Monday, May 9, 2011

First Aid

I had, over the weekend, cut myself pretty deep in my palm. Though it doesn't hurt as much at I expected, I did however smart like a bitch when I try to drive. Hence I had thought that this would be the best time to give you guys a lesson or two on first aid.

Usually, one would think nothing of the little cut; that is, till I gets infected and you can't do squat about it. I had first learnt about this method of sealing some wounds from some old dude I used to hang out with. I read up about this method later on after he told me, just to make sure, but its been awhile since I read it. The story of it goes something like this, back in the good ol days when war was still cool and one side was fighting but the other was singing about peace and stuff, the army (not ours coz if our army folks get cut they go home crying) had thought of a great idea. If there were cuts and gashes, the field doctors would hold the wound closed and lined the wound with superglue, give them a pat on the back and arm them with BIGGER guns to "go get em". The explanation was that the superglue was so fast in bonding it reduces the time to get the "grunts" to the battlefield. They also mentioned something about it being cleaner compared to stitching. But then again, to these folks, putting mud on your blown off stump of a leg was clean at the time…

Here it goes:


Step1:
Get a wound



Step 2:
Buy superglue, get better ones coz they dry faster


Step 3:
Take the superglue out of its package.


Step 4:
Clean the wound (as per picture on the first step, my hand is nice and spotless for once)


Step 5:
Apply a THIN layer of glue to the wound with it closed (you want to promote the wound to heal) then apply another thin layer around the wound to make it have a protective area.


Completed Project:



Notes:
-If you don't have superglue, then you can use UHU as well. Although it doesn't stick as long as superglue, but you can keep this with you wherever you go unlike superglue that will dry and be pointless after you open it.

-UHU burns more then superglue, but it doesn't mean superglue doesn't hurt so don't be a baby about it.

-At least wash the wound with water first, contrary to popular belief, mud DOES NOT HELP MORON!!


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On another note, if you somehow hurt your back or pulled a muscle while riding or maybe just doing some things I really don't wanna know, its best to be prepared. Ever heard of canned heat? Well don't FUCKIN USE IT!! Instead look for canned ice or ice spray as more popularly known in Malaysia. Once you get your muscle injury, spray it on as soon as you can and sit down some where to rest for at least 15 minutes. Can't find canned ice (like me for a long time)? Go to your nearest convenience store and pick up a cold can of coke, put a cloth around it and apply to your back, when its done, give it to the dude/dudette who helped you, he/she deserves if after having to rub your hairy back.

If you guys are wondering how I know this, its obvious you didn't read the first page (or was it the second???? I don't read it too) I am suffering from serious back issues. Apparently some joint between the pelvic bone and the back bone is kinda screwed, plus, I have a slightly crooked lower spine AND to add some spice to it, have a couple of compressed disks, so I spent quite a lot of time in a hospital trying to "fix" it and that's where the physiotherapist was telling me what to do if my back flared up.











By Vy

Monday, May 2, 2011

Update

Finally, yesterday I had a chance to visit my bike (after 3 weeks of leaving it with a leaky fuel tank). The mission yesterday was get my stuff to the Chop Shop, Jack up the bike and asses the problems and maybe figure out the solutions.

After some errands I had to run in the earlier part of the day, I had gone to a meeting point to wait for my friend who was gonna help me out. Big ups to Shinjite for the help. While waiting, I realized that I had come all the way over and forgot the keys to the chopshop. So, Shinjite bought his lunch and we rolled all the way back to my house again to pick up the keys.

After reaching the chop shop, we found that some monkey decided to use the shops front door as his personal parking space. None the less, we did the polite thing and parked ass up in front of his car. We unloaded the stuff, said hi to the neighboring shop owner and started setting up. Once we got everything in the shop, we had started to scratch our heads on what we had to do. First off, please do not that we are generally normal everyday dudes and precision tools are not cheap in Malaysia, so don't give me shit about using jack stands…. The Malaysian way (or should I say Malaysian rim stealers way) of jacking up a car/bike for long periods of time would be to use bricks. Good thing a great pal (Chooi Leang) had helped me acquire some quite awhile back. Shinjite and I started jacking up the bike with a car jack in the middle and placed bricks on it. After putting the bricks on one side, we realized the exhaust was in the way, so we removed that. Viola!! All jacked up.

We started removing the rear absorbers because we wanted the swingarm to move about freely while we assessed the problem with the misaligned wheel. It looked like a scrambler. Upon staring at the back, we realized that the right side of the swingarm was not straight and that it was jutting out more at an angle. While removing the tyre, we also realized that the left swingarm was moving in and out as we were hammering the shaft out. We will definitely have to do something about that. Missing some tools, I could not remove the swingarm so that will have to be done another time when I get the right wrench size.

So far, we had assessed only the back part of the bike and there are more things to check and figure out. Hopefully I will be able to work on the bike at least once a week. Update you all soon.


By Vy