Several Years ago I first took my old Convertible sports car onto Buttonwillow Raceway.  I realized very quickly that part of me that had been sleeping for most of my life.  Even though the M3 Convertible was really not suited for what I was doing with it, and my driving skills were in their infancy, I had found a second home.

If you have never been up close to a race-car or a bunch of race cars that have just been driving all-out on a racetrack, it’s quite an expereince.  There are some ambient elements that don’t come through with words on a blog.  The sounds and smells are intense.  The sweet odors of freshly burned 100 octane, …and burned up R-Comp Tires (Racing Compound), along with constantly climbing exhaust notes (Each motor and Exhaust design seems to have its own exclusive melody).  You’ll come upon folks that have been doing it for years.  They’ll be the guys trailering their fully race-prepped, non-street-legal cars.  They’ll have boxes of extra gear that they have with them or off-load at the track.  Anything from spare parts, tools, to coolers for drinks on a hot day, sunscreen.  The list goes on.  Always best to be prepared out there.

Anyway, back to the M3 Convertible.  While the M3 Convertible was a great car for freeway cruisin’ or backroads drivin’, it just wasn’t well suited for the track.  And, unfortunately, since my torso was so damned tall, with the top down and my helmet on, the top of my helmet would actually stick out OVER the top of the roofline!  Now, if you don’t understand how bad this could be, look at the picture to the right and imagine the car flipped over upside down.

There were also other problems with the car.  While the car came with basic rollover protection, it did NOT have a true motorsport roll bar, let alone a true 8pt motorsports cage.  No fire safety equipment.  Due to the car being a convertible, the chassis did not have the rigidity that would be required as I became a better driver.  So, even if I wanted to improve things, it became clear that this wasn’t the right car (sad, but true).

So, I sold the car, and eventually ended up with a 1997 M3 Coupe (hardtop).  By this time, I had realized the error of my ways (safety had to come first).   And on June 21st of this year (2008), all of my planning on this currrent car was realized when an idiot driver not paying attention slammed into me at around 80mph at Thunderhill Raceway.

The damage to the car is sad, and while it’s a lot of damage, it’s repairable (back to perfect working order).

Me, however… My MRI shows that my back is in less than perfect condition.  The final finding for the MRI (after a lot of very worrisome details) was this:

Findings: Central and right paracentral disc protrusions L2-L3 through L5-S1, likely compressing the associated nerve roots at L4 and L5 levels.  Moderate foraminal narrowing bilaterally.

Now, if you’ve never had a nerve pinched in your back, this is what happened the evening of june 21st as I was walking back from having dinner with some of my track buddies.  I can’t compare it to child birth pain since I will never experience that, but it was definitely the worst pain I have ever experienced before.  I have had pinched nerves before, but I think due to some swelling in my back due to the collission, the nerve pinching that day was inevitable.  In the past when I’ve had a pinched nerve in my back, I’ve been able to lay down (which I did), then eventually get up (which I did), limped myself up to the hotel room, and woke Anna up so she could move over and let me lay down (my new home for the rest of the evening).

Very late that night, I had go get up to go to the bathroom, and I assumed by then that my back had calmed down.  I should have taken more note that when I slowly moved to a standing position that ther was still considerable pressure on my spine.  Naked, I slowly hobbled to the hotel bathroom, and fearfully planted myself on the toilet.  Just as I had finished a very short round of #2, I felt the spasm start to creep back into my lower back.  Psyhologically speaking, this is horrifying.  The only thing I know to do is lay down flat on the ground, but… I haven’t wiped and if you’re familar with most hotel bathrooms near racetracks, the floorspace in those bathrooms is not exactly well suited to a 6′2″ guy trying to lay completely flat in there.

My back starts to spasm.

I quickly try to move myself into a semi-flat position on the floor, but this ends up prolonging the spasm.  In short, the first position I end up in is… my head is near the edge of the tub and the wall, and my legs are between the toilet and the wall… the wall that leads to the door that goes out of the bathroom.  This is tough to visualize, but in short, I couldn’t get my right leg into a position where the spasm would stop.  I ended up trying to use my arms to help straighten my back, and meanwhile grabbing onto any loose flesh on my body to create pain somewhere else to take my mind away from the spasms piericing up and down my back.  After several nightmarish minutes of pain, my back finally calmed down.  But it wasn’t over.  I still had to get my right leg out that bathroom door to extend it, and to do that, I’d first have to bright the right leg closer to my torso.

