So much to talk about, so little time...

Last night Ryan had the bright idea to go to The Marquis II, which is a shady bar on Bissonette. Apparently it was once a strip club but was converted to a bar years back. Tuesday night is their drink special night, when one can purchase a Long Island iced tea for $4.50. However, the tea comes in a glass that's about the size of a Big Gulp™ and is of course composed of four different alcohols. Two of these beverages will pretty much put an end to the evening. Three of them might require forced regurgitation of stomach contents. Four could put you in the hospital. So I had two of these fine beverages, plus a lite beer that Eric purchased for me. A bunch of classmates were also there by coincidence, so we chatted with them. I don't recall much of the evening, but for some reason I ended up at Mist Bar (formerly The Timberwolf), which is right down the street. I guess I went alone and called Ryan to come over. So he showed up and then Carissa showed up (probably one of the most beautiful girls I have ever met), and we all played pool. The funny story behind Carissa is that she went to Wahlert High School in Dubuque, Iowa which is where my mom and several of her family went to school. After pool I don't remember anything else, and I woke up this morning dressed as I was last night with contacts in place. The hangover lasted the entire day. That'll teach me (ha ha, of course it won't).

In other news, Dad has requested that his cool pop-up picture from my last blog be replaced. I don't know how I feel about this...isn't this violating my 1st Amendment right to free speech? Is this not censorship in the 1st degree? Probably not, so I changed his picture to a different, smaller photograph from last weekend. Feel free to check it out in the previous blog.

My big clinical skills examination is tomorrow. I have not prepared for this exam whatsoever. In fact, I should be doing that right now, but I have elected to write instead. Apparently we see 10 different standardized patients (these people are basically trained actors who pretend to be sick and are used as training tools), each with a different clinical problem. Based on their chief complaint, we take a problem focused history and perform an exam. I really have no anxiety over this exam, but I probably should be going over exam skills and such. The test lasts 5 hours, so I'm really looking forward to that.

There was an interesting story in the news today. It seems a 23 year old 8th grade reading teacher had multiple sexual encounters with one of her 14 year old students. This reminds me of a similar story that occurred a few years back in which the teacher became pregnant. Is this just the sickest thing or what? So the woman has sex with her 14 year old student then starts to feel bad and turns herself in. Wanna know what the worst part about all this is...the 14 year old WASN'T ME! I mean seriously, why couldn't I have had sex with the teacher back when I was in 8th grade? Can you imagine what a stud this guy is? He certainly must be king of his campus. On top of all this, the woman is VERY attractive. This isn't Monica Lewinski attractive, this is Sarah Gellar attractive. Anyway, here is her mug shot. I'm totally kidding about all that by the way. Well, mostly totally kidding.
Finally, I'll end this edition with the acknowledgement that there has been increased readership to this blog in the last few weeks. To that I say thank you, and I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy typing it.

Ah the Kansas Weekend is now complete. There is much about which to speak, so I will begin doing that now. Let's start with Friday afternoon. As I've said in the previous blog, the test was moderately hard as expected. Afterwards, I went home and packed, then went to the golfing range with Eric Graham. The golfing range is good wholesome fun, and only $5. Then I went home and completed last minute packing, finishing laundry, and changed the sheets on my bed so they would be fresh for Sunday. Then it was straight to Baker Street Pub for some good ol' fashioned post-exam drinking, medical student style. (that style, of course, being to excess) It was nice to see everyone at the conclusion of the 3rd year.

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The drinking abruptly ceased at exactly 7:39 PM. From there, I drove home, placed my bags into my 2000 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer edition, and left the house at 7:52 PM with Nick and Melissa in-tow. I don't know when I arrived at the airport, but I was sitting in the gate with bags checked by 8:25 PM. Don't ask me how that's possible without light speed capability, but it happened nonetheless. The flight was fine. I met a wonderful woman named Sofia. She is from Singapore, moved to London, moved to Thousand Oaks, California, and now lives near Wichita. We chatted about Euro 2004 (European soccer tournament) and about backpacking in Asia. I told her I'll be headed to China in April, so she offered to give me all the good places other than China should I stay abroad after the trip. She really was awesome and oh so very, very attractive. I need to start finding them before they get married. Maybe there are still some single Asian girls in China. I'm on the case. I arrived in Wichita, Kansas at 11:05 PM and Hutchinson, Kansas around 12:25 AM. I watched television briefly and went to bed around 1:00 AM.



Day #1

Saturday started around 9:00 AM. The hotel was out of coffee at 9:30 AM when I approached the lobby area, so my dad got me some at the Prairie Dunes club house. I hit a few range balls and the proceeded to the 1st tee box at 10:38 AM. I was paired with two excellent gentlemen, Steve and Ernie (if only it were Bert and Ernie). Steve is a member of Prairie Dunes CC and a close friend of my aunt Mary (who is actually a 1st or 2nd cousin, but more like an aunt). He was sort of our tour guide, which was very helpful to navigate the course, which is the hardest (and most beautiful) golf course I have ever played. Ernie is Mike Ernst's brother-in-law. This guy is equally outstanding. He's an excellent golfer, but the first words out of his mouth on the first tee were "Today's objective is to play for FUN." which I appreciate. So that's exactly what we did. The course is absolutely beautiful and absolutely treacherous. You would walk up to the tee box and literally gulp. Kinda funny to be so intimidated by a golf course. At least it's not a truck driver named Helga.

