Category: Adventure

After hearing of the damage that Honey Badger Kevin had sustained from the recent Superstorm Sandy, I really wanted to help the guy out. So I put out word to the Honey Badgers, and the response was astounding!

We had 8 Honey Badgers on the scene and got an amazing amount of cleanup done in just a few hours. It was really amazing to see what an organized effort can get done when everyone works together.

Kevin’s and his father were incredibly appreciative, and it really felt great to of been able to help them out. They thanks was extremely welcomed and sincere.

Dustin saved fish, drained a mattress, de-carpeted stairs just to name a few. Jared silently (as always) cleared out an entire side room full of air conditioners. The Ludgates and friend Maggie made short work of the supply room and got all the other numerous items out as well (including a Clue VHS game).

It was truly an amazing effort!

When John B. and Julie arrived we were just finishing up and would then move on to “other” Kevin from the other team. I got directions and mapped them out. When I say the actual map, I knew he had to of gotten hit pretty hard.

When we arrived it was amazing to see just how many people were already on the scene helping him out. I swear I don’t know that many people, let alone have that many friends. It was pretty awesome.

What made this clean up a bit interesting was the shear volume of items involved. I’m sure I hold onto too much myself, but they seemed to of held onto literally everything they must’ve ever had. It was an incredible amount of stuff.

Again, Kevin and his family were so appreciative for the help we were able to lend. They and Kevin’s dad thanked us with more pizza than I’d ever seen. Two pizza parties were had for us on this day of help. Again, something truly amazing.

While it is really a shame what our friends are dealing with, it is pretty great to see other’s selflessly coming to the aid of others during such a time. Literally seconds after sending out an e-mail with the suggestion I had gotten responses of yes, where and when.

I’m very fortunate to know such fine people.

We got yet another big weather event on Monday with Hurricane Sandy coming to town. She surely lived up to the hype with evacuations of the barrier islands taking place.

I’m glad to report that I found myself pretty much safe in Linwood, with only a mere minutes loss in power and no cable for a few days. Not too bad at all.

Sadly a lot of friends didn’t fare as well. The shore took some mighty serious flooding and I’m hoping I can help some people out with the cleanup. I’ve heard some bad stories and hope that there is something I can do to help them out.

Work turned out to be interesting as a result of all the craziness. We were closed for 3 days and came back to a good amount of craziness with a ton of work to get done ASAP.

One really cool project as a result is a relief site to help raise money for students hit hard in the storm. So rapidly building up a page to collect donations to help students in a really short amount of time is cool. It’s nice to know my skills have the potential to reach so many so fast.

This has been a very strange year or so weather wise. I blame the year of the dragon for all.

This has not been a fine week for my right elbow.

My first instance of elbow dislocation happened while attempting a slide into third base during a kickball game. Immediately knew it was out upon impact and rolled around hoping it would find it’s way back into place on it’s own.

Upon laying on my back and announcing “I’m hurt bad”, I could clearly see that the bottom bone of my elbow was clearly out of place. Upon rising I began to think of anything that could help me try to get it back into place.

I decided that the soccer goal post would be worth and shot, and it helped me to knock it back into place! I was able to continue playing, minus fielding and pitching and would go to Urgent Care afterwards to make sure that it was in place and there wasn’t too much ligament damage as well.

Let me say that the folks at Atlantic Care Urgent Care in Somers Point were great! They were so kind and polite, I felt like a dear aunt was taking care of me. They x-rayed me and all seemed well.

Two nights later I was hanging out with the Honey Badgers on the boardwalk. We played some mini-golf which seemed fine on the still sore elbow. I was being extra cautious the whole time.

On my last putt on the last hole, I accidentally leaned against the wall with my right arm. As my bad luck would have it, my stupid elbow caved in and a different bone was not out of place in my elbow. This one hurt very, very bad and I paced around the boardwalk until I could gather myself and decide what to do.

After some attempts of putting it back in myself , I knew it was futile and a trip to the emergency was in order. Sadly I parked all the way on Bay Ave. so my journey back to my car was quite a treck. I was in pure survival mode, pretty much crossing streets with barely looking to get there ASAP. While passing a group of teenagers, I gave them the most evil of stares just in case they had any intentions of messing with my wounded self.

