Author: Rootchopper

Fun with Vaccines

A couple of months ago I registered with the Virginia Health Department to get the Covid-19 vaccine. Then I began a long wait. During my wait, the rules of the game kept changing. First, I became eligible because the age limit for vaccination was lowered. Then the federal government set up a separate vaccine network through pharmacies.

I started searching for a vaccine site at Safeway, CVS, and Walgreens. Each morning I’d log on and each morning I’d get the same messages. Either the retail outlet had not yet begun giving vaccines to the public or the appointments were all booked.

Then, one morning I tried Safeway and they had a full slate of appointments available at my local store. I signed myself up. These appointments were only available to people who met the age limit. Being old has its privileges.

First dose: On February 18, I received my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine at Safeway. I was third in line so the process took about five minutes. Then I had to wait around for 15 minutes to make sure I didn’t go in to anaphylactic shock. (I didn’t.) Meanwhile my wife did some grocery shopping. When she was done we checked out. Safeway gave vaccine recipients a 10 percent off coupon for groceries. (I did not get a “I Got Jabbed” sticker however.) When I was done with my shot, the pharmacist gave me a small card with my vaccine info and the date and time of the appointment for my second shot.

Other than soreness in my arm at the injection site I had no side effects at all.

A couple of days later, my wife and daughter were notified that they could make appointments. My wife got her 1st Pfizer dose last week at the county government center located conveniently (sarcasm alert) 25 miles away. The massive complex seemed to be dedicated to vaccinations. You waited in your car until the vaccine folks texted you. Then you walked into the building following yellow arrows on the ground outside and on the floor inside. We waited five minutes then her number was called and she walked into the vaccination room where about 10 people were giving shots.

After her shot she followed the yellow areas to a huge waiting room. When 15 minutes had passed, she received a text telling her she could leave.

She too had no side effects other than arm pain.

My daughter was next. I drove her to the Kaiser Permanente facility in McLean Virginia, about 20 miles from home. I was not allowed into the building. She was done in about 25 minutes. No side effects.

Second dose: A couple of days ago I received my second jab. I had a different stabber this time. The first stabber was a man who was all business. The second stabber was a chipper woman who seemed pretty excited about jabbing me. There was no line so the entire process took about two minutes. She gave me the rundown about side effects, acetaminophen for pain as necessary, etc. I didn’t have to hang around because I was obviously not allergic to the vaccine.

Today is day 3 post-vaccine. My arm hurts a little, just like the first time. The day of the jab I took a nap instead of going for my usual bike ride. I could have ridden but I was a bit sleepy and decided to be cautious. The next day my arm still hurt and so did the teeth the upper right side of my mouth. I attributed this to the usual sinus woes and took some Flonase. Problem solved. I rode the equivalent of 21 miles in the basement. Today, I feel exactly as I did yesterday. Same arm pain. Same tooth pain. Flonase to the rescue again. I went for a 30 mile ride to DC in the hopes of seeing some spring blossoms. I only saw one tree and some forsythia bushes in bloom. The bike trails were crowded. MAMILs (middle aged men in tights) and eBikers were being obnoxious. Tomorrow I’ll avoid the trails because it will be warmer and they will be packed.

One other thing. The CDC sends vaccinated people a daily survey about side effects. It takes less than a minute. I can see them getting plenty of useful data from this. (The survey ended one week after my first shot and started up again the day of my second shot.) When you get your shot, do the survey. We’re all in this together.

Get the Shot: If you are contemplating not getting the shot, all I can say is DON’T BE A PUTZ! Getting the vaccine is safer than driving to the grocery store.

The Astra/Zeneca vaccine is all over the news as causing blood clots. In 0.0002% of the people who got the shot. This is actually a lower rate of clots than in the non-vaccinated population so don’t panic. I’ve had blood clots in my lungs. They are no fun. Even with my medical history, if I hadn’t been vaccinated already and someone offered me the A/Z vaccine, I’d take it in a heartbeat.

