Ladre's Letters

The MILF and the Shire folk

2010-10-05T22:19:00.000-07:00

So, we're back from New Zealand. It was a great trip all around. We spent the first 5 days on the North Island, staying with Ashley's brother Simeon and his wife Maggie. They were great hosts and we had a really nice time with them. One of the highlights of the time on the North Island was our trip to Hobbiton, which as you have most certainly guessed, was where they filmed the parts of the Lord of the Rings that happen in the Shire. Well, at least the outside parts, the inside parts were filmed off site. They had torn down parts of the set, but then left some of it up as a lot of people wanted to tour it. Now they are rebuilding the set for use in The Hobbit! How exciting is that?!?!?! Becca was so excited that she asked me what they were rebuilding for, I told her "The Hobbit," and she proceeded to ask "What's that?" I laughed too much at that, our tour guide asked what was so funny, and when I told her she just shook her head. :)

We were allowed to take pictures, but can't post them. So instead I'll just whet your thirst with this picture of the bathroom in the registration building. Any thoughts on why I'm posting this? :)

So what about the rest of the title to this blog? When we were getting ready to leave Simeon and Maggie's to go back up to Aukland for our flight to the South Island, Maggie said there was a nursing shirt she had purchased and wanted us to take down to Bethany. Then, the next thing I know, this bag is sitting on the table top of their dining room. Now if you've seen American Pie, can you appreciate why I felt just a little odd giving this bag to Bethany?

That's all for today. Don't really know how many blogs I'll do about the trip, but I certainly couldn't pass up this stuff! :)

8-9-10

2010-08-09T19:05:00.000-07:00

Today was 8-9-10. That's a good day as Becca and I were married on 10-9-8. After all, there is only one inverse anniversary day. I enjoyed writing it all day, then I got home from work today and the first thing Becca said to me was "Do you know what day it is?" Of course, I'm not really sure what an inverse anniversary day means..... I guess as long as it isn't a free annulment day for Becca, kind of like a get-out-of-jail free card in monopoly, I'll be happy. :)

I know what you're thinking: You don't blog for nearly a year and you choose this?!?!?! Admittedly I didn't blog about starting my job, my actual first anniversary, buying a house, building a bookshelf from scratch, the joy of pool care, my first swim in the aforementioned pool, whitewater rafting, buying a bike, getting another new job, my new nephew, my new niece, or the very exciting Cooper Book Club. But this was big. I mean, we may someday buy another house, and we'll certainly have more anniversaries, and considering how fertile my family is I'm bound to have a few more nieces and nephews in the future, but we'll never have another inverse anniversary day, so I don't want to hear it! :)

Well, since I mentioned it anyway, here are a few other updates from my life. I have accepted a new job with Kaiser and will be switching to work there at some point in November. The delay is because I need to get my hospital privileges set up with Kaiser before I can start working for them. Ultimately, I think this will be a much better fit for me so I'm pretty excited about it. Also, 2 of my sister-in-laws had babies within the last month and a half. Matthew out in Columbus, and Emily here in California. I haven't gotten to see Matthew in person yet, but Becca and I have been up with Jen, Alan and Emily a good bit over the last week helping out, which has been fun. Oh yes, and the Cooper Book Club. After all, just getting on and playing Everquest 2 every week isn't nerdy enough, so we had to step it up a notch and read books to talk about as well. We started out reading Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind, and now we are reading Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. So far we've really had a good time with the book club, and hopefully can keep it going for a while. Anyone else want to start playing EQ2 and reading nerd books at the same time?

Okay, that's all for now. Any guesses on when my next posting will be?

Oahu

2009-07-31T22:00:00.000-07:00

So, I just got back from vacation in Oahu with Becca and her family. It was great. We rented a condo up on a hill outside of Honolulu, with a great view of the city and ocean. To the far left in the picture is Diamond Head State Monument, a crater that formed following a volcanic eruption. We walked up to the peak on Friday morning (our first full day there).

That afternoon the guys went golfing at Kahuku Municipal Golf Course, up near the northern tip of the island. The golf course was right on the coast, so we had great views of the ocean the whole time. Also, it had huge, forgiving fairways so it was just about the right level of difficulty for me. While we were out golfing the girls stayed back and went to a spa for manicures or massages.

On Saturday we went to Hanauma Bay where we went snorkeling and saw lots of coral, some beautiful fish, and a sea turtle. Then to top it off Becca's brother Matt proposed to his girlfriend Tina before we left, so we then had an engagement to celebrate!

For the engagement celebration we went to a Luau that evening. They had lots of fun activities, including a spear throw for which I am simply grateful there isn't a video of my throw attempt. :) Let's just say it's not quite as easy to do as it looks.

So that takes us through Saturday. On Sunday we went to the Swap Meet, which really was a huge number of vendors in tents surrounding Aloha Stadium. They did have pretty good prices; Becca and I bought 8 T-shirts from one vendor for $20. Can't complain too much about that. After the Swap Meet, we went to Chinatown and ate Dim sum for lunch. After lunch we walked around Chinatown some more. There was a statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who I hadn't heard before. He played a large role in overthrowing the Qing Dynasty and was the first president of the Republic of China as we know it today. I hadn't expected to learn about Chinese history in Hawai'i, but was pleasantly surprised.

On Monday we went to Pearl Harbor. We first went to the USS Arizona, which was one of the battleships sunk in the attack. It suffered enough structural damage so that they were unable to pull it up. The picture to the left is of the memorial that was built over top of the Arizona and the nearly 1000 U.S. servicemen who died and could not be recovered. Additionally some of the surviving members of the Arizona's crew have been interred in the ship when their times passed as well.

We also went to the USS Missouri, which is the retired battleship best known for being the location of the signing for the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII. It is a pretty impressive ship. You can also see the USS Bowfin, one of the submarines from that time.

On Tuesday it was a raining, and we'd planned on going for a hike. Instead we drove up the North Coast, stopping frequently for photo opportunities. One of the times we stopped there was a coconut tree that had a few coconuts down low enough that I could knock one down with a stick. So I did. Here's a pic of me proudly holding my well earned coconut. How many of you knew what a coconut looks like coming right off the tree? I sure didn't. Unfortunately it wasn't ripe yet, so there probably is good reason no one else had picked it yet.

Then on Wednesday the weather was cooperating so we went on our hike, up to Manoa Falls. It was a fairly short hike, around 1.5 miles round trip. Then just after leaving the falls we came across a group of nearly 100 elementary school students on their way up to the falls, so we figured we'd left just in time. That afternoon we went to Lanikai Beach, where we went kayaking, as well as some more snorkeling.

On Thursday when we went to the airport. Becca, her dad and I got on our plane and waited there for 3 hours. Then they gave up on the maintenance issues for the plane and canceled the flight. So we left the plane and got our checked luggage back. They put us up in the Marriott downtown in Waikiki, up on the 30th floor. We had an amazing view of the ocean and Diamond Head Crater. We spent the remainder of the day walking around Waikiki, then got some sleep before heading back to the airport where we got on our new flight. They told us that instead of canceling the flight, they had simply delayed it for 20 hours. I prefer to think of it as a whole new flight. This time the flight went as scheduled/delayed, and we got back to California with no additional issues.

Well, that's the story of my week in Oahu. Like I said, we had a great time.

Baldness Retreating, 2 weeks post

2009-04-05T18:56:00.000-07:00

So, as I don't have anything all that exciting to post on here, I'd thought I'd chronicle my hair regrowth. It's coming along, but still pretty short. I think somewhere around 3/16 of an inch. The question as it grows back will be where the optimal length is, and how long I want to keep it.

Baldness Arrived

2009-03-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

Yes, I went through with it. I went and got my head shaved for St. Baldrick's Day. There were around 110 people getting their heads shaved in Albany today. At the start of the day they had raised over $38,000, and expected to raise nearly that same amount more today. I had raised $195. Thanks to all those who donated!