This ended up making my back spasm again for several more minutes, but I was able to get the leg out the door (finally).

After my back finally calmed down again, I was able to through several minutes, finally rock myself carefully into a ‘crawling on the floor’ position, and this was the way I came back to bed.

The next morning, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.  I was thinking I might try to drive the truck (with trailer on back with wrecked race car on back, badly loaded), but when simply walking out from the hotel to the truck was enough to make me have to lay down on the 100 degree parking lot black top, I knew that wasn’t going to work.  So, Anna’s first experience of driving this truck with this car on the trailer would be on this day.  I managed my way into the passenger’s seat, and we propped it back as far as it would go.

On the way back, we stopped at a restaurant to grab some lunch.  The walk from where we had to park the truck (because of the trailer) to the restaurant was probably 40 yards.  This time i made it into the place, but by the time I sat down in the booth, I was hurting pretty good.  I had to hold my back straight while eating, which was tough to do in that kind of booth.

Once we got back into town, we brought the trailer and car back to the trailer yard (unsure of the fate of the race car), and covered it up.  We then drove over to the Camino Medical Urgent Care Center.  This sounds like an ER name, but it’s just the name they give to a place you can go without an appointment that is not an emergency.   The Doctor there took some Xrays which came back normal (that’s a good sign at least).  Next, she had me siting upright (I could feel the pressure on my spine), and she performed that standard old knee reflex test with the reflex hammer.

Left Knee: check. (great reaction)
Right Knee….. uh……Right Knee?  Hello?  Hello Right?  Ben to Right Knee?

The right knee was showing little to no reaction.

This greatly concerned the docor since she suspected either nerve damage or swelling around the nerves, the former of which could need immediate care.  So, they ambulanced me over to the Camino Hospital, and Anna followed in the truck (I haven’t been to an emergency room in YEARS).  The two ambulance dudes were great (both very nice guys, friendly, caring).  Once we got over to the ER, and the folks that got me immediately setup in a room realized I wasn’t about to die, I think I was placed pretty low on the totem pole of priorities.  In any event, the doctor eventually did come in and due a simliar kind of test to my knees.  However, when he did, he had me laying flat on my back (no pressure on the spine).  So, this time, the reaction on both knees was normal.  I guess this was good since to me, this at least meant that the nerves were at least partially intact, and it probably just meant that there was swelling in the area from the accident.  They HAD been talking about getting me an MRI before that, but after that, they decided to send me on my way and have me FIRST go see my primary care doctor (what a pita that all was).

They eventually gave me a very painful shot in the butt, and prescriptions for Valium and Vicodin.  I spent the next week mostly on my back, icing, ibuprofening, with a litle pain killer at the beginning.

So, now, I’m up and able to walk around, but its not like it was before the accident.  My back seems fragile and more susceptible to fatigure and pressure.  I have an appointment on july 18th with the Camino Medical Department of Physiatry.

Some folks may ready this and say “See!  Racing cars is a dangerous sport!”, but even now, as I write this, this is not the message I would wish anyone to draw from this.  The reason I’m here today, the reason I’m sitting here typing this blog is because I stuck to a very specific design philosophy when planning out that race-car.

Safety First.

1. I had a Hans Device on at the time of the impact
2. I was in a Racing Seat with Head Protection.
3. I was using properly secured 5-pt Harnesses (seat belts).
4. I had a well built 8-point Roll Cage
5. I started with a car that was known to be well built (good crumple zones)

The part that I’m struggling with is my future.  Doctors will likely tell me:
“Racing is a hazardous sport, and your back isn’t in great shape, we would encourage you to give it up.

My heart tells me
“If you can do it, and you’re physically able, get that car fixed, and get your ass back out there!’.

But, I know, in my heart, that if I take another impact like that, that it may even more severely affect me and the rest of my life (sigh).  At least, I have that feeling (I’m not a doctor).  And that’s where my mind is at.

Every once in a while, I take a closer look at the many interesting ways I manage to screw my life up and hold those experiences up to a magnifying glass, looking for some crumb of evidence that I’m doing something right, but more often find that I’m not. I just want to make my life better. There are those that look up at the stars and dream and hope. Hope is nice. It is what I hang onto when I’ve done all I can do and everything hangs by it. However, until that moment comes when all of my efforts have been exhausted I usually end-up turning my world upside down. You can’t change others(which I have found to be an ultimate truth in the universe) nor should you try! (unless they come looking for guidance, and sometimes not even then). So, you might as well start fixing things right under your nose.

