So it has been a while and of course quite a few boo boos have come and gone since my last entry. But I do have a couple of them right now, and I actually had a REQUEST to post... so here goes.

First of all... a week ago I was building a fire in our fireplace at home when a rather large ember came shooting at me. Unfortunately, I never saw this particular ember as it landed on my wrist. Of course, I few milliseconds later I was able to FEEL this particular ember as it branded a 1 centimeter hole into my skin. Shortly after this, a rather large blister appeared in this particular spot. Not surprising. Not all that long after this, the blister burst and the pain was pretty remarkable. This boo boo is still hanging around and will probably will leave a small scar. Ouch!

Secondly... this is not the first time I have written about my right foot or ankle. Today it feels as if I have pulled muscles on the top of my foot. It won't allow me to easily bend my toes in either direction. This makes it hard to walk. Painful to walk. I have taken a handful of ibuprofen and it seems to be relaxing a bit. This is probably a continuation of the problems I have been having down there. At some point I am going to have to get that under more control.

So there you go. This is where I am hurting today... January 3, 2008.

Peace Out.

So I am in Austin, Texas at the moment and sitting around a ton of people that blog every day until thier fingers bleed. I felt somewhat guilted into putting something RECENT on this blog just to show that I am indeed IN the game. So here we go.

Here is a recent boo boo that I got. And actually, am still feeling the effects of.

We have had kinda a crappy run of weather the past several weeks in Cleveland. We got hit with a crapload of snow. There were like 20 inches of snow in the driveway at one point. Now I grew up in Chicago and 20 inches was pretty normal for that place and time. It seemed like we always had enough snow around to build great forts and ice down the hill in my front yard with the garden hose so we could barrel down it and into the street like a bobsled run. (side note: It must have been a winter olympics year that I recall best. Because we literally got out the garden hose and hooked it up and got my dad to turn on the water outside so we could pour gallon after gallon down the hill and turn slush into ice and make a bobsled run. We had banks and turns and all that. The local paper came out to photograph our entreprise. Little rascals in the snow.)

Ok.. back to tbe boo boo.

There has been a lot of snow to clear in Cleveland. I walk several blocks from my parking spot to the office. The sidewalks have at times been pretty treacherous. I will attempt to upload a photo from my phone here... success!!)

One Friday about three weeks ago I snuck out of work a few minutes early and was hurrying to get over to the daycare and pick up the kids. The building maintance people have typically had a black rubber mat at the doorway to the building. It kind of slopes up (when your walking in) and down (ironically, when you are walking out).

I noticed that it was missing this one particular Friday as I hurried out of the building. Its one of those moments where you have recognition, but you are on auto pilot and will not be detured. So I hussled out the door. I also happened to be holding my cell phone to my ear, because you know, you can't have a moment when you are just WALKING. God forbid.

Anyway, I hit the slop at regular speed. Thinking that it COULD be pretty slippery.
And, inded, it was.

It took a few seconds for me to realize what happened. I had obviously fallen. An elderly-ish woman was nearby and actually offered me a hand. My manhood in jeapordy here, I declined and stood up on my own. Cell phone still at my ear.

Becase of the phone I think, I didn't really protect myself in the fall with my hands. In fact, I dont think my hands ever touched the ground at all. Instead, I went straight to my knees. My left knee taking the brunt of the fall.

What I noticed first was that my favorite pair of jeans was terribly torn. I remember paying like $70 for them and that was really my first thought. My second thought was.... where is that damn mat? Then I thought, oh, this voicemail is STUPID. And I hung up. THEN... I had that feeling you know is never good... the one where you feel something running down your leg.

Blood.

Well let me just say, I haven't skinned my knee in a ton of years. Maybe since I was 8 or so. I am 41 now, so we are talking a good 32 years of unskinned kneees. Well maybe that is an exageration, but i really can't remember hurting one like this.

