MVH

2011-01-21T20:10:00.001-08:00

A Brief Interlude: Paul's Bar

2009-09-27T12:59:00.001-07:00

What a day. He had made it through a long one and was now attempting to relax with his second beer nearly finished and an unsettling premonition that the Red Sox were in for a bad night of baseball by having their asses handed to them by the Kansas City Royals. Yeah, the Royals. He looked gloomily at the score before commercial break and rolled his eyes towards the back of his head. Paul looked over as a truck commercial began with a smile wider than Texas and began pouring what would no doubt be Brian's third beer of the evening. This may turn into a longer night than expected he thought to himself as Paul placed the newly foaming beer in front of Brian's welcoming hands. The smell of glue graced his nostrils as he lifted the pint glass towards his mouth. Brain had washed his hands at least three times before he left and the smell was still there dammit. A couple of very small cuts adorned his fingers and the cold beer against them brought him a little relief from the heat of the slightly inflamed areas. It had been a very bad day. Brian began to think seriously about the consequences and whether or not he wanted to go to work in the morning when a young women walked up to the bar. She stuffed her hand into her jeans and pulled out a twenty and asked Paul for a Midori Sour, a Sam Adams, and a Brooklyn Lager. Who the hell drinks Midori Sours anymore Brian thought to himself as he looked the young lady up and down like any man in a bar would. It would be unnatural for him not to. As he did however, he saw that she was watching what he was doing and he looked away and started to turn a little red. She chuckled a little bit and held out her hand, "Hi, my name's Sam, and you are?" "Brian, sorry I uh..." he trailed off, cursing at himself for drinking that third beer far too quickly and suddenly feeling a rush of alcohol beginning to impede his ability to do ...anything. She was good looking and four maybe five years his junior. "It's nice to meet you, my friends and I have been talking about how you look really familiar" she started to say as a knowing look came across her face. That "Aha, now I've got you" look. Shit, thought Brian. It wouldn't be much longer before his blissful anonymity would be gone. Gone forever. A secret he had kept from everyone since he had moved to Syracuse. He knew that it really was only a matter of time. A name change and age were never going to really hide him for that long. Actually, he was surprised that it took nearly a full year for this moment to happen not counting that one incident at the airport in Buffalo and of course the Phish concert debacle. "uh...oh really?" "Has anyone ever told you that you look like that kid from that television show?" she said as she leaned forward. "Mister Belvedere?...yeah I get that a lot," said Brian grimacing. "Ha Ha..you know the one I'm talking about, it's written all over your face," she said. Dammit Dammit Dammit, you had to go straight to having beer you idiot with no food, and now this girl, woman, is going to out you in front of all of your stupid drinking buddies. Brian was in a small state of panic. If his drinking buddies and Paul found out about this there would be no end to the harassment. Every week it would be something new. Clippings from Teen Beat plastered all over the bar and Paul would put the goddamn CD in the jukebox. Brian didn't want to have to find another bar. He liked this one. He liked the regulars, he liked all the bartenders, he liked the atmosphere and he especially liked the fact that the place didn't get to damn busy on a Friday night. "I fucking hate this commercial," said Sam, "you're not going to have an adventure because you're wearing a pair of fucking Levi's." "I would tend to think you have more adventures without any pants," said Paul and with that the last of Brian's beer came through his nose as he could not contain his laughter. Paul had been waiting to use that line since the commercial started airing two weeks ago and it worked as Sam giggled. Perhaps though she was giggling at Brian's unavoidable faux paux but Paul didn't seem to notice. "I'll be right back, can you watch my drink for me?" said Sam as she grabbed the two pints of beer and walked towards a back table where her friends were sitting. One of them, a guy, was wearing a bright orange 'Cuse shirt, shorts and beach sandals, the other, a girl was wearing an "I bleed orange" T-shirt and jeans that made her look really uncomfortable. Sam had dropped off the drinks and motioned toward Brian, who gave a weak smile and the two of them raised their glasses towards him. Great a fucking toast to me. Whoop dee fucking doo. Sam started back towards Brian's spot at the bar while Paul place another pint in front of him.
"So Midori Sour huh? I didn't think anyone drank those anymore. Frankly I'm surprised Paul even has a bottle of that stuff"
"I've got a bit of a sweet tooth I guess and a low tolerance....so you're him right?
"What do you mean?"
"You're him...you were on that show"
"I'm still not sure what it is that you are implying?" (one last chance perhaps??)
"You spent six years in my living room, I think I know who you are....the sad part is that we've actually met before."
Brian's heart sank to the lowest of the low.

End Of Part One.

2009-09-23T20:50:00.001-07:00

New interlude coming this weekend. Stay Tuned...

A Brief Interlude Part 1

2009-08-03T18:37:00.000-07:00

His face was flush as little beads of sweat slowly evaporated down the sides of his head. He knew that he would be sore in a few different places tomorrow. Perhaps he had had one to many beers he thought to himself as he slowly crouched over the ball return fan, twiddling his fingers as though he were a magician. He always liked the feeling of the cooling fan that sat between the twisted rods of metal and multicolored bowling balls. It was almost time for the glow in the dark bowling to begin. This was the third game of the night. Everyone was tired but he wanted to keep going. He was sure some of his friends did too. Others were bored, but he didn't care, he knew that his two closest friends were still having fun and that's all that mattered to him. That and the fact that he would win all three games if he managed to pull off a miracle in these last three frames. The ten spot frame. Sometimes you got two rolls, sometimes you got three. He needed all three and that meant a strike or a spare to lead off. Could it happen. He reached over to grab his ball. James had always tried to pick a ball that nobody else would use. It was a really strange sort of OCD thing. It didn't bother him that hundreds of people before him had shoved their sweaty, dirty, booger picking fingers into those three slots, it mattered right then and there that he be the only one to use the ball. One of his compatriots had insisted on using his ball throughout the third game despite it being an obvious mismatch. James glowered at him with a deathly intent each time Marcus picked up his ball. When this occurred James also became really tense with the irrational fear that the ball would somehow never come back, that his game would somehow be off. If he lost this game surely it would be Marcus' fault. He walked forward slightly, leaned over and with both hands turned the ball over so that he could place his hand and fingers in the proper position. The ball wasn't particularly heavy this time around, only ten pounds. The middle finger fit well, but the index finger was loose and the thumb was a little tight. It made for a few unusual rolls that led to his falling behind in the game. That and the beer. Beer always made the game more interesting, but while more pints seemed to improve the games of his friends, James' game always suffered. There was a very distinct beer to bad frames ratio such that the number of bad frames increased exponentially for each beer that he had. He stood at the back line with his feet close together and a slight bend at the knees. His torso flexed slightly forward and his shoulders were elevated. He pulled the ball up towards eye level and gazed down the lane at the ten white pins. He noticed the slight bumps and grooves that ran in random patterns down the lane. He stood there for a few more seconds taking in everything that was going on around him. The DJ was in an eighties kind of mood throwing out one hit wonders like an LA radio station lunch hour. He could feel his friend's eyes on his back with their light chattering slowly reaching his ears. The groups bowling on either side of him were much more rambunctious. Lots of high fives and grunts from one gorilla to another and drunk girls who would no doubt have their friends holding their hair over a toilet later that night. He laughed to himself, took a deep breath and began his motion forward pulling the ball behind him and launching it forward down lane just off of the middle. The lights went off, the pins lit up in the arriving black light. The rest of the night had begun.

Q

2008-09-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

Two weeks in. First Block quiz done. Block exam in a week and a half....

love hitting the books......

Entered a biathlon in central park 2mi run, 12mi bike, 2mi run....should be fun...

alright back to the books...oh wait Mccain speech in 10 minutes....awesome....

in the interest of fairness I am watching...

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"What....are you out of your fucking mind??"

2008-08-18T16:32:00.000-07:00

Day One...over.....several hundred more days to go.....

2008-08-13T15:18:00.000-07:00

So it is the middle of the week and the middle of orientation round two at school. It is pretty weird to be around. I have run in to quite a few second years (my former classmates) and have gotten a lot of "oh....shit...that sucks" kind of lucks which has been okay. Less embarrassing than I initially imagined but still, I am not sure how to act around some people. Start classes again on Monday.

For the time being I had some grand ideas about reading ahead, but realized that I am going to be working my ass off for many many weeks to come and I had some beer and the end of Star Wars Episode I or "one of the worst movies ever" is on and well....I guess studying just didn't take precedence. Wow the dialogue is terrible....I mean really really terrible.....dammit I should have studied...

I've got the next four days "off" and I plan on making the most of them.....having dinner at a steakhouse on Friday...thinking of seeing Tropic Thunder tomorrow....we are having a small gathering on saturday and sunday I am seeing Rancid......and then......I expect that there will be a large gap between posts.....

cheers.

2008-07-31T11:01:00.000-07:00

Been awhile. Going to see if I can keep it up for a bit.

Starting Med school again in two weeks. Starting all over again as a first year. Had some personal life issues that managed to interfere enough such that my first first year was not such a good one.

I've spent the summer evaluating some studying techniques and sitting on my ass a lot. Played a couple of nights of poker with the guys. Watched a few movies. Jogged/Biked/Elipticled several miles. Drank some beer and thought long and hard about what lies ahead. I expect a lot of deja vu.

Orientation begins in a little over a week and thankfully I don't have to sit through all of it.

Let's see if I can keep this up.

2007-09-16T18:31:00.000-07:00

new drinking game. Drink a beer or do a shot anytime an announcer mentions that this might be Roger Clemens last time pitching anywhere.

2007-09-16T18:00:00.001-07:00

First exam coming up this friday. Pretty excited about it. Several hundred pages have been read...lots of things have been highlighted....powerpoints viewed.....transcripts transcribed. I will also be doing a physical exam of my first "patient" tomorrow. I should be studying more right now...but have spent the last few days studying so.....maybe having the last couple of nights off is probably a good idea and the sox/yankees are playing...c'mon.

will these frickin announcers quit talking about whether this is Clemens last god damn game he pitches at Fenway....I don't goddam care.....SHUT UP.....SHUT UP......SHUT UP......seriously they have spent the last ten minutes talking about it. SHUT UP....

Good Night...

2007-09-13T07:59:00.001-07:00

Med school is hard. No doubt about it. But so far I am loving it. Have a good class filled with a lot of good people...only a couple of annoying people who ask the lamest and I mean lamest questions you could possibly think of. There is also a small contingent of folks who tend to make things a lot harder than they actually are....overthinkers...I know because I used to be one....still working on it a bit though.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
I am Jack's Colon

2007-08-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

So orientation begins tomorrow. I am excited and nervous and looking forward to starting this. Man I am just damn excited to be going to med school. Looking forward to complaining about it too to all of my loyal readers....I have to be the guy who thinks it is going to be great only to have his spirit crushed in a couple of weeks by the ridiculous amount of information that I am going to have to retain. I have to get up really early and don't expect to sleep much tonight...I'm going to be that kid in that commercial "I'm too excited to sleep"

I'll let you all know how the orientation goes sometime tomorrow night, but for now dear readers enjoy the rest of your sunday!

cheers.

counting down

2007-08-09T07:09:00.000-07:00

And so here I am once again. I have a few more days of free time. I figure that I should be enjoying that time to the fullest if I can because my next totally "free" weekend will be sometime in November.

I am anxious about starting and have not been sleeping well. I guess there is a lot that is on my mind. Sometimes it is fear, but as I begin to post on the incoming class discussion board I know that others are in the same boat. We all have a huge journey in front of us. There are many of us who have been stressed to get all of the requirements completed. Having completed most of my stuff over the last couple months without having the acceptance yet has put me in a good position in terms of completion and I think that may have lead to the admissions committee seeing that I was truly interested in attending this school.

well anyway I'm rambling. Here's a shout out to A and C and J and soon to be: hope the renovations are going well!

cheers all

2007-08-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

Well here we are a little over a week out from the beginning of the rest of my life. Searching for a place to live. We might end up renting, we might end up staying where we are. I don't know what the hell we are going to do. We will be acquiring a vehicle shortly so there are more and more expenses to add to our life and hey who cannot forget the extraordinary debt that will also be piling up over the next four years. We still have it good though.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
I like the alphabet. The alphabet is fun.

Reading is good

2007-08-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

Futurama was a funny show.

My wife discovered recently that Whole Foods, the evil corporate natural/health/local grower grocery store that is slowly taking over the country, now sells my favorite kind of beer, Flying Dog. Much to the chagrin of the wife the fridge will now always have some kind of flying dog ale in it.....WOO HOO! Beer is good. My interest in the beer began when I first noticed the labels, which featured the art of Ralph Steadman, Hunter Thompson's old friend, and illustrator of the seminal "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" which managed to have a profound effect on me when I first read it about 14 years ago. On a whim I decided to give the beer a taste and decided to try the pale ale. In fact, excuse me I have to go and purchase more beer.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Good people drink good beer.
-Hunter S. Thompson

2007-07-31T12:11:00.000-07:00

oh my lord, lord, lord, lord....ah..mmmm......ah.....mmmmm

just completed and turned in all of my required documents and tests for med school. Am now looking forward to my orientation which begins two weeks from yesterday.

What can I do to pass the time until then. Well I am reading a book on the history of the CIA, a book called American Gods by Neil Gaiman and will shortly begin "How Doctors Think" which I believe will be a good book for me to read.

The Sox have an 8 game lead still in the east which makes me feel pretty confident. Was supposed to go to Cooperstown yesterday, but have decided that finding a place to live might be a bit more important right now. To rent or to buy that is the question....in the meantime we are in the midst of trying to find out about shipping a car from one state to another...and looking into DMV registration, title, insurance...all those fun things that come with owning a car.....great fun. I also apparently need to secure a space in the student parking lot asap.

The fun does not appear to be stopping.

2007-07-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in front of the television and I cannot make the decision to change my life. Maybe TCI will be the answer. I could earn more money then I ever thought possible. A college degree or a certificate....damn....that is awesome! I have always wanted to learn automotive repair, air conditioning repair, refrigerator repair, relationship repair, oven repair...WOO HOO! Reminds me of an ad I see occasionally on the subway. I do not recall what "school" it is but it is a bunch of smiling men and women who are learning the ins and outs of Medical Billing.....a certificate for medical billing. Medical billing is important but I can't imagine anyone being that excited about WOO HOO....MEDICAL BILLING!!!!!

Comedy Central Roast of Flavor Flav? Wow and I never thought that I would rather see Chevy Chase get roasted for a fourth time, not that I have ever seen any roasts, nor do I really care who the hell it is that they are roasting. Actually the idea of celebrity has been bothering me of late.

I have been watching too much television. I have seen way to many commercials for refinancing, personal injury attorneys, technical colleges, flavor flav roasts..and scrubs...
Pachenga or who-who!

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Life is what is happens when you are busy making plans
-Lennon

2007-07-26T20:22:00.001-07:00

Yeah so this is really me.....I still like my simpsons avatar better, but whatever....I am learning to play with some of the cool gadgets on my computer...we've come a long way since the commodore 64....I feel so "with it"

QUOTE OF THE DAY
NASDAQ 2599.34, (down 48.83 or 1.84%)

I am so funny...ok maybe not but I guy can dream right?

