Author: Joe

Categories
Books

Churchill: The Prophetic Statesman

Churchill: The Prophetic StatesmanI suppose I’m a bigger fan of history than I realize. I easily read through Churchill: The Prophetic Statesman in two days.

First off, I’ve always been a pretty big fan of Churchill. Especially his numerous famed quotes over the years. He’s always been a very interesting personality to me.

While the title of the book sounds like they’re going to make Churchill out to be some mystical psychic, it really is about numerous examples of his study of history and it’s patterns allowed him to make some interesting predictions of how history would play out.

It was a really great read, I kept plowing through chapter after chapter. He lived through such an interesting time to me, with so much major change going on in the world during his lifetime.

Though his essay he wrote as school kid about London being attacked and he would be the one to lead it’s defense was a bit eerily prophetic.

I really enjoyed this one a lot.

Categories
Books

Fearless

FearlessSince I’d really been into the military, especially the special forces as a little kid I thought I’d read Fearless.

It always amazes me how close to reality playing with G.I Joe toys as a kid played out. As special forces became so important with the enemy often times being small terrorist groups. Hasbro must be psychics.

This was a pretty interesting and at times amazing story about the life of a pretty interesting guy. It was really interesting and inspiring to hear about the many highs and lows he encountered and his determination to get through those lows, never giving up.

Even though I’ve been going pretty hard with my post elbow surgery rehab before reading. After hearing how he overcame especially numerous injures, it did give me a bit more inspiration that I can get back to where I was before surgery and maybe even better.

A very good story.

Categories
Sports

Return to Dodgeball

After over four months of being shut down due to a pretty nasty elbow injury and surgery, I finally was able to play, albeit a bit sparingly. It was a pretty awesome night.

Since I was wearing shorts in the middle of November, as my teammates arrived they all seemed a bit excited as I figured out that I would be attempting to play in last night’s game. I’ve got some really amazing and supportive teammates, and it was really great to see how excited they were for me, it made my usually calm self a bit excited too.

While my right elbow is probably still two months away from throwing shape, I did commit to using my left during the game. In warm ups, I can actually get some ok velocity and accuracy with my left after several weeks of practice. In a game however, where everything is sped up and I can’t mentally go over each step it was a much different story.

Throwing with my left was a disaster. One of my throws came our so early that it literally hung up in the air for what seemed an eternity. In fact, I could hear teammates complain about it before it was caught it was in the air so long. So, at that point I realized that my contributions couldn’t come from throwing that night.

So, I figured I could still contribute by gathering ammunition and giving it to the closest available teammate. This approach did work and I felt was a benefit to the team.

Another technique that I attempted was to server as a block for my teammates, aka “Human Shield”. This surprisingly was very effective and I think bought some of my guys some extra time and allowed them to get closer to the line knowing that I would jump the angles in case of retribution throws as they backed away from their throws.

All in all it was a pretty awesome night, and I was very glad to be back.

The Honey Badgers would go on to win a very dramatic overtime victory! Our team really played hard last night, and we really did a great job of supporting one another. It was pretty great to watch.

Even thought I’m still very limited, it’s pretty amazing to be back and able to contribute to the team!

Categories
Video Games

Pokemon White Version 2

Pokemon White Version 2I’ve never played a Pokemon game, but was always wondering how they were since they’ve been around for quite some time. There’s no way kids would keep picking up installments of the franchise year after year if it wasn’t any good, right?

So I finally cracked and decided to pick up a copy of Pokemon White Version 2. When I bought it I did kinda act like I was buying it for someone other than myself, I was a bit nervous.

I fired up my trusty 3DS (it’s technically a DS game) and gave it a shot. I gotta admit, it’s quite the addictive game. I can see how kids get hooked. It has a simple story, with a ton of collecting and leveling up like a traditional RPG like the one’s I grew up playing.

I choose Oshawott as my starter Pokemon. I think she was a litter otter or something like that. While that alone is pretty awesome, she was holding a shell which sealed the deal for me. I accidentally named her Steven, not realizing the gender until later in the game, but I stuck with the name Steven as it would eventually grow on her.

I won’t get into just how many hours I wound up spending on this game, but I did eventually become the Pokemon Champion and crazily felt good when I did. That final battle was tough and took several tries.

