12 minutes with Matt....

It’s the morning after and I’m yet to find some sleep. I sat up and thought over everything and somehow, I found myself reading what I’d just written. I’m not even sure how I ended up sitting down here but sure enough, I had words on the screen in front of me. Why I wrote them exactly, is still unclear. Writing, ( I use the term very loosely in my case ) can sometimes help to get the thoughts put into some semblance of order, rather than leave them jumbled up in my squash. I don’t know why I want to put these thoughts up here either. Maybe sharing will make it all go away somehow?

12 minutes with Matt….

I left the car right there in the middle of the intersection. It’s a quiet spot in the evenings, maybe a dozen or so vehicles an hour. There was another car headed right for me, as I ran towards the fallen rider.

Hey, you OK?

There wasn’t any reply from under the bike. I had a CB just like it back in the day, a CB750F to be exact. Picking the bike up myself wasn’t going to be easy I thought, but I moved it off of the guy somehow. I forgot how much extra weight those full fairings can add to the already 500 plus pound machines.

I don’t know if the fuck was said out loud, or if it was contained between my ears. Either way, the sight wasn’t very pretty and worst of all, he was just a kid. Maybe my daughter’s age or just a bit older.

I heard a voice just a few feet away mentioning 911 and I asked him to tell them to hurry. The kid had a pulse and I could feel the quickened pace of his heart, but the blood. All that blood seemingly coming from everywhere. How do we hold so much of it inside us? I wondered.

It was obvious by just the freakishly unnatural shapes, that both of his arms were broken bad. If you try to imagine an arm with three elbows below the natural one, you’ll get an idea of what kind of shape his left forearm was in. The right arm was separated at the shoulder for sure.

You with me kid?

“Matt”

It’s going to be alright Matt, you just hang on son.

“How fucked up am I?”

Is there a right way to answer that question? I’ve said it myself in almost the exact same context twice. Neither of the answers I got, made me feel a whole heck of a lot better.

When I went to loosen his helmet to ease his breathing a bit, I realized that we had another little problem. I not only found out where a lot of the blood was coming from, I was also pretty sure that his neck was broken as well. The first thing I thought of was, one of those bobbing white Chihuahuas in the back window of a low rider. Being a warm evening and coming home from golf, I just had sandals, shorts and a shirt on at the time. I took off my shirt and wrapped it firmly around my hand as I told Matt, this might sting just a little. My fist didn’t quite go into the giant gash between his neck and ear, but the majority of the shirt and three of my digits did. Applying as much pressure as I could, seemed to reduce the bleeding substantially. This was a good thing I thought, as surely he must have lost three quarters of his store by now!

You like Metallica Matt?

“Yeah”

At first despite asking the question, I had no idea why I did. When the other guy turned the key off on the bike so we could talk better, I realized that I couldn’t hear End of the Line anymore.

End of the Line I thought, irony’s a bitch.

We’re out in the country a ways so with the stereo now off, we could hear the sirens in the distance. Help was on its way.

Where were you coming from Matt?

“Dude seriously, it was an epic ride.”

I’ll assume that means the edge of Georgian Bay then, right?

“Yeah”

I told him I rode too and always have. It was a bit of a white lie since I don’t really have a bike right now, but riders talking to riders is just how it’s supposed to work for a rider. I figured it might help sooth the pain.

“Do me a favour?”

Can you picture anyone saying no to that?
Me either.

There was a look between us. It said something for sure, yet was painfully incomplete. Then there was a convulsion in his body. Not violent like an electrical charge, not a mere sigh like on television either.

Matt was still looking me right in the eyes, but that was just Matt’s eyes. The Matt I’d just met, wasn’t hanging around with me anymore.

Through the wound on the side of his neck, there was no more feedback in my hand. The faint message of thumps and ba-dumps had now gone. I used my other hand right at the source, Matt’s heart wasn’t moving. With his upper body and head against my chest, I got no sense of breathing either.

Somebody help!

Paramedics may not know it, but they say the damndest things sometimes.

“Can you keep your hand there for me please sir?”

I’ll give them full marks for trying. I’m positive that if there was anything that they could have done to bring Matt back, they were going to give it their all.

It was hard to let go when they asked me to. I’d just met Matt, literally by accident. Why did I feel like taking my hand off his neck was going to make it all so permanent? It was permanent damn it! Death’s like that right?

“We’d best take a look at that arm of yours now.”

Now who the hell was that cop talking too?

I asked the Paramedics if I could steal one of their towels at the back of the ambulance. I just needed to ‘clean up a little.’

“After we take care of that sir.”

“That” apparently being something on me.

I have no clue how, when or where, maybe it was picking up the bike? But sometime in my 12 minutes with Matt, we were bleeding together.
Ironic, once again.

The prick put 3 stitches in my arm right there. One at each end, and then one in the middle. Just to “hold it together” until the hospital. I drove myself there and as I did, I was saddened by the fact that Matt didn’t rate the siren, high speed trip and flashing lights of the ambulance. I had the feeling that Matt would’ve kind of liked that trip. My next thought was, I would’ve loved to have heard all about it from Matt afterwards.

Eleven stitches, one police report and a couple of sponge baths later and I as it were, was free to go.

They were all there for Matt, of that there was no doubt. There’s just no getting used to the sobs & moans of a mother. You can’t filter them out either. Mom’s have some kind of radar like device that locks on to a son’s heart. It doesn’t have to be their son either, have you noticed that? Moms are really good at that shit!

He could have been me, or I him. Same age and basic body build, same receding hairline. He looked like he understood back pain and the effect that a low pressure system can have on arthritic joints and bones. Yep, he could have been me, or I him.

The hand shake really is a gateway to your soul.