The real estate side effect. Within the last week, five people I know have announced home purchases or sales. The real estate market seems rather impervious to the virus.

Re-setting

Cognitive Re-setting

Some people recently gave us jigsaw puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles are a torment. They lie there on a table, unfinished mocking our puny little brains. Yesterday I put the finishing touches to a 1000-piece puzzle that my wife, daughter, and I started over the weekend. Something happened, more than once, during the solving that is intriguing to me.

Late one Saturday evening when I was in college, I was grinding away at some calculus homework. I liked math in school because I regarded it as solving puzzles. This particular day I was making good progress when I hit a wall. I looked at a problem had simply could not figure out how to solve it. After a half hour of frustration I quit. That night I went out and partied. The next day I woke up with a hangover, rolled out of bed, and looked at the calculus problem laid out on my desk. The solution came to me instantly. I sat down and knocked off the rest of the problem set without the slightest difficulty. Somehow, over the course of the previous 15 or 16 hours my brain had re-set.

Over the years I have become a daily crossword puzzle solver. The same re-setting process happens all the time. I’ll get to a point in the solving when noting seems to come to mind, or worse, I know the answer but can’t retrieve it from my brain. (I think this is called presque vu.) If I put the puzzle down, and come back to it an hour later, the answer, more often than not, pops into my head.

The same thing happened when solving the jigsaw puzzle. On Sunday night I hit a wall. I couldn’t fit one more piece. On Monday, the pieces started falling onto place. Then I got stuck again with 75 pieces to go. Off to bed. The next day, all the pieces seemed to fall into place, literally and figuratively. (Oddly, since I was making a picture, literally and figuratively mean pretty much the same thing.)

Cinque Terre jigsaw puzzle complete. (One piece is missing but I found it on the floor after taking this picture.)

Is there some neurological explanation for this sort of re-setting?

Infrastructure Re-setting

Whenever I see pictures of bicycling infrastructure in The Netherlands I get envious. They build beautiful bridges and inter-city highways for bikes there. We have some decent trails in the DC area. In fact, I can pick up a trail near my home and ride with only minor on-road interruption to the eastern front of the Blue Ridge Mountains all on paved trails. Most of the route is along the Washington and Old Dominion Regional Trail, a very popular resource in these parts. The trail is along an old railroad right of way that has frequent, at-grade street crossings. One of the more dangerous at-grade crossings is at U.S. 29 near the Arlington/Falls Church border. This also happens to be one of the busier crossings on the trail. A few days ago, a new bridge was built over the crossing. They did this one right. Instead of doing things on the cheap, the designers built us one splendid looking bridge. In addition to looking fab, it has a concrete surface, attractive side barriers, and lighting. And its WIDE.

The Mule approves of the new W&OD Trail bridge.

Re-setting Winter

Winter in the northern hemisphere runs from December 21 to March 21. Meteorological winter in DC runs from December 1 to the end of February. As far as weather people are concerned, we’re in spring now. Last week we had a string of days with temperatures in the 70s F bookended by a couple of 60-degree days. Freed of my cumbersome winter riding gear, I gleefully rode 228 miles. Then reality hit and temperatures dropped back into the 40s and 50s. A month ago these temperatures wouldn’t have bothered me at all; I’d just put on layers and go for a ride. Now, having had a taste of the good life, I have retreated to the basement.

Even the neighborhood Bernie is having a hard time re-setting to winter. Her put one some earmuffs.

Bernie making the best of a false start at Spring. Pink is his favorite color.

An Off Day

Yesterday’s bike ride was a 26-mile dud. I was a little underdressed and my legs were worn out from riding six days in a row. An annoying rubbing noise from my front wheel spoiled the whole meditative aspect of the excursion. Instead of feeling refreshed at the finish, I felt crabby. I wasn’t surprised when my legs felt like lead this morning. All of which is to say, I needed a day off from my bicycle.

Why not go for a walk and test out my stenosis? Sounds like a plan, Don’t mind if I do.

