Wide-Angle Fun, or Why You Don’t Shoot People at 12mm
I was organizing my photo library when I ran across those snapshots that were taken at the Tullier residence back in January when I stopped by. The discussion started off with something when I mentioned that wide angle lens make people look unflattering. And, Tate’s like “how? what do you mean?” So I put the Sigma 12mm on my 5D and let him and Sarah have at it.
Here, I look like I came off the set of ‘Coneheads’.
No, Tate doesn’t weigh 450 pounds. :) 
A much more normal looking Tate indicating his high opinion on something, whatever. 
Soho (and his willy) getting the 12mm treatment.
I need to stop by and visit again!
Me doing my Thing
I did a wedding in DC earlier this month. The always wonderful Kerry Gastley who I’d assisted on numerous occasions in the past was happy to come out and flip roles, she’d be assisting for me that day - she sent over her pictures and included two pictures of me.
The one above, I did not even remember. I sat here for a couple minutes racking my head when this happened. I wondered if the fall had jarred something loose in my head as well, but it finally came to me that it was a test pose to check for the light quality. I was probably running around with a million things on my head that I don’t even remember sitting on the couch. But here I am all formal, holding my beloved 5D and 35L. I like it for some reason…
And then this picture. You can see theres a bunch of nasty looking clouds about to wreak havoc. The day started off with some really lousy rainy weather, then when people started arriving, it looked to be clearing up and there was actually some sunshine. I started prodding the bride and groom to get ready faster so that I could escort them outside to get some outdoor shots with the late afternoon sun.
But alas, by the time everyone was ready, the clouds had moved back in and the wind started blowing crap around. We took a quick few shots outside with the groomsmen before running back in the club.
And of course, I couldn’t help but look at my right foot. My working, un-fucked-up foot only nine days away from its fate.
3/17 - Never Forget
I caught myself doing something yesterday that struck me as odd. I’ve been using the day of my accident as a time-reference. I was looking at some issues to resolve at work, and I checked the date on one of them, which said 3/18/2008. My first thought was, “the day after i broke my foot”. I thought about it for a minute before getting back to work.
Then this morning I hopped out from the bedroom into the living room and looked at the three new pieces of furniture I picked up at the yard sale. My initial thought? “I got those the day before I broke my foot”.
I’ve started picking up stuff around the house, and giving some thought to what I’ll be packing up. I know I have a month (six weeks post-broke-foot) before I move, but I might as well get started.
Unexpected Detours
Theres a funny little story that happened just over three years ago in France when Gabe and I were doing our Euro-Bouldering Tour of 2004. Our last stop on the tour was the holy grail of all bouldering, Fontainebleau. I’ll leave descriptions of how insanely great the bouldering is there to another post, but if you boulder, and you haven’t been out there yet, then you’re missing out!
We met up with another group of climbers who knew Gabe, and we all rented a cottage for the week, situated in some little off-the-road farm about five kilometers north of Fontainebleau. On one of our rest days, most of us wanted to make the hour-long drive up to Paris to sight-see.
So we left early in the morning in my rental car, and a hour later we found ourselves in Paris looking for a parking spot. Think there’s a reason that those petite Smart cars are popular there? We searched for a good half hour before giving up, coughing up the euros and parking in a garage.
After a good full day in Paris, we were ready to head back to the cottage. We picked up our rental car and with me behind the wheel again, we drove on out of the city and for about ten kilometers, things were looking good. The route was pretty simple. Just take A6 southwards out of Paris, drive 100km, turn off at the Fontainebleau exit and make our way home. No problem.
Until we saw the first sign ahead indicating that A6 was closed.
And that was it. Just a sign saying A6 was closed, and to exit immediately. I found myself at an dark T-intersection in some small town, steering wheel in hand and no idea where to go. And there were NO detour signs.
I dont know if its how the French operate, or if it was some emergency closure, but where were the detour signs? I had no idea where to go, to get back on A6, further ahead. I turned to look at my passengers, who all shrugged. Who knows? Annnd, the road map that the rental company so kindly gave me only covered Paris itself. We traced cities that we’d passed on A6 downwards till we ran out of map. The map was useless.
I looked both ways and made a left.
