TwoJeez

It’s been just over two weeks since I broke my kneecap. In that time I’ve discovered a few things about having broken bones and I’ll say that none of them are very enjoyable. This particular fracture is pretty minor in terms of the damage you can do to yourself when breaking major appendages. Unfortunately, it still leads to inconveniences in the normal daily activities that are so easy to take for granted. For example, putting on socks or walking a few blocks to the next bar. And don’t get me started on the topic of public transit…

Easily the most annoying aspect of my limited mobility is not being able to ride my bike. For a cyclist, especially one living in Pittsburgh, this is probably the worst time of year to be off the bike. Not only has the weather been great for riding, but this Thursday brings the start of the Bicycle Film Fest to the City of Champions. The upcoming holiday weekend also brings a number of other cycling related events including another installment of Black and Gold Sprints at OTB and a Bike Polo Tournament.

This Saturday also marks the start of the 96th Tour De France with the prologue time trial in Monaco. While I have started physical therapy—and have already noticed steady improvement—I don’t think that I’ll be back in riding form before the end of the Tour. I make this connection because one of my favorite things to do during the Tour is to go on long training rides that end at a bar to enjoy the replay of the days stage. There’s something to be said for the feeling of riding vicariously through the efforts of the best riders in the world. There is always a certain fire in your legs when you get back on the bike after watching an epic stage play out on the roads of France. This almost always leads to impromptu sprints down Carson Street on the way home.

Hopefully I’ll be able to harness some of that fire to put towards my rehab efforts. As I said, I’ve started on my road to rehab at the UPMC Sports Medicine facility in the South Side. So far things have been going well. I’ve mainly been working on range-of-motion and strengthening exercises that I can do with minimal impact or pressure applied to my knee. I was very pleased yesterday when my therapist asked how I would feel about trying the stationary bike. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to pedal (very slowly) with minimal discomfort. My knee felt a little tight, but not really painful. Lame though it may have been, those ten minutes on the bike were a big moral booster in terms of getting myself back to normal. If my knee continutes to cooperate maybe I’ll be able to ride to a bar stool to enjoy the Tour’s cruise into Paris.

Today marks a week since the crash that fractured my knee cap. I’ve been hobbling around the house ever since and I’ve got to say that crutches suck. Adding to the hassle, I bruised my ribs. That doesn’t help the crutching, or breathing. Honestly, the ribs hurt 10x worse then the knee right now. Not being able to take a deep breath sucks.

I went to see a Sports Medicine Specialist, Dr. Vonda Wright,  at the UPMC sports-med facility yesterday. Dr. Wright is going to be getting me through the rehab process in the coming weeks. Looking at my x-rays she said that it doesn’t look too(oooo) bad since the fractured piece is not displaced. I may experience some creaky knee problems later in life but I’ll jump off that bridge when I get to it. She also sucked a TON of blood out of my knee joint that had collected there after the fracture. My sister who is a nurse said that it looked like 60ml. I was going to post this photo here, but I’ll spare the squeamish and just post it here. Apparently the quad isn’t as resilient of a muscle as one might expect. I have to go in for electro-therapy to stimulate the muscle to prevent it from shutting down before I start doing range of motion stuff.

In the meantime, I’ve been working from home and sitting on the couch a lot. I can’t wait till this heals. Being in the house (and not being able to ride) all day is driving me crazy. And it’s only been a week!

If you’ve looked any of my work, you know that I am a fan of doing gig posters. Most of the posters that I do are set up with screen printing in mind. Unfortunately, I don’t often (or ever) have the opportunity to actually get them screen printed.

My latest project gave me enough lead time that I was able to call in a favor to my friends at Commonwealth Press. My good friend Dove is the lead signer of the band Pancake. They have a show coming up and she asked me if I’d be interested in doing a flyer. I (almost) always jump at the opportunity to create a poster for local shows and since I already had an idea floating around in my head, I accepted.

