#49968: — 11/20  at  08:53 PM
PZ, speedy recoveries. I'll spare you the gory details of my 30 foot fall onto concrete and the resultant epidural hematoma.

Get x-rayed. That wrist sounds like it may be fractured. And who knows WHAT your skull looks like.

(appropriately, the spam-protection word below is: survival)

#49969: Rick @ shrimp and grits — 11/20  at  08:55 PM

Seriously though, try not to fall off any more ladders. The pain is supposed to let you know you did something silly so you can learn not to do it again.

Perhaps the lesson I learned when cleaning the vinyl siding of our obscenely tall house would help. Let your wife hold the ladder steady while you do that.

Must have beem a hell of a week - Dilbert "slashdots" your site, then you fall off a ladder. Ow!

#49970: bitchphd — 11/20  at  08:59 PM
Pony, huh?

So PZ sans left hand = libertarian. Interesting.

#49971: — 11/20  at  09:01 PM
We are rock climbers at out house; we know ladders are dangerous! Always build anchors before we head out a window to clean gutters, or on the tree next to the house.
No scary ladders! Glad to hear you escaped relatively unhurt.

#49972: — 11/20  at  09:06 PM

Get x-rayed. That wrist sounds like it may be fractured. And who knows WHAT your skull looks like.

It's OK. They X-rayed PZ's head and found nothing.

#49973: — 11/20  at  09:23 PM
Maybe you should try some voice recognition software for posting...I use one and it's extremely effective once you get over the hurdle of training it (30min at max).

Wishing you a speedy recovery.

#49974: Tom Ames — 11/20  at  09:31 PM
I'm hoping you think to not go too high on buil*ing, to plop off.

No blog homily => no fun.


:(

#49978: — 11/20  at  10:09 PM
So, should we nominate you for a Darwin Award. You didn't kill yourself but you came damn close.

#49980: Ron Sullivan — 11/20  at  10:21 PM
So, should we nominate you for a Darwin Award

Wouldn't count. He's already reproduced. Probably even has insurance.

Cripes, though.

#49981: — 11/20  at  10:28 PM
Ouch! I would definately get the wrist checked out. Having someone hold the ladder is also a good idea. Hope you feel better soon (though I have a feeling you are going to be really sore in the morning).

#49983: krubozumo_nyankoye — 11/20  at  11:00 PM
PZ -
using a ladder to clean gutters is a known pathway to nomination for a Darwin award. Climbers generally avoid the use of ladders and rely instead upon heal hooks and forearm development. Shame on you.

I won't explore this topic much now, you probably would have too much trouble responding in any case using the one hand approach though that should not be too great a constaint. However, as a newbie I do intend to try to attract your attention for several reasons.

The main one is, I like your approach, it is forthright, honest, and informative. I am not a biologist, a geologist. But it is welcoming to have colleagues willing to speak out against the anti-science crowd, if I was not marginalized by remoteness I might well take it up more myself, between tasks.

If you would like to have some photographs of some exotic creatures, I can provide one or two, I happen to be in the Amazon at the moment and I encounter biological forms that are - shall we say - outside the realm of ordinary experience on a fairly regular basis. Not to say I have any idea what the hell they are - no more than you could differentiate manganoan from picro ilmenites. But I assure you the photographic specimens I would provide are purely biological, not minerals.

Actually - I will probably email you direct when the uplink works well enough and bypass this mode of communicating, but I want to go on record in many other respects and hence have reserved a place for myself by registering.

Do not misconstrue the username I have adopted, it is no solely an effort to obscure my identity (though to a certain extent that is necessary due to the proclivities of my employers) but rather to pay tribute to a colleague of mine from west africa. I use his name to memorialize his transition from superstition to science. It is available to anyone.

Finally, since this is my initial post to your blog, atheism. I have had the good fortune to have been an atheist since my first exposure to the so called problem. Few people are brave enough to to pronounce their views clearly. I commend you for your forthrightness. In my own discipline, resorting to the 'goddidit' hypothesis is totally absurd. If we concede the point, then Uri Geller is as viable an exploritionist as I am, let him add some major discoveries to his resume.

Next I would like to address the gene basis for selection that Dawkins has proposed. I am inclined to agree with him, I would be interested to hear arguments to the contrary.

Keep educating, you are doing a good job.
Kindest regards

#49984: — 11/20  at  11:07 PM
PZ, David Heddle just called me and said he drove up to Morris and kicked your ass.

You'll need a better alibi than this icy ladder business.

