Month: April 2012

Few little bits of randomness …

When I started thinking about Pink Hat Project a few months ago, I never thought :

I’d be wicket keeping and therefore wearing a helmet all the time instead of a pink cap … I’ll wear the cap while staying back but the latest bump on the head convinced me that Helmets are not optional when standing up to the stumps. There’s just not enough time to get out of the way when the unexpected happens.

That I’d be wicket keeping – I’ve done everything on a cricket field, bowl quick, bowl spin, bat, get key runouts and catches, umpire, I’ve captained the side a few times and on even rarer occasions I’ve been seen keeping wicket. Yet this season, for one of the teams wicket keeping may well be my number 1 job in the side. Fingers crossed (metaphorically because crossing fingers while catching a cricket ball means broken fingers) that I do an acceptable job at it.

And that’s “acceptable” by my standards, which demand zero error.

That climate change would see the end of April seen out with torrential rain, flood warnings and the heating coming back on. I’m sitting here with 2 jumpers on ! Still, I managed to do a pizza run yesterday when it was dry and got a big smile off a pretty lady when I helped with opening the door. Yep, I’m still a sucker for that, although in my defense – I was doing nothing but idly waiting, her hands were full with pizza boxes and she looked so thin that she’d bounce off the door instead of being able to open it.

First game of the season is supposed to be Wednesday between my old side (that I’ll still play for, clashes permitting) and my new side. I’ve got serious doubts that it’ll happen because of the rain. With the amount we’ve had and the grounds we play on, I think if the game were tomorrow it would be called off now.

Pants.

Nope – not the weather, actual pants. When playing cricket, there’s a vital piece of protective gear that’s supposed to protect something other than your knees. Yep, I’ll be wearing a tighter pair of pants in the first game.

Hairy – with this cut lip, I’m likely to be growing a moustache for the next week or so. Or for as long as it takes to heal. The cut is too close to where you take the razor, which means trying a slightly different look for a while.

Head stuff – I think my head is clear again now but I’m still not getting the right messages come through for hungry/full. I recognise the rumbles but I’ve not been actually feeling hungry. Weird. Have to keep an eye on that. It should help the diet but I need to make sure I have enough energy on board to do what I need to do. Evening cricket is a bit funny for that as games start at 6pm, so dinner is Very Late. Big lunch + 3pm snack usually does the job.

Gaming – not sure how much time I’ll have for this but I need another one now that I’ve finished my latest Deus Ex HR run. Skyrim is there for the background but it’s MASSIVE. Guild Wars 2 is coming very soon and there’s a chatterybox on Steamchat who wants me to get that.

Thinking of chattering – that’s supposed to be one of my jobs as wicket keeper. Shouldn’t have a problem there as I’m usually keeping the noise level up while in the field. It’s important as if the chat level goes down, people go to sleep, fielding goes flat and runs get given away. Plus I’ll be in the action all the time now instead of being exiled to near the boundary.

And other people – still thinking a lot of other people at the moment. At the moment that’s mainly the little lady who’s putting an incredibly brave face on at the moment for various issues going on. There’s also the lady who’s recently seen a major bereavement. And finally the singer who is about the only person who’d stand a chance of persuading me to come back into Warcraft, she’s had a painful overnight hospital stay for what is hopefully just a false alarm.

Hope this rain clears up soon – sun brings a smile to everyone !

Wonder if I’ll manage to avoid getting put in one of these this summer ?

Wait – you’re thinking I should be in one for Wednesday’s antics ?

🙂

Doesn’t count – it’s pre season practice. Plenty of time to break more stuff in the season and knowing me, I’ll definitely break something. And then hide it so no-one knows 🙂 That’s part bluff though. Show someone weakness on a cricket field and they’ll take advantage of it. A lot of the initial frenzy I’d show in the field was aimed at conning the batsmen into thinking I’m better than I am, so they take a split second extra to decide whether they want to run or not.

One weird thing about this head bump is that I’ve not felt hungry since. I’ve been eating and hearing/feeling the rumbles but that’s not the same as feeling hungry. Strange. Curious to know if that’ll continue, could be real handy for losing weight :-).

