Achilles Update: Crisis = Opportunity

I just had surgery on my Achilles. It was torn up pretty bad, and they used someone else’s to put me back together. So now I’m a bit like my Yaris with Corolla brakes. Or my Z3 with E46 brakes. Or maybe part zombie?

It’s going to be a long recovery. I’m supposed to stay 2 weeks at home and then they’ll take the stitches out and slap a cast on me for 2 weeks. After that I’ll be in a walking boot and start physical therapy. The recovery is about 1 year.

Crisis represents opportunity. Let me tell you about 2 opportunities.

Billiards

Some of my favorite high school memories are playing pool over at Dan’s house. Later, in college, when my parents moved to NYC for a year, we took over their house and installed a pool table. Since then, I’ve always wanted to have a pool table but never had the opportunity. Knowing that I was going to be out of commission for a while, I rearranged my garage and storage shed to accommodate a pool table. I can’t wait until I’m well enough to play. I’m thinking about ways to track my progress as I improve. If you have any ideas, let me know.

Left Footed Driving

I’ve never felt the need to learn left foot braking. The few times I’ve done it (kart or F1 sim rig), it didn’t feel terrible, just awkward. Now that my right leg is out of commission for a while, I’m thinking about left foot driving. Not for HPDE or racing, but just to get to work. My plan is to learn this on my sim rig by swapping the inputs in software. I’ll probably change the spring in the pedal too, as the clutch is kind of heavy.

There are plenty of left foot accelerator pedals on the market. Some of them are bolted into the car, and some are portable. I’m not sure which one I’ll get. Commuting to work is about to get a lot more interesting. These only work with automatic transmissions, so the Z3 is going to be lonely for a while.