2007-07-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

Well well well, It has been a week or so since we last spoke. We've returned from a trip out west, visiting those in the VH clan and a dear old friend. All is well from what I could gather with grandma VH healing nicely and now in the 21st century with an LCD flat screen TV and HD cable as opposed to the old cabinet television that is older than me. She was very happy to see us and felt that we had helped her heal even more. The folks were busy getting prepared for a family trip to Italy...sans yours truly (not terribly surprised)....I trust that they are having fun although they did not bother to give me the phone numbers for the international cell phones that they had ordered....I suppose I have been relegated to feel like that weired uncle who nobody really keeps in touch with, but is treated well when he goes for a visit. I cannot figure it out. The wife was somewhat incredulous that they would be going on a family trip and not invite their son....but I think she ultimately is not surprised either by the turn of events.

Meanwhile...visiting my good friend RJ down in LA who was busy on a video shoot for a band called As I Lay Dying, I was asked right around 11:00pm or so if I wouldn't mind giving a hand with helping put a set together. Frankly, I wasn't really asked but rather told "hey mil, come here" I back to my folks house around 3am later that morning covered in grime and grease and look forward to seeing the video wherein I will proclaim loudly..."I helped hang that broken television....I hung those wires....I was a stand in for the band" (I am laughing out loud while I right this by the way...or rather rotflmao btw in the "with-it" lingo that these young whipper snappers are oft found to utter these days.) Anyway...it was really, really good to see him and meet his gf S.

Have I ever told anyone how much I love the movie The Natural. Managed to catch it the other night on AMC and taped the last hour or so. One of the best sports movies ever chock full of stars, Robert Redford (he sure looked old 23 years ago), Robert Duvall, Richard Farnsworth, Michael Madsen, and of course who could forget the oatmeal eating, home delivery pharmacy getting diabetic Wilford "my mom wanted me to be a farmer" Brimley. I have to tell you when Hobbs breaks the clock at Wrigley with a home run and the last 15 minutes of the film are enough to elicit some precipitation from the ducts in my occular cavities.

I am less than a hundred pages from finishing that damn book that you see everyone reading on the train, and in the park, and on planes, and at the movies. I would say that I just love to read but in reality I am a pop culture whore and god forbid anyone should ruin it for me. Went and saw the movie this morning as well.

All things seem to be working well on the MD front. Just waiting for my deposit to have been received and some blood test results for Hep B surface antigen...go WBCs go and all things should be about squared away...except of course how I am going to pay for it all.

Went to the kwik-e-mart and picked up a couple of cans of buzz cola, the wife had blue vanilla squishy that tasted like....well....tasted not good. I was disappointed that there as no duff beer to be had....alas.

Had dinner with JC and the wife last night to celebrate JC's recent engagement. Followed by a drink at the place that used to be Boxers on West 4th street...can't think of the damn name now...begins with a C. R, JC's future husband, joined us on the way there. I must say I don't like regular vodka martinis and it was a mistake for me to order one. I did not get drunk off of it or anything, it just tasted like crap to me and my body did not want any of it in me....It took me at least an hour to finish it. My hats off to the music at this place though which turned out to be coming from one of those TW cable music channels, most likely the alternative hits of the 80's or something.....songs from Peter Gabriel, The Sisters of Mercy, Missing Persons, Kajagoogoo, b-52's, violent femmes. It was for lack of a better term brilliant. The most shocking moment of the evening came when lo and behold a circle jerks song came on. "This is the greatest bar ever" I thought to myself aloud as my wife rolled her eyes.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"<sobbing> GREYSTACHE!....<sobbing>...GREYSTACHE!"

I crack myself up...

2007-07-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

It is a brand new day. I am sitting on my couch watching ER (have to watch it now before I start to dislike it once I start med school....I'll probably still watch Scrubs though.)
I am still shaking my head and smiling to myself knowing that all the work that I have done over the last three years has been worth it. I am excited about the future knowing full well that there will definitely be a time where I will say aloud "I think I made a big mistake" or "What the hell was I thinking" or "Holy crap I don't know if I can handle this" but I know, truly believe, that I am on the path that I am meant to be on no matter what happens.

Thank you everyone for all of your support!

Post Script

2007-07-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

Um.....for those who are interested......we're moving to Brooklyn......

nuff said?

2007-07-10T13:20:00.001-07:00

My dearest readers I would like to introduce you to

MVH, MD

Yep...thats right....it happened....I got the call at approximately 4:05pm on the day of my third anniversary.

Don't screw with China

2007-07-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

So the Chinese government has executed the head of it's State Food and Drug Administration for corruption that lead to contaminated toothpaste and for a time scared the living crap out of a lot of countries. Can you just imagine if we had that kind of government here? There wouldn't be many people left to manage our country because they would all be executed for corruption!

RIP Fred Thompson's campaign. The NY Times reported on Saturday that Thompson was hired as an advisor by a pro-choice lobbying firm back in the early 90's. Mr. Thompson is currently running on a pro-life stance and has no recollection of doing any work for said firm. Now granted he may still have a shot since I gather that not too many people read that article. In the words of one of my professors "You want to bury a story???...then put in the Saturday NY Times 'cause nobody reads the paper on Saturdays."

Anybody else notice that body spray commercials today are what beer commercials were in the 80's and 90's. "If you use this body spray, beautiful girls will have sex with you." Um....yeah, I guess I don't know anything about women. It reminds me of the following exchange: "A man definitely made that commercial!!", "Of course a man made it, it's a commercial not a delicious turkey dinner!!??" Unilever, the company that manufactures a certain brand of body spray reached a 52 week high this month on the exchange, so I guess the marketing strategy is working and yes people will buy anything.

Quote of the Day
"The ocean's no place for a squirrel"
-Sandy

Quote of The Day

2007-07-09T19:49:00.001-07:00

"I have my fears, but they do not have me."

-Peter Gabriel

A visit to DC

2007-07-09T08:18:00.000-07:00

So the wife and I made a quick weekend trip to our nation's capital for several hours of walking and sight seeing. I had never been before and the wife (aka moosk or A) had not been in about 15 years. It also gave us a chance to see some good friends that we had not seen in quite some time. We took a bus down on Friday morning. The initial trip began on a few sour notes. The subway decided to have signal problems and was delayed at a stop that was a bit far from where we needed to be to pick up the bus. We jump in a cab and make it in time for the bus, but not before I have had a chance to freak out about missing it. That's me....I tend to stress (not a big surprise to those that know me). The bus ride is smooth for the first three hours of the trip and in fact we seemed to be making really good time. I mention this aloud and realize that I have just jinxed the ride. Shortly before entering the DC area we notice that the bus driver has slowed down and is attempting to cross three lanes of traffic. He stops in a white painted area that is in-between the road and an on-ramp. "This is a little strange," I said to myself as the other passengers started looking around probably thinking the same thing. The driver goes to the back of the bus and comes back on grabs a couple of tools and some gloves. "Oh crap." He lifts a grate at the back of the bus and a small plume of smoke comes wafting out of the back. The bus driver, aptly named "Famous Tony" (more on this later), makes an announcement that there is a problem, but he wants to push forward. The bus lurches forward at about 10 mph in a 40 mph zone and it is very clear we are not going to get very far. A 1/2 mile down the road we stop again at the corner of New York and Fairview. At this point a number of people get off the bus and start making phone calls. A couple of people manage to grab a cab that was filling up at the gas station where we have stopped. Mr. Tony makes an announcement that there appears to be a leak in a tube and he wants to wait 10-15 minutes to see if it will cool down enough for us to make it to our first stop. we are about mile from our stop and a woman decides that she is going to go ahead and walk. Some time passes and the driver decides to go for it. We start up again at our new 15 mph speed and the driver makes a turn from New York on to North Constitution stops immediately and says "we are done" gets everyone off the bus and the wife and I are going to walk. We can see the capitol building and head towards Union Station. Welcome to DC. We meet up with R at work after eating a less than spectacular lunch at Sbarros in Union Station. DC metro is really nice although their metrocard system is a bit confusing, alas we are tourists. We walk with R to their home and S arrives shortly thereafter. Really great to see them both again. Friday night we have a nice Thai dinner walk on the water and mosey past the white house shortly after the sun has gone down. Saturday we get an early start on our epic trek through the monuments. Washington, Lincoln, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Jefferson, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Lunch at the Native American Museum, and a stop at the air and space museum. At the WWII memorial, Bob Dole was there talking with folks and taking pictures. The air and space museum was very cool. The things that stick out in my head: Spirit of St. Louis, Friendship 7 (Glen's earth orbit craft), a part of the lunch counter from a drugstore in Greensboro, NC (google February 1st, 1960 for more information or consult Marable's "Race, Reform, and Rebellion") and Carl Yastrzemski's batting helmet (this actually lead to my saying out loud "Yaz's helmet, that is f**king cool!"...and yes I am a dork).

Saddest part of the weekend? Having to get back on a bus and face the traffic. We apparently missed seeing Al Gore in person who made an appearance at The Native American museum where they were broadcasting the Live Earth Concert. We figured that he must have shown up shortly after we had left the area....Dang. Oh well, we have had to settle with seeing Bob Dole. The evening was topped off with a great sushi dinner (thanks R and S) and dessert at Kramerbooks/Afterwards Cafe. Picked up a book on the history of the CIA.

Sunday the wife and I made an excursion to the capitol building and the botanical gardens in the hella hot sun and moved on to a quick lunch with S (R had to go to Boston, sorry man!) before boarding our bus. Side note: Famous Tony was back to drive us back to NYC. He ended up serenading two people that had apparently just met playing the match maker. As we entered into the city he made the announcement that in the event that these two people get married that he should be invited, he would definitely come if he was invited and that he would borrow a bus and drive all of their friends and family to the ceremony and the dinner. Ah Famous Tony...you are a character.

Thanks again to R and S for a great weekend and good luck with the hunt for shelter!

2007-07-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

From the CNN ticker a day or two ago: According to a 47 nation poll the three people best suited to champion work to fight climate change are former vice-president and presidential candidate Al Gore (makes sense), former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (an influential, but perhaps slightly corrupt former world leader and figure head extraordinare), and.......and Oprah. Oprah? Well I guess that does make a great deal of sense, since if she told her followers (hmmm a bit cult like they are) to see a particular movie, read a particular book, jump off a bridge or use the restroom everyday at exactly 2:30pm, I would wager that many of them would.

What is going on world?

2007-07-03T06:58:00.001-07:00

So Hamas apparently had a mickey mouse type of character that spent mornings spewing anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment to Palestinian children across the desert. However, Mr. Mouse was recently assassinated, on television, by an Israeli agent and has now been martyred. Strange, strange world.

The Red Sox have a 10.5 game lead over Toronto and an 11 game lead over the Yanks. The baseball fan in me likes their chances, but the Red Sox fan in me can't help but think of 1978 and naturally Mr. Dent. Granted, I was four when that season occurred and honestly don't remember much about that year except perhaps my fondness for blue monsters, a green frog, and counting vampires.

On the train ride north a few days ago, we stopped at Greystone. Naturally, growing up in the eighties, my thoughts immediately turned to those epic half-hour journey's of He-Man, forgetting that the castle was in fact called Greyskull and not Greystone. I am such a dork.

new and improved

2007-07-01T05:48:00.000-07:00

I thought to myself that I used to be really funny, that I used to write about a variety of things, and that lately my focus has been on school, studying, getting into schools, grades, school, studying, etc. I want to take this opportunity to tell you all that I actually have other interests as well. And over the next few weeks I hope to share with you all my thoughts on other things other than getting into medical school. Why? I don't know. Because I like you?

and the tallies are in...

2007-06-04T11:12:00.000-07:00

So I managed to finish the semester with a 4.0 GPA. Pretty good way to end my undergraduate education I think. Finished Cum Laude and missed graduating magna cum laude by .006..oh well. It is my first weekday without a job. I have been around town writing thank yous, ordering transcripts yadda yadda yadda. Still awaiting word from the wait-lists. I am now AHA BLS certified so if any of my three loyal readers are unconscious I can perform CPR on you....ooh fun. Um....going to Hawaii in a few days....Holy schmoly...getting excited. Wish that I had more to report to ya'll but that is it.....I'll talk to you all soon..

all best,

mvh

and still waiting

2007-05-29T12:53:00.000-07:00

but in the mean time. I officially graduate college on thursday. It is a pretty weird feeling and I suppose that I would be feeling much better about all of it if I knew where it is I am going this fall. But I try not to let that get the best of me. I am proud that I have finally finished and am anxiously awaiting my grades for this semester. So far I have an A+ in my African civilizations class, with three more classes to hear from. If I manage to get a 4.0 this semester, which is actually a very distinct possibility I will hopefully graduate with honors ( as in magna cum laude), but at the very least I will be graduating with honors ( as in cum laude). Here's to hoping.

It only took 15 years, but I made it.

All Best,

MVH

2007-05-21T10:57:00.001-07:00

and waiting

Waiting is fun :)

2007-05-14T10:54:00.000-07:00

The gods of medicine have declared that I have not waited long enough or suffered enough anxiety about where I am going to go and have chosen to make me stand in limbo for an extended period of time wherein a definitive answer may not occur until the waning days of July or the beginning of August. Therein lies the magic of waitlists. We like you, sort of, and we may have a space for you after the people we think are actually more qualified to attend withdraw their acceptances. Ah the anguish. On a positive note, I have not been rejected and that is what keeps me going.

I'll be driving up to the state capital this wednesday for my last interview and will keep my loyal readers posted.......

Post 121

2007-05-03T10:31:00.000-07:00

Well here I am once again to tell you all the exciting things that are happening in my life. No...nope...nothing new to report.

11 Weeks for one school and 7 weeks on the other.

2007-05-02T10:04:00.000-07:00

For all of you chemistry/youtube dorks out there...just like me....

QUOTES OF THE DAY
"An enormous pair of scissors has appeared in the sky directly above the laboratory"
-Look Around You- Module 7- Iron

"Sulphur is not attracted to magents"
-Look Around You- Module 5- Sulphur

nothing new to report.....oh wait.....I have another interview and will be driving up to Albany in two weeks.

will keep my 3 loyal readers posted.....

2007-04-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

Wringing my hands like lady macbeth....contacted schools.....one saying hopefully by the end of this week....hopefully?.....hopefully? The other......"unfortunately it can take up to ten weeks for you to hear from us. We are working very hard to shorten that amount of time so that you will hopefully hear from us soon. Hang in there." (it will be seven weeks tomorrow). Financial aid stuff for DO school due tomorrow.....

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I am losing it....losing it fast.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"like that time I saw "The Sixth Sense" and made a vow to not tell anyone about the plot twist at the end where you find out that Haley Joel Osmet is Kaiser Sousa."

2007-04-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

Lets just go ahead and make things worse by informing all those present that an individual who interviewed the same day that I did at one of the schools received his/her acceptance email this morning. Found out via one of those ridiculous boards that I visit with dwindling regularity.

*Note to self*- stop going to those boards

I am now REALLY freaking the f out.

all best,

MVH

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Oh crap....oh crap.....oh crap.....oh crap......oh crap.....oh crap.....