Getting into and out of the car was pretty tough, but I was able to and then drove myself to Shore Memorial. I ran into a friend with her three year old in the ER. I really hope everything went well for them, they’re so nice and I can only imagine how tough  such a situation can be for a parent.

Once I got admitted I was x-rayed right away. This was pretty tough, with things our of place I couldn’t do much if any bending for the x-rays. I joked with the guy and he was really nice about everything.

When the doctor finally arrived he invited me to view the x-rays with him which I thought was really cool of him. I realized that he was in a grade below me in school, and he really took good care of me the rest of the night. Unfortunately the top bone somehow had gotten misplaced beneath the bottom bone in the elbow. He’d never seen this before, the x-ray was comical in a sick twisted way.

He made several attempts at refraction of the elbow. Each attempt hurt like hell, but I knew he meant well. They offered pain killers each time, but I declined thinking that I could weather this storm then drive myself home instead of having to bother someone so late at night for a ride.

After numerous failed attempts another doctor came in help out. I knew that I was in for some crazy stuff at this point, I could tell that they were excited with the challenge my elbow had been presenting them.

Well good cop doctor held my tricep and elbow area while bad cop doctor pulled and twisted on my forearm as hard as he could. I had to press down with my right leg with all my might and pin my shoulders back as well if we were to have any chance with this.

When my wrist would get turned around the pushed toward me, well that was the most painful thing I’d ever endured. We had to give it a few shots to finally get it to fall back in, with me taking a 10 second or so break to crack a joke and refocus for the next excruciating attempt.

When someone announced, “I think it’s in!”, I immediately attempted to move around. Right away I knew it was and was thrilled. Give high-fives with my functioning arm (not a good idea but I was so excited).

Through this whole ordeal, I was silent and so focused on ignoring pain (which was bountiful). I was asked if I was on drugs numerous times throughout the night due to my lack of reaction to my discomfort. Not sure why, but I’ve never been one to complain much. I did give a few grunts and a growl here and there toward the end when everything was out of place though.

They gave me a splint to keep my elbow out of trouble until I can see a specialist in a few days.

Pretty crazy stuff, and not something I would wish upon anyone!

Since the Super Derecho storm that hit on Friday (it was madness) I’ve been without electricity where I live. While it has been inconvenient, I really haven’t missed it as much as I’d of thought I would.

Since I’ve sill had running water and hot water due to it running on gas, I haven’t really missed too much. I’m still able to drink, take showers, etc. Though when I get out of the shower I do feel instantly sweaty since there’s no AC and it’s been very hot out.

I’ve found myself to read a lot more than I normally would (and I have been reading a lot recently anyway). Reading is cool, I think it’s much better than watching TV. However, I have found myself trying to finish up a chapter as the sun sets. Reading at a speed reading pace on a few pages so that I know how something ends before sunlight is gone.

I’ve found myself stopping at McDonalds for breakfast before heading out to the gym in the morning. I highly recommend their Blueberry and Banana Walnut oatmeal and a small orange juice to start the day! Then I bring over my trusty MacBook Pro and use their free wifi for a few minutes to get caught up on emails, and just the world in general. It’s really kinda fun and relaxing for me, McDonald’s patrons at that time in Northfield seem to be a friendly lot.

However this morning getting ready for work I realized that I’ve finally hit the end of road of clean clothes. While I did have some clean t-shirts, I do have a personal policy of not wearing a t-shirt to work. While I do dress down and wear sneakers and jeans many days to work, I draw the line with not wearing a t-shirt.

After driving around a bit I did find an open laundromat near Pep Boys. This was my first laundromat experience, so I was very excited. I figured all the machines out all by myself and after changing in the parking lot was able to get to work on time with a clean un-wrinkled shirt on. It was an amazing experience.

I also noticed that I have been snacking a lot less with no power. I guess it’s because there’s less edible food around with no working refrigerator and I’m not sitting around nor up as long as I would be. But I have been eating out more, so I’m guessing it’s probably a caloric wash in the end with both sides offsetting themselves.

All in all, while I do miss electricity at times it really hasn’t been that bad at all.  It’s even been fun most of the time.