We drove on for a couple kilometers, before hitting some town. I made a right on their main street, figuring we’d be going parallel with A6. We left the town behind and kept on driving… ten, twenty minutes in complete darkness. At that time I had no idea if we were anywhere close to A6 or if we were heading for the Atlantic ocean for all we knew.
We approached another town, and after a few more kilometers of driving, one of the passengers told me he’d get out and try to get directions. I nodded and turned my attention back to the road and right at that very second, a large road sign with the letters A6 and a helpful arrow emerged from the darkness. The car erupted with cheering from everyone inside and I quickly scooted the car back on A6 and we were back on our way to Fontainebleau.
I’ve been drawing on analogies a lot while working my way through this broken foot ordeal. I look back at times when things seemed lost, or hopeless, and how sometimes things just happen when you don’t expect it.
I left Minneapolis on January 10th of this year. I went on this amazing 3,500 mile road trip where I saw many amazing sights, friends and family. I rolled into Bishop one cold morning after ten days of driving, to make a home for a while, to climb, to do photography. The next two months in Bishop were nothing short of awesome. I met so many people climbing, I took so many photographs and have had so much to reflect on.
The next part of this journey, some time next year - was to eventually head to San Francisco where I’d start a new life and make new friends in a new city.
But to use the analogy, A6 has been closed. I need to take a unexpected detour. Today, I gave my landlord notice that I’d be moving out at the end of April. I don’t know where I’m going to go. I can go back to Minnesota and recover, then head to SF later this year. Or I can head to SF right now. Still figuring out my options.
But one thing’s for certain.. the route changed. We will see where it takes me.
An Expectant Night
To say that I was stressed out the night before the doctor’s appointment is an understatement. I was sitting on the recliner sunday night and I stared at my booted foot and said, “I’ll do my best to prevent them from cutting you up, if you get busy and heal up fast, okay? Deal?”
I’d like to say that my foot twitched in agreement. Or it might have just been a twitch.
I crutched on out of my house that night. It was one of those typical Bishop nights. Clear, starry skies, a fat moon hanging low over the mountains and cool dry air.
I took a few pictures, then started crutching back home. I was tired and wanted to sleep. I wanted to have a tangible resolution. Surgery, or no surgery? How many weeks before I could walk again?
I woke up early in the morning, did some work, then giving myself adequate time, I pulled together my keys, phone and sunglasses and started crutching the three blocks to the hospital. I guess you could say I’m really fortunate to live so close by, so I don’t need to try to find someone to give me a ride.
I suppose I could… but I didn’t want to sit on my ass for six weeks. I need to get some excercise. And boy, I’ll tell you, crutching three blocks is a good workout.
Arriving at the orthopedic’s office, a nurse saw me first, explained that they’d be cutting off my bandages and taking another look at my foot. Some of you may remember the rather nasty picture of my foot I posted last week. Now I was curious how much better (or worse) it’d look, three days later.
Another new development with my foot was that my entire leg below the knee had turned yellow, and there was a huge purple bruise spreading all the way from my ankle to my knee. I pointed that out to the nurse and she said that was probably normal and not to be concerned about.
So, off the bandages came. And here’s what my foot looked like (a bit less gross). The fracture blisters were all gone, slightly less bruising and less swollen. Definitely an improvement after three days!
The orthopedic doctor came in and put up the film from the CT scan. I initially saw the white outlines and thought, “Shit, my heel bone is really fucked up.”
But after the doctor explained a bit more, I realized that this was a horizional cross scan of my foot (as if you were looking at it from the top), and those white outlines are actually the bone structure going vertically up and down, and disappearing off the field of view. So it should not be considered the actual outline of my heel bone.
The REAL fracture (two actually) is that dark gap running through the bottom right part. The doctor drew arrows to indicate where the bone normally should be.
So rather than my heel bone being a good half inch out of whack, the piece is actually about 1-2 mm out of place.
The doctor then said the words I’d been waiting for a whole week. “Surgery will not be necessary.” I breathed a huge sigh of relief. He added that surgery could be done to reduce the fracture and restore normal heel structure. I asked him about possible long term problems if I didn’t go with surgery. He said my heel would be slightly wider.. might have problems fitting some shoes (like climbing shoes, ha ha..) - but he didn’t foresee any major problems.