After golf everyone sort of milled around the pool area getting caught up with each other's lives. Pretty much everyone was there. These people include Sue and Mike who's kids are Lori (married to Steve; kids are Andrew, Alexandra, and Katie) and Chelle (pronounced shell-e, short for Michelle-married to Tal Litvak from Israel; no kids). Mary who's kids are Betsy (married to Sean; kids are Clare, Shannon, and Brigid) and Weston (married to Yami from Venezuela; little girl on the way) and Steven (married to Janelle; no kids). Also present were the Roshek's including Betty who's kids are Tom (married to Jann; kids Tommy and Carolyn) and Lorrie (married to Sandy; no kids). So all of these people chattered for quite some time until we all went back to our respective houses to get ready for the reception to be held at the country club later that evening.

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The reception was wonderful. Obviously all of the family people were there, but it was also interesting to meet a lot of the other Kansas people. Several I had met from golf, and I should have met a bunch more at the Friday dinner (but instead I was on an airplane). All and all it was very cool to meet a bunch of these people. The booze was flowing, and the food was actually quite good. In fact, it was really, really good as I recall. So we sat around and talked and laughed and drank and laughed and drank until late. Then my folks got tired and dragged us home. I found out the next day that many of the younger folk stayed late (Steven said 3:30), eventually doing shots at a friend's house. Next time, I'm staying until the last person leaves even if I need to take a cab home.

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Day #2

I woke up early on Sunday to finish my packing and get some coffee from the hotel lobby. There were already several guests having the free breakfast when I stumbled in there, but the coffee was flowing. I had my two cups and then dad took me back to the country club. I went to the range and hit balls for a while, then I putted. Finally everyone was gathered in the dining room for brunch. I didn't realize everyone was already there, or I would have cut my putting short. Instead I sort of stared at everyone eating while I was getting nervous about teeing off on time. This leads me to a quick point here: my dad is usually a pretty grounded, normal guy. However when it comes to airports and flying he freaks out over time. I think he threatened Sean and Sandy's lives if we didn't finish by 2 PM. They were commenting about it during golf, and I just had to laugh. Bottom line, he needs to chill out. Sure there is a logical basis in getting to the airport early so that flights aren't missed. But at the same time, one doesn't need to arrive 90 minutes early for a domestic flight leaving from an airport in the middle of a cornfield. Thus ends this rant. So I didn't really partake in the breakfast, which I sort of regret now, because it looked really good (my fault). I actually had plenty of time to eat, but I sort of didn't want to be late to tee off. Plus I sort of left in a whirlwind and didn't get to say goodbye to anyone, which I also regret (again, totally my fault). But alas you can't get everything in life you want.

Golf was fantastic today. I wasn't totally perfect, but the driver really started working on the back nine, and I actually parred several holes plus birdied the long number 7. It was wonderful to play with Lorrie and Sandy. I think the last time I played with Sandy was in Santa Barbara many years back. Lorrie is also playing very well. It's obvious why the two of them do so well in the couples' tournaments. My playing partner was Sean Sullivan, Betsy's husband. I hadn't seen him since his wedding nine years ago. He's a pretty cool guy. We had a lot of fun playing together. It turns out he is a very good golfer, so I was able to get some pointers about how to navigate the course. All in all, it was an awesome round of golf.

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Golf finished precisely at 1:45 PM. I proceeded to the men's locker room, showered, and changed into airplane clothes. The nice thing about private golf clubs is the men's locker room. Everything is there for you, soap, shampoo, towels, shaving materials, deodorant...you name it. So I did that and was in the car by 1:55 PM. We left Hutchinson and arrived at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport at about 2:40 PM. My flight was scheduled to leave at 4:25 PM and my parents at 4:35 PM. So we all sat in the terminal and chatted while waiting. My flight was delayed 2 hours because of bad weather in Houston, but my parents got off ok. After they left, Sean and Betsy's flight for Chicago left out of the same gate. So I chatted with them until they left. Then I went back to my gate only to find that Steven and Janelle were on my flight to Houston and then on to Portland, Oregon. So I got to chat with them while we waited and sat with them on the plane. While we waited, Lorrie and Sandy were walking to their gate, which again was the same gate from where Mom, Dad, Betsy, and Sean left. So I basically saw everyone in the airport which made up for me missing them at brunch. Nick and Melissa were at the airport to pick me up, and we all went home. I'm very pleased with the weekend. It was wonderful to see everyone, and I think we all had a great time. I look forward to doing that again someday. Then I talked with Mary Mathieu, and that's an entirely different blog. Maybe I'll write about it sometime.

Today ended the 3rd year of medical school. The test wasn't the easiest in the world, but I'm confident there is at least a pass in the answers I chose. It's kind of funny to think that I've finished the entire 3rd year of medical school. This is the year that everyone talks about in college--the year everyone dreads. It seems like yesterday I was staring OB/GYN at St. Joseph Hospital, and now I'm a fourth year medical student. Pretty cool.