2007-04-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

I have not been sleeping well as of late. I cannot shake this feeling of anxiety in the ever present waiting for the decisions that will befall me in the next two weeks. It is starting to take it's toll on me psychologically and physically. I now walk through the streets with butterflies in my stomach. I am dizzy and unable to concentrate on anything else. I wake up in the middle of the night and am unable to fall back asleep as my mind begins to mull over all of the "what ifs". I can feel my heart start to race and I can no longer lie still in bed or sit still at any of the desks that I occupy. In class I am physically present, but my mind will quickly begin a decent into a vertiginous abyss of the unknown. I am, for lack of a better phrase, "freaking the fuck out" about all of this. I start to feel guilty for not having done better in the past. I become jealous of my friends that have already been accepted. I start to wonder if I could have done things differently. If I should have said more or less in my interviews. Am I good enough for this journey. Will I be able to handle the ridiculous amount of stress that comes with having the lives of people in my hands. How many mistakes have I made and what mistakes will I undoubtedly make in the future. And of course the ever present questions like "Where the hell are my wife and I going to live dammit????" and "how the hell am I going to pay for all of this."
In this process, I can thankfully say that I do have a backup in place if these two other schools do not work out and for that I am forever grateful that, regardless of what occurs in the coming weeks, that I, no matter what, will be able to receive a doctorate and practice medicine.
For those of you counting, that is 23 MD schools applied to, 20 pre-interview rejections, 1 pre-interview hold, and 2 post interview decisions to be handed down.

In other news I have a biochemistry exam tomorrow that I will hopefully do well on. I did manage to get in some studying despite being out of town and will have tonight and most of the day tomorrow to make sure that I know my stuff.

I have been keeping my fingers crossed and hope alive for a multitude of things over the last several months of this year. The least of which seems to be my own future and being accepted to an MD school. The most important you ask? A story that is not meant for this journal, one that should be told in person and involves someone who has become irreversibly attached to my heart. That someone is at the top of my list and stands now as one of the more important assets in my life and has inadvertently become the ultimate reason for this journey that I have embarked upon.

When we next meet I will perhaps have some answers and will hopefully be able to look back at this post and laugh about how silly I was for thinking these things, but what I am really looking forward to is a good nights sleep.

With fingers perpetually crossed,

MVH

You feel old when...

2007-04-16T10:58:00.000-07:00

......only 9 out of 25 guys on the active roster of your favorite baseball team are just a bit older than you, and those 9 players are considered to be "veterans"

.... a professor in your class mentions Oliver North and your classmates say "who??"

....you quote a well known film from the 80's to someone and you get a blank stare in return.

....you mention your father's LP collection to someone and you get a blank stare in return.

....you mention that you remember when Michael Jackson was black to someone and that someone says "Michael Jackson was black?"

just call me grandpa already....soon I'll start complaining about how back in my day yadda yadda yadda..

and just for the record still no word.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Is this like the best day of your lives?"
"Turk...It finally happened....DOUBLE PRIZES"
"You guys know your doctors right?"

2007-04-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

Well what can I tell you that would excite you today. Probably not a whole lot on the personal level. I am still waiting.....trying to be patient...etc.

The head of the world bank is in trouble. Wow...misdeeds at a major corporate institution....It never would have crossed my mind. Nepotism in exchange for certain physical favors...I just didn't think people did stuff like that. But they were in a "relationship". Did anyone see the office last week? This all sounds like one of those art imitating life imitating art things.

Missing government emails.....you must be joking....stuff like that never happens!

Progress in Iraq?.....to paraphrase Jon Stewart "Oh...I see what the problem is, we've been looking at time as though it were moving forward. Linear time is so pre 9/11"

Grandmother is having a maze procedure today, also known as a catheter ablation, which will presumably take care of her irregular heartbeat. My thoughts are with you.

Friend of mine got into med school last week, to the very place that is my first choice, granted since there is only the possibility of my getting into two allopathic schools, the first choice or second choice seems somewhat moot. Anyway, I am so very excited for him. The news however has thrown me into quite a panic about my own situation and my mood has been rather poor of late. For those of you counting...it has been 8 weeks since one interview and 4 weeks since the other. My friend heard from this school in the 7th week after his interview, so perhaps there is some hope in my hearing sooner. Regardless, I am trying to remain as positive as I can be with an osteopathic route in my belt. I have also attempted to keep in my mind that I may end up with having to choose schools. Oh to be that lucky.

School is what it is at this point. My classes are going reasonably well. Our Biochem teacher is currently working on getting her tenure and as such we have had and will continue to have a variety of substitutes. This should make the next exam rather interesting. Lab is fine and interesting although I am not looking forward to class on Monday, wherein we will receive back our exam which I completely bombed. I am hoping that I at least passed with a 60, but that may be asking too much. My other two classes, a black politics class and African civilizations class are really damn interesting. It is nice to use the other half of my brain for awhile. Scored the highest grade in the class on my b-politics exam and recently breezed through an exam the other day in my civilizations class. Give me a map of Africa and I can place all the countries in the proper places.....I feel like I am in grade school again. No....that is too cocky and certainly disrespectful of my professors who are both really knowledgeable individuals. One is a Vietnam vet who has been teaching since 1978. I think I have learned more about this country in that class then I have in most of the other history/political sciences courses that I have taken. For the other class, I really did not know much of anything about Africa other than some bits and pieces about pre-history, Egyptology and the like, so it has been a great learning experience so far.

I will be graduating college with a BA in biochem on 5/31/07, and it will only have taken 15 years. It feels weird, but I think I really need that piece of paper in order to validate myself, not to anyone else, but for myself and my own ego as it were.

Ok so back to work....

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"My mother had a uterus...I used to live there."

The waiting.....

2007-03-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

MD Interview on 2/15/2007.....school says it will take 10 weeks to hear from them. 4/26/07 is the earliest I should be hearing from them.....another damn month....arghh.

MD Interview on 3/13/2007...school says approximately 8 weeks to hear from them. 5/8/2007 is the earliest I should hear from them......another month and a half......arghh...

can I say that again.....argh

Check please!

2007-03-09T15:01:00.000-08:00

Primary Application to MD Schools: $820.00
Secondary Applications for 23 MD schools: $1840.00 (An Average of $80 per school)
Primary Application to DO Schools: $310.00
Secondary Applications for 3 DO Schools: $240.00
Interview Invitations: 5 (3 DO and 2 MD)
Flights and Transportation Expenses: $555.00**
Remaining Pre-Interview Holds: 2
Schools I have heard zilch from since submitting apps: 3
Rejections: 16
Acceptances: 1 (DO), 0 (MD)
The chance to go another $200,000 in debt to chase this dream: priceless

**Must give props to my father in law for driving me to one of my interview locations.

2007-02-14T15:22:00.001-08:00

I'm ready to cry....

Pre-Med Advisor

2007-02-08T09:22:00.000-08:00

So I go to see my pre-med advisor to ask her to inquire about my status at a couple of schools that I have not heard anything from, and she in more or less words has told me that I don't have a chance of getting into any schools and that I should settle for the school that I got into.

Now I must tell you that if I don't get in anywhere else I will be perfectly happy going where I did get in, although I am not looking forward to having to explain what the hell a DO is. It's medical school people alright, enough said. MD=DO, the pay is the same, the residences are the same, the training is the same...yadda yadda yadda. But for her to tell me that when I in fact have an interview coming up next week at an allopathic school and presumably one more in the near future to me sucks ass. I appreciate her blunt honesty in all of this, but isn't she supposed to be encouraging me as well? I have worked too damn hard to just give up on this stuff and I still have a number of schools to hear from. What the hell is this lady's problem. I get the feeling that if she does call a school on my behalf that she won't go to bat for me, that she will tell them that I got in to a DO school, or that she does not think that I am qualified or something. It.....I.....what the hell......If I do get in to an MD program you can bet your ass that it will be no thanks to her and I have it in my mind to walk into her office, once all this is over and tell her to go **** herself and that she is wrong and that while you need to be honest in these kind of situations there is always still a chance that something can happen.....and I will be the proof of that. How can she sit there and crush somebody like that.....

Ok I feel better.......damn b*tch...HA HA HA............

2007-02-05T10:52:00.000-08:00

And so begins another week.

I am a little tired of checking my email account every ten minutes to see if another Med school has decided to give me a shot at the big time. I have one official interview, and apparently another interview in the pipeline as soon as this one school gets around to emailing me or so I was told by the admissions office of said school.

I am a little tired of heading off to look at other postings of people in a better position, or in the same position, or a worse position than me at the marvelously wonderful and sometimes painfully useless website studentdoctor.net. Lots of funny people with good attitudes who I believe will become excellent physicians and than there is the other half with not so good attitudes who will probably become excellent surgeons. Arguments often ensue about numbers, stats, acceptance, rejection, MD vs. DO etc., and it seems to me that this whole process is actually quite more arbitrary than anyone could hope to imagine. I have one friend who has a slightly better MCAT score than myself and the same GPA who applied early and has had four interviews and some rejections. Another friend who applied late, has the same MCAT score as I do, but a better GPA and has had multiple interviews and multiple acceptances. I have an interview at one school that the latter also has, but the former does not. It would be impossible, I think to correctly ascertain anybody's chances as many factors come in to play outside of the numbers game (MCAT, GPA). The essay, the letters of recommendation, race, background, place of undergraduate study, Extracurricular activities. All of these things and more seem to play a role in all of this. Even the people who claim that all you have to do is apply early, while the numbers of interviews may be better, do not necessarily mean that acceptance is guaranteed. It is true to some extent that the more places you interview the more likely you are to be accepted, but regardless of the time that you interview no one can assume that you are only going to be waitlisted. There is a lot of crap that people write about this stuff wherein the above has happened to them, but again, it all appears to be pretty arbitrary.

The bottom line: Your application will be reviewed pretty thoroughly by most schools, however if someone is having a bad morning the day your application is reviewed, chances are you are not going to get an interview. That's it...totally arbitrary.

I am not too sure of where this post is heading or if it makes any kind of sense. That is the trouble with trying to write spontaneously.

One could try and piece together some information based on the experiences of other people in the same situations, but that does not mean it will be the absolute truth for them or anyone else. The only absolute is the vodka.

I am off to check my email. :)

All Best,

MVH

z

2007-01-26T10:46:00.000-08:00

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2007-01-10T11:37:00.000-08:00

My First MD interview!!!

Received notice on January 9th and scheduled for February 15.

Feel a little bit better.

12 more still to hear anything from.....4 holds....

Hope this is a trend that will continue.....

2007-01-08T10:31:00.001-08:00

So here I am once again. Nothing new to report on the med school front. I am tired and miserable about all of this. Hope your day is going better.

All Best,

Milhouse

Just another...just another day

2007-01-04T07:39:00.000-08:00

Well here I am once again loyal readers out there in blogger world. A Happy New Year to you all. Let's see what I can tell you today.

The wife and I had a marvelous vacation. I think it was the first time for both of us that we did not miss New York. Strange how the air is different in the places that we went. I was perfectly fine with little or no stuffiness and yet after the first night back in New York....I woke up with stuffiness. New York must be a little toxic. The first stop in our holiday journey brought us to Greenville, South Carolina. They do love their christian god there. A church on every corner. We met my cousin for the first time. A six month old named Eden. This may be very biased but she is quite adorable. WE spent some quality time with my Grandparents and various Aunts and Uncles. Funny thing is that I have an uncle (by marriage) who is 4 years younger than me. Strange to be sure, but he is a good fellow and an attentive father. We ate, drank, went to church, and a merry old time.
Our next stop brought us to Houston, Texas where we rang in the new year with the wife's family. It was loads of fun as I anxiously awaited my biochem grade so that I might update my med school applications. New Year's was pretty low key. We dined at a new restaurant that ended up being pretty good food. I enjoyed partaking in a superb pinot noir and a crisp chardonnay while supping on a delicious filet mignon. I won't bother you with the odd end to the evening as I was not present for the discussion of the bill which apparently turned into a little bit of a scene between a family friend and a waiter. Alas.
In other news, on the day of my biochem final I received an acceptance letter from NYCOM. I could very well be an osteopathic physician. I need to make a choice however about sending a large quantity of money to secure a position there in the next two weeks. I believe that I also have been rejected pre-interview from Cornell. My top choice and my biggest disappointment to date. I suppose I really didn't have the numbers to get in, and despite my better than average performance at my current school I cannot seem to shake my first couple of years of college which ended more than 10 years ago. May I suggest that regardless of what you want to do in the future make the most of any secondary education that you receive. Just try and do well wherever you are. From my experience so far, I can tell you that you will probably get bitten in the ass if you don't especially if you decide to change careers and go into medicine.

Well I have to go now. I have to spend the rest of the f**king day calling about music rights, because no one in my office wants to do this......jesus effing christmas.....this is not what I get paid for ya know.....this is not my job description anymore......ARGHHHH.

cheers to all and to all a good day.

2006-12-20T10:05:00.000-08:00

So I guess I am also on hold at UVM. Vermont.

I am so very tired. I have one final left that is tomorrow and than I am off for a month to fret over whether or not I am going to get any interviews from MD schools.

The one thing that I wish I had known was how freekin long this whole process takes. The selection process seems so arbitrary sometimes. A friend has already been accepted to one school, not her first choice, but an acceptance nonetheless. Other friends have already been on multiple interviews. I would say that I was hindered by having to take the MCAT in August, however a classmate who also took the MCAT in August has already been on four interviews. What the hell do I need to do here.

I have three holds to date and no interviews for MD schools.

For DO schools, I've been on two interviews and have one in January. I would prefer to go to an MD school and may have to face making a decision about whether or not I go to a DO (if I am accepted) versus applying to MDs again for next year.

I just don't feel very good about all of this right now....what can I say....

I am also having a hard time not looking at the SDN which is starting to piss me off. All these people complaining about waiting to hear some news after their interviews and all I want is a chance to be interviewed for chrissake........

argh.
poop.

I don't know I am just frustrated.....

15 to hear from....
3 holds
5 rejects

Update

2006-12-13T07:30:00.000-08:00

Rejections: 5
Holds: 2

Received rejection from University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry

16 to go....

Still Waiting

2006-12-11T10:09:00.000-08:00

From what I can gather there will probably be a string of rejections coming my way this week as the schools attempt to clean out their desks for the holiday season. I am starting to get depressed....

poor me. Hey at least I have my health...and a beautiful wife.....and all of this hard work to be proud of....

cheers all and keep your fingers crossed for me...cause it ain't over till it's over.

Waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting...well....you get the idea

2006-12-06T09:22:00.000-08:00

As of 12/06/2006:
Interviews Completed: 2
Interviews to do: 1
Holding Status: 2
Rejections: 4

So the wife and I will not be moving to Wisconsin. They were very happy, however, to receive an additional $70 of our money for the supplemental application fee.

Two interviews down and they went as well as they could I suppose...no difficult questions.

17 more to hear from.....

I'll keep ya'll posted.

and the winner is....not me

2006-11-20T10:27:00.000-08:00

Boston University Response: "um...no thanks...you suck."

MD: 0/4 and one hold for my fall grades....woo-hoo...I'm on a roll!!!

so far....

2006-11-16T08:52:00.000-08:00

University of Minnesota Response- "um..no thanks...you suck"
University of West Virginia Response- "um..no thanks...you suck"
SUNY Upstate Response- "we sorta like you but we are pretty sure that someone better is going to come along...we'll review your application after we have looked at everybody...so could you wait a bit longer for our rejection notice?....thanks!"

