From Tampa to Austin

Back from the Dead !

2010-02-05T14:36:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm back ! I realized I'm a woefully inadequate mother who had no baby book for her son. Now that he's 8 (almost 9) months old and actually does things.. I figured it was time to start him a baby book. With all the publishing sites out there it's very easy to turn a blog into a book.

If you don't want to hear the ins and outs of our son's life .. please feel free to un-friend me. But, from here on out it's going to be mostly a baby blog to make a baby book. I'm sure some my own personal anecdotes will spill onto the pages as well.

Conflicted

2008-10-07T12:31:00.003-04:00

The Rays and the Red Sox are meeting here at Tropicana Field starting Friday night for the ALCS. Tickets sold out last week and upper deck nosebleed seats at the Trop are STARTING at $100 a piece. Not bad for a team no one in town cared about six months ago!

As a long time Red Soxs fan I'm conflicted. I'll root for my Sox, but it's great to see the hometown former cellar-dwellers of the AL East getting one step away from the big show.

There's been a lot of talk in town about bandwagon fans. But, in their defense, who wants to root for a team that's been in the basement for the last ten straight years?! Would you pay to go see that? The only time the Trop was packed was when the Rays played the Red Sox or the Yankees, who have ENORMOUS fan bases.

Go Sox !

If you haven't seen this yet.. you're missing out!

2008-10-05T13:37:00.001-04:00

EPCOT Food and Wine Festival

2008-10-01T22:56:00.001-04:00

Details to follow. I also have more pictures, but I have to ask the parties involved if I can post their pictures online. But, much fun was had by all !!

Ugh

2008-09-20T20:33:00.002-04:00

I got called to jury duty AGAIN !! This is the second time in the last six months I've been called. I was dismissed the first time. I called the night before and they said they didn't need me. The problem is, the day they called me is during the week I'm covering for a colleague who's going to be out of town that week. Now I have a month to find a fill in doctor. I'm so not looking forward to this.

Rays/Red Sox

2008-09-16T11:37:00.003-04:00

One of my best Tampa guy friends called all excited yesterday morning that his evening class had been cancelled at USF. He had scored Rays/Red Sox tickets in the third row of right field for Monday night's game. We're both Red Sox fans, so of course I agreed to go with him and his girlfriend.

The girls at work were great. They moved up my last patient so that I had two patients at 4pm and then I was free to leave. Of course, my 330pm patient showed up at 5 minutes to 4 so I ended up with THREE 4pm patients and a CL check all at 4pm. So, I didn't get out any earlier than normal. I raced home to change and Lance (guy friend) ran Tiger outside to potty and get food.

For an almost play-off type game, I was very sad to see that the Trop wasn't sold out. It was about 50/50 Rays to Red Sox fans.

The big drama was when we got there and realized there were four of us and Lance was holding only THREE printed out tickets from StubHub. We ended up traveling all the way to the opposite side of the stadium to talk to the StubHub rep and prove that we'd paid for four tickets and could they please print out an extra one that we "misplaced". They gave us a little grief, but in the end printed out an extra ticket. By the time we entered the stadium at the bottom of the first inning it was 4-0 Red Sox. By the top of the 5th it was 11-1 Red Sox. It was a shelling. As a Red Sox fans , Lance and I were thrilled. But, the home crowd got dejected and started leaving in the fifth inning.

It was definitely a fun Monday night outing. (not bad for 20 dollars seats either!) Much better than sitting at home on the couch with nothing on TV. I just wish G had been home to go with us.

The horror!

2008-09-04T15:53:00.002-04:00

I have today off so I spent most of my morning sleeping in, cleaning, and just be a bum in general. Around 3pm I started to have a smoothie craving. Since G is home this week, due to Hurricane Gustav canceling his weekly trip to New Orleans for work I decided to head to our local Jamba Juice to pick up two Mango A-go-go smoothies (our favorite!) I get to said local smoothie shop only to discover..... THEY CLOSED !!!! The signs were down, the store was gutted, and they had a "for rent" sign up in the window. I'm so dejected right now. When you're craving mango smoothie they were the only place to go! Now, there's another Jamba Juice in Clearwater, but that's a 30+ minute drive which is way above and beyond just for mango smoothie. Smoothie King is pale in comparison and has no mango. I'm a sad panda.

Are you ready for some football ??!!

2008-08-17T18:21:00.001-04:00

Football season is here, my friends. It's my favorite time of year. I LOVE fall. Granted, I live in Florida so fall comes MUCH MUCH later and we usually call it winter by the time it gets here.

G and I got off the waiting list for Buccaneers season tickets this year. Our seats are on the third deck in row G. We're right off the 10 yard line. It doesn't sound good here, but trust me the seats are GREAT ! The picture to your left, is the view from my seat before the game. Yes, we're on the East side of the stadium so there's lots of sun!

The people sitting around us are all other season tickets holders and all seem, at this point, to be really nice people. There WAS, however, some drama in the third quarter that I'll get to later.

Before the game, G and I found parking and got there about 90 minutes early. The game started at 8pm, so we headed out to find food. Note to all those heading to Raymond James stadium: There are NO healthy options on the menu !! Beer, chili cheese dogs, fried chicken fingers, nachos, hot dogs, and hamburgers are all that is there. Next time, I will be eating ahead of time. Once regular season starts I'll most likely be tailgating so I can grill something healthier. I"d rather not pay 8 dollars a piece for my heart attack! (Plus drinks) I settled for chicken fingers.

The opening: the guy singing the National Anthem, must have won a contest or something. He was AWFUL! Maybe he was related to a player or coach. They should have explained the reason, cuz he was really REALLY bad.

First quarter the Buccs dominated, Griese looked amazing!

Fun part #2: The Pee Wee Football half time. Lutz Chiefs vs Land O Lakes Gators! The kids were SO CUTE !! 5-9 year olds playing football on the GIANT field at Ray Jay. They were so pumped. One little guy from the Chiefs even ran it in for a touchdown and then jumped into the stands like the pros do. It was so funny. I was waiting for the endzone dance, but it didn't happen. It was definitely a major highlight of the game for me, once the game became kind of a blow-out. It's hard to tell from the picture how tiny the kids are, until you look at the adult coaches in the picture!

The real drama came in the third quarter. Some random guy and his "Girlfriend" came and sat four seats down from G in our row. They didn't belong there, but we left them alone (for now). About ten minutes after they sat down the guy started having a really LOUD conversation about what "girlfriend's" sister is like to date, in bed, etc. This guys is talking EXTREMELY loudly. To the point where G turns to me and goes "more crowd noise please". I could hear the guy's entire conversation and I was sitting six seats away. Finally, the guy in front of him asks him if he can keep it down, in deference to the two 9 year olds sitting in front of him. Gauntlets were thrown, along with F bombs and another guy leaps in the aisle to go get security. Security shows up and check tickets. Amid complaints from the guy and "girlfriend" that they "didn't do anything" security escorts them out because they don't belong in our section to begin with. I was just glad the drama was over.

The rest of the third quarter: Chris Simms goes in as quarterback !! Jess, trust me, I was laughing the whole time! It was really ugly. His chances of getting picked up by another team if he gets dropped are slim if they look at that performance.

Overall, a great time was had by all.

And speaking of tennis...

2008-08-14T12:24:00.003-04:00

I just saw on NBC that James Blake beat Roger Federer in the Olympic tennis semi-finals. The American WON! Did NBC cover the match on regular coverage? Nope. It might have been on MSNBC or Universal HD, but I didn't know about it. I"ll have to see if they posted the match online or are re-broadcasting it later. Hmmmmm off to check the internets.

Apparently, the match was on USA. It took me checking three different schedules online as NBC.com to figure out where the match was. The Serena Williams match is at 2:30 on MSNBC. Might have to check that one out while I'm cleaning the house. It's better than soap operas!

Life and Tennis

2008-08-14T12:04:00.003-04:00

Last night it finally stopped raining long enough for me to play tennis. This was the first time my Wednesday tennis lesson wasn't canceled in five weeks! I had the lesson at 5pm , then hung around the club house until 7pm for the Wednesday night adult clinic. Trust me, I need all the help I can get!

The rain started up again late last night, however. Today is one of those drizzly rainy days that make you just want to stay in bed all day with tea and a good book. I've been cleaning, doing laundry, and watching the Olympics (between bouts of drinking coffee on the couch).

G comes home tonight for a week at home. He's got one more week of vacation to kill before the end of the month or he loses it. So, he's taking next week off to bum at home and do things around the house. It'll be so nice to have him here when I get home from work. Maybe he can even go to next weeks tennis clinic with me.

CE is complete!

2008-08-04T19:56:00.003-04:00

G and I returned yesterday from my fun and not-so-fun filled weekend of CE. The fun part: 2 days enjoying the sun and fun of Captiva Island/Sanibel Island , Florida. The not so fun: I took 10 hours of classes while G got to play 9 holes of golf, hang on the beach, and take a 22 mile bike ride.

I did, however get to run with G along the beach Friday night. Saturday night I met up with a recent UHCO grad, who was in Captiva to take the medical errors class. I also ran into another doc who took boards with me. So, I had someone to sit with in classes all weekend. YAY! Saturday night G and I took the new grad out to dinner at a little italian place we found on Sanibel. The food was pretty good, but the service was horrible. Oh well, it's not like we were in a hurry... I think they count on that.

We were staying at the South Seas Island Resort which is on the north side of Captiva Island. It was very nice and we had a great view of the harbor.

I had one last class on Sunday morning. They let us out super early, so G and I headed back to Tampa to relieve our doggie sitter. The doggie was more than delighted we were home so early.

Everyone else is doing it....

2008-07-26T13:05:00.004-04:00

I think it only looked at the first page on the blog. I was shocked optometry didn't come up on there. I'm wondering what it would like like if I'd done it with another page.

Flugtag Tampa Bay

2008-07-18T19:28:00.002-04:00

While I was at work this Saturday, G and two of my friends headed to Flugtag. Now, you've seen Flugtag on ads for Red Bull, I'm sure. People build silly non-flying crafts and shove them off a platform 25-30 ft in the air to get them to "fly". This year, Tampa was one of the four cities world wide to host a Red Bull Flugtag.

G headed down very early to get a good spot. As it turns out, even from a 'good' spot you couldn't hear anything and it was very hard to see. G did, however, manage to get some videos and photos. If you see the video, we see why they only stayed 30 minutes. It pretty much sums it up. You can see all the boats in the foreground, that was pretty much the only way to see anything according to G.

After about half an hour, G and friends packed up to head home. It was brutally hot that day, and very white G came home lobster red on the back of his neck.

Six day work week...

2008-07-07T10:24:00.002-04:00

I know I've been very scarce since the new office opened June 2nd. There's a reason... I'M SO BUSY!

Dr L's mother passed away this morning at 230am, so I'm working every day this week to cover for him. I don't mind in the least, and I know he (or Dr A) would do the same for me if I were in the same situation.

I do have some other blogs stored up, but with me working a six day week this week I'm not sure when I'm going to get to them.

I'm arranging to close the office for half a day when I find out when the funeral is. I'd definitely like to attend and I'm sure some of the office staff would, too. We got very close to Dr L's mom. She was here helping us prepare the new office, painting, cleaning and a very lovely woman. She will be sorely missed.

Genealogy

2008-06-10T21:14:00.003-04:00

G came home last week from Chicago with a bunch of genealogy books. Apparently, he's caught the bug and decided to start researching his family line.

This of course leads to me starting to research mine as well, because you can't give a science nerd a project like this and not expect her to dive into giant vats of online record-keeping goodness.

My uncle and one of my cousin-in-laws have been researching my dad's side of the family for two years and have reached a dead end around 1835. Mostly, because the 1840 census stopped listing children individually by name.

I did discover, however, that my great-grandfather sailed around the world. We MIGHT be related to the original John Whitney line from 1635. Apparently, my uncle even went through the DNA testing and discovered we matched that line, but were off by one mutation. Showing we're extremely closely related but there might be a branch off somewhere.

I find all of this really interesting. G started his search with 60 members of his family. I emailed my mom for our current "living" family members to add in for completeness. I then added them to the tree G had started so we'd need only one subscription to ancestry.com. After I added my family members G was dismayed his tree was now up to 200+ people! Yes, my family is that damn big!!! My dad is one of 8 and I have more cousins than I care to count. And apparently, my cousins are extremely fertile. I also ended up telling G a lot of stories because of some family members wedding dates and then subsequent dates of children's births. (there were some Jerry Springer moments here and there)

We both spend the good part of Sunday glued to our respective laptops at lunch time at Panera parusing national databases over lunch. G discovered the Texas databases are rather extensive, while unfortunately for me some of the Mass ones are severely lacking. Both of my parents sides of the family seem to have come from New England. Though, my Maternal Grandmother's side comes almost directly from Germany via my Great Grandparents. My mom has a copy of the boat ticket they used to get here. I'm going to have to get that from here to digitize next time I see her.

Until then, the exceeding nerdiness will continue!

Jamaica Part Deux

2008-05-24T20:54:00.000-04:00

So, I'm finally having the time to sit down and blog about our Canopy Tour in Jamaica. We ended up taking the tour on Thursday morning and it lasted the good part of the day.

The tour bus picked us up at the resort bright and early (8:20 -- early for vacation) to head into the jungle. It was a 1.5 hour drive back toward Montego Bay and then a turn in to the center of the island to get to the jungle areas.

Upon arriving, we were introduced to our tour guides Michael and English. They helped us don our harnesses and get helmets.

Our tour group then signed the waiver.. which included lovely phrases such as "I can stand on a platform 60 feet in the air without vomiting and/or fainting". I wasn't quite sure how to answer that one.

Everyone signed their lives away, applied bug spray, and then tromped into the jungle.

The guides are absolutely hilarious. They had us laughing the entire time. Our guide, Michael, seemed to think he was famous because apparently, we was the guide for Hugh Hefner's girlfriends when the "Girls Next Door" came to Jamaica. He seemed very hurt when G and I told him we didn't watch the show and had never seen him.

