I feel like I've been blogging in spurts, but that's ok as long as I do this thing right? Tonight is the Academy Awards, and I have absolutely no interest. It's funny, because I used to really enjoy the awards...Billy Crystal would make me laugh, Tom Hanks would win another best actor award, Steven Speilberg would finally win, and I'd go to bed feeling happy the right people won. It's the glitz and glamour (which has always been there of course) which turns me off. Maybe it's intensified in the recent years to overcome the good stuff or maybe I'm just tired of watching out of touch stars with their $1,000,000 necklaces and $100,000 gift bags. I dunno, maybe I'm just boring.

I'll be going to The Rockets game with Kayla, her parents, and her "brother" Seth. He has already taken us to a game previously, so this is nice. Maybe I'll throw some money down on this one to make it interesting. That's at 3. Currently I'm watching The Accenture Match Play Championship. I've already done some dishes, ironed clothes, showered, watched Red Dragon, read the requirements for the $1,000 USMLE Step 2 CS which I take in a few days, and played on the internet. I think that's about it. Have a super week.

Red Dragon: This was a fine remake of Manhunter and prequel to the great The Silence of the Lambs. Edward Norton was very good, and of course Anthony Hopkins is fantastic as Dr. Lecter. It's sort of the same thing as Lambs, but this is more psychological and less thriller. It was a nice change. I would recommend that you go see this one. I need to see Manhunter again to compare. I saw it several years back, I think with Matt Ellinwood. I remember enjoying it, but I'll need to check it out again.

Well, I just soaked my feet in some sort of salt concoction which is supposed to make it easy to scrape all the dead skin off. Then Kayla got out this huge aluminum cheese grater for feet and went to town. Then she rubbed my feet with the salt stuff directly which made them feel all slimy. Now that I'm done, the heels are pretty good, but my big toes still need some work. I think I need my first pedicure to get this taken care of. We'll just have to wait and see. Kayla and I are about to sit down and watch Red Dragon, the prequel to The Silence of the Lambs.

Cape Fear: Last night I watched some of this until Kayla fell asleep (after freaking out in fear before even watching it). It was really good but not nearly as scary as I was lead to believe it would be. The movie is actually an excellent psychological thriller more so than a scary movie. It was good none the less. De Niro was outstanding as usual, and Nick Nolte was very good as well. Juliette Lewis just doesn't do it for me...she always seems too weird and sexual in her movies. I guess the word is "advanced" especially for a 15-year old in this particular film.

Cold Mountain: I saw this last weekend and wasn't expecting much. However, I was pleasantly surprised. The beginning is slow but necessary to set up the rest of the film. Jude Law plays the Civil War soldier separated from his true love Nicole Kidman. There are two plots: Jude's character trying to escape the war and get back to Nicole while Nicole is struggling to keep her farm afloat after her father dies. Thankfully she gets help from Katy native Renee Zellweger's character who is ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING in her role as a country bumpkin, hard-working girl. There are tons of other big celebrities in this film including Natalie Portman, Donald Sutherland, and the greatness that is Philip Seymour Hoffman. The movie was long, but it was well worth the rental (even if Zellweger and Hoffman were the only characters). Go check it out.

Please check out my newly added entries for February 11th and 14th with pictures.

Friday

After work I drove to Clear Lake for some Kayla time. We ordered pizza and rented two movies: Lost in Translation and Cold Mountain (which I will be watching shortly). I also owe you a review from The Grudge, so here goes.

The Grudge: This was very good! The ghosts of the dead people are way scary! Kayla and I were of course adding to the creepiness by hearing extraneous noises around the apartment and waiting for the boogie man to get us, but that's all part of the fun. I thought the story was very cool--it looks at Japanese folklore in dealing with ghosts of people who die in a fit of rage. So we enjoyed it and were pleasantly scared.

