Wednesday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Wednesday

Six to eight weeks you say?

Had a morning appointment. Showed up right on time, owing to the slow car in front of me, the other car that couldn’t figure out turning lanes and a search for a parking space that could be described as too-warm porridge.

Visited with the nice lady sitting in the desk inside the fish bowl. She took my insurance card — because this is my third orthopedic guy to check out my shoulder and collar bone. In return she gave me the clipboard of paperwork. What are you allergic to? Have you had an of these diseases? Did your paternal great-great-uncle have any skin sensitivities to latex?

So you do all that, you know the drill. And then you wait for your name to be called. Other names are called. You start playing the same game you do at a restaurant. “They came in after we did and they’re already eating!”

I decided that, at 75 minutes, I would go ask when my 10:30 appointment was going to take place. At 74 minutes they finally called me back.

And that’s just the waiting room wait, of course. Wouldn’t it be great if the doctor was already in the examination room and he was waiting on you?

Another X-ray. And then a spirited round of playing with the display knee joint sitting in the exam room.

I think this guy is out for the season pic.twitter.com/377WKY9HKI

— Lauren Smith (@LaurnSmith) August 21, 2013

The doctor finally comes in.

“Tell me everything. Start at the beginning.”

So we talked about the last year. He tested for nerve damage and said there was none. He tested for rotator cuff problems and said there were none. He touched my hardware and I decided I’m going to pinch, hard, the next person that does that.

He looked at my X-ray and said things look good there.

The problems, he said, are muscular, hardware or skeletal. He said he just took a plate out of someone’s collarbone that was so severe the poor guy couldn’t wear a jacket. Said the guy felt better the night of that removal. I don’t think that’s my problem. I’m guessing 90 percent of my issues are muscular.

But first we’re going to test for the skeletal. Sometime next week I have to have a bone scan. No idea what that’s about.

Oh. Radiation. Patience. One thing you don’t want and one thing I need more of.

Also, this doctor, who is apparently nationally renowned for shoulder surgeries, says I should have been in a sling for six to eight weeks. Had him repeat that.

My surgeon had me out of my immobilizer in a week. (I had to ask. I couldn’t remember. I don’t remember a lot.)

I take it I shouldn’t be happy with that.

Indian for lunch. School stuff for the rest of the day. Speaking of school:

Excited to be going back to play at Jordan-Hare to play in 2014!

— Pat Sullivan (@Pat_Sullivan7) August 21, 2013

Here’s the official release. Pat Sullivan almost beat his alma mater on the last trip. He put a huge scare into Auburn for 45 minutes. It was a great performance.

The Auburn baseball schedule was released today.

More sports: Google wants to buy the rights to put the NFL on YouTube. Remember where you were when this happens.

We had dinner with a friend — who will remain nameless because of this transgression — and standing in the parking lot, under the stars and lightning, we learned he’d never heard this song.

I did not realize you could be in your 30s and say that.

cycling / family / iPhone / overwriting / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
14
Aug 13

Not the best day ever

I slept in, because I stayed up late, because I had a cup of tea and was wide awake for the next seven hours last night and early this morning.

So when I woke up the story was fully developed. A UPS plane had crashed on final approach into Birmingham. The pictures are horrific. The two pilots were dead. And, thankfully, for a change, I knew precisely where my step-dad was.

He flies out of the same hub as those two pilots. The co-pilot has been named, someone he doesn’t know. We’re still waiting to hear the identify of the pilot. The reporters at al.com have done an incredible job on the story if you’re interested in the latest.

I’m ready to turn away from it. I’ve covered stories about neighbors, became friends with people I covered over time. I’ve reported and written and read about some horrible things people to do to one another and have a healthy detachment.

But I’m invested a bit here, enough to set the whole day off. There were emails and Facebook and a few “That’s not him, is it?” questions.

It was not, but what could have been. I couldn’t tamp down the anxious feelings until the late evening.

So I went out for a little bike ride in the rain, down through the neighborhood, around the roundabout and out the back. I planned to turn left, but as so often happens in the saddle I changed my mind almost mid-turn and went right.

The rain picked up and I smelled the river. The stagnant water at the boat launch. The still and mild decay of a fish. The synthetic carpet of a boat. The funky tinge of artificial bait that has been too long in the tackle box and couldn’t catch anything but weeds. There is no water there, but those were the smells. It made me think of my grandfather, and so I pedaled on.

I started having a tough time seeing through my sunglasses on the rainy, graying road. I enjoy a rainy ride, but this wasn’t quite the same. I hit a sprint stretch, wheeled to the right and realized I was cheating on all the turns. I blamed the new front tire. We don’t know each other yet. It doesn’t trust me to dive into turns yet. If I listen close the hum is saying what could have been?

I was dying on everything. But my socks were getting wet, so my feet were getting heavier and, thus, faster. That’s my theory, anyway. Doesn’t always work. I found myself shifting toward my easiest gears and climbing up the biggest hill of the day, which is no big hill. It is already a forgotten blur. So was most of the rest of the ride. Raindrops and panting. Chickening out in curves, full of unease about them, feeling my bike get lighter the few times I put in some speed.