My first zip line experience was no where near as scary as I thought it would be. I'm not a huge fan of heights, but in this case there were so many trees and vines around me that it never really occurred to me how high up I was. Had it just been a platform alone 60 ft in the air I would have been much more freaked out.

After each zip, a guide would tell you to bring your legs up so you don't smash them and help stop you.

Occasionally, if you didn't have enough speed the harness holding you would stop near the end and you'd have to pull yourself up to the platform. You could clearly tell, at that point, which of the guys in our group had former military backgrounds. They were little monkeys getting back up those lines.

G was always braver than I was. He'd take running jumps off those platforms. I was proud of myself to just step off the edge. That was a huge feat for me in and of itself.

We had a fabulous time and recommended the trip to everyone back at the resort. We pulled back into the resort at 3:30, just in time to change and make it to my 4pm tennis lesson! Vacation's rough isn't it?

Jamaica

2008-05-21T11:04:00.000-04:00

I know I'm about two weeks behind in posting. With everything going on with the new office, I've had a lot going on!

Jamaica was fabulous ! We stayed at Couples Swept Away in Negril, which is on the north west shore of Jamaica. We left Sunday with a quick hop to Miami and then another quick 1.5 hour flight to Montego Bay. I've discovered traveling with G makes traveling all that much nicer. He's got Platinum status with almost every major airline.. so we get to board with first class, sit in the Admirals Club, and well.. that's about all it gets us other than lots of frequent flier miles.

Upon landing in Jamaica there's the requisite shuffle through immigration/customs with all the other people who are all antsy and anxious to get on with their vacations. Then comes the 1.5 hour shuttle bus ride to the resort. The bus was air conditions and the roads were good and it gave me a chance to see some of the way people actually live in Jamaica, not the faux tropical paradise that is "big-chain resort".

The one thing that struck me about Jamaica is how friendly the people are. Everyone was happy, greeted you with a smile, seemed to love their jobs, and was proud of where they lived. It was the complete opposite of my experience in Paris. Parisians seemed to loathe the fact that you were invading their city.

The resort itself was very pretty. Our room was an Ocean Veranda Suite. I think they used the Ocean term loosely. We got to our room and the ocean was a good walk away. You could, in fact, see if from our Veranda.. but it was a good 300+ ft away.

Couples is an all-inclusive resort. We tried to take full advantage of the fact that things were included. We booked nights at the fancier, reservation only restaurants for two of our nights. We attempted to go back to the fanciest one on our anniversary, but it was booked.

The main thing the resort did give me. I got back into tennis. G spent part of our first night perusing the activities guide they gave us at check in and noticed the had a visiting tennis pro giving lessons. This ended up being the best/most fun part of our entire trip. The tennis pro's name was Scott Christensen and he was visiting with his wife from Hilton Head, SC. They had both just moved there from Jersey. In exchange for teaching tennis a few hours a day he got a free stay at the resort. Good work if you can get it, eh? G took the advanced class at 8am every week day we were there. I started taking the beginner class at 4pm every week day we were there. If we'd had to pay for this kind of instruction at home for both of us it would have cost over $250. Since almost no one was showing up for the lessons, I ended up with semi-private lessons for a week! Scott made me realize that I can, in fact, learn this game.. even at 32. There was another husband/wife couple there that we ended up playing with all week. The wife played in college and was a strong player, like G. The husband was just learning, like myself. He and I ended up in the beginner classes together, while G and Tara were in the advanced class. We were the only people who showed up almost all week. It was really great to get to see Greg play to his full level. Usually when we go out to hit he's just lobbing balls at me so I can practice. It gets really boring for him.

Most of the vacation was spent relaxing on the beach. I plowed through two entire books. Both great reads!

When we got bored of just laying there, they had Hobie Cats we could take out.

One of the activities we enjoyed the most was the Canopy Tour. We signed up on Tuesday and booked for Thursday morning. The Canopy Tour is going to be its own blog. I took lots of pictures and G and I had a great time!

Our last full day in Jamaica was our anniversary. We relaxed on the beach, went sailing, and had a really nice dinner at one of the restaurants. While the food at the resort wasn't what you'd get at a fine dining place in the States.. it was still good. Breakfast and lunch was almost always buffet and for buffet food it was surprisingly good.

Overall, we had a lovely and relaxing time. The only drama was when we tried to scuba dive. We brought our dive cards, but not our dive logs. Since we had no dive log the divemaster wouldn't let us on the boat with out checking us out in the pool the next morning. Okay, fine. So we show up Tuesday morning with our masks, etc and the dive shack guy asks for my credit card. Say what now? Apparently, this wasn't just a check out.. they tried to stick us in some "refresher class" that cost 100 dollars per person. Oh hell no. G raised a bit of a stink, since he's a certified advanced diver with over 100+ dives. I'm not quite that advanced, but I've been diving 15 or so times. They offer their "resort certification" over three mornings FOR FREE!! Why are you trying to screw over the already licensed divers. So, we walked. We didn't dive the entire trip. I was really looking forward to diving in Jamaica, too.

Our trip home was uneventful. We were just said to leave our island paradise and go back to reality.

2008-05-14T20:39:00.002-04:00

Dear guy in white pickup:

I know the act of me bending over to scoop dog poopy is INCREDIBLY enticing. But next time, please refrain from honking.

Kthanxbye.

Bored at work?

2008-05-13T11:55:00.003-04:00

Meet today's addiction I discovered thanks to Pop Candy on the USA Today website. It's called Typeracer and it's a speed typing challenge which pits you against other anonymous typists doing popular movie and book quotes.

Now, I seem to be doing pretty well. I'm not always the fastest typist compared to some of these people, but I'm fairly accurate. (which seems to be what wins races) I'm averaging around 80-90 words / minute.

Thanks for teaching me typing 6-8th grade typing classes! (they were mandatory in my jr high and I'm very thankful now). I even made some extra money in my dorm typing people's papers for cash.

Can you feel the love tonight?

2008-05-10T23:38:00.001-04:00

Five months or so ago, on my birthday, G got me tickets to see the Lion King when it comes through Tampa. Five months seemed like soooooo far away! But, the day is finally here!

I raced out of work to get home and eat before the 8pm show. I made sure to wear something extra nice to work so I wouldn't have to change, but just grabbed a shawl for the chilly Performing Arts center.

G outdid himself with the seats. First balcony, third row, dead center. Very nice. You could see everything.

Now, let me just say.. I'm not a huge Disney person. Unlike my roomie in college, I didn't have every Disney soundtrack and a poster of every Disney movie on my walls. I have however, seen the Lion King and thought it was really cute, but had no idea how they were going to bring that story live action.

From the very first scene (shown in the picture shown here) the costumes are AMAZING! Those are all people. The giraffes were my favorite! I have no idea how those guys mange to stay hunched over and walk on those stilts. Watching a giant elephant walk through the audience in the orchestra section was also a huge highlight.

I favored the African folk numbers over the traditional Lion King/Elton John soundtrack numbers. The man who was playing Mufasa in our version had the most amazing voice. Great projection! According to the program he does vocal/acting work in Orlando at Disney and has been on many Disney soundtracks. The two kids playing Nala and Simba were also really cute.

Overall, G and I had a fabulous night. The show, does go on for almost three hours.. so if you're thinking of taking your family keep this in mind. There is a fifteen minute intermission after act one. In that amount of time, there is no WAY you were going to get through the 120 person line for the ladies rest room. (there were only three stalls for the entire balcony section) The men of course, were moving right along but there was still a line even for the men's room! They definitely need to redesign that particular aspect of our performing arts center.

Looking at the future shows for the Center , G and I are next looking at seeing Spring Awakening. It's coming in late December. I know it won a bunch of Tonys so I'm excited it's coming.

RIP Sirius

2008-05-08T15:39:00.002-04:00

This morning when I got back in my car to go to work.... the static had returned!! This signaled the end of Sirius. I'm done. Four receivers, 2 FM adaptors and FOUR trips to the car installation place on days off = NO MORE !!

I finally got through this afternoon to cancel my service. Since it's only May and I renewed in late December I got G a $102 credit for the rest of the year. I'm definitely not going to pay for service I'm not going to use.

While, I loved having the service ... I'm done putting up with all the crap of trying to get it to work. It's not worth all the time I lost trying to deal with it. If I ever bought a car that had it pre-installed.. I might think of renewing it again. Until then, no thank you.

Productive Day Off !

2008-05-07T11:28:00.002-04:00

It's only 1130, but I've already gotten so much done today! I guess this is what happens when you stop being a lazy slug and actually get up at 730 on your day off. Heh.

The dog kept me up half the night shaking his head. Which usually means only one thing... doggie ear infection. Fortunately, I still have some ear drops left from the last doggie ear infection so I had to clean out the ear this morning and apply drops. Having a fairly large dog who hates having his ears cleaned, this was quite the challenge to accomplish before coffee and shower. I'll call the vet today, too to get some more ear drops but I had enough to get him started on it. Poor guy.

Then, off to the DPM! My steroid shot, while horribly painful, seemed to have worked. I managed to go 30 minutes on the elliptical at the gym on Monday night with no pain. YAY! I'm still not doing any impact exercises, but just doing that and actually working up a sweat for the first time in seven months was heaven! The DPM says I'm doing well and unless the pain flairs back up and lasts longer than a week.. he doesn't need to see me any more. YAY! He also made me some custom orthotics for my shoes to wear when walking around or running. (especially for running) They're designed specifically for me to keep my arch from falling, which he believes is what caused my problem in the first place. I have a quick follow up in two weeks to check the fit on the orthotics, but other wise I'm free of doc visits.

My next stop was my hairdresser's to trim my hair. I still have the super cute bob, but it was getting shaggy and needed to be cleaned up. I especially wanted to get it done before vacation in a week and a half. Ahhhh vacation!

Now I'm back home with the doggie trying to figure out what to make for lunch before my 2pm appointment AGAIN to get my satellite radio fixed. If THIS doesn't work I'm canceling it. Four receivers and 2 FM direct adapters is my limit. No more! As much as I love having Sirius this is becoming a total pain in the ass. The tech support people are laughing at how many notes I have on my file. One of the techs told me apparently I'm the black hole where Sirius radios go to die. (thanks, dude)

Some time today I'm going to try to put in some pool time with my new book. I've started "The Secret Life of Bees" and so far it's FABULOUS!

Smart Car !

2008-04-30T10:08:00.002-04:00

I just had my first US Smart Car sighting! It was a retired couple pulling into the shopping center where I work. I had to stop and ask them how they like it. Everyone else walking by was stopping to look at it, too. With gas approaching $3.65 a gallon here, I'm sure they'll be getting a lot more questions.

Hell Hath Frozen Over

2008-04-28T18:02:00.005-04:00

That's right folks, the Tampa Bay Rays lead the AL East division. Say what now? G and I headed to the Rays/Red Sox game Sunday afternoon. It was a beautiful beautiful day... which is too bad, because Tropicana is an indoor domed stadium much in the tradition of the Astrodome. The Rays SWEPT the Red Sox (3-0) and won the game we saw 3-0. I thought y'all would want to see pictures of Tropicana. They're currently drafting a proposal to build a new open-air ballpark on the water in St Pete.

G and I got there 2 hours before the first pitch. Tropicana's parking is horrendous...and the only games they come close to selling out are when the Rays play either the Yankees or the Sox. We sat in the outfield for awhile watching batting practice. JD Drew was really smacking them out of there!

We had a great time !! The seats were great! (Section 210 for those playing along at home) The worst part.. the 90 minutes in the car trying to get home. Bumper.to.bumper.all.the.way.back.to.Tampa!!

Here are the schematics for the new park. Open Air stadium in Tampa I"m not sure is going to go over well. It would be great in April and for the post-season. The rest of the season, WAY TOO HOT!

Free to roam

2008-04-23T10:11:00.003-04:00

After almost a solid week of upset doggie tummies, my dog is again free to roam the house. As it turns out, they sprayed the grass at my condo complex and didn't put up any signs warning the pet owners to keep their animals off the grass!! We ended up calling the maintenance office after I talked to my fourth dog owner and we all had the same complaint.. doggie diarrhea .. all starting on the same day. After removing the dog from the grass and feeding him bland food and rice for a few days he seems to be all better.

To save my carpet, a hash friend runs a carpet cleaning business. He sent out an email two days after the first ass-plosion (thanks for the word, Suz!) begging for work. I happily took him up on his 50% off offer and got both bedrooms cleaned. Yay for shiny like-new carpet! It also made me feel good to help out a friend. The turn in the economy has not be kind to quite a few of them.

I found out this weekend one of my good friends here in Tampa got laid off. She's an interior designer for an architecture firm. There were only 28 people in their firm.. they laid off 10. When no one's building, there's no work. I wish there was more I could do to help her. I don't know of anyone hiring right now.

Jury Duty

2008-04-17T15:01:00.002-04:00

I didn't have to report for jury duty yesterday! Let's hear it for a "free" day off!

Although, I'm glad it worked out that I didn't have to go. My dog got sick on Tuesday and it's been rather, um.. explosive ever since. My guest room carpet may never be the same. Today is the first day he's been home alone since then. I'm hoping I'm not going to come home to "shit storm" tonight. I closed off the two rooms with carpet, just in case. My poor doggie. We're definitely off to Home Depot Sunday to rent the steam cleaner.

Can I have off the ride now? Kthankxbye.

2008-04-10T11:03:00.001-04:00

I've worked 8 out of the last 9 days. I'm SO ready for a day off !! I do get tomorrow off, but will be spending most of it fixing my car, which has been recalled AGAIN! Note to self: No more GM cars.