Lost in Translation: I had been anticipating this movie for a long time, because Seema seriously played it up when it first came out. I'm only 18 months behind schedule in finally seeing it. Let me also say that I'm a HUGE Bill Murray fan and love his versatility as a comic and dramatic actor, especially since he started doing Wes Anderson films starting with Rushmore. Let me also say that I wasn't impressed with Sophia Coppola's other film about virgin suicides and was hoping for something better with Lost in Translation. Well, I was totally disappointed. I couldn't watch this movie from start to finish. I got through half on Friday and watched the other half on Saturday. The movie is interesting enough, but it seems like this sort of thing has been done many times before and didn't offer anything new. I'm really unhappy about it. I may need to see it again from start to finish without interruption to give it a fair shake. However, I don't know if I could put myself through that again. At least Bill Murray was his usual outstanding self. He's the only reason to watch the film, as he is quite the dramatic/comedic actor.

Saturday

Today I went with Kayla to visit her cousin Beth who is a high quality hair dresser in Clear Lake. Kayla is growing her hair out and decided to go brown so that she won't have to redye her hair every week as it grows. Beth has a beautiful salon with hardwood floors, beautiful art, and even the walls are painted with art (by Beth herself). It was obvious from the second you walk in that she wasn't some yuppie, trendy hair dresser but one who focused on quality. I sat and observed the entire hair dying process which was fascinating. The dye is actually orange at first and oxidizes on the hair to change into the final desired color. Kayla actually got two dyes: #5 on the top and #6 under that as the base (to provide contrast). The finished product is this amber/brown/red mixture which I think is beautiful and is truer to her real hair color. I think she's not totally sold on the new and misses the blonde. We'll see if this lasts...

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I also got to meet Beth's husband Mike who is Mary Kaye's sister's step son. (It seems that everyone in Kayla's family has divorced at least once but somehow all of them manage to know each other to create this huge family which probably includes all of Clear Lake, La Porte, Baytown, and surrounding communities. Mike was a pretty cool guy, as the first thing he said was about getting a new Playstation game.

Later that day we drove into Houston to visit The Maestro. There was much uncertainty regarding his life I was contemplating before the visit. The biggest and most important was his ability to continue playing classical guitar as one of the greatest in the world. Another was his marital status which was in question when he called me several weeks back to invite me to the event. Finally, I was excited to see the remodeled gallery.

Well, I have answers to all the questions and more. To start in reverse order, the gallery looked fantastic! He took several walls down and vastly opened up the gallery. There is a lot more wall space for paintings now. The walls seem repainted and the gallery looks flat out fantastic! The event was The Maestro's grand re-opening, and each of his most respected clients displayed two paintings. It was really cool, because there were so many different styles represented at the show. After chumming for a bit, I ran into Anthony Butkovitch who was just back from a six-week tour in Portugal. He remembered me from his gallery opening, which coincidentally was the first time I met The Maestro. Then I got to chatting with George who is the husband of one of the painters in the show. I mentioned that I was unsure as to The Maestro's status and found out he had been divorced a few weeks back. Without getting into details, it seems it wasn't a pretty event, and I'm sure The Maestro is glad it's all over.

After the place started thinning out a bit, I got to chat with The Maestro. His nail will probably never properly grow back. So after being depressed and unsure of his abilities, he started to play once again. At first it was totally different as to be expected. But as one might expect from one of the great guitar players of the world, he began to adapt. He got closer and closer to playing form and now feels good about playing. He offered to play a private show for Kayla in the coming weeks. There will be three pieces in the style of a classic serenade. He explained to Kayla and me the origin of the serenade and why one plays three pieces. The tradition dates back hundreds of years. It originally was meant as a declaration of a man's love for a woman, especially a woman he had never met before. It was sort of a way to ask her out on a date or even see if she was interested. Anyway, he explained the whole thing to us, and now I've forgotten most of it. The mariachis would arrive as a band of 12 people and one by one they would drop out until the last person was revealed to be the interested party. The first song is loud, the second something else, and the third was short and sweet. I will look more into this in the near future. I am really looking forward to hearing The Maestro play again.

In talking he learned I had never seen any of his artwork, so he said he'd show me "just one". By the time we were done, he had displayed four of his works. They are some of the most beautiful works I have ever seen. Two were collage, one was chalk, and the last was acrylic. He puts several items into each of his paintings which I will keep to myself. However, I can say he incorporates the loves of his life into each one including music and guitar of course. It was a joy to see such exceptional work.

It was sort of an evening of rebirth. Kayla embarked on her new life as a brunette instead of a blonde, the Maestro was beginning his new life post divorce and saw accident, and I sort of felt refreshed from observing this whole thing. It was a pretty cool evening.

