Final thoughts on the accident

Okay, this is the last post on this, I promise, but I need to get some final points down before moving on:

• It seems my invoice to the seagull palls in comparison to the emergency room's: The total tab for my visit was $11,082 (!), but my health plan says it's only paying $2,585 of it. Thus, someone has to eat the $8,497 difference, and my health plan assures me that it's not me...

• When I was freshly injured, bandaged and oozing, I was never sure what amazed me more:

• Strangers who would see me and immediately talk to me like we old friends; or

• Strangers who would see me and act like nothing was going on with my face. I would watch their eyes and they would even somehow avoid looking at the wounds.

• About 82% of people had the same initial reaction upon hearing my story: "Oh my God...was the seagull hurt?"

• About 97% of people would barely let me finish my story before they launched into their own story about how they injured themselves (which hardly ever had any connection to faces, bikes or birds). I quickly learned to keep my story short so we could get right to their very important story of stubbing their toe 3 months ago.
  

Tennis ball and bird collide

Tennis Mishap - video powered by Metacafe

I didn't pray over my bird...

Flight of the Conchords - "A Texan Odyssey"

Nice sunset, unfortunate sign

Recovery, but with baggage

My face is healing nicely and it looks like the bird strike will result in just two lingering things:

1. Two small scars where the stitches were: one that is hidden within my eyebrow and one crescent-shaped one on my cheekbone

2. A slight fear of ocean-based critters. Example: I was out in the ocean doing a training swim yesterday morning and saw that there were a pod of about five dolphins about fifty yards ahead of me and directly in the path of where I was heading. Very cool, right? As, I got closer to them, I began to hear their clicking and and screaming in the water. Still cool. When I was about twenty yards from them, I realized that there were actually about ten of them and they didn't seem to be afraid of me. Okay, interesting. When I got to within about ten yards of them, the clicks and screams getting quite loud, I realized that they weren't moving out of the way and I would soon be amongst them. This is where the slight fear kicked in and I decided to turn around and swim in the opposite direction. How lame is that? Most people would love to swim with dolphins once in their life. I guess I will be saving my experience for Sea World.

UPDATE: Maybe it wasn't fear, but instead good instincts

UPDATE #2: Okay, maybe this isn't so funny

JibJab's new thing: Starring You!

You can upload your own head and then place it in a JibJab movie/dance, adding other heads if you want. This is me with Anna Kournikova. Cast yourself in one at www.jibjab.com/starring_you.



Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

My invoice to the seagull

• $100 - Health insurance co-payment for ER
• $2.75 - Lg McDonald's milkshake to reward self for being a good boy in the ER
• $31.43 - First Aid supplies (bandages, goop, beer)
  
• $110 - Replacement bike wheel
• $125 - Replacement sunglasses
• $12 - Book I purchased while browsing online for sunglasses
• $25 - Electric razor (can't shave with normal razor due to scrapes)
• $20 - Health insurance co-payment for Doc to remove stitches
• $18 - Supplement pills to "support tissue health" (my Doc is a quack*)
• $12.43 - More beer

* Need proof? (1) the supplement contains "raw pancreas concentrate" (2) he had no idea what liquid bandages were