(Read on to see the details of the accident shown in the picture of blood streaming down my right arm.) For the first time in years, I worked on a Win98 computer. For all it cannot do, that is a good stable operating system and more intuitive than what came later. A reporter came into the shop today to ask about writing an article about the toothpicks, as a draw to the computer shop. I’m all for it, but I should ask about plugging my private lessons, figuring there is no such thing as bad publicity around what I teach.
That reminds me, Jay-Jay has called a couple of times about his radio show. He is a little disheartened since he cannot find a good slot until September, and it is already going to be one long, hot summer. The long bike ride was up to the Thrift, where I forgot my flash drive last Wednesday. (That explains the gap in my blog.) I went the long way around, where it is just possible to get almost all the way there down shady streets. Dickens and the Irishman were rearranging the displays, a kind of never-ending job.
If you just ate lunch, skip this paragraph. I am informed that cats fed only dry food apparently don’t produce as odiferous waste. Is this true? Let me tell you, anything would help with Pudding. I’ve never seen a cat clear out a room so fast. I also read that odor is a sign of the cat’s health, in which case Pudding is Miss Universe.
At first I was going to go back and play the gig earlier, but I decided to go out for the most expensive steak dinner I can find. I’ll hit the gig after 10:00 tonight. Bear in mind that I do not normally eat beef and it has nothing to do with price, I’m just doing it because I can. Thanks to the electric bass, a grand worth of new equipment and the miracle of MP3s.
I didn’t get that far. It is now 12:50 Sunday morning and I am in pain. On the way over to the fancy restaurant near Panera, there was a section of the driveway blocked off. I rode around the area, but when I crossed the lane a good one-quarter block away, a twenty foot wide river of foul-smelling restaurant grease was coating the roadway. It looked like wet pavement from an earlier rain. Thus, I plowed straight into it and it instantly coated my bike tires and brake pads.
There was no chance of maintaining or regaining control. I hit the pavement and slid around ten feet. I was able to walk away, but in quite some pain. I returned later to videotape everything, and sure enough, crews were cleaning something up and had allowed the grease to flow out from the cordoned off area out into the public parking lot. I informed the Roto-Rooter man and manager of the Hometown Buffet, but the first one ignored me (even after I showed him my blood-splattered arm and clothes) and the second focused on denying responsibility and insinuated I had not exercised “enough caution”. When I showed him cars driving through the mess, he said they were also not exercising “enough caution”.
I have the majority of this on video tape. It was so slippery, I have a shot of me standing in it, showing how gravity was pulling me down the tiny slope of the parking lot from just the coating on the soles of my shoes. For the record, the grease was a characteristic brown color, so you know what I thought it was. I got home as fast as I could to get the stuff off me. Note that, an hour and a half after being informed of the accident, nobody at the site had taken any further safety precautions.
It was so greasy, I was still slipping when I got back home. Thirty minutes in the shower with half a bottle of shampoo and the grease was still on my hands and elbows. I had to destroy the clothes, which were also torn and bloody. I’m basically okay, I’ve had it worse, but I could not believe the arrogant self-serving attitudes of the people over there – although in a litigious society, that is understandable. I have suffered real harm and damages, but I’m still going to wait until morning to make any decisions.
So I never got the steak, although you might say I got the compound these places fry it in. I’ll get the video rendered overnight. My DVD burner fried, so nothing to share until I get a replacement. As it is right now, I cannot even burn CDs.
