[Edit: The following was mainly written twofour weeks ago... I ain'tain't changing it now]
The words of the day are ultimate and failure... And careened as in: I wrote careened1 into a post.2
Today was the first day I used my Velo card. I only wanted to go from my apartment to my bus stop and I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those damn kids an unfortunate confluence of events.
Just before I crossed the tram lines, my pedals lost tension. I froze, thinking I slid on the rails. Then the front tyre did slip into the rail. Naturally, the direction of the rails was contrary to my original course, so over/down I went... Shoulder first into a conveniently placed 5-by-5 soft sturdy wooden post at the edge of the footpath. You know, one of those things that is supposed to protect cars from belligerent pedestrians.
As I carreened into the post, I thought,"only one of us could walk away..."3 My finely sculpted shoulder and its newfound friend, momentum, broke me my first wooden block. And all I got was a 6" red mark along my shoulder.4
As I carreened into the post, I thought,"only one of us could walk away..."3 My finely sculpted shoulder and its newfound friend, momentum, broke me my first wooden block. And all I got was a 6" red mark along my shoulder.4
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1According to the Dictionary app on my Mac the definition is:
to move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way in a specified direction : an electric golf cart careened around the corner. [ORIGIN: influenced by the verb careeri.]
3OK.. it was more like:"Shi-!"
4The crumple zones featured in smaller cars dissipate oodles of kinetic energy, instead of you getting crumpled. As far as I can figure, I wasn't in danger of breaking anything [Click here for the calculations], but the fact that something broke certainly made things easier on me :)
4The crumple zones featured in smaller cars dissipate oodles of kinetic energy, instead of you getting crumpled. As far as I can figure, I wasn't in danger of breaking anything [Click here for the calculations], but the fact that something broke certainly made things easier on me :)
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iThe verb career is "to move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way in a specified direction", not to be confused with career the noun,"an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person's life and with opportunities for progress."
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