It should be noted that Tuesday the entire team went to a lovely Mexican place called Irene's behind Minute Maid Park. We had fresh lemonade and a variety of Mexican dishes, including fajitas; shrimp enchiladas; and spinach enchiladas. As tribute to Jeremy and myself, everyone on the team grew goatees (except Christian who's wife wouldn't allow it). After lunch we received our evaluations and went home to complete final preparations for the internal medicine board exam mentioned above.

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After the exam, I went to the golf range to make an attempt at brushing up before playing tomorrow at Prairie Dunes. The packing is done, so all I have left is to go drink for a while. I shouldn't have a problem doing that.

Exciting news! It appears that google.com has now indexed my page. This means, if you search for "Tommy Roshek" using google.com, my website is now ranked #2 behind nathanbeach.com where my name appears many, many times.

Mary Mathieu called me today. Apparently on her way to DeSoto (where she is attending a UNT satellite campus to get her masters in counseling), she drives past the famous "Christ for the Nations" Building. The phrase "Christ for the Nations" was made famous by Cory Sutker and myself returning to Dallas from Austin where the building is seen at the bifurcation of I-35 and Highway 67 headed to Cleburne. Christ for the Nations is usually exclaimed out of frustration and is less blasphemous than actually using the Lord's name in vain, so it was highly adopted for use in my vocabulary. Anyway, Mary probably ranks up there with Janelle (mentioned previously) as far as quality people go. Of course, I've known Mary since my Junior year of high school, so she obviously is part of my inner circle, as it were, of friends. She's an absolute sweetheart, and I'm always very pleased when I get to see or hear from her. She tells me that her sister Sara is set to graduate from the University of Texas-Austin in August and then plans to become a flight attendant. She also says Justin Eastburn and Lauren Johnson should be getting engaged any day now, which I've known for a while. This sort of freaks me out, because I've known Justin for probably over 15 years and this means he is all grown up. Yikes, where is the time going?

I played tennis with world renowned PGY 4 Cezar Iliescu today, and this dude can play tennis. He killed me in the first set 6-2, but I battled in the 2nd set only to fade and lose 6-4. However, I think once I get back into shape and playing form, I should be able to give him a run for his money. This first step is this "getting back into shape", which might actually be possible during the fourth year of school. Tomorrow is the final test of the 3rd year of medical school. I'm quite thrilled that all of this will be over. In retrospect, the third year has been quite wonderful. Sure it is very, very time consuming, but in the end I learned more than I thought possible. One might even say I really enjoyed it too. Maybe I should be studying for the test instead of typing a blog that only my parents read. Nah, this is more fun.

The website is coming along very nicely. Eventually I plan to include a photo gallery of my favorite work thus far, but it won't be for quite a while. I'm going to concentrate on the Medicine board (Friday) followed by the Clinical Skills Exam (July 1st) followed by the USMLE Step 2 on July 20. Mixed between all of that stuff is a trip to Kansas this weekend and a trip to Washington DC the following weekend. Hurray!

Yesterday evening, I went with Ryan and Janelle to see The Terminal starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta Jones. First off, Ms. Douglas is very attractive. This woman is super hot, and I just thought I'd go on record with that statement. Second, this movie is absolutely wonderful! Seriously, it's another Spielberg masterpiece, sort of along the lines of Catch Me if You Can...but totally different. The film certainly had its cheesy moments, but overall I loved it. I highly recommend that you go see it in the theater. I walked out feeling really good, which is sort of rare after seeing movies these days. Of course the ever-lovely Janelle Collier was present which always seems to make me happy. This girl is Ryan's "god-sister" as he refers to her 100% of the time. She is currently a lawyer for the state of Texas, which means that she makes sure all the legislation for our state is all nice and legal. She's extremely intelligent and extremely attractive, but her best feature is her personality. You always feel comfortable around her, she isn't afraid to put you on your ass if she disagrees, and she's funny. It's really a great combination. I'm always delighted when I get to see her.

I e-mailed Brad Schwartz today, because there was an article in this morning's Dallas Morning News which talks about the new Angelika Theatre going up on Legacy and the Tollway (where Jasper's is, a restaurant of fine eats...and where Adam Manson works). Anyway, he talks about some of the old theaters that were awesome in my day, including the AMC Glen Lakes near Northpark Mall. I remember seeing Jurassic Park there, because it was the only theater at the time showing movies in THX Digital sound. LOL, I don't even think that theater exists anymore. And what ever happened to the General Cinema in the Promenade Center? I think it's a Kroger now.

I also e-mailed Mike Leffingwell today, his birthday. I can't wait to see how things are going in New York. I do know that is married with a child. I hope they are all doing well.

Finally, I played racquetball with Nick today at our rec center's new court. It is very nice. Actually the entire center has been remodeled, and it looks fantastic. It's a serious rec center if I don't say so myself. Tomorrow I plan on playing tennis with Cezar Iliescu, who will be starting his cardiology fellowship on Monday. How exciting! He's probably one of the best doctors I've ever met, and I'm glad he'll be around for another year. I'm sure we'll cross paths in the hospital during my 4th year.