Healing

2008-04-07T12:34:00.002-04:00

I went to yet another doctor last week about my Achilles. I've been in pain for 6 months now in my right foot. I've stopped running and all weight-baring or high impact exercise. Biking and swimming only. The DPM I went to did an ultrasound on my foot and determined I have three small micro-tears on the medial side of my Achilles. I also have fluid build-up. I was prescribed an NSAID topical patch for my Achilles to wear 24/7 for two weeks and given a heel lift for my shoes. He wants to see me back in two weeks to check my progress. He was great. I really enjoyed this visit versus the visit to the ortho. He spent more time with me, for one, and actually did an ultrasound to figure out why I was still in pain. He also had a paperless office, so I was discussing office software with him and preferences, etc. Very nice guy. I feel much more comfortable there.

The patches seem to be working. I'm in much less pain after almost a week on them. I even went to the gym last night and cycled for 30 minutes with only mild pain afterwards. I used to only be able to cycle about 15 minutes before I'd be forced to stop.

The big news around here is that I'm leaving my job. My current boss is selling his office in St Pete, so in essence I'm being forced out. The deal he was working on fell through.. so I'm okay for now, but he's still got the St Pete office up for sale. Once I knew this was even a remote possibility I started looking for other opportunities. Since the doc who owns the lease on the LC in Carrollwood is leaving to open her own private practice I looked at that office. It's free standing, so no crappy mall hours and no major holidays. There was another doc looking at it as well so we're partnering up. My last day at my current job is May 16th. The new office will be paperless, medical model (taking medicare, aetna medical, tricare, etc), and much more profitable. I'll make more money working less days a week, which is always good if you can get it! I'm sad the way things are working out here, but after the way things were handled, I'm happy I'm moving on.

Greg and I are taking a vacation the end of May for our anniversary. A week in Negril, Jamaica. We booked our flight yesterday! YAY! We're staying at Couples Swept Away which is the sister resort to Couples Negril (which is closed for renevations). I plan on it being me, G, beach, hammock, pina coladas. Heaven!

I want one ! I want one !

2008-04-03T10:19:00.001-04:00

Someone needs to get on building me one of these.. ASAP !!

Reading Meme

2008-03-19T14:09:00.002-04:00

Another reading meme. Since I'm a book whore, I'm participating.

Look at the list of (100) books below. Bold the ones you’ve read.
Italicize the ones you want to read. Leave blank the ones that you aren’t
interested in. (Movies don’t count.)

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett) (in my stack of books to read right now)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) (also in my stack of books to read)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell) (on my last 100 pages so I'm counting it)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Tres Leches

2008-03-19T11:58:00.003-04:00

One of my co-workers makes a fabulous tres leches cake. I had her bring in her recipe since my mom and I both wanted copies. (She had some here at work the day Mom and Dad were here fixing Dad's glasses) The entire recipe is in Spanish. Now, since Mom doesn't speak spanish I'm spending my slow day at work translating the recipe. I do have three native speakers in my office right now, but I want to give it my best shot before they tell me I've made horrible mistakes. Call me crazy, but this is how I get better. I haven't done a major translation like this since high school Spanish with Sra Dalnoky. College was three semesters of Italian so that won't be much help.

G is feeling much better. We spent the weekend lounging, running errands and enjoying the lovely weather. We're quickly plowing through episodes of the Wire on Netflix. Which, if you haven't seen it is a fabulous show. We're about half way through season 2 right now. Sunday was our semi-annual trip to Costco. Now , our condo is only 1250 sq ft so we really don't have room for costco sized things. That and the nearest one is about 10 miles away. We only needed rechargable batteries (for the Wii remote) and dog food. Somehow, we ended up with a 15 box pack of Mac N Cheese that I know *I* didn't put in our cart. It looked odd next to the batteries and Kashi cereal. I also ran into one of our former opticians. He's working the optical at Costco now and seemed very happy.

Monday was St Patty's Day. I got a random text from a former roommate. She was my roomie here in FL while I was on externship my four year in OD school. She got MARRIED on St Patty's Day. I wished she'd given me notice, I would have driven up to Atlanta to be there. Even if it was for a few hours. The weather lately has been absolutely gorgeous. I made sure to sit outside with a girlfriend for lunch at our local place for California cuisine. I had seared Ahi with mango and a lime ginger sauce over brown rice, greens. So tasty. We then wandered for frozen yogurt and sat at a bus stop bench to enjoy the sunshine. It was so nice I had to take the doggie to the park so he could enjoy the day too.

Today is a very very slow day at work. (hence the blogging) I have news about work I'll share later.

Long Catch Up Post

2008-03-13T14:06:00.002-04:00

I just realized it's been two weeks since I've blogged. Good lord! Y'all must think I've gone and died.

Last weekend was fairly uneventful. G came off his plane last Thursday with a fever of 102. He spent the entire weekend on the couch, with fever, playing Wii. He is now under order to never make fun of my Lego Star Wars game again, because it is all he played all weekend. Heh. We stayed indoors all weekend watching Netflix movies and relaxing to get G better. Monday morning, no fever, he's still run down but back on his plane to his project in New Orleans.

My parents came into town Sunday night. My mother had a high school reunion thingy in Clearwater so they asked to spend the night. Which meant I had to entertain Monday morning. It started bright and early at Panera (my parents got up at the God-awful hour of 7am) with coffee and scones. And, since my father had broken his glasses I had to trot my happy ass back to work on my day off to fix him up. This, for some reason, ended up taking until 2pm effectively killing most of my day off. At least I could get some errands done while waiting for Dad's glasses. I dragged them to Target with me to get supplies. But, I was glad to see them and to help out Dad.

Tuesday night my friend had an extra ticket to the Ani Difranco concert. Since, i'm not in the habit of turning down free concerts and I happen to like Ani I tagged along. Now, I haven't really listened to Ani since about 1998. Thankfully, she played a bunch of her older songs so I could still sing along. She's so cute on stage, puts TONS of energy into things, tells stories, and interacts with the crowd. I had no idea she lives in New Orleans now. half way through the show, we were officially ready to KILL the guys behind us. They kept getting up throughout the show to run to the bar next door to Tampa Theater to do shots and then run back in. They were getting up, down,up, down.. ALL.SHOW.LONG. They kicked our chairs, made asses of themselves trying to hit on the girls next to them, and we're generally annoying. We were so glad when they left twenty minutes before the show ended! Ani was great and I had to go home and get out my old CDs. I also really enjoyed their opening act "Over the Rhine" and downloaded a few of their songs on iTunes. The singer has the lovely smoky sounding voice that made you think 40s jazz club. Very pretty.

Yesterday at work was the day from hell. It was "patients who no hablo ingles" day. Three non-english speakers with a 13 yo to translate = FUN FUN FUN! Try explaining advanced stage cataracts and scarred corneal transplants to a 13 yo. After lunch, I had two patients who only spoke japanese. Yeah, no dice there. One of them spoke passable english, so the techs did rock paper scissors for who had to teach the other patient how to put in their contacts. Add in five or six red eye patients, a ten minute lunch, and a last minute walk-in and you had a banner day! I ended up inviting over my neighbor for homemade soup comfort food because we'd both had craptacular days. (She brought wine and her doggie) It made it all better.

Meme-age

2008-02-26T23:30:00.002-05:00

I was just tagged by Chelle:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages)
2. Open the book to page 123
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post the next three sentences
5. Tag 5 people

Well, the nearest book I have is my current novel in progress, Shogun by James Clavell. It's 1152 pages so the over 123 pages part isn't a problem.

"Blackthorne was dragged out of his sleep. It took him a minute to clear his head. When the fog lifted, Omi was staring down at him. One of the samurai had pulled the quilt off him, another had shaken him awake, the other two carried thin, viscious-looking bamboo canes."

I'm not sure I know 5 people to tag that didn't tag me already. So, I'll tag: Jessica, CCT, Hema, Steve, and George's Mom :)

Time to relax

2008-02-26T22:46:00.005-05:00

I had an absolutely horrible day at work on Friday. It was nothing I could control and nothing I had anything to do with. But, it happened... and I'm not going to blog about it. Things are different at work now. Long story short, someone quit. I feel awful about it.

I had to call in replacements for Saturday at work. It went well, but felt very different. I got through it.

G and I headed out Sunday to spend the day on a boat. It was his Valentine's present. The day started our rather gloomy, but by 1pm became perfectly sunny and slightly cool. We drove out to Clearwater and had lunch on the beach. This was the view from the deck where we sat eating hamburgers under an umbrella. It was really hard to believe it was February.

The boat took off at 2pm. It was supposed to go around Clearwater Beach and show us the sights. They ended up spending 45 minutes searching for bottlenose dolphins and then taking us home. I saw dolphins a few times.. but apparently, the dolphins like to jump the boat wake so they kept circling the boat to try to get them to do that. I've seen dolphins before, even saw them randomly diving in Hawaii. I could have moved on, but the boat captain was obsessed with everyone seeing dolphins before they went home. Maybe they had some kind of money back guarantee or something. So, while, the boat tour was pretty and relaxing it wasn't really what G and I expected and I was rather disappointed.

Next time, I'll have to shell out more money and rent us a sailboat with a captain. Maybe get us dinner cooked,too. Lily told me over lunch Monday she knows where to get that done.. so maybe birthday time.

I spent the morning at work alone. There was no one to cover the shift. All of my techs were in class. They scheduled me just one patient an hour so I could do everything. I teched, answered phones, took CL orders, saw the patient, wrote receipts, the whole thing. It did make the morning go really fast! I was still melancholy. I always take it personally when people quit, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with me. Maybe I just get too emotionally invested in my techs. But I care about them and want them all to do well. (they're all in college)

Anyway, I'm going to head back to enjoying my thunderstorm. It's really nasty outside and bringing in a cold front. Well "cold" is relative, but it's going to be cold for Florida! Brr 50s tomorrow.

One.. singular sensation...

2008-02-20T17:00:00.001-05:00

I had only one patient today. ONE !!! I'm so bored I could cry.

Thank god for the internets.

Sunshine Day!

2008-02-11T15:16:00.000-05:00

It's way too nice outside to be inside! After three hours of cleaning, I decided it was time for a break. I trotted my happy ass outside and down the street to Cali Yogurt. Which, to those of you in NY or CA is just like Pinkberry. On a day like today, life is good... and it's made even better with blackberry & kiwis atop frozen yogurt. SO GOOD!

Tonight I have a CE dinner at Maggianos. They know that the way to get docs to show up to these things is to bribe us with free food. It usually works!

G is on to a new project. He's no longer working in Houston. The new assignment is in New Orleans. He seems happy with the change. The project is less challenging, but there's tons for him to do, none the less.

Great Urban Race: Tampa 2008

2008-02-02T17:46:00.001-05:00

G and I just finished the Great Urban Race and had a blast! I thought y'all might want to see what we were up against. I'll post the clues in the order we did them. Not the order they were on the sheet. The major hint was.. you don't have to do the clues in order! I ran into some people who thought they had to. (Read the directions,y'all!) They give you 12 clues.. some are mandatory and you get to skip only ONE! Which one you skip ends up being crucial.

Our main goal was to plot out the course first. Sitting at the bar where we started, we used the wifi connection to look up the clues and addresses of every place we needed to hit. The strategy was the find everything close and figure out what would be the shortest route to hit everything.

Knowing we were only allowed to use public transportation, we stopped at the transit center on the way to the race to get a 1 Day HART pass. ($3 each)

We had breakfast that morning at Panera and were reading the paper. Jokingly, I told Greg we should take the paper with us because on Myspace people from past races were joking about the newspaper question. Thank God we took it. (see clues below)

The night before the race I perused the Wiki pages for Ybor City and the City of Tampa for fun historical facts (also glad I did this.. MANY of them showed up on the race)

Clue ONE

Lauren, Bob, Melissa and Don are planning their costumes for a party.Each will wear a different costume. There will be a Devil Ray, a Spartan, a Bull, and a Buccaneer.

No one will have a costume that starts with the same letter as the person wearing it.
The Spartan is a boy
The Buccaneer is a girl
Don likes Warriors
Lauren didn't want to be a Bull this year.

Take a photo with both teammates in front of the logo of the Tampa team Melissa represents

Answer: Melissa is a Bull --- this is the question we skipped.

Clue TWO: MANDATORY

Find us in the Tampa Park Plaza Playground between Scott and Nebraska. When you arrive, take one water bottle and each teammate gets a soup spoon. Fill your spoons with water from your water bottle and walk from the start cones to the finish cones to fill the Dixie cup at the finish line. You must leave the water bottle at the start each time. This will take several trips back and fourth.

This was located very close to Ybor City, but very close to the public housing projects. Greg and I headed here first since the clue stated it closed at 1:30pm and we didn't want to run into a time crunch. We ran right through the projects (feeling like we were in an episode of the Wire) and headed to the playground. We finished the challenge pretty quickly. If you took your time, you could keep almost all of your water in the spoon the entire way. This was no soup spoon either, it was a plastic spoon. There are no photographs of this because they just initialed our sheet that we had completed the challenge and off we went to....

CLUE THREE

Unscramble the following letters (the answer forms two words

THREAT EAT MAP

Take a photo of both teammates in front of the answer.

The answer to this was the Tampa Theater. It's was also located next to three other clues downtown.. all on the same street. Thanks google maps!

CLUE FOUR

Take a photo of both teammates with the Mona Lizard mural in the background.

This clue was two blocks from Tampa Theater.

Clue FIVE

Go to Westshore Pizza on Franklin. Pizzas will be waiting for you. Take a photo of one teammate feeding the other teammate one slice of pizza.

This was two blocks from the lizard mural on the same street. A very nice man eating his lunch was inundated with racers and was being very nice taking all of our pictures.

Clue SIX

Return to the finish with a candy heart that says one of the following "Be Mine", "Be Good", "Be True", "Kiss Me", or "Sweet Talk"

We weren't sure where we were going to find this. As it turns out, there was a CVS right across from the Westshore pizza so we ran in there to get a little box of candy hearts. Thankfully, G picked up two boxes "just in case" because the first box we opened had NONE of the sayings listed above. AHH!

Clue SEVEN

MANDATORY: Take a photo of both teammates and someone else forming a three person pyramind (everybody on all fours) in front of a yellow building.