#49987: — 11/20  at  11:20 PM
There's nothin more terrifying than being a twelve-year old Irish Catholic kid in some strange suburb twelve miles north of Chicago with yer Da who, being an ever-loving and benevolent man, but also a public school teacher who could well make it in an apartment on Washtenaw way back but now painted - and decorated - with yer three brothers an himself for twenty years, looks at you fearfully as you fall from twenty feet up on your first try.

#49988: — 11/20  at  11:27 PM
I hope the recovery is swift and complete. Best wishes. We would be a poorer pack of rabble without you at the helm.

#49992: talapus — 11/21  at  12:06 AM
I wish you a speedy recovery. Nine years ago, I hired a company to install those gutters with covers to keep the leaves out. It was expensive, but I haven't been up a ladder since, and I'm thankful for it.

#49996: — 11/21  at  12:30 AM
A certain segment of the population would of course thank god for breaking their fall and keeping them from getting hurt more badly.

I always wonder why they didn't blame god for allowing them to fall in the first place.

All the credit and none of the blame... that god sure has a sweet deal going.

#49997: Milo Johnson — 11/21  at  12:47 AM
See, here's why you should be a creationist. Then you would know that gravity, too, was "just a theory" and simply a product of the imagination of elitist liberal atheist intellectuals.

#49999: Hank Fox — 11/21  at  02:05 AM
Jeez, PZ, be careful!

If you die, the rest of us will have to gang together and off Pat Robertson, Ken Ham and half a dozen of those other creationist shitheads, just to maintain balance. :D

No kidding, some of us would really be hurt to lose you. It's nice to know there are sane people in the world.

#50006: Republic of Palau — 11/21  at  05:30 AM
Sounds like a good reason for an afternoon on the sofa, with cushions, blanket, beverage and book of your choice.

Sometimes getting older has some advantages.

#50007: — 11/21  at  05:54 AM
Perhaps you should get an intelligently designed ladder.

#50009: — 11/21  at  06:15 AM
Here in the UK, one of those personal injury law firms runs a TV ad about one of their clients whose ladder slipped while he was up it drilling into a wall. According to them he sued successfully on the grounds he wasn't supplied with safe aquipment. The thing is, I watch that and think "There's no way I go up a ladder without making sure the feet are secured. Why did he?" But that's just me...

Take care and get well soon.

#50010: — 11/21  at  07:11 AM
Eleven feet fall is no joke, PZ. "Three hundred people a year die in the USA in simple falls from ladders. Ladders account for about 100 thousand injuries each year. A person falling from any height will accelerate until he hits a fixed object. Statistics show that in a fall of eleven feet or more, 50 percent of victims will die. (OSHA)" Take care, please, who will feed the zebrafish?

#50012: Brent Rasmussen — 11/21  at  07:17 AM
It's times like these when I can lord my two-finger (easily reducible to one-finger) typing skills over PZ that make turning 40 a little more palatable.

Get well soon!

#50016: — 11/21  at  07:56 AM
Before someone says "Stop idling" I want to share some more statistics.

Lifetime Odds of Death Due to Injury, United States, 2002 (Probability = 1/X)

Fall on same level from slipping, tripping, and stumbling, 5,766
Fall involving bed, chair, other furniture, 4,745
Fall on and from stairs and steps, 2,331
Fall on and from ladder or scaffolding, 9,175
Fall from out of or through building or structure, 6,688
Bitten or struck by dog, 206,944
Bitten or struck by other mammals, 49,666
Bitten or stung by nonvenomous insect and other arthropods, 286,537
Bitten or crushed by reptiles, 0
Drowning and submersion in bath-tub, 10,582
Accidental suffocation in bed, 7,318
Inhalation of gastric contents, 10,095
Ignition or melting of nightwear, 286,537
Contact with hot tap-water, 93,125
Contact with venomous snakes and lizards, 1,241,661
Contact with venomous spiders, 372,498
Lightning, 56,439
Cataclysmic storm, 59,127
Legal intervention, 9,700

Note that staying in bed is not less dangerous than falling from a ladder.

#50018: — 11/21  at  08:07 AM
I wish you a speedy recovery! Be glad the wrist isn't wrapped in icy wet leaves!

For next time,I do have a couple of suggestions:

1) Clear debris from under the base of your ladder! And yeah, get anchors for the base, and/or get someone to hold it.

2) Use a long bendy brush to extend your reach. Remember, it's easy enough to sweep up any crud that just falls to the ground.