Tomorrow is Saturday!

I think I've done all I can to get ready to go to the fairgrounds
farmers' market tomorrow.

I pumped up my tires -- the back tire was down to twenty pounds!

I put two packages of egg cartons I plan to give to one of the
vendors, my emergency-food packet, a little bag containing my sun
visor etc., a bag of crumpled bags to cushion my purchases, and a can
of potted meat into the un-insulated pannier.

The insulated pannier has a fresh pad of newspaper on the bottom and
is ready to recieve the bottle and four sandwich bags of ice cubes I
stashed in the freezing compartment, one of the three bottles of water
in the fridge, the bottle of switchel concentrate, the bottle of tea,
the lettuce sandwich next to the bottles, and the single-serve tub of
salad dressing balanced on the sandwich.

I still carry a sun visor even though I dare not enter a glaring-lit
store, but I'm getting accustomed to the idea that I can't pick up
water along the way -- hence four bags of ice; ice doesn't leak, but
it melts quickly when I put it into a bottle half full of warm water,
and the bag flattens to nothing when empty. I had water left over
last time, even though I used it for washing my hands and the produce
that I ate.

It's hardly any distance to the fairground -- I can see part of it
from my back patio -- so I'm going to eat my lunch at the end of the
Chinworth Bridge Trail and come back by way of Parks-Schram and
Crystal Lake Road. I haven't been on either road in ages and the
first part of Parks-Schram runs along the Tippy.


--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

I thought of something as I was drifting off to sleep and thought "I
don't need to get up to take care of that; I'll remember it when I'm
putting my sandwich into my pannier tomorrow."

I didn't.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

On Sat, 29 Aug 2020 09:38:23 -0400, Joy Beeson
wrote:

I thought of something as I was drifting off to sleep and thought "I
don't need to get up to take care of that; I'll remember it when I'm
putting my sandwich into my pannier tomorrow."

I didn't.

I did remember when I got to the fairgrounds: boxes to put my
tomatoes in so I could pile stuff on top of them.

But tomatoes and peppers were all there was, so the cushion of
crumpled grocery bags was sufficient -- even when I ran into a post on
the recreationway and fell off my bike. (I had also put the tomatoes
into grocery bags, and pulled the handles of the bags through the
wires before tying them elsewhere. And I bought only bite-size
tomatoes.)

I had met only one person on the recreationway, and that a mile back,
so I was lollygagging along thinking about everything except what I
was doing when I came to a "no motor vehicles execept ambulances" gate
and steered without thinking onto the narrow path around it.

The gates are put on wide spots, so that there is pavement left over
when they put in a gate wide enough to let a motor vehicle in.

Then I noticed that the edge of the pavement was a sheer drop-off into
a stone-filled ditch and my hands were nowhere near the brakes. I
instinctively twitched left and caught the top of the gatepost right
in the sternum.

The middle and ring fingers of my left hand were sore. The middle
finger stopped hurting on the way home; the ring finger got swollen.
It's quite sore, but doesn't mind typing much.

It did object when I scratched my head just now.

My chest is sore, but I haven't developed a mark yet.

Left off writing at 2:41/14:41.

----

18:55

I thought all the sternum did was hold the ribs in place, but it would
appear that a lot of muscles are anchored to it.

According to Wikepidia, just one, the pectoralis major, but it has a
lot of attachment points.

When I was packing my lunch, I forgot that I'd saved an eight-ounce
disposable bottle to carry milk in. It's just as well; I had
altogether too many bottles in my pannier as it was. I didn't touch
either of the water bottles in the pannier, and consumed only one and
a half of the two in the cages -- which included a significant amount
used for washing hands and rinsing tomotoes. On the other hand, I
drank all of the pint of tea, and put a healthy squirt of switchel
concentrate into one of my water bottles. I was back in Warsaw before
I felt the need of switchel, presumably because there were starch and
electrolytes in my breakfast and lunch.

The potted meat was rather messy on my sandwich.

I had rather a lot of pickle slices on my sandwich. I wonder whether
any salt remains in PBL pickles after the alum bath.

Still no mark on my chest. There are blue marks on the finger, but
they don't encircle it as they would if the bone were damaged.

-----------
24:23

I've heard almost nothing from my sprained rotator cuff today, partly
because I can't play computer games or do anything else that
aggravates it while riding a drop-handlebar bike. I did notice it
when I tried to wave to somebody with my right arm.

Google said the return trip was eight miles, but I continued west for
a while before crossing to Crystal Lake Road and turning toward home.

I left the simulated push-ups out of my sciatica exercises this
evening.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

On 8/30/2020 12:31 AM, Joy Beeson wrote:
On Sat, 29 Aug 2020 09:38:23 -0400, Joy Beeson
wrote:

... I ran into a post on
the recreationway and fell off my bike. (I had also put the tomatoes
into grocery bags, and pulled the handles of the bags through the
wires before tying them elsewhere. And I bought only bite-size
tomatoes.)