OR

Take a photo of both teammates in front of a banner that says "The Lion King".

Since we had no idea where a yellow building was we opted for the second one. The Lion King is coming to Tampa in a few months and ticket are on sale. The performing arts center is near downtown on the Hillsborough River so we headed there next.

Clue EIGHT

MANDATORY: Go to the Lotus Room Yoga Studio. Enter the front door and go directly into the front room to the right. Do what the instructor teaches you. When both teammates have finished the instructor will hand you a card. Bring this card with you to the check in.

After running for almost an hour, this was a nice break. We did one breathing exercise and then one set of warrior poses. I was the only girl in the room out of a group of eight guys. I think G and I were the only ones who'd ever been to yoga. Warrior.. no problem ! We got our card, put our shoes back on and took off. We were the second group of teams to get to yoga, since the instructor could only fit 8 people into the studio at a time.

Clue NINE

Return to the finish with the answer to Friday's Tampa Tribune Sudoku.

At first I was like.. wait, WHAT!? But, then I came to my senses and realized that the answer would be in TODAY's paper. We already had that with us from the start. YAY!

Clue TEN

It consists of five fish: a redfish, a barracuda, a bull dolphin, a tarpon, and a snook. These fish, which serve to blend old Tampa with new Tampa are all indigenous to the state of Florida. Take a photo of both teammates in front of this sculpture.

Now, I run and drive by this thing all the time. It's on Bayshore Blvd. right across from One Bayshore and the Platt St. Bridge. We knew it was on the way back from yoga heading towards Channelside.

Clue 11

You must make a phone call and receive a password contained in the voicemail to properly complete this clue.

Correlate letters to numbers in the following manner: A=1, B=2, etc except 0=0

What is the name of the amateur pilot who crashed his Cessna into the Bank of America building in 2002? Take the fourth letter of his last name.

Three fortune 100 companies are headquartered in Tampa. What's the one that provides energy. Use the last letter of the missing word twice in a row.

What's the most traveled of Tampa Bay's bridges? It opened in 1959. Take the last letter of the first word.

Take the second letter of the first name of the pilot above.

The Tampa Bay Area is known as the ____ Capitol of North America. Take the last letter of this word.

Now take the first letter of the second word of the bridge listed above.

Repeat the first letter you have listed.

Take the third letter from the pilots first name.

Repeat the sixth letter you have listed.

In what year did Tampa have its only recorded blizzard ? Dial extension 70 and then the last number of this year.

Listen to the voicemail and then remember the password.

We worked this clue out on the trolley on the way from Channelside back to Ybor City. My mom googled the answers for us.

The pilot: Charles Bishop
The company : TECO
The bridge: Howard Frankland
Tampa is known as the LIGHTNING capitol of north America.

You can figure out the rest on your own.
BTW -- the password was FLABERGASTED

Clue TWELVE

MANDATORY: Take a picture of both teammates in front of a statue of immigrants while giving your teammate a high five..

OR

Take a photo of both teammates in front of a duck. (half boat/half truck)

Now, I had no idea we had duck boats in Tampa. But, I did know we had an immigrant statue at Centennial park in Ybor City. We saved this for last on our way back to the start.

Born to run

2008-02-02T17:13:00.001-05:00

G and I place FIFTH in the Great Urban Race !!!! (Out of 90 teams) We qualified for the National Championships in Las Vegas in November. We're so stoked. I'm wondering how much better we would have done had I not had a bum Achilles Tendon !

I'll post details with the pictures and clues later...

A long time ago... in a galaxy far far away

2008-01-25T10:46:00.000-05:00

My shoulders are in knots. I worked out at the gym Wednesday night doing a LOT of arm work. This morning, I awoke to a splitting headache because my shoulders are so tight. I had a "few" Advil this morning with my oatmeal and coffee.

I'm finally getting to be without pain in my right foot. I've gone a whole week without pain or stiffness. It might be time to try a light jog. I'm thinking I could do a light run/walk and just see how I feel. Any pain at ALL and I'm back to walking only. I definitely don't want to re-injure myself. But, I also want to be able to run in time for the Great Urban Race.

Things are finally picking back up at work. As soon as the new year comes in, everyone's insurance rolls over and they all head on in for the exams they've been waiting on. I definitely like being busier. It beats hanging out around the office on the internet watching the day go by.

All my get better vibes are going to my friend Suz who had surgery on Monday. I watched my mom go through the same thing, so I know how much this part sucks. (even if not first hand) Love ya hon, I'll call ya soon.

I also now blame my cousin Steve for my increase in Wii playing. He kept telling me about how much fun he and his wife were having playing Lego Star Wars. So, I had to cash in my Best Buy gift card to buy it. It's highly addictive. The lego characters are super cute, people fall apart into little lego parts when you kill them, and nothing unleashes your inner nerd like slinging your Wii remote around like a lightsaber. Yes, I really did just type that. For the record, Steve, I still can't get passed the tow cable speeder w/ bomb level on Episode Two. It's a pain in the ass !!

Okay, enough nerdy ranting. I'm back to my dark room and my next patient. Happy Friday everybody!

Great Urban Race

2008-01-22T12:39:00.000-05:00

An Amazing Race-like adventure is coming to Tampa February 2nd! As soon as G and I saw the online application for the Great Urban Race we were all over it ! We're both total addicts for the Amazing Race, but since we're normal people who can't take 3 months off of work to run around the world, we decided to do the next best thing.... run all over Tampa!

I put in my day off of work, which got approved ! YAY!

I can bring my laptop, GPS, cell phone and/or blackberry. I've got my mom standing by at home in Gainesville to be my backup googler! (she's a google expert/former librarian) I'm so excited. There will definitely be pictures, since the whole point of the race is to make it to different checkpoints and take pictures of yourself completing the assigned tasks.

A few of my hash friends are doing this with me, which will make it even more fun!

2008-01-18T19:59:00.000-05:00

Loving the new Goodreads widget !! (which I'll leave on the sidebar) Promise I"ll start blogging more regularly. I've been a little down lately.. and felt like the only things I'd blog about would be griping. So, no blogging.

Boredom at Work

2007-12-12T10:48:00.001-05:00

Yes, kids it's that slow time of the year to be an eye doctor. I saw only three patients yesterday. I have only three patients on the schedule today (and all three of them are charity cases --- meaning they're not paying for anything)

There are things going on behind the scenes in my life right now. After work I'm doing many things and none of them I can blog about. Maybe in the next two weeks or so I can write about things in great detail. For now, things are on the horizon. A few of you reading probably even know what I'm referring to.

My Christmas shopping for G is officially done. I still need my brother, sister in law, nephew, and G's family. Lots of work to do this weekend, then.

The tree was put up on Sunday. We went to the same little Greek Orthodox church we went to last year. They're only two blocks away so we can carry the tree home and spare the car. We got a small 5' tree. Anything larger looks ridiculous in our condo. Sunday afternoon was spent decorating the tree and the house.

G watched football to make sure he was still in the lead in Fantasy Football. I'm starting to agree with Erik's assessment that it's the new D&D. G watches football now with the laptop in his lap to get score/point updates and track his players vs his opponent's players. I was having much more fun putting ornaments on the tree.

Meme-age

2007-12-03T11:26:00.000-05:00

Stolen from Chelle. Bold what you have read, italicize what you started but couldn’t finish, and strike through what you couldn’t stand

1984
The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Gods
Anansi Boys
Angela’s Ashes : A Memoir
Angels & Demons
Anna Karenina
Atlas Shrugged
Beloved
The Blind Assassin
Brave New World
The Brothers Karamazov
The Canterbury Tales
Catch-22
The Catcher in the Rye
A Clockwork Orange
Cloud Atlas
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Confusion
The Corrections
The Count of Monte Cristo
Crime and Punishment
Cryptonomicon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
David Copperfield
Don Quixote (in Spanish even)
Dracula
Dubliners
Dune
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Emma
Foucault’s Pendulum
The Fountainhead
Frankenstein
Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
The God of Small Things
The Grapes of Wrath
Gravity’s Rainbow
Great Expectations
Gulliver’s Travels
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The Historian : A Novel
The Hobbit
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Iliad
In Cold Blood : A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences
The Inferno
Jane Eyre
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
The Kite Runner
Les Misérables
Life of Pi : A Novel
Lolita
Love in the Time of Cholera
Madame Bovary
Mansfield Park
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlemarch
Middlesex
The Mists of Avalon
Moby Dick
Mrs. Dalloway
The Name of the Rose (LOVE this book!)
Neverwhere
Northanger Abbey
The Odyssey
Oliver Twist
On the Road
The Once and Future King
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Oryx and Crake : A Novel
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Persuasion
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Poisonwood Bible : A Novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Pride and Prejudice
The Prince
Quicksilver
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir of Books
The Satanic Verses
The Scarlet Letter
Sense and Sensibility
A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Silmarillion
Slaughterhouse-five
The Sound and the Fury
The Tale of Two Cities
Tess of the D'Ubervilles (hated it!)
The Three Musketeers
The Time Traveler’s Wife
To the Lighthouse
Treasure Island
Ulysses
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Vanity Fair
War and Peace
Watership Down
White Teeth
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Wuthering Heights
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : An Inquiry Into Values

Almost all of these came from high school English classes.

Wii Overload !!

2007-12-02T22:29:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago, at a conference he was remiss he had to go to, G won a Wii. He came home Friday night with it proudly tucked under one arm.

Apparently, he had to run around this museum in Atlanta trying to find answers to questions about an exhibit they had on loan from the Louvre. Well, G got all the answers and was the big wiener.

Note: How do you get an entire Atlanta office of consultants to hate a guy they just met? Win a Wii. People started claiming G cheated and everything. Sore losers.

G was offered 600 dollars for the Wii in the Atlanta airport. The guy wanted to write him a check. (no way) G even offered to walk with the guy to an ATM for cash.

So, long story short (Too late) we have a Wii now. Since we won the Wii, we deemed it necessary to go to Best Buy and buy it games. I think we ended up spending more than the Wii would have cost on games and accessories.

Todays crack: Guitar Hero 3. Seriously, this game is crack in a box. If you like getting your Slash on pretending to be a guitar god singing merrily along to 80s hair bands... this is your game. Smashing Pumpkins, Poison, Slayer, Pat Benetar, G n R. G and I played until 2am the first night we had it.

I also started working on Zelda, but I have to get G off it long enough to let me play!

Go Sox!

2007-11-15T11:49:00.000-05:00

Tis the season....

2007-11-15T10:31:00.000-05:00

For crazy Tampa Bay Radio promotions.....

Now, I don't normally listen to local radio on the way to work, because I have Sirius. Today, I forgot Sirius because it was docked on my home radio base so I was forced to listen to morning radio. (ugh)

Tampa Bay's big rock radio station is WFLZ and they run the MJ radio show. If I remember correctly he's also simulcast in St Louis, but it's based here in Tampa. For the last week he's been running the Hannah Monstrosity contest. For anyone who's seen "Hands on a Hard Body" it was just like that. They erected a GIANT statue of Hannah Montana and 20 parents were glued to this thing 24 hours a day until there was only one person left standing. It ended yesterday with a man from Port Charlotte cutting a deal with the last woman standing because neither one of them was going to give up. Now, I'd love my kids as much as the next parents, but one: don't these people have jobs!! and two: no matter how much I love my kid my ass is not sleeping in a pile of sand for a WEEK with no shower stuck to a statue of Hannah Montana. Ummmm no. The winner got 4 tickets, backstage passes, and 5,000 dollars. Craziness. Apparently they struck a deal where the guy (the winner) got the four tickets and 3,500 and the woman took the backstage passes and 1500 dollars.

Their OTHER radio promotion is what I really wanted to blog about. Every year around Christmas time, WFLZ does "Jingle Jugs/Boobs". It's just as demeaning as it sounds. They take applications from local women and every day of the twelve days of Christmas they give away a free boob job. Oh lord. The best part is when they read the applications out loud on why these women feel they "deserve" free boobs. Hilarious in a really sad and pathetic way. Now, there are MANY reasons why I would never go for something like this... but the main one would be (other than dignity) I couldn't pick my surgeon. Who knows how good this guy is ?! You could come out looking like a freak show.. but hey, at least they were free, right ?

Dumbass of the day

2007-11-13T11:55:00.000-05:00

Todays dumbass of the day award goes to: the guy I saw this morning riding his motorcycle on a seven lane road (6 lanes plus suicide lane) ON HIS CELL PHONE. Honest to god, one hand on handlebars one hand on cell phone going well over the posted MPH.

2007-10-29T19:27:00.000-04:00

You are 80% REAL Texan!!

You're way more Texan than average. You're parents were probably from here too. We're glad to have you. You probably go to the border for Christmas shopping and are well versed in BBQ, Mexican Food and .. well thats pretty much it.

How Texan Are You?

okay, now i want to see which ones i got wrong !!!

PS -- my parents aren't from Texas. But, I did live there for thirteen years.

Bah-humbug

2007-10-27T15:03:00.000-04:00

The Christmas stuff officially went up at work on Friday. It made me ill. To anyone who's met me.. you know how much I HATE Christmas stuff being up BEFORE Halloween !!!! It's just so WRONG!! Grrrrrr. The entry way to the mall looks like Santa's workshop threw up out there.

Tales from the Chair Part 2

2007-10-26T17:51:00.000-04:00

My last two contact lens checks [1 week follow ups] of the day (both at 5pm) both showed up late, one 20 minutes late the other FORTY minutes late... and neither one of them had their contact lenses on. The point of their visit being to check their contacts after they've worn them for a week... neither of them understood why i couldn't just give them another pair and check those. Sigh.

Friends who've known me longer

2007-10-25T23:31:00.000-04:00

Wednesday through Sunday was the annual AAO conference. This year it was held in Tampa. You know what means... out of town friends coming to see me !! YAY !!

It's always nice when friends from back home come to visit, even if it's not directly to see me per se.

