Master of Disaster...

..but Novice of Water Colors!!

At least I let him have a spot on the fridge.

Craigslist

So tomorrow afternoon I am going to put a bbuunncchh of stuff on Craigslist for sale. Simplify and declutter. So if any of you savvy readers want any of this, let me know! I'll of course give you first dibs.

-150' sq of puzzle matting. great for exercise room/area. like new. gray in color. $100
-everlast punching bag only, 50lbs i think. great condition. no chains or hardware. $40
-arai motorcycle helmet, size L. fits more like M to me. good condition, never been crashed in. smoke shield and bag. $100
-motorcycle rear stand. used. $20
-various books on CD. $10 each
-basically brand new fender stratocaster electric guitar, fender amp, strap, cable, stand and book. $500
-sidi dominator xc mnt bike shoes. spd. black. used. $40
-african goat skin drum. $40
-rugar airhawk .177 pellet rifle. with scope. fired twice. perfect. $80
-661 pressure suit, size S. $60
-1 white and 1 nave koral mkm brazilian jiu jitsu gis. A1 size. used. $50 each.

There ya go. Time to clean out my garage and get the funds to pay off new stuff. Let me know what you are seriously interested in....

get yourself up you get knocked down, KRS1

Right sided horizontal scar opened last night and is draining. Despondency has swerved into cautious optimism's lane and it trying to run it off the road.

Nil Per Os

yeah, this is my wrist. gonna rewrite it every day.

Question: Who is Rowdy for $400 Alex?

Answer: He is going to the launch preview of the new Lamborghini Aventador next month.
And I'll probably wear this suit. Though of course I've let my hair grow out.

I'm straight.

Matching motorcycle, bungee cord and yoga mat. Headed to yoga. On Adams Ave. I swear to you I'm straight!!!

Wanna see my gold tooth?

Too bad. Besides, that crown is porcelain now. But I am still a cheater, but not The Cheat. And let me tell you how to, dear reader knowing you're on the edge of your seat with bated breath.

Rowdy Style Cheating 101/202
-never count out loud when moving a board game piece. just move it where you want to, short or long. no one will notice.
-be the banker. always pay yourself more money.
-be the dealer. save cards. deal from the bottom of the deck after looking at the shuffle. miscount cards in your favor.
-be the score keeper. make 'honest' mistakes in your favor and against your opponents.
-lay down more than one card, carefully hiding the extra one(s) underneath the top one.
-lay down any card you want and play off of it. works especially well in fast paced games and if you vocalize.
-read the rules. while not cheating no one likes it when you get them on a technicality.
-roll the dice, say the number you need out loud as you pick them up and move your piece. they will remember the sound more than the sight of the actual dice.

Finally the move I've been using the most lately. When your supposed to have nothing at all to eat or drink, have an Otterpop. They don't count at all. Eating one of them, or two, is just like breathing.

Or cheating.

late night math.....

$180 plane ticket to denver for a weekend
$70 for rental car
$40 gasoline
$300 bike box for airplane (cheaper than 3 days of bike rentals)
$100 in food and drinks
$0 for lodging if i stay at my brothers.
$80 lift tickets

that is like $770 for 3 days of lift assisted downhill mountain biking in colorado if i fly. not even gonna bother with northstar or mammoth. maybe next year.

if i drive.....

$150 food and drinks for the extra days
$200 for two nights lodging there and back (unless do a marathon drive with a co-driver)
$80 lift tickets
$480 gasoline

that is $910 if i drive there. wow. i don't remember it costing that much when i went earlier this summer.... is my memory just sucky? i mean, i can spend $70 just in gas for a ride here...

the best bet would be to find someone else who can go, split gas and drive nonstop. that would be the cheapest overall. and trestle closes sept 25th, so there isn't much time if i actually want to make this happen!

i'd really really love to get one more awesome weekend of downhilling in before the resorts close for bikes. but then it would be snowboarding season!

hmmmm, what do you think??

3 more weeks to 6 pack

In my secret little plan to get back to "normal" I'm going to do everything I can to convince my doctors to let me start eating again Sept 19th rather than Oct 10th. That's a huge difference to me. And it would be to you to as well.