I had met only one person on the recreationway, and that a mile back,
so I was lollygagging along thinking about everything except what I
was doing when I came to a "no motor vehicles execept ambulances" gate
and steered without thinking onto the narrow path around it.

The gates are put on wide spots, so that there is pavement left over
when they put in a gate wide enough to let a motor vehicle in.

Then I noticed that the edge of the pavement was a sheer drop-off into
a stone-filled ditch and my hands were nowhere near the brakes. I
instinctively twitched left and caught the top of the gatepost right
in the sternum.

The middle and ring fingers of my left hand were sore. The middle
finger stopped hurting on the way home; the ring finger got swollen.
It's quite sore, but doesn't mind typing much.

It did object when I scratched my head just now.

My chest is sore, but I haven't developed a mark yet.

Posts or bollards in paths are signs of an ignorant designer. AASHTO
standards have advised strongly against them for decades, yet they seem
to be the default choice for excluding motor vehicles.

One of our club's best riders crashed and was knocked out last year,
despite falling onto a crushed limestone trail and despite her magic
hat. She was swerving suddenly to avoid a bollard. I'm very aware of
them and call out warnings when riding with others.

You're lucky, Joy. It could have been much worse.
https://www.bicycling.com/news/a2003...arked-bollard/

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sun, 30 Aug 2020 12:24:56 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

Posts or bollards in paths are signs of an ignorant designer. AASHTO
standards have advised strongly against them for decades, yet they seem
to be the default choice for excluding motor vehicles.

One of our club's best riders crashed and was knocked out last year,
despite falling onto a crushed limestone trail and despite her magic
hat. She was swerving suddenly to avoid a bollard. I'm very aware of
them and call out warnings when riding with others.

This was a perfectly-innocent gatepost.

When going around locked gates, one should be careful.

The bypass of the gate between Oakwood Cemetary and Beyer Farm Trail
is a zig-zag, forcing one to get off and walk. (I think; I've never
used it, and I haven't seen it since early last winter.) But I think
that it was pedestrians that they had in mind when they installed a
bypass -- I rarely met another bike when it was safe to ride on Beyer
Farm Trail, but lots of walkers, particularly nurses on lunch hour and
flocks of young children on field trips from schools. (I rarely met
anyone at all in the only spot where it would be possible to get off
the trail to let him pass at a safe distance.) The zig-zag would be
to inhibit the import of stone-toppling machinery.


But when I was in Upstate New York, a truly terrifying bollard was
common. As if it were not enough that it was short enough that even a
small child could land on the top of it if he happened to trip or fall
off his bike near it, it was *hollow*, so that the child would be
cored.

And, of course, the wobbly children had to ride between two such
bollards.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

31 August 2020

On Sun, 30 Aug 2020 00:31:08 -0400, Joy Beeson
wrote:

I left the simulated push-ups out of my sciatica exercises this
evening.

Yesterday evening, when I got down on the floor, I noticed that
pushuplets didn't hurt, so I did them.

As soon as I rolled over, I realized that that was a mistake, and this
morning I knew that it was a big FAT mistake. I probably set the
healing back at least a week, and I had to skimp exercises that don't
even use the pectoralis major.

The finger is still swollen and off-color, but when I put E-oil on it
this afternoon, I was able to move my ring back and forth to get oil
under it.

I'm still trying to figure out what happened when I hit the post.

----------------

Tuesday, 1 September 2020

Today I rode to the teller machine, then to Sweet Corn Charlie, then
picked up a "pizza burger" to go at Flavor Freeze. Only disaster was
unshipping my chain so thoroughly that I had to get off and get my
fingers dirty -- and I was wearing light-gray knickers. (plus fours)
Luckily, they are very beat-up knickers that look natural with black
spots.

Also found myself behind a semi-trailer that was headed for the back
of the old Milnot cannery. McKinley Street is *not* wide enough for a
very large articulated lorry to make a right-angle turn while backing
up. The driver appeared to have done this before, and waited until he
could see that I was stopping *way* back before he started to reverse.
Came pretty close to a three-point turn. Would have been more
interesting if my pizza burger hadn't been getting cold.

I wonder how the guy who opened the door on the loading dock knew he
was there?

Back to the crash. Afterward, I found myself on my feet embracing the
post, and the bike was on its side at right angles to the trail, with
the seat toward me. I don't recall whether or not both feet were on
the same side of the top tube; I think both feet were close to the
post and the bike was at a slight distance.