Tore my jeans. That pissed me off. But a huge chunk of skin is now missing from my kneecap and blood is running down my leg. And i am in a hurry. That feeling of blood running down your leg is so annoying. Like the chinese water tourture or something. My first instinct is to PROTECT my jeans. But soon after that I realize that they are trashed anyway. So I just use them to soak up the blood running quickly toward my sock. Gross.

So at first I didn't think it was so bad. I mean, it wasn't like someone had to call an ambulance. But let me tell you... three weeks later, I am STILL dealing with this damn knee. It was badly bruised. That took at least 2 weeks to stop constantly hurting. We had just bought a house that needs a lot of renovation, and I was immediately on my knees. A LOT. That really hurt like hell.

In fact, two weeks and a few days after the fall, I looked down to see a familiar wet spot growing on my jeans while I was working at the house. I didnt have a bandaid (I mean, adhesive bandage... sorry about the brand infraction there Mr. Legal Dude). So a dozen plus days after I injured it, it was still bleeding. That really sucks cause it is a setback. It insures it is gonna take at least a few MORE weeks to fully heal up. And it really has. I mean this scab is STILL on my knee. I would take a picture of it, but honestly I dont want to pay my cell company anymore money. And being in Austin, as I mentioned earlier, I don't have my digi cam with me. I left it home with the fiance who is working on the house during my absence so she can keep me visually updated. So hopefully you will be ok with the visuals I am doing my best to describe.

This scab is a few weeks from being gone. Let me just say. I frickin' HATE skinning my knee. Of all the spots to hurt. That one is up there for me. I have recently burned my finger tips on a pipe I just soldered at the house, accidentally clamped down on a pair of needle-nose pliers with my skin stuck between them creating a blood blister right on the palm side of my right index finger... RIGHT at the knuckle bend. OUCH!... but the damn knee.... that is still the worst.

I don't like to think that my age is making me heel more slowly, but perhaps it is. I have heard that before, but thought that was like for REALLY old guys. Like TWICE my age. 80 year olds right? In fact, forget I ever said that. It isn't my age at all. It is all attributable to the total suck factor of skinning your knee as good as it can be. Perhaps in another post, I will bring back to life a boo boo from the past where my kneecap BONE was actually visible after an attempt to act like Evil Kenivel (I know that is spelled wrong)

Ok... fresty out.

From the Archives
Getting Dragged Down the Street

So back when I was JUST 18 my parents moved to Pittsburgh. They actually moved ON my birthday DAY... July 31st for those thinking about buying me a gift.

The reason they were moving was that my dad had gotten a new job and his sales territory was no longer Cleveland, but Pittsburgh. So they moved about 125 miles to the east.

Anyway, one of the very last things my dad said to me when they left was this...
"Try not to get hurt or do anything stupid for the next few weeks because we don't have any health insurance while I am changing jobs."

I assured him that not only could he trust his 18-year-old "adult" son to act in a proper manner, but that I would be extra careful in the uncovered period.

I don't think it was even 24 hours after they left that the incident happened.

My very good friend, and drummer in my band, Bob Malinky had been dating this girl named Michelle Forst. She was a nice person... wonder what happened to her. Anyway... Bob and I were over at her house and he had his parent's station wagon. Him and Michelle got into the car and were going somewhere. I was standing in the street next to it. All of the windows were down.
What happened next happened in a split second.

Bob jammed the gas pedal and the car took off. Without thinking, I grabbed ahold of the car frame between the driver's window and the back seat window. I remember thinking that I would probably just flutter along the side of the car like a flag or something.

The problem was, and still is, that I am heavier than a flag. Back then I was 160 pounds heavier than a standard U.S. flag. I didn't flutter at all... I dragged.

For some reason I felt that I needed to hang on. And I did for a while. However this resulted in me being dragged down the asphalt street grinding away my jeans on my left side and my shirt, and turning my left side into 90/10 ground beef.

Ground beef with gravel in it that is.

It wasn't more than 5 minutes after that that I was in Fairview Hospital's emergency room. With an oozing abrasion on my left side.

