Hotdog Heaven!!

I've decided to finally end my blogging drought with an experience of a lifetime: All You Can Eat Seats at a KC Royals game. Yeah, baby!! My big brother Joe, who happens to live in Olathe down near KC, sent me an email a bit ago making me aware of this opportunity, and I've been licking my chops ever since. Stephanie and Caleb tagged along to my brother's house to hang out with his wife and the kids, and my oldest brother Brent met us down there to take part in the gluttony.

It was set up to be a showdown for the ages, with Brent out to prove he's no old fart, Joe defending his home turf, and me trying to out do my big bros. Let me tell you, folks, it did not disappoint. Brent came out of the gate with masseters blazing, downing four hotdogs and a nacho before the first pitch! (of course, we did get there reeaally early to get our money's worth) Alas, he could not keep the pace, and I emerged victorious with the following consumed:
7 hotdogs
1 nacho
2 bags of peanuts
1 bag of popcorn
5 fountain drinks
1 cup of water

At around the 4th or 5th inning, a thunderstorm came and play was stopped, so we decided to call it a night before any vomiting could get started. All in all, it was a successful night, and one I hope to repeat before the season is over.


I am almost done with me first month of residency, which comes with some mixed feelings. I am really looking forward to getting my feet wet on the hospital side of things (this month I've had clinic and tons of lectures and certifications), but on the other hand, the hours have been so nice!! I've gotten to spend a good deal of time with Stephanie and Caleb, and I know it will be awhile before I get to see them this much again. But, this is what I signed up for, so here we go! I will start Friday on the OB service run by the family medicine residency, so I'm hoping to learn a lot and catch some babies. We are fortunate in this program to have a staff physician who is double boarded in Family Medicine and OB/GYN, so the teaching and experience should be great.

This past month has also been a good time of getting to know some of the other residents who are starting the program with me. There are a few people from the far reaches of the globe - Niger, Malaysia, India, Venezuela - and there are several from here in Nebraska. Add to this the Air Force residents, and you have a pretty good mix of folks. It should be a fun three years getting to know everyone and having the chance to work with everyone.

I'm an intern! Well, sort of

I just completed my first week of my intern year of residency, a week I have been dreading as long as I have known about it. This is the week you start in a brand new hospital with new people, a new computer system, new lingo, and of course, the new responsibility of actually ordering tests and medicines... basically saving lives vs killing people. This is the week the new doctor is thrown into the fire of sleep deprivation and intense scrutiny, hoping only to make it out alive.

Turns out, it's not so bad for a family medicine resident at the University of Nebraska. Here, we have an entire month of stuff like orientation, occupational medicine, lectures, and clinic to sort of ease us in to the whole thing. The hours are GREAT! This has come in quite handy because last week, while moving into our house, a storm came and knocked out the power to approx 125,000 people in the Omaha area. Our neighborhood got trashed with trees down everywhere, even blocking a few roads. A tree branch in the yard next to ours fell on our power and cable lines and ripped them out of our house, which was quite exciting as we unpacked boxes.

No worries, though. We just stayed an extra several days with my dad and Pat and moved in little by little in the daylight hours. Now we finally have a permanent (at least for three years) place to stay with furniture, electricity, and internet (as of yesterday)! We are pretty pumped, and Caleb is happy to see all his old toys that were packed up for 6 months while we traversed the globe. I'll leave you with a shout out to my brother John and our old friend Tim who worked their butts off loading all our stuff up and getting it in the house. Well done guys!