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I finally got my style sheet to work properly. A style sheet tells my webpages what font to use, how the hyperlinks should behave, and what color the text should be. If you've noticed on the main page www.mytommyroshek.com, the links were blue and underlined...but when you put your mouse over the link they became white and bold. Well, I never wanted the blue underline thing, so I finally figured out how to get rid of that. So now, the links look just like regular text. In fact, you have no idea which text is a link and which text isn't until you move your mouse over the word. If it turns blue and becomes bold, then you've found a link. If nothing happens, it's just text. I know that's sort of confusing, but you're smart and can figure it out. Actually, it's the same on the blog. If you look over to your left, you see the archive links to past blogs. If you move the mouse over the link, it becomes bold. So there you have it.

I know I'm behind again. Coming soon to a computer screen near you:

1. A night at the Houston greyhound track with pictures
2. Valentine's Day dinner with pictures
3. Dinner party at club 1948
4. Movie Review: The Grudge

Until then, keep reaching for the stars, cuz that's where it's all at!

(WHAT?)

So I need to talk about Valentine's Day which occurred about two weeks ago (I'm obviously writing this after the fact). The day was supposed to start of with Kayla receiving a dozen roses at her office, but instead she scheduled all of her doctor's appointments that day in Houston. So that morning I frantically rescheduled the rose delivery, which ended up working out quite well. Then that morning I opened my presents from mom which included super good sugar cookies, a cool portable milk frother (for cappuccino), and a t-shirt which says "Vote for Pedro" from the excellent movie Napoleon Dynamite. (The shirt was Carolyn's idea.) The rest of the day was uneventful. I went to work and Kayla went to her appointments. After work, Kayla and I headed over to Central Market to shop for that evening's festivities. The Central Market experience is always filled with joy, I must say. We walked the isles, and as Kayla was a Central Market virgin, I think she was pretty impressed with the whole setup. We made our purchases and headed to Clear Lake. In Clear Lake we needed to make a few more purchases (including an ice pick for the huge block of ice in Kayla's freezer) but after going to Target and Kroger, we were unsuccessful in our venture. So we went back home and used a hammer to chip off our ice which is perhaps the most important ingredient in a vodka tonic. Then the cooking began.

With vodka tonic in hand, we set about the cooking. That night's menu included

1. mixed salad with toasted walnuts, apple, avocado, feta cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette
2. seared scallops in a white wine sauce
3. filet mignon with asparagus
4. red wine
5. godiva chocolate covered strawberries (Kayla's doing)

The entire meal came together very quickly and nicely. The finished product was one of the best I've ever done, which made me very happy. I think Kayla was pleased as well. Then we traded our Valentine's Day presents. I got her a day at the spa. She can get a manicure, pedicure, massage, or whatever. She got me a kick ass Mont Blanc pen. We were both pleased with our presents. And that was Valentine's Day.

The next morning I called the UTMB Hospital gift shop to have the flowers sent. She got them that afternoon. Apparently she was having a not so great day, so I suppose the little bonus of flowers was a nice touch. I think it was better for her to get them the next day instead of on Valentine's Day.

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It might be hard to pay attention to what I'm typing, as I'm watching reruns of Nip/Tuck on this lovely Sunday evening. It was a fun filled weekend.

Friday

Work was unusually long yesterday and today. We've had a ton of consults, mostly from the short stay patients (the people who are too sick for the ER but not sick enough to be admitted to the hospital) and from Dr. Colleti's service. After finishing, Kayla came up from Friendswood, and we had dinner at Mo Mong. This time we had a chicken/mushroom crepe appetizer then Kayla had tofu (again), and I had the garlic shrimp luc lac. We were very stuffed after eating but very pleased of course. Then we went home to wait for Carolyn, Laura, and Parris. The arrived early and took off to party. Kayla and I stayed home and played with the dog. It was fun.