For that day, and for several days after, that was most certianly my Boo Boo De Jour.

I remember calling my mom from the hospital... and telling her that I had hurt myself. I remember explaining it in such a way that didn't make me look like as much of an idiot as I apparently AM. I got my dose of sympathy from my Mommy and left it to her to tell my dad that there would be an uncovered medical expense incurred while he was without health insurance coverage. What a great mom.

July 20, 2006
Is that a knife in your ankle or are you just screaming for no reason at all?

A little MORE than a year ago I was complaining about my ankle. I have had some pain in it off and on over the years.

This morning I awoke with the tell-tale feeling that I MIGHT be having some more problems with it...

Basically, I couldn't put any weight on it without it KILLIN' me! It is really back by my achilles tendon where the pain is. It feels like a deep cut. If I didn't know better, or be able to actually SEE it, I would swear there was a knife sticking out of my ankle... cause it feels like I got stabbed there.

Let me tell you... on the pain scale... this is HARDLY a boo boo. But since I don't write a blog called "I'm Frickin' Dyin From Pain", I am left to write about it here on boo boo de jour.

This is a sort of gout attack I guess. I never get the swelling they say comes with it. I never get the other side effects... just the agonizing pain part. I go to the doctor and they test my blood for elevated levels of uric acid and it just isn't there. So who knows why this happens.

I can tell you one thing. And I have read this in several places online. There are VERY few pains that feel as sharp and agonizing as this. This kind of pain hurts regardless of how you are sitting, laying, standing, or whatever. It keeps you from sleeping by giving you this relentless feeling of someone turning a steak knife in your ankle. Round and round. People have reported this kind of pain as the worst they have ever felt.

I told my doctor last year, after he asked me to rate it on a scale from 1-10, that "since I am reserving 10 for the split second before I die, this is a 9.99".

I know this isn't a classic boo boo per say, but it is what is ailing me today. And as I limped from the parking lot to my desk this morning, I thought, perhaps I should tell all my millions of readers about it.

After all, what makes Boo Boo De Jour so engaging is the fact that I can laugh at myself in the face of pain both small and large. And that struggle is what I share with you here.

In other words, feel sorry for me NOW!

July 19, 2006
Humpty Dumpty Slid Down the Wall

I CAN'T believe it has been more than a year since my last entry... where does the time go?

I have had SO MANY boo boos over the last year I don't even know where to start!

Suffice it to say that I have probably nicked, cut or bruised 80% of my body over the last year. And despite that, I am still a pretty good specimen... if I do say so myself.

Anyway, a few days ago I got a really good one. And I am going to tell you about it now.

So I was out to dinner with my wonderful family... my fiance Lia, my daughter Bernadette and my son Jacob. We were celebrating Lia's birthday (albeit a few days early). We ate at a nice sports bar type restaurant not too far from home where we know some people (the owner for one). Lia chose the place because it was a nice night and she LOVES to sit outside.

So the boo boo comes AFTER dinner. We are leaving and I notice this concrete wall that surrounds a flower bed of sorts. I am walking along the edge of the wall, the sidewalk to my right growing further and further away from me as I tightrope down its length. Jacob and Bernadette are right behind me... we are all kids really.

Anyway, at the end of the wall we are about 6 or 7 feet ABOVE the sidewalk. I don't know about jumping from this height. Although I am indeed an amazing specimen of man... I am a touch over my shipping weight these days. Jumping from a 7 foot wall to concrete below sounds like broken ankle land to me. So... I decide to sit on the edge of the wall, and dangle my feet over the edge. Now from the bottom of my feet to the ground is more like... 4.5 feet. Managable I feel.

The kids sit down too. I tell them I will help them down once I get down.

So...

While sitting there, I put my hands at my sides on top of the wall. My plan is to jump down. So I lean back slightly and then lean forward quickly, shifting my weight over the edge of the wall and commiting myself to the ground.

