my turn, and the agent is looking for a seat.  huh, nothing left on the 3 o'clock.  and nothing left on the remaining 2 later flights?  'oh, and it looks like we're going to have to bump another 12 people from the 3 o'clock...  are you serious?  oh, man...  but what about any other airlines?  delta?  full.  northwest?  full.  usair?  full.  yeah, nothing til tomorrow morning...  what?  no way - totally unsat.

 

so then i thought - well, i guess i could fly in to monroe, la...  that's not *too* much farther from vicksburg, but then i've got to rent a car, etc...  wow, waht a hassle...  'but we'll give you a $200 voucher..."  yeah, whatever, sign me up - let's go.

 

so i get the flight out to monroe - which was leaving in only 20 minutes - hit some serious turbulence on the flight over (thought we might crash for an instant) - then land around 4:30 central.  off the plane and there's 4 rental agencies to choose from - avis, budget, national, and hertz.

 

avis is out of cars.

budget doesn't do one-way rentals

national doesn't do one-way rentals

 

so that leaves hertz - luckily they do one-ways - but they don't have a location in vicksburg!  what?  yeah, the closest location is the jackson airport!  absolutely ridiculous!  but it's not like i've got any choices, so there you go.  i get the car, get on the road, and get to vicksburg by around 6:30.  not too bad in the end result (except that we had to make a jackson trip just to drop off the car), but the process of getting to mississippi totally sucked.

 

 

in summary:

taxi driver or pedaphile?  t.b.d.

airline industry?  whatever.