Asthma

It’s 2:57 AM, no admissions yet.  I’m trolling the Emergency Tracking board on my computer while reading about asthma and drinking lemon tea in my little cubicle here on the 3^rd floor of the hospital.  I started my shift at 7pm and spent the first 15 minutes removing the Christmas tree which had been sutured to my office chair.  Office hijinks.  Not sure how the rest of the night would go I promptly spent the next hour borrowing all the medical textbooks from the resident mini library and walling aforementioned Christmas tree inside my nemesis’s cubicle. 

Someone suffering from an asthma attack needs albuterol, atrovent, and prednisone.

"10 out of 10 pain"   

Turns out, this guy wasn't faking it.

Broken Femur

Radiology

Final Voyage

On June 21, 2014 I will be taking my final voyage aboard the beautiful sailboat, Tiama.  The goal is to leave her in Charleston where the sailboat market is better and where she will quickly find a new owner.  This final sail is not one to be taken lightly, though.  It will be potentially fraught with danger in the form of sharks, thunderstorms, and shifting sandbars.  

A little more on the sharks:

This is a screenshot from the Ocearch.org shark tracking website.  It shows colored tracks of all tagged sharks who all seem to really enjoy hanging out in the stretch from Hilton Head to Charleston.  

Take away the colored tracks and the orange dots left over are the actual sharks.  The four currently nearest the SC coast are Tiger Sharks and the fifth is Mary Lee, the resident Great White.  She was pinged pretty much underneath my boat last November.  

Pediatric Rotation

me: Have a good day!

eleven yr old: DONT TELL ME WHAT TO DO

Do you dive?

Apparently around here, "Do you dive?" Actually means diving on nitrox and owning all your own gear. 
"Yep, I'm scuba certified!" (says the Utahn who scuba'd once and owns a snorkel)

TURTLE PATROL

I just had my first day of training for Turtle Patrol.  Which involves helping the baby turtles get from the beach to the water while protecting them from gators and storks.

Essentially, we link arms, make a perimeter around the baby turtles, and shout words of motivation while they make their trek to Mother Ocean.

"You can do it, little dude!

"Turtle Power!"

Herbie the Heron

Each night when I walk down the dock to my boat I inevitably cross paths with a 4 foot tall white bird.  I turn the corner  and there he is, standing his ground on two long spindly legs.  I always stop short, surprised that this particular bird doesn't just fly away squawking, like all the other birds.  He just stands there, head cocked to the side, looking at me.  He is literally sizing me up.  I slowly walk towards him and he slowly walks away from me.  All the way to my boat, where he stops and watches me climb aboard.  We repeat this dance every evening.

I'm at the marina bar the other night and tell everyone about this crazy bird. "Herbie the Heron!" they tell me.  He showed up at the dock 3 years ago all covered in oil.  They didn't think he was going to make it, but he survived. And he's been living at our marina ever since.

OB rotation

So I pull the baby out thru the c section and as I'm holding him he opens his eyes and looks up at me, the first human he's ever seen - and I watch as he goes from bewilderment to pure ANGER. Sorry little dude. Welcome to the world.

Southern Freeze 2014

Captain's Log: The heater has stopped working and ice has made escape from Dataw Island impossible. Internet and food stores continue to hold out. Morale is still high. — at Dataw Island Marina.

ZOMBIE apocalypse

Zombie movie plus ER night shift might be the worse idea ever. Everyone is a zombie until proven otherwise.

Great White Shark

I'm pretty sure Mary Lee swam under my boat.

http://www.sharkattacknews.org/2013/11/photo-did-famed-great-white-mary-lee.html

Flying Standby On JetBlue

JFK terminal 5 They post the weather on the info board above the gate.

Puerto Rico? Yes please. RAINY PUERTO RICO? Pass.

Red in morning, Sailor take warning.