“The police told us what you did for my boy, I wanted to say thanks.”

I don’t know what Matt actually wanted as a favour, when he asked if I could do him one.

His last words were of his love for you and his Mother and he wanted me to tell you, “thank you for everything.”

As the handshake reveals the inner you, a hug will always share your heart.

I hope I did the right thing Matt.
It felt like the right thing to do at the time.

Drop the hourglass of time
Spilling sand we will not find
As we gather here today
We bid farewell...




My sincerest thanks for dropping by....

I spit my last breath at thee....

The rain wasn't what we'd expected.

They'd called for maybe an hour and a half or so but the general concensus was, we were in for a bit of a spring storm.

It rained alright.
Probably from 8:00pm until maybe say 8:30.

What's a half hour right?

In my head, I could see him thinking about taking that corner.

My mind raced immediately to every single time,
I'd ever made that exact decision.

I'd managed to walk away somehow and fortunately for me,
on several occassions.

Chance is a weird phenomenon.

The sensations of the scars that cross my body from side to side and then make their way from nearly head to toe, take a very brief moment to run through my soul before they seem to creep into my very being.

Aches I'd hoped to forget, now seem to control a body too old to fight back.

He never saw the puddle.
He was quite simply....
going too fast.

I think life must have a structure unseen and unknown to those that live it.
Is that weird?

One moment we're on top of the world and the next well....

not so much.

When I scooped up the bulk of his mass in my arms and held his head next to my chest,

"Matt"

is what he said.

It's going to be alright Matt.
You just hang on Son.

It wasn't tell Laura I love her.

No oh where, oh where could my baby be either.

Matt wanted to know one thing right then and I for one from experience, get where his head was at. The problem was, I was the guy that had to answer the question tonight.

"How fucked up am I?"

.
.
.
.

I'm no Doctor, despite the number of times I've played the game.

What I do know is that those two arms don't normally point that way together, the head should probably be able to support itself and the whole bloodletting thing, should probably be left to the TV Vampires and shit like that.

Dude seriously, it was an epic ride.

I held Matt against my chest and pushed deep into the gash along his throat.

I ride you know Matt.
Always have.

There's a convulsion in a dying body right before they go.
Did you know that?

A moment together with a stranger that is counting on you to get a message across to those that he loves... can be an awfully humbling, yet powerful thing.

Wow it's midnight.

I did what I was asked, but honestly I can't help but wonder....
did I do it the way Matt wanted me too?

I met Matt tonight for the first and only time,
then I met his family.

I know that Matt was loved.

I also found out that Matt was 23 and until tonight....

Matt was.

Fuck......

It kills me to say that.

Help on the river....

It can be said that Poker players are ruthless, heartless and notoriously famous for not giving a shit what happened, if they win. I think that's a fair assessment.

On the other hand, you could make a difference to one of us in a world of hurt.

Please stop by and say a quick hey to Lightning and his Mrs.

I for one, can't begin to imagine what they're going through.

Do something good and something good, just may happen to you.

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....

GeeKs 'R' uS....

*Disclaimer ~ With the exception of wanting a good laugh at my expense, the actual geeks out there might just want move on to the next blog on their list.

Everyone out there that's met me knows, I-AM-NOT-A-GEEK! For the record, I'm still OK with that. I do my best to fit in with the crowd where I can, most recently discovering that monitors can in fact be large and slim, rather than the 60 pound baby dinosaur that used to be sitting in front of me. Hell just a few months ago, I even jumped up into the late 80's I think, when DSL service became available around these parts. A seriously HUGE move for this kid!

My geekiness has recently even advanced as far as things called "defrag" and "optimization" tooling. I now feel like I'm really starting to fit in here but good lord, will it ever end?

All kidding aside, the extra time I've spent on this thing of late seemed to have created a bit of an issue. One that I wasn't quite sure how to handle. Of course I run the standard google search and try to solve it on my own, FAIL! I run the installed programs to eliminate the problem, FAIL! I also request the services of a local and supposedly known "uber-geek" to resolve the issue, resulting in UBER-FAIL that I proudly and in my largest ever geeky like voice can say, "man am I glad I backed this thing up before he got here!"

Then I ran across ZOOKS little spiel about some barter work she had done with a neighbour. I read the fun stuff, ('cause she's pretty good at that!) and skim right over the geeknology as always. ('cause she has lots & lots of that apparently) I can't quite say how or why I noticed them but for whatever reason it was, I did.

Two little words that struck a cord somewhere deep into my inner geek.

Malware Bytes

Where had I seen this before and why oh why, did it mean something to me now?

I went back to the top of the post and re-read the thing from the start. What I found out was, those two words didn't really mean anything to me. What meant something was that I was as bad as, (or possibly worse?) than the friends she was describing. The problem I was having, was that I wasn't helping myself! I wasn't learning more, doing more or protecting myself from these issues by just generally doing the right thing and giving a shit.

In these days of disposable anything but income, why the hell would I feel the need to maintain and care for a stupid computer right?

STOOOOOPID IDIOT!

Like I said earlier, I run the security programs and have the timer set to check everything out as often as needed. I never thought anything else of it. The issues I was having, were NOT my fault.

Then I downloaded, (for FREE) and ran Malware Bytes.

To put it into Zooks terms.......

OMGWTF?!??!!

I don't pretend to know squadoosh about actual techno-crap but one things for sure, once I eliminated all the bots, spywares, trojans, stolens and other crap that was seemingly filling this thing to capicity, my 'puter runs goot!

Thanks ZOOKS, YOU ARE THE MAN!
(well, with the exception of all those nice girly parts you have)

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....

Just felt like a Haircut....

So here you go!



There, I feel better.

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....