There is someone who is BEGGING to be in this here blog, so of course I will oblige. However, I should talk about last night first.

Yesterday evening at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, Kayla and I joined pretty much the entire Angel/Hill? family to watch a Theatre Under the Stars production of Cole Porter's Anything Goes. Without spending a day on family trees, it should be noted that the Angel's are the family Kayla's dad remarried into. Since his name is Schnell and Mary Kaye's name is Angel, they are referred to as Schnangels (or something like that). So the Schnangels went to the Hobby Center last night to watch one of the Angels (Katie Clarke, Kayla's step-cousin) perform. I must say I really enjoyed the production. There was plenty of comedy, the singing was very good, and the dance bits were outstanding. It was almost too much eye candy to digest, but overall very nice. It was also fun to see Katie perform, as it is her first professional production, and her whole family was there to support her. I got to meet her after the show, and she really seems like a great gal. It was a very fun evening. Then Kayla and I went to Katz's deli and had a pastrami Ruben and some fried pickles. YUM!

So back to this someone who is begging to be in this here blog. Remarkably she is yet another Angel who lives in St. Louis, Missouri. Her name is Ashley Angel and is the daughter of Mary Kaye (who has become quite popular it seems on mytommyroshek.com). Ashley is an Aggie (which gets her bonus points) who is very ambitious and has followed her job to St. Louis where she will eventually become the CEO of GMAC. I spoke with this person when Kayla and I were in Philadelphia, again when she had A LOT TO DRINK at her aunt Stacy's birthday party in the Woodlands, on the speaker phone at the big down home country dinner a few nights ago, and again last night when she was upset that there was no mention of ASHLEY ANGEL OF ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI. It's very interesting how similar she is to TODD FOX, who also constantly pesters me about being in the blog. How are you TODD FOX? Where have you been pal? Anywho, Ashley has already become my favorite step-sister-in-law due to her vibrant personality and four phone conversations. I look forward to meeting her in the hopefully near future.

Finally Carolyn has requested that an updated picture of THE DOOOOOGS be placed on this here blog. I am happy to oblige.


Parris in October '04

Parris in January '05

Nathan called me last night when I was at Kayla's parents' house and left a message saying he read a really cool article in Wired Magazine about how scientists at MIT are attempting to build organisms from the ground up using the genome in a way similar to how computer chips are built. It's really quite fascinating. You can read about it here.

Let's talk about the weekend thus far.

Friday

Maestro Baquero called and invited me to his be grand opening party in February. Apparently he has been redesigning his gallery here in Houston and will have a big celebration to mark the occasion. I'm not totally sure what has become of the nail on his guitar-playing hand he cut, but from our brief conversation it seems his professional career is over. He sounded as if he has come to terms with his new path in life, but I'm not totally sure what the story is. I will find out more at the party. I do hope he is ok.

That afternoon I had lunch at D'Amico's Italian Market Cafe with Kayla, Nick, and Dr. Anderson. This place is really good and really cheap. Plus it's a market as well, so they have all sorts of weird Italian ingredients for sale in the restaurant. It was fun to have all of us in the same place for an extended period. It looks like I might be writing a paper with Dr. Anderson about the experience on the general surgery interview trail. I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to write a paper with her, as it sort of reminds me of college and writing papers with Dr. Brooks. I just realized that Dr. Anderson is my medical school Dr. Brooks. Wow, that's really cool.

After lunch Kayla and I went to school to visit all of her friends from when she worked there. It turns out that we have several mutual friends there (as I am a student at the school), and it was fun to see everyone. The rest of the day we ran errands and sort of lounged around the house. That evening I took Kayla to Mo Mong for the best Vietnamese food in Houston. We had coconut shrimp with avocado in a spring roll then she had the tofu in the special luc lac sauce with a dirty martini, while I had my traditional vermicelli with meat and greens along with a saki bellini martini. It was to die for as usual. That was pretty much it for the evening.