So, as promised, here are a couple pictures. They didn't shave us quite this close at the event. However, I wanted to see what it would look like really clean-shaven, so I finished it up from there. Let me know what you think.

Baldness Incoming

2009-03-08T18:47:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm getting my head shaved in 2 weeks. How exiting! :) I've shaved my head once before, but that was really just for fun. This time is for a purpose.

It's for St. Baldrick's Day. The St. Baldrick's Foundation is a national national organization that shaves people's heads to raise money for childhood cancer research. They do events in different cities around the country, and Albany's St. Baldrick's Day event this year is March 22. I went last year to observe and provide moral support, but this year I decided to participate myself.

Here's the link to my page on their website.

http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/shavee_info.php?ParticipantKey=2009-336996

You can follow my donations, or even make a donation if you are feeling generous. :) I'll post an after-picture up there later too.

Boards

2009-01-14T10:14:00.000-08:00

We just found out our board scores today, and both Becca and I passed our pediatric boards! Yippee!! Now we are board certified in pediatrics and don't have to worry about it again until 2015.

Brain Power

2008-12-14T18:56:00.000-08:00

Today Becca and I went to the Schenectady Museum and Planetarium. Thomas Edison set up his factory in the Schenectady area, so much of the museum is about the history of Electricity and some fun kids stuff to go along with it. In the Planetarium we saw a show about astronomy and how it has contributed to our Christmas traditions.

After that we continued walking around the museum. There was a section on DNA, which was really quite basic and not too interesting to either of us. The last thing we did in the museum was to go back to a game that was in use when we went by the first time.

Set-up for the game included each of us putting on a head band which was connected to a computer. The head bands measured brain activity. The games were based on the amount of brain activity in each person. In the first game we played we were trying to stay calm, relaxed and produce as little brain activity as possible.....Becca won that game. Then we switched the rules and competed to have the most brain wave activity. So, while I had a hard time being relaxed, I didn't have much trouble putting my brain into overdrive and proceeded to win that one. All I had to do was take my overactive ADHD brain, turn off all controls, and go crazy. Admittedly I couldn't achieve anything in the form of functional activity in that state, but for the purpose of the game it worked out well.

The Joy of Ice

2008-12-13T15:26:00.000-08:00

As you know, we in the Northeast have recently been hit with a pretty big ice storm. So, as a result, we've been dealing with many of the consequences of this weather. One of my interns had a tree fall down on her driveway, blocking her in and making her late to work. Not so bad..... Another intern, not to be outdone, had the poor fortune of a tree falling on her car and in her words, "smashing it all up." I don't know for certain how bad it is, but I wont be surprised if it is totaled.

Of course, the impacts on my residents is only a small part of what is going on. Approximately 300,000 people in New York alone are without power, and it will take quite a few days to get most of the power back on.

One additional consequence of all the power outages is that many of the traffic signals are not working. So, this bears a question: What are the traffic laws for intersections in which the power is lost? Well, the laws are that the intersection turns into 4 way stop signs. That law works great if it is followed. So I was out doing some shopping and got to see what was actually happening. People aren't treating them as 4 way stops. Instead, what is happening is that people are going through the intersections as if they have green lights. And this is happening from any directions. I am just surprised I was out for a couple hours and didn't see any accidents. Subsequently when I got home I told Becca that the roads were clean but I felt they were more dangerous than during immediate bad weather as there seems to be no good sense of order to the roads.

Well, that's the most recent news from here. Hope everyone is having a good week. I, at least, have power and can play on Facebook or Everquest II all weekend. Actually, Becca and I are about to go watch a musical comedy called Nuncrackers. It should be interesting.

The Wedding

2008-10-13T14:24:00.000-07:00

As all my reading audience knows (most of you were there) I got married on Thursday, October 9. I'm putting the date in because I feel like if I say it enough, then I might even remember it next year. :) Or I can look in my ring, as the date is engraved on the inside of the ring.

I don't have a picture of both sides of our families together, as those were taken by our photographer and we do not have those pictures yet. So instead I put up 2 pictures so that everyone can be included. Once we get the link to the pictures from our photographer I will post the link up here.

The day ended up being just about perfect. It rained until about 9 AM, then cleared up and was sunny by noon. We had been concerned that it would be raining or cold, but instead we had a beautiful day which allowed us to enjoy the area to it's fullest.

A few of us went and set up chairs in the park at 10, then Joel stayed guard to make sure nobody moved the chairs around while the rest of us got dressed. It worked out well as Joel was the least dressed of the group anyway.... :) Then we stared taking pictures at Mt Philo around 1 PM. After we were finished taking pictures we started the wedding. I don't have much to say about the wedding because I really don't remember much. I'm just glad I did not stumble over my vows. We did have a few wedding crashers. This dog wandered through and there was an older couple who sat back behind our families and watched the whole thing.

Following the wedding we took a few more pictures, then packed up the area and left. Becca's sister Jen and Jen's husband Alan went to decorate the room for dinner, and we took a short nap. Then off to dinner which was at Kitchen Table Bistro. The decorations were gorgeous, including a few baby pumkins. The pumpkins had tea lights placed in small holes which had been masterfully drilled by yours truly. However, the brains behind all the decorations was Jen who did a wonderful job. The dinner was wonderful too. Both Becca and I had Ahi Tuna for our appetizer and Ribeye steak for our dinner. That was tasty.

Guess that about does it. Thanks to all of our families who came, and to everyone else who has sent us encouraging messages.

The Marriage License

2008-09-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

As I said on a short term update on Facebook, Becca and I got our marriage license last week up in Vermont. We went up on Thursday to get some finishing touches done.

The first thing we did was to meet with Karen Pike, our photographer. We had picked her out based on the photos she had on her website, then I had talked to her but we hadn't met her yet. She is really quite nice and I think will be able to get some great pictures while allowing the mood to remain pleasantly calm.

Next we went to the Charlotte Town Clerk to get our marriage license. The only requirement was that we got the license from inside Chittenden county, and this was the closest. We were lucky enough to have our license done by a new employee. Our license was the first one she had done on her own. First of all, she erased 2 lines, and used white-out 6 or 7 times. Doesn't seem too official to me. But at least this is the document that needs to be signed on the wedding day, then we will get a new, official document. That's at least some consolation. Here's the fun part. We didn't show anyone there our licenses, or any other form of identification. Instead, we just filled out a paper, signed it, and walked out with the license. Kinda creepy isn't it? We could have been anyone. That just seemed a bit odd to us.

After that we went to see Mt Philo, where the wedding will take place. Assuming the weather holds up it's going to be really nice. Otherwise the ceremony will be inside an enclosed room that will require a bit of decorating to fit the mood.

Lastly we went to the resaurant where we will have our reception. We were pretty pleased with it. Everything was really good and the portion sizes were appropriate. We got everyone's votes on what to include on the menu, but talking to the manager we may be able to keep our options even a bit more open than that. One of our appetizers was mussels, which were quite tasty and may very well chow up on our dinner menu if they're still available at that time.

I'll post if there are any major changes to plans. As of now everything seems to be falling into place.

I think I'll even be able to join in on Game Night this week! Yippee!! I've been missing talking to you guys on Thursdays.

My time in Colorado

2008-08-03T18:43:00.000-07:00

As you most likely know, I spent this past week in Colorado for my grandfather's funeral. Grandada, as we all called him, died on Sunday, July 27. The funeral was outlined by Grandada himself and included a bible reading by each of his grandchildren, a few songs and short sermons by Dad and Uncle Jim. It was really a nice service and did some work to take the attention off of Grandada and put it on God, which is exactly what Grandada wanted it to do.

Beyond that I will hold off from summarizing the whole week, but instead will discuss a few things I learned/had confirmed during the week.