Basically from the second day in the hospital my 'holes' had stopped leaking anything out. By the time I was discharged they were visibly smaller. Today they have retracted a noticeable amount and both are completely scarred over. You would have no idea I looked like this:

if you looked at me today and saw this:

So what makes me soo smart? Well two years of anatomy and physiology in college. Six years of working in the hospital directly in patient care. My ability to read medical papers and understand what most lay people wouldn't. The multiple friends I have who are physicians and can answer all my questions. Basically my intelligence, experience and resources.

From most of what I have researched if you have no leakage for 4 weeks, you are considered healed. I'll be at that point on my appointment date of Sept 19th. I've had 7 bowel surgeries before and you are almost always eating normal food before you go home, one week after the surgery. If I have gone through 5 weeks of total bowel rest then I should be freaking healed as well at that time! If I see results at the pace I have, my fistulas were low output anyways, Humira is doing its job then there is no real reason why I can't stop tpn on that date and have my picc line removed.

i have a garage for a reason!

I love having a garage. It makes it soo easy to spontaneously do something creative or to complete a project.

Earlier this year I got a GoPro camera and have had tons of fun using it to film whatever. Mostly my mountain biking adventures.

And as just watching 30 minutes of unedited helmet camera pov is horribly boring I've bought, made and used all sorts of different mounting positions for mine.

On the last ride I used the helmet strap to mount the camera to the end of my shoe. It worked pretty good until it just fell off due to vibration. While that point of view is kinda cruddy when lots of pedaling is happening, at least on most downhill runs the best things to capture on camera happen when you are not pedaling.

Undiscouraged by it falling off my foot I had my flash of inspiration that night on just how to get a foot level view. My pedals are dual sided. I have extra cleats. All I need to do is just cut a piece of metal the right length, bolt a cleat to it and then add the sticky GoPro mount! Tah Dah!

Here it is, the RowdyFoot spd mount for GoPro cameras.




Test video of version RF 1.0

rowdyfoot from rowdy matt on Vimeo.

growth

so this is the style i am growing my hair out to look like eventually. probably be there in two months. it's been over 10 years since i've had hair this length.
cool nerd glasses not included as my eyes are great!

Frustration, They Name is NPO

10 days. That's all I could do. I broke down last night and drank a can of ginger ale and ate a small handful of gummy candy.

No ill physical effects. Just a psychological one as now I want to eat and eat and eat.

Be normal. No more tubes. No more.

It doesn't help either that it looks like my scars/fistulas are totally healed up now. So I'm impatient. Counting hours, not weeks. I hope when I see my surgeon on Sept 19th I can start eating that day and they take my picc line out. Oh what a joyous day Sept 20th will be if that happens.

Who wants a world in which the guarantee that we shall not die of starvation entails the risk of dying of boredom? R. Vaneigem

Last night was entirely filled with dreams of food. To help me purge it from my mind I'm going to make something of a food wish list. Or a plan of things to eat or places to go once I can have food again. Feel free to give your ideas as well. In no particular order...

-Pizza Port in Solana Beach. Something with the whole wheat crust.
-Oggi's Pizza. Oggi's special.
-some new, unique or gourmet pizza place in SD I haven't been.
-french dip sandwich from the Gathering Spot
-shrimp bahn mi from Cali Baguette on Convoy
-california burrito and potato,egg, chorrizo burrito from Taco Fiesta
-green curry chicken, appetizer sampler platter and pineapple fried rice from Le Thai Basil
-sushi from Hane in Gold Hill for fancy, Sushi Deli for cheap.
-homemade pumpkin pie
-my mom's sprinkle butter cookies (you better!!!)
-Phil's BBQ. it's classic, but played out? any better in SD though......???
-my own homemade smoked salmon and beef jerky
-something Italian from Roma
-dim sum for lunch at Jasmine
-one of the many delicious sandwiches at Cheers Deli & Licquor
-black cherry vanilla milkshake from Ruby's Diner
-hamburger at Smash Burger. turkey burger at Burger Lounge
-CRAB HUT!!
-lunch at this Greek buffet place in Chula Vista
-cookies from a Vietnamese bakery I like
-someplace with great chicken enchiladas??
-donuts. lots of donuts.
-Tender Greens, Starlite and other locavore places in SD

What do you dear readers with SD food knowledge have to add?????

It's Frankentsteeeeeen.

So when I say Frankenstein I mean The Monster. He really has no name and just takes on the name of his creator.

I am The Monster.

I am not Dr Frankenstein. Closer to Dexter.