Ok then, I'm going to bed. One more day of studying before the medicine test. I feel remarkably good about my chances, so tomorrow I'll just do questions all day to get comfortable with the material. Then I'm on a plane to Kansas. I hope they have lots of booze on the airplane. Actually, I hope they have lots of booze in Kansas too.

I am happy to say that dad has been smoke-free 4 weeks now. Excellent work! In celebration of this feat, I will introduce my new "smoke-free" logo which will appear at the bottom of all my blogs. Smoking is bad for you, so stay away.

X28 Days

It's rather late, and I'm on call tomorrow so I probably should be brief. Nathan and Shelley came over today after Nathan's appointment with "The maestro" as he's called. "The maestro" is actually David Baquero who owns an art gallery on Rice and Chaucer. He also plays classical guitar. Anyway, Nathan presented his portfolio to The maestro and talked shop for a few hours. It seems Nathan my really have a shot at the whole art thing, so let's all hope that works out. I merely want him to become famous so there will be controversy over the true title of his masterpiece "Bowl of Organs"...but only time will tell on that one. After the art meeting, Nathan, Shelley, and I went to Star Pizza for a deep dish starburst. It was excellent as usual. Then we went back to Club 1948 and reprogrammed my website into regular html instead of Microsoft html. I had an excellent programming lesson from Nathan, which I really appreciate. It was quite nice of him to take time out of his schedule to show me this stuff, which I very well should be learning on my own. If only I wasn't in this medical school thing there might actually be time.

I think that's all for now.

I'm unusually tired this evening. It's probably because my team is post-call today, but I wasn't even at the hospital last night. My fatigue may correlate with getting up at 4:45 this morning, with little sleep prior to that. Anyway, I think I'll make this brief.

An old friend, Bernie Carty, e-mailed me today. (Bernie is short for Bernadette.) She was my co-chair in Fish Camp way back in 1998, my second year as a counselor and my junior year of college. It turns out that Bernie is now married (to a guy named Tommy), lives in the Woodlands, and already has a child with another on the way. CRAZY STUFF! It also turns out that this year is the 50th anniversary of Fish Camp, so there's a huge reunion taking place on the 11th of September, the weekend we play Wyoming. I actually hope I can make it there for the game, as I would love to see a lot of those people. Many of them I haven't seen since 1997 or so. Good God, how time is flying. Fish Camp was tied for the best organization I was a part of at A&M. Basically, Fish Camp is held every summer for the incoming freshmen Aggies as an orientation (or "programming" as I called it). The kiddos learn all of the A&M traditions and make a ton of new friends to help their transition from high school to college. It really is a wonderful tradition and quite unique to undergraduate school. Counselors tend to really bond with one another, and I remain best friends with many of the people I met through Fish Camp (Jennifer Geigel for one). Click here to visit Fish Camp's Website.

In other news, I found this cool picture on Google. Apparently this is of an old band called the "Crew Cuts". They signed their album cover to a person named Roma, who according to my dad was the music buyer at Roshek's Department Store in Dubuque, IA. So, I thought I'd include it here.



There are other things to discuss, but I think I'm going to bed. Hurray for the World Champion Pistons...I'm very happy that LA is out. There just isn't much to like about the Lakers, so I'm glad the team effort of Detroit paid off.

Today has been relatively lazy. I don't think I got up until at least 1100. Since then very little has happened. Ryan, Larry, and I watched The Rundown with The Rock and Seann William Scott (Stifler from American Pie fame). It wasn't too bad for an action/comedy. Now I must report some unfortunate news. While watching this film, Ryan decided to run after me without wearing any clothes. This event was completely heterosexual (if that's possible), and I must admit there is a chance he was provoked (by me). But I still must document that he ran into the front room sans clothes to the horror of Larry and me. Today will forever be remembered for this particular event. Then Nick got home from his weekend soiree in Austin with Melissa. Apparently he actually left the house 3 times by his count, which is probably 3 times more than Memorial Day weekend when Melissa came to Houston. I'm very proud of them both. Other than that, very little has happened. George H.W. Bush celebrated his 80th birthday by parachuting out of a plane and landing next to his presidential library in College Station (which I helped to dedicate/open while still a student). I placed a few friendly wagers on tonight's Pistons/Lakers game...so go Pistons and be sure that the combined score is at least 170. I also purchased tickets to tomorrow night's baseball game between the Astros and Cubs. Roger Clemens (9-0) is facing Mark Prior (0-1), so it should be quite a game. I'm surprised I was able to get tickets. The Aggies play game two of the Super Regional tonight against LSU. If A&M loses, they are eliminated from the tournament. If they win, they get to play tomorrow with the winner advancing to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. The rest of the day is slated for reading and watching basketball. I'm content with this arrangement, especially since it's raining right now which creates a very soothing study environment.