Western University- Interview scheduled
University of New England- Interview soon to be scheduled
NYCOM- Interview scheduled

MD results to date: 0/3
DO results: 3 interviews

Here's to making the best of a long, difficult, and costly process.

Still keepin' the faith!

All Best,

Milhouse

Milhouse-Episode IV: A New Hope

2006-10-13T09:46:00.000-07:00

So it was recently brought to my attention that many of you loyal readers have been a bit curious as to the current affairs in the state of milhouse.

Let me just say in the words of the IMAX movie about the space shuttle:

The Dream is Alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ode to the dramatic

2006-06-20T15:16:00.000-07:00

The dream is dead

you figure it out

bye.

What is it all about really? Part 1

2006-06-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

Medical School.

A scary thing to have in front of you. After a series of side paths along my 31 years on this earth I find myself returning to the one thing that I have wanted to be when I was ten years old. The journey began when I first looked at a copy of Gray's Anatomy. I became enamored by the complexity with which we circulate fluids, move our bodies, and breathe. I spent many hours and days sifting through the pages of the 36th edition of the 1918 tome. This interest translated into taking a physiology class in high school as an elective and massive amounts of reading supplemented by the PBS specials "The Brain", and "So You Want to be a Doctor". The latter, a special look at ten medical school students at Johns Hopkins, dissolved any doubts that I may have had about entering the profession.
Shortly before I completed my high school education, I had been accepted to UCSB. The university had a fantastic zoology program that I felt would provide a solid background for my future studies in medicine. My matriculation, sadly, was not to be as a number of financial shortcomings were not attended to. Namely, as I was filling out the numerous and complicated financial loan/aid applications, my parents decided that they could not lend their signatures on my behalf and being all of 17 at the time with no credit rating to speak of and a minimum wage paying job at a local fast food joint, there was no other option available to me. To be perfectly honest, I was devastated as I had worked very hard in high school to get into a well regarded university and it seemed like it was all for nothing. In a more positive light, I imagine that I would be a very different person today if that path did not end the way it did.
The following fall I matriculated at a local community college. Still disgruntled and bitter, I began classes with the attitude that I shouldn't work hard at all anymore. If hard work got me nowhere, why should I continue working hard if it is still going to lead nowhere. It was very immature way of handling the situation. My grades were less than spectacular and I withdrew from a lot of classes. These W's and C's tarnish my academic record to this day. I can say that I did end up completing nearly every class that I withdrew from. (I left the school before I had the chance to take "beginning direction" again.) During my time at this college, I started taking acting classes and found that I enjoyed it a great deal. I was surrounded by a number peers and instructors who seemed to recognize some kind of talent in me, enough for me to audition for a major film and an acting conservatory in New York City. My plans for medical school were put on hold in order to explore this new and exciting path.
My audition for the conservatory must have gone very well. In addition to being accepted, I was also awarded a four thousand dollar scholarship. Two days after my 21st birthday, I was on my way to New York City.

Geez...where the hell ya been dude.

2006-05-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

In the words of one Floyd first name Pink...."Is there anybody out there."

Let me tell you something. I am toast, I am done, I don't know how much more of this I can take. I am in the midst of the first part of the application process for medical school. It has been a long road with a giant freekin mountain left to climb. I can mow understand why people decide to not go for it as you get closer and closer to application time. There are so many hoops you have to jump through just to get in and they seem to get smaller and smaller the farther along you go making them more and more difficult to get through.

5/22/06 As of today I think that I am done with physics forever, so please do ask me to tell you which way a wave is propagating, or how much current is charged in a mess load of capacitors, because frankly I don't give a rat's ass about any of it...Oh dear MCAT gods if you are looking down on me please for the love of God let me not have to take it again. I want to be done with physics.......

I have a history final tomorrow covering the beginnings of the indo gangetic, Chinese and Japanese cultures..... So there is a religious movement called the Bhakti which is the path to enlightenment through the love of god. Krishna, one of the many personified forms of the Brahman, is a cowherd, who has a group of cowherd girls (called the gopis) who follow him around, are in love with him, etc. Now the term gopis (go-Pees) is very close to groupie (grew-Pee) and I am wondering if this is where the term evolved from. Krishna, as a cowherd, was also apparently a musician who is often depicted playing a bamboo flute. This makes sense to me...and yes I am king of the dorks...I do not need to be reminded of that.

....and oh yes...the dreaded orgo 2 final makes in appearance on thursday....

Then there is all the other crap that is happening everywhere else in the world. I fear for the future.

So I ask again, why the hell can't hollywood do anything original anymore....The Omen, Posiden, next thing you know they'll remake the classic 70's disaster of a movie"Avalanche", oh wait they made a bazillion other movies already named avalanche one with David Hasselhoff, and one with C. Thomas Howell, a few in the 30's, one from the 20's. So maybe they've tapped that market enough already. Funny side note is that my great uncle was in the avalanche movie from the 70's. What is going to be really creepy, or crappy depending on ones view of the world is when they decide to remake all of those Ah-nold and sly stallone films from the 80's. Can you even begin to imagine "Commando" with the Rock and Dakota Fanning....or say First Blood with, well, Sly Stallone again.....Man that is going to suck.

I highly recommend "The Cooler" to everyone...really decent indie flick with Bill Macy, Alec Baldwin, and Maria Bello.....good stuff....

The wife and I are in the midst of watching season two of The West Wing. Seriously wonderful show....it makes me sad to watch it though because, well, let's just say that it is nice to see a leader of the United States who is well, not dumb....what is even worse is that it is entirely fictional....ok rambling...time to go....

maybe I'll see ya'll in a month or so.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
I just spent all morning watching a VH1 special on Gwen Stefani. I don't know what a Hollaback girl is. All I know is that I want her dead.
-Brian Griffin

The post-MCAT blues

2006-04-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

Alas, it has been a few days since the dreaded MCAT. I have to say that I was initially very relieved and have since moved on to being completely mortified by my performance on the exam. I can only hope that I did not do as poorly as I so firmly believe. Worst case scenario is that I have to take it again in August. The exam was pretty damn difficult. I think that I got one of the harder versions. Physical sciences and verbal were not too terrible, but the biological sciences section was just brutal. By brutal, I mean that I stared at the free standing questions with a look of horror and thinking to myself "aren't these supposed to be the easy points questions?????" There were some things on there that really threw me for a loop. On the whole I would recommend to anyone planning on taking the exam to enroll in a prep course. I would have been totally screwed without it, but than again, I am not the smartest cookie around. I don't think, however, that I was adequately prepared for all of the biology that was thrown my way that horrible torrential downpour of a day. The orgo stuff was not bad, but the bio really kicked my ass....have I said that enough yet.

Now comes the waiting and the fretting until the first week of June, when I can apparently access my scores. I don't think anyone will want to be around me on that day.....

Even worse is that I still have another month left of school.....I have a round of exams and then finals to contend with. I was pretty out of it on sunday and monday of this week, but I have finally come around to focusing in on what remains of this semester and so I am off to study...

cheers all.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"When you talk to God they call it praying, but when God talks to you they call it schizophrenia"
-Fox Mulder

2006-04-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Dark this heavy past, tension over talking"
-from "Goneja", The Greater Wrong of the Right, Skinny Puppy

Holy jeebus..........F=ma....(X1m1 +X2m2 + X3m3)/(m1+m2+m3)....H + OH = H2O and all sorts of other useless crap rolling around in my head

2006-04-19T14:33:00.000-07:00

Oh yes....here I am.

MCAT is on the schedule Saturday, April 22nd. I am officially freaking out....I need to go to my isolated cave and find my power animal...."slide...hee hee hee."

So I have been listening to XM Radio Comedy.

They had a clip of a guy calling information...
"Thank you for calling directory assistance what listing please"
"Batman"
"Thank you please hold for the operator"
Yes sir, what listing?"
"Batman"
"Is that Manhttan?"
"Gotham City"
"What?..."
"Gotham City"
"Wha..where is that?"
"Manhattan"
"Alright than, is there a first name?"
"....Bruce"
"Is that a business or a residence?"
"Residence...he lives in a lair"
"Hmm...OK...Uh...no..I don't see a listing for a first name Bruce last name Batman"
"I will find Batman"
"sir?"
"I will find Batman, with all of my hatred"
"Alright sir, well good luck with that"

Yeah I guess you had to be there, but it was pretty damn funny.

So the wife and I are in the midst of watching The West Wing on DVD and I have to tell you all that this was a damn good show....I remember seeing some episodes of the first and second season when it was on tv for the first time. I wish that there was someone that I could be excited about out there. If I could vote a tv character to be president and replecate his entire cabinet it would be this one. Yes...that is retarded. Not to give anything away but there was a bit about an assasination attempt and my wife said "I wonder if anyone has planned an attempt on the current leader?"...and later she realized who would be the leader if that happend....yeah...probably no attempts and believe it or not that is a really good thing. Geez I guess I shouldn't be talking about this cause I could get arrested or something....but I ain't said no names nor places....ha ha.

Blah blah blah, physics, blah blah blah, chemistry, blah blah blah, biology, blah blah blah, verbal reasoning, blah blah blah, writing samples, blah blah blah, organic chemistry. Oh my freekin god...what the hell am I doing...can I do this....do I want to go to med school.....jeebus L. cristmas....argh, argh, argh.....it's only a test, it's only a test.....remember to breathe...just breathe....go to your happy place.....

During my prep course one of our instructors wanted to start his own company and the mascot or insignia would be Rammy the big...well...you know....and all of the questions in the manual would be "what would Rammy do...?" Physics questions would be so much more fun that way... i.e. Rammy is thrusting with an initial velocity of x and at 2 minutes later with a reduced velocity of y. What is rammy's acceleration in the first minute. (Rammy always uses lubricant, so it is a friction can be ignored...")...ok so milhouse has officially lost it and gone for the X-rating.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Principal Skinner what happend to your hand?"
"I believe it was some sort of boating accident....I have to go now"

2006-04-10T14:52:00.000-07:00

Organic Chemistry sucks ass!!!! I study and I study....and da shit just don't want to work out for me......I will be so goddamned happy when this stupid ass f**cking semester is over.......Argggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!

Thoughts for the day

2006-04-05T16:34:00.000-07:00

1. What happened to Karl Malden...remember The Streets of San Francisco? The law and order of 30 years ago.

2. How did the word dyke become associated with lesbians? I mean honestly how does an embankment built to prevent flooding also mean a gay woman....

3. The lines are drawn and the season has begun....Red Sox (1-1) Yankees (1-1) another 100 and change to go. Baseball....gotta love the game.

4. Have you gotten your new kenmore washer, dryer, oven, etc.

5. Blech

6. I'm hungry

7. I am going to eat.

8. I'll write more soon

9. Maybe

10. Jam jamma joo

11. There are a number of people in my world history class who have not heard of or do not listen to the beatles....this is very very wrong.

I'm gonna sing the doom song now...

2006-04-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't heard from me in awhile, well, I am alive and perhaps well. I am very much looking forward to ending this sad sad semester of school. The motivational ringing in my ears has diminished a bit. I may or may not be taking the MCAT in April. It has been suggested to me to see what happens in the next couple of practice exams and what happens that week. If I can manage to feel comfortable with the whole thing than maybe I will get it out of the way. My pre-med advisor has said that she is a bit concerned with the whole thing and who can blame her....I need a kick ass score to get my foot in the damn med school door. I have improved over the past several months in terms of scoring, but it does not appear to be where I need to be with 18 days to go. Worse case scenario is that I wait until August and use the summer to hone my skills on this oh so dreadful piece of standardized testing. My score has gone up a mere 6 points overall putting me right square in the middle of the road with the national average....and that is exactly what it is....average....I need at least another 6 points to even be considered a decent applicant....and so the summer maybe just what I need to achieve this goal. In other school news, my classes suck ass this semester. I just don't feel the drive much right now. They are hard, and although I feel like I am studying my ass off I am not performing so well on exams. I think my GPA may take antoher dip this time around. I thought this semester was going to be easier on me....I have a better schedule in terms of time, I have one "light" class along with orgo 2, physics 2, and the associated labs, but I just don't know if I can do it this semester....last semester sucked ass too and maybe I am still feeling the effects of that.

Onward soldier say I. I am not giving up on the goal. I have worked far to hard to come this far just to simply quit this thing. I am going to get into med school somewhere and I will not give up until I do...OK if I don't get in in the next five years than maybe it was not meant to be. This move and this dream just feel right...it just feels like this is what I should be doing with my life.

I'll be applying to about 20 or so schools including all of the ones in New York State, and others from around the country.

I have my committee member interview for my pre-professional office recommendation this thursday and I must say I am a little excited about it. At least I know I am getting one piece of the puzzle right....well....we'll see what the guy thinks of me. He's a psych professor who got his PhD at MIT....so I'm wondering what kind of curves he is going to throw at me. Supposedly all of the committee people are treating these interviews as mock interviews for med school....a good idea...just to give us an idea of what these things can be like. For all the crap that my school gets I can say that the pre-professional office and the people that work there really do show how much they want all of us to succeed. I know that when we get in to med school it makes them look good too, but it is nice to know that they are their helping us....and giving us straight answers...(i.e., if you don't get such and such a score mil, you are not going to have a chance in hell of getting in anywhere....etc.)

I should be studying for a physics exam, but studying at work does not ever work out in any sort of fashion whatsoever. There is always something to do here....like updating a blog for instance....that and the damn spider solitaire...oh yeah, and my boss bothering me every other minute to remember to pay some sort of bill or other....today it was.....hey, can you go through all the cabinets and throw out all the old stationary from old shows we won't need that many scrap envelopes etc...whereas several months ago, it was don't throw so much of that stuff away because we can always use it for scrap paper....yes...this is my life.

LOST was freekin' awesome last week....can't wait to see what happens now. damn you tv damn you to hell.......

have a good one all.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?"
-The incomparable Homer Simpson

doom doom doom....doom doom doom doom doom doom......doom doom doom doom doom doom....doo doo doo doo doom...doody doody doo doo doom.....doo doo doo doom.

QVOTE OV THEE DAE

2006-03-08T14:51:00.000-08:00

"The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States an Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome god in Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach little league in the Blue States and yes, we've got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.
We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?"

--Barack Obama
Speaking to the Democratic National Convention
July 24, 2004

Yeah, I had ideals once too and I'm not even a politician. Here's to hoping that you are not a flash in the pan. I've got my fingers crossed for an Obama/Boxer ticket some day...just imagine...idealism and analytical data in chart form.

2006-03-08T13:40:00.000-08:00

You walk down the streets of this city often enough and you start to notice things that you may not have noticed before. The way the light from the sun beams down Madison Avenue at lunchtime. The avenue stretchs up and down a good length of the island and from the way the light is coming down it looks as though there is a haze floating just above the top of people's heads. The cacaphony of traffic congestion and people talking either to their walking companions or their mobile companions about some kind of deal, where they want to eat, or what they are doing tonight is louder than the music playing in my ears. A million people must walk these streets everyday, like moths attracted to a big lightbulb at the center of town with their eyes towards the heavens as though they don't have tall buildings in their hometown. The ones who have been here the longest have that thousand yard stare that pierces you right through the middle. There is no time to look up or out for what is above or right in front of them. People squeeze through each other like they are being pressed into sausage just to be the first across the street once the light changes or the traffic clears. A bustling madness and yet there is a timed beauty, a serenade or dance that bubbles at the surface.

