Ramble on. . .

-Writing so Dis Con Nec Ted. . . A great song, by the way. Understated, incredibly thunderous bass, and almost uncomfortably restrained vocals, it is one of my Rychian favorites. -Back from Houston. What an incredible experience. It was life altering. Okay, so I am full of crap. It was awful. Not in a really bad sort of awful way, just in a "I spent $1000, plus $500 in airfare, $160 in hotel and $35 for a car just so I could take this idiotic test?" sort of awful. Let the good times roll. -On call tonight. Got here to the ICU at 5:30 this morning, hoping to leave by 8:30 tomorrow morning, with no plans for sleep. Now that is what we call quality patient care. The drive home is always adventerous as well. -Got a new review up over at Blogcritics.org (I am now a writer over there, mostly music reviews). What makes this one fun is it is the first review I have written for a CD the band's publicity company sent me. Sort of fun to get free music. -Graduation approaches. That is a bit of a surreal thought. When I graduated from my undergraduate institution I didn't think it was a big deal. I knew I had another, much more significant hurdle before me. Now that I am there, at the cusp of that hurdle, well, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal either. My wife assures me it is. I think I am a bit blinded by my proximity to the occassion. But I have to admit, I do like the thought of actually being a doctor. In training, of course. But I will still have that MD. -Along those lines, I have had numerous people lately call me Dr. Jones. I want to correct them, it just sounds so wrong, so dirty of me. Then I remember. The only thing between me and that title is one month (from tomorrow). I would have to actively bust my hump to not actually graduate. And so I leave it alone. And secretly, I really like the sound of Dr. Jones. -I have wanted to blog numerous times in the past week, but the slate has come up blank. Hence the ramble. -It is high time to take out the contacts. They have been in since before 5:00 am, so my eyes are getting a bit tired. -It is also high time to end this entry. I have been composing it for about 5 hours now, in little spurts, sometimes not even a whole sentance at a time. D ow N (San Chonino is probably the only one who will get that)

With benefits

I have been a student for a long time. It has been a total of 22 years now. That is, obviously, the majority of my life. I am used to being a student, with all that entails. And there is one thing that being a student doesn't generally entail. Benefits. While I will still be in training, it suddenly dawned on me that I will be employed. And with employment comes benefits. And in our case, Dartmouth-Hitchcock has some pretty nice benefits. I was investigating how much it was going to cost us for our health insurance. See, last year they decided to increase the health insurance premiums for students with families by about 200%. Needless to say, we felt the hit. They sent out an email about how they are going to go ahead and raise premiums even more for students with families this year. In order to keep that increase minimum, they are also going to increase deductibles and decrease benefits. Sounds like a great deal, no? I suppose that is what happens when you are so dramatically the minority. Well, me curiosity was piqued. How much was I going to have to pay next year for health insurance? So I did a little research and found the answer. And then I called my wife to tell her the news. It is free. Yep. Dartmouth-Hitchcock pays the premium for all House Staff as well as their eligible dependents. We were thrilled. That is a huge help for the next year. So, while I was at it I thought I would look into the disability benefits. There has been a big buzz at school about disability, with the option to purchase disability through Duke if it is cheaper than where we will be going. Well, guess what. Disability is free as well. So is (limited) life insurance. This is a whole new world to me. One I look forward to entering. All at about $7.00/hr.