Saturday

I got up and watched TV all morning with Ryan. Then I went to Kayla's in the afternoon for some hard core shopping. We started at Marshall's where I purchased some pretty cool stuff. Marshall's has to be the coolest place on Earth. I will reproduce the receipt and MSRP here:

Studio Chereskin Button Down Shirt $14.99 MSRP $85.00
DKNY Button Down Shirt $29.99 MSRP $125.00
Alex Cannon Polo $24.99 MSRP $49.50
Alex Cannon Polo $24.99 MSRP $49.50
Ralph Lauren Polo $24.99 MSRP $49.50
Allen Solly Undershirts $9.99 MSRP $19.99
Allen Solly Undershirts $9.99 MSRP $19.99
Jones New York Tie $10.99 MSRP $32.50
Jones New York Tie $10.99 MSRP $32.50

Total Savings $290

Then it was straight to DSW (a shoe warehouse) for some shoe shopping. I've been looking for another pair of hospital clogs for several months now (since I was at Baylor Dallas and one of the residents had a kick ass pair of them). The bad thing about going to DSW was that it was 8:50 and they closed in 10 minutes. So we walked in, and I went straight to the slip-on isle. I couldn't find anything when they called the 5-minute warning. So I walked over to the clearance isle and low and behold there were a pair of black leather Cole Haan clogs with Nike Air soles. These shoes are $155.00 at Nordstrom. At DSW they sell for $89.90. Since they were on the clearance rack, I got 40% off. It was closing time, so I brought them to the check-out line. I noticed a few tiny little scuff marks (on each shoe) so I asked if there was a further discount. (I figured hey what the hell, maybe I'll get an extra 10% off.) Well, the manager decided I could have 70% off with no returns. So I paid 29.20 (with tax) for a $155.00 pair of shoes. SWEET! Kayla was pissed that I got the deal of the day, especially since her shoes were $70 a pair so she decided not to get them. Now I know why it's so much fun to shop, especially when you're a BARGAIN SHOPPER!

Sunday

We didn't do very much today. Breakfast was at IHOP. I had the sampler which was good except for the hair in my hashed browns. Kayla had German pancakes (wait 'till she has Mom's German pancakes), and Krista had chocolate chip pancakes. Then we went home and did nothing. Finally Kayla and I ran more errands. Two of the polo shirts from Marshall's were a bit too small so we took them back. I got $54.10 back, so that needed to be spent. We decided on Old Navy, because they have the boxer briefs I like. I was fully prepared to just get some underwear and go home. However it didn't turn out that way, because everything was on sale there. Plus everything at Old Navy is already cheaper than Marshall's so we were in for some fun. Here is the receipt from Old Navy (keeping in mind I had $54.10 to spend):

Loose Jeans $24.50 Regular $29.50
Beerpong Shirt $6.00 Regular $10.50
Cobra Club Long Sleeve $3.97 Regular $16.50
I Cut the Cheese in WI Shirt $6.00 Regular $10.50
Longhorn Larry's Meat Palace Long Sleeve $3.97 Regular $14.50
Safari Bowl (like with pins) Long Sleeve $3.97 Regular $16.50
Voodoo Lodge Shirt $6.00 Regular $10.50
Surfer Guy Shirt $2.49 Regular $10.50
Guadalupe Marlins Baseball Sleeve $3.97 Regular $16.50
Cool Brown Sweater $10.00 Regular $16.50
Boxer Briefs $5.00 Regular $7.50
Boxer Briefs $5.00 Regular $7.50

Total Savings $85.50

So I paid more for boxer briefs than I did for all of my t-shirts. That's kinda cool. So I got 12 items of clothing from Old Navy for a total of $87.50. That's kinda too, even though I realize Old Navy isn't all that great. However, the cotton is just as soft as cotton from a department store, and I got some cool stuff (especially the jeans). So I'm very pleased. Then we got some fresh fish out of Kayla's mom's freezer in preparation for the China dinner on Tuesday. Then we went to Houston, got Freebirds, and watched Nip/Tuck on FX as I already mentioned. It was a very satisfying weekend.

Thursday night was second annual dog track night. As you may remember, I visited the track many months ago and had a super time. Thursday nights are 50 cent beer and hotdog nights, which is pretty sweet. Kayla and I met Ryan, Lisa, and Trisha (from Boeing and NASA respectively) at a Mexican joint called Pinche's for happy hour. We were then joined by Lonnie Mark of the UT-Houston Medical School and Nick. It appears Lonnie Mark wants to match in Dermatology at The University of Iowa, so that would be cool for him. Hope he likes lots of corn. Anyway, we had our happy hour and proceeded to the dog track which is about 15 miles south of Clear Lake. I think I about broke even on the day with a couple wins and a couple places. The food and beer were flowing, the dogs ran quickly, the air was crisp (but damp), and we had a super time all around. It's only good if your dog wins though.