It’s an interesting challenge going from faux screen printed posters to the real deal. It’s not a terribly forgiving medium and choosing the design style requires a bit of thought. While complex designs are achievable, you have to keep the interaction of the colors in mind when designing. Dan from Commonwealth had given me some advice in the past so I had a decent idea of the design mistakes I should avoid. Upon sending the files over, Dan didn’t see any problems getting the art to reproduce. I have to thank a production specialist at work, Linda Twining, for hunting down enough paper to print the job. We printed on Cougar uncoated 80# cover. The paper took the ink fairly well with minimal warping.

We printed a run of 50 that I will be signing and numbering tonight. If anyone is interesting in purchasing a poster, let me know. I’ll be trying to figure out a way to set up a paypal link in order to figure out payment. How does $10 sound?

Here are pictures of the process, and the final printed piece.

Thanks to Dan Rugh of Commonwealth Press for spending his evening getting these printed. If you ever need t-shirts printed, this is only place. Call them, or else!  This also wouldn’t have been printed without the help of my wonderful girlfriend Sarah who saved the day when we ran out of red ink. She happened to have had the exact color that we needed, and was nice enough to run home to grab it.  Finally, I have to thank Pancake for the opportunity to make this poster real. I hope you guys dig it as much as I do.

The finished product.

Well, I fractured my patella (knee cap) last night on the way home. Oddly enough I was going up the hill on the way to my house when this occured. It had just started to rain so the roads were a bit slick. Additionally, gravel likes to wash down 18th street and collect on the side of the road. This delightful cocktail of ingredients led to an over torqued hill climb that ended with me going over the bars and landing on my left knee and elbow. I have some bruising on my right ribs so I must have hit my bars on the way  down as well. Fortunately, Pittsburgh is a great place to live for sports related injuries. I know a few people that are well connected in the orthopedic community so I should be able to get an appointment with a great doctor for my follow up.

The doctor at the ER said that I’d be out of commission for about 4 weeks. This is probably going to drive me insane. But, I’m going to try and utilize the down time on some projects that have been on hold due to my schedule. So hopefully it won’t be a total loss. I’ll be using my twitter feed to keep folks updated, so if you’re interested follow me @justinflagg.

::UPDATE::
I have an appointment tomorrow with a Dr. Tarkin. Apparently he is the guy to talk to when it comes to ortho-trauma. He had a chance to look at my x-rays and said that it doesn’t look too bad. Might be as simple as 3 weeks in a brace followed by 3 weeks of therapy. Lets hope thats all it takes.

Irony: Writing a post about being to busy to write a post.

For the last few weeks I’ve been unbelievably busy. Not in the sense that I’ve had an impossibly packed daily schedule, but in the sense that I’ve had something scheduled to occupy my free time for what seems like forever. If you’re reading this you might be wondering what could possibly be keeping me so busy lately. The truth is that there isn’t a brief way to describe it because it’s been such a variety of things.

The last time I posted I mentioned that i was heading down to Maryland for my little sister’s graduation. This was to be the first time in six years that the entire family has been in one location for any extended period of time. And I mean everybody: my Mom, Dad, Step-Mom, Step-Dad, my Grandparents, my Uncle Greg, my Step-Brother and Sister (Greg and Jackie), my Sister Nicki, her boyfriend Stephan and my other Step-Sister Sarah. We all managed to cram into Kelsey’s apartment for post graduation partying and I’m happy to say that everyone had a pretty good time. Although I think the booze consumption helped to lubricate the atmosphere, it was nice that there weren’t any arguments or awkward moments. I have pictures from the festivities posted here.

Fortunately, Sarah and I were able to get all of her stuff moved into my apartment prior to the graduation party trip because the following weekend we headed down to Richmond for a triathalon. This was her second year participating in this particular tri and we had a similar busy routine to fit into the short weekend. In case you’re wondering, I didn’t participate in the tri due to my apprehension towards running and my lack of interest in swimming anywhere quickly. It was a fun weekend, but I was glad to get back to Pittsburgh. Between the two back-to-back weekend trips we had spent a ton of time in the car.

