09.4.2008 | 11:30 am
Years ago, I edited a computer programmer’s magazine (Visual C++ Developers Journal, to which I’m sure all of you subscribed). The publisher was based in California, but I worked remotely, subletting an office from a real estate agent.
Since I worked remotely, I was on the phone almost constantly. Talking to authors. Talking to editors. Talking to layout. Talking to the publisher.
Talking, talking, talking.
Drink Up
At the time, I was training very seriously, and was trying to get down to racing weight (i.e., the weight at which my knees no longer squoosh into my belly on the upstroke).
Now, any time I want to get serious about losing weight, drinking water becomes a huge part of my day. Even at work, I’ll keep a couple water bottles at my desk, drinking one bottle per hour or so.
I’m not absolutely certain why constantly drinking water is so effective at bringing your weight down (also, I’m not interested, so please don’t email me with links to informative articles), but I know that it works.
As I would drink, I would — naturally — need to pee. And I’m not talking about needing to pee once every couple hours. Nor am I talking about needing to pee once per hour. I’m talking about needing to pee pretty much all the time.
I remember, for example, finishing up once, cleaning up, and returning to my seat…and getting the first glimpse of that special "it’s go time" twinge as I sat down.
In fact, I have — more than once — contemplated whether it might be possible, if I were to drink just a smidgen more, to both drink and pee at a constant rate, nonstop.
Someone, please try this and get back to me on how it turns out.
The Importance of Good Planning
I don’t need to tell you that if you’re a habitual water drinker and you’re going to be in ninety-minute meeting, you’ve got to take steps. Specifically:
- Taper off on the drinking an hour before the meeting.
- Go use the restroom just before the meeting, even if you don’t really feel like you need to.
(Mildly creepy aside here: At the time, Dug and I worked in the same office — he worked for the same publishing company as I did — and he was also working hard to be a well-hydrated cyclist. As a result, you could always tell when we both were on the same conference call: we’d both be in the bathroom three minutes before the meeting started.)
Sometimes, though, I forgot. And when that happened, meetings seemed to go longer.
And time seemed to slow. Then stop.
Then reverse itself and go backwards.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with excusing yourself from a meeting for a moment for a "bio break," as we euphemized it.
On the other hand, it feels distinctly awkward when you have to excuse yourself to pee for the third time that hour.
Desperate Measures
And then there was the fateful day where I got a phone call from the president of the company.
It was unexpected, and it was urgent. I put on my headset and settled in.
But, without thinking, I just kept on drinking.
Ten minutes into the call, I realized I had nervously drunk a whole bottle of water since picking up the phone.
Fifteen minutes into the call, I needed to pee. But this wasn’t the kind of call you take a break from. Nosirree.
25 minutes into the call, I needed to pee, bad.
And 35 minutes into the call, I determined it was time to make a new, novel use of one of my water bottles.
I drew the blinds closed, waited until I could tell I wouldn’t need to talk for at least a minute, then put my phone on mute, unscrewed the top of my least-favorite bottle, and made additional preparations, which I shall mercifully not describe here.
I immediately felt three sensations:
- Exquisite relief. I don’t believe I need to explain this sensation, nor why I felt it.
- Strangeness. The knowledge that I was peeing while my boss yelled at me about my inability to ask relevant followup questions in interviews was peculiar, to put it mildly.
- Warmth. The water bottle was — not surprisingly, I suppose — quite warm after I was finished.
Brief Panic
I was then able to return to the business at hand — mainly, being trashed by my employer. But it didn’t seem so bad, anymore. I felt calm. At peace. And above all: relieved.
However, my former employer had more to say. And he did. At length.
By the time he was finished, I had rendered both the bottles on my desk unfit for any use but one from that point forward — and an "X" drawn with a sharpie on each of those bottles made it clear what those bottles were exclusively for.
And as I finished filling the second bottle, I had a new problem.
I was not finished.
At which point I learned something I had always wondered about, but had not — until that moment — tested. Specifically: It is, in fact, possible to stop peeing before you’re done. And the relief, while partial, is still measurable.
I’ll take my Nobel prize money in cash, thanks.
Afterword
To this day, I wonder what I would have done if my boss had not finished his call five minutes later.
Comments (96)
09.2.2008 | 10:51 pm
A Note from Fatty: My sister Jodi (formerly known as the Errorista) has an awesome new blog: Pistols and Popcorn. I recommend it, naturally. Anyway, a couple days ago, Jodi announced she’s forming a Stand Up 2 Cancer team. She’s trying to raise $1000 by this Friday. Please head on over to her Team page and help. Thanks!