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The next day I went to work as usual but took lots of pictures on the walk to work as well as in the hospital. The sunrise was incredible. If you have any questions about any of the hospital machines, please just send in a comment at the bottom of this entry. I would be happy to explain each of them to you. I hope you enjoy the images.

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I'm listening to Sportsradio 1310 The Ticket on the internet. Bob and Dan are talking about Bob's experience with burning music records while he attended fundamentalist Baptist high school. It's pure gold!

The House of Flying Daggers: Two nights ago, I went to see this with Ryan, Brent, Nick, and Kayla. This movie is visually stunning! I haven't ever seen such striking visual effects from slow motion arrows, daggers, and fight scenes to the fantastic landscapes that fill the backgrounds of each scene. WOW! Nick tells me the movie Hero is even more visually stunning, so I'll be quick to see that one as well. Ziyi Zhang (the girl from Crouching Tiger) is beautiful and such a great dancer (she actually doesn't know any martial arts). I'm in love. Anyway, the movie is very nice. There is a nice love plot, tons of action, and the story is nice. The only beef I had was missing the big battle between the House of Flying Daggers and the government's army. Maybe that will be in the sequel. Or maybe I should just watch Braveheart again and get the same effect.

Friday Night Lights: Last night I watched this with Kayla. It's ok. I actually was expecting a lot more. Maybe I'm biased, because I live here and know how big Texas high school football is. Was this really much better than Varsity Blues (another movie about Texas high school football)? Not really. Maybe you disagree, and I probably need to see Friday Night Lights again. But I wasn't all that impressed when it was all said and done. And as far as sports movies go, I still think Miracle is the greatest sports documentary ever made.

Also, last night Kayla and I had Mexican food from a place called Guadalajara Grill. I had portabella mushroom drenched in this avocado sauce and shrimp. It was good. Kayla had beef tacos. Then we split Mexican vanilla in a waffle cone from Amy's Ice Cream. Yum! Yesterday was also Ash Wednesday and thus the first day of Lent. I gave up all sodas, so hurray for that.

It looks like I'll be visiting happy hour in Clear Lake this evening followed by 50 cent beer and hotdogs from the Greyhound Track. I'll bring my camera. It's gonna be sweet.

Tomorrow, I have a tennis match against fellow pulmonary student Jackie Turner. She's talking a big game (as am I), so there will be a lot of pride on the line. She tells me she played in high school and college, so I might be getting in over my head. Dude, she might really embarrass me! Whatever, I just want to play tennis...what do I have to lose except my pride and personal dignity? Also, Carolyn is bringing THE DOOOOBERS in the evening, so I look forward to that.

Nathan Beach of www.nathanbeach.com has spent the day moving mytommyroshek.com along with his family of websites to a new server. We here at mytommyroshek appreciate his tireless efforts and appreciate his generosity of time and money (he allows mytommyroshek.com to exist for free). Please thank him next time you visit his website or see him.

From Nathan:

"We're upgraded to a dual-processor web server now, so you should hopefully see improved performance. I went ahead and paid $400 for a liftetime service contract. That means, I will never have to pay for service again unless they go out of business. Pretty good deal really. Also, we got 8 gigs of storage space (was 2 gig before)."



Also, I've seen a few more movies in the past few days on which I need to comment.

1. Twisted. This is an action/thriller with Samuel L. Jackson, Ashley Judd, and Andy Garcia. Ashley Judd is goooood lookin! The movie was nice. It would be fun to watch on cable. I enjoyed it.

2. Saturday Night Live: The Best of Phil Hartman. If you love Phil Hartman like I do, go to Target and drop the $10 on this. It's gold (of course).

3. Collateral. I remember seeing previews for this movie a few years back and getting all excited about another Michael Mann (Heat, The Insider, Ali) film. The movie was very good...it kept you thinking and very interested throughout. For an action movie, the relationship between the Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx characters is pretty interesting. I wanted to know more about some of the side plots, but Mann deemed them not important enough to the main story. I think that lack of plot development keeps this movie from being great. But it's very good nonetheless.