1. I have a huge amount of respect for Grandada. Obviously he was a topic of conversation during the entire week and I learned a lot. One of the most telling things I learned about him is in this story. Like many males in that time, he was drafted into the military during WW2. Early in his time in the Navy, all of the soldiers at the camp were given jobs but they unknowingly skipped Grandada. He didn't get a job, and did not speak up for 3 weeks. During that time he sat in his tent and read the bible. Then at some point he wound up on a work crew. There are 2 things about that story that impress me. First, given that he was a young man in a foreign country with 3 weeks of nothing to do and no one keeping him in line, he could have gotten into trouble off base. Instead he sat in his tent and read the bible. The second striking thing to me, well, is that the story may be the worst thing I know about him. Think about that. How many of us could claim that the worst thing people can think of about us is that benign?

Also, at one point I called and talked to some of his acquaintances to inform them of his passing. The conversation that stuck with me was with the head of the beekeeper association in Colorado Springs. She could not stop talking about Grandada's contribution to their organization. Getting to see a bit more clearly about how much of an impact he had on people and how he was appreciated by them, even those outside of his family, made me proud to be his grandson.

2. OK, away from the sappy stuff. My family is crazy. I picked Elizabeth, one of my cousins, up from the Denver Airport. While we were talking together on the way back down, we decided that eccentricity was a strong genetic trait for our family (yes, including us). Uncles Nelson and Bob, my grandmother's brothers, were there along with Nelson's son Mark. They had some of the most bizarre conversations you could imagine. One day these brothers were talking about sex amongst themselves. The rest of us did not want to hear these 70-80 year old guys talking about sex so we stayed outside until the coast was clear. Another time Mark came outside and told us stories about his childhood, mostly composed of odd things he did which got him in trouble. I think my favorite story was that while he was inside, he decided the best thing to do would be to light a firecracker. Then he realized he wasn't sure what to do with it, so he stuffed it through a small hole in the window screen and let it fall to the ground. Only, it never made it to the ground but instead landed on a 70 year old pastor who was walking by and blew a bald spot into his hair. Then there was this time when he was 8, and with his older brothers filled balloons with paint. They went out at night, hid along the side of a road, and decided to throw the balloons at the next car they saw. When the car came, his older brother gave the signal to throw the balloons. Mark was the only one who obeyed because the others in the group had realized the oncoming car was in fact a police car. One more story included them arranging to have a dump truck full of manure dumped on a neighbor's driveway (along with the bill on her doorstep). While I won't go into the stories, rest assured that younger generations of my family have not remained immune from the craziness.

3. Amy and Elizabeth are great. They are 2 of my cousins who are around my age. I have much less time to be around either of them than I'd like, but I always enjoy their company. Also, their presence, in addition to Erik's while he was there, helped make the whole process much more bearable. A funeral is never easy, but to have some comic relief at the appropriate times and people to go out with and talk to was very helpful.

New Apartment

2008-07-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

I am currently in the process of moving to a new apartment. While it is taking a good amount of time and energy I am quite excited to be moving. I realize most everybody reading this knows about my old apartment, but I'm going to describe a little about it anyway.

First of all it has around 315 square feet. My kitchen was big enough to hold the stove, but the refrigerator needed to be in the living room because there wasn't space for it. During my first week living there it rained heavily and leaked thru the roof, flooded the 3rd floor and soaked my ceiling as well as some of my freshly moved in possessions. Not really a warm intro. I was doing OK and fairly comfortable when I was studying for my USMLE Step 3. Then I looked up and realized I was not alone. Instead, there was a mouse sniffing around my shoe. I put up traps and ultimately caught 6 mice during my time there. Then at one point one of my windows broke and it literally took 4 months for them to fix it. With all that, it should be no surprise that I am glad to be moving out.

The place I'm moving to, on the other hand, is very nice. It's about 3 times the space, which of course having lived in a small place for a while I don't have nearly the furniture for it. I now have a kitchen and am excited to be able to actually cook and bake again. I even have my own washer and dryer. Now of course I am moving to a nicer place like this in part because I thought Becca would be living with me this coming year and instead she will be spending most of the year living in Sacramento. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy having a nice place.

Becca's Graduation

2008-06-09T00:35:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went down to Tucson to go to Becca's graduation. Her Dad, sister Jen and brother Jon all came down for it as well. We all got down there Thursday evening. Friday Becca and Jen went to get their hair done, leaving her dad, Jon and I to fend for ourselves. We did the ever manly thing and went shopping..... Fortunately the males in Becca's family are no less nerdy than I am, so we spent the time looking at electronics. Our main visit was to BestBuy where we looked at cameras, TVs, and games. Then it was lunch time and I recommended we go to Sweet Tomato, the salad bar restaurant. I recommended a salad bar restaurant?!?!? What had Becca done to me? We go out on a manly shopping trip and end up at a salad bar restaurant. :) Actually, Becca and I have been there a couple times and it is really quite good. Then we met Becca and Jen downtown and dropped her car off where we would need it later that evening to get home following the after-dinner festivities. Next the 5 of us squeezed into her dad's rental car, a Ford Mustang, and went back to her place to get ready for the night.

Once ready we took pictures, then Becca and I were dropped off at Ryan's, one of her classmates, so we didn't have to squeeze into the mustang all dressed up. Her family was then to drive themselves to the event. That would have worked great except, instead of driving the the golf resort and spa where the graduation was, they drove to where we had left her car. Then they got lost a bit on the way to the golf resort and spa but did finally make it.

The graduation was really nice. The food was quite tasty. We had plenty opportunities to take more pictures. Then they gave out awards to some of the residents and gave the residents a chance to hand out awards to the faculty. Once dinner was done and people got up and started mingling, a band started playing. The band was made up of 2 of her classmates and some of her faculty. They played a lot of covers, and did a wonderful job. Many of us were out on the dance floor during much of the time. Near the end they played 'Paradise City' by Guns N' Roses. I wouldn't have mentioned that except that early in the song Becca leaned over to me and said that she didn't know the song, or for that matter anything else by them. I was a bit surprised probably because most people I grew up with could sing parts of at least 3 Gun N' Roses songs. You guys agree?

Following that we all went out to the limo. For a bit we thought it was a Hummer limo, but it was actually an Excursion limo. It was still pretty cool. The limo took us downtown where we hung out at a bar, chatted and played pool for a couple more hours then made our way home.

Wow, that was longer than I'd anticipated. I'd considered having a second part to this blog but I think instead I'll wait and post another entry in the next day or so.

Engagement

2008-03-28T19:58:00.000-07:00

I know most of you have already seen the comment on facebook and/or talked to me about it but I still wanted to do a blog about getting engaged. That and I needed to post picture of the ring do you could see it. The pictures are from Becca's sister Jen who has a good camera that she could effectively focus close-up with. Thanks Jen!

So I flew down to see Becca on Saturday last week and proposed. We had met at Sprint to get new phones together, then went back to her place to get ready for dinner. After getting dressed I proposed so that she would have the ring at dinner. For dinner we went to a very nice French-Mexican restaurant. It's sort of an odd combination but basically it was French with a few Mexican shrimp thrown in.

The next day we went on a hike. It was about 7 miles round trip and took us to a place with an extremely nice view of Tucson and the surrounding area. Becca wore the ring on the hike and at one point noted that her finger had swollen some and she couldn't get the ring off. She got a bit more swollen during the hike to the point that part of the skin on her finger was sticking up towards the diamond. We tried to get a picture of the swelling but we didn't manage to get a good one. The swelling stopped there though, and after we had a nice, healthy lunch at the Sweet Tomato (that salad bar place I've mentioned earlier that I was nervous about but we both ended up really liking) the swelling was gone and she could again take off the ring. So now we know that maybe she shouldn't wear the ring on hikes/other strenuous activity. Considering that neither of us have much experience wearing rings we hadn't anticipated that. Are the any other times you guys have noticed that you needed to take off your rings to prevent swelling. One person told me she should have taken hers off during the last 2 months of pregnancy, but thats all people have told me.