Feeling better today. Yesterday started with at least 12 hours sleep followed by me not really noticing what was going on in the afternoon. I haven’t felt post-practice stiffness as expected. My back is almost pain free. That’s weird because it always used to take time to get my muscles used to running around again. I’ll feel stiff after the first game of the season plus I’ll struggle in the games (bad left leg is ok when first used but stiffens very quickly) but getting conditioning back that quick is promising for playing several games in a week.

Perhaps it’s a benefit of losing the weight. Must lose more then 🙂 (13st0 this morning!)

One more picture :

If she’s asking ? (Jadzia Dax from Star Trek Deep Space Nine) Then hell yeah. But only because she had huge amounts of fun and I’d love to know just how far those spots go.

Already started 🙂

You too Sandra – take care 🙂 Hope you feel better soon from that suspected tonsilitis

Ouch, seams you need to slow down a bit this weekend! Take care! hugs Sandra

Thought I had a title for this one but it’s kinda evaporated …

I think I’ve said this before sometime but if you know someone’s had a head injury, however minor, keep an eye on them. Damage that can seem superficial on the outside can hide more subtle damage on the inside. The brain is very complex and we don’t properly understand it …

So with my bump from Wednesday, the outside damage is superficial (ok, I should have had a stitch but it stopped bleeding on its own). When I came back into the practice, my reactions were still sound and my technique was working well so no problems with the reflexive parts of Me.

But where I have been struggling is speed and clarity of thought. Not had a headache but I’ve not been thinking or acting at a speed I’m accustomed to. I’ll be ok, I recognise the signs from fragmented memories of when I got hit before. I know what to look for this time, including the hidden signs. Part of it is trusting yourself – I’ve having more trouble than usual putting words together and have had to watch the typos.

One thing I always seem to do though is reverse react. That’s when you should really curl up into a ball but what you actually do is speed up and mask the trouble. So yesterday at work even though I was thinking slow, I was still thinking right. When I get damaged, I’ll react and push through it for as long as I need to. It’s like deferring the time I’ll need to rest and recover.

That’s enough of that though. Had today off work, partly due to anticipating being stiff from practice and to give the head chance to recover. And then slept 12 hours on and off this morning, including imagining a phone call at 7.30 this morning.

Had fun yesterday, topped off by getting out and about with the team in town. (We don’t do that often enough). Snow Queen was looking radiant as the Spring Princess (how come I can’t get those words out and just stand there like an idiot ?) and our table was alive with conversation all the way through.

But before that was thinking up a different explanation for my cut lip to anyone who asked. Here’s a selection :

“You shoulda seen the other guy”
“Practicing kendo without a mask”
“You should never run with scissors”
“Getting hungry during net practice”
“When you allow the other guy the first punch, you are allowed to dodge”

And my favourite, which I did eventually get to use :

“When a beautiful woman comes running towards you at top speed, you don’t have to catch them. You are permitted to dodge.”

That one’s actually true, I got a very similar cut lip at university where I was walking through the halls minding my own business when a very pretty first year student came running out of her room. I got to “She’s gorg…” before SLAM. Ok, maybe I wasn’t staring too much because I was going out with someone and my single mindedness there wouldn’t have allowed the possibility. Anyway, next thing I know the cut is getting washed in her sink and then I’m getting dragged off to hospital A&E by my girlfiend.

4 hours later I get seen and the cut has already stopped bleeding, treatment unnecessary. I MISSED MY PIZZAA !!! Yep, that was what we’d planned to get. Or maybe that was what we bought after missing dinner at uni.

And that’s one incident where I learned to rely on my own healing than waiting for doctor’s appointments. Most of the time I’ve gone to doctors, the problem has healed before I’ve got in to see them.

Oh – I was highly amused by one person’s reaction to seeing the cut lip : “OH GOD PETE!” 🙂

Before you read any of what’ll be below – I’m ok, albeit a little shaken (although I’d never admit that. Hmm … doh!). Haven’t seen the need to rush off to hospital, although it is still in my mind. I’m actually more worried about my leg.

