Where is the mighty Vivisect? (Well Wishes)

[Vivisect]

Hello guys, I missed this place and am happy to be back, and its also nice to hear that there are so many environmentalists (Tree hugging hippies ) concerned about the environmental damage I may have caused.

So before I put peoples minds at ease about any environmental damage I may have caused and about the condition of the bike, I would like to fill in a few minor missing details in Marks awesome retelling of the tale.

Whilst out on his push bicycle down the side of a very steep mountain he was distracted by an unusual rock formation that looked like Princess Leia in a gold bikini. Naturally he was distracted for a moment and the track in front of him completely disappeared only to be replaced by an enormous amount of smooth blueness and silence.

Yes, I was very distracted, and I know most of you would have been also, don't deny it.

Hey thought Bill it feels like I am flying!! I need a flying hat so he whipped out his sewing machine and set about a flying helmet as he hurtled in to great blue yonder. Bill sudenly realised whilst trying to thread his needle that he had in fact cycled off the edge of the cliff and now heading downwards at 150mph. Hummm this is not good... certain dome he thought... but no no no lucky he was saved Hooray.... by a 12 foot very prickly cactus..... fortunately he did not bounce of the side he managed to catch the cactus with his thighs.

For those that may have not known and are wondering what in the hell I was doing carrying around a sewing machine on my bike, I have a sewing machine that pops out of a ring, you know, like the Flash's costume.

He then spent the next few days having large needles removed from his personage...

I pretty much looked like one of those pin cushions that looks like a tomato, I even tuned the same color.

So I spent about a week afterward doing nothing but laying half naked on my stomach with a good portion of my legs, arms, lower back and ass covered in gobs of Neosporin type stuff before even considering getting on a plane to come home. To make matters worse my wife had put one of those plastic covers on the mattress that you use for kids that wet the bed, so I wouldn't ruin her grandmothers mattress. So with all the joy they got out of poking fun at me for that, I am sure I will be hearing about it for sometime.

this was some time ago and since then he has discovered that he damaged his back also.... has been wacked out on pain killers for quite some time.

well I was extremely swollen up, cut and bruised all over and on some pain killers to begin with so the back pain went unnoticed as a separate problem. But unfortunately a few days after getting back home and cutting down on the pills a little bit, the one place that still felt as bad as it did in the beginning was my lower back, so off to the doctor I went.

Anyhow I am feeling quite a bit better now besides the problems with my lower back and having to take these stupid pills. By the way, I don't mean the pills are stupid, I call them "stupid pills" due to other effect they have on me that doesn't involve pain relief.

I would have tried to be on here sooner, but being stuck face down in bed the way I was even after I got home, not to mention the "stupid pills" preventing me from doing much of anything useful for the most part since when they were in full effect I am pretty much retarded or sleeping. But I finally cut down on those a lot now because of reasons I already mentioned, and other side effects like total loss of appetite which made me sleep more due to lack of energy, and the fact that they are extremely addictive and cost a fortune. Anyhow, My wife picked me up some non prescription meds so I can be a bit more productive during the day and they brought back my appetite real fast, though they still make me a little retarded and sleepy.


To be continued........

 

[Vivisect]

Now, before I answer the concerns of those over the shrubberies that may have lost their live during this little incident, I will tell you about my little misadventure.

Now I go on cross country bike trips all the time, and most of the time I go alone. But this trip was different because my wife Nadja, instead of being content to stay home at her grandmothers like she usually does when we go out there, and just worry that I am gonna die out in the middle of nowhere, due to various scenarios she imagines in her head, like starving to death, dieing of dehydration, or a horrible accident involving any number of things up to and including tumbling down a mountainside, my wife decided that she wanted to go with me for a change, so like any intelligent married man, particularly one that would rather be on good terms with his wife after 2-3 days out in the desert , I said " Why yes dear that would be just fabulous".

So, this trip was planned out to be about a 110 mile or so loop done over a few days through the Sonoran Desert, so its hot as hell during the day and there's not often any cover from the sun, and at night it gets very cold, not to mention everywhere that wasn't a chunk of rock was an endless variety of nasty cactus's spaced about a foot or two apart for as far as you can see. Which is why I wasn't really thrilled to be bringing anyone with me since in the past it never worked out well, and I have had to cut some similar trips short. But now I have to say I am very glad she decided to come along because had I crashed while I was alone it would have sucked so much worse, and she talked me into wearing my helmet, which I rarely do. So there's a good chance she's the only reason I am here to write this. She told there was a lesson to be learned here, something about just going along with what ever she wants or some such nonsense.