Now I think all my family knows. I just told my parents yesterday who thought I was getting engaged this past weekend instead of the weekend before. So I was engaged over a week before they knew.

As far as when and where our wedding will be, that is still a topic of discussion. The only thing we know for certain is we want a small, simple wedding with immediate family only. I will let you know further details once they are ironed out.

San Francisco Bush-man

2008-03-17T19:56:00.000-07:00

I know this is late, but I still wanted to post this from my trip out to see Becca in Sacramento. One day we went with her dad and brother Jon to San Francisco. Becca, Jon and I went walking around the shopping areas around the piers. There was a guy there startling people as you can see in this video. And he got paid for it! People would walk by, get startled, and drop money in his can. Others would just watch him startle other people, laugh, and drop him some change. Apparently this guy does it all the time because we told Jen and her husband Alan about it and Alan had seen the guy there too. Maybe I joined the wrong profession. Now I'm running around taking care of kids and parents who don't always appreciate me when I could be making a fine living startling people. :)

Visitations

2008-02-24T18:04:00.000-08:00

Becca and I are currently sitting in the Sacramento Airport waiting for our flights back to our respective homes. We had a good trip. On Sunday we went on a hike to Feather Falls, which is a beautiful 640 foot high waterfall. It was a 9 mile hike of moderate difficulty. However after 9 miles of just about any difficulty I end up pretty tired, which I suppose is kind of the point. I took a video of the falls too just for effect, but I took it's sideways and I don't know how to rotate the video 90 degrees. Any input on an easy way to do that? I have had other times I wanted to and have never figured out a good way to do it.

Then on Monday we went ring shopping and purchasing as noted in my last blog

On Wednesday we went up to Donner Ski Ranch to go skiing. It is a pretty good place to go skiing. There were a lot of slopes at our ability level, it had recently snowed so we had nice fresh snow to ski on, and it was not too crowded so we had plenty of space on most of the runs. The next day we went to Squaw Valley which was the home of the 8th winter Olympic games which were held in 1960. There were 27 events and 30 countries represented. It was the first televised Olympics and the first to use a computerized system to determine the winners. We took a cable car up to the top of the mountain where there was a nice display about the Olympic Games. We had talked about skating on the Olympic Ice but did not due to time constraints from an incoming snow storm. We were there for a couple hours then left to get back to Sacramento before the storm picked up.

I got a bit of a laugh leaving the hotel before going to Squaw Valley on Thursday. We knew it might be snowing, so Alan (Becca's Brother-in-law) had put his chains in the car in case we needed them. We didn't end up needing them but in the morning there was frost and we didn't have a scraper and we ended up using the squeegee. I just thought it was a funny contrast to find myself in a car with snow chains in case of severe snow but no scraper. :)

Ring Incoming

2008-02-21T19:50:00.000-08:00

This week both Becca and I have vacation and we met to spend the week together in Sacramento. I will try and do a few blogs to describe the events of the week, posting a few pictures along the way.
Today's blog doesn't have any pictures though. Instead it is about one of the main reasons we decided to spend this week in Sacramento. As many of you know Becca and I have been talking about getting engaged and, more to the point, trying to decide which ring to purchase. We intend to eventually live out in this area so we wanted to purchase the ring from here so that it could be serviced and insured through the same jeweler. Becca and I had looked online and decided which rings we were interested in. She had then visited one of the jewelers in this area who carries rings we liked, but at that point the jeweler did not have the specific rings in stock for viewing. After that we had asked the company to order the rings so that we could see them on Monday. On Monday we went in, had a look at the rings and picked one that we liked. Then Becca left so I could pick out the diamond on my own and pay for the ring. That way there is still at least a little suspense about what it will look like. I should get the ring within a month. When and how will I propose? Still working on that. And besides, Becca reads this blog so I couldn't say anyway.
If you're highly anxious about it I can tell you how to see the ring.
Guess that's all for the night. I'll do another blog in the next day or two.

Bill Bryson

2007-11-04T12:19:00.000-08:00

Last year Becca gave me this book by Bill Bryson. It is about his time on the Appalachian Train. She knows that I have a certain reverence for the Appalachian Trail and thought I would enjoy reading about someone's travels on it. She was right, I loved it. Actually, I found his writing style absolutely engaging and have continued enjoying his books as I've proceeded to read 2 more of them. I just finished In a Sunburned Country about his travels through Australia.

What he does is to travel through an area describing what he finds and what experiences he has. He enjoys going to places that are not always listed in travel guides but that help give a better feel for and understanding of the area. Actually sometimes he just describes random things. Like if you ever wanted to visit a store that sells both pet supplies and pornography (why?) he'll tell you where to find it in Australia. Additionally, he is not afraid to tell you that he didn't like certain areas. For example 'It is possible, I suppose, to construct hypothetical circumstances in which you would be pleased to find yourself, at the end of a long day, in Macksville, New South Wales--perhaps something to do with rising sea levels that left it as the only place on earth not underwater, or maybe some disfiguring universal contagion from which it alone remained unscathed. In the normal course of events, however, it is unlikely that you would find yourself standing on its lonely main street at six-thirty on a warm summer's evening gazing about you in an appreciative manner and thinking, "Well, thank goodness I'm here!"' I also, by the way, find him to be absolutely hilarious and am laughing a good part of the way through the books. One critic states 'Bill Byrson could write...about dryer lint or fever reducers and still make us laugh out loud.' That reminds me of a story about my grandfather humoring a crowd while reading from a phone book.

But the travel aspect really isn't the best part of it. He reads a lot. Throughout his books he breaks off and describes the wildlife, history and surroundings. Thats the part that really helps grant a feel for the area, and what really makes it interesting. How did the Appalachian Trail come to be? Is it safe and how many people have been killed on it? How did they die? Or out in Australia, how many ways can Australia kill you? (He was fairly fascinated with that and with people drinking their own urine due to dehydration. BTW, crocodiles can kill you VERY quickly.) More out in the outback, how did the area come to be explored? How did the Aborigines (native Australians) get there and what role in society do they play today? Or ever want to know about the Australian equivalent to the likes of Bonnie and Clyde, who at one point captured a few police officers and killed them by shooting off their testicles and letting them bleed to death? I didn't either but it makes for interesting reading.

He has written books about the United States, Britain, I think some of the rest of Europe, Africa and Australia. He has also written one called A Short History of Nearly Everything which I haven't read yet but look forward too.

This isn't what I'd consider my normal reading which would typically be fiction, action and suspense, fantasy, dragons, that kind of thing. But I do think he's become my favorite non-fiction author. And unlike Robert Jordan, who I lamented in a previous blog, he's not dead. I don't know if I do him justice with my descriptions or not. I have significantly enjoyed his writing and would be happy to recommend him to anyone.

My month in Arizona

2007-11-01T16:44:00.000-07:00

I just got back yesterday from spending the month in Tucson. As I'd said in a previous blog, I was doing a Neurology rotation which went very well. So today, instead of discussing that anymore, I will tell about some of the extracurricular events Becca and I did while there.

On the first weekend, we went down to Chiricaua National Monument. It's in Southeastern Arizona and is an area with a lot of interesting rock formations predominantly composed of vertical pillars of rocks. Its a fascinating place in part because I have a hard time understanding it. I understand how a place like the Grand Canyon could have formed, but how does this happen? The explanation they provide there states that there was a volcanic eruption, lots of deposits in the area from it, then progressive erosion leaving these formations. It still doesn't really make sense to me. That said, however it formed, it's a beautiful place. We took a hike down there and this is a picture from the hike.