Thursday night I'd arranged dinner for two of my classmates and their husbands to meet me for dinner after their CE was over for the day. I met up with two of them and the other two were AWOL, no one had heard from them. Luckily, on the way out of the hotel we ran into another classmate and her friend so we dragged them into my car and out to dinner.

In true Tampa tradition we went to the Columbia restaurant. It's a Spanish and Cuban food restaurant that's been in Tampa since 1905. They have flamenco shows and really killer sangria. We opted out of the dancing in lieu of chatting, catching up on what's going on with other classmates, and a LOT of laughing. It was so great to see people who've known me longer than 2 years. Really fun.

It turns out Coopervision was sponsoring a dinner at the same restaurant that night. I ran into three professors. One acted like he had better places to be when I was chatting with him, when I had him as an attending three times and did two research studies with him. Huh. Then, I ran into two profs who are husband and wife (anyone who's been to UHCO knows who I mean) and they were lovely. They always are. Mrs Dr P even remembered to ask about my doggie. :)

I have pictures of the evening that I'll post when I get home. Srihari emailed them to me. Thanks Srihari !! (he's now a prof at PCO and I'm SO happy for him ! He was a grad student while I was at UHCO)

Tales from the chair...

2007-10-16T21:21:00.000-04:00

On todays edition of "tales from the chair" we learn from a case of a patient with teh dumb. I didn't actually see this patient myself, it was told to me by a hysterically laughing Dr W who called my cell as soon as said patient left the office.

Patient X comes with with bright red eyes.

Doc W: So, what brings you in today ?

Patient: My eyes are really red and itchy.. irritated.

Doc: so when did this start ?

Pt: Well, they started getting red a few days ago and I thought they were getting infected. So, I went into my medicine cabinet and got out this medicine my VET gave me for my dog's bepharitis. And, I put that in my eyes thinking it would help.

Doc: your child's medicine ? or your dogs? (cuz patients use their kids medicine all the time)

PT: my dog's

Doc: and it didn't get better did it ?

Pt : no, in fact it got so red and ITCHY that I went to CVS and bought this anti-itch powder. I thought that would help so I put that in my eyes, too.

seriously kids, I don't make this stuff up.

Thanks, Suz!

2007-10-16T21:00:00.000-04:00

I found this link through Suz's blog and decided to help. I am Emily X

When I was working a close to minimum wage job in California and going to school at night Planned Parenthood was there for my annual exam. Free of charge. When I needed my vaccinations for OD school, I called them... they ordered the shots for me and did them free of charge, also. I offered to pay and they refused.. saying " remember us when you're making doctor money"

When I finished optometry school and hadn't gotten on G's insurance yet, PP gave me a low cost annual exam. I paid, but much less than I would have had I gone to the OB/GYN I now use on my insurance. (I just looked, his full price is exam is $250... I paid $70 at PP)

So, Suz alerted me to this woman who works at PP. She blogs about her experiences working for PP and her daily battle with protesters outside her specific clinic. She set up the website to track how many protesters show up in the next 40 days. The more that show up.... the more money is being raised for Planned Parenthood. I pledged money per protester because I think it's great that they're making the best out of a negative situation. Everyone at PP was nothing but nice to me and they're great at what they do. So, I'm giving back. So, have at it protesters... the more of you there are the more I'm giving them. I hope y'all will, too.

Buccs game!

2007-10-14T20:24:00.000-04:00

After much anticipation, the day of our Buccs game arrived !! G and I bought tickets early so we could get tickets to the game we wanted: Buccs/Titans. G knew I'd want to see Vince Young live. (what a good hubby)

We took at cab to the stadium to avoid traffic and parking problems. It's $25 to park at Ray Jay. The cab was 10 and I didn't have to worry about traffic, someone else did. Nice.

We got to the stadium an hour and a half early to walk around and explore. Saw the pirate ship, the food options, the expense of beer! ($7 for a Blue Moon!!!!) Good lord. Hot dog, beers, and a hamburger = $24.

We had seats on the 50 yard line.... on the very... last... row. WAY WAY up high. So high in fact, the national anthem fly over felt like it was right above our heads. (cuz it was)

I got some great pics !! It was SO HOT at the game. There was no shade unless you went back into the tunnel for the bathroom. G and I drank TONS of water. And, because we were at the game, Vince Young pulled a quad in the third quarter on a dinky play.
I blame the Madden curse.

All in all though,we had a GREAT time! We just decided we're waiting until November to go if we go next year.

Quiz Time!

2007-10-11T11:37:00.000-04:00

Apparently the whole 2 week vs 1 month lenses thing is escaping the mental grasp of two of my techs. They're in college, so I just can't figure out how they can't do this. After the second or third mistake.. it's QUIZ TIME !!

Before patients showed up today I sat at my desk in my office and wrote up a contact lens quiz. It covers supply time lines, ordering info, insurance, red eyes, and a bonus question.

I've been very lazy this week. I'm just tired and I don't know why. I think it's because my week last week was so mentally draining. I had to let an employee go, I had two patients in a custody battle over a patient/child fighting with each other (through me) on the phone, and then I had to read the oh so lovely comment left for me below this post. Even though I know I am good at what I do, it still hurts to read something like that and realize that someone who's supposed to be a colleague could be so hateful. I was going to delete is, but figured I'd leave it to show y'all what I'm dealing with here.

I was invited to a movie last night with Lily, but decided I'd much rather sit on the couch and play with the dog.

I can finally go to the gym again ! I think this is improving my mood tremendously. I can't run, but I can do 30-40 minutes pain free on the recumbent bike. I'm not putting any weight on my Achilles that way and I can still get in my cardio workout. YAY!

Plans are in motion for when two of my classmates invade Tampa for the AAO conference in two weeks. We've got dinner plans, I just have to figure out where to take them. Hmmm decisions decisions.

Another week ...

2007-10-02T15:58:00.000-04:00

And thus begins another week at work.

My CE class on Wednesday was rather dull. The lecturer was monotonous and hard to listen to. He took a topic that should/could have been interesting and sucked all the life out of us. I was trying to be polite and attentive because I know how hard it is to get up there in front of a few hundred people and talk but most others weren't being so considerate. (including others at my dinner table)

You can tell it's getting closer to the holidays.. the exam numbers are dropping off. If you ever want to get in to see an eye doc close to Christmas is a great time. People are spending their money on other things rather than exams and glasses. I still can't believe it's October already.

Don't even get me started on Saturdays Texas game. I'm a sad panda.

My weekend was quiet. I worked all day Saturday where we were actually very busy! Sunday morning G woke me up to fresh pancakes. I love G !! We spent most of the day on the couch watching football. He watched more football. I actually enjoyed reading a book with my windows open to the northeast breeze we had. It was a windy few days in Tampa and actually cooled off some.

Someone didn't like my 'attitude' in my last post. Apparently doctors are supposed to be saints. I'm not sure how many people would like it if you were trying to have a conversation with someone at work and the entire time the other person kept stopping to answer their cell phone and have a five minute conversation. It's RUDE and I was venting on my blog. That's what blogs are for. Doctors are humans and our feeling can get hurt just like anyone else.

pet peeves

2007-09-28T12:37:00.001-04:00

Dear my patients:

Get off of your cell phones in my exam room! Do you have any IDEA how rude you're being !!?? Of course not, because all the signs in my office saying get off your cell phone clearly doesn't mean you.

No love,
ME

Power outages are not conducive to cleaning

2007-09-26T11:09:00.000-04:00

G and I had a pretty relaxed weekend filled with college football and the NFL. G is playing fantasy football with a group of people at work so he's much more into the NFL than usual. (he's also 0-3 which he's VERY unhappy about) We went to a local Champps to watch the Buccs game Sunday and ran into a local ophthalmologist friend of mine.. so we sat with her and her friends. It's very rare to run into someone I know in Tampa so I played social.

Texas finally had a good week and played like a team in the top 10. They were playing Rice, I would have been very perturbed if they didn't look good this week. Conference play starts this week and it's BIG news around here with USF being in the Top 25 for the first time that I can remember. If it's happened before please correct me.

My Achilles isn't getting any better. I tried a slow jog on Saturday with the doggie and it just wasn't happening to it turned into a log walk. After much inter-web research (the series of tubes were good to me) I found out my insistence on wearing heels at work might be doing me in. Now I'm icing my foot and wearing flats only at work for the next month. NO running. I'm sticking to swimming for the next few weeks and the trainer thinks I can try the recumbent bike in two weeks or so, since I won't be putting any weight behind it. I ended up buying two pairs of flats and Sketchers so I can lay off the heels for awhile. They have the added bonus of being SUPER comfy , too.

Speaking of the trainer, she kicked my ass yesterday. Since I can't push off with my right leg she did an entire hour of core. It hurts to breathe today. Ow. I may be gimpy, but I'll have abs and arms of steel damn it !

The rest of my day off yesterday was spent running errands. (joy) My car battery died a week ago on my way to a friend's housewarming party, but fortunately the nice guys at Total Wine jump started my car so i could get home. For those of you not in Tampa, Total Wine is a wine mecca! They have 8-9 grocery sized aisles of wine along with alcohol and beer. I bought my friend a nice bottle of Patron to stock her new bar and found Shiner there for G and me. SHINER ! In Florida ! I was so happy. I made chips and guacamole and drank Shiner while watching my Texas game. It was like being back home with old friends.

The cherry on top of my day o' errands was my 615pm power outage. I was scrubbing my bathroom, which you all know I enjoy so much... and the power goes out. It goes out here all the time with all the storms we have, but this time it was off over an hour. By 720pm it was getting dark and I had no way to cook or see to do anything. I ended up spending the evening at a Hash buddy's house. Dinner, wine, and lots of doggie playing. (he has a dachshund/JRT mix) By 10pm I hoped against hope that my power had returned and headed home.

Now I'm back at work. It'll be a shorter day because I have a CE class tonight. It's a 2 hour lecture (with free dinner!) about cosmetic eyelid surgery. Something I know a little about, but it won't be my 100th lecture on it like the AMD lectures.

Being injured sucks

2007-09-19T10:57:00.001-04:00

I really hate being injured. I'm all gung-ho to go running and I just can't. I'm not really sure how it happened, but I pulled something at the base of my right foot. (near the Achilles) I ran sprint intervals on Thursday and felt great. I rested Friday like I was supposed to. Then, Saturday, I tried to run with G after work. 1/4 of the way through the run I pulled up in pain and had to walk back home. It doesn't hurt to walk, but quick lateral movements and running HURTS! Now I have to swear off running for a week or so until I see how I'm feeling.

I sat out at kickball last night. Since it's finally cooled off (a little) I was able to take Tiger with me. We sat on the sidelines and watched together. One of the guys had imbibed in a few too many and literally face planted into first base. At least he got up laughing ! (and was safe) One of our other guys, I'm not sure how, separated his shoulder. Thankfully, one of our players is a military doc who put a sling on him and iced him down. He'll be heading to have it looked at today. I hope he's okay. I was very very worried about him last night he was white as a sheet.

In car news, apparently there are no Acuras available in our area for the price the online broker quoted us. The nearest ones are in Miami. We'd be all over going down there, it's only a three hour drive, but taking a brand spanking new car on a four hour drive right off the lot is not such a great idea. So we've decided to wait awhile on the purchasing of said new vehicle. Maybe in a few months they'll have some good deals on the '08s.

I also discovered last night that apparently eye docs like kickball. The white team we've been playing against has four ODs and 1 ophthalmologist. I knew of of the OMD and 1 OD, but had no idea they had three more. (apparently most of them were classmates) I got to know them over a beer last night and discovered most of us are all attending the same CE next wednesday. Now I have people to sit with! It's hard being in Florida around a bunch of docs you don't know because you didn't go to the local school. I don't have my UHCO girls to sit with.

Places to eat in Tampa

2007-09-12T14:19:00.000-04:00

A few of you might remember a month or so ago I was asked by the Review of Optometry to write a review of local Tampa restaurants for the AAO meeting here next month.

Well, I worked hard putting together the list... so I thought I'd publish the list here. (since I'm not getting credit for the work I did ) To the friends who are coming into Tampa for the conference.. let me know where you want to eat !!

TAMPA RESTAURANTS

Channelside Area (next to convention center)

Tina's Tapas 615 Channelside Drive Ste 120 (813)514-8462
Get a few plates to share with friends and by all means get a pitcher of sangria! Choose to sit in the large round-room bar area or outside on the open patio.

Grille 29 615 Channelside Drive (813)221-2929
An upscale steak/bistro restaurant. I've only been here once and wasn't very impressed, but it could deserve another try. The only time I ate here was off a fixed menu (bleh) Dark, simple furniture and friendly waiters.

Margarita Mamas 615 Channelside Drive (813) 228-7300
Don't get the food here. Get a drink at the bar on the large second floor balcony and enjoy watching the boats on the water. A large Friday night hook-up spot for 20 somethings, so get there fairly early if you want to relax or you'll be surrounded by the throngs.

A short trolley ride from Channelside to Ybor City gets you to:

Samurai Blue 1600 E 8th Ave Ste C208 Ybor City, FL (813) 242-6688
Sushi and sake bar a trolley ride away from the convention center. 40 ft faulted ceilings with a separate bar each for sushi and sake.

Green Iguana Bar and Grill 1708 E 7th Ave Ybor City, FL (813) 248-9555
Yes, it's a bar, but they serve the BEST hamburgers in town!! (Trust me on this one) Go for lunch, dinner time and later in Ybor is for the college bar crowd.

Acropolis Greek Taverna 1833 E 7th Ave (813) 242-4545
The best greek food in town !! Get the Acropolis salad if you want something large enough for three meals. The waiters are friendly U of Tampa students, mostly. Around dinner time they dance to greek music and throw napkins (instead of smashing plates) Enjoy a glass of real Greek wine and a plate of tzatziki sauce with pita bread.