"I hope I remember my bosses birthday next week."
"Crap, I need to get cat food on the way home."
"...and that leaves me with only a few hundred for the next two weeks."
"I like popcorn"
"George Clooney"
"Look at that ass."
"What the hell happend last night?"
"If they don't want to sign the contract...."
"...and I was like oh my god...I can't believe this is happening"
"get the f**k outta my way"

Then there is the excessive **HONK**.....**HONK**......**********HONK***********
The single greatest act of futility. You hear them even when you are several floors of concrete, steel and glass above the city street.

yee-haw....to be continued...

2006-03-04T18:48:00.000-08:00

Figured i needed a little change. and thanks to the wife's free time I now have a cool banner with a pic of little ole me on our last trip to Newport....didn't think the green was gonna work out anymore......maybe I will find some time to post something more interesting soon....

mmm...yes...shallow and pedantic

2006-03-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

So I had my first exam of the semester today. Physics....I absolutely love the idea of knowing how shit works, I just have no idea how the hell this shit works. I may not have studied enough...or done enough problems and the sole blame lies squarely on my own shoulders, whatever the excuse, it is all my own fault. I know that I will do better in the future and it is only one test....I have a few more I can fail along the way. It seems I need to buckle down though and really do some strong physics studying....I feel like I am falling into what happened last semester with physics and I cannot afford to let that happen.

In other news I have an orgo exam tomorrow which I am rather indifferent towards...I mean c'mon LOST is on tonight and it's a freakin new episode.....going to be a late one for me tonight....alas.....

There is a peer who presumably is a post-bacc student who is taking the same MCAT prep course who seems to have an excuse for when she does not do well on a test. Some girl was sneezing next to me the entire time....stuff like that....f**k you man, cause now you are just fooling yourself....I keep thinking.."Gee Mrs. Walters, I am really sorry that your husband died under the knife....a nurse in the OR was breathing too loud and I just couldn't concentrate....yeah I want that to be my doctor.....

Other fun things I have heard recently....when asked whether or not I had taken the first orgo final (during the transit strike) or the second which was much later in January, I replied that I had taken the first, because I live in the city...to wit "yeah so...I stayed at my dad's hotel"....to wit I thought so your dad owns a hotel and I'm supposed to be impressed by that or something???....which then lead to the thought...so daddy owns a hotel...why are you in a public (i.e. cheap, not any better or worse than the fine private institutions that are here in the city) college? I guess dad didn't want to build a library? Geez...I'm mean...

The most exciting news in my life is that I am still married to a marvelous lady, who takes care of me.....

other not so exciting news is that I have a new cell phone....I've never been that big on cell phones and find them to be very annoying. I am of the ilk that we all got along fine without them when they were not around...why do we need them now....someone will tell me that it is in direct response to the mass globalization of the world and the need for a form of communication that enables people in Japan to speak with people in the UK, while texting Angola about a shipment of fine rugs, and receiving a package from Walla Walla with the latest Microsoft vxpbvr-4 chip or something like that. This is what I think about when a cell phone goes off in class and it's a recorded song ring by Kayne West and _________ (insert collaborative rock/rap/jazz/tap artist here)_______. Again, I say do we need these things.....or when a person sitting next to me is texting some friend about how she can't talk right now because she is in class, but she will be sure to call her when class gets out and then they can go get something to eat and than after that they can call Chad and Parker and Phil and Gnonga and Blaine to see what each of them are doing tonight and this class is really boring I am so glad that it is almost over...yeah I know...totally..... ARGGHHH. I ask again....do we really need these things. Remember when cell phones first came out and they were about as a big as a briefcase and it was this huge 80's status thing to be the guy with the big ass briefcase phone, than it became a status thing to get smaller and smaller phones (pointed out most brilliantly, my own personal opinion, by Derek Zoolander). Don't get me wrong I appreciate the convenience of being able to call my wife at anytime from anywhere (whether at school, or drunk at a bar) and without my cell phone in hand I would not have been able to drunk dial my inlaws on new years eve and tell them how grateful I am too them (yeah.....not sure if I should be mentioning this on air) oh well. Youd think I like to drink or something....oh how I miss you precious beer. Heh. wow tangent...anyway I got a new phone...so yeah there it is.....

I dont like punctuation marks and things of that nature

Ok, enough fooling around..have a good night all...I must go and learn all I can about aromatic compounds and electrophilic aromatic substitutions.....

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer."
-Dave Barry-

Post 85

2006-02-17T11:44:00.000-08:00

Music is a powerful thing. There are certain themes from music that make you think about this world that we inhabit. It can draw immense sadness and utter joy from your soul. Too often it reminds us of people who have passed away, but it also reminds us of times that make smiles creep up on our faces. I don't know how or why it works but it does. Generally speaking these are movie themes for me. They never really make me think of scenes from the movie but rather they make me think mostly of the past....as yoda would say...old friends long gone...yadda yadda yadda...

I opened a fortune cookie the other day that proclaimed "you believe in the goodness of mankind"....uh....yeah....

2006-02-17T10:00:00.000-08:00

feelin' fine

QUOTEOFTHEDAY

2006-02-02T19:10:00.000-08:00

"...it leads people to believe that all they need is a purple finger and life will get better. The president seems a victim of that same delusion: he seems to believe that we can get away with promoting democracy through glorious rhetoric without doing the slow, expensive, heavy lifting of nation building."

From "Democracy, the Morning After" by Joel Klein (Regarding the Palestinians recent election.)

School good.
Grades ok...no deans list...missed it by .025, but certainly acceptable.

Tomorrow I may return for some more interesting nonsense in the world of me.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2006-02-01T12:03:00.000-08:00

You sit and read your books all day
But there's more to life than what's on the page
The sun will rise again that's true
But the same can't be said of you

Computer screen on and noise in your ears
Too busy to see your son's own tears
A small pain that will soon fade away
But the pain in his heart will remain

(a song in progress)...

There is nothing worse than the sheer agony of being in love

2006-01-25T13:01:00.000-08:00

Strange mood today, perhaps it is the pot of coffee that I drank earlier today. I finished watching the film "Love Actually" this morning and am feeling hopeful for humanity once again. There are many things that are quite brilliant about this film that explores all the different kinds of love that are out there in the world. If you have not seen it than you should because it is very touching, funny, yadda yadda yadda. I particularly enjoy the bits about the young brit chap Colin who embarks on a trip to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to meet and have sex with as many American women that he can find who will all be thoroughly mesmerized by his "cute" British accent. Upon entering a dive bar he immediately meets 3 very pretty women who would in real life probably never be caught dead there. Naturally, comedy ensues as stereotypes abound.

I am a bit addicted to this spider solitaire game that comes standard with the usual free cell, solitaire, pinball combo on pc's. I should be working, but we don't have a whole heck of a lot going on in the office right now so it has become quite a time occupying endeavor.

So the wife has been giving me some heat since I have not had a whole lot to do this past month and she has started school and been in field placement and doing her job for most of this month. Every time she brings something up as to how lucky I am to still have this time, I remind her that this will truly be the semester from hell for me and that the time off that I have now is well deserved. She will be done with school this summer and will be looking for a real job soon. At this point she just wants to be done and I cannot blame her. She works pretty damn hard with all of this stuff. So last night as a surprise to her I lit up all the candles in the apartment and made a nice little dinner (spaghetti with a traditional sauce (from Ragu) with some ground boca burger in it, a cucumber/onion/tomato salad and a side of curried mixed vegetables. A strange combination in words, but everything seemed to come together. We had a nice candle lit dinner with music and chatted with each other. It was brilliant and she was pleasantly surprised. I also set up this little dinner because I knew that since I start school tomorrow neither of us was going to be interested in putting something like this together for a couple of months just from the sheer exhaustion that we will be facing together on a daily basis.

In other news I've begun reading the next chapter for orgo, Conjugated unsaturated systems...a sheer joy. Gotta be prepared.

Please take a moment to remember "Nice Guy Eddie" who passed away suddenly at the age of 40. My sincerest condolences go out to the Penn family.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Homer: Yeah, Moe, that team sure did suck last night. They just plain sucked! I've seen teams suck before, but they were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked!
Marge: HOMER!
Homer: I gotta go Moe my damn weiner kids are listening.

Tuesday

2006-01-24T10:46:00.000-08:00

So here I am once again on this sweet day of a schedule my last full day of having nearly nothing to do. School begins this thursday and I am thrown right into it. Thursday consists of Morning physics lab followed by physics lecture a little break and then orgo lecture and then my world history class. Not sure what to make of the history class (damn cuny core requirements) but I am surely glad that I do not have all science and math this semester. Just mostly science...

This just in, I've just been informed that we are receiving a new dresser care of the fabulous in-laws, who believe said dresser to be ugly, that, or the father in law just doesn't like it. Let me tell you folks that I have been using this little dinky white thing that we purchased at Kmart or bed bath and beyond or something like that as a temporary....temporary as in almost 4 years now. I have all of my precious clothing mashed into it. It worked well but now it is going to go. woo hoo. I'll be stopping by the abode which has been out of commission for about two years or so (a story for another time).

Nothing new exciting to report. I am looking foward to getting back into the swing of things. I feel like I have been too lazy.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Chris: I don't care what she says, I'm never going back!
Brian: Look you can't run away from your problems Chris. That's what I tried to do. I joined the Peace Corps and a day later I was two continents away.
Chris: Really?
Brian: Yep, but 6,000 miles and all the dope I could smoke still couldn't separate me from my problems. And this was good dope. I mean it was growing everywhere. Oh my God! This one time we got so baked we ended up eating all the food that the World Health Organization had airlifted in. Oh man those villagers were so pissed! They tried to chase us, but lemme just say thank God for polio.

Monday

2006-01-23T15:18:00.000-08:00

So I spent the day reading about Newton's laws in one of the many MCAT prep books that have been provided to me by the good people at TPR. I've received all of my grades for the past fall semester except for orgo lecture. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will still manage (somehow) to make it on to the Dean's List. Provided I get at least a B I will be ok. B+ in physics, A in Orgo Lab, and an A- in Calc 2. Not a terrible place to be in terms of GPA. Hoping that the 3.5 for the semester will come through for me, with my overall GPA just about 3.8 or so. The GPA dip is the hardest thing to watch these days considering I've been heavily perusing the MSAR book and checking the average overall and science GPAs for the schools that I want to apply to. I hope to god that I can keep this up. It is what I want to do, so it really shouldn't be a problem.

I have enjoyed, immensely, my time off over the past month. I really did take it really easy. Played with the PS2, mostly Hockey, in addition to the wife and I burning through our Netflix queue like there was no tomorrow.

So now it is confession time. I like the show "Grey's Anatomy". I can't believe that I do, but I do. For some reason the characters are pretty engrossing and the story lines are reasonable in terms of their believability. Initially I thought the show was going to focus a bit more on the medicine, but it quickly turned into a quirky show about...relationships. Now this should have made me stop watching it, but I'm hooked. I tried watching a bit of ER this past week, and found it to be very disappointing...ingratiating as a matter of fact.....and since I haven't watched it seriously for over a year now...I think I can let it go. The last straw in terms of quality was Anthony Edwards leaving the show. I don't consider myself much of a TV watcher, but I will continue to watch GA on ABC at 10pm...wow what a plug. Lost is the only other show that I watch...we were able to breeze through the first season on DVD and caught up with the season thanks to the great people at itunes and we can now watch the show on regular tv with all the other nut jobs that are obsessed with it. I think we were really spoiled though, because it was difficult to get over the fact that there would now be commercial breaks when we watched.

Other things you may or may not want to know about me since I've come to know and love all you loyal readers (all 3? of you)and hopefully I won't have to fill out one of those emails that we all get for awhile:

I like the movie pretty woman (I..I don't know why)
My favorite color is blue
I don't have a favorite flower
I don't agree with anything that comes out of the mouth of Dick Cheney
I vote regularly
I like books, currently reading Red Storm Rising by Clancy
Currently listening to XM comedy
Last movie watched: Like Water, For Chocolate
I think Ellen Degeneres is kind of funny
Magazines like Intouch weekly, US, and People should be used for kindling
If gay people want to be married they should be married..why is this such an issue?
I think there are too many awards for the denizens of hollywood and yet I can't wait to find out who will win the oscar for best short form documentary.
I don't get star struck anymore (chalk that up to working in the theatre business for over 6 years)
I miss having money and hanging out with people I used to know when I wasn't a student. (wah freakin wah you dolt, you're following a dream). Seriously though I miss these people and you know who you are.
I can be a real arrogant prick sometimes. Maybe some day I'll be an arrogant prick surgeon. Heh heh heh.
I officially have a year and a half left to get my BA in biochemistry.
I enjoy cartoons. I am a 31 child.
I have been married for a little over a year and a half and I love it.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Peter: Aww things were going so good for me and Stewie, but now he hates me again. Brian what should I do to win him back?
Brian: That depends. Do you want my advice or are you just asking random questions again?
Peter: What's a hypotenuse?

Feelin the school house blues

2006-01-20T08:23:00.000-08:00

So I did not do as well as I would have liked this past semester. Am I disappointed? Yes. Am I discouraged? No. Do I still want to go to Med school? Yes. Did I fail any classes? Nope. So I still have a lot to be proud of (what better forum to talk myself up than my own blog?) This coming semester will be one hell of ride that culminates with the first round of the med school application process.

Code Index # 258465839, Series 12-V, JKLTRXXBNK

2006-01-05T11:01:00.000-08:00

Why is it that every time that the president makes some kind of speech about progress in Iraq (and oh yeah, we're still in Afghanistan) a ton of people start dying from bombs and attacks. Perhaps it is the sound of our presidents voice which sets off the spree of violence. There have been the usual casualties of war, but nothing quite like right after some speech is made about positive progress. Weird.

Got my first grade back from this past semester and am relatively pleased that I no longer have any more math classes to take. I am anxiously awaiting all of my other grades with a sense of quiet dread and accomplishment. I am just glad that the semester is over and can now focus on looking ahead to this semster with additional quiet dread as I face the MCAT, med school applications and classes that I have this coming semester. And so for now I am merely looking at my MCAT prep books, but for the most part I am taking it pretty easy.

The folks are coming to town next week. woo hoo.....

Boring post. sorry all...just not into it today.........

Jesus Loves You, Boobies and Fireworks...our holiday trip now in 3-D!!

2006-01-03T13:37:00.000-08:00

First of all let me tell you all happy new year! I hope that this year is a bit more tranquil for the world than last...of course will northern California currently being drowned...it does not seem likely. Alas.

So our holiday trip began with a trip to Newark airport...always a joy where people treat you like an idiot...checking in online the night before means jack squat when you have luggage to check...you end up waiting in a line just as long as the check in line...fabulous planning. Most businesses that I know, especially service industry businesses often hire extra staff to accommodate the higher volume of traffic that often comes in conjunction with the holidays. What I don't understand is why it seems that every year there are less people working at airports during the holidays. Why? WTF? It's not like they can't see this coming, I mean the holidays pretty much happen the same time every year right? Who the hell is running this show? My favorite part of all of this is the "personal" message from the CEO of the company thanking you and trumping up his airline as the most professional etc. As we boarded, there seemed to be some confusion as to the seating which was absolutely hysterical. One person came on and called for a couple of passengers to come up because they had been upgraded. Five minutes later another person grabbed a couple of passengers and tried to take them up to the very same first class seats that had been given away just five minutes ago....what a bunch of maroons. And naturally as is the case with every freakin airline, they were oversold, this I really don't understand either. I know they are all inches away from bankruptcy, but do we really need to overbook flights, I mean how many people are not going to show up for their flight and how many people are on standby already....c'mon folks!!!???