Net practice again tonight, which meant me attempting to continue that crash course in wicket keeping …

There’s not really enough space in nets to stand back as you should do with quicker bowlers, so I’m usually right behind the stumps where you need practice, practice, more practice, agility, quick reactions and a little stupidity. I have a couple of those right now (the stupidity and the reactions) but I’m badly in need of the practice. The agility is so-so, loss of weight has helped but I’ve hurt my left leg.

The stupidity is still in control though, so I started off the practice without wearing a helmet.

That’s a really bad idea. Top edges do nasty things, plus bales (the little bits of wood on top of cricket stumps) tend to fly straight up when people are bowled. So you should wear head protection when standing up to the stumps.

What actually happened ?

Ball’s coming down behind the batsman (where you’re unsighted as a keeper anyway) and he takes a swing. He gets a top edge, so instead of the ball coming near my gloves it goes straight up. And on to my top lip.

Oops

The damage wasn’t actually too much, one fella didn’t even realise I got hit (think he was the batsman). I cleaned myself up and got rid of most of the blood and then did what you should ALWAYS do in situations like this : Get back on the horse as soon as possible.

So after returning from getting cleaned up, on comes the helmet, gloves go on the hands and I’m back behind the stumps trying to learn wicket keeping. Looks like they’re relying on me to do that job this year, which is scary.

My keeping still needs a lot of work, although it’ll hopefully be easier standing the right distance back. I was getting a lot of confidence late on though from getting lots of clean takes and good stumpings.

So yeah – lesson learned. When standing up to the stumps, wear a helmet as it protects you when Strange Things happen. I’ll look into buying other stuff too, like a face mask type grill so I can still see better. A face mask will also be lighter and airier.

Practice – went ok. I’m timing the ball pretty well out to the offside and the defences seem ok. My shot play seems more attack minded this year, with me flipping back to defence instantly when the ball demands more respect. Promising for the season.

How am I feeling now ? Shaken and sore.

Shaken – Beneath the “doesn’t hurt at all” show, I was actually a little shaken. Fingers were wobbly for a while.
Sore – my left leg has decided to stiffen up. The problem is in the hamstring at the back of the leg right near the top. It’s a bit sore. It isn’t torn as the leg still works ok.

Lip’s gonna look great at work tomorrow 🙂 But I’m not worried about it. Taken my lumps, learned my lesson, more worried about the duff leg.

PS My challenge at work tomorrow will be to show off the cut lip to as many people as possible … and come up with a different explanation to all of them. Muahaha 🙂

Saw one from the Cheezburger crew and laughed …

Sadly I can’t add it here because their Terms of Services are EVIL but here’s a link to the original : “http://cheezburger.com/6140758784?siteId=15632“. Yes, I see people stealing copyright pictures all the time and reposting them often without attribution but I’m not about to do that. There’s even one on Facebook who monetises it … They’ll use photos from places like ICHZBGR and attach “sponsor a kitten” to it. That’s really dodgy ground and can easily get them sued. (Although they don’t say they got permission, that could have happened)

Anyway – I’m getting sidetracked again. The caption is “OMG don’t put me on facebook” and it’s a shocked kitty in a babygro.

There’s not that many pictures of me around and there’s a very good reason for that. Webcams and cameras dislike me intensely. It’s true. I haven’t heard or seen a camera lens crack yet but it must have been close.

And it’s been a while since I’ve been in a shape I’d have liked to be photographed in. There’s pictures of me on Facebook from last year which contributed to me deciding to lose weight. I’m chubby in them. Even the ones from Snowdon show me carrying around a backside that’s on the ample side. But I seem to be doing ok as people are saying I’m visibly more slimline these days.

Still trying to figure out what weight I was when this was taken :

That’s me on the bottom left with the big arrow (I needed to make it really obvious to the Mercs or they wouldn’t have got the message). It was taken in late summer ’98 (Hey ! I heard that – that would be 1998) when I helped that side to win that cup that we’re showing off there. I could still bowl back then too.

