I went splat

Five days ago on Thursday I spent a lovely evening at my friend Corin's house, eating pizza and drinking beer. I had a very good time. Unfortunately, I had to work the next morning and ducked out early. I went downstairs, unlocked my bike, and set out for home.

I usually cut over to Ankeny st. when biking home from the East, but recently had been making a straight shot down the low traffic of the nighttime Stark st. I did this on Thursday. I had a pleasant, car free ride for ten blocks down Stark, which was half luck of having low traffic, and half my high rate of speed to keep cars from overtaking me. At 25th, alongside Central Catholic High School, I looked back over my shoulder and spotted a car gaining on me from about two blocks away. With the 20th avenue light in my sights, I gunned my speed, desiring to beat the car to the light.

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I stood up on my peddles, and swayed my bike from side to side with my peddle strokes to accelerate. One, two, three quick bursts of power into my gears was as far as I got. Somehow my front tire caught the pavement at an unfriendly angle to the left. The friction overwhelmed my firm hold on the handlebars and instantaneously forced the wheel at a ninety degree angle to the direction I was traveling.

There was nothing to be done. My face impacted the asphalt before I could even consider my situation. A loud crack, and then Blackness.

I have never lost consciousness before. To "black out" is an extremely apt term for this, as Blackness was the overriding sensation; a void total and complete. Yet, somehow this is my most clear memory of the accident.

When I came to I was upside down, still hurtling through space, continuing to my back. I used some unspent momentum to carry myself to a sitting position. Blood fell to the ground between my legs. I quickly explored my visage with my hand and found it ruined. Lacerations, broken teeth, the works. I looked behind me and found my bicycle about six feet away where I had left it. My lights, still flashing, scattered between us.

I scrambled to my feet and dragged my belongings to the curb for fear of being run over by the car that I had initially fled from. It wasn't there. Must have turned off of Stark. At this point I called my Folks at home. My dad received the who, the what, the where, and was speeding towards me in the car before I could groggily relate the why and the how. Two passersby stopped to assist me, did what they could, and I sent them away, assuring them that help was coming.

At this point, I took a picture of my face, wanting to see what caused these people to wrinkle their brow with concern.

Hmm, interesting. I'm not sure what came over me, but I posted it to Facebook while I was waiting for my dad to show up. Almost immediately I was getting calls and text messages.

My dad showed up, gathered me and my things into the car and set out for the hospital. The urgent care was closed at this location, we were sent away to Sunnyside Hospital, seven miles from where we were.

Upon arrival, I was wrapped up like a mummy and almost immediately sent away to get a CT scan.

I was pretty concussed, fading in and out, talking jovially with my dad and the hospital staff.

I was given a bed and a tetanus shot. Then we waited.

A nurse came along and gave me numbing shots directly into my wounds. This was very painful. Then we waited. Another nurse came along and cleaned out my lacerations with saline solution, blasted full power from a special syringe. Then we waited. This is what I looked like at that point.

The Doctor then came along and began to stitch me up. The local anesthetic had worn off while we waited, so it had to be repeated. The stitches were no fun. He finished and left. Then we waited.

I was wheeled into the radiology unit to get X-rays of my shoulder, but my right shoulder was hurting, not my left as it said on my file. They couldn't proceed until the doctor approved so they wheeled me back into my room. Then we waited.
I was certain that I did not need X-rays, having full range of motion in my arm and only muscular soreness. Eventually the Doctor came around and I told him as much. The X-rays were canceled. Then we waited.

Finally a nurse in Portland Trail Blazers scrubs came by to tell us what we needed to know about my Vicodin prescription, and how to watch out for signs of trouble from my concussion. Finally, after hours and hours, we were sent home. I spent the night with my folks so they could keep an eye on me. My poor father had worked a thirteen hour day at his school for open house night and then, upon getting home, promptly set out to pick me up from the side of the road. We got home at 4am. He went and taught school the next day, God bless him.

Now I am recuperating. The Vicodin and Ibuprofen are working wonders. The most trivial of injuries is causing me the most discomfort.

Road rash on my right elbow painfully cracks open every time I move it. My teeth are pretty fucked. I am going to need a root canal, a crown, a filling or cap, and maybe one pulled. None of this can happen for two more weeks as we wait for the swelling to go down.

All and all, I feel much better. Here is how I look today:

Pocket Knife

As you know, I appreciate a good knife. The intersection of function and form (in that order) has always interested me, and knives seem to represent this perfectly. I find a similar beauty in things like chisels or axes, but having very little use for such things in my day to day life disinclines me to them. Thus, it is knives.

