MCL .. yay !

Never thought i could be happy about an injury .. but I will take an MCL tear over an ACL injury any day. Should hopefully be healed in 4-5 weeks .. though the doctor promised that I should be able to negotiate the slopes as early as 2-3 weeks. Fun fun fun.
I have a brace .. looks cool. Going back in 2 weeks for a follow-up. Meanwhile, some icing, some exercises, some stretching is in the works.

Was kinda enjoying the vegging at home, not going anywhere .. ostensibly for resting the knee :-). Have a nice 10 day growth of beard. Of course there are some white hair there .. i made sure i took the pics from the opposite side ;-)

Mommy ! i dreamt of you !

Just had to post this one .. about a dream i had last night.
I am in some remote place with my mom, and since we need to get home, she decides that we should take a couple of the Sea Harrier jets parked nearby (she is a pilot).I have never flown this thing before, but mom reassures me that it should not be a big deal. And its not. I really enjoy the flight to our house (This is my old house, with a vegetable garden attached). We land, and gently guide the jets to a parking spot, keeping to the tracks between the veggie patches.
Next morning, its time to go back, so i try to unlock "my" jet's cockpit with a key that i have, It instantly starts up something inside, and a light starts flashing indicating that the ejection sequence is in progress. I yell out to mom, who peers over to see whats happening. I know that the seat is going to fly out any second, and tell mommy to get away. And sure thing, the ejection seat gets blasted out, but it hits the fan (?? fan in the middle of a field ??) and falls down. I have to jump to avoid it.
Mom calls out to some maintenance guy, who comes and says that this has happened before, and this time he will really get to the root of the problem.
Thats all i remember. Thought i should write it down before i forget.

I can see clearly ..

In winter you get some of the rare SF days when there is no wind, clear skies and a crisp refreshing cold in the air. Nothing better than to go up to a roof (i am glad i have access to some of those) and chill out.
The first set of pics is from PK's roof. This is a raw roof (no proper access, no fencing, and a very rough floor). But those are the best, with nothing to block your view. This was very impromptu (as have been most things for me lately). Went to PK's place, Mandar came over (and later Daju). We just climbed to the roof with our beers, and sat there for about 2-3 hrs.



The roof has some nice graffiti (from god knows when) which provided a nice backdrop to this shot of PK and Duy. And Mandar.



Just some more views .. the middle one is the twin peaks, with its tower, and the right one is looking towards portrero hill.

The second set is from a similar excursion, but this time to Daju's roof. This one is not that open, but again, the day was just amazing.



The building behind the beer can is the new intercontinental hotel.
And finally, a view of the mission district (thats the Mission Delores) against the sun.


I also wanted to mention a camera that i have bought for Niki .. Its a Panasonic DMC-FZ18. The most exciting feature : it has a 18x optical zoom. Yes .. optical. Thats equivalent to a 28-504 mm lens in 35 mm terms ! And of course, an image stabilizer with that. Takes RAW pictures also. A pretty good camera for its price .. i really love the zoom you can get out if it ! All the Daju pictures are from that.

Waiting for Godot .. with a bum knee

I still don't have a date for my oath-taking ceremony .. the reason for my current SF trip. I did go to the office, and was duly assured by one of the keepers of information there, that I was still in the system, being processed, and could expect a date of 24th Jan. But as i still have not gotten any official confirmation for this, I am gestating in a state of limbo.
Today Daju also left for NYC. This, along with PK (India/Israel) and Mandar (Vegas), ensures that there are very few options left to hang out with in the city.

And the worst of it .. My knee is kaput !
Went to Kirkwood with Daju and his friend for a snowboard trip. On Saturday evening, while just getting my groove back, the slopes decided not to like me anymore, and i spun out wildly in a spray of powder. I have had lots of wipeouts before, but I knew this was bad. For one, my body had twisted around from momentum, using my right knee as the fulcrum. And this was not one of the directions the knee is meant to twist in. Excruciating pain in the knee. Good thing about wipeouts on a snowboard is that you can easily roll over and sit on your butt after the fall .. and all i could do was take deep breaths, to keep myself from screaming out in pain. I think it was about 5 minutes before i could think again.
From all the incidents i had heard/read about, the one thing i remembered was to ice the joint immediately. So I start piling up some snow on my knee. People are looking at me quite weirdly .. It seemed like I was trying to build a snow cave around my leg. Sat there for about 15 mins. The pain subsided a little. And all this time i am thinking .. ACL .. ACL .. ACL ..!! Too many people i know have had to say goodbye to any kind of physical sport after suffering from a torn ACL. And I don't even want to contemplate an extended period of time without sports.
I rode down. Not too bad. Maybe this is just a sprain. WTF .. lets go up again. And I did. Took it easy. Gingerly navigated my way down. And my knee let me know that it was a bad idea. Borrowed a plastic bag, filled it with some of the abundantly available snow, put it on my knee and sat down to wait for Daju. The pain kept coming and going. That night was quite bad .. could not sleep .. did not know what position my knee would be comfortable in. Finally figured out late morning, and caught a couple of hours of shuteye.
And of course, there are no doctors offices open, today being Christmas day. So I am just waiting again .. to find out whats wrong, how bad it is, and will I have to give up THE major passions in my life. Trolling the omniscient internet for advice has yielded no definite answers at all. Plans for going to Tahoe again next weekend will have to be canceled .. even if the injury is not that bad, will have to give it a rest. And I was relying on some snow sports to break the tedium of the other wait. This truly sucks.

I can walk, but there is a lingering pain in the knee, and I have to walk with a limp. And I dont want to exert the knee too much before i know whats going on. That means no walks to the mission, no dancing, no bar hopping, and no wandering about the city on such a lovely sunny day. I hate being cooped up inside the house without options. Not that i was roaming about the city everyday, but just the fact that i cannot do it anymore is bothering me. And i dare not contemplate the worst case scenario .. losing mobility for an extended period of time.

I have never had an injury before that I know can be really bad. Or maybe I did not know enough when i had them. The fact that I might have to give up something that has been such a integral part of my life is really messing me up. And the fact that I dont know !!! I will prob have to wait another week or so to get a doctors appt (if i am lucky .. the medical system here is totally screwed up). So till then ..