In just a few short weeks, I’ll be going to Interbike, for the first time ever.
To prepare, I am getting my best suits cleaned and pressed and have caught up with all the latest tie-tying fashions, so that I may be prepared for any impromptu, semiformal events. to which I may be invited.
Even more importantly, however, I have had my tuxedo (baby blue, indigo velvet trim and cummerbund) let out so that I may be appropriately dressed for my participation in the Interbike Web 2.0 & Social Media Panel.
Yes, that’s right. I will be participating in a panel, and I will be sharing the kind of wisdom that can only be gleaned from a blogger who has built his reputation on fake news and opined on the sublime nature of avocados, clementines, and farts (but not the combination of the three).
Seriously, I really will be part of a panel. And I’m supposed to be able to talk about “What You Need to Know About Web 2.0.” Which means, I guess, that I’d better hurry up and learn what “Web 2.0″ means.
And also, I need to learn whether, in 3+ years of writing this blog, I have learned anything worth sharing.
But first, a shameless appeal. If you’re going to be at Interbike, email me. Let’s meet. And then I’ll give you a Fat Cyclist t-shirt, provided you promise to wear it at the panel I’m speaking at, and cheer wildly whenever I say anything. Especially if it makes a little sense.
Stuff I’ve Learned
Here’s the thing, though. I think I actually have learned a few things while blogging for 3+ years (and am currently violating one of the main things I’ve learned: don’t blog about blogging).
- It helps to have a really specific audience in mind. When I write, I’m generally trying to entertain Bob, Dug, Brad, Rick, and Kenny. I write most of my entries as if it were email to my friends. And then I imagine them writing back, usually with a response like, “This is stupid. Please stop emailing me so often.” And then I’m glad I have a blog, because you’re all much nicer than my friends.
- Cherish your readers: If you’re lucky, some smart and interesting people will find your blog and will start contributing, either with comments or email feedback or whatever. Treat these people like gold. By which I mean: keep them hidden in a vault, and then sell them when market conditions are favorable. Also, maybe try melting and making little figurines out of them.
- Plumbing doesn’t matter. The water running through the plumbing matters. People ask me about what I’ve done to increase my Google juice, to increase my bounce rate, and to otherwise increase my web visibility. My answer is: nothing. Ever. I have a hard time believing that anyone is going to permanently increase their site’s readership through search engine optimization. Eventually, people who share your interests will find and bookmark you, because there are 7,000,240,812 (plus or minus 3) people using the Internet at any given moment. A certain percentage will find you compelling. A larger percentage will find you compelling if you give them free stuff. (Note: In spite of everything I’ve said on this topic, I still get a lot of satisfaction in what happens if you do a straight-up Google search on Rock Racing.)
- Write often. But not too often. Write every weekday. Take the weekends off, and Fridays if you don’t have something extra-compelling to say. Save your best stuff for Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Don’t write multiple posts per day, because your readers will begin to suspect that you don’t have a real life, and they’re probably right.
- If you run out of interesting things to say, ask a question instead. I can’t believe how many times I’ve used this gimmick, nor how well it works. Click here for an example.
- Even if you haven’t run out of interesting things to say, ask questions. It turns out that people like to participate in conversations even more than they like to be lectured to. I know, that’s a weird and new theory, but try it out sometime, both on your website and in real life. Ask what other people think. And then read their responses. Hey, look! You’re no longer speaking, but talking instead!
- Don’t talk about stuff you shouldn’t talk about. If your site isn’t specifically about religion or politics, don’t talk about either. Because — especially if your site is about something (like, for example, bikes) that can be interesting to a wide variety of people, there’s a good chance that folks who had gotten along really well for years and years will start duking it out. Case in point: For the past 3-and-change years, I have not related one particular bike-related story, because it’s impossible to tell without going into religion. So I never tell it. Even though it’s the cause of a really interesting scar I’ve got.
- Use lots of paragraph breaks. I really believe the main reason my blog has more readers than some others is that I have a lot of paragraph breaks. I’m very generous with paragraph breaks, especially considering that I don’t really even know what the rules for paragraph breaks are. I think they have something to do with separating complete thoughts, but I thought that’s what periods are for, too. I do know, however, that if you’ve got more than three sentences without a paragraph break, your paragraph becomes horrifically unwieldy.
- Walls are really good at keeping people out. In real life, I don’t demand ID before I let people talk to me. So, in my blog, I don’t make people register to comment, and I don’t make people try to interpret obfuscated characters. To date, Akismet has caught nearly 700,000 spam comments in my blog, but it’s rare that a human sees one of them.