Somewhere I picked up the smell of an old grandmother’s hairspray, baked in by decades of cigarettes. I don’t know why I smelled these things today, since I usually can’t smell anything. But I love being on my bike because it gives me time to think about things like that, the sensations, analogies and forgetting the whompwhompwhomp of my legs.

I took that picture above just before getting home, dawdling in the sprinkling rain and the purple and orange sky. I lingered to get the right fuzzy shot because a crisp one didn’t fit the mood. I took my time because getting home means going inside means cleaning my bike — the no-fun part of riding in the rain.

And there was still UPS plane talk. What could have been is such a bizarrely odd sensation. I got so distracted I almost gnarled two knuckles of my left hand in the spokes of my bike’s back wheel.

Here’s the last story I’m reading about it tonight:

More than 13,000 bags made by Freeset USA, a local nonprofit that provides jobs to women in Calcutta, India, were among the cargo lost when a UPS cargo plane crashed Wednesday morning near Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport.

The company, which lost what amounted to its entire fall inventory of bags, has decided to begin selling a T-shirt to raise money for the families of the two pilots killed in the crash, according to a news release from the company.

[…]

The company is also worried about its 200 employees, mostly women freed from Calcutta’s sex trade.

People are donating via Twitter. Freeset’s Facebook page says they are working on the design. I know this company through Samford connections. They do incredible work and I’m glad they are involved here. Can’t wait to brag on them. That will be the best thing for a perfectly sad and strange day.

adventures / I do not know what is happening. / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
7
Aug 13

Travel day

Up and at ’em today. We finished packing bags and took to the interstate and across the state line into Georgia and then on to the airport in Atlanta.

I neglected to remove my wallet from my pocket at security — which is pretty standard for me. This alarmed the helpful blue shirt, so he ran it through the X-ray after pronouncing it a big wallet. It was fine, because there’s nothing in my wallet that frightens anyone except the absence of money.

He brought back my wallet and I shared my relief that he’d pronounced it safe for a representative democracy. He asked if he I was a writer, because I was sarcastic and had a beard and “writers don’t care about their facial hair.”

That’s profiling, sir.

So I shaved tonight.

Here are some of the clouds from our flight:

We are officially health nuts. The first thing we did when we got to D.C. was go for a jog. Ran by this place:

I was offering people a dollar if they’d just go up to the police and say “Hey, that sure is nice. Who lives there?”

We ran 3.6 miles and it all felt good, which means it felt weird because there is no way that should feel good. But it did.

Jogging wasn’t supposed to be the first thing we did. We had scheduled a Segway tour of the capitol, but our plane was delayed. All three cities involved — where our plan was coming from, where we were departing from and where we were arriving, were all simultaneously socked in. That pushed us back several hours.

And so we did our bit of exercise, got cleaned up and hit Bangkok Thai, close to our hotel. Got a cookie from the CVS surrounded by loud, profane, angry beggars — ahh, D.C. — and then back to the room to iron clothes for tomorrow.

We’ll be conferencing. See you then.

adventures / friends / Ireland / music / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
26
Jun 13

The Cliffs of Moher

The most appropriate sign for the day, and it was a subdued one. All of this that you are about to see is stunningly gorgeous. And we’d ruin it with fences in the United States.

The Cliffs of Moher are on the edge of the Burren (meaning “Great Rock”) region in County Clare.

They top out at 702 feet above the Atlantic here at O’Brien’s Tower and receive almost one million visitors a year.

The cliffs take their name from an old fort called Moher that once stood on Hag’s Head, to the south. It was demolished in 1808 and the present tower near that site was a lookout tower during the Napoleonic wars. O’Brien’s Tower? It was built in 1835 to impress girls. Some things never change. Also, how hard to impress were 19th century women? Look at the view!

Thousands and thousands of birds live in the cliffs — that rock is a popular spot — and they are said to come from more than 20 species, like Atlantic Puffins, hawks, ravens and more.

This is the most popular tourist site in Ireland. Again, not hard to see why.

They were featured in the Potter films …

… and most importantly in The Princess Bride. The Cliffs of Insanity!

What happens when one person makes a nice face and one person makes the Facebook duck face:

Can anyone say Christmas card?

The sun was just about to set on us and The Yankee said the Cliffs were the place to be. She is so often right.

The Burren is a whole lot of limestone. They can just pull up slabs of it and stack it into a vertical fence. O’Brien had these particular ones built in the 19th century and they’ve been reinstalled today. They are holding out the growth for the pedestrian path. You look over those rocks and there are a few feet of wildflowers — more on those in a moment — and then it all just falls into the ocean.

They’ve traveled over most of the southern half of Ireland now and they still like each other. I think they might make it.

Because it is limestone, and because of the water, there are a lot of caves in the local cliffs. Perhaps that is one down there. This is a big area for cavers and climbers, though we didn’t see any today.