Lately, I”ve been reflecting a lot about my choice and or willingness of myself to bend to the will of other people; To be the one to change, to ‘give in’ to the things that I am not willing or wasn’t willing to put up with or to be a part of in the first place. Often times during heated discussions and arguments, I’m reminded that I’m not as flexible as I used to be. So, I find myself reflecting on those moments even after much time has passed, looking at the way I acted, the choices I’ve made, and looking for a path through the issue that might have resulted in everyone ending-up happy, or in the very least, happier. Sometimes that is and was possible, and sometimes it wasn’t. The point is, I’m a thinker. I spend a lot of time thinking about people’s feelings, thinking about how the way I acted or didn’t act might have affected their lives.. and hell, my own life too! It doesn’t even matter sometimes if the other person totally screwed up and went off on me like a 5th grader, I still reflect on it, and you still feel it long after their words are gone.

I’ve carried this weight of ‘over thinking about others’ feelings’ on my shoulders for a very long time. I’m not sure why I’ve been carrying it. I think part of it is because I want people to be happy, and I want them to have what they want to have, many times before I have what I want. Its just part of who I am. So, do I bend? Do I give up what I want so they can have what they want? Sometimes… okay, probably more than I should. Well, at least I used to. So, something must have changed at some point.

I know I wasn’t always this way, I wasn’t always as inflexible as I have become. There was a time when I was younger that I used to bend all the time, and what I found was that generally other people would walk all over me, and i would rarely get what I wanted. Even after I took a great college level writing class, and my ability to persuade people increased dramatically, I still found that many folks didn’t want to be persuaded (i.e. words were not enough, even good words and sound reasoning). Some people just want to have their way.

Looking back now, I can see that I made it a mission in my life to stand up to people like that in my own way. It was an active choice, to ‘not’ be a reed in the wind to people like this, to ‘not’ be swayed by people who would not sway, that is unless they decided to become more flexbile in their own views for the issue at hand. It didn’t always mean that straight out Mortal Kombat was necessary, but often times just reflecting back at them their own rigidness would be enough to spark the beginning of change. Sometimes, it would lead to disaster.

So, For myself, I would ponder “Is worth it to stand up for a friend when nobody else would, even if it meant some of the other folks you thought were friends would ostracize you, or standby silently, only to not call or message you as often if it all, or even ridicule you publicly for your actions, separating themselves from you.

It is. However, it doesn’t make the suffering any less painful.

This thinking reminds me of my old friend Bob Delaney. He had a girlfriend at the time whose name I now do not recall (blame: topamax/age). She claimed to be able to tell a lot about a person by simply touching them. The very first time I met her, she simply asked to and held my hands, and one of the things she told me was, “Ben, you have a good heart, a very good heart…but bare in mind, due to your compassion and feeling for others, you will endure a difficult and painful life. ”

So, Is this what she was talking about? When I stick up for folks I call friends, and everyone else hangs their heads low, and shuns me for doing it, …is this was she was talking about?

This idea is one that has kept me up at night. When I help those I care about by sticking up for them, and I see friends sit by, …acting indifferent to the suffering of others around them, what am I to do about that?. …However, ya know? it’s not really indifference. They see it…. They see the suffering! They complain about the suffering! Yet, when the time comes for action, to rise up and do something to fix the problem, they sit idley by and hang their heads low, hoping that nobody else will notice their inaction, and that someone else will fix the problem and take the crap that comes with being the one to rock the boat, and not only that, they will attempt to silence the one trying to fix the problem in hopes of claiming the right of the ‘peace-keeper’ and somehow becoming a hero.

These people act like friends, but in every reality, they are something else.

I have good friends, and for those I am very thankful.

I’m left asking myself, what needs to change in me:
-If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.
(be more aware of this, e.g. trust your instincts)
-Establish friendships with individuals
(not groups)
-Try to keep to your age group for friendship.
(younger folks are immature just like you were)
-Don’t trust unconditionally, and give full trust more slowly.
(I tend to trust too much too soon)

Other than that, I fully intend to keep on standing up for my friends. It’s just part of who I am, for better or for worse.

(this post started before Anna and I were married) Family. What is a family? How do you deFINE family?? Well, That’s become a very repetitive question for me lately, one that I keep coming back to, even after I’ve answered it, even after I thought I had pretty much nailed it down and secured the defintion into a Jack Bauer style holding cell, and since I’m writing in my blog (Anna, use right hand and secure jaw back to head), something must be not right, ..either about how I defined it, or in how I expected others to act with their definitions of it, or in how they defined it, or (sigh) ..SOMETHING!