The plan was to gain some seperation from the wall by pushing off with my hands, sending my body at least a FEW inches away from the wall. This didn't happen. What DID happen is that my left hand SLIPPED on the top of the wall... I got ZERO push off with it, and yet my body weight was now clearly committed to the air.

What happened next was the most graceless thing I can ever remember doing. I pretty much SLID down the wall... a concrete wall with sort of rough vertical pleets in it. Much like a emery board for King Kong.

So I slid down this 7 foot wall... like one of those sticky balls the kids have that sorta slip down the wall after you whip it at one. Except there was really no pause during the desent. Gravity pretty much sanded my arm down that giant emery board like a giant primate's hangnail.

Now I have been accused of being overly dramatic, and perhaps I do tend to embelish a bit when talking about my boo boos, but DAMN THAT HURT! My arm was all scratched up and bleeding. BOTH arms in fact. I was grateful my shirt didn't decide to stay at the 7 foot level and leave my tender mid-section open like a huge blob of mozerella sliding down a wall of cheese graters.

As it was it really hurt. My son was VERY concerned. He kept asking me if I was ok and hugging me. Bless his heart. He doesn't want to see his dad hurtin'.

It was nice to FINALLY get the kind of sympathy I have always craved. Unrestrained "oh my God are you ok? what can I do? that must have really hurt! You have an incredible tolerence for pain" kind of sympathy.

Thanks Jacob! That almost made this boo boo worth it!

So last night I made red beans and rice with sausage for dinner. It is something that I really got hooked on while living in New Orleans. Every Monday (tradition there) from the cafeteria of the place I worked, there would be this wonderful aroma wafting up to my office. Often I would eat lunch at 10:30 am on those days. Cause I just couldn't wait. Not to mention that they would run out pretty fast. So it was worth it to get in early.
ANYWHO...
I made some last night. And as usual, I was pretty anxious to EAT it. So anxious that I put some in my mouth that was about the temperature of the surface of the sun.
Ouch!
I burned the roof of my mouth pretty badly. You know the kind... like a hot pizza burn. The kind of burn that leaves you scraping dead skin off the next morning. But for some reason, you can't stop putting your tongue on it and messin with it.
So that is it... it isn't much, but it IS... MY BOO BOO DE JOUR!

So I have decided to introduce some Boo Boos from the past to help add to the fun on this blog. So, watch for the features "From the Boo Boo Archives" that will be shown with the snazzy new logo my friend Dave Mottram made for me!
I have some CLASSIC boo boos I will share with you. Some of the stories are better than the boo boos!

Shhhh... This is a secret boo boo. Okay, so it isn't a secret, but it is one that no one knows about (yet). When it happened last night, I didn't complain too much. Just for a few seconds. And there was only one witness. With whom, of course, I discussed the offending boo boo with for those few seconds.
As I mentioned in my last blog entry my band Revolution Pie had a gig last night. We were playing at a little park in the center of Chagrin Falls. A pleasant little burg on the east side of Cleveland.
While setting up my equipment, I was walking across a grassy area when my right foot found a rather large hole, hidden by the freshly shorn and evenly leveled grass. This camouflaged crater was about 8 inches deep and was about 8 inches across. Yet grass was growing up in it from the sides which helped to hide it.
Of course, my foot went to the bottom and my ankle twisted. Ouch!
I was carrying something heavy, which didn't help.
So today, the day after the incident, my Boo Boo De Jour is a slightly sore ankle. Just a twinge of a sprain I am sure. But still, certainly a qualifying event.
Ouch!
Big weekend coming up... I am sure I will have more than a few things to write about on Monday. Thanks for visiting!

So last night I was changing my strings on one of my guitars to get ready for a gig tonight. I was using a LeatherMan (a multi-tool with needlenose pliers and all kinds of knives and blades in the handle) to cut the old strings off and trim the tops of the new strings. Somehow, one of the blades came out and cut the tip of my right index finger. It bled pretty bad. I just sucked on it... no bandaid... but it hurt. Today it feels better.