Anyway, Houston was fun (70 degrees, gotta love xmas in the south) played some golf.....actually had someone say "howdy" to us one morning...I gained a little weight and clogged the arteries a bit with all the fried food and bbq that I was treated to. If you are looking for the best bread ever it is the jalapeno cheese bread from Goode's BBQ, which pretty much goes with anything except PB&J. We experienced the child from hell...now I am all for children, in fact I plan on having some in the future, my hope is that I do not have this child. Screams, lots of screams, screaming was this child's way of asking for things...for everything....wow...it was not fun....I can only imagine what traveling on a plane must be like with that child. We saw King Kong, which would have been a great film if they had shortened every single scene by ten minutes. It also seems that Mr. Jackson had a conversation with Mr. Lucas about special effects, because it was very much over the top. Good casting, good acting, good cinematography, but they could have left a lot on the cutting room floor. I shudder to think how long the DVD director's cut version is going to be. We went bowling and I managed to retain my family champion trophy by ten pins.

Off to the lost city of Atlanta, where the airport is hell, but the people are just so damn nice. Picked up our rental car and headed via the 85 (I-85 for those of you not from california) and we were in the midst of god country. I was afraid to turn on the radio, because I didn't want to be inundated with jesus speak and we are all sinners yadda yada yadda. The billboards are the most interesting things around, all kinds of crap for g-o-d, fireworks, lotteries, a "In God we trust,United We Stand" (haven't seen that in awhile) and our personal favorite Cafe Risque which had billboards on both sides of the highway for a few miles "Topless, Topless" which became the catch phrase of the vacation. "Trucker discount/showers" which I'd rather just leave at that. "Breakfast, lunch, and dinner", I find it difficult to believe that any man would be able to actually sit down, eat pancakes, eggs, bacon and coffee served to him by a topless waitress, ok it's not that hard to imagine, but what kind of woman are on at the morning breakfast shift, or even the tuesday afternoons at 2pm shift? This place was in the middle of nowhere Georgia and we were very nearly on the verge of stopping there for lunch just because we were so damn curious (thankfully the wife and I thought better of it). Highlight of the drive: A georgia license plated SUV with a Kerry/Edwards sticker on the bumper...never thought I would see that.

Greenville, South Carolina...a nice place to visit. The wife thought she could live here, I said there is no way in hell and after a few short hours...she realized it. Not that it is such a bad place, but the wife and I are a particular breed of thinkers that would have a difficult time living there.....you must remember that it is the home of Bob Jones University (google it) and that is all I will say. The grandparents were happy to see us and have us around, which was great. Saw a cousin of mine too whom I don't often get to see which was nice. Lots of good food as usual and time well spent. My grandfather is simply a nice man, who tells a lot of the same stories over and over again, year after year, but I still love him. Yeah you heard me, I love my grandfather, you gotta problem with that?

Driving back to Atlanta (Topless, Topless and no we still didn't stop). Checked into the hotel and watched some movies, had lunch at Johnny Rockets and dressed up for a wedding/New Years Party....it was a lot of fun. Drank too much, as is often the case on New Years, but didn't really pay for it the next day thankfully. The wedding was a lot of fun, one of the more exciting ones of the past year that we have been to and the only one that comes sorta close to rivaling our own wedding in terms of the food, our food was better, but this was really damn good.

The trip home was relatively uneventful...we coasted into the rental car return area on fumes, which was fun, checked into the flight and headed back to Newark. The longest vacation we have had together in a year and a half. It was nice to be back in our own bed though.

The following day we took a bus to the bronx in order to pick up the bird which is another story.

Back to work and no grades back yet for the semester....damn....4 months to the MCAT and 6 months to the start of the med school application process...god help me.

cheers.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"where do we go
where do we go now
where do we go
ooo...ooo...ooo...where do we go
where do we go
ah...where do we go now
ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, oooooooo
where do we go now
ah ah where do we go now
where do we go
sweet chi-ei-ei-ei-eieieieiei---ld of my-e-ine"

"TOPLESS, TOPLESS"

2005-12-21T09:45:00.000-08:00

Tacking on an Arctic drilling provision into the military spending bill is perhaps one of the most devious and disgusting things that I have ever seen. You f**king motherf**king jerks, do you have any idea what the hell this would do to the environment, to the wildlife, to our air, to our....my god people do you even listen to scientists???? I can't believe this, I just...I just...and then...and then...to tack it onto a bill that just may send a few extra flak jackets to the men and women who are dying in war...is just DISGUSTING. I can see the ads now with republicans attacking all the democrats who vote against this bill, "(Insert name here) doesn't want our soilders to be safe, he/she voted against the military spending bill....(close up on little girl) (Voice-over) "Were sorry your father died, but it's ________ fault for not voting for the military spending bill"...ARGH....I...I...dont' know what to do....

No joy in bean town

2005-12-21T08:01:00.000-08:00

With my faith now completely shattered in the american pastime I don't know what kind of entertainment to seek these days. My whole idea of right and wrong destroyed. I don't know if I can watch these guys play anymore. Alas, the last bastion of hope is the printed word.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"There's no way I can go play for the Yankees, but I know they're going to come after me hard," he told MLB.com then. "It's definitely not the most important thing to go out there for the top dollar, which the Yankees are going to offer me. It's not what I need."
-Johnny "money good, image bad" Damon ( quoted from an article in the New York Times which appeared today 12/21/05, written by Tyler Kepner)

Everyone wish me luck on my Orgo final!

Cheers!

Epoxides, Ethers and alcohols

2005-12-16T09:08:00.000-08:00

And so begins the last mad dash for comprehension of the themes and underlying intricacies of organic chemistry 1. These last couple of days I will be reminded of how much I know and don't know about this subject...so let's see what my class notes have to say:

Synthesis of alcohols can be performed in a number of ways

Taking CH3CH2CH2CH3 and adding Br2 (exposed to light or heat to form a bromine radical) and brominating the compound. Follow that up with some KOH in DMF and we will have an alcohol via an SN2 reaction with inversion of stereochemistry.

Acid Catalyzed hydration of alkenes will give us alcohols

Oxymercuration/demercuration will give us a secondary alcohol, with the oxymer/demer steps prohibiting hydride or methide shifts so a relative amount of control is had over the reaction.

Hydroboration and oxidation would be used to get a terminal alcohol formed with BH3 adding to the less substituted carbon...

ok yeah this is dull........

I'll come back to this later.....

2005-12-15T10:46:00.000-08:00

In 12 minutes I will be off to the penultimate math class of my academic career and it could turn out to be the last class of the year if we can convince our psycho messed up professor to let us have a take home final....hope of all hopes this would diminish some of the immense pressure that I am under to acheive a decent GPA. My chem grade is nearly at the a- cusp and I must do very well on the final in order to get there.....basically I can miss 16 points on the final and that is it to have any possibility of getting an A in the class.....argh.... man this sucks...I'm freakin out....

ok bye!

2005-12-09T10:34:00.000-08:00

So here I am once again. I have a very bad feeling about my grades this semester and firmly believe that I will not be at the level of achievement that I have grown accustomed to in days past. I am already going over in my head what I will say during my med school interview when I am asked about this particular semester and why the hell I even think that I should get into med school with grades that will no doubt boarder on the mediocre (no 4.0 for me this semester, I may have to live with a 3.4 if I am enormously lucky.) But I have doubts, even in certainty of mediocrity. Perhaps I will do very well on all of my finals and just maybe I will pull a miracle out of my hat (or ass). But it is now crunch time and officially there are only 4 days of regular classes left and then straight on into finals. I have a final on a Monday, a wedenesday and a friday. Thankfully both of the labs are pretty much done except for the two lab reports that are due this monday...can you take a guess as to what I will be doing for the rest of the weekend?

But then, it is all good for a little while...I have the month of January off and will begin my intensive studies in preparation for the MCAT....with my sundays still currently wrapped up in prep-course stuff.

The wife and I will be having a very texas christmas capped off with new years in atlanta for a wedding....

Ok so I have to go now and get crackin on these reports so have a good weekend all and I look foward to keeping you up to date on my academic melt down this semester....

cheers all!

Organic Chemistry is really freakin' cool!!!!....no...really!

2005-12-07T09:24:00.000-08:00

So I have the last of my regular Organic Chemistry exams today. My mind is filled with such pleasantries as hydroboration, oxymercuration, dehydrohalogenation, alkyne and alkene formations and subsequent hydrogenations, Zaitzev and Hoffman rules, Markovnikov and anti-Markovnikov hydrogen addition, E2 elimination on chair conformations wherein only one diaxial hydrogen on a beta carbon is avaiable to be removed, but the ring is in an energetically unfavorable conformation and who could forget the simmons smith reagent as a tool for cyclopropanation.

So here are the more important things
for oxymercuration the second step of the mechanism uses NaBH4
for hydroboration the second step of the mechanism uses H2O2 and -OH
for dihydroxylation (OsO4) NaHSO3 is used with it.

HBr will be deprotonated and the created proton will add via markovnikov to an alkene or alkyne, and the bromide ion will add to the opposite side without control of stereochemistry. In the presence of peroxides however the H that is pulled off will add anti-markovinkov with the bromide adding to the other side.

Retro-synthetic analysis is your friend when you are given a puzzle.....

Hot concentrated KMnO4 in OH gives you cleavage of double bonds and if it is a terminal alkene you will get bubbles of CO2 gas, while cold KMnO4 will give you syn addition diol formation.

Ozonolysis of Alkynes will give us CO2 gas if it is a terminal alkyne, with alkenes we get some cleavages. We uses Ozone in the presence of CH2Cl2.

Yeah you guys are bored so I'll leave ya'll with the quote of the day.

Wish me luck....

QUOTE OF THE DAY
All of my neurons are functioning smoothly
yet still I'm a cyborg just like you
- Bad Religion

2005-12-02T11:38:00.000-08:00

So a couple of doctors performed the first face transplant today in France...and the first thing that comes to my mind is that movie...you know which one I mean with the scientologist and the Coppola nephew. well anyway.

So some of you (1 maybe 2 people at most) might be asking what the hell have you been up to Mil...I mean jeez no posts since the beginning of November??? WTF!!!

Well loyal reader, the truth is that I have been so damn busy with school and work that the last thing I want to do is recount all that has happened in the day and boring you to tears with a bunch of useless crap..what I can say is that I had a good thanksgiving (I actually took most of that day off and did not touch a single text book) and studied the rest of the weekend. I've had exams and crap since last I wrote and have been doing alright although this semester has me very worried in terms of grades....might see a dip in my overall GPA....GASP...but yes I still think I can be a doctor....pretty silly eh?

Work is nuts.....it is that time of year where we buy a bunch of classy x-mas cards and cheap gifts to send out to people who don't give a rats ass about us and will probably never use us anyway...but, my boss seems to think it is important.....every time we get a holiday card, and yes we have already received holiday cards, he needs to add that person to the list of recipients of the fabulous x-mas card.....which of course we only have a certain amount of....in other news our touring show is going well and another show skedded for the beginning of the coming year has been indefinitely postponed, the author/director decided that his show was not meant for Broadway...and who can blame him with the outrageous prices that we charge folks like you. (you would have a much better understanding of why we charge what we charge if you took a look at how damn expensive it is to run a show on a weekly basis and not see any money for years if at all.....) and then there are the shows that have (a) big star(s) that becomes so successful on broadway that we start charging a "premium" price for tickets simply out of greed.....greed is so very good. Now the kicker is that we as an office, never get to see any of that money....sad....we have worked on a few very successful shows and we don't see a dime of profit...yes we get a weekly fee and a start up fee, but that is it....makes me a little pissed when I am writing checks for $500K to other people when we are doing all the work for them....could we just get a little slice...a sliver....anything....alas....this why I am leaving this business. Nobody gives a hoot about anybody....when you fail, millions of dollars are lost, when you succeed, you get greedy and think you know how the whole thing works....just like Mr. lane and Mr. Broderick....yes they are making tons of money, yes the odd couple was sold out for it's run, but guess what...the show sucks...it was a bad idea....and no one is untouchable.....

so this is a bit incomprehensible and for that I apologize...in a bit of a rush to get to my volunteer gig so I can atone for my greed....or for the greed of this business.....

Sorry more later...maybe....soon........have a great weekend all !

yep...it's friday but that makes no difference to people like me.

2005-11-11T14:28:00.000-08:00

don't you love that spam when t hemess age body isstag gered soyou rcomp uter doe snot recog nizethe patt ernaandas sumesit isleg itima temail. Or the ones that are absolutely random words tied together like one of those magnetic poetry sets: stars forward exotic press meadow splendor anaerobic johnson corner snowbank wildly alternative chair feels blind store clown differ reaction module happy gruesome vector integration.

well what do you know, it is now Friday and a year and a half ago I would have been looking forward to the weekend. Maybe rollerblading, or shopping or just walking around the city with the wife hand in hand, laughing and talking and spending time together and such. Perhaps a trip to Taco Bell for a gastrointestinal cleansing in the late afternoon. Perhaps a trip to westchester to relax and bask in the warmth that is "The inlaws". But...no, for this weekend will be filled with an inordinate amount of study. 2nd orgo exam on Monday and a massive lab report due monday morning and a calculus exam the following monday and physics webassignments to complete, and oh yes my MCAT prep course.....I don't think there are enough hours in the day for me to accomplish everything that I need to accomplish. I am going to turn around and it will be sunday night 9pm and family guy will be on tv and i'll be freaking out about it all. Stress is good right? This is what Med school is going to be like right? So I should just get used to it. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to work....but despite the meagerness of my pay it does help to pay the bills. I am slightly worried that I may have overextended myself this semester in a an attempt to finish faster (for many reasons too numerous to discuss here), but my GPA should not suffer too much. Poor planning on my part. Wish I started school a little earlier than perhaps there wouldn't be so much pressure on me.....

Well anyway I'm done with my little ditty here.

YET ANOTHER QUOTE OF THE DAY
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?

ONE MORE
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

Corrections

2005-11-11T11:04:00.000-08:00

So the quote of the day had a large error in it.
It should've read: "If I had a nickel for every cigarette your mom smoked, I'd be dead"

The 43 letter Bulgarian curse word actually rhymes with the word "pensive" and NOT "alacrity". You wouldn't believe how many calls I got about that one! whew!

"et al." was not a part of the conversation with big bird in reference to Mr. Hooper. I just remember him being there, I was wrong and I am sorry. I get my puppets mixed up sometimes.

The comedian to which I was referring to was Bob Carlin (also a banjoist) and not George Carlin...sorry about that.

I will try and keep my information straight when next we meet. Have a grand weekend all.

Cheers!

