Erythema Multiforme.....say what?

Life has been speeding along lately. Things are happening, work is getting done, trips are being planned. I've been quite busy with work lately which has been fun. It has been very managable with the engineer not choosing to work much past 7pm. I like to think I operate better when I am busy. If I have too much time on my hands I just procrastinate everything. Not that I don't procrastinate a lot of things when I am busy it's just when I have nothing to do, I can even procrastinate things I WANT to do.

My skin has been under attack this month. I got a bad case of Poison Ivy about 3 weeks ago on a night ride out at Chickasaw. Once that cleared up I started getting some other strange rash on my ankles, mid leg, elbows and hands. Trying to self diagnose, I got some cream and hoped it'd go away. It just got worse on my ankles and having it on my hands made normal tasks very frustating so off to the Dermatologist I went. (after much poking from Beth) It turns out I have Erythema Multiforme. What is that you ask.... it translates to "Red Multiformed Rash"... in so many words. It's a mysterious, non-contagious rash that many people get and doctors really have no clear idea what causes it. I was given a whole slew of possible causes, few of which seemed to click with my recent experiences. No worries though, got a shot at the docs office and a prescription for 8 days of steriods. I'm wish I could go compete at the Cyclocross races this weekend since I'm pumped up with the juice....legal juice too! Anyhow, this is probably info no one needs to hear but rashed are like normal life to me. I've been very fortunate the past 10 years or so to only have to deal with the occasional poison ivy. As a kid I had every rash under the sun it seemed. I even had pictures taken once to be put in a medical book based on the rarity of the rash I had. Fun stuff!!
It's strange to me that taking Prednisone actually clears up random, itchy red bumps. Creams I understand....localized medicine; pills are a mystery.

I woke up early today for work and already had the new Radiohead album on my mind. I did some internet searching and found out the online release consists of 160 bit rate DRM free .mp3 files. I admit I was a little bummed that the sample rate wasn't higher, but it is a small step above the itunes rate of 128. I spent many minutes trying to get on the Radiohead site and put my order in. Finally I was able to get in and purchased my copy for 4 pounds ($8). Fair amount I think. I am still holding on the thought that eventually there will be an official CD release of the album in record stores. Hopefully near the first of the new year. I'll definitely be buying that CD with artwork when it comes out. Unfortunately I've been at work all day so I've only been able to preview about 4 of the tracks. I like what I hear so far. It was immediately somewhat calming to listen to some Radiohead that I'd never heard. I'd say the first 4 tracks definitely exhibit enough of the elements I love about Radiohead to get me excited about the release. They seem to have more classic band structure with less keyboard/spacey experimentation. I'm excited to put some more time in listening this weekend.

Beth and I are heading to Oklahoma City tomorrow morning. She has a craft show friday/saturday and we're gonna go a half day early to get settled and check out the night life a bit. We're getting all geared up for the 10 hour drive with some podcasts and audiobooks. We'll have the new Radiohead to listen to as well which will be fun. I'm sure I'll have to listen to the new Interpol atleast twice each way as well. That album just rocks! First album I've bought in a long time that makes me just want to put it in and hit play and just listen to the entire album. No shuffle, no skipping tracks....just great new rock music that doesn't suck.

Last night was another night of bike polo. Once again we had some great games with minimal accidents. We played four 4on4 games where my team was unfortunately shut out every game, or atleast most. We then started our last game to be played to 11 points. About a 1/3 way into the game Sharp's buddy exploded his rear derailleur so unfortunately he was out. Jut decided he needed to head-on and get some good shut eye so we continued our game 3on3. Man what a difference 1 person on each side makes. The entire game dynamic changes with more full on team offense. You don't have the luxury of leavin' a man back for defense. Our team actually seemed to step it up a notch when we went to 3on3 and managed to score some quick points and make the game more competitive. We ended up down to 10 to 7 and finally surrendered the game winning point. I decided to bring along my bike computer this game and get a feel for how many miles a night of polo ends up being. I was suprised to see it say 9.9 miles. 10 miles of riding around a indoor court, that's pretty good! It also showed a 15.5 mph max speed and an average speed of 5.5 mph. Fun tidbits to know. Yuengling has finally made it to mid-TN so a few of the guys enjoyed some beers pre-game and during. Of course cans of Pabst were also on hand as usual.

I'm looking forward to getting out of town for a few days. I hope the show goes well and that Oklahoma ends up being a fun city to visit. I have a full work week next week as well. Monday-Tuesday I am tracking some song demo's for a songwriter named Mark Collie. This should be a fun session. I like Mark's style of going for things full throttle. After that I have a client coming into town from Florida to do some more singing on a jazz/bossanova project. She wants to fix some vocals and then have me remix the songs. I started working with her at the beginning of the year. All the songs have been mixed already, but we will have new vocals to sit in and she may want a slightly different direction for the mixes. It's the new way of working and mixing "in-the-box". You gain the convenience of being able to tweak mixes easily without having to recall a console and outboard gear, but you sometimes can get caught up in the "never done" mentality of too many changes. It has been fun to work on a non-Nashville project though and the band she got to play with her are wonderful players from Rio de Jeneiro.

Unfortunately due to travel I'll be missing the first Nashville cyclocross race this weekend. I've never done one and am curious if I'd enjoy them. I'm thinking about entering the race at Land Between the Lakes next weekend. Maybe it will involve some camping/partying the night before. I need to see who all is going and see if I feel I'm ready for the 25 mile race. I'll have to put some work into my Ventana and make sure it's race worthy. I've been slacking lately and just riding the SS. I finally fixed a cut in my tubeless setup so I hope that patch holds. It will be the first time I've attempted patching a tubeless tire.