The second weekend Becca was on call Saturday night, so we we're going to go anywhere far away. Instead we went Saturday morning and took walk of about 6 miles in Sabino Canyon of which I've posted pictures before. If you get down to Tucson Sabino Canyon is right there and certainly worth going too. We went back there the last weekend as well and did a different hike, this one somewhere between 6 and 8 miles. We weren't exactly certain where we turned around so I don't know how far we went.

The 3rd weekend was Becca's class retreat in Rocky Point, Mexico, also known as Puerto Penasco. It's the same place Becca and I had gone to visit last fall. We spent Saturday morning on the beach swimming, tossing a football around, reading, enjoying the sun, etc., basically enjoying a beautiful beach. We also went shopping a bit this time like we had done last trip, but this time we didn't but anything. On the way back we waited at the border for 1 1/2 hours, but some of the others left later than we did and waited up to 3 1/2 hours. I thought our wait was bad enough.

The last night I was there we went west of Tucson to watch the sunset. There were a few clouds that somewhat obscured the view, but it was still beautiful. I think the next time I'm out there we may go out to that spot again and see if it's a better time for pictures, but we did get some decent pictures anyway. We took a few of the two of us with our backs to the sunset, but the lighting didn't come out too well.

Then I flew back to Albany yesterday and spent today getting settled back in here. Tomorrow I get back to work and start my Endocrinology rotation.

Excessive Sorrow

2007-10-28T17:15:00.001-07:00

Today I discovered something that has brought me great sorrow. What, might you ask, could make me sorrowful. Well let's see.

Is it Becca? Well, we've just spent a month together and I think we are closer now than ever. The worst part of it is that I'm leaving on Wednesday. But even that is tempered by the fact that I will be back within a month. So that can't be the source of my depression.

The weather? Hmm, good thought when I'm living in Albany. In Tucson, however, the sun shines around 99.89975% of daytime. Except for some sunburns I have developed from our weekend in Mexico and a hike this morning, there is no cause for saddness due to the weather.

Sports? Those can often be a significant source of living in the dumps, especially for people like me who get far too excited about them. That said, the Buckeyes are likely to play in the National Championship, the Patriots haven't even come close to loosing, and the Red Sox are a game away from winning the World Series. No cause for grouchiness there.

So what could it be? Let me tell you. I was reading a website this morning when I read something shocking and depressing, at least for me. Some of you may not care, others may already know. In fact, the entirety of my avid reader base may fall into one of those 2 categories. Now that I've run out of ways to stretch this out, I will tell you. September 17, 2007 the world lost a great man. A man who has captured the imagination of thousands of avid readers. A man who wrote probably the single best fantasy book I've ever read. A man who took a great novel, and stretched it out as far as anyone could possibly imagine, then just kept stretching. A man who could describe someone taking a bath using 4 pages, not make any progress in the story, and in fact not say anything even the least bit interesting during that time, then proceed to do that again with her brushing her hair, then getting dressed, and so on and so forth. A man who I am attempting, buy the simple process of extending this beyond the limits of reason, to emulate. But most importantly a man who wrote 12 books in a series that I have grown to love only to die before writing the last book. That's right ladies and gentleman. Robert Jordan has died. The author of the series The Wheel of Time will not write the final chapter. He apparently left behind some notes describing his intentions for the 13th and hopefully last book. But he will not write it. I don't know who would be willing to pick up the torch, or how I would feel if someone did, but I sure would like to know how the story ends.

Alright, if you read all of this I should really feel sorry for you. That was a fascinatingly long way of presenting news that is over a month old already. However, that doesn't change the fact that I was sorely saddened by hearing the news.

Rental Cars

2007-10-26T22:21:00.000-07:00

While I've been out in Tucson, I've needed to rent a car in order to be able to get to work. As I am here for over 28 days, I was having a difficult time finding a place willing to rent a car for the entire time. Instead, I split the month approximately in half and returned the first car last Thursday, then picked up my second car on Sunday. That worked out well as we were going to Mexico for Becca's class retreat, so I wouldn't have been using the car during that time anyway.

So I ended up renting two cars. I signed up for economy class for both rentals, but when I picked up my first rental, I was given a free upgrade to the next level and ended up with a Chevy Impala. It was quite nice. The coolest thing to me was that it had a remote car starter, which I've never gotten to use before. I just had fun starting the car as I walked up to it, and that way the air conditioner was already running before we got in. Additionally, the car only had 334 miles on it when I got it. I had never driven a car with that few miles on it. I even got to drive the car past 1,000 miles which felt like a kind of rite of passage. That was pretty exciting.

For the second rental, however, I was not fortunate enough to get a free upgrade. Instead, I ended up with a Chevy Cobalt. It's small. It smells like a wet dog. It does not have a remote car starter. It doesn't have power windows or even power locks. It's depressing. But worse yet, it had 26,000 miles on it. Admittedly, that doesn't sound like all that much. Unfortunately, it drives like it has at least 75,000 - 100,000 miles on it. It sounds bad. It even shakes while driving. It's really quite pathetic.

The moral of the story? It is OK to rent a cheap car, after all the price is right and you just accept that you get what you pay for. But seriously, don't buy a Cobalt. They suck.

Tucson

2007-10-21T20:10:00.000-07:00

I've been out in Tucson for the month doing a Neurology rotation and spending a lot of time with Becca. Its been going really well. During the day I've been working with the Pediatric Neurology group here which has 3 Attendings, but I've been working with 2 of them. Most of what I've done is outpatient at this point, but I may be doing more inpatient this coming week. The primary Attending is a unique individual but I've really enjoyed working with him so far. One additional piece is that the office works on a computer based chart system which just went live the week I started. Its been interesting seeing some of the problems they've had and the solutions they've come up with, as our continuity clinic is planning on a similar transformation in February.

I'll get on later and write about some of the places we've been so far this month. But for now I need to watch the completion of the Red Sox game. Go Sox!!!

Steady hands are a beautiful thing

2007-09-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

They are good for surgeons. I certainly would not want someone with shaking hands doing my cardiac surgery. They're good for mechanics, seamstresses, chefs, etc. They would be good for me if I had them. Instead, my hands shake. The have a minimal shake when I'm not doing anything. The beautiful thing, the more still I need to be, the more they shake. Great isn't it?

I have medical examples or times when I shake. It makes me appear really nervous. It makes me feel nervous. However, I've found ways to work with it and still be able to succeed at procedures such as intubations. So instead of a medical example, I thought I'd give an example from my apartment, that happened today.

It was dinner time, and I was getting hungry. So, I decided on macaroni and cheese. I boiled the water, put in the macaroni, and waited for 8 minutes. So far so good. Then I was ready to drain the water. Now I live in a small apartment, and the smallest part is the kitchen. As such, I have opted not to have some of the items that I would consider standard kitchen supplies, in this case a colander. So instead of draining out the water with a colander I grabbed the lid for the pot and held it so that I could drain out the water. I've done this many times before without problems. Today, however, was not such a day. Instead while holding the pot full of recently boiling water with macaroni in it, I was unable to simply keep the lid on the pot. Instead I managed to, while holding the pot and lid by their handles, each intentionally out of the way of the flowing boiling water, spill the water on my right wrist. I don't especially recommend that action as it is followed by a significant amount of pain that I have been limiting with an ice pack.

I'd love to have steady hands, wouldn't you?

Good to be the Chief?

2007-09-08T17:04:00.000-07:00

I don't know for certain yet, but I'm sure going to find out. On Tuesday Dr. Hopkins, our program director, paged me and told me I was selected to be one of the Chief Residents for next year. Subsequently I will be spending another year at Albany Medical Center. Then she told me I had to keep quiet about it until after the faculty meeting on Thursday and since at least 2 of the residents know about my blog, I couldn't even post it here.