Lets start with the activity that I had been building up in my head and heart for a long time, watching those wedding shows with Anna, seeing all of those TV shows growing up, with a room full of people, and both families there, everyone there ready to wish the new couple a prosperous journey as they start a new life together as a married couple, as a family. But!…I already knew our version was going to be different.

My mother hasn’t been a part of my life since my parents divorced (I was 6). I used to really take this personally growing up, to wonder why, try to rationalize, … and when I was nineteen, I sat her down and explained that I was forcefully removing any chip on my shoulder that she had placed there for me by not being a part of my life growing up.

However, after hearing recently from my sister, that she did something similar (10 years later), I’ve realized (many years ago in fact) that it has nothing to do with me, ..it has to do ..had to do with her. Based on the conversations with my sister, my biological mother, Louise, just doesn’t take her responsibilities seriously, even responsibilities of the heart (Family). She has played the largest role in doing damage to every brother and sister that she has tried to parent. At some point, someone nearer to her (I have not been) needed to remove her from power. She just doesn’t ‘do that’ well. It should be like any job, you do it bad enough, you get fired.

What I’m getting at….even with all my ‘after the fact effort’, she had a place in shaping the man I have become …. especially with how I deal with those that hurt me, and in that respect, I have spent many years undoing the damage she imposed all those years ago. I have come to a happy medium, and have found peace with it, choosing who I keep around me, giving the worthwhile folks second chances. I hear that she’s nearly on her death bed, she suffers from diabetes (the bad type), and general bad health from years of being over weight, not exercising, and not taking care of herself (or others for that matter, see also: family). While this saddens me, and it does, it’s not the same as if I had a working relationship with her for years. It’s more like a stranger is on her death bed. And, while I don’t wish anyone ill will, I don’t tend to go out of my way for family that doesn’t tend to do the same. Some may call this a fault, others may totally understand this, but it is my choice to make. Ironically, she is most likely the person that has most shaped me in this regard. …but back to the point…

When it came to if my Mother would be coming to any wedding that Anna and I might have, ……no, …. I would not be inviting her.

Then, there is my Dad.

I love my Dad. I have loved him my whole life, and have talked about him with love, …telling people that while I might have been unlucky in the ‘mother department’ growing up, ..at least I had a dad that made up for it, and he did. He is the guy that I have aspired to be for many years. He has been a guiding light for me, about what is right and wrong, how to make good choices in life, you name it. I have many fond memories when I think of my dad. Him, helping me to learn how to play T-Ball, ..helping to coach the team, even if we weren’t often the winning team. Him, helping me with my homework. Him, coming to my band shows (I Played the trumpet, haven’t picked it up in years, until recently when Cassidy started to express interest in music, so I showed it to her). He has been there for me, and while i have played the role of kid (not perfect, making mistakes along the way, etc), I am grateful, and I have shown it. There has been something missing for quite a few years, and I only started to realize it in the last few years. My dad really didn’t have any interest in me, and it showed. Any time we talked, I would ask how things were going with him, and that’s what we would talk about, him, his life, his work, and that was it. It was odd, since he always prized himself on how good a listener he was, and I’m sure, even now, he would argue this point (and that’s okay, I expect that from him, even now).

Now, it’s not fair for me to say that my hands are clean in this matter. I have never been good at calling family on the phone on a regular basis. This comes as what should be a simple thing, but… it isn’t. The reason it isn’t, is because, my sense of ‘family’ has been screwed up for years. But, that story wont’ come around until the next post I think (we’ll see, putting all of that into a tangible, linear story may be more difficult than I think it will, fingers crossed). In any event, I don’t’ expect that Gary understood this, at least, he didn’t take the time to.

In any event, at least as far as the cell phone calls from Gary, about to board his flights, there’s only so much one-sidedness that anyone can take before they become disgusted, and grow weary of the lack of interest from the other party. For me, it took quite a while, probably because I couldn’t help but think of all of the energy and love my Dad has put forth in raising me, I mean… talk about a labor of love. My dad thinks I don’t understand this, and he’s wrong, and again, he’ll argue this with me, and that’s okay, we don’t’ have to agree on this.

I feel that my father, Gary, views me as he did when I was in my teens, and that he still feels the need to guide me as if I was in my teens, and that if I do something that he doesn’t like, that he feels the need to scold me as if I were in my teens, living at home with him.