If you haven’t done an activity in a while you really should take it easy so that your body adjusts. Maybe walk three miles or so, right?

It took me about two miles to get into any sort of rhythm during my walk. Although I had brought them with me, I wasn’t using my trekking poles. The entire time I felt a dull ache in my lower left back. This was not fun. Nevertheless, I decided to continue onward to see if the ache would go away.

No dice. I walked another mile and a half during which I noticed that walking downhill was significantly more comfortable than walking up hill, not because of the relative effort but because my gait had changed. I passed a small path through the woods. Whose woods these are, I know not, but the path belongs to Mary.

I hopped on the Mount Vernon Trail and headed for home. As I did, I deployed the trekking poles and noticed an immediate improvement in my comfort. After a mile of poling, my right hand had become numb. The shock absorbing rubber boot on the right-hand pole had fallen off.

I stopped twice on the trail to check out bald eagle nests, which are easily visible this time of year when the trees are leafless. Nobody was home at either nest. The walk up the gradual 1 1/2 mile rise was increasingly difficult. I could really have done with some water but I neglected to bring any because what kind of an idiot walks more than four miles on an off day.

At about five miles my head was tilted forward. No more looking around. Get this walk done. At the stone bridge I checked my iPhone I had walked 5 1/2 miles, If I walked straight home, I’d hit 7 miles. Plenty.

The thing is I was just getting into the vibe. Walking has a different mental feel than bicycling. Despite my discomfort and fatigue, I decided to add a mile to the endeavor and continued along the MVT. About a half mile later a blister started forming on my right heel. My right shoe did not get the memo about the vibe.

It was about this time that my knees decided to rebel. At times like these I think of the Edward Burns character in Saving Private Ryan: “Hey asshole! Any time would be a good time to stop.”

A mile and a half from home, i turned onto Collingwood Road and headed homeward. Most of Collingwood Road is barely wide enough for two cars and has no sidewalk? Yes, Fairfax County Virginia is where pedestrians go to die.

Well, long story short I made it home with one bloody sock and aches in places that I wish I didn’t have.

In my running days, 8 miles was an easy distance. That was before back surgery and age and chondromalacia and stenosis, not to mention 30 years of wear and tear,

Pass the CBD and the vitamin I.

Maybe I’ll take tomorrow off.

Tailwinds

My eyes open. I see the sunlight through the bedroom window. What’s going on? Must have slept in. What a sloth. I roll over. The big red numbers on my bedside alarm clock blare

6:45

Whoa.

Another lazy morning follows. Crosswords, newspapers, surfing the TV and the laptop, meditation and physical therapy delay me long enough to avoid the coldest hours of the day.

I put on a mask and venture out to the hardware store to pick up the lawn mower blade that I had left to be sharpened. The cold wind sharpens my mind as I pedal Little Nellie. It takes only a moment in the store to retrieve the blade and strap it to the bike’s rear rack.

I am grateful for the step through frame of the bike. Swinging my leg over the back end would risk an unpleasant encounter with the business end of the blade which sticks out of the back end of the rack.

I take off my mask and return home to drop off the blade and switch bikes. I switch to The Mule and light out for an easy spin. Northwest. Into the cold wind. Am I dressed warmly enough?

Pedal, pedal.

Yesterday’s soaking rain has left every yard and park soggy. The leafless trees are no match for the clear blue sky.

I ride ten miles to a book store. After locking my steed, I head for the store. I stop and cuss. I need a mask. I go back to my bike and quickly discover that the mask I had on this bike is on the hardware store bike.

No books for me.

Off I ride, a bit frustrated by my thoughtlessness. And annoyed for the umpteenth time by the damned pandemic.

By now the temperature is in the mid 40s. Not too bac. When I finally turn around to head for home, the wind is at my back.

No longer chilled, I take my time. I hear the front brake rubbing the rim. I ignore it. I have a tailwind. That’s how tailwinds work.