And here is why. Of my 3 inventions this week, only one of them works. Now if I was a baseball player, a .333 average would be awesome and I'd be worth millions. But for home projects it makes me worth less than the spare change in my alumni shot glass.

No picture needed, you can see it below in my "Frankenstein takes his dinner to the movies" post. But my REI brand hydration pack converted to a pack for my tpn never really worked. After 30 minutes again last night of fighting it I finally had to concede.

Strike two is the suppressor for the pellet rifle. It is a really good rifle and would have been perfect for culling the pesky wabbits from the 'hood but...... But for the fact that it shoots pellets at a feet/second where the pellet breaks the speed of sound. It makes a 'kacrack' noise on the level of a .22 rifle. It is pretty hard to muffle that with hand tools and $30 worth of stuff from Home Depot.

Finally though, success! The priming machine for my pump is now working perfectly. And it only cost about $3 to make! I'm very happy with it and might actually end up painting it.

F&G

Frankenstein gets ready to shower.
Godzilla takes a shower second. He doesn't mind if there is cold water. He's got radioactive fire breath after all. He's like a portable water heater. And uses little shampoo.
Frankenstein takes his 'dinner' to the movies.

Frankenstein and Godzilla might start doing more together, so check back often and see....

I can guarantee you I am the only person in the world who went mnt biking today with a picc line in and who had not eaten or drank anything for 10 days.

I also have not worn socks in the past 10 days either. But who's counting??

Tried some new editing things, some I like some not. What do you think?

Don't tell my tool of a surgeon....

or my GI doc, or my dietician, or my PCP but............

I'm gonna go jump my bike around for like 30 minutes or so. Shhhhh, it will be our secret!

Ya don't say.....

I went to visit jiu jitsu the other night. Since its been a while and I could feel my desire for it fading. We'd just spent too much time apart, like a failing long distance relationship. So we need some alone time together to get revved up again.

The last time I had gone is when I took Davi Ramos from the train station to the academy. (which is prompting my next post with a real theme)

But while there, Andre's pastor was there watching class. Andre told him my story and he was all sad and gave me the "keep your chin up" speech and such. Mostly in Portuguese but I still understood it 75%.

Then he asks me if I believe in God and am a Christian. Before I can even answer Andre says "Of course man! He believes in Jesus Christ. Rowdy is a good man." Pastor E then decides he wants to pray for me and I tell him sure, thinking he means it in a distant, like he'll pray for me tomorrow while he is at home and stuff.

Wrong. Not having much experience with Evangelical Christians the next thing I know I'm still standing there on the mats and Pastor E and Andre have their hands on my shoulders and are praying quite vocally and emphatically in Portuguese.

While I don't follow that particular brand of Christianity, it still touched me with its sincerity, faith and emphaticness. And in the moment I also understood every word that was being spoke. Pretty neat and helped me not feel so uncomfortable.

So while we may not have the same doctrinal beliefs I can still recognize a good hearted person who also has a bit of the truth in them.

Tuesday plans

I'm learning there is more to life than eating and food. Just kidding, I knew that already.

Gonna do some Home Depot shopping for two projects I want to build this week. They should both turn out great with a little ingenuity and clever engineering.

And this evening G-ride got tickets to an advance screening of the latest killer bug/infection/pandemic movie with Matt Damon. For free! So he and I will go do that later.

I'll just have to plug into dinner early tonight. And as an update on that, feel OK. Things seem to be progressing as they should. Nothing going wrong, but no 2 week miracle either. My next real doctor appointment is on September 19th, so I'll have some real answers by then.

EDIT** The suppressor I made for a pellet gun needs some work. With my limited tools and supplies it is going to be hard to overcome anything that shoots supersonic. This pellet gun is as loud as a .22 rifle!
The machine to hold the "Y" button down to prime my tpn pump for me works great! Ugly but totally effective. Like me.
Finally the movie was good. It was cool to legitimately see a movie weeks before its release. They even had dudes watching the audience with night vision to look for people recording. If you are a germ a phobe this movie will scare you senseless! For me, it just made me want to stock up on food and stuff. Most likely I would die though right off the bat. Hahahaha.

Just call me "JT" from now on.

'Cause I'm bringing sexy back!!

And like Willie Nelson says...."Momma don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys. Don't let 'em pick guitars and drive in old trucks. Let 'em be doctors and lawyers and such" But I love my truck.

Scylla & Charybdis

It is still a little early to not be positive, so this is more just a mental exercise than anything else. OK?