4. Spiderman 2. Awesome! I love Kirsten Dunst, as all males do. This was better than the first, because there is depth to the story, and you get a lot of character development. The action is great, as to be expected. They do some really cool stuff with cars exploding and being thrown around. I really enjoyed this. It's the best of the four I've described here.

Tomorrow I'm going to see The House of Flying Daggers, and the day after I hope to see The Grudge. I will let you know how everything goes. I'm pretty sure the former will be utterly stunning visually and the latter will be a fun suspense.

Here in Houston, UPN 20 has Ghostbusters II on the television. I'm switching between that and the FBR Open on CBS. The tournament is in Tucson which is home to Arizona State University where Phil Mickelson went to school. They atmosphere at the tournament is very Happy Gilmore, as many in the crowd are college students. 165,168 people showed up TODAY alone, which set the record for the tournament (but only by 1,000). Remarkably Phil is currently leading the tournament, and the crowd is absolutely loving it. He just putted for birdie on 17, and the crowd erupted like he just won The Masters. It's pretty incredible.

Earlier today, Kayla and I made brunch. She got up early and went to some symposium to advertise UTMB's bariatric surgery program while I sat in bed and slept. Upon returning, we decided to do an omelet. Actually, it was more of a frittata, which is an omelet that also has cheese and breadcrumbs. The dish sets very nicely and almost looks like a pie when you're done. The cool thing about omelets is the variety of ingredients. We started by sautéing mushrooms and garlic in olive oil. Then we threw in chopped red and green pepper, tomato, poblano pepper, spinach, and parsley. Next time, we're going to add some shallots, bits of chicken, and prosciutto to make things interesting. Anyway, we whisked up a few eggs, added the sautéed vegetables (and fungus), and added cheese and breadcrumbs. Then Kayla cooked up some peppered bacon, and we threw the frittata on the skillet. The hardest part about this whole thing was flipping the thing, so I cut it in half and managed to flip both halves without completely destroying the omelet. Then I drizzled some balsamic vinegar over the frittata, and we sat down to coffee, peppered bacon, and frittata. It ended up being pretty good, I must say. I'm interested to see how the next one turns out. Enjoy the step-by-step process of frittata making a la Tommy and Kayla…

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I'm sitting here at the hospital waiting to round for the afternoon. This rotation is going quite well so far. I'm paired with two other students, Mike Keller and Jackie Turner, who are also going into surgery and are good friends. They are both awesome people. My 3rd year medicine resident is Ana Arango, who was my 2nd year resident last year on my medicine rotation at LBJ. She has been mentioned previously on this here blog. The fellow is Tony Zachira, who seems to be very cool and is very laid-back. He also teaches which is a big plus. Finally the attending is Dr. Estrada Y Martin, who is quiet but already seems very cool. We will wait and see.

The month will go like this: we round in the mornings on patients who have pulmonary (lung) issues. Many of them just had heart surgery, and we are asked to check on them and sometimes we extubate them after surgery. (Extubate means we take the breathing tube out, because they are recovered enough from surgery and can breathe on their own.) If we see a non-cardiac patient, it could be about almost anything. Right now I'm following a guy who had fluid in his pericardium (the sac that surrounds the heart) and also his lungs. The cardiac surgeon drained this fluid, so now we're making sure everything is in order. There are several patients on the service, all with interesting problems.

I am looking forward to the weekend. Kayla and I have lots of stuff planned which includes dinner tonight, the dollar movie, omelets tomorrow morning, and whatever else we can think of. I would like to go to MD Anderson Cancer Center tomorrow and help the cardiology fellow Cezar Iliescu (famed tennis partner) in the ICU over there. It would be a great experience for me and would also be fun to see Cezar. His wife is currently on internal medicine here at Hermann Hospital, so I should be running into her soon.

Finally, it should be noted that all of my thank-you notes to the surgery programs I like are in. I am looking forward to the match (assuming my outcome is favorable, which hopefully it will be). I am glad all of that is over, and now I can enjoy the rest of my medical school career, which is almost over. I will enjoy writing a paper about the interview experience with Dr. Anderson in the coming months. I hope I can get it published somewhere.