Category: Life

November 6, 2015
Max Life, Technology , , ,

The Perils of (public) Beta Testing…..

HealthyI have always been an early adopter. As far as I can remember, I have always been at the forefront of tech stuff. Quartz watches – check, Compact Disc – Check, MiniDisc – Check, DAT decks – Check, Home computers – check, Android – check, iOS – check, early releases – check, tubeless mountain bike tyres – check, pretty much everything – check.

Friends and colleagues nearly always ask my opinion on things, simply because they know that I will have got it first and they want to know what something is like.

Quite often, it has bitten me, but this does not seem to stop me. 

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October 31, 2015
Max Life, Technology

Apple’s Difficult ‘S’ Release…

iPhone 6S PlusIn apple terms, the ‘S’ release every other years represents an updated version of the previous years phone.  This is the Tock to the regular phone’s Tick, or the Yang to the Ying, if you like.

What is perhaps more accurate is that the S release represents the definitive version of a chassis design, complete with bug fixes and feedback from significant numbers users.

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October 14, 2015
Max fitness, Life, Technology , ,

Apple Watch – A longer term review

I grew up in a very small village, apart from weekly games of cricket, there was very little excitement available. Due in part to the lack of local entertainment, I immersed myself in comic books and science fiction novels from the local library.

Most of the comic books available were American imports, a local newsagent had a small selection for sale, but that selection would vary, so it was never really easy to follow multi-episode story arcs. I would perhaps get Superman issue 487, then the next one available might be 512.

One day I was looking at the import comic shelf and one caught my eye. Somehow the newsagent inadvertently stocked a run of Dick Tracy comics that covered a decent sized story arc. I will admit that I was more a fan of superheroes than a mortal detective. But the chance to follow a whole story, rather than disjointed episodes meant that I spent rather a lot of money on six precious Dick Tracy comic books.

Dick Tracy had several gadgets, but his most famous was his two-way radio (later video) watch. 

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September 22, 2015
Max Cycling, Life, Uncategorized , , ,

The Tweed Ride bike 2015

Yes, I look ridiculous, that is the idea

Yes, I look ridiculous, that is the idea

Last year I was unable to take part in the Tweed ride due to circumstances beyond my control.

This year I decided that I would do it one way or another. I was so determined that I started to look for tweed in January !

Initially I wanted to get a delivery bike, something old, maybe a butchers’ bike or similar. Back in April 2015 the only ones that I could find were very expensive and looked terrible. I realised at this point that whatever I got would require a lot of work.

So, I decided to build something.

Deciding to build a bike was the easy part, deciding what to build was a completely different thing all together.

I took a look at the photos from previous years and it seemed that many people barely bothered about the bike, there were people on mountain bikes and retro styled new bikes. One bike that seriously caught my eye was a Pashley Guvnor. Certainly a beautiful bike, but at £900 it was way out of my price range. 

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August 1, 2015
Max Cycling, fitness, Life

One Year

A year ago I broke my collarbone.

Between then and now an awful lot of things have happened.

Initially the doctors thought I did not need surgery, but within a week I was suddenly recovering from having a operation to put a plate and six screws in place to hold the broken bones together.

Not long after this I started physiotherapy, but it was excruciatingly painful, so I got a second opinion, my new doctor recognised that I needed a second surgery to replace a the overly long screws and to see if he could get any more movement into my shoulder.

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July 20, 2015
Max Cycling, fitness, Life , ,

London to Southend bicycle ride report.

Number and medal This year I rode the London to Southend charity ride in aid of the British Heart Foundation.

I raised a little over £300 for the charity and I had ‘fun’.

At a little before 6AM I arrived at the train station, not long after that, they allowed everyone in and we all crammed ourselves onto the ‘specially laid on’ train. I am not good at estimating numbers, there were perhaps a couple of hundred people with a bicycle each.

The train was due to leave at 06:20. At 06:19, they announced that the train was not going to leave as there was a signalling fault and perhaps we should take the City-2-City train from the other station. Much swearing happened. 