Kandy, his wife, came to visit several months ago. During this visit, she was the Kandy that I’ve really grown not to like. The one that acts just like her mother does, judgmental, serve me, act interested in my life, but its not important if i’m not interested in your life. I’m not going to go into the full details of her visit, but in short, during her visit, she pushed too far. Once she had gone, I wrote her a letter, and I included my father. In the end, my father wrote me a letter back, and rather than get the introspective answer I was looking for, I got judgmental asshole Gary.

See, during my adult life, Gary and I haven’t argued, or if we did, I don’t remember it. I’m not sure that Gary knew how to respond to me not being thrilled about him and his wife, it certainly didn’t seem that way. In short, the letter back from him made every effort to be ‘blunt’ and cut me to shreads (he knew what he was doing). He knew that I would likely not want to have anything to do with him after this.

He made claims about my life and my behavior (after not having been a part of it for years). Most of it was completely incorrect, and also questioned the way that we parent Cassidy (after having spent minutes with her). so, in short, Gary? you knew it was coming, you knew it was an asshole move to write a letter like that, but…. you still did it. This….. was your move of compassion (they’ve been Buddhist for a while now)

I had a choice before me, forgive, … let it go, and act like everything was okay. Or push away. I chose the latter. I really don’t have space in my life for people that want to act like that. I don’t care who you are. If you want to be an asshole, find some other place to do it. Find someone else to do it with, there are plenty of takers, ….just not me.

So, would my dad and Kandy be coming to the wedding? No, they would not be coming to the wedding.

So, this left me with a really tough decision. My side of the family (some sisters up north), wouldn’t probably not come to any wedding we had in California, and I knew that Anna had plenty of folks that would come to a wedding here. I wanted her to be happy, I wanted her to have a wedding that she wanted, but how do you do that when … when my family is so screwed up.

Anna, this is why it took me so long to get the plan rolling in the first place. I finally worked up the courage to just be completely frank with your, and talk to you about all of the the things here, and how I wasn’t sure what to do about it, but that I knew what I wanted to get married.

I was …so…relieved that you were okay with going downtown and getting married in a civil ceremony. But, even now, when I see commercials that come on tv, that show these lavish weddings, with tons of friends and family members, and people all dressed up, …I can’t help but wonder if did us a true service. I never want to live with regret, …but living with a screwed up family, … a mother that lead me to be know what I am willing to put up with has narrowed my list of friends down to a shorter list. I know what I have is a gift, Anna, Cassidy, they’re both gifts, and I cherish them, … I guess, I just wish things could have been better, but this is one of the things I can’t change. I can’t change that Gary and Kandy have become overly judgemental as they’ve grown older. And I can’t change that name Louise is just a word to me (supposed to mean “mother”).

So, where do I go from here? (sigh) ….

(Bob Seger ) Turn the Page.

I just wanted to say thanks to Anna for upgrading me from Spam Ridden B2 BLogger to WordPress. I may actually start posting now that I know I can control the evil spammers! Die Spammers, DIE!

Anyway, thank you honey!

in too long

clearly Space travel can’t be safe if they have this many problems on the ground.

and like that, it was over
Game Release: November 16th 2004 12am
…4:09pm, November 21st, 2004, game complete…, now WHAT? (sigh, back to City of Heroes)

..that when you do a google for “Benjamin Hirsch BMW” and the first hit is a link to Speed Ventures Results for an OpenTrack event I did quite some time ago with my old M3. Guess it’s just a testament to some of the things I Love. …hehe, testmament, how’s THAT for religion?!

Valve and Vivendi publishing finallly kissed and made up, and at last, I can play Half-Life 2. This game plays a lot like the Original, so, if you liked that game, you’re going to like this one. The textures are very high detail, and most everything in the world is interactive (you can pickup bottles and cans and throw them out your enemies, granted, you’ll die, but hey, it’s part of the fun). I’m only like an hour into it, playing it on the middle difficulty setting to keep myself on my toes. more soon!

LCD’s? Nahh man! nowadays it’s the shallow CRT
Samsung develops 35cm-deep CRT Computer Monitors

Era of the electronic wallet
Scenario: You’re out with eight of your best friends at a local restaraunt. The bill comes, every one reaches for their wallets, including you, only to realize you’re outta cash. Do you take everyone’s money and pay with a credit card? NO You pull out your i-mode FeliCa hand-set and finally avoid getting stiffed!