Now, before I go on, in that seemingly infinite sea of cactus's
I mentioned, my particular favorite one of these is this
guy, the Jumping Cholla, such a pleasant name for a plant.

Here is a close up of one.

And there is also the cousin of that one called, of all things, the Teddy-Bear Cholla.

I would really like to know who the hell named that one. At least the name Jumping Cholla makes it seem like something to avoid, but Teddy-Bear Cholla hardly seems a fitting name.

Anyhow, I will get back to these prick cactus's in a minute.(sorry,couldn't resist )

So we were off on our little trip and all was going well, but seeing as my wife isn't used to riding on steeper and rockier terrain, not to mention that since at the moment my wife isn't covered by a life insurance policy, I was overly concerned with how she was doing on some of the more rocky down hill bits , instead of what I was doing.

Well I let myself get distracted on this one downhill trail, and glanced back at her, and didn't notice a fist sized rock stuck in the ground on the trail, which are hard enough to notice when you are paying attention, since they blend right in with the ground. Well when I hit this rock luckily I wasn't going very fast because I was riding the brakes a bit since I wouldn't want to crash or anything while doing something stupid like looking behind me.

Though, if I hadn't been riding the brakes theres a good chance I would have just skipped on over it and continued on my merry way.

Ok, back to reality again. Well my front wheel hit this rock, and between taping my brakes which are hydraulic, so they were a bit over sensitive due to the heat, and having my front shocks opened up to their full 8" of travel, meant as soon as I hit the rock, my front end dropped down that far as soon as I hit it, and caused me to flip forward into the air, then I went over the handle bars and was thrown off the bike like I was launched by a catapult. Then I hit the ground rolling through all sorts of rocks and cactus's, and some, like that Jumping Cholla, unfortunately let chunks of themselves break off at the slightest touch to be carried along with what ever they touched, not to mention all the small bits that the wind breaks off that end up laying all over the place at the base of these things. So after my quick roll through a couple of those, and this small one that had these really obnoxious hair like thorns that are so thin you don't even feel them stick in you, before I was stopped by a Barrel Cactus, which looks like this.

The one I hit was only about foot wide and a foot and a half tall, but was solid as a rock. I have to say that I am very lucky my helmet and camel pack protected the back of my head and upper back where I hit it because the thorns on those go in all different directions and don't easily come loose from the plant, so luckily that one only got my left shoulder.

I should point out that I did not take the above close up cactus shots, because doing so has never really crossed my mind when I am there seeing as I make dollie clothes, and am not a botanist.

The rest of the pictures you will see are ones I took.

To be continued...

 

[Vivisect]

p.s. for those of you very concerned.. please rest easy his bicycle is fine just bumps and grazes.

Well thank goodness the bike has survived

Yes, the bike survived, as a matter of fact as I was laying on the ground, not willing to try to move yet, the first 2 things I said to my wife were, "How about lighting me a cigarette" and " How is my bike", since I was no longer anywhere near it, and I couldn't see it, but I could hear air leaking from a tire.

Well, she tells me my bike seems fine except for a flat front tire, or so she though, till about half way through that cigarette, the hissing sound suddenly stopped, it turns out the self sealing tube (a necessity in that area) sealed the leak long before the tire was completely flat as if the damn thing was mocking me.

Well my wife finally let me unbox it and gave me a hand putting it back together again recently after she realized there was no chance I was planning on riding it anywhere for quite a while. So for those of you concerned about the poor thing, here is a picture of it taken after it was reassembled, as you can see it survived unscathed.

Anyhow, after the crash the next 2 hours or so were spent getting to some high ground so we could start a fire so her grandfather could actually spot us when he came out to the area we were at in his truck to pick us up. I know it may seem like calling 911 would have been better, but that would have taken twice as long since he was already a lot closer, and we still would have to get to some place they could see us to find us and it would likely had have been some sort of road to get an ambulance out there, unless they used a helicopter to come pick me up, but why waste the trip if there's no way in hell I am getting in one of those things as long as I am still conscious. Anyhow, after getting picked up and a visit to the hospital, you pretty much heard the rest already.

Now, this is the U.S....is the Cactus suing for damages?

Is the cactus OK?

damn man bad news.................i hope that cliff & cactus sue the hell out of him & get free doll clothes for life..................

I believe the cactus is seeking counciling after being to close to Bills trouser region

Now as you will see in the following pictures I took on the trip, its unlikely I did any damage to the cactus populations, not to mention if you chop one of these things up in to 100 pieces, it just becomes a 100 cactus's, so in all reality I just increased the population of them if anything.

