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June 9, 2008

I'm sitting here boiling water for tea, and I thought that I've not updated in awhile. I was kind of bored (I was cleaning windows, and dusting the tv stand at midnight...), and wanted some tea. That got me to thinking...why not update?

Okay, since the last update a major thing has happened. I've required surgery yet again! At a Judo class on February 3rd, 2008, I blew out my ACL. The fucked up thing is, I was only going about 10%, and if you seen how sensei and I moved, you would be bewildered playing the events out in your head wondering how I was hurt so badly. Honestly, you walk more violently than we were moving. I went to work for a few weeks and even had 2 physical therapists evaluate me NEITHER thought I had a torn ACL. I guess my knee was very stable without it, just not stable enough to fight. I was very fortunate, because with a dislocation of the knee, you typically tear other things. My only injury was the tear of the ACL.

The long story short is this, I completely tore my ACL in half. When the doctor showed me the MRI, he said "this is where your ACL used to be". I like to think of my body as the land lord, and the ACL as the tenant that wasn't paying rent. It was evicted. I had ACL surgery April 3rd 2008. They took my semi-tendonous and semi-(I think membrenous) tendons or ligaments not sure which is the correct term, from my hamstring. I was against the donor graft because I'm not interested in dead human tissue in me.

This has put a stop to my Judo for a few months. I have not been on the mat since Feb 13th (I went until the injury prohibited me and caused severe pain). I will probably not be able to return to training until August or September, possibly longer.

I had some complications to surgery. My knee swelled up, as did my calf and shin. I had to be checked several times for blood clots and infection (too many trips to the ER), and I have some strange ass bruising that like 8/9 weeks post op, won't go away. It prohibited me entering therapy right away (10days is what my doctor likes, but I ended up going at like 19!!!).

I go to therapy 3/4 times a week for around 2.5-3 hours a visit. My therapy consists of exercises to regain the range of motion, and to strengthen the knee, calf, quad, and hamstrings. It will progress into stability training, to make sure this ACL won't pop again.

It's discouraging because there's 2 different girls who blew out their ACL 2x each. Another guy who did the same thing. The one girl's brother did it 3 f-in' times! Too many!

There's a longer story to that, but I don't feel like getting into it. Let's just say that the pain of therapy is even worse than my shoulder therapy. I am also in the worst shape of my life. Pre-surgery I was 8-10% body fat, and 148 lbs. Now I'm closer to 170, and I've lost considerable amounts of muscle. My neck I know for sure I lost 1.5 inches (I was measured for a tux last week). My bi/tri's are about 2 inches less in diameter. I probably couldn't bench my body weight if I tried, but I bet that I could still do some damage in a grappling situation! Haha.

As most know, I don't like to talk much about the other people in my personal life, as I don't feel it's much my place. However, I think it's important to mention my beautiful fiance, Courtney. She recently graduated from IUP that cum laude thing that means you have like a 3.75+GPA. Bottom line, she's smarter than me! It's intimidating.

We have been working on this wedding of ours, and I have to say she does a lot more of the work than I do. The wedding is 13 days away if you count today. I'm not quite as nervous as one would thing. My friend Dale tells me that it sets in the week before. The way I figure it is, I'm afraid of no man, and really no thing now, a wedding shouldn't scare me either. We have several friends and family attending, and if I forgot to invite anyone, I deeply apologize. We were trying to keep it under 100 total people attending, and the closer we got, the more people I remembered. I think we have around 60-80 attending. It's going to be a great day.

My 26th birthday was June 7th. I feel so damn old. I'll mention things in pop culture that I know about, and people don't have a God damned clue as to what the hell I'm talking about, it's a bit upsetting. Courtney bought me the 6 seasons of Scrubs that are out on DVD. I love that show. I really do. When I watch it, it just changes my mood from the usual sour, to very jovial. It's a great show. Speaking of shows, I cannot wait until Nip/Tuck is back on, and if Rescue me shows up again, I'd like to see it. I've heard rumors that they may not do another season. I've also heard that the most recent season of Scrubs was the last. I'll have to do some more research on that, because I'm bummed out. I hate things that end. I watch anime, and I liked Death Note right up until that bitch ended. Same with Great Teacher Onizuka. It's hard I guess to say good-bye. I've got these questions that never get answered, and it bums me the hell out. Anyway, her buying me those DVD's were quite possibly the single best birthday gift I've ever gotten. I don't expect anything from anyone, and quite honestly don't care to receive gifts. It feels like a hand out, and I'm too damned proud for that. Courtney tells me I need to get over it, a gift isn't a hand out she says. Who knows if I'm right or not.

This Thursday Metal Gear Solid, and the Playstation 3 80GB system are being bundled together. I really shouldn't buy one, but God dammit I want one, and I'll put it on the card, pay a high ass interest rate, and deal with it later. I want the damn thing, and rather than obsess, I'd rather just get it and obsess about how I'm going to pay for it.

This recent injury has put a hampering on my photopraphy, since I haven't been able to get out much. Mind you, I have been shooting, just not as much as I like. I recently upgraded my kit, allowing me for a backup camera, and upgraded my old lenses. I went from the 17-85 EF-S lens to a 24-70 2.8L, and added a 70-200 2.8IS lens to that too. It's a damn shame how much of an investment photography is. It quickly adds up between bodies, lenses, memory cards, bags, see it's already adding up. Just like nickel and dime-ing you!

With my increasing mobility, and duration of mobility (now it is painful to even be up for more than 30 minutes), I'll be able to get out and shoot more. Please check back for updated photos.

Well that's all for now. Getting married, still shooting photos, still unsure what's going on musically. I am supposed to start jamming with John again, however I admittedly have only played guitar for 20 hours or so this year, and it's half over. My chops are dog shit now, and now I'm unsure of what the hell I'm going to do. It's amazing how fast you lose everything that you spent years to gain. I do play out every once in awhile though. I typically play a song with Dale's band when I go to see them.