All-time greatest gaming moment

I have numerous favorite gaming moments. My Saturday afternoon marathon of DOOM II that resulted in me being locked in the University Library. My first time firing up Half Life (though that game makes my list of all time game disappointments as well). My first time playing the full 3D of Descent II (boy, I would get dizzy playing that one). The final cutscene of Starcraft. Reverting from hyperspace to see Kharak burning. But one moment tops them all. Finally dying. And knowing I wouldn't be coming back to life. Shaking off my immortality, discovering my true identity, and no longer being The Nameless One. Planescape: Torment. When I played it I had never really played a Dungeons and Dragons RPG. I didn't really know anything about the setting, the story, the mechanics of the game. I just found it for a good price, decided to give it a try, and slogged my way through it until I understood how to play. And I became engrossed. Planescape: Torment had more emotion, more passion, more intrigue, more wonder than many epic books I have read. The characters were brilliant, the choices felt important. The story was fascinating. I relished every line of text I could read (and anyone who has played it knows there is a LOT of text in Planescape: Torment), looked forward to the next revelation of who my character was and what brought him to his current state. And to finally reach the end, wrap up all the loose ends, discover the secrets of my traveling companions, and accept my fate in the Blood Wars, well, it was a cathartic experience. Games that great are hard to come by. It isn't often electronic media can connect with the player on such an intellectual and emotional level. Planescape: Torment did that for me. It is, withouth doubt, my greatest gaming moment of all time. Anyone want to share theirs?

Yes, I am a geek

Yes, I am a geek. No question about it, I don't try to hide it. My latest expression of geekdom is the following: Yes, I went into Best Buy with my little son and a digital camera. Yes, I took a picture of him playing the a box of Galactic Civlizations II. And yes, I did it to win a Galactic Civilizations II T-Shirt. And I won! There is my little man, Gal Civ II in hand, having a good old time playing with the box. So now, thanks to the friendly folks at Stardock I will be getting a Terran T-Shirt. I will wear it with my gamer nerd pride!

Before and After

While I have not been blogging about it here, I have been at my other blog site. At the beginning of the year I decided it was really time to get my butt in shape. I had made such decisions before, but hadn't ever really stuck to something consistently or long enough to see the results of my labors. This time was different. So here they are, the results of my pretty darn hard work since the 3rd of January (that was the first day I realy gave it a go). In the photos below I am wearing pants that, on January 1, 2006, fut me better than any others I had. Not too tight, but not loose at all, these pants fit me just right. You can see that no longer is that the case: It has been a lot of fun to see the difference. Now to keep it up!

Dirty blogs

This shouldn't really come as a surprise, but I enjoy blogging. I enjoy writing blogs and I really enjoy reading the blogs of others. When I have the time, I enjoy surfing random blogs using such services as Blog Explosion or BlogMad. I also avail myself of the traffic generating features of those services as well, but to be quite honest, that matters less to me than it used to. For those unfamiliar with those services, you surf the blogs of people who have signed up and earn credits for each page you view. These credits, in turn, can be used to get your blogs to show up in the rotation of blogs being viewed. Each service has a "ticker" that forces you to view a blog for a certain amount of time (ranging from 20-30 seconds in the sites I have used) before you can move on to the next blog if you want to earn credit for viewing that blog. And so, often, I will open multiple tabs in Maxthon and be surfing multiple blogs at the same time. In doing so, I have been fortunate enough to come across some really great blogs. But I have also noticed something. There are a lot of dirty blogs out there in the blogosphere. And by dirty I don't mean vulgar, profane, pornographic (I am sure there are plenty of those, but I choose to have my surfing settings avoid those ones). By dirty I mean cluttered, busy, confusing. It is astounding the number of blogs I have surfed to that have a grimy layer of ads, links, banners, buttons, and just general garbage before I ever even get an entry. If I can't see a decent portion of the blogger's most recent entry without having to scroll my browser window, I refuse to even look at the blog. And it isn't as if I have a little browser window. I don't have it maximized, but since I run my resolution at 1600x1200, my browser window is usually around 1280x960. In other words, my browser window is plenty large. I know that there are ways to "make money" from your blog (I put that in parentheses because, really, how much money do you think individuals really make from their blogs?). I also know it is fun to have lots of little gizmos and gadgets in your sidebar (heck, I have a cool little Flickr badge with some fun photos here in this blog). But when they become this huge monstrosity, filled with maps, buttons of all sorts of different sites, photos, playlists, friends, archives, links, etc. I just stop looking. For me, the joy of blogging (and reading blogs) is getting to read the thoughts, ideas, and works of other people who I wouldn't get to read otherwise. But when those thoughts get buried under a barrage of AdSense ads, banners and links, the effort and frustration to find them often outweighs the payoff. Or maybe I am just lazy. ;)