Watching the sun rise over the water does funny things to a person. I find myself daydreaming during clinic about how far across the ocean I could sail before I run out of food…

Meet Dave

Dave is a conductor at the Savannah Railroad Museum, which is exactly as awesome as it sounds.  

After retiring from firefighting, Dave volunteered at the train museum.  8 years later, they pay him better than his old firefighter job and he gets to wear a cool hat.  

During the tour Dave asked the pretty girl I was with if we wanted a behind the scenes tour.  Which is why you should always travel with a pretty girl.

        

Communist Party

Meet North Korea

Life's Too Short

I spent time during Christmas listening to my grandpa tell some really great stories. At the end of his last story he got this far-away look in his eye and said "Life's just too short."

My Life List: Profile

SHE BOILED THE BUNNY

It's not you, it's me.  It's me thinking that you're crazy.  Obviously you can't agree with me.  There must be some sort of self defense mechanism in place that prevents you from seeing how crazy you're being.  Sort of like an AI that can turn ON/OFF it's self awareness at will in order to preserve vital functions.  Like SkyNet.  You're SkyNet crazy.  But that's just my opinion.  SO- it's not you, it's me. 

SHOOT HER (haiku)

hiking in the woods

hello velociraptor

shot it in the face.

why not.

But also, WHY?

That's a dog that being parachuted from a high enough altitude that it requires oxygen.  I wonder what he's thinking.

slipping away one week at time

(forest firefighting in central utah)

The first time I hiked that peak

to get all my msgs

you had sent me daily texts

which made eleven

and a voicemail for my birthday

I tried to send one back

but the satellite had gone

leaving me cursing the heavens

and i spent the next 7 days

rereading your old msgs

The second time I hiked that peak

you had only sent two msgs

minus exclamation points and smiley faces

and for the next 8 days

I knew that I'd lost you.

Menopause

I'm the only person in this hospital cafeteria besides a table of old ladies telling funny menopause stories. And their laughter is so loud the security guard keeps looking in to make sure everything's ok.  Will I ever be in the right place at the right time?

route 801 (business attire only)

Literally every person on this bus is wearing a suit and tie except for me.

once again reminded that life could be worse.

ONE MILLION MILES

My bus driver is named kent and he's driven one million miles without an accident, according to the patch on his shirt. Will they take away his shirt if he crashes? How many of those miles were driven with one hand down the front of his pants?  It doesnt seem very sanitary or safe, but then i remember the patch. Cant argue with one million miles.

romance on route 811 (in realtime)

12:55
kid in front of me is writing in his journal while i am reading it.  hes writing about the girl sitting next to him and how he's too scared to talk to her.
13:09
journal kid finally got up the courage and is now making incredibly awkward conversation with girl.  their conversation easily heard throughout the bus. people are starting to share looks and laugh.
13:11
girl just got off and gave awkward kid her name so they can be facebook friends.  and now hes writing in his journal again. cant read his writing this time but he's ending every sentence with two exclamation points.

dear diary

Saw a transvestite on campus.

LOOK BEHIND YOU

You know how you yell at the main character in a suspensful movie, 'LOOK OUT, SHE'S RIGHT BEHIND YOU!' and they almost take your advice but then decide to drive away without checking the back seat, and then they get strangled by a crazy lady?!

Lately, I'm that main character. Someone is yelling at the screen but i cant quite hear what they're saying. It could be, DONT DRINK THAT! or, CHECK BEHIND THE SHOWER CURTAIN! or even KISS HER ALREADY!

smokey

http://smokeyismad.ytmnd.com

DRAGONS

The day after I have a crazy dream I always hope someone says- 

"May all your dreams come true!"

So i can reply- 

"ARE YOU SURE?   You want dragons to become the planet's dominant species and for all mankind to be fighting for survival?!" 