The Pistons went ahead and beat the Lakers, again, convincingly. Unfortunately the total points scored were 188, which is exactly one less than what I needed, so that's a bummer. But I did break even, so I can't complain too much. I'll put it all on Roger tomorrow against the Cubs. There is a very pressing issue that must be discussed. During the basketball game today, Nick had a serious bout of flatulence. I mean really, it was bad enough to strip the paint off the walls. This is truly unacceptable. I sat on the sofa holding a Glade air freshner and would waive it in the air whenever Nick made yet another disgusted face. Needless to say, I was waiving the Glade around much of the night. I wonder if there is some sort of medical procedure to cure him of this problem. Maybe he just needs a few glasses of Golytely to take care of things. Golytely is the worst and most misleading name for a laxative ever conceived. There's nothing lite about what the substance does to your bowels. It should be called Goalotly or Goheavily. I'm done now.

Dad has been smoke-free for 18 days.

It is Saturday. Here is a recap of the day thus far. I awoke at 0625. Bathroom duty, shave, shower, and getting dressed took 20 minutes. I left the house and arrived at Memorial Hermann Hospital at 0720. I spoke with, examined my patient, and wrote a progress note by 0745. This patient has chronic wound and urinary tract infections. This will become important later. Rounding with Dr. Farnie began at 0800 and ended around 0900. The next 30 minutes were spent on the phone trying to figure out which radiology attending could read my patient's CT scan. My patient has bilateral decubitus ulcers of his hip. Decubitus ulcers usually arise in hospitalized patients who don't move around much. My patient is paralyzed from the waste down following a gunshot wound in 1991, which has left him rather immobile. Apparently there are still bullet fragments in his body which makes it impossible for us to get an MRI of his hip. So instead we got a CT (computerized tomography)scan of his hip. Why do we need to scan this patient's hip? Because he gets chronic infections of his decubitus ulcers which have apparently burrowed deep into his soft tissue and have now touched the bone causing what's called osteomyelitis. Anything that ends in "itis" refers to inflammation in medical speak. So hepatitis means inflammation of the liver and arthritis means inflammation of a joint. Osteomyelitis means inflammation of the bone--in this patient as a result of his infected decubitus ulcer. The ulcers are currently infected with gram negative rods, which are a type of bacteria. I originally took a look at the CT scan with Dr. Farnie and Dr. Hall (my Intern, which is a first year resident), and the scan shows obvious changes in the bone. If you look at the images, you can see the progression of bone deformity. When you read a CT scan, imagine you are sitting at the computer staring at the patient's feet as he lies on his back. Each image is a horizontal cross-section of the body. Keeping this in mind, the left side of the screen would be the right side of the patient. The first image you see is a cross-section of the pelvis, which is basically normal bone with the very beginning of inflammation on the left side of the screen. In the following images, notice how the left side of the screen (the patient's right hip) gets progressively worse. The last few images are of the hip joint which is where the femur (the large bone in the leg) connects with the pelvis. Notice on the patient's left, there is a nice joint space and no inflammation. Contrast that to the patient's right which is completely obliterated. (thanks to Mark Boyle for sending those pictures to me from the hospital) So I went down to radiology and confirmed this information with the attending which will be relayed to my patient's doctor who is private (not on the faculty at UT). Basically, since this patient has osteomyelitis, his antibiotic therapy will last six weeks instead of two. I got home around 1000 and then proceeded to check e-mail, drink coffee, call my parents, call my grandmother, call my sister, and study. At 1300 Ryan's friend Larry (and my friend too) from Austin arrived in town. We went to Kenny and Ziggy's New York Style Deli in the Galleria area for lunch. I had an excellent Ruben sandwich, potato salad, iced tea, and some Oreo Cheesecake. We discussed the movie Troy with Brad Pitt and the epic The Iliad upon which the movie is based. We then proceeded home. At 1625 we drove to the Landmark Greenway 5 Theatre in Greenway Plaza. Originally I thought we were going to the Edwards Theatre (which is huge), but we learned there is a smaller theatre a block away. This smaller theatre is more of an independent film house sort of like The Angelika or Magnolia Theatres. It was here that we observed the movie Super Size Me, which is one of the best independent film/documentary-type films I have ever seen. Apparently the filmmaker, Morgan Spurlock, spent $65,000 to make the movie and has now made over 6.5 million. He basically eats McDonald's fast food three times a day for thirty days. The chronicle of this escapade includes interviews with nutritionists, physicians, food distribution lobbyists, his girlfriend, and people on the streets. We learn that Texas is the fattest state in the country and that Houston (where I live) is the fattest city in the country when the film was made. (Houston has since been replaced by Detroit.) A Memorial Hermann System hospital is featured, showing us how gastric bypass surgery is performed (I have assisted during one of these procedures). It also turns out that 8 of the 15 fattest cities in America are in Texas. Hurray for us. Anyway, the guy basically goes into the first stage of liver failure after eating McDonald's for 20 days. He finishes the course and teaches us a great lesson about fast food. PLEASE GO SEE THIS MOVIE! It is absolutely fantastic not only for the documentary/educational part but also for the great entertainment value the movie provides. After the movie, I watched the Aggies lose to LSU in game 1 of the Super Regionals. Then Chris and Carla came over and had dinner with Ryan and Larry while I read. Then we decided to say in for the night "party" a little and watch a movie. The selection was Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket, which is excellent of course. Wes Anderson is from Houston and attended the university of Texas. There he met Owen and Luke Wilson, both of Dallas. Eventually they made Bottle Rocket together and went on to make Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. I went to sleep around 0130.