QUOTE OF THE DAY
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said "Where am I Cathy?"
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan

Going to go with some court room quotes stuff for the next few posts...just dang funny and just handed to me by an attorney in our office..
ok so here's another one:

ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work

ok last one for now:

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

excerpts taken from the book "Disorder in the Courts of America"

Fcukheds and azwipes...A tribute to the English language (Part 23 of 46)

2005-11-10T14:01:00.000-08:00

I really appreciate usage of certain words. I am unsure of what the fascination is behind such usage, but we as Americans spend a great deal of our time using them. If I had a nickel for every time I've used or heard one of these words, I can tell you I would not be in my office right now. Where did these words come from. Are they the product of the school yard. Who was the first person to call someone an "a**wipe" and when did the word "a**hole" first make an appearance in conversation. Which came first "doo doo head" or "s**thead"? And what of the all encompassing granddad of them all, that wonderful four lettered friend of ours. You know the one to which I refer. Used by someone on the phone today in fact in conjunction with the word "head", as a synonym for "idiot". Can you imagine if Dostoevsky had called the novel "The F**khead"? The word just rolls right out of your mouth, in fact I would venture to guess that anyone who is reading this right now is either saying this word in their head right now or it just slipped out audibly. Another nickel for me. The amount of words that come out of someone when they are very angry can be quite a spectacular barrage of four, five, and seventeen letter curse words. There is even a 43 letter Bulgarian curse word that rhymes with "alacrity." We've come a long way since Carlin's pivotal seven which are now "the seven words you probably won't hear on Sesame Street, but you will everywhere else on television". The question you have to ask yourself is Do you think the guy who gives voice to "Elmo" ever curses?...and if he does, does he curse in "Elmo" voice? Can you imagine if the conversation about Mr. Hooper (between Big bird, Bob, David, Olivia, Maria, et al.) went something like this "He f**king died you big yellow dumb-a**...he's dead...do you f**king get it...he's not coming back!!!" OK, so I went a little too far there sorry folks. That moment scarred me emotionally as a child (I was nine, but that is another story altogether.."but that is another story" (can you believe that I want to be a pediatric surgeon?)

Do you think that Mother Teresa ever cursed?...I mean she lived an awfully long time to not curse just once....seriously...we are all teenagers at least once in our lives!

Does anyone else remember the time when "cursing" meant to inflict physical or karmic harm on a person, place or thing through ritual magic? uh...me neither.

Just amazing what kind of creativity can go into language. The evolution of words is astounding. I am always amazed to find new words in the dictionary that have only been used with regularity for the last 5 years or so, "D'oh", for instance, is now actually printed as a word with a definition in many dictionaries around the world. and what a world we live in...

Alas....off to school to infect my mind with mathematics....

Cheers.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"If I had a nickel for every cigarette you smoked, I'd be dead."

At this point I just want to be invited to the dance...

2005-11-04T14:55:00.000-08:00

I often wonder if I really am up for this challenge. Last night I was a bit overwhelmed with everything that is on my plate at the moment and it occurred to me that this is what medical school is going to be like. My weeks have started to bleed together in an array of lectures, study, preparation, exams, labs, food, and occasionally some sleep (tainted by dreams of lectures, study, preparation, exams, labs, the most recent of which included my organic chem professor and many of my fellow classmates at my home and my professor asking me where the bottle of scotch is?). Add to my schedule, the commencement of an MCAT prepcourse beginning this weekend, the first class of which is a practice exam. Naturally, I dreamt about this as well, with my first semester calculus teacher administering the exam and I being an hour late (at least I was not naked.) The pressure is starting to really build up and I am getting very irritable, to wit I took last night off from my studies and played some Simpsons Road Rage while my wife and a fellow MSW student discussed the finer points of their field placements.
Earlier this week I took an opportunity, during our weekly orgo chem workshops, to place an answer to one of the problems up on the board for presentation to the class and found that as I picked up the chalk to write it all down, I was shaking. I was so damn nervous, even after confirming that I had done the problem correctly with one of the TA's, prior to my putting it on the board. I've performed in front many more people than were in this small lecture room, but never had the feeling that more than 50% of them wanted me to fail in some way. The competition is outrageous and I know that med school is not going to be any different. Many of the horror stories that I have heard, include all night watches of cadavers so that rival groups would not be able to tamper with them. I understand feeling competitive in terms of being asked to the dance, but once you're there shouldn't you just dance and not worry about anything or anyone else for the time being, but that is not the nature of the beast, because the competition just gets worse and worse. I have no illusions about what I am getting into and I certainly don't think of this as some over-written, slick produced television show that eventually caters to the viewing public's desires by taking away everything that makes the show interesting and turning it into a show about relationships. (funny story: so at the hospital where I am a volunteer, an ambulance came in with a woman who had been shot, two trauma doctors ran out to meet the ambulance, while a room was being prepared and people were buzzing about in anticipation of something a bit more exciting than the usual patients (i.e. I fell, I have a headache, my stomach hurts, etc) and as this was all happening a desk clerk commented...."Wow, this is just like that show ER".) Every time I think that I don't want to do this, I go and spend four hours in a hospital emergency room and I know that this is what I want to do....I want the white coat and blank sleepless stare that comes with it, the surly nurses, the vomiting, the excrement, the faint smell of urine from some of the stretchers. I want to be one of those med student/resident/attendees that passes a volunteer and doesn't give them the time of day, and can't even look them in the face because they are beneath me. (that's the part that I don't understand, didn't they all have to go through the volunteer thing that I am going through to get where they are, do they even understand that I am there not only to help myself, but help others too (umm...isn't that why people want to be doctors....to help others, to heal others, etc.) and make thier jobs (and the nurses jobs) just a little bit easier by giving the patients something to focus on so that they don't get pissed off by the fact that they have been sitting there in a bed for 12 hours and haven't been seen by anyone. But, I and other volunteers don't mean anything. It just seems a little odd and I know that all of them are under an immense amount of pressure, especially the med students and such...and who can forget about all the competition amoungst all the other med students, residents etc, but is it that hard to make eye contact with a lowly volunteer, I mean what is this, a caste system in India....(yes...yes it is)...."Well..enough of my yackin'....let's boogie!"

Yes, in fact, I am still living and still a part of the human race....

2005-10-28T14:53:00.000-07:00

So President Bush, before he was president drove several companies into the ground....now tell me again why people thought he would be a good president? And so now, his world is falling apart again, much like his past businesses, one has to wonder if he still thinks that Jeebus or Gawd or whatever is still "on his side". The administration seems to be falling apart slowly but surely...is anybody surprised? Well yes actually, the way things had been going for the last five years it appeared as though just about everyone in this administration was infallible, untouchable, etc. Even when Rumsfeld was being asked about the mistreatment of iraqi prisoners, he seemed to be sitting there like Gotti, as though he were some sort of teflon secretary of defense. But as history has shown us no rule lasts forever and there is only so much that people are going to take. Let's enjoy this ride while it lasts. Lets take a moment and do a scorecard recap:

1. Reading to children while we were experiencing the worst thing ever to happen on American soil. Did he not want to be rude by excusing himself or was it that he wanted

2. Actually believes that Jeebus wanted him to be president.

3. Has caused the death of thousands upon thousands of lives across the world.

ah...forget it I just can do this anymore....sweet....sweet apathy.

In other news...school be nuts yo! Lots of work...lots of no free time.....
etc. Do I really want to be a doctor still....yes...yes I do...I am tired and I am doing ok in classes.....how's that for an update?

My family...well at least my wife and my in-laws....are a bit worried about me and think that I am working too hard to reach this goal. To some extent I am working too hard, because everyone else around me is working just as hard and I have to stand out from them when I apply to med school...especially the jerk-asses that are in the same classes as me and there a quite a few. I have never worked as hard for something as I am working for this.....and hopefully it will all work out and I'll get in somewhere.....I know I won't have the best grades ever, or the best MCAT score ever, but I will be good enough to go on to be a doctor dammit! I would also like to point out that the very act of me updating my blog is a sign that I am not working that hard today....and I should be...........

So let me tell you all just how super dorky my chem friends and I are.....so we all have little dumb ass names of reach other like the super friends group from The Simpsons (I'm talking about ham, database, cosine, report card...Lisa, and naturally cosmos...and don't try to pretend that you have no idea what the hell I am talking about...) so anyway here are the names.... Dipole-dipole, tert-butyl, crotyl chloride, ESR (short for Eye, Skin, and Respiratory irritant), and of course yours truly... ee (enantiomeric excess). Can you scream "nerds" for me....I knew that you could. Organic chemistry is really dang cool! I'm sick I know.

You know I really should consider making my site more exciting, but I am not here enough to warrant any changes. I'm not that insightful, or brilliant, nor do I post really cool pictures on my site (go to elegytolostyouth.blogspot.com for that...my wife...she's the greatest!).....this place I guess is just for me...just to have a little something to say to myself, but also there's that little part of me that wants to please the masses...all 3 of you....HA.

Go and see "Good Night and Good Luck" if you haven't already....just a great pic!!!

this is Milhouse....signing off....I love annonymity.....

I forget sometimes that I have a blog....

2005-10-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what is happening in the world today. Just a strange thing. I miss reading the NY times on Sundays and making an attempt to catch up on world events. My life has been so hectic that I even forget that I have this here blog for all the world to see should they so desire.

Woke up this morning, showered and went off to class. The elevator in my building smelled vaguely of excrement and upon looking down at the floor it appeared that some four legged animal had done his "business" on the floor of the elevator and it's owner did not do the best of jobs cleaning up the mess. Naturally, being very embarrassed that he/she had an animal with a bowel problem in the elevator, said person did not mention anything to the front desk people so that, in effect, all other elevator riders would be subjected to the less than pleasant odor. What the hell is wrong with people? Your dog takes a crap in an elevator and you don't clean it all up? Jeebus Christmas...you people have some freakin nerve.

Anyway, I've finished a week of school wherein three exams were taken and I did well on 1 out of the 3. I don't want to say that I bombed the other two, but if I didn't say that I would be lying. Test anxiety is a big problem for me. Even though I study constantly, when it comes to test time, my brain will shut off and I won't be able to figure something out (despite doing nothing but working on the very problems that appeared on the exam in preparation for such.) The good thing is that I have been in this situation before and everything has ended up turning out fine (here's to hoping that this trend continues!) One of those looking at the bigger picture kind of things and in effect not sweating the small stuff. There would be a problem if all of the small stuff managed to pile up and I screw myself...but again hopefully this will not happen.

In celebration of my bombing two exams, doing well on one, and not having a whole lot to do in class on friday, I took a break from my studies, had a beer, and watched an episode of the x-files, and watched "The Butterfly Effect" (I know that I've said in the past that I would not watch in Askton Kootchie movie, but for some reason it intrigued me and to be perfectly frank...I can't believe that I am going to say this, but it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be (keeping in mind that it was very predictable and had a number of "holes" which the writers made a valiant to address because they knew that some people would say "but how could that be if yadda yadda happened" and such.) Well anyway....it was "ok." The extra special plus side is that I got to spend some quality time with the wife and that is always nice.

Got my organic chem exam # 1 results back and the professor seemed to be realtively pleased. The class average was a 74 out of 100, and I pulled an 89 which according to my professor is in the A-A-minus range. Strange that so far I am doing well in both the orgo lab and lecture while I am not doing so well in my other classes. Isn't supposed to be the other way around (not that I am complaining, but this is against the grain?) Let's hope that I am able to keep it up even though I am now behind in my reading for orgo because I was preparing for the three exams this week, but hey that is what weekends are for right? Right!

Well I suppose I should get back to work now and stop wasting everybody's time. I look foward to seeing you all soon.

Current Netflix:
"La Strada" (ah yes...in a word...."Fellini")

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"It could be worse...you could be a toilet and that would just suck"

Another day another study session

2005-10-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I had my first organic chemistry exam. I am not sure how I feel about the whole thing. I know that I did screw up at least one question, possibly another but I did certainly pass the exam (I hope)...of course passing is not good enough but there it is. The good news is that the lowest grade exam gets dropped, so if I did worse than I thought than there is still hope for the future. Naturally, this will be the easiest exam that we take so doing well on it is a priority. We shall see what happens. I was the second person to finish and I think that some of my answers may have been a little hasty, but now I know what I can expect on future exams. Next week 3 days, 3 exams: It is going to be a slam bang fun time!

Dead Can Dance was amazing. They really know how to put on a show that is both thrilling and intensely emotional. Lisa and Brendan, thank you so much for what you both do. Heard some songs live that were very unexpected. Mr. Perry was very light-hearted and seemed to be having an absolute blast (He commented prior to one of their songs that "it climbed to the top of the charts in 1461" and after a stirring rendition of "The wind that shakes the barley" by Ms. Gerrard, Mr. Perry came out and commented on how the next song was also very uplifting and went into "How fortunate the man with none". Ms. Gerrard was her usual "ice cold focus in on the music" self and brilliant as usual. My only problem with the show was with some of the audience members who shouted out requests between songs. It was a wee bit rude, aside from the fact that they were playing with a full orchestra (also awesome) and probaby couldn't just jump into a rendition of "The host of Seraphim" or "Cantara"
Kudos to the inlaws for scoring the choice seats and joining the experience with us. They enjoyed the show a great deal and mom-n-law even purchased a CD.
And of course, because my wife and I are old people we went home, watched a little TV and than went to bed. It was good way to spend my 31st.

Perhaps more later......

A couple of things

2005-10-07T12:32:00.000-07:00

So I really need to get my eyes checked again. I am walking down 45th street towards times square and there is an add for some show about being a hustler...and underneath the sign it says "who will be the next great hustler"....now I have pretty good vision, but like everyone else there are some things that you see that you can't explain....so when I first looked at the sign it said "who will be the next great hitler". You can bet I did a very quick double take. Eyes are weird.

I haven't decided yet whether or not I am going to take the subway anytime time soon what with all the talk of terrorist threats. What irks me about all of this stuff is that you have a bunch of different government personnel saying two different things. You have one guy from the house homeland security council saying that the credibility of the threat is doubtful, you have the FBI saying that yes the threat is real, but has been somewhat diffused because of covert operations, than you have the army reporting that in Iraq some people were nabbed with subway info, than you have another government official saying that the threat is real and than another government official saying no it isn't and no arrests have been made in New York City, but that there are a bunch of operatives who are in New York who are going to use babystrollers or something. The media reports all of this at once. Bottomline is that no one knows what the hell is going on around here. Ah yes...our government at work. You have paranoia about attacks and you have paranoia that the government doesn't know what they are doing so you start to think that your paranoia about the attacks may not be credible, but than it might be because the government doesn't know what they are doing so you now have paranoia about your paranoia. And then you need to see a therapist because of all your oias. Well anyway.

TOMORROW 10/08/2005: DEAD CAN DANCE: RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL!!!!!!!!!!
can you tell I am excited....I bet you can.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Can I have a medium diet coke?"
"Do you want the medium size or the middle size?"
"What's the difference?"
"Well, we have three sizes - medium, large and jumbo."
"What happened to the small?"
"There is no small. Small's medium."
"What's medium?"
"Medium's large and large is jumbo."
"Okay, give me the large."
"That's medium."
"Right. Can I have a small popcorn?"
"There is no small. Child-size is small."
"What's medium?"
"Adult."
"Do adults ever order the child-size?"
"Not usually."
"Okay, give me the adult."
"Do you want butter?"
"Is it real butter?"
"It's butter flavoring."
"What is it made of?"
"It's yellow."
- thanks to www.pkmeco.com/seinfeld/movie.htm for the quote!