Because that's what happened last night in my crazy head.

get her out of my heart

i've recently been having a hard time getting over a girl,

and it doesn't help that i see her face wherever i go.

i see her in the crowds at school,

i see her at the grocery store.

i see her in the line at the bank,

i see her at her dentist appointment.

i see her when she's eating with her friends,

i see her at her yoga class.

i see her when she's getting ready for bed,

and i see her when she's sleeping.

how do i get her out of my heart?!

purple alien

i biked across downtown during an afternoon blizzard to get to class on time. the ta spent the first 15 minutes of class showing facebook pics of his baby, which looks like a purple alien.

Train Wreck

train wreck

what if all your ex-girlfriends
were gathered in the same room
would they yell at each other?
would they fight to the death?
would it be like putting scorpions in jar
and shaking it up?
or like seeing an imminent train wreck,
you want to look away but can't

no, its much worse.

they would all get along really well
they'd share stories and laugh together
and form a facebook group
and agree to meet monthly

No joke.

While walking thru my house yesterday I found a small black bird trapped in a glass cupboard which is built into the wall of the living room.  After the initial shock I decided the only way for a bird to get inside a cupboard was if someone put it there as a joke.  So I put on some gloves and tossed him outside.  Thirty minutes later he was in the glass cabinet again. No joke.

Denmark is consistently rated the happiest country in the world

Last year while walking from the train station to a hostel in Copenhagen I came upon a burning car in the middle of an intersection. No one else was around, just me and the burning vw. During the next week there were street riots but because I dont speak Danish I didn't ever figure out why people were so upset. Today I finally got around to looking up some news articles and this is basically what i found out:

On March 1 the Danish government evicted all tenants/squatters from an abandoned building using Danish Special Forces. The building was completely torn down four days later.

During the next week, the largest riots since WWII took place in downtown Copenhagen. Angry mobs constructed street barricades and built bonfires in the middle of intersections. The riot police had to retake the suburb of Norrebro street by street.

After my initial shock of the burning car, the daily riots became pretty routine and I had assumed that was just what Denmark was like all the time.

Provo River Rapids

Yesterday was my first official day as a Provo River Raft Guide. I did the river twice, the first trip was a couple of teenage girls from the east coast who now believe that moose hide under water and that piranhas are native to the Utah. The second group was a bunch of scouts. Four rafts full of them. The entire 6 miles of river was an extended water fight.

green valley gap to guardsman's pass

Last week me and a couple buddies woke up early Friday and 3.5 hours later found ourselves in St. George, Utah. We climbed the famous Chuckwalla wall and then spent the evening with my grandparents. We spent Saturday biking a trail in the Green Valley Gap. What a sweet ride! After finishing the trail we looked to the Gap itself where we repelled into the red rock chasm and took turns climbing out. That night we ran into a couple of friends who happened to have access to a hot tub. Drove home Sunday morning and managed to make church. Parting ways with my buddies I crashed at my parents' place in Salt Lake. Monday was spent up at 9,000 ft with my dad and brother measuring the depth of the snow at Guardsman's Pass. Not a bad weekend.

 

Epic New Year

2007 will be a year for adventures.  Last week's adventure was surviving the medieval illness that threatened my immune system.

study

"Study without desire spoils the memory and it retains nothing that it takes in." -Leonardo da Vinci

You win, da Vinci, I'll never study again.

History Paper

i've got 7 more pages to write for my history paper and I'm writing a blog.... but i've got nothing to blog about. maybe if i take a break and write my history paper something will come to me.

sleep now or sleep later

stay up late tonight or wake up early tomorrow morning? Jack Bauer would, of course, not go to sleep at all.

Battle of Kadesh

I've got a two page paper due tomorrow in my Ancient Near East History class tomorrow morning which I haven't started. It's getting fairly late and all I've managed to accomplish is signing up for this blog.

test

how does this thing work? if i write stuff here does anyone see it?  how do blog blog blog blog. blog blog blog blog blog.  blog blog blog.  blog blog.  blog blog blog blog.