Yesterday was actually a pretty nice day. It snowed through most of the day, but the weather was warm enough that the snow wasn’t sticking on anyting that had been shovelled. Which meant of course that I was out fairly early in the morning shovelling things clear. There were only two problems. The first is that the meltwater is pooling in the area in front of my garage, because the alley and the area in front of the neighbor’s garage have ice dams where the water wants to drain. The second is that the snow was wet and heavy, and at one point I felt a twinge in my back from heaving it around.
As I’ve found a couple times in the past few years, a twinge in my back while shovelling isn’t a good thing. At the time, it doesn’t hurt much, and I managed to finish all the shovelling, and get some grocery shopping and the day’s work done. But in the evening, my back started to stiffen up. By the time I headed to bed, I was in some real pain, and while I’m still upright and moving around today, I think my weekend is probably going to be spent laying on the couch or floor and reading or watching TV, rather than getting anything done around the house. I definitely won’t be moving any boxes around.
Some days, when I wake up, I don’t feel all that much older than when I was going to college. Today isn’t one of them. Nothing like a bad back to make a guy feel old. And one of these years, I’m going to learn that the shopping trip after feeling the twinge in the back really should include a jumbo bottle of ibuprofen, no matter how much I think I have on hand.
- The Peoples Republic Of Cork has a helpful Corkman’s Guide To Abroad, which explains an awful lot. [holy schmoly]
- KABA (Keep And Bear Arms) Writer Investigated for Questioning Civil Authority. When David Codrea asked San Francisco elected officials if they would ignore lawbreaking other than gay marriages, he got investigated. He’s an “out of the safe” gun-rights activist who’s busy fighting hoplophobia. [endwar]
- A few days back I linked to Papers Please which reminded a reader to send me the links for Terry Bressi’s website, which talks about how he was stopped at an illegal roadblock, and eventually had all charges dropped, as well as Freedom of Travel, which is John Gilmore’s site, covering his fight against the FAA, the TSA, the FBI, Homeland Security and the Attorney General. I also found The Practical Nomad blog, which focuses on the freedom to travel, and has very good coverage of the daily news on the subject.