Becca's Graduation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.