Dad has been smoke-free for 17 days.

Apparently my mother is now reading this thing, because she sent me an e-mail trying to verify my Kansas memories. It reads:

Aunt Gladie lived in Overland Park, KS. You were there twice and she had a blue piano. You were in Hutch twice, once when you were 3 months old(just after visiting Aunt Gladie and Uncle Roy ,who was dying of lung cancer and he wanted to meet you ), we then drove to Hutch. You were at Betsy's wedding reception, in Hutch, at Prairie Dunes CC, we drove from Dallas. I guess that was about 10 years ago. We went to Lori Ernst's wedding and stayed at the Ritz Carlton in downtown Kansas City. I guess about 12 years ago. Mary Weston is a lot like Aunt Gladie, very warm and happy.
Are you confused? Love, Mom

It seems I actually remember most of the stuff pretty accurately, even though I was quite young. The Aunt Gladdie stuff actually took place in Overland Park, Kansas which is a beautiful suburb of Kansas City. Of course I knew this but apparently wasn't thinking clearly last night. I would visit Overland Park when I was very young, so I'm quite surprised I remembered so clearly. The Hutchinson stuff was much more recent and for weddings and such. The Country Club there is called Prairie Dunes, which was the site of the Big XII golf tournament this past spring. I'm totally looking forward to that.

I'm on call tonight, so I won't be leaving Hermann until Friday morning. It's kind of a bummer, because I have lectures on Friday at 1:30 and also from 2:30 to 4:30. So maybe we'll finish rounding early, and I can get a quick nap at home before going back to school for lecture. I'm praying call is manageable today, but Hermann nights are usually pretty long from what I hear. I have 4 hours of lecture now, so I will continue this later.

Oh my gosh, what am I doing? Instead of reading more about the gastrointestinal system, I have decided to fix my attention on the movie Scent of a Woman with Al Pacino, Chris O'Donnell, and the greatness that is Philip Seymour Hoffman. I've only seen two segments thus far (it's on Spike TV, the First Network for Men), but it appears to be quite a good movie.

Plans have now been finalized for me to attend my family's reunion in Hutchinson, Kansas at the end of the month. It's going to cost $300 to fly in an airplane to Kansas. What is this world coming to? If the airline industry was run like the computer industry, a flight to China would take 15 minutes and would cost 55 cents (roundtrip). But the airline industry certainly is not run like the computer industry, so I guess it will have to do. I read somewhere that since the very first commercial flight years ago, the airline industry has made exactly zero net dollars. Sounds like a winner to me. Hutch will be nice though. I haven't seen a lot of the Kansas people in quite a while, so it will be nice to head up there. Plus the golf will be spectacular, so why not eh? I do remember the last time I was up there...must have been at least 10 years ago. It seems I used to go there on a more regular basis, as I remember visiting Aunt Gladdie in her old white house. I don't recall everything about it, but there were two stories and a room upstairs with a bunch of old stuff in it. I also seem to recall a very woody backyard and perhaps a fence? But for some reason, I remember the front room being connected to the kitchen, both facing the front yard and street. I think there was a piano in the front room, but I'm not totally sure. I recall Gladdie being such a nice lady, always smiling and laughing. She sort of reminds me of the Oracle in The Matrix...sort of that motherly nice old lady type person. She and Grandmother had such a great relationship; I hope Carolyn and I will have something like that long into our futures. Of course, we'll never be old ladies together, and I can be happy for that.

Scent of a Woman is truly a wonderful film. I even enjoyed it on Spike TV, the First Network for Men. I really hate edited movies. If the writer wanted the character to say "fuck", why change it for cable? The movie started at 8PM and finished at 11PM. If little kids are up that late, the parents should be ashamed. Plus, we are required to pay for cable television, so if parents are afraid of a little cussing, quit paying for cable and switch to over the air television. On top of that, parents can filter what their kids see by locking certain channels out or by using the so called "V-chip" which only allows programs of certain ratings to be shown. I think I'm just tired of people relying on society to police everything and edit everything and beep out everything. How about we take responsibility for what we see and do? How about we exercise our freedom to chose instead of forcing our wishes upon everyone else? Yikes, calm down.

I received a package from Nathan Beach today. It contained valuable HTML editing software. Now all I have to do is learn how to use it. Expect changes to this website sometime in September when I have time to learn such things.

I have confirmed that dad is smoke-free for 14 consecutive days now.

Nothing much to talk about today. I'm so sick of the Los Angeles Lakers. I can't believe how good Koby Bryant is. If you didn't see his 3-pointer with 2 seconds to go tonight, catch the highlights. I really don't think the Lakers deserve to win the finals this year. They've been living on the edge the entire playoffs and are only alive because of the most unbelievable last minute shooting I've ever seen. Screw them.