So the reason I'm in this most recent medical predicament is due to an aspect of Crohns disease after surgery. It is not uncommon after a bowel resection surgery for a fistula to develop. But in 5 previous surgeries I've never had one. So getting one shocked me as it was a totally new development in Crohns for me.

After 6 months of misdiagnosis, mistreatment, correct diagnosis, failed treatments I am where I am at tonight. Haven't having eaten in a week and connected to a pump giving me all my nutrients to stay alive for the next two months.

What does this have to do with Homeric creatures? The less literate of you might call it "between a rock and a hard place" and this is where I could potentially find myself.

My doctors are all cautiously optimistic (their words) that by having nothing going through my intestines at all, nothing will go through the fistula(s) and this will then lead to their healing closed. And not reopening once I eat again.

But what if they don't heal with TPN? Then I basically have two choices. The first one is to go back to doing nothing. Just live with a hole from my guts to my outside. I'd be able to eat and such just like I was before. But most likely I'd never be able to do jiu jitsu again. I could even probably get in the ocean, but combat sports would be over.

The second choice is to have surgery to fix it. Losing more bowel. Increasing my risk for complications from that and just the surgery itself. Possibly becoming a nutritional cripple. Then TPN could become a reality rather than a short term treatment.

Let's finish on good news! I have had almost nil output from my right side wound's fistula and my midline wound's fistula looks as totally closed as it did before it opened in Colorado. Seemingly working. In 7 more weeks I can eat again and see if it works. Knowing if it did or didn't will be a simple test. I might get a 3rd fibrin gluing as it can't hurt, right? I haven't even cheated on not eating or drinking!

Conclusion? Well if this treatment doesn't work I am going to think long and hard about just not doing anything and 'living' with it. IF the worst option happens in either case, I'll never be able to do jiu jitsu again. But I gotta try and find the positives. The best outcome would be to have this work, Humeria keep working, no more surgery, be able to do anything physical I want and never have a serious Crohns problem again.

I gotta.

Yreka Bakery, my 2nd favorite palindrome

My first most favorite palindrome is race car. Of course that wins, but the title of this post should more accurately be "Eureka!" Again, not a city near the California and Oregon border but the shout of an idea.

A most excellent idea.

What am I living off of currently? (other than hope) A bag of fluid.
How often am I connected to it? Daily, for a little over 12 hours, 7pm until 7am.

Hmmmm, where am I headed with this that would lead to an eureka type moment? Well the backpack they give you to be on home tpn is the ugliest, squarest, least practical, ill fitting thing you could imagine for daily medical use. I'm no industrial designer but I do know a crap product when I see it.

So what else would I have around my house, wearable and meant to hold a bag of fluid is a usable way....???

One of my many freaking hydration packs for biking and hiking!! Pure genius.

After selecting the one I'd be least likely to miss, out came the scissors, knife, seam ripper and other supplies. 30 minutes later I have something that is almost perfect and seems tailor made to the task. It fits, it's good looking, it's a good shape, it functions its task perfectly.

And I re-purposed something else enough I can say I made it myself, as there is no other one out there like it. Once I have it totally perfected with a few field trials and nights of usage I'll show you a picture of it and the POS they gave me at the hospital.

Now just to convince the nurse who will be here in a minute I don't need home health visits and that my dressing changes and blood draws can totally be accomplished by me driving myself to the hospital. Yes!

first in i think years....

The last concert I was supposed to go to was the same night I flew back into town from a long vacation. I was soo tired, I just didn't even go and ate the price of the tickets. One of my friends went and when we talked about it the next day he said it was a great one. Argh. Silversun Pickups, I'm sorry.

And speaking of concerts, thanks Jack Johnson for playing every other song but "mine". I've finally forgiven you though.

So this time when I buy tickets to one of my current favs I am going. No matter what.

Foster The People at SOMA in San Diego on Wednesday, October 18th. 7pm. All ages.

Crappy video of the song, I've posted better. But just listen. I can't freaking wait!

Thank you!

Thank you to all those who visited me in the hospital!
Diane
Dave
Garrett and kids
Eric
Art
Justin
Haley
Herb
Penny
Brad
Michael
Monika
Rosie
Elders
The 3 patients who wanted to chat my last two days

To those of you who couldn't come, but had positive thoughts or prayers or whatever for me, thank you as well!

