Friday, August 19, 2011

Gators

Mike and Brandon have been gator hunting all week. No luck, though. I went with them last night and we saw a bunch of them. Basically you go out on the boat and drive up and down the river shining a flashlight around until you see their eyes glow. Then, if you can get close enough, you either spear them with what looks like a long pole and a knife at one end, or you use your fishing reel equipped-bow and arrow. Or, you can hang nasty rotton chicken from trees. The bait is wrapped around a wooden peg tied to a long string that is connected at the other end to an empty bottle with reflectors. When the gator takes the bait, you later come by to find the bottle floating around because the wooden peg is stuck in the gators digestive tract. Unfortunately I had to leave early because these shinanigans take place between 8pm and 6am. Here is one they caught about 30 minutes after I left. It was small so they let it go unharmed, back into the wild to grow old and become a nice pair of boots.


Mike holding the gator.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Bikes

Around Christmas 2010 we bought new bikes in hopes to get some exercise in and have some fun doing it. I got a Trek 6000 and Val got a Trek 3700. We rode quite a bit and rode on the Alafia River trails once or twice a month. They have pretty intense (for Florida) mountain biking. A couple of months ago our bikes were stolen from our apartment complex. They were locked on a bike rack within our secure garage about 100 ft from our security guard and on camera. The guy who stole them got caught and is getting multiple counts of felony secondary to this. There were seven bikes total stolen from our building alone. We went to go buy new bikes! I ended up getting the Trek Fuel EX8 and Val got the Trek 6000. These were pretty decent upgrades from our prior bikes. After dropping some dough on these, the police called and stated they found our bikes at a local pawn shop. Pawn shops are required to document the serial number of the bikes, which I reported to the police as stolen. When the police ran a search on the "pawn shop database," our bikes showed up on the list! So, this past week, we have had 4 bikes sitting in our apartment (we are not trusting the "secure" garage anymore). Already sold my old one and someone is interested in Val's. Our new bikes are awesome!!!

Trek 6000
My old bike

Trek 3700
Val's old bike


Trek 6000
Val's new bike


Trek Fuel EX8
My new bike

Friday, August 12, 2011

Engagement


Here is the evidence. We are planning April or May 2013 when I am on research and therefore will have more time off. At this point we are planning to have it in Key West. We are going down for vacation in September to look at some places. I will keep you all updated.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

2011 Mustang GT


My new car. I bought it in January and absolutely love it. It is ridiculously fast. 412HP fast. It has the same performance as a new BMW M3 but less than half the cost. Plus, it is pretty luxury inside. All leather and I especially like the hands free radio, satellite, bluetooth telephone and iPod.

Long time no blogging



Well everyone, it has been a LOOONG time since I have updated this. But, better late than never. I am now in my third year of residency and have a little more time now than last year so here goes.

Here are two photos from my balcony tonight. I thought I would share a touch of Florida sunsets with all the folks back home. If you are jealous, you should visit. I have not had enough visitors (so far Kristen my first year, and my parents last year).

I am awaiting other visitors, please feel free to come by. We have a spare room and all are always welcome, preferably when I am not on call.

I will be trying to update this much more often this year with things we are doing, work, and getting ready for the wedding.

Keep in touch everyone!

Friday, March 26, 2010

Healthcare Reform Improves Education

The title of this is by my confusion of Nancy Pelosi's acceptance speech of her Grammy, Oscar, and Pine Wood Derby Blue Ribbon. She had a little slip in there where she mentioned education will improve with the passing of healthcare reform. If anyone has any insight, please let me know.

Healthcare will change. I am not sure how or when, but it will. All of what I heard prior to the past year was people wanted healthcare reform. I agreed. I wanted Tort Reform, I wanted people to take responsibility for their own health, self investment in health, and less corruption within the health system (including Medicare/Medicaid). I always thought that if people had the choice to buy a $100 per month cell phone bill not only for themselves, but for their children, they could handle the same payment for basic healthcare coverage. But I also have had strong belief that we all have the choice to not purchase healthcare insurance.

So, what happend. I am not going to tell you what is in the bill. If you want to know, read it or read the summaries. I will tell you what is not in it. Tort reform is not in the bill. Probably, likely, because the bill was written by lawyers. These same lawyers who profit from law suits made against MD's, Hospitals, and Insurance Companies. I find this interesting because in medicine, when we write scientific articles to be published in journals, they go through a very rigorous review process. The process includes, but is not limited to, reducing biases and conflicts of interest. Also, we know that great papers can still be written by people with these biases and conflicts of interest, so we have policy that we must disclose any of these on the paper itself. Why does the government not have these checks and balances and disclosures. I would love to see on the cover of the bill: "Disclosure: This manuscript contains information by policy makers that may have conflicts of interst. All authors are lawyers. All authors are wealthy. No authors plan to abide by the policies within this document." In all honesty, the list of biases and conflicts of interest are too long to list in a blog (it would take a 2,000 page bill that noone would read).

