soopageek

It's 72 degrees and sunny in Birmingham today. At least the weather is nice. I've been "working" since 7:30 this morning. Aside from a trip to physical therapy this morning, all I've done is sit in front of my laptop all day. I have to stay here in Birmingham on modified duty to receive my worker's compensation benefits. Alabama law allows for me to paid at 66 2/3rds of my regular wages. While this is nice, it really won't take care of my obligations for very long and I am eager to get back to full duty as quickly as possible.

They have me going to physical therapy 3 times per week, in addition to having some exercises to do throughout the day. I'm told that a high ankle sprain can take up to 8 weeks to fully heal. The hopes of the doctor is that in 3 weeks I can be recovered enough, in conjunction with a lace-up, removable support inside my work boot, to perform my normal duties. I'm shooting for two weeks. I heal rather quickly and already the physical therapists have been surprised with how fast I'm healing in terms of range of motion and strength.

I have a roommate bunking with me here at the Hornady Arms. He looks like a younger Burt Reynolds with the personality of John Denver. We'll call him Burt Denver. Burt hurt (and he's curt but has a tendency to blurt) his shoulder 2 days before Christmas and went home for the past couple of months. Still not fully recovered, he's here getting some physical therapy and hoping to be released to return to work on the 16th. We're both sitting here in the lobby of the terminal at a table with our laptops. All weekend he watched a shit-load of movies. He has an old work-boot box filled with DVDs sitting on the dresser in our room. There's some Steven Seagal movie sitting right in the front of it staring at me every morning when I'm getting dressed. The other day he was watching Shane. He snores really really loudly, too. There aren't many reasons to be thankful for having poor hearing, but this is one of them. Oh yeah, and for those of you that actually went back and re-read my entry about my orientation with Hornady a year ago, you might be interested to know that I saw Willie Nelson today at the the terminal. We said hello and talked for a little bit.

I was told that Hornady will pay for a round-trip bus ticket for me to go home if I want, on weekends. It only costs ~$60 more to fly it round trip, so I've already booked a flight out of here next Friday afternoon and plan to take a day off and come back Monday night. It'll be good to get home. I've only been home twice since my birthday at the end of January and both of those times welfy was so busy with her play that it felt like we never got to see each other. This weekend will be filled with lots and lots of hanging out with my best friend and wife. That's a pretty good combination to have, folks. Besides, it's the closest I can get to being home for the greatest holiday of the year. I wasn't able to be home for last month's holiday, but I did hold up my end of the bargain by sending Welf flowers at work the Friday before.

I have this huge craving for huevos rancheros but can't find a Mexican diner anywhere around here that's open for breakfast. Unless I find one this week, I may try my hand at making a ranchero sauce this weekend and fixing them at home.