- People like free stuff. If you want to cheat your way to a large audience, have a contest. If you want to cheat your way to a perpetually large audience, have a lot of contests.
- If you don’t have anything to say, don’t say anything. It’s better to not post than to post that you have nothing to post.
- You’ll get better. At first, it’s hard to write something every day. But it gets easier with practice, just like everything else.
- Don’t be mean. Unless you’re Bike Snob NYC. Then be as mean as you want. But not to me.
Oh, and one more thing. Be sure to include pictures of cats with badly spelled captions. Those things are hilarious.
Actual Objectives
Of course, that’s all stuff you already knew. I just put that in there for filler. The real reason I’m going to participate in this panel is to schmooze. I have certain questions and comments for the other panel participants.
Tim Jackson, Brand Manager: Masi Bicycles
Me: Hey, so how’s it going?
Tim: Fine.
Me: So, can you comp me a Soulville?
Tim: You are the ten millionth person who has asked me that question.
Andy Pemberton, Publisher: VeloNews
Me: Hi, I’m Elden “Fatty” Nelson.
Andy: Why does that name sound familiar?
Me: No reason, I’m sure.
Andy: Hey, waitasec. You’re the jerk that’s always trashing our ads! (Assos, Cannondale, Lew)
Me: Um, it’s all in good fun, though, right? No hard urgghghlelghr (sound of Fatty being punched in the throat).
Rick Vosper, Rick Vosper Marketing Services
Me: Man, you’re one lucky guy.
Rick: How so?
Me: Well, it’s not everyone who gets hired to work at a company that has the same name as that person himself!
Rick: (Says nothing, walks away while shaking head.)
Jonathan Tessler, Editor-in-Chief: Bicycle.net
Me: So, does it burn you up that “bicycle.com” was already taken?
Jonathan: (Punches Fatty in throat.)
I predict I’m going to be extra extra popular at Interbike.
Comments (74)
08.31.2008 | 11:43 pm
Before I begin today’s post, let me defuse it, because while it would be the easiest thing in the world to make this a dramatic and frightening post with a twist ending, that’s only entertaining in the movies.
Anyway, it sure didn’t feel entertaining as I lived it.
So: while it won’t seem like it for a lot of this post, Susan comes out of it OK.
But that doesn’t change the fact that Friday was one scary day for me.
Thursday
Last Thursday, something changed about Susan. She became weaker. Much, much weaker. Where she had been able to get around safely — albeit slowly — with the walker, suddenly her knees started giving out every couple of steps.
Susan never fell, though. She’s learned to be extremely careful in how she gets around, and doesn’t take a step without being certain that should her legs buckle, she can support herself with the walker, a rail, or something else.
She’s learned to not trust her legs, essentially. Consider how different your life would be if you had to think that way. To not be able to assume that when you put weight on your leg, that it would hold.
Susan’s feet have been numb — not entirely paralyzed, but effectively without feeling — for more than a month now, but on Thursday some feeling started coming back.
And it felt a lot like how your legs feel after they’ve been asleep for a long time and now they’re waking up. Buzzy, and painful. Enough to warrant breaking out the Lortab, which Susan doesn’t often do.
Friday
On Friday, Susan could no longer get out of bed by herself. Or get into the car by herself. Or do anything by herself. Her strength had abandoned her completely, in record time.
By coincidence, this was also the same day she had an appointment with her oncologist. It’s a good thing we have the ramp in the garage now, because there’s no way Susan could have made it down the two stairs; she would have been trapped in the house.
The doctor ordered some CT scans, but couldn’t really offer a lot more than sympathy. The fact is, once cancer has entered the spine and brain like they have with Susan, you can radiate, and that’s about it. And we’ve already done that.
There’s a chance, the doctor said, that the symptoms were caused by coming off the Decadron too fast, so Susan should go back on and we’d see if that had any effect.
He didn’t sound hopeful.
So we went to our favorite little Italian restaurant for lunch (La Dolce Vita, for those of you who are familiar with Provo, UT), then came home.
And then Susan slept for the rest of the day. Just slept and slept. She couldn’t stay awake, no matter what.
And I started quietly panicking.
I took care of the kids. I took care of Susan. I didn’t call anyone and ask for help, because I didn’t want to say what I was worried about out loud. But one thought kept running through my head over and over: this is what it’s supposed to be like when the brain tumors come back. This is how it ends, and it’s happening now.
And it’s happening fast.
If you’ve ever been in a situation where you can see disaster coming — like an unavoidable serious car crash or bike crash or whatever — and you’ve had that moment of terrified certainty that you were about to die, you know how I felt, except that’s how I felt the whole afternoon and night.