There aren’t many more recent pictures than that which I’d like to have visible and out there, although I do know what’ll be on my Facebook timeline when that gets inflicted on me :

That picture is perfect. It was taken 2 years ago in a game between my old side and my new side. I’m in the field towards the left, hands in pockets (as usual), white sun hat stopping my hair from getting in my eyes and I just so happen to be indulging in a bit of sledging with the incoming batsman who was an awesome colleague (they posted him down south).

I wasn’t being too rude, honest. Just reminding him how many runouts he’d been involved in – muahahaha.

So most of the time when I see my ugly mug on Facebook, I’m thinking that I need to learn to hide better. Some FB pics are fine, others are downright nasty. Hopefully at least one will appear this summer with me leaping about after taking stumpings.

Was travelling this weekend, doing the Easter and birthdays thing …

I can keep up on Facebook on weekends away but I leave blog updates for later. (The family don’t know I blog, I’ve managed to keep it a secret despite linking a few pages across)

Travel conditions on Friday could only be described as “interesting”. I knew it was going to get like that when, while approaching Birmingham, the skies suddenly started getting dark. And this isn’t sun down type dark, it’s Apocalyptic Rain Incoming type dark.

Rain on the roads isn’t actually too bad, if you’re aware of what needs to be done to avoid it being dangerous. That’s things like expecting there to be rivers in the road, knowing that puddles are deeper than they appear and will grab your wheel and attempt to spin you but most of all having a firm belief that everyone else on the road will be a moron.

Safe driving in rain doesn’t include slowing from 80 to 60 in the outside lane of a motorway to have a good look at the accident that’s happened on the other side of the road. That’s why motorway accidents almost always cause traffic congestion both ways, because of idiots who will make the conditions dangerous when they don’t need to be.

Anyway – conditions were actually pretty bad on Friday, I could feel my front wheels wanting to aquaplane. That’s pretty rare, especially as my front tyres should only be about half worn (need to check that).

They weren’t great on Sunday either, with the morons racing down the M5 on the way back. The catalogue includes – a motorhome doing 85-90, an Audi towing a trailer at 75mph (it was visibly snaking) and the bunch of people who shot past at 100+.

Meh – that’s frustration that needs to be put in a box and forgotten about. (I only get frustrated because the morons who cause the danger are usually the ones who survive their inevitable accident)

I forgot the easter eggs …

Oops. I got about 30 miles up the road before realising too. It won’t take long to consume the evidence 🙂

Birthday weekend – it was my nan’s birthday in the week (she’s 93) and my mum’s birthday this week. So we had one of our occasional gatherings together.

Diet – despite eating almost everything in sight come dinner time, I always manage to lose weight up there. Must be due to eating healthily … Perhaps there’s a lesson there ?

Hugs – I got a hug from Super Waitress at the Swanholme 🙂

Car – even though I’m not quite right yet from the net practice, the car let me do 3 hours 180 miles nonstop last night and the same distance with 2 stops on Friday (munchies + petrol). It’s an awesome cruiser. And because it’s the best car in the family now for carrying people, I do all the driving over the weekend too. (5 doors, mpg, speed, handling, comfort).

Cricket – I have control of those leg muscles back again now but my back is still suffering. Shoulder and neck are a bit sore too. But they’ll manage. The leg muscle stiffness is normal for unconditioned legs that don’t see enough exercise for the leg muscle mass I have. The shoulder and neck are from me attempting to bowl, I have my info now and know my bowing days are over. I’ll be converting to wicket keeping instead, which will lead to its own special brand of Unhappy Muscle Hell.

And now straight back into the whirlwind today. Easy evening tonight, easy evening tomorrow. Nets Wednesday, munchies Thursday. Hopefully I won’t be too much of a statue come Thursday evening. Seriously considering having Friday off.

PS Today also marks the anniversary of the release of a frankly inferior piece of crud that held back personal computers for many years. It was unreliable, had an evil keyboard and was not fit to be called a “computer”. Sometimes, the worst possible option becomes the popular one, just like VHS did. Yes, I am definitely a BBC Computer Snob. And proud of it.