Also adding to the chaos lately is the Penguins run for the Stanley Cup. You really can’t live in Pittsburgh and not be engulfed by the excitement that leads up to the finals. And, since hockey is generally played every other day during the playoffs, you end up with 2-3 post-work obligations a week. We managed to beat Detroit last night to tie the series 3-3, but we head back to the D on Friday to try and win it all. Honestly, I don’t care what happens but it will be nice when it’s finally over so I can have a few hockey free evenings. 

Of course, amongst all of this stuff, I’ve also been trying to train and race my bike. I had started off the year on a pretty good training/workout regimen but due to work and generally shitty weather I wasn’t able to continue my routine throughout the spring. This set me back a little bit but I’m finally getting into the racing season and finding the time to dedicate to riding. While I haven’t been doing particularly well in any of the races I’ve entered, I am having fun racing and I’ve noticed some improvements in my ability. As the year goes on maybe I’ll see some better results.

Well, as I said, there really wasn’t a brief way to sum up all of the things that have been keeping me so busy. And I can assure you that I’ve left plenty of other things out of this list. But since my lunch break is running short I’ll wrap this one up. I’ll be trying to post some updates about some new poster work I’ve done as well as some photos of the ICB team racing in our new kits. LETS GO PENS!!!

When I woke up this morning, I realized how quickly the weekend had disappeared. Friday afternoon was filled with a trip to Fat Heads for a firkin of Oskar Blues Dales Pale Ale. A few guys were there from the brewery to help us start the weekend off right. After the firkin kicked, Sarah and I headed to dinner with the rest of the beer camp crew. After dinner we met up with a some of my colleagues at Jekyl and Hyde’s to finish off the evening with a few more beers.

I realized Saturday morning that I had a full days worth of stuff to do to get ready for the bike team fundraiser that evening. We held the final Black & Gold Sprints that evening at Over The Bar Cafe in the southside. As a part of our sponsorship deal with Urban Velo, the team helped to organize a three race series to raise money for various expenses. Honestly, it was a lot of work to set-up so it was nice to get the final event finished. We had a less than excellent turn out of 21 racers, but considering the rainy conditions of the evening, I wasn’t particularly surprised.

On Sunday I finished moving the rest of Sarah’s furniture out of her old apartment in Bloomfield. Mark and Gus voluteered to help me out and Mark had even gotten a giant truck from his work. Sarah and I had already taken everything that we could fit in her car to the new house, so all that was left was furniture. There were only about 10 pieces to move, so we finished in about an hour. Of course, we went to Fat Head’s afterward to have a few beers and watch the first game of the Red Wings/Black Hawks series. 

I have a few things to wrap up at work this week before I head down to Maryland for my sister’s college graduation. Sarah and I will be driving down to my mom’s house on Tuesday evening, then we’ll all drive down to Salisbury on Wednesday morning. We’re all heading to a wine festival on Saturday, then heading back on Sunday afternoon. This will be the first time that the ENTIRE family has been together in about 6 years, so I’m sure I’ll have some tales to tell on Monday! In the meantime, check out my new “Schwat I did in ‘08″ set on Flickr.

As I promised myself, I’ve been trying to keep up on this whole blog thing. So far I think I’ve held up my end of the bargain, three new posts already! I’ve been thinking about what to write lately more than I’ve been doing any actual writing, but I guess it’s the thought that counts, right? As I evolve this space I’m trying to figure out how I can better utilize my web presence. I’ve even dedicated myself to learning HTML and CSS. And not just the lame limp-along-in-Dreamweaver HTML, but actually figuring out the proper grammar and knowing how to create and cust0mize functional websites.