South Howard (the SoHo District) A 3 minute car ride of the convention center/ downtown

717 South 717 S. Howard (813) 250-1661
Wonderful food in a trendy setting. A see and be seen bar crowd. The menu covers a little bit of everything: steak, chicken, miso and sake catch of the day. This place also features outstanding service.

Ciccio and Tonys 1015 S Howard Ave (813) 251-8406
California cuisine. They'll do almost anything to order including a special "low carb" menu. Sparse furniture, friendly staff, a cool blue hue over the room and constant sports over the bar. The menu is HUGE and everyone in your party will find something they like.

The Lime 915 S Howard (813) 868-5463
Mexcian food in a sports bar atmosphere.

** THE SPLURGE**** Berns Steakhouse 1208 S Howard (813) 251- 2421
This place is a Tampa institution ! Cherrywood booths and red walls give Bern's an almost bordello-esque feel. The staff is flawless. They feature one of the largest wine lists in the country if not the world. After your gorgeous steak dinner, head upstairs to Berns' dessert room. Do NOT pass this up. 62 items on the dessert menu in a room with 50 booths which are converted wine barrels. Also features 40 pages of dessert wine.

*** The gourmet choice*** Fly Bar and Restaurant 1201 N Franklin St. (813) 275-5000
Try the Frites Two Ways and sweet potato soup. The rooftop bar is popular for Friday happy hour. A very creative menu, comfortable metallic decor, and a great wine list. enjoy!

Shocking.. I know

2007-09-12T12:47:00.000-04:00

New Ride

2007-09-11T11:30:00.000-04:00

Since G's car is almost 13 years old we spent Sunday test driving new cars. We'd narrowed it down to four models: Nissan Altima, VW Jetta or Passat, and Acura TSX.

Now, of the dealers the Nissan guy was by and far the best sales guy. Knew the most about his car, was friendly, and actually respected our time.

The VW guy was REALLY nice, but didn't seem to know the car as well. I think he just needed polish.

The Acura salesman was a COMPLETE tool. Didn't even introduce himself, didn't acknowledge that "your wife" was even in the room, and when we were test driving didn't say one WORD to orient us to the car or sell the car to us. We were in and out of the dealership in less than 20 minutes. Maybe he took one look at us and thought we couldn't afford the car, who knows. Regardless that's not his call to make.

The unfortunate part, we liked the TSX the best. After a LOT of research on the internet we're looking at purchasing our car through an online broker. You can get the same dealer rebates without paying dealer commission so you actually pay dealer invoice or less than dealer invoice. This keeps a-hole Acura dealer/sales guy from making any money off of us.

Now comes the hard part, fighting over what color to get. I like royal blue metallic, G likes red. We put those in as first and second choices.. we'll see what comes up.

Thank god for adjustable straps!

2007-09-05T22:27:00.000-04:00

I got my bridesmaid's dress for Marquise's wedding today. I tried it on over my work out clothes and I have to say THANK GOD the straps are adjustable cuz they're WAY too long. It would have been me, on the beach, next to my friend, flashing the world. No one wants that on their wedding day, seriously. So, thank god for adjustable straps.

My area rug for the living room finally arrived ! It breaks up the hardwood nicely. G and I like it so much we're getting a second bigger one for the walking area between the living room the front foyer.

I'm trying to be a better blogger, I really am.

In other non-house related news: G got a promotion! He found out about a week ago and has been very excited ever since. Basically, it means he's now getting paid for the job he's been doing for the last two years. (plus a nifty bonus check)

This week at work has been really REALLY slow, so I can't even tell y'all about any cool patients I've seen.

I can comment on how I can't BELIEVE the Buccs kept Chris Simms on the roster. Although, I know I'm not going to get to see my Young/Simms match up in October since Simms is FOURTH string!! Lord. Oh well, just cross your fingers that Young doesn't get injured. (jessica is probably the only one still reading this paragraph.. Hi Jess!)

I'm a slacker

2007-08-20T11:06:00.000-04:00

About blogging that is. I can't believe it's been two weeks since I've written anything.

Unfortunately, most of the major things happening in my life right now I can't really blog about.

G and I have been pretty boring lately. We spent part of yesterday looking for a new area rug for our living room. Even with the "soft paws" the dog is still scratching up the floor. We picked one out at Home Depot, which I really like. Unfortunately, it's not listed on their website so I can't post pics until after it gets delivered next week.

The half marathon training is going well. I did five miles on the treadmill yesterday since it was entirely too hot to run outside.

Well, I need to go get ready. Lily is coming to pick me up to try a Polish restaurant in Clearwater. Mmmm pirogies!

Losing my mind

2007-08-06T14:29:00.000-04:00

G and I decided last night to train for a half-marathon. Yes, I'm nuts.

We went through G's Runner's World list of Best Halfs and picked out Key West January 27th. So, if anyone's interested in training with me and taking a little vacay to Key West.... let me know !

I get to see Vince Young!

2007-08-04T11:49:00.000-04:00

I came home from work last night to a very excited G. He was able to score us Buccs tickets for the Buccs/Titans game in October. We're near the 50 yard line, but we're in the upper deck. I could care less where we're sitting... I get to see Vince Young live ! (it'll be my first NFL game, too!)

Of course, now that I have tickets and Vince has the Madden curse.... I might NOT get to see Vince. Since I have tickets, I'm now predicting horrid injury to my star QB.

The only thing that would make it better... a Vince Young / Chris Simms battle !! I saw spring training highlights of Simms actually completing 40 yard passes. I hope he's doing better, but I have a feeling he's no longer the starter since they brought in Garcia.

But, YAY I have Buccs tickets !!

Freaking obese country!

2007-07-30T14:18:00.000-04:00

G and I actually had a day off at the same time yesterday! Shocking, I know.

I spent the morning with some girlfriends running the 5.2 mile Gandy Bridge. They wanted to start at 10am, I wanted to start earlier due to the hotness. Unfortunately, they won and I had to walk half the way back because I was feeling dizzy from all the heat. (giant bridge over water = no shady tree lined streets) But, I did get in my morning long run.

G and I then headed to out favorite little diner for brunch. Yummy smoked salmon eggs benedict for me.

Since G's lost weight training with the trainer (as have I) we decided over lunch to take him shopping for dress slacks for work. His other ones are falling off of him and he has to cinch his belt to keep them on. So, off to the mall we go. We went to EIGHT stores total... EIGHT ! All of them had pants starting at 34" around the waist. G wears a 32 or 33 depending on the cut of the pants. They might have a few pairs in the 32 or 33 range, but not in any of the colors G wants. Finally we give up and head to the mall I work at... since I try to avoid it like the plague on the weekend and my day off. Three more stores down. Nordstorm had pants on sale, starting at size 34 all the way up to 44". Dillards had nothing. Finally, we ended up at Dockers.. which I wasn't even sure sold dress pants. But, the dress pants god finally smiled on us and we found pants in G's size. We're blaming this whole fiasco on the fact that our country is overweight. There were NO PANTS for someone with a 32" waist. NONE. There'd be that one sad little camel colored pair with a checkered pattern or something equally hideous. We both hate to shop, so four hours of our lives spent looking for dress pants made us very very grumpy. I had a headache by the end of everything, but G had pants !!

And now back to my life...

2007-07-24T14:20:00.000-04:00

I'm officially done with Harry Potter. I won't spoil it for anybody, don't worry. But, there are definite things I want to hash out.

I agree with Michelle, though, that she should not have done an epilogue.

Almost there ....

2007-07-23T12:34:00.000-04:00

I'm 425 pages into Harry Potter... so, I probably won't be blogging much until I'm done.

I'm also very sore in the arm/shoulder area from working out with the trainer again yesterday. She killed me with push-ups. *whimper*

I love the Onion

2007-07-17T14:15:00.000-04:00

From: The Onion Article

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

KANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.

"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.

Burdett added: "Gravity—which is taught to our children as a law—is founded on great gaps in understanding. The laws predict the mutual force between all bodies of mass, but they cannot explain that force. Isaac Newton himself said, 'I suspect that my theories may all depend upon a force for which philosophers have searched all of nature in vain.' Of course, he is alluding to a higher power."

Founded in 1987, the ECFR is the world's leading institution of evangelical physics, a branch of physics based on literal interpretation of the Bible.

According to the ECFR paper published simultaneously this week in the International Journal Of Science and the adolescent magazine God's Word For Teens!, there are many phenomena that cannot be explained by secular gravity alone, including such mysteries as how angels fly, how Jesus ascended into Heaven, and how Satan fell when cast out of Paradise.

The ECFR, in conjunction with the Christian Coalition and other Christian conservative action groups, is calling for public-school curriculums to give equal time to the Intelligent Falling theory. They insist they are not asking that the theory of gravity be banned from schools, but only that students be offered both sides of the issue "so they can make an informed decision."

"We just want the best possible education for Kansas' kids," Burdett said.

Proponents of Intelligent Falling assert that the different theories used by secular physicists to explain gravity are not internally consistent. Even critics of Intelligent Falling admit that Einstein's ideas about gravity are mathematically irreconcilable with quantum mechanics. This fact, Intelligent Falling proponents say, proves that gravity is a theory in crisis.

"Let's take a look at the evidence," said ECFR senior fellow Gregory Lunsden."In Matthew 15:14, Jesus says, 'And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.' He says nothing about some gravity making them fall—just that they will fall. Then, in Job 5:7, we read, 'But mankind is born to trouble, as surely as sparks fly upwards.' If gravity is pulling everything down, why do the sparks fly upwards with great surety? This clearly indicates that a conscious intelligence governs all falling."

Critics of Intelligent Falling point out that gravity is a provable law based on empirical observations of natural phenomena. Evangelical physicists, however, insist that there is no conflict between Newton's mathematics and Holy Scripture.

"Closed-minded gravitists cannot find a way to make Einstein's general relativity match up with the subatomic quantum world," said Dr. Ellen Carson, a leading Intelligent Falling expert known for her work with the Kansan Youth Ministry. "They've been trying to do it for the better part of a century now, and despite all their empirical observation and carefully compiled data, they still don't know how."

"Traditional scientists admit that they cannot explain how gravitation is supposed to work," Carson said. "What the gravity-agenda scientists need to realize is that 'gravity waves' and 'gravitons' are just secular words for 'God can do whatever He wants.'"

Some evangelical physicists propose that Intelligent Falling provides an elegant solution to the central problem of modern physics.

"Anti-falling physicists have been theorizing for decades about the 'electromagnetic force,' the 'weak nuclear force,' the 'strong nuclear force,' and so-called 'force of gravity,'" Burdett said. "And they tilt their findings toward trying to unite them into one force. But readers of the Bible have already known for millennia what this one, unified force is: His name is Jesus."

Up up and Away in my beautiful my beautiful balloooooon ....

2007-07-15T23:06:00.000-04:00

yes, I'm a dork.

A few moons ago it was my anniversary and G got us a hot air balloon ride. I had to book the ride a few weeks out so that I could ask for a Saturday off of work. (yes, I have to book them out about six weeks in advance)

G and I got up at the butt-crack of dawn to head to north Tampa to meet the balloon crews. We were flying with a retired Cost Guard gentleman who does the hot air balloon thing on the weekend for fun. There were 8 other balloon outfits there as well. After deciding which was the wind was blowing, since there wasn't much wind, we headed off to the launch site. We launched from a huge field off of Lutz Lake Fern Road and Hwy 41 with the wind taking us off to the northeast. Since we had a small crew of helpers we were one of the first balloons unloaded, but one of the last ones actually off the ground.

Once up, we had an amazing view of Tampa. The balloons don't fly over the water since it's too dangerous but it was early enough in the morning to watch the sunrise and the fog hover over everything. The balloon is very peaceful, but dang is it hot. G's head was dangerously close to the burner since he was the tallest. Fortunately, our pilot only takes up one couple at a time so you have more room.. so there were only three of us in the basket. Some of the other companies seemed more like tourist attractions and they had almost 12 people in theirs. (no thanks)

We flew over Tampa for almost an hour and then were scanning for places to land. G and I attempted to take some aerial photos, but of course our battery on the camera died. (I forgot to recharge it after the Boston trip) There were a few places near us to land, but one of the major fields had horses in it and the noise from the balloon burners really freak them out, so we veered north some more. We finally found an open field to land in, which turned out to be someone's yard. (oops) Fortunately, the neighbor came over to help us out and direct the chase crew to our landing location. We took out the poor guy's phone line on our landing (double oops) The neighbor informed us that the tenant wasn't home, but that we'd better hurry up and get out of there.. his neighbor has been known to pull out a shotgun on his 12 year old daughter for cutting across his yard. (AHHH! ) We FRANTICALLY packed up the balloon, gave the neighbor who helped us a bottle of champagne, and high tailed it to the park to have breakfast. It did make the trip that much more exciting, I would say.

After the balloon ride, G and I had a whole Saturday together. Holy crap, how did that happen ??! G had his trainer appointment, so I took a nap (hee) .. then we headed off to Green Iguana for their killer hamburgers in Ybor on our way to the movies to see Harry Potter. I thought the movie was "meh" by the way. I liked it, but the books are so much better and more detailed the movies pale in comparison.

Remember that yummy soul food restaurant I went to with my friend on Thursday? Well, four hours later I was horridly nauseated which last for the next THREE DAYS!!! It was awful. Fortunately, I got better in time for the balloon ride, but started feeling worse half way through Harry Potter. (which maybe it why I didn't follow the ending too well, since I was trying not to lose my hamburger) I'm back to normal now and even managed to run with G tonight.

2007-07-15T14:38:00.001-04:00

Mingle² - Online Dating

Happy day !

2007-07-12T22:47:00.001-04:00

My dog is back home again after almost three weeks at my parents house. (Boston, plus new hardwood floor installation, plus parents in NC) I'm so happy he's home ! I'd forgotten how much it means to have a fuzzy face there when you wake up in the morning, or to stand guard over you at night when G is out of town. Nice. I love my doggie.