As far as being sued, I should probably be suing them and the state of Arizona for violating me the way they did, and I should probably be the one seeking counseling.

 

[Vivisect]

And some more...

That trail in this picture is actually what passes for a "road" out there and actually has a name, but I don't recall what it is, probably another "something" mine road, like most of them. lol

This building out in the middle of nowhere is an emergency water pump house that is pretty much useless since the
water table is loaded arsenic and poisoned from the 150-200 years of copper mining that has been done out there,
so most of these are pretty much used to fill tubs of water for the wandering cattle. It seems odd to me, but I've
been told the free range cattle out there are not going to ever be eaten, but used for leather and such.

Here is one I have run into twice now out there, he is big and mean, and in both instances he had no
intention of letting me pass, which meant going way around him. I took this picture while hiding my ass
behind a large rock because he is fast, as I found out the first time we met.

This the last picture I took before the crash ruined the trip. A great view, but the air is a bit thin up that
high so we ended up having to do a lot of walking to get over this mountain range, and it took forever.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed the pictures, and thank you everyone for your concerns about my well being and such, and as I said before i am glad to be back and I will be updating some threads and answering the last bunch of PM's sometime today.

 

[galactiboy]

Welcome back Vivisect!!! Thanks for the in-depth analysis of your trip

 

[Chakaman]

Glad to have you back Bill. Enjoyed the pictures and felt your pain.

 

[Vivisect]

Your welcome

A lot of it I had already written since a lot of it is pretty much copied and edited response I wrote to an old friend of mine in Wisconsin who emailed me last night asking how my trip went, who actually just happens to be one of the people responsible for one of my shortened trips out there a few years back.

Anyhow I though it may be entertaining.

 

[sithlord13]

Nice to hear you on the mend bill sounds like you were lucky in the end

 

[ProgMatinee]

nice to see you are back Bill! I'm sure you'll be in for a lifetime supply of cactus gifts.

 

[Darth_IMPoor]

Yeah, Bill is back.

Next time you're out there, bust out with the sewing ring, walk right up to that cactus, and prick IT with a needle.....show him what it feels like.

You only missed Dorgs building everything in the SW Universe in 1/6 scale, so basically none of us have anything left to do. We just chillin'.

Welcome back sir!

 

[Crimsonbob]

Im glad your fine m8 and i'd be buggered if i'd go out there on me own your cwazy.

 

[the dude person]

Welcome back Viv!

I enjoyed reading your story! Now I know not to ever going to go biking in Arizona!

I'm so glad the cacti are ok!

Oh, and your bike too.


...oh yeah, and I'm glad you're ok too, I suppose...



You haven't developed any needle phobias from the incident, have you? Then how would you make any more 1/6 clothes!

 

[barryo]

welcome back bill.........the play by play explanation was indeed informative and very descriptive of the hell you went thru.............PLUS.............really the only explanation we would have accepted.......

you're a real stickler for details.......

all kidding aside good to have the master seamster back...........

 

[BHD2]

Great to hear your doing well Bill! Haven't been around here lately and wondered why the e-mails I sent weren't replyed to yet. I thought maybe the Empire came and took you for making fake uniforms. Glad to hear it was only some cactus that stopped your tumble down a hill.

Did you save any of those needles to fasion into the sewing kind?

 

[nash]

seems like the only other terrible thing that you missed happening that day is being bit by a rattlesnake...

 

[Dorgmal Snow]

Ahhhhh so the master has returned...... What is thy bidding.........

 

[Vivisect]

Did you save any of those needles to fasion into the sewing kind?

Damn, I never thought of that.

You haven't developed any needle phobias from the incident, have you? Then how would you make any more 1/6 clothes!

The sort of ironic thing is I have always had serious needle phobias.

seems like the only other terrible thing that you missed happening that day is being bit by a rattlesnake...

That would have just been the icing on the cake.

You only missed Dorgs building everything in the SW Universe in 1/6 scale, so basically none of us have anything left to do. We just chillin'.

Jeez Mark, Save something for everyone else.

Ahhhhh so the master has returned...... What is thy bidding.........

Jeez Mark, Save something for everyone else.



Now to go see what i missed.

 

[Dorgmal Snow]

So good to have you back mate and I love the pics... looks like a fine place!!!!

 

[Wanderer]

Hey Viv glad you're back Are you still planning on making Weequay outfits? Puuuuurlease!

 

[Vivisect]

Thank you.

I see I missed a lot of stuff.