Well The Mermaid Pulled First

Well, I guess I underestimated my work. The mermaid has won a First Place Blue Ribbon in the NC State Fair! I am speechless as far as taking first place.

If you make things you will understand my next statement. You never quite think you work is good. As you can see the flaws in the creation. 

Dropped off an entry to the NC State Fair

I dropped off my entry to NC State Fair today. Not the one I was going to do since I have been unable to cut for the past 4 months so that will be next years entry once I finish it. I was excited to do the elephant  but alas it was not meant to be. So I am going with my Mermaid cutting. I enter for the fun of it.

So if you go to the NC State Fair look for it in Handicrafts and Hobbies. This year they have moved it from the old building by the grandstand to the Commercial Education building. It is the one where you usually find the indoor Flea Market during the year. The old location was overcrowded and it was always hard to see everything. Glad to see Handicrafts and Hobbies has grown enough to warrant a larger location. Though the new location has always been packed also with lots of other things.

Well it is getting there.....

Well, I am finally off disability and can go back to work. With some nice restrictions of 20 lbs of lifting and no ladder use. Those restrictions may seem harsh but I can't even lift 20 lbs with my left arm so in my mind they are not restrictive enough. I can not lift my arm to even 90 degrees yet. During PT when they push it as far as I can stand. In other words just before I begin to scream they can get it further but nothing I can do on my own or even force myself to do even with the pulley exerciser I have for therapy. 

I have the very nice lump on my collar bone at this point which I will have the rest of my life. Which is visible when my shirt is off I am a thin person.

The shoulder blade is healed now. Once I get some strength back and some more range of motion I might be able to get back out in the shop. But I am not able to lift anything with my left arm yet. So plenty of PT yet. That equates to a lot of pain yet I have to go through. I like doing PT because it will hopefully give me back my range of motion but I also hate it because it hurts so damn much. I have been told at least a year and they doubt I will get back 100% range of motion. All this over someone driving and using their cell phone and not looking at where they were going. Someday I will post the video but I can't right now. Let me just say GoPro's were the best investment I ever made for my bicycle and you need two of them because you ned to have a camera facing backwards too because things happen behind you that can take you out like it did to me. Since I run with forward and back facing cameras it is all recorded. So there is no what I remember and what they remember it is just reality. My only memory is "Why am I suddenly going faster? Why am I going into the air?" I know from the video why I suddenly went faster and was tossed over the handlebars.

Still recovering

I am still recovering from my bicycle crash 2 months ago. It is just insane how much damage was done to me. I am still at a loss for words. I never would have figured it would really take this long to heal. I start PT but after not using my shoulder for almost 2 months it is basically frozen now and let's just say PT is Physical Pain as they trey to move my shoulder through and free it up. I am very discouraged with how little the damn thing moves. This will take a while. The person at PT told me on average it takes at least a year if you shoulder freezes up to break it free and get back 100% movement. I sure don't hope it takes that long. I will be extremely depressed not being able to ride my bicycle for that long....

Any way here is a still from my front GoPro. My rear gopro was covered by one of my panniers that came free but not totally free. So what happened was the bike came to rest facing the opposite direction from where I was going and I did the same but I travelled further than the bicycle. Not sure how much further I went since I was never able to get up I was hurt that bad.

Out for a long time

OK so for the past 18 years I have been riding a bicycle to work every day. Well on Tuesday, June 14th I had a car follow me through a left turn then accelerate right into me as if they could not see me. Can you say  distracted driver? On my GoPro Video, it certainly looked as if they were using their cell phone. They did not try to avoid of even slow down before slamming into me at speed. I suffered a broken shoulder blade,  collar bone, and two broken ribs. It has been 3 weeks and absolutely no healing has taken place with the collar bone. They tell me even though it is displaced they will not do anything for it. It will grow a bunch of calcium and eventually come back together on its own. Of course, it will be abnormal looking the rest of my life. So  I am expecting to be useless for 3 months while it heals. At least it is my left shoulder and I am right handed but I am in too much pain to even try to do this one handed.