Later, Susan told me she was sure that’s what was happening too, but she still couldn’t help but sleep.
Saturday
Saturday morning, Susan told me she felt better. She didn’t have the compulsion to sleep. She was able to sit up again. She was able to move around using the walker again — first tentatively, then increasingly confidently.
Just 24 hours back on the Decadron, and Susan had gotten her mobility back. If that’s even what it is. I don’t know for sure. It makes sense, though: Susan went off the Decadron on Wednesday, and Thursday is when she started losing mobility. She went back on it on Friday, and by Saturday she was doing better.
Looks like we need to wean her off the Decadron more slowly next time.
My sense of relief manifested itself in a weird form: home improvements. I mounted a permanent rail in our bathroom, so it’d be easier for Susan to get in, out, up and down.
Susan says it’s one of the nicest things I’ve ever done for her. And it really helps. (And so far, it hasn’t pulled out of the wall, which is really great, considering my general level of handimanitude.)
Looking at this photo, I just noticed that I haven’t cleaned up the sawdust on the floor.
Next, I put in a new hose-style showerhead, making it a lot easier to help Susan get clean:
As an interesting aside, one of the real perks of us both being bald is a really clean, spartan shower. No arrays of bottles of various shampoos and conditioners. No hair clumps. Just two bars of soap (mine’s Dial, hers is Dove) and a razor (mine).
Next up: putting a rail in the shower. I’m not sure how to drill through the tile yet, though. I’ll probably bug Bry about helping me with that; he’s going to regret ever having met me.
Paranoid Tendencies
Like I said, everything’s OK, this time. But this last few days has told me something about myself that I can’t honestly expect to change: I now expect the worst when anything goes wrong with Susan. To tell the truth, I’m still having a hard time believing that she’s OK now; it’s difficult for me to believe that something could actually get better that fast.
It’s like when she had a cold a couple of weeks ago: I was sure the lung tumors were back, even though everyone else in the family (except me) had the exact same cough she did.
I can’t help it: I expect worst-case scenarios all the time now. When I sheepishly told the doctor this, he said, “Well, of course you do.”
And I can’t even begin to describe the relief I’m experiencing at being wrong this time.
Comments (91)
08.31.2008 | 12:51 am
It’s not every Saturday night that I post, but on the other hand, it’s not every Saturday night that I get a photo of someone with the Fat Cyclist clydesdale freshly tattooed on their arm.
Folks, meet TC’s new tattoo:
And he’s even wearing a Fat Cyclist t-shirt for the occasion.
I owe TC $100.00.
PS: TC got ahold of me and told me to make that $100 a donation to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Very cool. You can see that I have made the donation in the scrolling widget on ClydeSteve’s LiveStrong Donation page.
Comments (32)
08.29.2008 | 8:00 am
It’s been a while since I’ve talked about how Susan’s doing. There are a couple of reasons for this, neither of them very good.
The first reason is that how Susan is doing is complex — it’s not as simple as saying, “She’s doing really well” or “she’s not doing so great.”
In some ways, she isn’t doing so great. Something I don’t think I’ve mentioned on this blog, for example, is that the day before I was supposed to go to Leadville, I decided not to go. Susan had fallen, twice. One of the times she fell was against the sharp threshold of the shower, badly bruising her shins and nicking one of those shins.
Now, a nick wouldn’t normally be much of a problem, but remember: Susan’s on coumadin (a blood thinner meant to prevent any more blood clots forming in her legs). She started bleeding profusely, and I was more than mildly freaked out. We got it under control, but I did not want to leave her to go on a trip. And I wouldn’t have, except Susan made me. She said I wasn’t allowed to send her on the guilt trip she’d go on if I didn’t go on my Leadville trip.
So I went, but first I made sure Susan had lots of help.
And even though Susan’s now done with the radiation on her spinal cord, she hasn’t got much of her mobility back. She can get around with a walker in the house, but only slowly, and everywhere else she’s in a wheelchair now. Susan observed last night that there’s no way she could get into any of our friends’ houses now, and going to the book club she likes so much is going to be difficult, too.
In other ways, she’s doing really well: her mind is clear and sharp, which I am incredibly grateful for. The scooter has turned out to be a terrific thing to have; she and I have been taking the girls to school, and that’s really the highlight of my day.
Pills, Pills, Pills
Another piece of great news is that Susan’s made it through her first two-week course of pill-based chemo (Xeloda, if you’re curious). It didn’t go entirely smoothly — after the first few days, the inside of Susan’s mouth developed a painful batch of blisters. So she stopped, let the blisters fade, and then started again with a slightly lower dose — four pills per day instead of five. Since then, the side effects have been manageable.