Things that annoy me:
1. The fact the Dems state there are 50 million uninsured. Here is the skinny:
It is broken down into two categories: Those who choose not to be insured, and those who do not.
1. Voluntarily Uninsured - ~45%
-Very large percentage (21%) have an income >$75,000
-about 1/2 of the uninsured b/t 18 and 64 fall into this group
-40% of this group is young and healthy, and feel the investment in healthcare insurance is unjustified (this last part is my opinion, but the percentage is true)
2. Involuntarily Uninsured - ~55%
-1/3 are highschool drop outs
-1/3 are immigrants
-remaining 1/3 are made of different groups
-26% of those uninsured have access to public healthcare but do not make use

-So, after reading the statistics, let's break down the numbers. We'll say 50 Billion uninsured (for ease of math). That means about 27 Billion are those who do not have insurance in the not by choice group. Seven Billion of these have access but do not use it. Therefore, 20 Billion people are uninsured because they have no money or access to healthcare. Of these, many are illegally residing in the United States, and others decided high school was not worth the effort (because it is so hard?).
-Despite this, the Dems sold to us that 50 Billion do not have health insurance without breaking it down. And now, we have more socialized healthcare because (in my opinion) people break the law (illegals), are lazy (high school drop outs and those who decide not to work and be a productive member of society), are making great money but are too cheap to spend it on their health, or are young and healthy and have a God complex and feel they will never get ill.

2. The fact the Dems think if they take the "Rich" man's money and give it to the "Poor" is going to make everyone equal.

3. Bullying Chicago-style politics that now run Washington. The majority of people feel one way, but Obama and his posse bribe, bully, and destroy those against their agenda and then cram it down our throats.

4. Thinking illegal immigrants have constitutional rights in the United States. (By the way, they already have access to free education and healthcare).

5. Obama and Co. jumping from one "emergency" to another. It is like a game of leapfrog from one lilly pad to another. What is next? I would guess the legalization of all immigrants and opening our borders to unlimited immigration. Whatever it may be, it will be ridiculous, against common sense and reason, and will undoubtedly pass because Obama is King.

6. This may be the most annoying to me. The fact that there is no reason in the White House. There is no valid thought process. No educated conversation. No reason or common sense whatsoever. These people running our country are supposed to represent us, not rule us. They are supposed to do as we say as a collective.

7. Global Warming and everything that is Green (which sucks because this used to be my favorite color).

8. A few people in government thinking they know what is best for me.

9. Involuntary charity - Government taking our tax dollars (mostly from the rich) and giving it to charitable organizations. If we want to donate money or time, we will. You do not have to force us to donate to organizations we do not morally support or agree with.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Christmas/New Year

Hello everyone/anyone that reads this blog. Christmas and New Year's Eve are at their ends. I finished Cardio Thoracic Surgery this week and start the surgical intensive care unit rotation Monday. I hear it is a good learning month. Only bad thing is I have to wear a dreaded tie the entire month.

Christmas was good. I was on call Christmas Eve but got a few hours of sleep, enough to get me through the day without being tired. Val's sister, Faye, was in town from Minneapolis. It was nice seeing her again. They attempted/accomplished watching all of the Harry Potter movies. I did not take part in the marathon. I spent Christmas Day at Val's parents' house in St. Pete just outside of Tampa. As far as gifts, I got a Blue-Ray player, some wine and beer glasses, pajamas, a jacket, and some other small things. The Blue-Ray player is pretty nice because it connects to the internet and I can play "Watch It Now" videos that are a part of my Netflix plan. Before, we would have to watch them on my computer. There are quite a few movies on the watch it now so that is a definite plus. Val got an iPhone so she is excited and plays with it all day long. All-in-all, it was a good relaxing day.

Then I worked a few days between the holidays but fortunately have had off the New Year block. It has been nice sleeping in over the past two days. Tomorrow I am going to go down south a bit and visit my friends Mike and Angie because they just had a baby boy, Cameron.

Other than that, just living it one day at a time down here. I am getting excited about spring fishing that is coming up in a couple of months. I got a new reel (so now I have to get a new rod to go with it, of course) at Cabela's when I was in St. Louis. So, if anyone ever wants to visit I have a spare rig ready to go.

Well, I am off to eat some homemade pizza and read a little bit. Take care everyone and Happy 2010.