DECISIONS, DECISIONS AND INJURIES

So this happened. 

I was trying to get a shot of trees - the ones in the background - and that highly unphotogenic branch made it into every shot, at every angle, at every twist and turn. At some point, I decided to just go with it and see what happened. Well, this happened. 

Now let's talk about my arm. Because when I see this shot now, that branch makes me think of my arm. About a week ago, my bike slipped on a wet patch and I hit the ground hard. The force divided pretty much equally between my arm and my hip, injuring both. 

I can now say, with conviction, that injury proceeds in three distinct stages.

1. shock and awe* 
2. numbness, and
3. interpretation.

Let me focus in on this second stage, the numb stage. It's probably the shortest, or ostensibly the least interesting, the least emotional stage, but it's a critical stage, because this is when the mind starts to tell you a story. The mind naturally gravitates towards storytelling. It wants to find explanations, to impart significance, even when there are none to be had.

While I was waiting for feeling to come back into my arm and leg, so I could basically use them again as appendages and pedal home, my mind began trying out various explanations. Here are some of the more obvious ones: 

1. I was never meant to ride a bike, it wasn't meant to be. 
2. The universe is sending me a sign, and it involves never getting near a bike ever again, and also it prevented me from an even worse fate just around the corner.
3. This is a punishment. For what? I don't know. TBD 
4. And so on.

Most of these fall towards the dramatic end of the rationale spectrum and completely ignore the more mundane explanations: that this was just the natural consequence of the water on a metal surface causing a lack of traction, sufficient to make the wheel glide, and then for me to hit hard ground, etc. I should wet metal surfaces in future. Boring.  

In the middle of these explanations, I realized, that these were all options that I could decide to believe. Or not. The bad part is, I do gravitate towards explanations that involve universal meaning. I don't know if it's human nature or my nature, but it is more emotionally exciting to pick option 2. But that might stop me from getting on a bike ever again. 

So I decided to think of this as an accident without meaning, and to get back on the bike. I have to constantly remind myself of this decision, because again, it's not where my mind naturally goes. 

What I find intriguing is that this is a decision that you can make, while lying semi-prone waiting for feeing in your limbs to return - you can decide how to interpret trauma. 

*lying on the ground until feeling comes back into your extremities

HOW TO EMBED PHOTOS ONTO BLOGGER USING FLICKR

It's 2014 and I just joined Flickr! Yes, that same Flickr, founded 10 years and 87 millions users ago, and now I am totally on board. Why?

Well, for one thing, Flickr can be used to store photos that I can then embed onto this blog. There is a huge debate going on about whether storing photos on Google or Flickr is better, and the reason I hopped on the Flickr train is because Blogger will give me 1 GB of photo storage, Google+ gives me 15 GB, while Flickr will give me 1 Terabyte of completely free storage.  Check my logic: 1GB < 15 GB < 1 TB.* 

With a measly 1 GB of storage using Blogger and undying flames of passion for blogging without ever getting paid, sooner or later I was going to run out of storage. To remedy this, I found that I could store photos on Flickr, and then embed them onto this blog instead. 

To embed a photo is fairly straightforward if you look at the photo above: 

1. Make sure that you are not using the new beta version of Flickr. I tried it and it sucks.** Instead of simply embedding that one photo you wanted, it will unleash a slideshow of all your photos. No one wants that, Flickr. To make sure you are using the old version of Flickr, look at the bottom left of the photo. There should be a white box that says "Try our new photo experience beta." Don't click on that. If that isn't there, then congratulations you're in the new beta Flickr. Get out. Click on the bottom left corner to return to the old version.
2. Next, click on the lower right hand corner box with the arrow icon shown above.
3. Click on "Grab the HTML" code. Click on Html.*** Determine the size you want, and copy the code that appears.
4. Return to Blogger, go to HTML instead of Compose on your post, and paste the code where you want your photo to appear. Your photo should appear under the Compose view, and you're done.

Now, here is a trick I figured out for those shifty types (like myself) who want to store pictures on Flickr, but don't want to make those pictures public on Flickr. See photos below for steps on how to do this.

1. Open up the image on Flickr and select the size you want. Now, right click on the photo and select "Copy Image URL."

2.  Now hit the "Insert Image" icon on Blogger (see below), select "From a URL" and paste the image URL you copied from Flickr. The image should appear and show up on your post.  Done.

* In the name of honesty, I also chose Flickr storage over, say, Photo Bucket, because I'm already trolling around Flickr and this wouldn't add too much time to my virtual commute. 

** It took precious hours of my life to figure out that the "slideshow" problem that was making me cry tears of blood was due to a feature of the new beta Flickr, and that to solve it, I only needed to go back to the old one. If nothing else, this warning should save hours of people's lives.
*** Correction: Click on HTML, not embed. Embed will give you a slideshow. HTML will just embed that one photo.