David Aiken

Drug Induced Dreams are pretty wacky

thedavidaiken — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 16:31:58 +0000

Just had to share this. The last 2 nights to help with the pain and sleeping I’ve taken Hydrocodone. I must add for the benefit of future employers that this was prescribed by my doctor and is perfectly legit. In fact future employers should probably not read this blog as it is supposed to be slightly funny and probably not conductive to future positions, except at maybe real cool places where I’d probably like to work one day.

Anyway.

Thursday nights dream was like watching a giant space battle/chase that would make you go wow if it were at the cinema, it was totally extreme. This was followed by intense sequences of Vampire violence and mild language.

Last nights involved hooking up trailers with our vacation stuff in to Uncle Paul’s massive dump truck, and sending the bicycles back home wrapped in cardboard and string via the grumpy courier man. I have no idea who that is. I have no idea why Uncle Paul had a dump truck, or why Ian made me climb on the rear wheels each time to attach the trailer.

I’m sure someone will analyze these dreams and come up with some deep meaning, but I’m pretty sure Hydrocodone is to blame.

My Shoulder Operation, in Pictures

thedavidaiken — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 02:48:40 +0000

I’m still drugged up 6 days on. Apparently if you crush the medicine I’m on you can snort it instead of cocaine. Just saying so you get an idea of how powerful they are.

Anyway, my operation was supposed to be about shaving some bone of my rotor cuff so my arm can move freely. While in there, he also spotted my bicep was disconnected, so they re-attached that. Had I not been on my drugs I would have wrote something more informative, but instead here are the pictures.

This is all frayed, which is bad.

Here are the other pics:

Inside my shoulder

VIEW SLIDE SHOW

DOWNLOAD ALL

Pretty cool.

Narcotic Induced Ramble–Maybe

thedavidaiken — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:34:27 +0000

Oxycontin is my new best friend. Following my accident in March, months of physical therapy my doc decided that surgery was something to be considering. Surgery was last Wednesday and my shoulder/arm is in a sling. I have some pictures which I will post soon.

So I’m typing this with one hand, full of drugs!

I decided against working while on powerful pain-killers as that has led to mixed results in the past. I’ve tried playing games, watching movies but I don’t seem to have the attention span at the moment. With one arm you cannot use AND have to keep very immobile there are many things I cannot do, like riding my bike, cooking or playing wii. Ok I managed to play WII but I don’t recommend it.

So blogging is all I have left to try. it should not matter what crap I write, and it looks lie it is going to take a flippin long time with one hand. besides the pics of INSIDE my shoulder will be awesome

Saline Scrub

thedavidaiken — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:24:07 +0000

Is as bad as it sounds. Last Wednesday, whilst cycling at 30mph down hill, I “fell” off my bike (I actually never left my bike, so we both fell). It happened as I was pulling out from the road shoulder (which is covered in pot holes, manhole covers etc.) onto the road. My wheel got stuck in the canyon between road and shoulder, I tipped over and slide maybe 30 ft down the hill on my side, bike still clipped to my shoes. Fortunately there were no cars coming.

Bike is mostly fine, scuffed the handle bars and hoods. Bent the fender a little. Nothing that cannot be fixed.

Me, I suffered from Road Rash. Road Rash is caused by road scrubbing away your skin (having first scrubbed away your protective clothing) as you slide along it. What is surreal, is when you are sliding down the road, you feel like everything is not only slowed down, but life got switched into BluRay 1080p mode, I can probably tell you how many leaves were on the trees – everything was crystal clear.

After un-clicking my feet and picking myself up i carried my bike to the side of the road. By this time a few drivers had appeared and asked if I was ok and did I need a ride anywhere. Thanks to all those that stopped. And sorry I didn’t need a ride, but my bike doesn’t fit in your Yaris. Super Duper Thanks to Tina from the ProClub, who had a nice truck to pop my bike in and carry me home. I do hope I didn’t leave too much of me inside.

Called Kate with the dreaded “I’m fine, but I’ve just fell off my bike”. She came home, and dragged me to the ER, where they removed the road and clothing from my road rash using the good ole saline scrub. Let me tell you, that hurts like nothing else.

When you crash anything and you are a MAN, you go into denial. No, it’s not that bad, yes I’m fine. Only after a few days do you realize how not fine you were, and that yes falling off your bike and getting road rash is a big f’in deal. Funny, they never show the bit on die hard where John puts his head in his hands and thinks “Wow”.

I’ve ordered again all the clothing that was ruined. Along with a new helmet. My wounds are healing nicely, and my aim is to go for a short ride at the weekend and all being well, start commuting again next week.

Here are some pictures of me and clothing with holes in.

View Full Album

No Riding today :(

thedavidaiken — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:24:46 +0000

Had an early morning meeting in Bellevue, so having dropped my son off at school at 7:40am, there wasn’t time to cycle to the venue in time for the meeting. Shame, because the day was wonderful for a cycle commute. Will try again tomorrow.

Welcome to 2010

thedavidaiken — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:22:25 +0000

Oh My Gosh.

It’s been too long since I last blogged outside of work, so he goes for the new year.

2010 started off slow with many dilemmas.

For context – here is my 2010 to do list:

Cycle to work more than I drive (current 8 cycle vs. 2 car)
Do a cycle maintenance course
Loose 50lbs by summer
Save 5000
Chop all the wood
Go Camping (with Family – yikes)
Cycle over mountains (without Family)
Go to Canada (with Family)
Do something new every month

So what is missing?

Trains.