Another one from the Facebook feed :

I think I do ok with figuring out which of the wolves to feed. I definitely recognise the truth behind the proverb as I know those two wolves are inside me, just as I know I have the hyperactivity manic bunny being dragged down by the depressive elephant.

I like to help people out. In fact, I like to help people out so much I’ll get carried away with it. It happens at work and with the cricket. At work, I’ll prioritise work that enables other people to do stuff ahead of the work that’s focused on me. (I’m terrible at arranging things like car services.) With the cricket, I’ll step into Coaching Mode where I’ll not be able to resist pointing out the flaws in people’s techniques in a “you should be doing it this way” kind of way.

With the cricket, I need to figure out how to do that a bit less obnoxiously as it can put people off. Like the fella who batted without any left hand control, I’ll see if I can get him to watch me next week. Spindly arms mean I don’t have as much power as I’d like but my technique is pretty good.

I got sidetracked into talking cricket again didn’t I ?

The happy wolf I think I’m doing ok with, although I don’t get as many opportunities to feed it as I would like.

The angry wolf is what threatens to get the depressive side of me in control. And it’s favourite food comes from when I get blocked from helping people out. I can be prone to jealousy but I always try and ask “Is she happier with the other guy ?” Their happiness is more important. But if they’re sad and I’m blocked from giving them the support they need, I don’t understand and that’s when my confusion feeds the evil wolf.

But at the moment both good and evil wolves are locked in their cages because the I Hurt Like Hell wolf is in control ! Post nets status is currently :

Lower back lumbar muscles – are frozen making it tough to bend
Thigh muscles – are in concrete mode
Hands – are covered in bruises
Shoulder – is actually ok because I only bowled about 6 deliveries

Post nets stiffness will probably last until Sunday and then it gets better from there. I’ll be stiff again after Wednesday’s nets but it’ll ease earlier. It’s just tough to get back into it after such a long time away.

Cheating and making Blogger delay this until Thursday ! Ok, so net session tonight, what did I get out of it :

1 – I can’t bowl. Ok, I can bowl but very, very slowly. Which means “GRENADE!!!!” type lobbing of the ball, which is completely and utterly useless. If I put any power into the action, then the mechanical hitch takes over and messes up the delivery. And I need that power to bowl either seam or spin. No bowling.

2 – Batting was surprisingly good. Muscle memory was still there, technique was active and the feet were moving.

3 – Shots were coming all round, I just need to use them in matches.

4 – I can play the Pietersen switch hit !!!!!! And it’s surprisingly easy to pull off. It’s actually easier than doing a reverse sweep. Can’t say I’ll use it in games because it needs slow bowling and the right field but it’s an option.

5 – I still have the batting flaw which means I can’t hit balls that come down 6 inches outside leg stump. And those are supposed to be meat & drink 4 balls. Just can’t get to them.

6 – The run to Yate does wonders for the car mpg. Car went from 48mpg to 49mpg on the night.

7 – Even though I can’t bowl, I got value out of the session by standing behind the stumps and impersonating a wicket keeper. Even managed to take a few, including a high wide fast one taken one handed standing up close.

 8 – I think I need to buy some keeping gloves as the kit bag gloves were a little big. (I have little pinkys)

 9 – Ow. Owowowow OUCH. My legs need a hell of a lot more conditioning than they currently have as the batteries were running out very quickly. But they appreciated me having less ballast.

10 – Nets worked up an appetite. I was incredibly hungry when I got home and nearly started snacking before my shower.

11 – Tomorrow will be “interesting” (in the historical sense) as I have a mandatory training presentation to sit through. That will be absolute perfect conditions for making sure I become a statue by lunchtime.

12 – Bruise count is a shiner to come on my right thigh, probably one on my left thigh and a mystery bruise on my left hand between thumb and finger. My back (lower lumbar area, under and between the kidneys) is what’s making it curious to bend down.

13 – It was totally, utterly worth it. Despite the disappointment of having absolutely nothing available for bowling. Hopefully more people will appear next week as we only had 4 of us tonight, 2 of whom (not me) could bowl.