Then on Thursday they announced it at the Faculty meeting and over the course of the day people were coming up to me and congratulating me. Dr. Comber from pulmonary was the first person to say something, and he told me "it's a thankless job but someone has to do it." Not quite the words of encouragement I was looking for, but I'm still excited.

Then Friday at noon, when I was post-call, I had a meeting scheduled with one of my attendings. I forgot it, went to sleep, woke up at 5, and then remembered. So one thing's for certain about being chief, I need to do a better job of keeping on top of my schedule and not forget meetings. Actually, I've been realizing I need to be significantly more organized to do this job well and have been working on it. After all, I have another 9 months before I'm formally chief, so I should use it well.

All the negatives aside, I am pretty excited about next year. It'll certainly be interesting.

Back to PICU

2007-09-04T10:51:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I start my second month in the PICU. It's a pretty intense month that has me on call every third night. I am lucky, however, because our switch day for September was later and subsequently this ends up being a shorter month. I have 9 calls, where in August they did 11 calls each. I'm also somewhat looking forward to it as last time I was there the attendings thought I did a really good job and I was comfortable there, and that's always encouraging.

My first call is this coming Thursday, which will unfortunately make me miss game night for the third straight week. I will however be able to join in for the 2 weeks after that.

Aspen

2007-08-26T17:12:00.000-07:00

After spending a few days in Colorado Springs Becca and I went to stay at a friend of hers apartment in Basalt near Aspen. On Wednesday we went whitewater rafting which was a lot of fun. Neither of us had gone rafting before so we did a relatively easy trip (level 2) that included some decent rapids at first then a lot of calm water for the second half. If we ever go rafting again we’d want to do a more challenging segment of river, maybe level 3. However, no regrets, as a first time trip this was fun. I don’t have pictures because we only took a disposable waterproof camera with us and haven’t gotten the pictures developed yet. There was a cute family on the raft with us, Mom, Dad and daughters (around 8 and 6.) The girls were fun. The best part was when the mom was in the water and the little 6 year old girl tried to pull her up. We didn’t let her do it, but it was funny watching her lean over the boat and grab her mom’s life jacket knowing she’d never be able to pull her up.

On Thursday we went into Aspen. First up the gondola to the top of Aspen Mountain, which is also used for skiing in the winter. We spent a few hours on top of the mountain playing disc (aka Frisbee) golf, which I highly enjoyed. Some of the same fun of regular golf but not nearly as frustrating.

After coming back down the gondola we walked around downtown Aspen and saw some of the shops. There are a lot of designer brand shops throughout Aspen that could make for some good shopping if so inclined. The highlight for me however was when I noticed someone pull into a parking lot driving a Lotus. Those are nice cars. For the evening we went to Snowmass, another small skiing based community nearby, which has a summer concert series on Thursday nights and we saw Salvadore Santana perform. I’m not sure what exact genre they fit into, they had some reggae, jazz and Latin combination I couldn’t quite put my finger on. They were however quite enjoyable.

Friday we slept in, didn’t go up a mountain as we’d planned, but did drive back to Denver where we went to the Zoo and then the Denver Art Museum, both very nice.

Saturday we went for a hike up to Devil’s Head where there is a functioning fire tower. The view was beautiful. It may not have been as nice as you get from the top of a 14,000 ft mountain, but it was still worth it.

Now I’m back to Albany, and back to the ever so interesting world of Allergy consultation for another week. J Actually, I have learned some and there have been interesting patients, but I think 2 weeks instead of 3 would have been plenty.

Colorado Springs

2007-08-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

Becca and I are in Colorado for the week. Saturday we flew into Denver, got our rental car, then drove down to Colorado Springs. On the way down from Denver we found ourselves in the middle of a pretty heavy storm with balls of hail that slowed traffic and resulted in another shopping spree at Kohls to pass the time. But then we got down to my grandparents' house and had dinner with the two of them and Amy. After dinner we went to Amy's house, met her roommate Amy, and got Becca situated in her room. Then I was back to Granmom and Grandad's for the night. Sunday we went to church with Amy then went to pick up my grandparents and go to lunch. Grandad, who is on a special diet and doesn't eat out much, had been dressed and ready to go to the restaurant hours before we got there and was headed out the door as soon as we arrived but we managed to sneak a few pictures in first. Here is a picture that he grudgingly allowed us to take. For lunch we went to Texas Roadhouse where we met with Aunt Sarah, Uncle Jim, Aunt Lori and Uncle Tom. After lunch Becca and I went to Garden of the Gods where there are many pretty large rocks. Sort of like Sedona in Arizona but not as nice. There is one rock called the Balancing Rock, which is really cool until you realize it is cemented in place. Next was Manitou Springs, a fun old town nearby that had an old school arcade. We finished off the day at Seven Falls, which is a beautiful waterfall with seven parts that would have been much nicer if it wasn't highly commercialized and cost $10.25 each person to see.

On Monday we went Pikes Peak on the cog railway which was beautiful. The view from a mountain top is breathtaking, at is the air considering that we were at 14,110 feet above sea level. On the way up we sat across from a couple, Sherry and Kurt, who are motor homers from Indiana that drove all around the country. In fact they had been through Albany where they unfortunately took a wrong exit and got into a bad part of town. They were spending a month on the road but needed to get back home in time for the Michigan-Notre Dame football game. Great people except for being Michigan fans.... While talking to them Sherry noted a person behind us wearing a Michigan hat, so we started talking to them too. That was a friendly family, again with unfortunately misguided loyalties. However, the family dad asked me where I was from and I told him Albany. So he proceeded to tell me that he had done his radiology residency at AMC where I am now and had worked with some of my attendings when they were residents 20 years ago. Small world.

After Pikes Peak we drove down to the Royal Gorge, the highest suspension bridge in the world just over 1000 feet above the bottom of the gorge. People have bungi-jumped off of that, can you believe it? Not for me. The gorge was great though.

Then we had dinner with the grandparents again at Mimi's Cafe, which was really good. Grandad again followed his low salt-low fat diet by ordering Fish and Chips. Hmmmm, probably not what the doctor intended. I stole the bill and paid for the meal, which I'm not sure they were too happy with but made Becca and me happy. On the way home we let them treat ut to desert at McDonalds which further improved Grandad's diet with a milkshake. After returning Granmom and Grandad to their house and chatting with them some more, we went back to Amy's and the 3 of us went to see Hairspray. A manly movie? No. But hey, John Travolta was in it, that counts for something right? No, he played a woman. But he did get highly flattered when his character (a woman) was told by her husband "You are old and fat, but you're never boring." That was funny. Actually I really enjoyed the movie and laughed to whole time. Not manly, but enjoyable non the less.

Tuesday we went to the Olympic Training facility and took a tour of the grounds. The funny part was when we were at the part of the tour looking at the pool, 2 of the male swimmers got out of the pool, flexed their muscles and posed.

Slightly off topic, I borrowed a GPS device for my computer from a classmate at AMC, at it's been pretty fun. We get into the car and can easily get directions to wherever we want to go. I highly recommend it. The main problem we've had with it is that when Becca was navigating with it she got car sick. So if you're prone to motion sickness that may not be the best bet.

OK, we're off to Basalt, near Aspen, where tomorrow we are going whitewater rafting. Very exciting.

Sweet on Geeks

2007-08-14T19:05:00.000-07:00

Becca just introduced me to a website I'd never seen, sweetongeeks.com. Apparently it was set up by a geeky couple who wanted to help other geeks meet each other. How romantic. :)

It has cool stuff on it including links to places like thinkgeek.com, from which Jenna has a shirt. There is also their blog, which among other things includes a list of reasons to date geek girls.

1. They are generally available
2. Other men will tend not to steal them
3. They can fix things
4. Your computer will love them
5. They're smart

Now seriously, are the first 2 items (aka she's undesirable to most people) really a selling point?

