So I bladed to the school to get in some late night piano practicing. Most of Goleta and Isla Vista was covered by a beautiful fog tonight. I wanted to take pictures of the globe lights on the bike paths and on the buildings as I bladed by.

A slight detour: I practiced piano a bit too much (or maybe too hard) yesterday. Or actually, I think I was just really tense and didn't realize it. Whatever it was, at one point when I hit one of those MOMMA-loud DADOO-big Rachmaninoff chords (it was, incidentally, in a Rachmaninoff piece), I felt a sharp pain shoot up through the arch of my hand and fade half a couple of inches up the forearm. Now, sharp shooting pains are not good in piano (are they good anywhere?). I was stupid at the time: it was the climax of the piece, I didn't want to stop, and I thought maybe I just twisted my hand wrong for a chord or something. I ended up not being able to support my arch much at all throughout the rest of the night. This would have been the right hand.

So anyway, as I was coming back from UCSB, I made a right turn out of the music department. Bad idea. The music department floor is, for whatever reason, extremely smooth and slippery. Add to that the fog and humidity, and it was basically an ice patch. This would have been fine for walking or running but I was on blades. The wheels of the blades get slippery enough with water too. Result was that I turned right, my legs just kept on going straight and totally slipped out from under me, and I bit the ground, almost literally. I didn't really even have time to roll or anything. Imagine my blading along and somebody coming over and just turning me horizontal and dropping me. Ow.

And of course, Murphy's law kicks into effect: I fall on my right side and slam my hand a bit into the pavement. I think it's alright, actually, but why did it have to be the right hand. I had just come out of practice thinking "hmmm, it's still a bit stressed and I get tired/tense easily. probably strained something last night. better take care of WHAM!"

On a similar topic, I GOT NEW BLADES! My old blades have gotten me around for the better part of 4 years. It's comfortable, broken in, and I know all its little quirks. It'll be sad to retire it but it's also getting kind of nasty: there's entirely too much friction in the wheels. You spin the wheels by hand and they stop within a second. I changed the bearings but it didn't help...I think the entire frame and the wheels itself are just too old. Anyway, it'll be nice to blade without so much friction working against me, though I guess that's less exercise...

*UPDATE*:Crap...I think I might have stressed my right wrist a bit falling down. Booger mucus phlegm snot!