Saturday

The next day was spent doing absolutely nothing. I think it was the laziest day I've ever had, and I'm NOT complaining! Then the evening came and it was time to meet Kayla's dad. I really can't say that I was all that nervous about the affair (as Kayla has pretty much told me everything about her family, and I felt comfortable with them just by hearing about them), but of course you want to make a good impression, especially since Kayla loves her dad so much and constantly speaks so highly of him. Kayla, Krista (Kayla's sister), and I arrived at the residence in the heart of scenic Baytown where we were joined by Kayla's dad, stepmom Mary Kaye, stepbrothers Seth and Derek, Derek's fiancée Jen, and her friend Lindsey. We were also joined by Seth's 11-week old rottweiler named "Miss Texas". Miss Texas is just about the cutest puppy I've ever seen except for Carolyn's dog Parris. Oh man, I miss the DOOBERS! Anyway, Mary Kaye made a feast. My eyes almost popped out of my head when I saw the table. We had chicken fried steak, grilled chicken, salad with balsamic vinaigrette or ranch, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, Texas toast, and tea. Then I had some Irish Coffee after dinner. It really was a wonderful down home country meal. After that we played with the dog and sat in the living room talking about things families talk about. Kayla didn't think it was all that exciting, but I really sort of enjoyed the evening as it gave me a little more insight into her family. They are really outstanding people. I felt instantly comfortable with them (as I knew I would), and it makes me really happy that Kayla has such a wonderful family. I hope to see a lot more of them in the coming weeks.

(It should be noted that I didn't exaggerate or modify any of that last paragraph, even though I know Mary Kaye now reads this here blog along with the thousands of other daily visitors.)

After we got home, Kayla and I rented and watched "The Sixth Sense" which remarkably I had never seen before. It was really quite good. The main character played by the now famous Haley Joel Osment was utterly outstanding. The other all-star cast members included the greatness that is Bruce Willis, Toni Collette (of About a Boy fame), Donnie Wahlberg (of New Kids on the Block fame), and Olivia Williams (of Rushmore fame). The movie was as good as the reviews, and I really enjoyed it from start to finish. I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT MOVIE CAME OUT IN 1999. I WAS A SENIOR IN COLLEGE! WHERE IN GOD'S NAME HAS THE TIME GONE??????

Today

I haven't done anything today either. Kayla went to brunch with her "girls" from work while I had leftover chicken pasta. Other than that, I've been working on the blog and eating Mini Brussels from Pepperidge Farm which were on sale at Randall's. Tonight we're going to Houston's Theatre Under the Stars to see a musical called "Anything Goes". I know nothing about it, but Kayla's cousin is starring, so it will be fun. We will be joined there by her family again which will also be cool.

I know I haven’t been keeping up with this here blog, but the last two months have been the busiest travel months I’ve ever had. I’ve flown thousands and thousands of miles to interview at thirteen different programs located in twelve different cities from as far west as Phoenix, as far north as Minneapolis, as far south as Houston, and as far east as Washington DC. The interviews ended last Friday which meant it was time for a vacation on Saturday. I flew to Lake Tahoe with Ryan and met up with Matt Ellinwood and his girlfriend Erin, Chris and Carla, Chris and Liz from UT, Robin and Patrick from UT, and a girl I hadn’t met named Amy from UT (now in San Francisco). So right now I’m sitting on a Southwest flight from Las Vegas to Houston returning home from said vacation ready to tell you all about it. The Amstel Light has been poured, and Ryan is sitting next to me grimacing, because his screwdriver is “see-through” as he put it. It should be a good flight. The pictures (which are spectacular) will as always be posted at the end of the entry.

I must admit, this vacation did not get off to the greatest start imaginable. I got home from DC at 9 PM on Friday night and had the great idea that drinking would be fun. I started off with a few Amstel Lights and then Ryan (who had a head start on me) made a few vodkas mixed with cherry 7-UP. Of course by “a few” I mean two doubles. Kayla then drove up from Friendswood (henceforth to be referred as “F-Town”) to join us along with Stephanie from Clear Lake. We migrated to the Red Lion to say hello to our lovely waitress/bartenders Jennifer and Mary and have super fun conversation. Ryan purchased Chimay bottles for us to split (we had two), and the evening was capped off with Irish Car Bombs (which I couldn’t finish for the first time ever). Thus the night ended and I fell asleep.

Day 1

I was greeted the next morning at 5 AM by Ryan pounding on my door demanding I get up. I still had to pack for the trip of course. On top of that, I was really, really hung over and not feeling right at all (including doing what you do when you get the flu). I somehow got packed and showered, and Kayla took us to Hobby for our 7:20 flight to Las Vegas. The flight was miserable. Actually the flight was fine, but I was miserable from overdrinking without eating dinner the night before. (I seriously need to stop doing that.) Everything turned out fine. We connected in Vegas (my first time there) and arrived in Reno. Everyone met up at the airport, we packed into two Dodge Durangos, and headed to Lake Tahoe. The fog was dense as we approached Tahoe, but everything turned out great. The condos were beautiful and right on the mountain. We didn’t do very much that first day due to all the traveling, but we went shopping at the grocery store and got some pizza to take back to the condo. The shopping thing was great, because we purchased all of our alcohol, lunch items, breakfast ingredients, and enough for two dinners so we wouldn’t have to spend a billion dollars going out. It really turned out well, because it was fun to have us all in the same place cooking in the mornings before skiing and drinking and cooking in the evenings after skiing.

