If you looked at the photo you most likely noted that I was wearing a sling, and thereby hangs a tale.

Back in May of 2005 I'd gone to a Jerry Hoffman auction and there were several hundred bicycles. Apparently swiping bikes is a pastime of Des Moines' demi monde, and periodically the evidence crib at the D.M.P.D. gets cleared out. If you live in Des Moines and are missing a bike, don't worry-it'll show up at the auction sooner or later. So there I was, and I saw something that piqued my interest. After a couple of false starts I was the new owner of a Cannondale touring bike for the grand sum of $12. Of course the next step was to put it in shape and start sweating all that winter fat off my middle.

Everything went according to plan until July 19 when I was on my way back from the midway point of a 30 mile run and got lost somewhere back of Saylorville Lake near the Cherry Glen boat landing.

http://www.recreation.gov/detail.cfm?ID=161

As I was on a down hill slope leading into a parking lot I decided a wide sweeping turn was just the ticket to save momentum and then it happened. I ran over a six inch wide fissure in the pavement and down I went. All I can clearly remember was thinking "Damn! This is going to really hurt!" and a loud bang when my head hit the asphalt. I dragged myself under a tree and started trying to see what worked and what didn't. I could move the fingers on my right arm but that was about it. I patched myself up, walked a couple of miles until I found a park ranger and then called my ever patient spouse on the cell phone to come and get me-first time I was ever glad I had a cell phone.

After a bit of patching up and enough painkillers to stun a moderately sized draft horse I learned a couple of weeks later that I had a broken shoulderblade.

That's where the sling came from.