To those of you sick of hearing about the lame part of my life and wanting to hear more about "rad, rowdy Rowdy" then just wait. I'm sure I will go stir crazy soon and start doing stupid stuff.

127 hours

After 127 hours, I'm home.

Now 7 more weeks of no food....

All in just simple hope that it might work.

If it doesn't work, then consult with a new UCSD doctor and then whatever surgery I need.

NIght of the Last Supper

No blasphemy intended. I have no idea what JC had, but I'm eating chicken tacos. And for breakfast I had eggs, bacon and toast! Lunch so far is a mystery.... probably chili.

My 2nd to last supper, last night, was a delicious gyro plate.

And instead of what happened to him after, I went to the movies. To a surprisingly full theater for Capt America.

24 hours left......

What would you do?

Knowing I will be able to do nothing for two months, not even eat or leave the house, I've been doing what I can until then. I say within reason, some don't see it that way.

For example in the past three days I've:

Ridden my mountain bike till my fistula bled.
Slept less.
Ran and lifted weights at 6am over and over.
Ridden my motorcycle well over 100mph.
Eaten all the crap I can; soda, pizza, california burritos, thai food, vietmanese food, tons of candy, popcorn, chili dogs, 7 donuts.
Tried to have more ummm, intimacy than usual.
Went to 3 movies.
Tore around off roading.
Took 40 minute showers.
Visit more family.

I'm really just missing things like the beach, surfing and skydiving. But I've done all those in the past. Maybe a jiu jitsu class. But of the things I can do, I've tried very hard to make sure I did them before the upcoming "lock down". And this isn't even really counting the last two weeks when I was on my downhill mountain biking vacation.

My goals during the coming down time are to learn two songs on the guitar, Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People and whatever Rage Against the Machine song is easiest.
Also to write at least a paragraph for every year of my life, almost like an autobiography.

What would you do???????

Hospital Reading List and More

Boone. A Biography. By R. Morgan.
The True Adventures of the World's Greatest Stuntman. By V. Armstrong
Four-Wheeler's Bible 2nd edition. By J. Allen
Dirt. A UK mnt bike magazine.
I will also have my Sony mp3 player with me to listen to scripture at night to fall asleep to something inspirational.

I also bought 4 pairs of underwear, "wife blessers" (Ned Flanders)and two pairs of slip on shoes. One of them soft moccasins and the other canvas slip on Vans style shoes.

Then I just need to bring my eye mask, ear plugs, scrub bottoms and my own pillow. It feels like I'm packing to go to a minimum security, white collar crime club fed prison.

I will probably bring deck of cards and a chess set. And my cell phone. I'm a pro. I'm ready.

And once I haven't eaten for weeks get ready for a post about the nature of eating and food.

If you only had one day left?

GoPro mounted to the bumper of my Tacoma. Corral Canyon OHV
It takes a wide angle to get all the sexy in focus.
Shady trail. Enjoy the silence, no power slides here.
Do I look good here, or gay here?
How do you say "Two chili dogs please." in any other language? The answer is "Delicious!"
I ask because I got lots of up and down, checking me out looks today. So I'm blaming it on the outfit.
Rock
Gotta teach this kid something!

Attempted arty rock picture. Fail.

As I feel like I am on a count down to not having a normal life I've been making sure I eat tons of trashy food I love, go and do all my hobbies and generally get my rowdy on while I can. There is more to come. But then you knew that....

Rowdy in action; or Rowdy inaction. You decide.

82 hours and counting....

I get admitted to the hospital at 8am Monday morning, 82 hours from now.

So far I've been mnt biking, off roading, to the movies and eating all I want to. I'm just missing jiu jitsu, sky diving, surfing and that's really it.

Tomorrow will be chili dogs, working out (no abdominal work) and some shopping.

82 hours.......

Random cell phone photo bomb from the past 4 weeks

0550, and the circuit training begins! Well for 3 more days at least.
Golf?!?!? What's next? Becoming an accountant? (sorry John)
Pier 1 furniture.
Surprisingly good.
Riding on the bike path with my mom. And taking cell phone pics while doing it.
Proportionally that is a foot long ice cream cone to you and I.
Winterpark had xylophones and marimbas all over the place. It was sooo hard for me not to steal one.
Or play it naked, with licorice as the hammers.
How much does your life suck if you vomit out the car window and don't even bother to clean it up? And what looks like days later too....