I told him I’d skip surgery. He made no argument, so that further confirmed to me that in the doctor’s mind, he didn’t think it was necessary.
We then discussed the healing process. I’ll need to come back in three weeks from now to have another set of x-rays made. This will be to confirm that the pieces have not unexpectedly moved, or are not healing properly. If the x-rays reveal nothing wrong, then it will be another three weeks of healing, before I can start walking again.
So, that puts me at May 5th when I hopefully will be able to start walking again!
No Surgery!
Just got back from the doctor, and surgery wont be necessary! Ill have to wear the boot-o-doom for 6 weeks then I’ll have to learn to walk all over again, but at least its a step (ha ha) forward!
I have pictures and more to write up about the visit, but will do that later tonight.
It too, will pass.
The Dark Mile
Last spring/summer when I started training for the marathon, I had a typical route that took me from my house, across dupont circle and down to the banks of the Potomac where I’d run up to the Jefferson Memorial and then head back home, i often ran it late at night when the weather was cooler and traffic was less burdensome.
A particular stretch along the bank of the river just past the Kennedy Center is rather dimly lit at night. I’d literally be running in near darkness, only able to see a few yards ahead of me. It’d also be about 2-3 miles into the run, and when I was just starting out, that’d be when my initial energy would fade, and I’d start gasping for breath, my footsteps would stumble, and the dark shadows of trees would hang menacingly above me, cold and impersonal. After a while, I came to term it the “dark mile“.
The dark mile was both physically and mentally challenging, because I’d be starting to doubt whether I’d be ready for the marathon, whether I’d have the gumption to do it, if I was running out of steam after only two or three miles, how could I hope to do 26.2?
But I found that if I forced myself to keep going on. I’d pick up a second wind. My body would become accustomed to the pace and my breathing, circulation and rythm would settle down and I’d be able to leave the dark mile behind and continue to finish out my route.
As I became a stronger runner, that dark stretch along the Potomac no longer was the point where I’d start feeling fatigued, but rather, miles later on. But the term stuck. Whenever I was pushing my limits, a new distance, and I found myself struggling, I would remind myself, “this is just your dark mile.. and it too, will pass“. It was a powerful mental tool for me to just keep pushing, even when things seem their worst.
And why do I mention this now? Most of you can probably guess it has something to do with me breaking my foot. I woke up this morning, nearly suffocated with depression and anxeity. My online research on heel bone fractures revealed many stories about long, difficult recoveries, and with Gabe leaving Bishop, I’d be completely on my own.
My mind kept flashing back to that terrifying moment when my foot slipped, seeing the ground rushing up at me, and realizing at the very last split second that I was going to miss the crash pad, then that awful crunching feeling in my right foot, the pain and rage I felt. I felt sick to my stomach. I rolled out of bed and went in the kitchen and had some cereal, but it just made me feel worse.
I felt nearly crushed this morning by feelings about my recovery, and those flashbacks to the accident.
I need to remind myself, this is the dark mile. I need to stay strong and look ahead. It too, will pass.
Broken Foot - Still in Purgatory
I was looking forward to seeing the orthopedic doctor today, I wanted to get the whole diagnosis and the “cure” out of the way so I could start looking forward to being healed.
The ortho doctor came in and after some preliminary questions about how I broke my foot, he said the x-rays from the ER were inconclusive so they’d have to do some of their own, and we’d start by removing the splint. The nurse started cutting the wrap off and I peered over to take a look.
I had expected my foot to look puffy, black and blue and generally all disfigured, but what I was NOT expecting were those huge hideous looking blisters encamped on my ankle. I turned to the nurse with a horrifed expression on my face, and she nodded and said “fracture blisters”, those are quite common with your kind of injury. I pulled out my iPhone to take a picture. I’m not going to post it up here because it’s quite gross, so I’ll just post a link here and you can click at your own peril.
See Timmy’s foot, four days after the incident.
I told the doctor to take care of that thing growing off my ankle, and he’s like “well I can drain it if you’d like, or leave it alone and it’ll pop on its own.” I had a vision of me lying in bed and feeling warm blood running down my leg one night. I locked gazes with the doctor and said “drain it now”.
