Minneapolis, Reykjavik, London. Reverse 10 days later.

SO.

Heading to London tomorrow! I decided to go because it’s been too long since I’ve seen the crew and it’s about time for a break from sufu. It might be sad that it’s time for a break after being here only a few months, but it’s been a rough time what with surgery and all. Time for a picker-upper. And let me tell you, London is gonna do it!

The first night we’re going to be heading to Tom’s house and heading out for the night… should be a barn burner! Friday it’s off to Nonstock for the festival. There’s a couple of bands, but i’ve never heard of them, though that’s not really the point, now is it?!?! Should be a blast! After nonstock, it’s back to London to go to a Chelsea soccer game on Tuesday… then the rest of the week, I really have no idea. Have to go do a few of the touristy stuff, though. Going to get to Abbey Road and Buckingham Palace, and then a snooker hall… there’s a couple of other things, but I really just can’t wait to get there!

I’ll be back on the 20th or something like that. I’m really trying not to think about heading back, so I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. In any case, I’ll try to update this a few times while I’m there and get some pictures up.

Next stop, London!!

It’s been ages.

Literally.

Alright, not literally, but it has been awhile.

Heading to London is less than a week, though, if you read all of the rest of the posts here, you’d know why. Or at least would be able to get a close guess. Can’t wait!

I’ll get to explaining the details later. Not now. Now it’s time for a sweet link.

Enjoy!

When the Going Gets Tough…

Alright, so I’m finally back on my feet and starting to get around like a semi-normal person. Exactly 4 weeks after surgery, and I’m brace free, as long as I’m walking on a dry, flat surface. Rehab has been going well and I’ve been going a couple times a week, but I think that’s about to change to once a week. Other than that, I’m back at work and am going to apply for a second job as soon as I’m comfortable on my feet all day. Unfortunately, other than that, it’s been pretty boring around here. I’ve been pretty cooped up for the last month or so, so it’s been lackluster to say the least.

I have been able to look into getting a Canadian work visa for the summer, but it looks like it’s going to be much harder than I originally thought it was going to be. Apparently Canadians don’t want Americans to get their jobs very badly. Bottom line is that I’m just not sure I’m going to be able to pull it off, but I will be going back to Fernie for awhile no matter what.  I do need to get some certifications and then who knows. We’ll figure it out after that, I suppose, but until then, I’m on the lookout for any ways to get myself a work visa.

I did finally finish the Two Towers and am actually almost done with the Return of the King. In the middle somewhere in there I read a book called ‘The Book Thief’ that I really recommend. My aunt Kim suggested that the family read it for when we get to our vacation every year, and I have to say it was a good call. The vacation went really well also, despite the fact that I couldn’t do much more than just drive the boat, which did get old after awhile, but next year, I’ve got first dibbs on tubing, wakeboarding, skiing and anything else that I missed out on this year.

I threw together a video of some of the skiing and shenanigans that went on in Fernie.

Fernie 2009

That might be all I’ve got for now. The Wizard of Oz is on right now and you know, I haven’t seen that movie in a very long time.

Work tomorrow, and hopefully a little more excitement later on.

Back in Business-ish

Yesterday around 8:30 I went in for my ACL reconstruction surgery. It’s been awhile since I updated this, so I suppose I should get everyone up to speed on what’s been happening. 

I am (well rather, was) employed at Prairie Green golf course at the pro shop there. Great job, nobody’s going to get rich doing it, but the guys there are cool and I get all the free golf I can handle, or I could have had this not happened. 

So the last time I saw the doc in Cranbrook he told me to go see someone in a month when I got back to Sioux Falls, after the road trip and such. Fast forward one month and I went to go see Doctor Smith at Orthopedic Institute. After one look at me and some moving around of the knee and such, he said that he thought my ACL was gone and that I need to have an MRI and probably surgery asap. The MRI confirmed that I haven’t had an ACL since my accident. The doctor in Cranbrook completely missed it and I was more than a little upset to find that out. I also had a fairly large meniscus tear, and a chunk of it floating around in my knee. 

The next day I saw Dr. Zollner, an orthopedic surgeon, to see what my options were. He told me surgery was necessary and should happen as soon as possible as well. Originally we weren’t planning on doing the surgery until the end of June since we always go on a family vacation the third week in June and it would only be putting it back a couple of weeks to wait until then. That way I wouldn’t be hobbling around while on vacation. However, a few days after that, we got a call from the doc saying that he couldn’t do surgery that day and that we’d have to push it back a week or so. Now, we were getting close to a month from when I could do surgery to when I was actually doing it, and so I decided to go ahead and get it done with so I can be well recovered by the time ski season rolls around. 