Day 2

Sunday morning we woke up early, because we needed to rent skis and all that stuff. So we got all bundled up and headed to the base of the mountain which was about 15 minutes away. Where we stayed at 7,500 feet, it was sunny and beautiful. But where the town stood at 6,500 feet there was fog and more fog. We really never even saw the lake until the last day when the fog lifted just enough to see it. I have a few pictures, but they aren’t that great. I would love to visit Tahoe in the summer. I bet it’s absolutely breathtaking. Anyway, we got our equipment and headed up the gondola to the middle portion of the mountain. The view from the gondola was fantastic! We basically rose up from the fog and would look down on it covering the town below. It was like we were skiing on the clouds…which we may have in fact been doing. The mountain is utterly breathtaking. I’ve been to Taos, New Mexico; Durango Mountain Resort, Colorado; and Keystone/Breckenridge, Colorado; and this place may be the most beautiful. (It might be a close second to Taos actually.) We were sort of separated into different groups: Matt and Erin went off on their own to have a lesson on snowboarding; Liz and Chris Copeland were somewhere near them, and the rest of us skied together. It turns out that Chris is an excellent snowboarder along with Amy. Carla is also very good, but she is a bit more deliberate and slower. I was by far the most experienced skier in the group, so I spent most of my time with Chris and Amy which was fun. However, the first day we all stuck together for much of the time which was fun. We skied until 5, packed into the car, and drove home. Ryan cooked some super good quesadillas, and we all drank a ton. Then a few people drove into town to gamble a bit. I was way too tired, so I stayed home and chatted with Kayla until late. I slept like a baby in Ryan’s sleeping bag.

Day 3

We decided not to ski until noon, so we got up at a nice hour and cooked breakfast. Ryan, Chris, and Chris made their signature migas which had egg, sausage, cilantro, salt, pepper, salsa, and diced green chili sauce. Bacon was also cooked to go along with coffee and orange juice (which was drunk not cooked). Then we got ready for more skiing. Matt and Erin again went off on their own; Ryan, Carla, Robin, Patrick, Chris, and Liz went to the gondola again; and Chris, Amy, and I went up on a lift 500 yards from our front door. We all did a bit of skiing on our own, but then we met at a common area and skied together for a substantial remainder of the day. Eventually we would all break up again and explore, but it really was fun to ski together. I was of course very mischievous along the way, once causing Carla to fall over and once spraying a few feet of snow on her after she had fallen. Yes I’m an asshole, but it was really funny and we laughed at it (she later beat me up and put snow down my shirt). It’s important that the skiers keep the snowboarders in line as the latter are all hooligans and punks and need to be taught who’s boss. Amy, Chris, and I finished the day with some kick ass skiing. I was sad that I only had 1.5 days to be on the mountain, but there will be other days that is for sure.

Then everyone congregated back at the condo for a big night of drinking and cards. Most of the people had White Russians and headed over to the spa. I of course forgot my swimming attire, so I stayed at the condo with Matt, Erin, and Amy. I don’t really remember what we did, but there was a lot of drinking, watching The Family Guy, and some conversation. Then the rest of the crew arrived back and dinner was started. Robin made a soup concoction which had several types of beans in it, along with ground beef, tomatoes, and vegetables. It was quite good. Then there was more drinking and we got down to Texas Hold ‘Em playing. The table consisted of Chris, Chris, Robin, Patrick, me, and we were joined by a dude named Matt who is from the Lake Tahoe area. He’s a friend of Robin’s and was very enjoyable to be around. Apparently he got his degree from The University of Wisconsin and now snowboards all the time. Sounds pretty sweet if you ask me. It was a $10 buy in, so the winner would receive $60. We drank and played, drank and played, drank and played. Then it was 1:30 AM, and only Robin and myself remained at the table. Chris had a little too much to drink and got a little combative (and we were all being too loud), so Robin and I split the winnings and called it a night. I was highly satisfied with the day.

