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.

Excessive Sorrow

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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?

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

Pholph's Scrabble Generator My Scrabble© Score is: 34. What is your score? Get it here.

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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!!!