I think that in grabbing for the post, I must have tried to put my
left hand through the gate; the injury to my ring finger is very
similar to the injury to my left pinkie that I incurred when I grabbed
for something on the printer without giving due attention to the
location of the rim around the monitor of my TRS-80 MOD II.

There will never be another daisy-wheel printer as well built as that
one was; I hated having to send it to the dump.

The red mark the pressure of my ring created appears to have healed,
the swelling is less, and the red areas have turned purple. I've been
rubbing the finger with E-oil.

Still no visible mark on the breastbone. This was definitely the
first point of impact. I think that what happened was that I leaned
to the left when I saw the hazard on the right, then (for a change)
the rider stopped and the bike didn't.

I guess that that is all I'll ever know about what happened; I should
hire someone to follow me around with a video camera. At least there
was a witness to the crash on Fort Wayne Street, who told me that I'd
turned my front wheel sharply to the right and steered the bike out
from under myself. I'd been approaching the stop light a bit more
slowly than is possible. (Also, I was verging on heat exhaustion.)


--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

Saturday again. I grinned grotesquely while putting a band-aid on my
chin.

Hum, that sort of scans and rhymes. I had been annoyed by a bandaid
popping off when I grinned, and decided to stick it on a grin. It
worked.

I'd been planning to get in an extra mile by coming back around the
south end of the lake, but on Thursday, I read in the paper that the
Legion was selling chicken today. It isn't as good as their pork
chops, but it is very, very good, and for ten dollars I got two meals
for two people, and there is a serving of chicken breast left over.

Getting to the farmer's market early enough to find some vegetables
left led to leaving the market about half an hour before the chicken
was done, so I took a look at Rotary Park, where I'd planned to eat a
sack lunch before riding around the lake, and might next week.

There is a water fountain at the park! There hasn't been a place to
refill my bottles on that side of town since Owen's supermarket went
broke. The fountain at the City-County Athletic Complex had been
removed long before because, a maintenance worker told me, there had
often been a line-up to use it.

The park looks complete, except that there are no signs up to tell you
the name of the park and the significance of the huge gears that have
been put up as a sculpture. They came from a local factory of
historical significance, and were the first improvement intalled a few
years ago.

I was surprised to find a curb all the way around the park, except for
the wheelchair ramp at the intersection. Not one parking place!

Hold, I didn't inspect the Center Street side with that thought in
mind. Might be an entrance for maintenance vehicles on that side.

The old photos on Google Maps show that the plot really, really needed
to be made into a park -- or *something*.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

On Tue, 01 Sep 2020 21:44:21 -0400, Joy Beeson
wrote:

Still no visible mark on the breastbone.

I think I'm back to where I was before I did the pushuplets. I am
skimping or aborting every exercise that causes pain in the chest.

Found a couple more casualties of the crash.

Last Saturday, I think it was, my downtube water bottle suddenly
slumped to the side and caught on my pants.

I stopped, pushed it back, and managed to tighten the hose clamp with
my pocket knife well enough to get home. I've got to get around to
replacing the screwdrivers that I lost with my much-lamented tool kit.

At home, I fetched a large screwdriver and found that I couldn't
tighten the hose clamp any more. Most of the clamp was stainless, but
the screw had rusted, and the crash (I presume) broke off a few
threads, and it took a while for vibration to loosen the rust holding
it together.

The only hose clamp that wasn't way too big was half a millimeter too
short. I think that it would have fit fine if I'd been able to push
it in far enough for the screw to get started.

So on Wednesday or Thursday, I rode my wheelchair bike to the Trail
House. only to find they were sold out of bottle cages and didn't know
when they'd be able to buy more. But the mechanic suggested an
auto-parts store, so on Friday, yesterday, I made a short ride to
AutoZone and now my bottle cage is firmly attached. I took the cage
with me intending to install it on the spot, but forgot to take a
screwdriver.

It wasn't quite true that dressing took longer than the ride, but
mainly because I fiddled around opening the package and trying to
unscrew one of the hose clamps before starting back. Popping off my
pants and shirt and putting on knickers and jersey doesn't take long,
but I also have to scrub my feet before putting on shoes, comb and
braid my hair, wash my face and put on bandaids and sunscreen, then
I've got to verify that I've got all the stuff that belongs in my
pockets, fill my water bottles -- one bottle in this case, and check
my tires and panniers.

I wore the bandaids the rest of the day, since they were neither loose
nor sweat-soaked, and it was a great convenience when carrying out the
garbage etc.

----------

Today I wanted to write a note on my map and found my pencil strangely
reluctant to emerge from my pencil pocket. Finally I gave up and used
the pencil in my notebook. (There's another pencil in the coin
compartment of my wallet; unlike screwdrivers, pencils are
*essential*.)

When I got home and inspected it, I found that it wouldn't come out
because the middle part had been smashed into splinters.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/