For a year we’ve been riding into Covid headwinds. Vaccines are about to become widely available. More tailwinds.

The sun sets tonight at

6:02

Whoa.

February – Can’t Say I Miss You

I got lazy this month. I only rode 21 days out of 28 for a total of 546 1/2 miles (145 1/2 of which were indoors). But I did get some useful things done off the bike. For the year, I’m at a rather anemic 1,273 miles.

I managed to get my three main bikes (The Mule, The CrossCheck and Little Nellie) fixed up for when the warm riding weather hits. New chains, cassettes, bar tape, and such. The front brake on the Mule continues to rub just a tad now and then. I think that it will stop sticking once the pads wear a bit.

I also created eight tour journals on Cycleblaze.com. (A word of warning. I am not known as Rootchopper on Cycleblaze.) Three of the journals previously resided on Crazyguyonabike.com but the owner of that site kicked me off because I posted a journal based on my WordPress blog posts on Cycleblaze which he considers hostile to him. The journaling project took 20 or 30 hours to do, but it has been something I have been meaning to do ever since the pandemic hit.

Speaking of the pandemic, I recently received my first dose of the Pfizer Covid vaccine. In about three and a half weeks I should have received my second shot and had time for the potion to make me effectively immune. I have hopes of seeing some live baseball games this summer as well as doing a bike tour. Pinch me. My scheduled trip to Machu Picchu is probably going to be delayed until 2022 just to be on the safe side.

I’ve been otherwise keeping busy with taxes (refund!), having contractors look at a defective bay window, getting the lawn mower ready for spring (anybody know how to removed a frozen spark plug?), going to three doctors (no bad news1), and shredding old financial documents (it ate up four hours of my Sunday yesterday). In the process of hunting for the documents I bashed one of my toes against a support leg of my bicycle trainer. I think I broke the toe. (Dr. Internet says it will heal in a few weeks on its own.)

On the pleasure side, I read two books, The Splendid and the Vile by Eric Larson is the story of Churchill during the Battle of Britain. Every time I have been to London I try to imagine what it must have been like in 1940. Two years ago we toured the Churchill War Rooms. It’s no surprise that I found the book fascinating. Just imagine 9/11 happening day after day in cities all over the US for a year. I also read Beautiful Girls, a novel by Karin Slaughter in the style of Gone Girl. I’m not a fan.

My wife, daughter, and I have had weekend bubble dates. We watch Wandavision (strange), SNL (surprising good recently), and movies. We watched Nomadland last week. It’s pretty depressing but you could learn a few life lessons from it. It’s filmed in the deserts of Nevada and Arizona and brought to mind my 2019 bicycle death march across Nevada. A second rather depressing movie that we watched is I Care a Lot about grifters who take advantage of the elderly. Last night we watched A Man Called Ove, a faithful adaptation of the novel by Fredrik Bachman. I want to re-read the book, but my copy was turned to mush in a leaky pannier while riding through a week-long tropical depression in Florida on my 2017 tour to Key West.

March awaits. More sunlight (sun sets after 6 tonight!). More warmth. I’m ready.

Jabberwocky

Aside from the Kmart blue light special, there are few advantages to being old. One of them is qualifying for the COVID vaccine a few weeks before younger folks Today I had my first shot of the Pfizer vaccine. Didn’t hurt at all. No side effects yet but it may be hard to tell since I only had four hours of sleep last night.

My next shot is in three weeks. I’ll be immune for the first home stand of the baseball season.

I was wearing a Nats t-shirt and a bicycling themed mask. Proper dress is required.

A Fistful of Advil

Some 21 years ago I did my first bike tour, a ride from my house in northern Virginia to Hanover Junction, Pennsylvania. It was a bit of a train wreck. In 2003, I decided to try again. Stuff happened. This journal was originally posted on Crazyguyonabike.com. I re-created it so that it would reside on the same website as my newer tour journals. It was interesting for me to see how touring has changed in the last couple of decades.

Check it out at

https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/advil/