But the Xeloda is just the tip of the pharmaceutical iceberg. Susan’s now on a huge array of drugs — or, excitingly, is either getting off them or is getting to take a break from them. And what’s striking is that a lot of the drugs you take as part of your fight against cancer are to fight the side effects of your cancer treatment.
Here’s what’s either on the pharmaceutical menu or has recently been on the menu:
- Xeloda: The chemotherapy pill. Having taken this for two weeks, Susan now gets a week off before taking it for another two weeks. There’s no finish line for this kind of chemo; Susan will be taking it indefinitely. This stuff’s expensive — our copay’s about $500 / month.
- Zofran: The Zofran is to combat the nausea the Xeloda otherwise brings on. Susan takes it half an hour before taking the Xeloda. Since she isn’t taking the Xeloda right now, she also doesn’t have to be taking the Zofran.
- Decadron: A steroid used to fight the side effects of the radiation. Susan just finished tapering off the Decadron — you’re not supposed to quit it cold turkey, or you’ll incur serious problems. Susan’s really glad to be done with this, because it weakens her already-weak legs and puffs her face up.
- Prilosec: An over the counter heartburn medication Susan was supposed to take to counter the side effects of the Decadron — upset stomach and even ulcers. Yes, the Prilosec was a medication to counter the side effects of a medication which was used to counter the side effects of the radiation. It’s like a row of dominoes. Now that Susan’s off the Decadron, she’s off the Prilosec, too. Yay!
- Coumadin: A blood thinner to prevent blood clots in her bloodstream, which are a side effect of Susan not being able to move her legs around much. This stuff’s tricky — don’t take enough and it doesn’t do any good. Take too much and it becomes poison. So Susan has to get tested every week to see what her PT levels are (I don’t know what PT stands for), and then her dosage gets altered. Currently, Susan takes a half pill on even days and a full pill on odd days, and the dosing could easily become even more complex than that.
- Seroquel, Ativan: A combination of drugs that help Susan get to sleep, something she’s been unable to do on her own since the tumors got into her brain.
- Lortab: For pain.
This may seem like a lot, but Susan and I are both excited about the fact that — for this week at least — Susan doesn’t have to take any of the first four drugs on that list.
A Brick for Susan
Susan and I continue to be surprised and amazed at the kindness people show us. A couple days ago, Susan got a letter from the Huntsman Cancer Foundation, saying that:
Because of the many donations we have received in honor of Susan Nelson, we would like to have a brick made honoring you. It would be placed along the walkway between the Huntsman Cancer Hospital and Institute. It is a beautiful location, offering sweeping views of the Salt Lake valley.
You may remember that Susan had her hip replaced at the Huntsman Cancer Hostpital, and the treatment she received was nothing short of stunning. So I love that Susan’s being honored there, and I love that people are donating to this really excellent organization.
I expect some of the donations this letter was referring to are from the raffle for the 29″ SS townie done at the Frozen Hog race last February.
Thanks to all of you, again.
MikeRoadie’s Speech
A couple of days ago, MikeRoadie — a frequent commenter on this blog and the guy I’ve been helping raise money for for his LiveStrong Challenge, though we’ve never met in person — emailed me a photo from his speech at the dinner honoring the top fundraisers.
I replied, “Waitasecond. You gave a speech, there? What did you say?” And MikeRoadie — lucky for us — still had his notes, which he sent along.
Since the speech is all about you — the folks who raised $37,500 in the Ibis Silk SL Raffle — I wanted to reprint it for you.
There is an old saying we’ve all heard, “If you want something done right, better do it yourself”. This is especially true when it comes to our mission. No one else is going to provide the funding for life-saving cancer treatments. The government can’t be counted on to do it for us.
It takes an ARMY, and that army has to grow everyday! Sick or well, rich or poor, busy or not; there is something that each one of us can do everyday to spread the message.
I’d like to thank FatCyclist.com and its readers; a thousand of my closest friends, none of whom I have ever met, for making it possible for me to be here tonight. I’ll be riding tomorrow in support of Fatty’s wife, Susan. If you see me on the road, please stop and have your picture taken with me a show of support.
WIN Susan. Live Strong, everybody.
This is my favorite speech, ever, and not just because it’s only one minute long.
And here are a few of those photos MikeRoadie is talking about in his speech:
One thing this cancer battle has done for me: I’m much less of a cynic than I used to be. I see firsthand, over and over, that when people are given a chance to do something good, they jump at it.
Thanks, everyone.
Comments (53)
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