I always carry a knife with me. For the past seven years it has been the knife seen above. I bought it at the Shadow House during the 2002 Hawthorne street fair for $20. The design is, in my opinion, beautiful. Unfortunately, the craftsmanship is shoddy, and the steel, shit. Don't get me wrong, I love this knife, I wouldn't have carried it for nearly a third of my life(!) if it didn't serve me well. The last two years or so it has been harder and harder to keep it in good condition; The rivets are popping out and the blade hardly hold an edge. It's time to retire the old guy.

Meet my new knife. It's a Benchmade Shoki. Benchmade is a local knife company that produces some of the finest quality pocket knives available. I'll try not to wax too technical, so I'll say this, the steel and blade design is superior in every way over my old knife, the blade locking mechanism innovative, and the quality of craftsmanship is through the roof. Too, it is wicked sharp.

As you can see, it is smaller than my old knife, which isn't saying much because the old one is pretty large for a pocket knife, coming in just under the legal length for a concealed blade. It's also quite a bit lighter, which is actually a downside; I prefer a more substantial tool in my hand to let me know where it is and what it's doing. It's astonishingly light, about five times lighter than my old knife. I will adjust eventually.




They call it a "gentleman's carry" which is an annoying way of saying it is not particularly rugged, so no screw-drivering or ninja knife throwing for me anytime soon. Which is fine by me.


Song of the Day: Make it Fast, J Dilla feat. Guilty Simpson - This samples heavily from "Make it Fast, Make it Slow" by Di Rob, a Ghanaian funk/rock musician from the 1970's

Birthday at Wong's

As you may know, I love and adore Wong's King Seafood Restaurant. And not without reason; They consistently produce some of the freshest, most delicious food in Portland. Note that I did not qualify it by saying Chinese food. Food, any type of food. Absolutely amazing.

So, last Wednesday, on our weekly visit, Katelyn and I swung by the live seafood tanks to admire the beautiful (and tasty looking) rock prawns. The always amiable general manager, Fu, noticed our interest and swooped in to gloat about how good they make them at Wong's. He was so proud of them that he insisted we try them soon, but also acknowledged how pricey they can be. Suddenly, a smile spread across his face and he asked conspiratorially,

"Hey, when is your birthday?"

I had to laugh, "why, this coming Saturday, actually!"

"Great," he said, "you come back next week and I will have some of these made up for you. On me!"

I thought this to be extremely generous, which it is; But let's be clear here, Katelyn and I aren't one of the big spending clients, the type who rent out the whole restaurant and drop a dozen grand on one evening, but we are consistent customers. We have a (nearly) two year tradition of going to Wong's EVERY WEEK. On top of that, we direct all of our friends towards Wong's, building the fan base. Fu recognizes this, and I guess doesn't feel hesitant to acknowledge it. I certainly don't feel that I deserve this generosity, but absolutely appreciate it!

Tonight was the night. Through a combination of confusion, miscommunication, and greater generosity on their part, we got our entire meal on the house. This elates me.

Check it:
We started with one our favorite appetizers, Fried Shrimp Dumplings:

Loving them so much, I forgot to snap a picture of the main platter before tucking in with gusto.

These are the Prawns. Part of the above mentioned confusion was that these four Rock Prawns were most likely the last in the state, if not everywhere. The rock prawn season ended two weeks ago(!), a small but important point Fu forgot about when he invited us eat them last week. Since then, these four had been kept alive in their tank, just for us. Rock Prawns don't become available again until next June.

They were very lightly fried whole, in their shell, with garlic, chillies, and scallions. After sucking off the shells, we cracked them open, eating the tails, brains, entrails, eyes, and all. Holy Good Lord were they good.

The Prawn shells

The main course was one our absolute favorites, Crab with E-Fu Noodles in Supreme Broth. This dish is amazing. The crab is cooked perfectly, served on top of a pile of thick and chewy noodles. These noodles are made using soda water, giving them their distinctive spring. I just found out that they are also known as Longevity Noodles, traditionally being eaten on birthdays, making for an auspicious selection on our part. The Supreme Broth is a mystery to me. It is a thick, hearty sauce imbued with a meaty savoriness that perfectly compliments the noodles and crab. Something tells me that it is much simpler than it seems, though.

The staff provide you with shell crackers and meat picks that work wonders on retrieving the hard to reach morsels.

I love you Wong's King!


Song of the Day: Telephone, Erykah Badu - This song was apparently written using imagery from the mind of J-dilla, on his deathbed, while hallucinating, as told to his mother who later related it to Badu. Powerful shit.