Day 4

We slept in a bit then started on breakfast. This time Chris Copeland made the eggs which we had with bacon, coffee, and orange juice as before. It was quite good. Then we sort of hung around until it was time to go. Matt, Erin, and Amy headed off to California, and the rest of us headed for the base of the mountain. We all went shopping, and I got a cool Heavenly beanie, along with a few long sleeved shirts, and a cute little warm-up for Kayla. Then we piled into the car and drove to Reno. We finally go to see Lake Tahoe (the lake not the city), which was absolutely breathtaking. Previously it had been concealed by all the fog (which was still around but not as bad). The other odd think about the drive was a little stretch where the speed limit dropped to 50 MPH. We counted at least eight signs saying “PLEASE SLOW DOWN” or something similar on our side of the road. I’m sure there were as many on the opposite side of the road. I have included pictures for your edification. Then the highlight of the trip (just kidding) occurred—EATING AT IN ‘N OUT BURGER of “The Big Lebowski” fame. My hamburger and chocolate shake were to die for. And that was it. We got on the plane, stopped in Vegas (where I won $25 on a flush in my final hand of video poker), and arrived back in Houston at 12:48 AM. It was a great trip!

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Alrighty, it's only been seventeen days since my last entry. Yes, I know this is poor, but a lot has happened since then. Briefly:

4th: got home, had a date with Kayla
5th: flew out to Phoenix
6th: flew to Minneapolis
7th: flew to Houston, hung out with Kayla
8th: drove to Dallas
9th: flew to Cleveland, OH on the way to Akron, OH
10th: interview in Akron, OH then drove to Columbus, OH
11th: hung out in Columbus, saw Ohio State University
12th: interview in Columbus, flew to Baltimore, drove to Philadelphia, picked Kayla up from airport
13th: interview in Philadelphia
14th: toured historic downtown Philadelphia, dinner with Richelle
15th: flew to Dallas
16th: hung out in Dallas, went shopping at Costco, watched football
17th: eye doctor, drove to Houston, hung out with Kayla
18th: took care of errands, visited Dr. Anderson, went to Rocket's game with Kayla
19th: wrote thank you notes to surgery programs, will go to Aero's game with Kayla

So there is the brief recap of the last few weeks. I will obviously be elaborating on each interview stop (which can't be published until March 17th). However, I will be blogging about my stops in Columbus and Philadelphia as there was touristy stuff in each city along with pictures. Those blogs and pictures will be up hopefully today if I don't run out of time. Enjoy!

(the Columbus blog will be posted under January 11th and Philadelphia on the 15th)

I have my Earl Grey tea, I'm watching a show about Emmitt Smith on ESPN Classic, and I'm ready to think back to the Philadelphia weekend which was 5 days ago. I'll talk about my interview and dinner in a separate blog.

Thursday

So things really didn't get started until Thursday evening. I got back to the Adam's Mark Hotel in Philly around 1:30 after my interview. The hotel was eerily quiet for a major hotel and leads me to wonder how long they will remain in business. There literally were 10 cars in the parking lot. I really couldn't explain it. Kayla was a trooper and read a book all morning while I was interviewing. I got home around 2 or so and proceeded to try and take a nap which really didn’t work out too well. I figured I would take a quick nap and we would have a night out on the town. I was still really tired from a long night and long interview day. However, none of my lofty big night on the town plans panned out, so we stayed in, ordered pizza, and watched movies. It was actually a nice opportunity for us to talk and bond or whatever.

Friday

Friday was pretty sweet. We slept in and checked out at 11:00. Since I didn’t know how to get anywhere in Philly, we decided to drive around aimlessly. We drove past the hospital and through several little towns. Villanova was in the middle of one of them which was kind of cool to see. Finally we stopped at a Starbucks for a coffee break and got some directions. The drink makers were very nice and gave good directions. One of them was calling me Tex by the time we left. So we drove a bit and finally found the historic district of downtown Philadelphia.

We decided to tour the area on our own which worked out wonderfully. We started at the Visitor’s Center, got a map, and walked the area. The tour:

1. liberty bell
2. independence hall
3. old buildings
4. ben franklin house/museum
5. penn’s landing
6. elfreth’s alley
7. betsy ross’s house
8. ben franklin’s grave
9. us mint
10. constitution center

And that was our tour of Philadelphia. Pictures are provided at the end of the blog. At the end of the day, the sunset was remarkably beautiful. This was especially cool, because I had seen nothing but fog the first few days there. Every color possible was present including all the brilliant shades of red, purple, orange, and yellow. Then we headed to our new hotel room and got ready for the big meeting with Richelle and John Cilio.