Also, what's up with online airline ticket buying? It's gonna cost me at least $305 to fly from Houston to Wichita, Kansas. WHAT? $300? This is absolutely crazy. They put you on this tiny regional jet and charge you huge amounts of money to fly at horrible times. Continental has the best price, but I'm leaving at 9 PM for God's sake. What a joke. I guess the bigger question is, why am I going to Wichita, Kansas? Well I'm actually going to Hutchinson for a family reunion type thing, and I get to play golf at a great course, so I'm glad to go up there.

Nick just walked in, stared at me for a few seconds, then started bobbing up and down. I'm guessing he probably was passing some gas (confirmed), but apparently nothing would come out. I'm sitting on Ryan's Flexsteel sofa watching the Tampa Bay Lightning lead the Calgary Flames 2-1 with 4:00 minutes to go in game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals. Tampa Bay's 2nd OT goal in game six on Friday was awesome, and this game has been one of the best hockey games I've seen in a while.

Texas A&M beat Rice to advance out of the Houston regional yesterday evening. Apparently one of the Aggies hit a grand slam in the top of the eighth to send the Aggies on to victory. They will now travel to Baton Rouge to play LSU in the super regional which determines who advances to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. The Aggies went to the CWS once when I was a student there, so I'd love so see them go again this summer. TAMPA BAY WINS THE STANLEY CUP!

Three of the about to be senior class officers had a meeting today to discuss the cadaver memorial. We now have the ball rolling on this project. Briefly, this project was conceived by Matt Harting (class of '03) as a tribute to all of the people who have donated their bodies to our medical school for study by students in gross anatomy class. These people's donation makes it possible for us to study the human body and allows us to understand the relationships each organ has with others. Matt and his classmates wanted to do something to commemorate those who gave their bodies to science, so the cadaver memorial was born. We convinced the school to provide us space for the memorial (in the North East corner of the new leather lounge) and then we chose architect/artist to conceive the project. Now we are in the fundraising part of the process, and we hope to raise somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 dollars. This is no small task, but we are headed in the right direction. Two of the students are going to explore hiring a company to help us solicit donations, and the rest of us are putting together a one-page advertisement to go in the Fall issue of the Alumni magazine for UT-Houston. We'll write a blurb about the project and include a few of the architect's sketches from his winning submission. Hopefully many of the alumni, faculty, and parents of current students will be interested in the project and want to donate money. I can't wait to see the finished page.

I also am currently working on selecting a commencement speaker for next May's graduation. I e-mailed the class asking for names, and I'm beginning to put together a very nice list. The four senior class officers and four faculty members will vote on the final person sometime this summer. I wonder if the students' input will be considered...or why have us on the committee? Several of the faculty members on the committee are pretty cool (including Dr. Ribble, the former dean who interviewed me), so I anticipate the selection process will be very interesting.

Dad is smoke-free 12 days now.

I just finished watching Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine with Seema and Nick. Should you not know, Nick is one of my roommates. He is a 3rd year medical student like I am at UT-Houston. He went to school in Missouri, but we shouldn’t make fun of him for that. I should tell the story behind how I met him. Back in the spring of 2001, I had graduated from Texas A&M the year before and was back in Dallas working in the Small Business Administration lending department of Compass Bank. One day, my mom told me Ken Leveno (a family friend and tremendously accomplished obstetrician) met a guy working up at Parkland Hospital (the county hospital in Dallas) who would also be attending UT-Houston Medical School with me that fall. He had mentioned possibly being roommates, and that I should e-mail him and introduce myself. At that point, I wanted nothing to do with roommates and simply wanted to live by myself for a few years. So I e-mailed him and let him know my position. Later that spring I got to meet him at a mixer. I actually still remember the circumstances of the meeting. We were all congregating a bar in the Village (which no longer exists), and this dude with dark curly hair and a baseball hat walks up and says he’s Nick Hamilton who worked at Parkland. I think we played some pool or something, then I got too drunk to remember anything else about that night except that I danced the night away at a place called the Gallant Knight on Holcombe with a bunch of students who were 1st years at the time (actually they’re all doctors x1 week now). Geez, I remember seeing Alan Kitchings from Aggie Fish Club that night too. Strange world. Anyway, that was my first exposure to Nick in person. Then the weekend before school started we met again, this time at a bar called Sherlock’s on Shepard and W. Grey. It was at this point when we both found out that we have mutual admiration for Ayn Rand and objectivism; proceeded to coo over one another the rest of the night; and have been friends ever since. Plus we drank WAY too much. I think that’s probably the main reason we’re friends is that we have an automatic drinking buddy, which turns out to be a lifesaver in medical school. So that’s how I know Nick and now unfortunately live with him. It turns out that he’s a remarkable person, but I can’t say too much good or bad, cause he’ll probably read this and I don’t want to deal with it later. (how’s that for a digression?) I need to talk about Seema too, but we’ll hold that for another blog.

So back to Bowling for Columbine. This film is absolutely wonderful! I’m not a terribly huge fan of what Michael Moore portrays in public (the left-winged, obnoxious, in-your-face anarchist), but I certainly am a huge fan of his filmmaking. His first venture, Roger & Me was a wonderful look at how important the GM plant was to Flint, Michigan and how devastated the town became after the company left. His second film Bowling for Columbine looks at the gun culture of America and tries to determine why homicide is such a problem here when it’s not a problem in gun-toting Canada or pussy European countries that don’t have any guns at all. The film looks at the National Rifle Association; our government’s penchant for killing people in other countries; the tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado; the White Man’s hatred for the Black Man; and much more. The filmmaking is excellent, the research is thorough, his conclusions are sound, I learned something, and I was entertained. So in my book, that’s a good movie. I highly think you should check this film out if you are interested in any of the things I just mentioned.