Too Fat to Fly?

2007-08-13T18:11:00.000-07:00

Today at 1 pm I got a page from Dennis, one of my chief residents. I called him back and he asked me how heavy I was. I told him 160 pounds, to which he responded "Good, you're flying to New York City." There was a child with severe cardiomyopathy (heart muscle not working) who needed to be flown to New York and Dennis was too heavy for the flight so I was going to get to go. I was pretty excited as I've been looking forward to flying in a helicopter at some point this year. Additionally, I would be flying over the Catskill Mountains and over New York City which would both be incredible views on a clear day. So I went over to the PICU, only to be told the helicopter crew had said now that the resident had to be 147 pounds or less. Apparently this was an extremely heavy child, who was needing heaving equipment to help him stay alive, and thus did not leave much room for extra weight. Very disappointing. Maybe next time.....

Scrabble Time

2007-08-12T20:38:00.000-07:00

I just found this randomly and thought it was pretty cool. I have the highest scrabble score of anyone in my immediate family. That means I'm special right? :) But of course you can't use maiden and married names, thats not fair. But Gina can do Gina the Shortest of the All Cooper, that scores 49 points. At least being short can be a bonus for something...... ;)

Wait, Judah's score (37) is higher than mine. I'm just going to have to name my kids Zena Xerxes, or something like that, so I can reclaim the lead.

Any case, I've been playing Scrabulous with Joel on facebook.com and it's pretty fun. Anyone else who would want to join in and challenge Joel or me would be welcome. I beat him 3 times in a row, but then he won the last game so now the pressures on.

Potter Completed

2007-07-27T18:17:00.000-07:00

I just finished Harry Potter today, after spending too much of this last week reading instead of working on an upcoming presentation. That's OK, I still have 2 weeks to do it.

The last 2 Harry Potter books I didn't enjoy quite as much. Book 5, The Order of the Phoenix, I just got tired of Harry being mad at everyone. While Book 6, The Half-Blood Prince, was good, I wasn't drawn into it like I had been by the earlier books in the series. Subsequently I was a touch guarded in my enthusiasm coming up to this release. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, however, gripped me at the beginning of the book and pulled me through with a ferocity that hardly let me attend to my other responsibilities, like eating. It was great, including lots of intrigue, combat, excitement, mystery, and never being certain how it was going to end. In short, it included everything J.K. Rowling should have included in the finale of the series. She also answered all remaining questions and I believe truly ended the series. In short, an A+ novel.

Outside of the wonderful world of Harry Potter, I'm up at Mom and Dad's for the weekend. They are almost all packed up to move to Morgantown in a little over a week. Once they leave I won't be coming up here any more and will need to find new things to do for weeknds. But I'm glad for them, this church has been really difficult for Dad and at this point they're very optimistic about the new church. Also the Morgantown church has worked it out so they will now be providing health insurance for Mom and Dad, so financially it looks like it'll work out ok.

New Computer

2007-07-04T16:59:00.000-07:00

I just got a new laptop, it's pretty cool. I'd been talking about it for a while, trying to decide exactly what I wanted and when I should get it. I did a good bit of research, and compared prices for hours up in the NICU while working the night shift. So much infact that I think the resident I was working with got tired of looking over to see what I was doing and seeing laptop info on the screen. But I ordered it in June, it was shipped June 28, and arrived at the parent's house on July 2. That's what, 4 days transit. Not too bad even for any shipping, but they shipped it from Shanghai, so I was really quite impressed.

My new laptop is an HP and has some cool gimmicky stuff in it. There's a built in webcam and a memory card slot, those are cool. But the best part is the fingerprint reader. I love it :). I now can log into my email with a simple swipe of my finger. I guess it's still a security risk if someone steals the laptop because my passwords are stored on it, but it seems pretty safe unless they cut off my finger at the same time. And in that case I have bigger things to worry about than a few lost passwords.

Otherwise I am happily off my NICU night rotation. I don't have another month of nights until January. My next difficult rotation is in September when I do the PICU again. For now however I'm doing a Genetics elective, which is pretty light.

Weird Al

2007-06-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

Tonight Becca and I went to the 'Weird Al' Yankovic concert. Here's a picture of me in rapt anticipation of the upcoming concert. As you'll notice I decided to wear a shirt sufficiently in line with the nerdiness of the event.

Once we got there we went and bought a t-shirt. After all, I needed a Weird Al shirt!

Then we went up to our seats and waited. Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap!........Nothing......Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap!.......Nothing........This went on for 30 minutes before Weird Al came out. But I did learn something exciting during this time. Becca told me that going to this concert was the single nerdiest thing she'd ever done. And then, to make it better, I asked her to name the nerdiest thing she'd ever done without me, and she said taking the SAT! She's making a lot of progress toward full nerdiness and I find that quite exciting. :)

Then at 8 it finally happened. Weird Al came out. We then were treated to 2 hrs and 20 min of Weird Al. It was heavenly. We went through most of the songs on the newest album, and many of his older ones. In between many of his songs he played video clips, predominantly from Al TV episodes, including many "celebrity interviews." If you don't know what I mean, look on You Tube sometime and I'm sure you'll find some of them. The videos gave him time to change into various outfits during the concert. For example, he had on Obi-Wan's robs for the Star Wars Saga and Yoda (yes, he did it!) I loved every minute of it. Weird Al is seriously the coolest nerd in the world. That and he's especially active and highly entertaining to watch.

He ended the night doing an encore, which was his long song Albuquerque. It seemed like the perfect way to end the concert.

Also, Ive been trying to decide where this fits in my list of favorite concerts. Before this, I'd say my favorite concert was DC Talk. They put on a good show. However, at this point I have to say Weird Al is my favorite concert. There is simply nothing he does that I don't love.

For those of you who will be going to see him later this summer, get excited. You're in for a very good show!

Teddy Bear Cholla (Choya)

2007-04-15T14:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know this is a little after the fact and my reading audience (all 4 of you), certainly know this story. However, considering the pain involved, I just had to post it anyway.

I went hiking with Becca this last time I was down there in Sabino Canyon. We've gone there before but this time we did a new hike for us called Blackett's Ridge. Its a difficult hike with a round trip of 6.2 miles. Here's a panoramic picture from the top.

On the way up we stopped to take a picture of ourselves. It was on a nice flat rock overlooking Tucson. After we took the picture I went to push myself up with my left hand and pushed it onto a teddy bear cholla, seen here. As you can see from a distance it looks soft and fluffy, thus the name. Well, trust me, its alternative name, the Jumping Cholla, is more descriptive because this innocent enough looking plant drops small cactus balls which are full of sharp needles. Those needles lodged themselves into my fingers and did not want to let go. We couldn't get the cactus off my hand until another hiker took two rocks, sandwiched the cactus between the rocks and ripped it away, leaving some of the needles still sticking in my fingers which we then had to pull out individually. They hurt. Just to make me feel better Becca took a picture of the offending cactus segment for posterity's sake.

When we got home we looked up the cactus to find the name. On a later search I found this last picture which is an electron microscope picture of a teddy bear cholla needle showing thousands of little barbs on each needle which made them harder and more painful to pull out.

So, the moral of the story is if you go hiking in a desert, which I highly recommend, please for the love of God make sure to look where you put your hands because there can be some painful consequences if you don't. :)

Sabino Canyon

2007-03-18T18:25:00.000-07:00

Well, before I get ready to go back out to see Becca again I guess I aught to first write another blog as promised from the last trip.

One of the other things we did while I was in Arizona was go hiking at Sabino Canyon in Coronado National Forest. It's pretty close to Becca's house so it's a good place to go for a hike and has trails that are not so challenging that we'd die. We decided to hike about 3.7 miles, which we finished in about 2 hours. It was really quite pretty, as you can see from the pictures.