My wonderful friend Lily "dragged" me out for soul food tonight. SO GOOD! She was testing out the menu for her birthday part in two weeks. YUM!

I'm also looking into T-Mobile's new WiFi at home. You get a new wifi enabled phone and all calls made in area with WiFi are FREE ! Yes, free. So, if you get shit-acular cell service inside your house like I do your calls are now clear... and free. I'm checking this out tomorrow at work on my lunch break. Gotta make sure there's no fine print at the TMobile store. They claim it'll even work on my home router. Hopefully I could downgrade to a cheaper plan and save some money with this. The only bummer is it's only available on 2 phones right now.

Girls don't sweat

2007-07-10T21:36:00.001-04:00

But, I'm "glistening" like a pig right now after my 3 mile run. Even at 8:30pm it's still disgustingly hot and sticky. Can I go back to Boston now ? I could so be a snow bird.

Boston blogs in progress

2007-07-07T10:17:00.001-04:00

So Jessica doesn't have to read my last post over and over ;) I have to wait til I get home to put in Boston photos.

First evening in Boston

2007-06-28T23:04:00.000-04:00

Once I finally arrived at my hotel I met up with G to check in. G had spent the afternoon touring around Harvard as something to do while I was stuck at BWI.

We stayed at the Park Plaza hotel, which was nice, but very old. In being an old building the bathroom was TINY and the air conditioning wasn't the strongest. Thank goodness it wasn't as hot as it is in Tampa right now.

I found my two classmates, Ashley and Erin fairly easily since we were all in the same hotel. By the time we all got settled it was dinner time so we picked a place to meet up for dinner. When in Boston, it's time for seafood! We ate at Legal Seafood which was FABULOUS!! I had a wood grilled seafood sampler with four different kinds of fish and scallops. I also had lobster bisque. Mmmmm

After dinner we decided to tour Boston Common and the Public Gardens. There was a 5k race going on in the park, so that was rather fun to watch. The lead runner came in around 17 minutes, which actually isn't that fast for the lead runner. Granted, it's way faster than I can haul my ass 3.1 miles, but still.

Then came the long walk around the park hunt for Cheers. We knew it was around the park somewhere, I couldn't remember what street it was on, and non of us had brought a map. We were relying totally on G's sense of direction. Eventually, we did get there. It was entirely too crowded to go in, but we took the prerequisite pictures. You could only go in and sit down if you were ordering food. Since we were all still completely full of seafood we decided to skip it. G did pick downstairs to see if it looks the same as the TV show... it doesn't. (told ya)

Getting to Boston

2007-06-28T20:56:00.000-04:00

Getting to AOA was definitely an adventure. My flight left at 8am connecting through Baltimore (BWI) to Boston. I was SUPPOSED to arrive in Boston at 1:15pm. G was arriving ten minutes before me. Let's just say G made it, had time to tour Harvard, have lunch, and head back on the T to the hotel before I even landed in Boston.

Getting to BWI was no problem. I run to the board to check my connection since I only had 45 minutes. (supposedly) Flight delayed until 12:30. Oh, well, maybe there's rain in Boston or something all the other Boston flights are delayed too. I get a bite to eat, pull out a magazine, and plug in the iPod to drown out everyone else. An hour later I check the board again. Flight delayed until 2pm. WTF !!?? I'm now at a 3.5 hour delay getting in. I'm less than pleased. The gate agent tells me and the other 10 angry Air Tran customers that the airplane has a part that's malfunctioning and they have to fly the part in from Orlando. There are no other planes available to take us to Boston, they're all booked, trust me I check. I've seen way to many episodes of the Amazing Race to not check for earlier flights. FINALLY at 2pm we get to the plane, the plane taxis back.. and for some reason we're sitting on the tarmac half way to the runway. Water starts to pour out of the overhead cabin in first class onto the first class passengers. (hee) The plane then turns around and goes, you guessed it, BACK TO THE GATE!! Five guys from maintenance are now on my plane. They spend 30 minutes tinkering, the pilot comes out and assures us it's just the condensation from the air conditioning, there is nothing wrong the plane, we're all just fine but at this point he understands if anyone wants to get off. Every starts screaming LET'S JUST GO !! After a three and a half hour delay at this point everyone is so frustrated we'll take our chances. At 3:15pm we FINALLY take off for Boston. I'm in a cab to the hotel at 4:30pm just in time for rush hour getting out of Logan. Fortunately, the taxi line in Boston is amazing and I'm at the hotel in less than 20 minutes.

The rest of my day was so much nicer once I was settled.

Yipppeee !!

2007-06-26T13:57:00.001-04:00

I just put on shorts at J.Crew in a size I didn't even wear in high school. (don't hate me) I have to call my trainer and tell her how happy I am. This is the kind of thing where if you called one of your girlfriends about how happy you were in a dressing room... they'd probably hang up on you.

So long, farewell ... you know how the rest goes don't make me try to spell it

2007-06-25T22:44:00.000-04:00

Now again comes the time in Tampa where I have to say good-bye to yet another friend(s). Kate and Jared are moving to the frozen north of Michigan. To Jared it's moving back to the motherland, to Kate it's a new adventure.

We had a going away shin-dig for them Friday night and much fun was had. Beer was partaken in, cigars were smoked, food was eaten, the dripping rain from the soaked awning was avoided (the skies decided to open up in true summer Florida weather glory), and I realized how much I'm going to miss them.

If there's ever a Texas / Michigan game you know I'm flying up to check out the Big House !

Behold !!

2007-06-22T22:40:00.000-04:00

Pretty shiny hardwood floors !! Finished on Friday at 4pm. (half a day on Friday my boo-tay)

maybe not

2007-06-21T17:57:00.000-04:00

Okay, so maybe they're NOT finishing our floors today. In a G update, it got to be 530 and the workers had to stop due to the noise restrictions of our condo complex. They'll be coming back to work about half a day tomorrow to truly finish. G will be on day 5 of being confined to the house. Poor G. He's getting really bored.

Owwie

2007-06-21T12:03:00.000-04:00

My trainer kicked my ass yesterday afternoon. LOTS of arm stuff, which she knew I needed. My arms are definitely my weakest area. I can do crunches and squats all day, but arm stuff... no thanks. So, she killed me with it.

They're finishing our floors today !!!

We almost have hardwood floors.

2007-06-18T17:18:00.000-04:00

The painting of the house is finished. G finished it up last night. After all that work we moved all the furniture into our two bedrooms so the works have room to do our hardwood floors today.

We were told to expect the floor guys between 8-12pm. (thanks for the nice HUGE window guys) The SINGLE worker showed up around 845. He took one look around our place and said, "wow, they didn't tell me y'all had stairs.. and that I'd have to rip up some tile. I'm going to need more men". Well, duh. We're asking you to lay 800 sq ft of hardwood. And, we're paying you well for it, thankyouverymuch. He heads back to his office and says he'll be back by 10am at the latest with a crew.

G finally calls the office at 1145 because no one had shown up yet. The girl answering the phone goes, "oh .. yeah.. they'll be out tomorrow morning". Say what now??!! I'm paying y'all to install it TODAY! Why did no one call to tell G they weren't coming back??!! It's not like G doesn't have anything else to do other than sit around the house and wait for the workers. Good lord. So, they got an ear full from G.

Floor instillation apparently will be starting tomorrow. Pictures when it's done!

2007-06-12T21:56:00.000-04:00

Dear girl behind me on the recumbent bike at the gym:

I come to the gym to escape and get in a good workout. I do NOT come to the gym to listen to you prattle away on your cell phone. Granted, you were not alone, there were two other people RUNNING on treadmills talking on the cell phone... but you were by far the loudest. I did, however, get to practice my Spanish as I had to actively translate your conversation in order to eavesdrop. But, if you didn't want me to eavesdrop you would not be holding your conversation on the recumbent bike at the gym. You do realize you're not working out very hard if you can have a 30 minute conversation about your love life and your latest shoe shopping excursion whilst peddling your bike and not even breathing hard.

No love.
Me

Up Up and Away !!

2007-06-12T11:44:00.000-04:00

I booked my hot air balloon trip, yesterday. G and I are taking off July 14th for a hot air balloon ride and champagne brunch. I'm so excited. There will be MANY pictures taken. I just hope weather conditions hold out since I had to ask for a special Saturday off work to go!!

G and I also finished the living room this Sunday. I'm waiting for the lighting to be right in the house to take pictures of it. In some lights it looks baby blue instead of the sage green it is. It does make the room look so much bigger and I think it'll look great once we get our floors in.

I've been so busy with work the last week and a half I've been a very lazy blogger. I have pictures from our trip to the Picnic Island dog park. I'll post those when I get home. I have tomorrow off so I'm going to try to catch up on the blog !! Promise!

New Walls

2007-05-27T22:12:00.000-04:00

G and I repainted the living room this weekend. It's not quite done yet, since we had to do three coats of paint to cover the dark Army green. But, we're making progress and I think it'll look really nice when we're done and have our new floors put in.

I'm modern, he's traditional.. who knew ?

2007-05-24T22:44:00.000-04:00

I had a very nice anniversary. Yes, boys and girls, G and I have been married an entire year! We've been together almost nine years, but just finished our first year of wedded bliss. G got an early flight home from Houston and was home when I finished work for the day. We had a very nice dinner at Donatello, which thank goodness we had a gift card for because it was unbelievably expensive. But, the service was good and we had a nice, quiet time.

Both of us tried to stick to the traditional/modern anniversary tables. (without knowing the other one was trying to) I went modern: clocks. I got G a Garmin Forerunner 101. It's a GPS unit that tracks your runs. It tracks pace, time, distance, and will even tell you how to get back home if you're running through an unfamiliar area. G went traditional: paper. Well, the gift was on paper. He got me a hot air balloon ride over Tampa Bay !! I'm SO excited !! The ride is also a sunrise champagne brunch. I've always wanted to do this. He must have remembered me gushing about Dr B's balloon ride in Sedona on their anniversary. I'm going to have to ask for a Saturday off in July to go, but I'm really looking forward to it.

I don't have much to compare anniversaries to, but I was very pleased with mine. More than anything, I was just happy to have G home for an extended weekend.

Flaming servers = FUN at the office!

2007-05-22T11:58:00.000-04:00

I come in this morning to discover the Eyemed server went down in a flaming ball of badness yesterday. As of this morning, it's still not back up and running. Verifying patients insurance is back to the stone ages of manual verification by phone. With every office in the country trying to call Eyemed for verification, you can just imagine what the hold times are like for my techs. The next available representative will be with you in... 27 minutes.. please be patient, your call is very important to us. Ugh. I'm trying to field all the appointment phone calls myself so that we can save one tech on the phone handling insurance problems.

G and I had a very relaxing weekend. We didn't do much. Watched a movie Friday night after a nice dinner out at Maddogs and Englishmen. (awesome foodie English pub.. which, I know sounds like an oxymoron but it's fabulous!) We did end up going to see Spiderman 3 on Sunday. Every time Emo Peter would come on the screen I'd collapse in a fit of giggles to the point where G would have to nudge me. The unintentional comedy scale was VERY high. The movie was, in fact, rather weak. They had entirely too many plot lines in the air at once. It just didn't flow right.

Monday Tiger and I headed to the vet for his annual exam and shots. Everything turned out very well. I was very happy. He had a few lumps I wanted biopsied and were concerned about but they turned out to just be lipomas. YAY! I had another appointment with the personal trainer. She's kicking my ass, but that's what I pay her for. After only three weeks I'm starting to see definition in my body again. I find out in two weeks how much body fat I've lost. I spent the rest of the day hunting for an anniversary present for G. I found what I was looking for.. at Target of all places. I'll blog about that after I give it to him.

And, back to work I go !

Updating

2007-05-17T11:26:00.000-04:00

I know I know.. it's been almost a month since I've written anything. Yes, kids, i'm a very bad blogger.

But ,honestly, I just haven't felt that exciting. There really isn't that much news on my end.

G and I are putting in hardwood floors sometime in the next month or so. We're waiting on condo board approval right now before we can start construction. Also, we're going to repaint our living room. Right now it's Witch Hazel by Behr and we're switching it over to Sage Tint (also Behr). The Witch Hazel looked good in a test swatch, but turned out pretty much Army green on my walls. Neither one of us is that thrilled with it, it's been on the wall two years now and since we have to remove all the furniture to put in the floors.. it's the perfect time to repaint. Of course all this also happens after I bought yarn to match the CURRENT wall color to make a throw afghan for the back of the couch. Oh well.

Work has been really slow the last two or three weeks. (with the exception of Saturdays) My new techs are wonderful! The tech who's been with me the longest is moving with his wife to Portland, Oregon. Tomorrow is his last day, so I have to go buy a cake on my way home tonight. What kind of cakes can vegetarians eat ? I know there are rule and such. I guess I have to ask at the bakery to make sure the frosting doesn't have lard or some other such nonsense.

Honestly, it seems like all my Tampa friends just keep moving. Every time I get some new friends.. they move on me. I don't hold it against them, it just gets frustrating. Stupid upwardly mobile friends!! I've been hanging out a lot more with one of my neighbors. We both discovered a love for The Office so we've been having girly wine and Office parties at my house on Thursdays. She also comes over when Netflix sends me a girly movie that G won't watch.

Well, I should get back to work. I'm going to try to blog more. I just feel like I"m so boring why should I bother y'all with the details. Monday and Tuesday were my days off and my exciting day was going to the title/tax office and getting my tires rotated!! WOW!! See, told you I live the exciting life.

New Feature

2007-04-24T17:26:00.000-04:00

I've added this nifty feature to the bottom of my blog. But, you have to scroll to the bottom of my blog to see it. (Unless someone better with HTML can figure out how to make my margins big enough to fit both it and my musings in the same space)

Stealing from jessica

2007-04-21T14:48:00.000-04:00

I stole this blog topic from Jessica because I think it's important.

The Washington Post did a little experiment. They set up world famous violinist Joshua Bell as a street performer at a major subway stop in Washington DC. There point wasn't to see if anyone would recognize him, but to see if anyone would stop and enjoy the gorgeous classical music he was performing.