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July 9, 2015
Max Life

Eleven Months, One Week, two days.

July 9th 2015 was eleven months, one week and two days since my crash.

It was marked by two events.

At 8:30AM I went for my weekly physical therapy session. Steve, the physiotherapist, is working wonders on my shoulder – I am not quite at the point where I can raise my arm vertically, but at least at the moment the range of motion that I have is about 65% of normal. The sessions are painful, Steve pushes and pulls on my shoulder and gently but firmly makes it move slightly more than it did the previous week.

Gains are slight and incremental. I might not gain an extra degree of motion each week, but each week it is slightly better than last week. I have a long and painful road ahead. But it is getting better. Slowly.

The second thing that marked this day was a letter from my solicitor that began, ‘please find enclosed a cheque’. Before anyone gets excited, this is not a ‘full and final settlement’, this is an interim cheque to cover some of the expenses incurred since the crash.

This has been the first actual acknowledgement from the insurance company that they have accepted liability. In order to even get this cheque my solicitor had to threaten them with court proceedings.

So this is a BIG THING, I have a cheque that covers some of my expenses to date, the insurance company are finally releasing funds, this may not be as big a fight as it felt it might become.

Finally things are moving…..

 

May 14, 2015
Max Cycling, fitness, Life

The CrossBrid and the Tweed Bike

CrossBridAs any regular reader will know, I love cycling. I also love events that are almost entirely nonsensical. This year I want to do two events. The first is the London to Southend ride. This is a decently long ride raising money for the British Heart Foundation.

The second is silly. The second is called a ‘Tweed Ride’, the idea is simple, dig out your ancient bicycle and your finest tweed and ride your bicycle around the town and eventually stop off for a pot of tea and some cream cakes.

Given that my single-speed is looking a tad worse for wear and I am less fit than usual having spent the last seven months suffering from the result of my crash, I needed to do something about the ‘suitable bicycle’ situation for both rides.

The first issue is that my single-speed is not really very comfortable for me at the moment, it is way too ‘racy’ and my shoulder hurts too much if I ride it for a long time. I realised that I needed to either make it more comfortable, or get something more suitable. 

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April 30, 2015
Max Life

One hundred and thirty-five degrees

I’ve just reached a landmark, I can now raise my left arm one hundred and thirty-five degrees. This means that I ‘only’ have 45Ëš or so to go.

It has taken a lot of time and a lot of pain to get to this point. I have weekly physical therapy sessions and do several exercises a couple of times a day.

Physiotherapy is horrible, it is painful and difficult and I almost have to drag myself to my appointment each week. I hate it. However my mobility is improving each week and at some stage I expect that I will regain something close to a full range of movement.

There is not really a lot of news on the accident claim at the moment, my solicitor, the excellent Jonathan Lear submitted a claim for the damages and the expenses that I have incurred to date recently. At some point I expect that I will get a cheque for that.

Meanwhile I have stripped my bike down to a bare frame so that I can replace the damaged parts and get it powder coated to cover up the damaged paint.

In order that I can continue to ride, I have built up another frame and used many of the parts from my single-speed to make it all work for the moment.

 

 

March 11, 2015
Max Cycling, fitness, Life

Month Seven – Yet another update !

2015-03-02 13.53.37This update is a tad late, because it has been ten days since seven-month anniversary of my crash.

Quite a lot has happened in the last month, previously I noted that I went through a third surgery, this time to remove the plate and screws as they were giving me a lot of pain and limiting my movement rather badly. This surgery went very well and apart from some minor complications, I am pretty happy with the outcome.

The last week has seen two physical therapy sessions with Steve Oakley at the Spire Health centre. in the first one he massaged my shoulder to the point of pain, then lifted my arm towards vertical (from lying down), this was extremely painful, but very promising as I had not been able to move my arm that far since the crash.

Steve gave me a set of exercises to do daily, so each time I have made tea, I have worked through the exercises. Each day I have found that I can move a little more before the pain really is too much. 

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