Other things we did included my cooking a wonderful dinner for Becca including but not limited to Tiramisu which was especially tasty. Only about 2/5 for originality but 9/10 for taste. We also spent quite a while at Kohl's and bought me an insane amount of new clothing, but it was for an average savings of 70%, so I couldn't complain except that I was tired of trying on pants by the end. :) Guess that's what happens when I go 3 1/2 years without buying new clothes.

Monday and Tuesday of this week I take Step 3 of the USMLE, which is the US medical liscensing exams. They'll be long, tiring, and most certainly difficult but it'll be good to have them out of the way.

Skiing in Arizona

2007-03-05T19:58:00.000-08:00

Hi! I'm back from seeing Becca in Arizona so I thought I'd get back to blogging. I'll start with our opening weekend in which we drove up to the White Mountain Apache Reservation. There we went skiing at Sunrise Ski Park. It was great. Neither of us had been skiing for years so we were at fairly similar skill levels.

We did a good job staying on our skis and not falling with one exception. In my infinite wisdom I decided that we were doing so well that we could go ahead and try a short stretch of blue hill called Crown Dancer (if you don't know, the slopes are color coded, from green to blue to black in increasing difficulty.) After all I'd done blue hills in Ohio without difficulty so I thought it would be ok. Well, I now appreciate the idea that at better ski resorts the slopes are harder. We fell a lot. Actually, we fell so much that we gave up and ultimately walked down until getting to a green section. The other picture is looking back up at the hill we walked down. If you don't think it looks too bad, try it :)

After that we stayed in the green slopes and were much happier. We had aspirations of going snow shoeing the next day but we were both so sore we instead swung over to Phoenix on the way back to Tucson and stopped at Ikea to do some shopping, which was safe as well.

There's more to my week down there but I'll describe it later.

End of PICU

2007-01-07T14:58:00.000-08:00

Here I am, finally doing another post, it's only been a month since my last post. But as I said in my first post, I'm still doing them more often than Erik :).

Last month I was in the PICU and was regularly busy, that is why I haven't been posting lately, that and I was having a tough time thinking of things to say up here. During the PICU month I was on call overnight every 3rd night, which means I spent a lot of time at the hospital recently. But it really went well. I learned a lot about intensive care medicine and am continuing to feel more confident with time. We had many sick children to care for, including a few post op from cardiac surgery to correct congenital heart defects, which were good learning experiences. I was in my first code blue, which was both a good experience and bad because the child died. I am glad to be finished with the PICU for now and am certainly enjoying my current cardiology rotation, but it was a good experience and I'm glad to have done it.

Even though I was in the PICU for the month I did have the chance to be up at my parents when Erik and Gina were up there. I always enjoy seeing them and playing games, and now that Jenna is more interactive and talking more its a lot of fun to be around her. She's pretty smart, and as you can see from the Christmas picture of her she's cute as well. Also, they brought this great book called the brick testament in which some guy had inllustrated Genesis with Legos. If you want to see it go to http://www.thebricktestament.com/ It's pretty funny.

Ok, thats all I can write for one day. Remember everyone, GO BUCKS!!!

BCS

2006-12-03T20:00:00.000-08:00

Today was BCS Selection Day, when we found out that OSU will be playing the Florida Gators in the BCS Championship game on January 8. 2007. I'm excited. This will be the first time the two schools have played against each other in a college football game, and it's for the national championship. I don't really know how good Florida is. They play in the SEC which is a good strong conference and came out of it with only 1 loss, so they have to be pretty good. But I still think OSU is going to be able to beat them, hopefully at least. Guess we'll see in a month or so.

Also important in my life, I just finished my month of senior resident on the floor and am now moving to the PICU. That'll be pretty tough. I'm on call 27 hours every 3rd night for the month, which I think will get quite tiring. I do however have some time around Christmas that I'll be off and be able to stay with my parents, and Erik, Gina and Jenna who will also be up there for the holidays. That'll be fun.

Am I Old?

2006-11-29T20:36:00.000-08:00

Today I went to the mall shopping for Christmas presents. I now have bought many of my presents for my family and Becca, but still have a little more to shop for. When I was ready to leave, and just about out of the mall, a lady carrying a clip-board walked up to me. She said "May I ask you a question?" I reluctantly agreed. Her question was "What year were you born in?" My answer was clearly 1977, to which she replied "Holy Sh^$!.......How old are you?" I said 29. She flipped through her clip-board and said there was nothing for me, then asked me if I smoked. When I said no, she said ok and turned to someone else.
Now, what am I supposed to think when I get that reaction upon telling someone what year I was born in? Do I look so old that she didn't think I'd possibly been born as recently as 1977? And is there something about me that looks like I smoke incessantly? I don't know. But she sure made me wonder.

Thanksgiving

2006-11-26T09:55:00.000-08:00

This is thanksgiving weekend, and its been a pretty good weekend for me. Thursday I only had to work 6 hours, which allowed me to be home with my parents for thanksgiving lunch before going to the hospital. Then I worked all day friday until 8 AM saturday, and had the rest of the weekend off, which I predominantly spent finishing decorating the christmas tree, watching football, doing my laundry and catching up on sleep.
One of the traditions my mom has for us with thanksgiving is to put 5 corn kernels on each plate, then have us go around and one by one talk about something we are thankful for and put a kernel into a bowl, passing the bowl around until all the kernels are deposited. So in the mood of thanksgiving I thought I'd list off the things that I was thankful for:
1. Becca - we have been apart for the majority of the last year and a half but have continued to keep our relationship growing stronger all the time, and she is a bigger part of my life now than ever before.
2. Parents - especially that I have been living close to them, had their support through my residency, and been able to participate in the events surrounding my grandparents deaths this past year.
3. Game Night - this may sound silly, but I have been very thankful for the way Erik, Joel, Gina and I have been able to keep in touch this past year through the time we spend together every week during our game nights.
4. Residency - I feel strongly that God has put me in the right program for me, and that over the past year and a half that I have been learning the things I need to know to be as good a doctor as I can be, both in medical knowledge and the other personal skills necessary.
5. The Buckeye victory over the hated school up north, and in honor of Erik, High powered stereo equipment - while I am seriously thankful for many ultimately more important things, I always feel its imporant to remember some of the less smaller things in life that can bring much more joy than they really should.
Its amazing sometimes when I sit down and think about it how many things I do have to be thankful for. On that line of thought, its lunch time and I probably should go demonstate my thankfulness for Mom's good cooking by eating.

My New Blog

2006-11-19T17:07:00.000-08:00

Here is my new blog. I decided to finally make one after much encouragement. Yesterday I was on call overnight on the pediatrics floor at Albany Med. I think we admitted 5 children and transferred 3 from the PICU. But it was a wonderful day. Why? Because I was fortunate enough to be able to watch the majority of the OSU-Michigan football game while on call. As the Buckeyes fortunately held on to their victory, they are now slotted to play in the BCS Champtionship game, I think on January 8, 2007. Very exciting. The new BCS rankings came out already and Michigan is still number 2 in the rankings, so there's a pretty good chance there will be a rematch for the National Championship. I don't know how I feel about that. But for the immediate present I'm happy just celebrating yesterday's victory.

Also, as this is a new blog and I haven't had one before, I thought I'd take this chance to post a few pictures from when Becca and I went to Mexico. We went down to Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) on Halloween weekend. It was a lot of fun. We went shopping through, and I was given an opportunity to completely fail at haggling; an opportunity which I could not pass by. I bought a small chess set, which I actually like, but certainly paid more than I needed as I paid his original asking price. Also, we went to a beach in the mornining and got a few pictures, so I thought I'd post a few of them. During the second picture we we standing in the water and using the camera timer, right when it took the picture we were getting hit by a small wave.

Ok, that's all for today. Enjoy my blog, I'll try to at least update it more frequently than Erik does. :)