It's been awhile...

2005-10-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

What can I say here that hasn't already been said somewhere else...

1. Violence continues in Iraq. (no surprises there)
2. The Red Sox have their backs against the wall. (no surprises there either! Did everyone get that Buckner feeling the other night when the ball went through Graffanino's legs...86 all over again.....C'mon boys....
3. So Bush's own attorney is his choice for the supreme court. Wow....I'm actually interested in turning on C-Span to watch the confirmation hearings on this one. Mike DeWine (Republican Senator from Ohio) commented that "She is someone who has gone out late at night to get someone out of jail"....is there something else that Bush has lied about???
4. When you think of the conservative strategist Grover Norquist, do you think of a little blue furry monster at the end of a book?

Well anyway....so another step in the cycle of life is about to occur. I will officially be in my thirties soon. Have to say that I feel old. Went to a show this past weekend and just felt really out of place. Not that I didn't enjoy the music, but I couldn't help but compare the band I was seeing to an amalgam of different bands from the last 20 years or so. I just hope that the other people that were there know their music history and don't think that this sound is anything new. Yes I am a pretentious SOB, and no I don't know everything about music. It was fun however to get out of the house after an afternoon spent studying.

This saturday my favorite band is playing at Radio City Music Hall. Dead Can Dance. I know that I have mentioned them before, but they are just so good I will mention them again and again and again ad nauseam...You can guarantee that I will be talking about the show the next time I write here.

School is going fine! Thanks for asking. The usual bouts of studying madness....trying to keep my head above water this semester and so far have been doing ok. We'll see what happens after my first few rounds of tests. I am not sure I have been this tired ever. Going to bed around 1 and getting up around 6:30-7 has gotten a lot easier since I've started, but I wish that I could sleep in a little on the weekends. I find myself still getting up early even when I don't have to.

I need a haircut. It is starting to get really out of control here.

I would also like to have a beer or two in a bar with my wife and some friends and just let off a little steam, but my drinking any sort of alcoholic beverage has been relegated to the very occasional glass of wine with dinner.

I don't eat enough during the day...lately I have been packing a lunch for myself and sometimes I just forget to eat it. Since I've just written about it, I think I'll start eating my lunch now..mmmmm peanut butter.

I don't know what the right level of coffee consumption is correct for me or my body weight. It seems to vary from day to day. I can sometimes have a single cup of coffee and either be completely wired or it could have no effect. With multiple cups of coffee I either get so wired that I can't keep anything straight, or I am ready to go to bed. So between one and five cups of coffee I am a blithering idiot or asleep at my desk. Can you tell that I have had some coffee today, I bet you can. Caffeine is such a strange mistress.

Speaking of desks I have slammed my shoulder into the partioning doors that swing up on our desk at home. Not a fun thing to do and I did it twice (for good measure) last night. The funny part is that I was thinking about the possibility of it happening the day before yesterday. The power of thinking really comes through whether you want it to or not.

Current Netflix selections we have at home because I like to share:
X-Files- Season Three Disc 6
Six Feet Under- Season 4 Disc 4
Sex and Lucia (A tasteful film from Spain...no really!)

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Why do they call it a wedgie?"
"Because the underwear is pulled up from the back until... it wedges in."
"They also have an Atomic Wedgie. Now the goal there is to actually get the waistband on top of the head. It's very rare."
"Boys are sick."
"What do girls do?"
"We just tease someone until they develop an eating disorder."
- Jerry, George and Elaine

2005-09-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

I don't have anything interesting to say today. In general, I never really have something interesting to say. Not to discredit myself or my thoughts, but who could possibly be interested in reading what I have to say? Marketers, that's who! Yes they leave little uplifting comments about your blog and then leave some sort of link to a dating service or Canadian immigration service. The thing that is really funny about all of this is how marketers play the odds. I have never mentioned dating on my blog, but since these people are playing the odds chances are that they will run into a few people who may want to check out the site. In fact I'd definitely wager that there are a ton of blogs devoted to dating scenes (ala that show with Sarah Jessica Parker about the 4 whores...I don't think I need to say that I am not a big fan of that show..heh heh heh and no i don't think that people who write about dating dates or hwatever are whores...just the four characters on that show) I'd be interested in finding out if these people get paid per hit to the links when people click on them. Is it a traffic based income system, or do people have to sign up for whatever service is being provided in order to be paid. Now all that being said I have never mentioned Canadian immigration (I received a link to this as a comment on a blog many weeks ago). I also cannot imagine that there are too many blogs about this, unless it is some sort of niche fetish thing. "Oh yeah, talk to me more about U.S. naturalization baby oh yeah." I am sure there are some blogs out there that are all about immigrating and that is all fine and good, but are there enough of them to warrant a marketer sending out links to a Canadian immigration service? I keep forgetting that if there is a surface somewhere, someone will try and put an ad on it even in a digital medium. Frankly I think the whole idea of placing an ad in a blog cloaked as a comment is pretty rude, but I'm not going to let it get to me, nor am I going to block them from being made. Why you ask? Because I don't really care and this crap is never going to go away. It will also be an interesting experiment to see what kind of links people end up putting on there.

In other news: I was in the lab last night finishing up an experiment that went horribly wrong on Monday morning and managed to procure a recrystallization of p-nitroaniline. Very exciting stuff this recrystallization. I feel like the lamp actually worked and I wouldn't freak out because I won't be getting an F (a not so obscure movie reference in which I invite all of the marketers to try and name the film..here's a hint: Brat Pack)

Every thursday I have my 2nd calculus class of the week and I have been writing an impromptu comment in my notebook each time I've been in class for about an hour. Here is the run down:

Week 1: I am going to f**king die in this class!
Week 2: More than I ever wanted to know about pi!
Week 3: Class cancelled, no comment
Week 4: Why am I doing this to myself!
Week 5: More than I ever wanted to know about turkey (the bird not the country)
Week 6: TBA

John Roberts was just confirmed as the next cheif justice of the supreme court. I...I don't know what to say except "Women run for your lives because soon your womb will not be your own!" This might be a bit extreme, but keep in mind that the power that comes with this position can and does strange things to people. This move also adds another piece the Bush agenda wherein the checks and balances swayed in a single direction and accountablilty is no longer viable option in government.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Does anyone have any Scope?"
-ah yes the old standby Family Guy

I really need to be studying physics right now

9/22/05-9/28/05

2005-09-28T11:41:00.000-07:00

9/22/05
So I have felt the first pangs of nervous anxiety this semester and thought for a few brief moments about whether or not this is the path that I was meant to follow. It was all very brief I assure you but it did cause a night of restless sleep (if you can call lying awake, staring at the clock, sleep.)

Strange also is that I am really enjoying organic chemistry...my dentist upon hearing this referred to me thereafter as "one of THOSE people"...) It has not been that difficult so far, but I know the worst is yet to come. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Physics has been really interesting so far as well. Calculus 2 is a large pit of hell that I cannot wait to crawl out of.

In November I will be starting an MCAT review class in an attempt to get a decent score. I would be lying to you all if I said that I was not worried. Frankly, I am terrified by the whole test, application and interview process that waits for me in the middle of next year. Will they think that I am too old? Will my grades be good enough? Am I smart enough to be a doctor? Will I score high enough on the MCAT? Will I be accepted in a US school or will I have to resort to the University of Guadalajara or a school in the Caribbean and live the rest of my life with the stigma that is sometimes attached?

For the moment I know somewhat of what it must be like to be in Med school based on the fact that I have been pretty much studying non-stop for the last 3 weeks. I am starting to get those dark circles near my eyes.

9/28/05
Nothing new to report except that the amount of sleep that I am not getting is compounding in on itself such that I have no idea what day it is, the time, nor anything else. When I do sleep I am dreaming about formulas and nomenclatures, carbon chains and chalk boards. Thankfully I am getting some sleep. My body aches, I have too much reading to do. My orgo lab has not been to pleasing so far and will have to continue an experiment into the evening hours tonight in order to obtain a crystalline yield. My wife misses me and thinks that we don't spend enough time together, but she is also as busy as I am in terms of time. She is working for two professors, taking classes, and doing field placement. Our only solace at this time is that we get to eat dinner with each other (usually) and we take a moment to watch an episode of x-files, six feet under, northern exposure, [Enter TV show name here], etc. The best part about all this is that we have no money. WE PO! We are so poor that our "welcome mat" just says "wel!" Not that anyone needs to hear about our financial woes and we really don't have it that bad, since we have a solid roof over our head and the occasional spending spree at Taco Bell. So really I have nothing to complain about, but it sucks not to have a lot of money and anyone that says that money can't buy you happiness is an idiot. It may not make you happy, but the material things that you can purchase in exchange for said money can be quite amusing and amusing for a very long time. Again, I digress, I shouldn't even be talking about this because of all the hurricane victims, and world poverty in general. we have it good so I'll just shut up now.

Had a conversation with the pre-med advisor who managed to give me a pretty good pep talk in which he said that he was certain that I would get in to med school somewhere. That was very nice of him.

I find myself answering questions from people in my physics class even when I don't completely understand the material myself: Recipe for disaster anyone?

Organic lecture is going ok. I'll come back to you all on this one after my first exam on the 11th of October.

On the 8th of October my favoritist band ever is coming to Radio City Music Hall and I trust that I will be going with the wife and the in-laws. Dead Can Dance has produced some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard and their concerts are a religious experience. The most incredible sounds and feelings emanate from the stage when they are on. Wow...I have something to look foward to. Dead Can Dance may not be for everyone, but they should be. If you don't like them than I will respect your opinion, but we can't be friends anymore. HA!

Birds are neat creatures when you don't own any as pets. They can fly and that is just so cool!

I will start exploring medical schools in the coming weeks in semi-conjunction with my MCAT prep course. I need to explore all of my options and see what each school has to offer and start looking in to the likelyhood of me even getting in to certain ones.

Well that's all folks.....

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Now I'm where I want to be and who I want to be
and doing what I always said I would and yet I feel I haven't
won at all. Running for my life and never looking
back in case there's someone right behind to shoot me
down and say he always knew I'd fall.
(File this one under..."I can't believe milhouse is quoting a freekin musical")

Blah Blah Blah...school....Blah Blah Blah...work...Blah Blah Blah...whine whine whine

2005-09-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

Yeah so here I am in this world of too much coffee and not enough to do at work, but you don't want to do any kind of studying whatsoever so you update your blog kind of day. (12:02pm)

(1:28pm) So I was wrong about the day that I was having, the phones started ringing of the hook and people on conference calls looking for information, the usual checks to write every week and then the mail comes in and that occupies your time.

Funny story...My wife spelled cheese "C-h-e-e-z-e" the other day. I think that she has a certain snack craker on the brain.

I'll just leave ya'll today with a nice little uplifting quote....

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"But if you never try
you'll never know
just what your worth.
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones...
I will try to fix you."
-Coldplay

Finally!...an update

2005-09-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

So in the headlines today a string of bombings went off across Iraq with 130 people killed. The reason I bring this up you ask? I would like to know what the hell the Iraqi Prime Minister is doing in MICHIGAN???? Is there a problem with the Iraqi-American population in MICHIGAN that we don't know about? Are there bombings in MICHIGAN that are not being reported? What the hell is going on here? The words "Puppet", "Photo-Op", "America done good", "making progress" and various other "buzz" statements are slowly seeping into my already over-active brain. Does anyone else think that this is a little odd or am I just a little crazy?

I don't even want to mention school in here today because I am sure that most of my loyal readers (all three of you!) are sick and tired of hearing about it. Let me just say that I now know how to write the formula for ethylisopropylmethylamine. I can also tell you where a spaceship's location would be between the earth and the moon where the gravitational fields of the earth and the moon acting on the spaceship are equal to each other. I haven't quite figured out how to balance my schedule so that I don't feel like I am behind in every single class (which I don't appear to be so far, but it still feels that way.)

Other than that life is good despite my need for sleep, my need for more time with the wife, and my desire to climb to the top of a bell tower and start taking people out.

Ciao!

So I'll be updating this tonight I think.....

2005-09-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

Off to the dentist to get my crown, so I can't say much..

and so I say...Alas...

So very very tired

2005-09-09T14:35:00.000-07:00

Only two weeks into school and I am exhausted...just plain exhausted. I go from school to work and work to school and by the time I get home I don't feel like doing anything at all, but there is always studying to do. I read and read and work on problems and read some more....this is going to be hell in a hand basket and I've only just started...add to that the fact that I still have not been to one of my classes (said class meets for the first time this Monday)...I think I have it bad now but will soon have it even worse. Thankfully I do have the weekends to catch up on things until I start my MCAT prep course which will take up a good deal of my Sundays starting in November.

So here are the updates in general:

Organic Chemistry so far is actually really interesting. The instructor is very thorough and is more than willing to stop and answer questions when someone has an problem. Don't see that too often in classes with large populations of students.

Physics is really damn interesting. I wish that I had taken it a lot earlier in my school career. The instructor is pretty darn good so far. I have never been very good with ratios and dimensional analysis so I fear this may be an issue with me for the duration of the semester. I know that it all comes down to an algebraic or fractional relationship, but for some reason it is very hard for me to keep what is where straight. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will wake up and smell the coffee sooner rather than later.

Calculus 2....let's just say that I get a lot of personal attention in the class since I am pretty much teaching myself this stuff. So far, on my own, the concepts have not been too bad. Reading the sections on my own is much clearer than any lecture I am going to receive from this professor.

back to rambling, I am so tired that I had two glasses of ice coffee last night around 10:30pm and was still able to go to sleep an hour later. I just couldn't keep my eyes open. As I am writing this I am drinking more coffee and I still feel like I could get in another 40 winks or so.

Last weekend was a great deal of fun. As my readers may or may not know from my wife's blog that we went to Vermont for a wedding. There where a couple of things that I have to comment about with regard to the whole ordeal. I was pulled over by a state trooper about 20 minutes from our final destination. There are two reasons why we were pulled over, #1 NY license plates, #2 the kind of car we were driving, neither of which have anything to do with how fast I was going. The trooper went on to inform me that I was going 76 miles an hour in a 55 mile an hour zone. Needless to say I do not believe that I was going that rapidly, as I tend to only go a few miles over the speed limit. $80 that we don't have. Alas. The second thing was that my wife was listed with her maiden name on the program for the wedding. I found this really insulting and I am not sure why. It is as though I don't exist or something. In this day and age there are a number of people who do not change their names when they get married and others share in the change. For instance I changed my middle name to my wife's maiden name and she has her maiden name as her middle name in addition to changing her last name to mine. She is happy to be married to me (yes, I still firmly believe that and lately we haven't seen each other enough to get into any fights..gotta love the working, schooling marriage thing...HA!) and we both agreed to share the responsibility of names in some way or other and for that not to be acknowledged in anyway on this stupid program just pissed me off. I mean she went through a lot of hoops to change her name the least you can do is acknowledge it! If the tables had been turned in this situation you can bet that this woman would have made quite a stink about this instead of writing about it on a blog. But these are only two minor details which did not dampen the weekend all that much.

Tomorrow will be a fun filled day of homework at the liberry with the usual cohorts.

Tuesday is crown day...what fun the dentist is!

Hope that everyone has a great weekend!