Moving backward

Remember, back in High School how they took attendance? You could only miss so many days and then you got in trouble. Had to have any and all absences "excused". Boy, that was great. Wasn't it? Well, after getting a Bachelor's, and now only weeks away from having my MD, apparently I am in High School again. My current four week rotation is the famed Capstone course. It is a new, one of a kind course in which they cram everything they fear the may have missed into these four weeks. To be fair, they do cover some good topics. We get our BLS recertification and our ACLS certification. There are some good financial planning topics as well as on call topics. But there is a lot of filler as well. Do we really need to spend 2 hours going over how to code, when we are going to get that at our own institutions? Do we really need to spend hours talking about our feelings? Yes, we do. Because if we are absent, we fail the course. Welcome to High School all over again. Perhaps, if they made sure all the topics were good, they wouldn't have to worry about mandatory attendance. Sure, there are some who wouldn't go at all. Their loss. But treating us all like we are irresponsible teenagers just breeds animosity.

Incognito

I have discovered that I really enjoy going for walks. So, during my lunch time I head for a walk around Duke's campus. It is a delightful little 3 mile loop during which I thoroughly enjoy my iPod with one of the great albums I have on there or with perhaps the Poweruser.tv podcast. It helps burn a few extra calories each day, helps increase the circulation to my gray matter and just gets me out in the sun. It has also taught me something I found quite exciting. I must not look like I am (almost) 30. When I was starting undergraduate, I that 30 was significantly older than 20. Of course, now I don't feel like that. But I was sure that people who were 30 looked it. When I go for my walks on campus in my white coat, I think I look it. No one talks to me on the undergrad campus. But this past week I have been in normal clothes. You know, jeans, no ties, etc. It has been nice. But it has also been odd. Suddenly I am getting grabbed by undergrad organizations. They want me to participate in activities, sign petitions, banners, etc. It is weird. For almost two months I was walking around campus, sticking out like a sore thumb. Obviously older, obviously not interested in undergrad goings-on. But now, I am incognito, masquerading as an undergrad apparently. It is refreshing to know I can still pull it off.

Fatal tragedy

Just over a week ago, tragedy struck. One of the students at my medical school tragically took her own life. I didn't know her personally, though I did recognize her. She always had a smile on her face and seemed to be a wonderful, positive person. It is a sad demonstration that no one is immune when it comes to depression. My heart goes out to her family, her friends, and most of all to her. When I was younger, and much more naive, I didn't understand how someone could choose to end his/her life. That edge just seemed so impossibly far away to me, the journey to get there was infinite. Then something happened, and suddenly I found that edge in sight. Granted, it was still a ways off, but suddenly it was in sight. I was fortunate. I had a wife and two (at the time) children who needed me. They were my anchor, they kept me from getting too close to that edge. I was fortunate to have an anchor that solid. I desperately wish my classmate had. May she rest in peace, and her family find some comfort and peace.

Feeling lonely

I am feeling quite lonely Three days now that my wife has been gone. In the past, this has happened when I was in the middle of a busy rotation. So I was at school all day, too tired when I came home to really even notice. Sleep a couple of hours and then run all day at the hospital. No time to feel lonely. Not this time. This time, since I have the girls with me still, I have had to take some time off of school. Just me and the girls. We have had fun, heading to the park, went out to eat last night at the ultra-cheap pizza buffett (they love it!), watched a movie last night with the oldest (almost 7-we watched Ella Enchanted). But I am sorely missing adult interaction and most of all my sweet wife. That is probably why I have been spamming JU with articles the past few days. I look forward to my wife being back home.