You don’t see them all here, but I did learn today that the Burren region — which ranges for about 250 kilometers — is exotically varied in its flora. You can see arctic, Mediterranean and alpine plants all close by one another here. They all have to meet up somewhere, one supposes.

I bet she got a good picture. If she didn’t, I did.

That’s the path on the top of the cliff, by the way. There’s nothing preventing you from falling to the ocean below. They say that a strong gust of wind can do the job if you are standing too close to the edge. I am only a tiny bit skeptical of that.

If you can stop looking at the rock and the birds below you can see the Aran islands off in the distance …

If you continued looking south you might notice an area of disturbed water. Legend has it that this is the location of Kilstiffen. The ancient city sank when its chieftain, in battle, lost a golden key that opened the castle. The story goes that the city will not be restored until the key is recovered from its unknown location. Local storytellers will say the city’s golden-roofed palaces and churches can sometimes be seen shining below the surface. Once in every seven years it rises above the waves. Those who catch a glimpse of this city will die before it appears again. Spooooky.

There’s a reef nearby that features submerged forests and bogs. There was an earthquake and tsunami at the turn of the 9th century, and that might help play into that legend.

Enjoying watching the sun fall into the ocean.

Just two weeks ago local officials opened their new 12-kilometer Cliffs of Moher Coastal Walk, which boasts some incredible scenery. It takes walkers from Hags Head outside Liscannor Village, over these beautiful cliffs and down into the village of Doolin, where we are staying tonight.

You read the signs telling you about the trail — “changes suddenly to a remote, challenging and demanding trail, with no barriers, handrails or seward fencing. Trail features include an exposed cliff-top path, steep ascents and descents, and narrow/steep flagstone steps. The trail may be rough and uneven in places with loose gravel and stone.” — and you realize the difference in American lawyers and Irish lawyers.

The little segment of it that we walked, here at the high point, featured this fun little staircase:

We had such a great time here. There are so many pictures, the ones above, more in the video below, and just a perfect evening with glorious weather.

I sent this little video home from the cliffs. You may enjoy it as well.

More playing around with video at the cliffs:

This one has many more pictures than you just scrolled through, stuff I shot between Dingle and Doolin on the day’s ride. The music is more of the local sound we heard in Dingle town.

Tomorrow we’re going to take a ferry to one of the Aran Islands, and then we’re going to see these same cliffs from sea level. Can’t wait.

adventures / history / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
19
Jun 13

White cliffs of Dover

Friends, please take this advice. If you have the opportunity to rent a car and drive out of London: Don’t.

Instead, find an Underground stop on the way out of town in the direction you want to go. Find a car rental place at that stop. Take that train and rent from there. And you are welcome.

It isn’t about driving on the left side of the road, which The Yankee did very well:

But that city wasn’t made for you. It was made for people on bicycles with a death wish. And cabbies. Who drink. And not your GPS. Just don’t.

Anyway, we rented a car, we got lost. We got lost while lost. The GPS had no idea. We drove about five miles in almost two hours. We finally made our way out of town in one of those mornings where nothing went right. (And this was the day we chose to rent a car!) Once you get out of London everything is fine. Hence my advice above. And so we drove about two hours to Dover.

No one in Dover knows where anything is. So that’s an adventure unto itself. Also, our GPS did not know.

We were going to take a tour on the water, but the guy that gives the tours was MIA. And also not answering his phone.

There is one other game in town, a speedboat game. So we donned splash suits and climbed into a Zodiac and bounced our way out to the cliffs. They look like this. (There is more writing below.)

Also, here is a panorama of the Dover castle above it all. As always, click to embiggen.

In this next picture, do you see that line that goes from the top of the cliff all the way to the shore? The cliffs are made of a chalk, and thus are soft. The locals, our guide told us, would often hoist up items from shipwrecks (or from smuggling) from the top of the cliffs. The ropes carved their way into the cliffs. In 1910 the Preussen, the largest ship of its kind in the world, found her fate on these shores. She was carrying pianos. The story goes that they all went into locals’ homes, via rope lines like these:

See the holes in the cliff face below? The British dug those out and mounted lights in there during World War II. Our guide told us that Dover never really recovered from the war economically, but not because of those lights. They were afraid of invasion from across the channel — France is only 26 miles away — and before radar they were lighting up ships at night.

Erosion happens. Thousands of tons fell to the shore last year.

This, we were told, is party of the area that always shows up in films:

This is one of the lighthouse markers that sits on top of the barrier wall at the harbor. These days fishermen pay good money to spend days or weeks on end out there, fishing and living in dank conditions. They made it sound miserable.

This is the old Customs Watch House, designed by architect Arthur Beresford Pite and built 1909-1911.

We ordered lunch from Sue, who works out of a truck. And her seafood is fresh.

Not sure what this is about, though:

But the seagulls approve.

The place we did not eat, but I wanted too. I’ve always wanted to try a burguer. But not a Donner.