Surgery yesterday took about an Hour and 45 minutes and unfortunately had some unseen problems. Nothing major, I mean, I didn’t flat line or anything like that, but it just didn’t go like we thought it would. I should say that I haven’t talked to the doc yet, so all of this information I got from nurses and staff. 

Originally Dr. Zollner was going to use a hamstring tendon as my ACL, but when he got in there, he found that it was damaged pretty badly in the accident and he was unable to use it. So, he ended up using my Patellar tendon, which is also a very common ACL reconstruction method. While he was in there as well, he got the chunk of meniscus floating around out, and repaired what he could. Unfortunately he had to cut some more out and so now I have arthritis to look forward to in 20 years or so. Plenty of time for the medical community to come up with a great meniscus substitute! He also notice that my PCL was damaged and so he repaired that as best as he could. PCL’s though are the most solid of all the tendons, and one of the trainers told me that there are lots of NFL players playing with partially torn PCL’s. I’m cool with that. 

So all in all I tore my ACL, MCL, PCL and got a good hunk of meniscus out of there. The good news is that there’s no reason why I can’t be skiing next season, so Fernie here I come!

As for now, I’m hooked up to a machine that keeps my leg moving all the time and I’m supposed to be in that for 16 to 18 hours a day. I have plenty of exercises to keep things moving and I’m confident that I’ll be back on my feet before too long. 5 to 7 days on my pimped out crutches again, but I can deal with that. 

The Kasstle won’t exactly be the best I’ve ever had, but it’s kind of like any good thing. A bad day at the Kasstle is still better than a good day stuck at home! It won’t be too bad though, I won’t be skiing or anything like that, but I wouldn’t have been anyways. 

All in all I fell pretty good considering I had surgery yesterday morning. I’ve got some happy pills to get me by the next few days and a nerve block in my leg that unfortunately has to come out tomorrow. 

Thanks to everyone for all the well-wishes… here’s hoping to be back on my feet before long!

Whistler Baby!

The last time we left our caped crusaders, they were in Jasper National park in Jasper, AB. 

Caped crusaders might be an overstatement, but whatever. The hotel in Jasper was nice, it had a kitchenette and enough beds for all of us. After a quick dip in the pool and the outdoor hot tub, we were all ready for a good nights sleep. The next morning, we headed to Whistler. Whistler was quite the drive away, around 10 hours. Knowing we had such a huge drive ahead of us, we got up super early and hit the road. The whole drive was actually pretty cool. We went through a lot of different terrain and things. 

There was one part of the drive that was pretty hairy. This was a mountain pass, and I mean a MOUNTAIN PASS. The entire thing was bumpy and narrow and, well mountainie. It was absolutely gorgeous, but Burt took a beating and kept on going. We were all very proud of him, and stopped after the road was over at a nice lake, took in the view and let Burt take a rest. 

When we arrive in Whistler we called up one of Malin’s friends who has been spending the season here. He’s a really cool guy and let us crash at his place for the night. That night we went out to the village where they were having a big air competition.

This thing was pretty official, and there were some really big names there. The big trick of the night was a switch 1440… that’s 4 complete rotations. That won the competition. The other really cool trick was a switch double backflip. Very cool stuff indeed. In any case, that night we got some drinks and headed to bed. It had been a really long day for everyone so we called it a night early-ish. 

This morning we woke up and unfortunately it was raining, so Malin and Dan decided not to go up today. They did buy a two day pass starting tomorrow, so they’ll go up in the morning. We found out that Emils (the guy we were staying with) room mates are all coming back today, so we’ve gotten out of his hair and checked into a hotel. We were all shocked by how nice this place is compared to how much it cost. Again, we’ve been lucky to stay around the $35 / night plan, and we have a sauna, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, and a jacuzzi-tub, all in the room and a pretty decent view. Thank you Priceline and end of season deals!

We’ve been bumming around the village looking for good deals on things, being the end of season and everything. We did score some free stuff including some Shick razors, cologne samples, and Monster drinks. Apparently there were some free shirts running around somewhere, but we didn’t find them. Gotta love the festival atmosphere! The whole Telus Ski and Snowboard festival is going on for another 2 or 3 days, so it should be pretty cool around here. 

Tonight we’ve got some pasta to munch on… trying to keep it cheap. 

Thus far, Whistler has been great!

Outta here

Goodbye Sioux Falls, hello world.

It’s time to blow this popsicle stand, but it’s been a pleasure SuFu, most of the time anyways. I’m off to Canada, as most of you know.

It’s most definitely time.

Brad is:

A – Done with work.
B – The proud new owner of a Macbook
C – Anxiously awaiting going to Fernie
D – All of the above

D is the correct answer, if you didn’t catch that one.

I believe the expression is Woot.

WOOT!!!!

Please Stand By

Please stand by while I… regroup. This might take awhile.