So the doctor nodded to the nurse who came back with a cart. The doctor sat himself down opposite my foot and took a needle and stared intently on it. He reached forward with the needle, and I swear here, I’ll swear on a stack of bibles, that he just like barely touched it before it split open and dumped a whole gallon of pink fluid on the table. The nurse turned to me and giggled. I made a nauseated face, but I was relieved that it wasn’t painful or anything.
The doctor said they’d do some x-rays on their own, so I was wheeled into the x-ray room where they took a couple snaps and then put me back in the other room to wait for the doctor to come back. Doc comes back and puts up the x-rays and points to some white blob and says “thats your heel bone”, then pointed to some places here and there and said “those are fractures”. I honestly wasn’t seeing anything. He turns to me and says, “We can’t determine enough from this x-ray, so we’ll have to do a CAT scan.”
You just can see the dollar amounts of this whole medical epsiode spinning up crazily. Thank god I have insurance!
So, I’m due for a CAT scan tomorrow, then meeting with the doctor again on Monday, and hopefully we’ll know whether surgery is needed.
Then they fitted me with this big plastic foot brace. I believe Mr. Climbing Narc summarized it up the best - The Boot of Doom.
After the visit to the doctor, Gabe took me to the food store to stock up on a couple weeks worth of food since I’ll be pretty much on my own after he leaves tomorrow to head back to San Fran.
Upon arriving at the food store, I scored myself a sweet little ride, the grocery shopping cart/scooter! And I could putter around the store like the little smug bastard I am, because I HAVE A BROKEN FOOT.
So there are some perks. 
Broken Foot - Adapting
When you have just one good foot to get around on, the stuff you took for the ordinary takes on a whole new appearance. A brisk morning walk of 3 blocks to get your morning cup of coffee becomes a very log walk on crutches. And how do you hold your coffee while using two crutches? I haven’t figured that out yet.
Around the house, I’m now using a Nalgene container to carry around my water. I can use a finger to hold it by the loop while I crutch around. Mabye I’ll have to fabricate some sort of loop to attach to my coffee cup?
I’m also learning how to pee standing up on just one leg. It’s not really the standing part that is the problem, but it seems like the bladder is very reluctant to let go if you’re not completely stable. So I’m standing on one foot, trying to stand very still so I can pee. I know I can sit down to pee, but I’m trying to keep things interesting, and I do enough sitting around already.
Cooking and dishes on one leg also becomes more of an effort. You want to minimize the moving around you have to do, by pulling together everything you need to start with and keeping them within reach.
And today I’ll need to do laundry. The laundry room is in the building next to my cottage, so I think I’ll have to load up my backpack with clothes and the laundry soap, then crutch on out there.
I also wanted to thank all of you who stopped in to comment, either here, or on facebook, or via email. Its really a big help to my spirits to hear from all of you and one thing I also noticed was how many of you told me to keep on taking pictures. I definitely am going to try to do that as soon as I feel more comfortable in crutching around…
I see the doctor today at 2pm. I’m crossing my fingers for no-surgery!
Broken Foot - Day I
I won’t sugarcoat this. Breaking your feet is damn painful.
I headed off to bed loaded up on Vicodin and in spite of that, spent the entire night clutching my blanket and gasping every time my foot sent shooting bolts of pain straight to my brain. And it wasn’t the occasional shot, but a full out, shock-and-awe type bombardment of pain. It finally relented around 5am and I immediately conked out from sheer exhaustation.
The reprieve didn’t last too long, because a hour later, I was jolted out of my sleep by an new barrage of pain. I tossed and turned around for a bit before I gave up and rolled out of bed. I was so fuzzy and worn out from the ordeal, I could not even pull myself up on the crutches. I crawled across my bedroom floor, to the door so I could pull myself up with the doorknob.
That’s when it hit me just how utterly fucked I am with just one good foot.
The pain faded to a dull throb soon after and I was able to hop around the living room a bit, get some work done and actually change my pants without being floored with pain.
I see the orthopedic doctor on Thursday afternoon. I’ll find out then whether I’ll need surgery, or if they can cast the foot and let it heal on its own. I’m really hoping surgery wont be necessary, but from what I saw on the x-rays, its a mess down there.
But then again, what do I know about feet? All I know is that I’ll never take two functional feet for granted again, and that broken feet totally puts a damper on EVERYTHING you try to do during the day.
I can’t wait for this all to be over.