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!!!