I know I’ve spoken about Richelle before. She’s a girl I met over the internet playing online backgammon my senior year of college. Her screen name was something about the Philadelphia Flyers and my screen name was something about the Dallas Stars. The rest is history. She’s a nurse in Philly, married, and has a son who plays ice hockey. I’ve know Richelle for almost 6 years now, and she has watched me sort of grow up on my journey to become a doctor. I can’t believe that day is almost here. So we’ve stayed in touch over the years and finally arranged a meeting while I was in Philly. We met at a fantastic blues restaurant called Warm Daddy’s on Penn’s Landing. It was a fantastic place! The live music was wonderful, and it truly enjoyed meeting Richelle and John in person. There weren’t any big surprises of course, as we’ve known each other for so long. Richelle sort of cracks the whip and John is the easy going husband. They very much remind me of my aunt and uncle Lorrie and Sandy in San Diego. So we had some good food, drank a ton, and listened to a lot of live music. And that was that.

Kayla and I went home and flew home the next morning. It was an absolutely wonderful trip. I don’t recall having such a great long weekend in a long, long time. The interview was awesome, it was great to finally meet Richelle in person, and Kayla and I had a great time. Kayla is by far the coolest girl I’ve ever met. However, I’m not going to get all wishy washy on this here blog. Just know that I love her to death (already).

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Today Tiger and I played the "Hammock" course at Ocean Reef. This is the signature course here and was completely renovated last year. I hadn't played it for quite some time, so I was very excited to play. We went out there at 10:30. It was a nice day...about 70 degrees, sort of cloudy, and a bit of wind. The round was ok. My back nine was better than my front nine, but I don't know how well I scored, because I lost the pencil. Oh well, I chipped in for a birdie, had several pars, and didn't lose too many balls. I remember at Prairie Dunes people didn't ask your score, they asked how many balls you lost. I think that's a nice system. Tiger had a lovely game. He's sort of a machine as one would expect from the best player on the Texas A&M golf team. The highlight of the afternoon was one of his drives. We were at the tee, and he commented that he should switch to a three-wood so he wouldn't hit it into the water. I bet him a beer he couldn't do such a thing, so he stepped up there and hit it into the water...on the fly. The water is 300 yards away mind you. So I giggled at that for quite a while. And I owe Tiger a beer. We'll be playing tomorrow at Card Sound one last time this trip. I'm looking forward to playing with Dr. and Mrs. Sladkey who live next door. It should be an animated group.

Last night was sort of cool. I went to the dock around midnight (to make a phone call) and it was absolutely beautiful. There was half a moon out there, the clouds were big and puffy, and there was a brilliant fireball out to the north (which many people call "Miami". The breeze was very pleasant. I was quite content with the whole situation. I wish my camera would work with no lighting, but it just isn't going to happen. I spent a considerable amount of time out there breathing the fresh air and feeling good about life. It was a nice change of pace from everything else.

HAPPY 2005!

So what do I want to talk about here? Last night was nice. We started things off here at the house with a quick dinner and a movie. Our choice was the greatness that is Napoleon Dynamite. Then we got dressed and headed to Buccaneer Island for the big New Year's Eve party on the beach. There were hundreds and hundreds of people out there last night. I had the pleasure to hang out with another dude named Tommy from Key Largo. I also met a nice group from Miami. Each had interesting stories to tell. We drank lots then bought a bottle of champagne for the big hurrah. New Year's came and went, there were fireworks, there was music, and there was LOTS OF WIND! I think that may have been the windiest new year's I've ever experienced. And when it's windy on the beach, it also means there is lots of sand too. So I had sand in my shoes and my contacts, sand in my shirt, and probably sand in my pants. But it was fun anyway. We drank some more then went home. I think we tried to watch Anchorman, but Carolyn and David disappeared, Laura fell asleep, and I was on the phone with Kayla for the entire movie. Maybe I can give you more about Kayla someday, but not yet. However, it's very clear this girl is utterly outstanding, so keep your fingers crossed. Then I crashed at 3:30 or so, which is by far the earliest I've ever fallen asleep on a new year's day. I must be getting old.

As far as my friends go, I really didn't hear too much. Travis was in one of the Carolinas with Allison; Mary and Sarah were in Dallas (story to follow); Cory, Jon, and Tony were in Dallas; Ryan, Nick, and Melissa were in Austin. I will get all the details as soon as I can and provide them in this here blog. As for Mary and Sarah, I got a voice mail at around 3:45 that morning from Mary. She and her sister had a hell of a night on Lower Greenville and Deep Ellum. But they made it out ok as I heard the next morning.

And that's really it. There is probably a lot more to talk about, but I fear I've forgotten most of it. That's ok, I can't talk about everything right?

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