In other news, my mom confirmed for me that Dad is still smoke free, now on day 11. To quote her "I'm happy to say, Dad is still smoke-free. The sweats are less and so are the shakes. He is doing well." Sounds like fun eh? My dad quitting smoking is probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen him do. Of course there are tons of others including raising good kids, earning a decent wage, and being a man of integrity. But his Achilles Heel has always been the wacky tobaccy, and I’m not talking about the fun wacky tobaccy. I’m talking about the legal shit that kills your lungs, kidneys, liver, brain, blood, bones, intestines, stomach, throat, mouth (you get the idea). I’ve never had an addiction like he has to smoking, but I know it’s an impossible thing to give something like that up. So I’m extremely proud of him right now. Seriously, he’s been saying he’d quit for 26 years (my lifetime) and never had the balls to actually do it. But something came over him a week ago Wednesday, and he quit. I pray to God it will stick.

The Lightning beat the Flames last night in OT. It was like 5 seconds into the 2nd OT, and it was an AWESOME game! Playoff hockey really kicks ass. I highly recommend that you partake in viewing someday…maybe even Monday night for the deciding game 7.

Today was rather eventful as far as the history books go. As for me, it's yet another day of recovery. I've basically been sick since Tuesday evening. It's one of those viral things where you have night sweats mixed with chills. I remember Wednesday night I got up for 10 seconds to get my 3rd blanket and proceeded to shake under the covers for half an hour. It was absolutely dreadful. I got the day off today which was a Godsend, so I sat around all day studying and watching a little television. Speaking of television, it was the source of today's big news.

First off, I was flipping through channels this morning and stumbled across the news that former President Ronald Reagan died today at the age of 93. In recent days, his family was called to his bedside because his condition had deteriorated. President Reagan had been suffering from Alzheimer's for at least 10 years and most likely died from pneumonia today. Actually his death may have been similar to my grandfather's a few years back. Pop-Pop (as I called him) didn't have Alzheimer's nearly as long but had deteriorated greatly the last few years of his life. I really need to devote some time to his and all of my grandparents' lives at some point. However, today will be remembered for President Reagan's death. I must say, President Reagan was the first president I ever recognized. I really don't remember anything about Carter. I'm lucky to have been alive during all of Reagan's presidency. He will probably be remembered for helping to end the Cold War and also as shaping what Conservative Republicans are today. He very well may be the greatest president of the last 50 years, but who knows. I remember really enjoying his voice on television and trusting what he would say. I also thought that all presidents pretty much were elected to two terms until George H.W. (thanks to Ross Perot) broke that bubble. Anyway, I'm glad that I grew up with him to look up to as a role model. Ever since Bush Sr. left office, I haven't looked up to our country's leadership like I did for twelve years under Reagan and Bush. It may be too simple, but really all I need is a leader I can trust. Sure, George W. has taken a firm stance on many national defense issues, and I'm glad Al Gore wasn't in office on 9/11. But I really don't trust G.W. like I trusted his dad and Ronald Reagan.

Also today was the running of the Belmont Stakes, which is the 3rd race of the Triple Crown. (The Triple Crown is a set of the three biggest horse races of the season.) The last horse to win the triple crown was in 1978, and since then 10 have won the first two of three races. This year a horse called Smarty Jones was a huge favorite to win. He one the first two races by an average of 14 lengths I think, and there was true excitement across the country for this horse to win. Plus a movie called Seabiscuit came out last year describing one of the greatest underdog horses of all times, so people were kind of tuned to horse racing this year. Smarty Jones was also sort of an underdog as well. As a young horse, he apparently bashed his head against the wall and now sports a huge scar across his face with a skull fracture to boot. Plus, I think he wasn't supposed to be much of a horse but instead won the first nine races he ran. Today he lead much of the race, but another horse called Birdstone blew past Smarty Jones right at the end. I'm not usually a huge horse racing fan, but this race was awesome, and I was sad Smarty couldn't pull the thing off. I'm also glad I didn't bet.

Also today, the Texas A&M baseball team beat TSU to advance to the Super Regional final tomorrow at Rice's field here in Houston. They are in the winner's bracket, so they have two chances to win the tournament tomorrow. It would be great to see them advance. And in more sports, overtime between the Calgary Flames and the Tampa Bay Lightning is about to start. If Calgary scores, they win the Stanley Cup. If Tampa Bay scores, they play game 7 in Tampa Bay. Stanley Cup hockey truly is the greatest sports on Earth (especially overtime Stanley Cup hockey).

Finally, since today is Saturday it would be 10 days since my dad stopped smoking after 40 years. It's hard to say how significant this is, but I haven't confirmed it yet so I won't discuss it too much. Hopefully he's still smoke-free, and I'll be able to discuss it more in the coming days.