I discovered a pretty good tutorial site at www.w3schools.com that I’ve found to be easy to follow. The best part about the tutorials is that they include a lot of try-it-yourself sections that, as I’ve learned more attributes and style references, have been really helpful in testing out my skills. The end goal is that I’ll be able to use my main url as a portfolio site, instead of relying on space on the blog to get my work out there. Of course, I will also be using those skills to spruce up the blog too. I’ve recently added some new stuff to the headers, as well as adding some work and a little back story to the design section. See my work. You’ll notice that I don’t have any web work in my portfolio. I’m currently working on a few web projects, but the truth is that I love designing for print, and I don’t think that will ever change.

I also recently logged back into my flickr account. My account had been dormant since sometime in 2005, and the lack of photos definitely shows it. I have well over 4,000 photos in my library so maybe i’ll get around to posting some of the archives in the near future. I’ve also realized that it’s a great place to host images for the blog posts that won’t take up space on my web server. For those of you who might actually read this blog, I hope you enjoy the current and upcoming updates.

GO PENS!!!!

Beer Camp: On Tour

The long awaited opening of the satellite home for Beer Camp, Fat Heads Brewery Cleveland, had its grand opening on Tuesday, April, 7th. As you might expect, a group of representatives was sent up to make sure that the new location was up to spec.

Sarah and I picked up Garrett bright and early on Tuesday morning. The weather was less than ideal: 30° and snowing… but that wasn’t going to stop us, we had craft beer to drink. We headed out to Cranberry to meet up with Mark (The Czar), who was driving the rest of the way to Cleveland. Once we got on the road towards our angry neighbor to the west the snow was off-and-on but the roads weren’t too icy. We saw a few wrecks along the way, but with Mark at the helm of the Crown Vic we didn’t have any problems. Hula Girl played a decided role in our safe passage. Continue Reading »

My new Hackintosh with bag and iPhone

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently got a Dell Mini9. I wasn’t really in the market for a new computer, but once i found out that it’s the only netbook (9″ screen, 2.2 lbs) that will flawlessly run OS X, for around $350, I was sold. The reality is that most of the time that i drag around my 5.5 lb, 15″ macbook pro, all i was using it for was email/web surfing. That’s exactly what netbooks are for!If you’re interested in getting one of these sweet macbook minis for yourself, check out dell.com for the machine and more importantly, www.mydellmini.com to learn how to make it a Hackintosh. The dell mini forum members are an invaluable source of talent and knowledge that have allowed many people to enjoy their own hacked mini9s. So far, things have been running very well. All the hardware works flawlessly, and the OS runs quite snappy. I also found an ebay seller, MoApples, that makes custom cut vinyl stickers so my white mini lid now has a silver Apple sticker on it. Needless to say, it draws a bit of mystique. I also got a custom made carrying case from another forum member, psyopper. That should arrive tomorrow, then my mini set up will be complete. I’ll post pictures once my case arrives so stay tuned.

[View with PicLens]

The weekly criterium series started at the Washington Blvd. Oval last Tuesday. Due to crappy weather/work, I didn’t make it. This Tuesday, the weather wasn’t much better, but i decided that I need to get my first race of the season over with.Normally, I would ride to the oval, but my new computer arrived on Tuesday, a Dell Mini 9 (which i’m typing on now.) I spent most of the day hacking it to run OS X, needless to say I didn’t get much work done. Turned out to be a pretty cool fully functioning mini mac! For anyone who is interested, check out www.mydellmini.com for a TON of information on how to get OS X up and running.

Anyways, due to my new toy, i had quite a bit of extra baggage with me, so i called Jon, who had his work van to see if he was going to the race. I convinced him that he should go, despite the weather and i met up with him in the Strip district to get a ride out to the oval. For whatever reason, Im never very enthusiastic about going to race on Tuesdays. That usually changes by the time i get to the track, and definitely changes by the time the race is over. I guess it’s just nerves. Continue Reading »