War Machine Update

I've added a count to the sidebar to keep track of where things are at on the War Machine fund. I'll update it as things come in.

If we don't reach the goal, I'll refund any donations that already hit the PayPal account.

Um, Er... Yeah. Ow.

Somehow no matter how sure I am that I'm banged up "enough" I usually find a way to make it worse... and since I'm currently drugged up and absolutely certain ya'll want to hear about it, I decided to put up a post about it.

The speculation as to whether or not one of my ribs was cracked is now pretty much settled, pending the official report from the radiologist. Except that it's not cracked anymore....

Shortly after my help left I discovered that I was out of cheese for pizzas. Considering I'd just gotten an order for three of em, I was gonna need that, so I went to the cooler only to discover that no one had gotten any more out when they used the last of the last box.

Now, I'd like to note here that I knew full well I shouldn't lift that forty pound box. I just didn't have a better idea at the time. (Shortly afterwords I realized I could have opened the box and moved the bags one by one, but that was while I was thinking of a million and one ways to kill someone with a bag of frozen mozzarella.)

I hefted the box, started from the freezer to the cooler, and about halfway from where I picked it up to where it needed to be I felt a sort of pop, and my knees damn near gave out on me.

Short version, it took a couple hours to get someone in to cover, and a couple more hours in the ER, but Doc says he sees a fracture, and they'll call me with the official report tomorrow. I've never had a broken rib before but from the way it felt I'd call it broken, myself, even though I didn't see anything obvious on the x-rays.

They gave me a shot in the ass though so I'm feeling pretty good right now. Toradol, for the medical geeks.

Boss is pissed cause I have official no lifting pushing or pulling whatsoever doctors orders until I'm released... with a follow up in two weeks and unlikely to be fully released for six. Which means I can't do nights.

I'm totally upset about that considering I've been trying to get off nights for months now.

On the other hand he may just take me off the schedule for not being able to do enough of the job, which would suck but it would suck less than finding out that another rib had a crack that I can turn into a break, I guess.

I'll find out what's going on there tomorrow, I'm scheduled to close but I don't know what he'll do with that... And on that note I think I'll go get some sleep in case I get a call in the morning that I swapped shifts with someone. First impression seems to be that he'll schedule me off Friday Saturday Sunday and Monday for next week, which will eat my paycheck but give me a chance to heal some. We'll see.

War Machine Fundraiser

AEPilotJim has decided that the next incarnation of the Crown Vic needs to be a Blogorado War Machine. Since I'm having to replace the car I bought last month I can't afford to just keep it and turn it into said war machine if I can get money out of it.

So, he's started the Great War Machine Fundraiser. Details here.

It's either going to get the top chopped off and the interior hosed out and become the war machine (with any modifications beyond that being on the Blogorado crew) or it's gonna get taken as is to my car guy.

At this point I don't really care where the car ends up, but JimJim and the Blogorado crew are all hyped about the idea of a war machine, so if you're hyped about it too, have at it.

Edit: Due to logistical difficulties (I.E. JimJim is in bloody Africa) the fundraiser money is apparently just going into my tip jar. Put "war machine" in the note on the donation, if you decide to contribute.

Injury Chronicles Update

So I'm starting to heal up and I think all of my owwies have made themselves evident here's the full roster:

Bruised and possibly cracked ribs, right side, three of em or so.

Jammed/sprained wrist, I thought it was sprained then it popped and felt a little better but it's still sore enough that I think it's sprained too.

One nick on my forehead.

Bruising on my knees from hitting the dash.

Sore back, and right shoulder.

Goose egg that's nowhere near as big as I expected it to be.

All in all I got off light.

And, since everyone is curious about how exactly the elk got on the roof, here's the breakdown based on what I saw and the damage.

Refer to the photos for visuals.

Elk came out of the right hand ditch, and attempted to jump the hood. His back legs leave the ground before getting whacked by the passenger side headlight, starting him spinning to face the rear of the car.

Shoulder/chest impacts around the middle of the roof at the top of the windshield, gut hits just inside the passenger side door post, hindquarters wrap around the side of the car.

Momentum carries his shoulders up over the roof and he slides off leaving the smear on the passenger rear door.

I came to a stop shortly after the end of the blood trail on the highway.

DM says the bit of elk stuff in the passenger floorboard was likely stomach rather than lung, which could have come in either through the windshield as he hit or the passenger window as he slid by.

That's as near as I can figure, anyway. Right up to the part where I hit his back legs, I KNOW that's what happened. The rest is based on that and the damage to the car and my very general knowledge of physics.

Karma

She's a bitch.

The title to the Crown Vic arrived in the mail today.

Elksplosion

So, very early Friday morning, I was headed across on a lonely stretch of highway (do we have anything else here?) and I had a close encounter of the elk kind. I'm fine, but my car is totaled. Yes, I'm a little banged up but all things considered I got off damn lucky and I'll take it. So many things could have been that one little bit different and I'd have been done for.

As is I got off with a mildly sprained wrist, some bruised ribs, a whack on the head and a really clear impression of the rear view mirror on my right forearm. Plus assorted bumps and bruises and aches and bits of glass everywhere, of course.

Without further ado, and in no real particular order, I give you the Elksplosion.

Blargh

Delivery truck was late tonight, resulting in my having to juggle customers, counting all the crap they were hauling in, and pizza making all at once. Follow that up with an unusually steady Tuesday night and getting all my regular work done, and I feel like somebody smacked me.

To top it off I may be getting yelled at tomorrow because I made an executive decision when my cow-orker was wringing her hands. We had two separate, large grass fires burning in the area today, with high winds. The Salvation Army ladies were going to take stuff out to the firefighters, who are all volunteer.

Boss wouldn't answer his phone, so I made the call and said we'd make a list of what they took and they could come in and pay for all of it when they had a chance. It's the Salvation Army they're not going to ditch out on a bill, and we don't have an audit in the next couple of days so it should be fine.

I paid for the coffee myself... most of those boys started out fighting a fire mid morning, and didn't get done until after nine pm. And those were the lucky ones. Some of em were still out there watching for flare-ups at eleven.

Grass fires are no joke this time of year, there's a ton of dry fuel and when the wind picks up they can really take off.

For the curious, one of the fires was on the Kansas state line. Go to google maps and find highways 116 and 160 in southeastern Colorado, through into Kansas.

In places, that fire spanned the entire distance between those highways.

The bright side is that it sounds like nobody lost their home. Several of the historical homesteads were burned, some telephone poles and two barns, between the two fires, but as far as I know it didn't get anyone's house.

Here's hoping there aren't any flare ups and we don't have any more.