I made some progress late December and over Christmas. But here is the thing, to move to the next stage is going to require some serious investment in time, and minor investment in money. So the dilemma is what to do. If it takes another year to lay 3 ft of track, is it worth doing or should we be looking to do something else with that space/time?

Between cycling home, having dinner, sorting kids out for bed etc. it normally puts things at 9pm before there is any me time.

What if that time and energy was spent on cycling, cooking, keeping in touch with family etc.

hmm, what to do….

379

thedavidaiken — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:07:31 +0000

That was my number in the flying wheels summer century when I completed my first 100+ mile bike ride. I say 100+ mile because I also cycled 7.5 miles to the start line. The route starts heading south past lake Sammamish, before cutting across the hills into, erm whatever the next valley is called. You can see the 2007 route, which is not much different at Bikely http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Flying-Wheels-Summer-Century.

Next month its the STP, which is 200 miles. The big question is should i try to do it in 1 day or 2 days???

Ouch

thedavidaiken — Mon, 25 May 2009 18:03:19 +0000

Yesterday’s theme was ouch.

1st I cycled 60 miles with Jonny (although he only did 40). First I cycled the 10 miles to his house. Then we cycled up to Snoqualmie Falls. Then Jonny showed me how wrong I was to think we were at the top of a hill, and proceeded to find another 300ft of steep climbing so we could see what a rough cobble forest road looked like before coming back down. We then cycled to Remlinger farm for ice cream (only to discover they don’t have ice cream). Back to Jonny’s then I cycled home. The elevation I rode is below:

See www.bikely.com for the cool site that plots your route and gives you the elevation. Not a bad training ride, but my legs do hurt today.

The next ouch was Rachel and her bike. Just as we were about to leave for a party (also at Jonny’s house) she fell off her bike. Her wrist was in pain on the inside, so we took her to casualty, where they x-rayed her arm and we discovered she has a buckle fracture, which is the mildest break you can have. So now she has a splint on her arm. She is not in pain, and she still looks super cute.

Hopefully today will be boring.

A long long long time ago

thedavidaiken — Sun, 24 May 2009 05:43:11 +0000

I wrote about some new years resolutions. One of them was to write stuff on this blog. As you can see I’ve not done a good job since Feb. Bummer.

I’m still riding, but not lost any weight. In 49 days I’ll be cycling to Portland, which is 200 miles. Most I’ve ridden is about 65 miles, which was an extended loop around lake Washington. 100 should not be too much trouble, but 100 on 2 consecutive days could be a pain in the ass, literally.

I’m back to my brooks saddle, having spent a few months off it. I love my brooks saddle, hopefully this time it will love me.

What else has happened, went to Australia in March – that was cool, was promoted into management too. This means I have a team again, but also means I now loose sleep over things other people are doing rather than just my own things. Mustn’t grumble as many folks at Microsoft lost their jobs in the last few months as part of the crappy economy.

Found a great site for cycle routes, www.bikely.com. It has a pretty large database of cycle routes submitted by folks. You can also join for free and submit your own route. The cool thing is it gives you the elevation of the routes as well so you know how far you have climbed!

Off to cycle in the morning, will probably ride to the start, rather than drive since I need the miles.

Lenovo S10

thedavidaiken — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 06:49:35 +0000

I’ve been looking for a small laptop for home user for some time now. I’ve got a desktop and a work laptop – but wanted something a little smaller to “surf” the web, do email, buy bike stuff etc.

Enter the netbook. A netbook is a small sub $400 laptop that has a screen around the 10” mark. They typically run XP or Unix, have small amounts of RAM and Disk – but are designed to be lightweight, and ideal for internet uses. There are many definitions of a netbook, and this is mine.

After researching just about everyone on the market, including the Samsung, Acer, Assus, Dell, WIND & Lenovo. I decided on the lenovo S10.

The one I got is white, and came with 512mb of Ram and an 80GB hard disk. This was $299 from http://newegg.com. I added to that a 2GB Ram module which cost $20, and a 8gb USB drive for installing Windows 7 for another $20.

I installed the RAM, then went through preparing and installing windows 7. It took about an hour in total, but i was left with a pretty nifty little device. It runs windows 7 great. The new OS is pretty responsive on the small machine.

RAM installation was easy, as the lenovo provides an access hatch to get at the memory. There is 512MB on the board, and a slot to add another 2GB. That gives 2.5GB, but the chipset can only see 2gb, which is actually enough.

The processor is a single core ATOM CPU. I don’t recall the specs, but so far the web, email and watching movies has been no problem. I’ve also installed Visual Studio Web Developer, and that runs great too! Not bad for something that cost $320, and is a little bigger than the side of my hand.

Keyboard is not bad. The keys are almost full size, and I’ve been able to touch type on it without too many problems. The symbol keys, HOME, END keys etc. will take some getting used to, but since ever laptop seems different anyway, its only a matter of time.

The Lenovo also has a built in web camera. It’s not outstanding, but good enough for the odd video call!

The only grumble I have so far is the life on battery. I seem to get a little over 2 hours. The battery is a 3 cell one. I’ve seen 6 cell batteries on ebay (and even 9 cell) which boast 4+ and 6+ hours respectively. I’ve also read lots of negative comments in the forums about the charger not being able to charge a 6 cell correctly. This is putting me off the 6 cell ebay battery. I’m never really too far away from a power source so I’ll wait a while to see if I would need one.

I think it would be cool to get a 3G USB network adapter, then I could go anywhere with it, but alas, T-mobile don’t have one yet (March maybe I’m told).