Creative Life 5/18/2019

I don't have my own photos available at the moment, so here's a clip that gives a good overview of the riding and skating spots up at Woodward West.

Wednesday I went with Rich Bartlett (from Block Bikes, who I'm doing blogging and stuff for now) to Woodward West, for the first time ever.  At a little over 300 pounds, and having not ridden hardly at all for years, it was a trip seeing such and amazing bike and skate park.  The dirt pump track up on the hill is now concrete, and I was jonesin' from the beginning to roll around a little.  But I didn't have a bike, and would have most likely wrecked myself in a dumb crash.  My job was to hang and get some still and video footage.  My stills are not on my computer yet, and we haven't gone through the video, was had some of the big concrete flow pool, the pump track, but mostly the foam pit session.  There will be some of that on the Block Bikes Blog soon.

After being stuck on the East Coast, away from serious riding spots, for a decade, it was insane to see how much good stuff there is at Woodward West.  It was seriously like walking into an actual location with most of the stuff we used to dream about as riders in the 80's and 90's.  Amazing stuff to ride in every direction.  I can't wait until I get a bike and can at least begin to carve around there some day.

The night ended back here in Lancaster, with a trip to In-N-Out, California's most loved burger place.  A post session meal with a a handful of really good riders talking bike stuff.  Good times.

Then, about 2 am or so, I woke up with really bad stomach pain.  I thought it was just indigestion at first, but it was a really intense, deep gut pain, something I'd never felt before.  A few hours later, that led to a trip to the emergency room, blood tests, and a CT scan.  Still in tons of pain (but having no insurance), I was released, with a minor hernia I've had for years being named the culprit.  In any case, I've been in bed, barely able to move, for the last two days.  This morning I'm feeling better, though still pretty week since I didn't eat, and barely drank water, for two days.  I also managed to lose about 11 pounds in those two days.  That sucked on every level, but I'm now under 300 pounds for the first time in like 4 years, I think.  After doing a little research this morning, what I was feeling in my gut sounds a lot more like a gall stone getting stuck than my hernia, which is in a different place than the pain was.  So I'm not sure exactly what happened, but it sucked, and I'm now on the mend.

Since the most to California, I've been trying to acclimate, and working long hours on the Block Bikes blog and social media, to pump up the new online store.  I haven't bee doing any of my scribble style Sharpie drawing for about a month now, the longest stretch of not drawing since 2015.  I have been doing a little doodle art, black and white Sharpie drawing, in the evenings.  I've also been ignoring this blog to some extent, so I should get back to more regular blogging here over the next several days.

That's it for now.  Now I've got Block Bikes work to do.