What a great game, and I now understand why it’s been such an amazingly successful franchise for so long.

Categories
Adventure

Officially Discharged for Elbow

It’s been four long months, but I was officially discharged from the orthopedics the other day!

I had reconstructive elbow surgery on my right elbow back on July 18, and really haven’t been able to use my right arm since then while it’s been healing up. It was a pretty intense and unlucky injury to the joint, and the result was a very long heal and tough rehab to get it back to being able to perform athletic movements. As I told my PT/OT guys, “I don’t want to just be able to brush my teeth, I plan to throw with bad intent again”.

I’m not going to lie, post-surgery was pretty rough. I was hurting for several days afterwards, but the biggest pain was having my arm immobilized in the splint. It was hard to find a comfortable position that lasted more than a few minutes as my arm would quickly stiffen up and fall asleep. This would be the biggest pain when I would try to sleep. I’d get a few minutes here and there, but wasn’t able to get a solid sleep until the splint came off after a few weeks.

From the splint I moved to the post-operative brace which I would later decorate with amazing stickers. This brace and I would be quite close for the next 6+ weeks, so stickers were surely in order.

The brace allowed me some limited movement in my elbow. While the range was very limited, it was great just to have a little movement and functionality as compared to none that I had with the splint. I would continue to work my elbow as much as the brace allowed, hoping to keep as much movement in the joint as possible.

Towards the later stages of wearing the brace it was becoming quite apparent that my elbow had stiffened significantly. It kinda had me spooked out a bit, as I could tell from the doctor’s and just anyone else I would demo my range of motion to’s body language that it wasn’t too good at this stage. I was not pleased by the loss of range of motion one bit, and realistically knew that I had an uphill battle to get it back coming.

Once the brace was finally removed after about 2 months post surgery, I began PT/OT. I was very eager to begin PT/OT, as I finally felt as though I was actually doing something at this point. They were great and gave me stretches that I could do on my own as well. When they suggested I do them 4-5 times a day if possible, I asked it I could do them every hour instead. I was on a mission, and kept thinking of how Adrian Peterson came back from his knee injury ahead of schedule, why can’t I come back from this fast as well.

I showed rapid progress in PT/OT in regaining range of motion. While many of the stretches aren’t the most pleasant of experiences, I was determined to get back so I just dealt with it. Stretching was pretty strange, you could literally hear and fell things stretching and at times tearing up as I performed much of it. There were times where, I knew I had moved things a great deal (it feels warm and different afterwards) and was a little scared wondering if it would be increased range of motion the next day or a stupid setback.

Once I’d gotten a good deal of my range of motion back, I then was allowed to begin gentle strengthening. This was both frustrating and fun at the same time. While I really enjoyed building that arm back up to something functional, it was very frustrating to realize just how weak I had become over three months it it not being used at all really.

I’ve been going to the gym multiple times a week for several weeks now, and generally keep myself in pretty good shape, so this portion of my recovery went great. I breezed through pretty much everything, making big, steady gains. It was pretty great and I had a great PT/OT team working with me to get me where I had to be.

Now, at four months post surgery I passed all my tests. My range of motion is very solid and better than many pitchers that the orthopedist has worked with. My elbow recovery is at around ninety percent with around two more months to a complete recovery.

I have just resumed going back to the gym regularly and it felt great to be able to do things again. While I’m still super weak, it’s still great to be back to my old routine and getting my strength back. I have even resumed throwing in the repaired arm and am slowing building up a throwing program to get me back to dodgeball form.

It’s been a pretty long journey, but it’s pretty great to be back to almost normal and not having to settle for less than what my elbow once was.

 

Categories
Books

Dancing Dogs

Dancing DogsI was completely at a loss with my last library visit even though I told myself last time to go in with picking up something in mind. So I checked out the new arrivals yet again and grabbed Dancing Dogs because there was a dog on the cover.

It turned out to be a collection of short stories about dogs. I wasn’t really expecting this, but it did make for a pretty quick read.

When I see dogs I think happy, but sadly the majority of the stories were country music sad. I was really bummed out while reading a few of them. Not the positive, uplifting experience I was thinking when I saw the cover.

I think this one would’ve probably been better suited to an older audience than myself. While I always enjoy anything dog related, I do need to find a more positive ending with the next dog book I eventually try.