He played for 45 minutes. Pieces of music made for a concert violinist. He was playing on a Stradivari violin made in 1713. (considered the finest violin in the WORLD and worth over 3 million dollars)

Over 1,000 people walked by him in the 45 minutes he was playing. It's all on hidden camera. Only SEVEN PEOPLE stopped to listen to the gorgeous music. The most important part to me: in all of the video... CHILDREN are the ones who are drawn to the music, ask their parents to stop to listen, and are hastily shoved on the way to wherever people are rushing off to at 8am.

The article is kind of long, but worth the read. Pearls before Breakfast The music he played is listed there and is available as a streaming video file. It's gorgeous! I've been listening in my office all day. There is also video of people/workers clearly ignoring him.

Take the time, this week in particular after all the tragedies, to stop and listen to the music. Enjoy being alive. Expose your children to beautiful music, dance, art, theater. It really can change your life.

I love real weekends

2007-04-17T10:37:00.000-04:00

I finally had a real weekend off ! Three whole days!! Granted, it was busy and not super relaxing, but it was great to not be at work for three days in a row.

I flew to Chicago on Friday afternoon to meet up with G. He had been in Chicago since Thursday for a training seminar for work. It worked out pretty well, since his seminar ended, he took the shuttle back to O'Hare and got there as I was in baggage claim. We spent Friday night visiting with the family at my Aunt's house. Then, we headed with my cousin and her husband back to their house to spend the night. My cousin bought a house about four years ago in a historic neighborhood to try and renovate it. They are still in the renovation stages, but they've made a lot of progress on the house! I love what they're doing with the full bathroom downstairs. Apparently, the house used to belong to the town optometrist who did exams in the front room downstairs. How cool and old school is that ?! We really enjoyed staying with them, getting to know their son Henry (who's almost 2) and playing with their American Water Spaniel, Maggie. Saturday was spent at a nice lunch with the entire family. We went to this really old restaurant in Kenosha. The food wasn't that great, but it was nice to all be together. My grandmother liked the scarf I knitted for her. It seemed like almost everyone got her chocolate. (My grandmother is well known for her sweet tooth) After lunch, we spent a VERY long time socializing at my Aunt's house. I felt kinda bad for G. There weren't really any other activities other than watching the two babies and there's only so much of that G can handle. (when it's not your kid it's really not as entertaining) When my cousin headed home about 8pm to put Henry to bed, we all followed behind. We ended up staying up fairly late drinking beer, going over pictures of the house renovations, and chatting. In fact, I think we did that both nights, Friday and Saturday.

Sunday ended up being more of the same. Lunch at my Aunt's house, more socializing, more frisbee with maggie, more babies.. and then the trip back to the airport. I finally got to meet my cousin Steve's wife, Sarah. She seems like a total sweetheart. I'm very glad I got to meet her and see him. (hi Steve!) G and I had flights only 30 minutes apart (supposedly). His was going back to Houston for work and I was flying back to Tampa. G took off on time.. I didn't. My flight was an hour late. But, I arrived home safely to a VERY happy doggie. (one of my co-workers had agreed to doggie sit for me)

Overall, a very enjoyable weekend. I was a little bummed I didn't get to spend more alone time with G. But, we were just happy to be together. He's flying home on Wednesday this week and taking Thursday and Friday off. YAY! I won't be off work, but at least he'll be home.

Ready to go

2007-04-10T11:36:00.000-04:00

I'm heading to Wisconsin this weekend and I'm SO READY to get out of town. I've been working way too much and my mental health needs me to get more than one day off in a row. This upcoming weekend will be my first weekend off in three weeks.

It's been in the low 60s and raining here for the last two days. It's definitely not helping my mood. After two weeks of sunny and low 80s, much running, tennis and general outdoorsy-ness the chilly rain is a downer.

I finally finished my grandmother's present. I knitted her a scarf. It's not the best looking thing, but it's the first thing I've ever knitted so hopefully she'll like it. (she's my grandma.. she has to, right?) My next project is to make an afghan for the living room. The one we have on the back of the couch now does nothing for our room. It doesn't match in the slightest. Kate found me a great pattern in colors that match my living room. I just have to order supplies or make the drive to Jo Anns or the LYS. I'd love to go to the LYS but they're open the same exact hours I work.

The Tennis connection finally returned my call yesterday. I emailed them two weeks ago about ladies classes on Monday morning. I hadn't been progressing at the last place I had been taking lessons. After 20 hours of lessons I should be able to move beyond my forehand in a stationary position. But, every time I tried to say I wanted to work on something else they'd tell me no. Now, I've been off tennis almost five months because I got discouraged and my forehand, again, looks like crap. I need to get to a point where I can actually rally with G. (definitely not as his power level, but at least get a few back and forth, no?) I'll try to call them today about setting something up. We'll see how this place works out. It's at the JCC and not as big, but maybe that's what I need.

Updating.. finally

2007-04-05T12:40:00.000-04:00

Yes, I've been feeling very un-blogworthy lately. Is that a word ?

Our kickball season is officially over. We ended up 3-6-1. We definitely still have room for improvement. They scheduled kickball playoffs for April 14th, which we're all rather pissed about. We play regular league games on Tuesday -- clearly Tuesday is the day that's good for everyone. So why schedule playoffs on a Saturday and only give us two weeks notice to plan. Half of our team can't make it. We'll probably have to forfeit the entire playoff. It's just wrong. Had we known going into the season that they were doing this on a Saturday we could have planned appropriately. Personally, I'm going to be in Wisconsin for my grandmother's 95th birthday so I won't be attending. I'd much rather see my grandma and assorted cousins. I also get to see my brother, sister in law, and nephew. YAY!! I can't wait to see how much he's grown.

Yes, I'm still working six days a week, which is probably why I'm not blogging. There's really not much to talk about when you have no life outside of work. Right now, I have work and I have kickball. I run after work or go to the gym, but that's pretty much all there is to my life right now.

Dr W might have a new doctor for St Pete. They've interviewed and he's working a test run this week. I'm crossing my fingers he likes it so I can stop working six day weeks. They're killing me.

And just for fun: Here's a picture of St Patricks Day week when we played kickball in kilts. (not me, I didn't own one at the time and couldn't find one long enough to play in on short notice)

2-5-1

2007-03-21T14:25:00.000-04:00

We won our kickball game last night !! The team we were playing is ranked number two in the division. They were REALLY mad they lost to the team that cares more about whether or not they spill their beer running to first base than if we win. Heh.

We played really well. I'm so proud of us. Let's hope we can keep the streak alive! Tie one week.. win the next !!

The crud

2007-03-19T22:22:00.000-04:00

I've been sick.. and feeling very non-bloggy. I had to take off work Thursday and Friday because the pollen allergy snot-monster caught up to me. I had so much drainage it all went into my chest and I spiked a fever. Lovely.

So, now it's been about two weeks since this whole allergy fest started... and I'm so over it. Sick of coughing every 2.3 seconds. Sick of breathing out of only one nostril at a time. Sick of only being able to wear my contacts a handful of hours a day. Sick of telling my patients "it's just my allergies.. I'm fine, really". And REALLY sick of not being able to sleep. The only reason I got sleep last night is I finally got fed up and took a "slightly more than recommended" dose of Benadryl to make me sleepy. My goal was to fall asleep so fast I wouldn't realize I couldn't breathe.

G was SO SWEET this weekend. He bought me tea and made it for me. He got groceries and cooked dinner Friday and Saturday night. He knew I liked mac and cheese when sick, so he made that Friday night. He made tacos Saturday night after I dragged myself to work feeling like ass and still saw 15 patients. He walked the dog every time he needed to go out. So great. Much love for the man this weekend.

The kickball team tied last week. YAY A TIE !! We didn't LOSE !! YAAAY! Hopefully I'll feel well enough to play tomorrow. Hopefully they can make me the catcher again. It's not to strenuous and I can actually get people out at home, because I don't duck when the ball comes near me. (heh)

OH !! And two of my classmates decided to go to AOA in Boston with me. I'm SO EXCITED !! Red Sox here we come !

I think I'm going to turn in now. (early even) Night kids!

Sorry

2007-03-06T12:23:00.000-05:00

Sorry things have been so spotty... I've been so busy with work I haven't really had time to post.

Thursday night was the hash, this time in South Tampa. So, since it was conveniently close to home I went out for the run. It was SO HUMID !! I did get to meet some new people to the group, two from Peru and one girl who I met at Red Dress. We all ended up at MacDintons after the run for the toast to Christine (the girl who past away in my previous post). It was great to see so many people there for her.

Friday and Saturday was work work work. But, I did have G home at night to watch movies with. For the record: you can skip "man of the year" with Robin Williams. Horrible movie.

Sunday was my only day off this week. Yes, folks, I'm working six days this week. My ever so exciting Sunday was spent cleaning the house and running errands. I did manage to get out to buy new sheets and comforter for the guest bedroom. I also managed to get G to re-caulk our bathroom tub so we can use our shower again. I know I know.. my life is SO horribly exciting.

As a break from errands I went to the charity fun raiser at MacDintons Sunday. They opened the bar from 5-7 to match donations to help pay Christine's funeral expenses. Her family was there with her dog. They were also raffling off some prizes. I bought $5 worth of raffle tickets. Get this: I won BOTH prizes!! The prize I kept are two tickets to this weekends food and wine festival at Tropicana Field. 400 wines, 40 restaurants and lots of free goodness. Retail value: $150 The other prize was to some Rum Festival in two weeks. I passed on that one (do to work) and had them auction it off to the highest bidder to make more money for Christine's family.

Tragic News

2007-02-28T14:49:00.000-05:00

The woman who runs our kickball league was killed last night walking home at 230am. She was a kind, caring person who organized all the kickball events and events for local charities. Just this last weekend she organized a charity event that raised over 2,000 dollars. I remember saying goodbye to her last night when leaving our after kickball hangout, MacDintons. She had a great smile and I really wish I'd gotten to know her better.

Here's the news report:

By CHRIS CHMURA
cchmura@tbo.com
TAMPA - Police officers are scrutinizing Nissan Maximas and Altimas
today, following an early morning hit-and-run that killed a pedestrian.
The victim’s acquaintances, meanwhile, are publicly mourning their
friend’s senseless death.

Christine Hodill, 28, of Tampa, was struck around 2:30 a.m. at West
Cleveland Street and East Moody Avenue, one block south of Kennedy
Boulevard.

Hodill may have been trying to cross Cleveland Street, officers said.
Watch News Channel 8 Video

A police statement says the vehicle failed to stop, struck Hodill, and
then fled the scene. Hodill died at the scene.

The Nissan was dark in color, possibly green or black, according to
investigators. “It had a spoiler, rear view mirror missing and front end
damage,” said police spokesperson Lisa Parashis.
Anyone who spots such a vehicle is urged to call the Tampa Police
Department or 911.

Hodill’s friends are publicly expressing their feelings in comments that
have been posted online.

“Christine was a good friend. Always in a good mood, fun to be around,”
wrote Matt Johnston on TBO.com. Johnson said Hodill was passionate about
kickball and was a local representative for the World Adult Kickball
Association.

“We will miss you in the kickball community,” he said.

http://www.myspace.com/christinewtf

A post by Brian Hummel reads, “Christine I’ve cherished the moments
we’ve had together and I know God is with you, you will be forever missed!”

Schedule Shift

2007-02-24T12:52:00.000-05:00

In case I haven't mentioned it, my practice has practically exploded since the start of the new year. Granted, I still don't own it.. but I'm pretty proud of how we're doing. I'd like to take some credit for how much it's grown in the fourteen months I've been working here. My store was number ONE in the entire region last week !! Normally, since we're the newest, we're in the bottom two or three. Number one.. out of about 16 stores.

The part-time doc at Dr W's other store in St Pete quit this month. She gave her month notice and she's opening her own private practice.. cold. That take cajones. Her mom is going the run the front desk for her and one of her relatives is going to be the optician. I'm not sure exactly where her new location is, but I wish her the best. So, because March starts her new office... we have no new doctor in St Pete. That leaves exactly two of us to staff two offices that are open seven days a week. Can you see where I'm going here ? I thought you could.

I'll be working pretty much six days a week until we can find another doctor for St Pete. We're scrambling, but doctors are very hard to come by in this part of Florida. Dr W got someone from PRN to work one day a week for him in St Pete so he can have at least one day a week off. By this time of the year, everyone who's passed Florida boards has work. Not many people are looking. So, if anyone out there knows anyone looking for part to full time work in the St Pete area (who also holds a Florida OD license).. PLEASE leave me a message! My schedule will thank you -- and so will my husband.

Being an adult sucks sometimes....

2007-02-19T20:13:00.000-05:00

My car just broke down. It made this weird chug a chug-a noise, wouldn't go over 10 mph, the service engine light came on, and I barely made it back to my parking space. Thank god I was at home. But, I was on my way to a lovely salmon, asparagus, and lots of wine dinner with a girlfriend. And now I'm stuck at home.

AAA can't tow my car until tomorrow morning because of our parking garage. So, they're towing my car to Saturn tomorrow morning. I'm hoping Saturn can find me a rental car. I had my boss take me to the airport so I can get a rental. The rental car companies pretty much laughed at me-- apparently between the Daytona 500 and the three day weekend they're out of rental cars. So, now I'm stuck at the airport. I had to shell out more money to get back home. (But, thank god for taxis) Now, I have to hope Saturn can perform a small miracle. They told me on the phone they'll take care of me. They might make shitty cars, but they DO have great customer service. Right now, I'd take a car that runs. I think it psychically knows that I just finished paying it off.

On an up note. I got a new laptop Sunday. Gateway. So far, I really like it. 2G of RAM and 160G hard drive. ON sale, rebate, plus a discount for a Circuit City grand opening. YAY! It's the first Gateway I've ever had, but it had really good reviews. So, now i have to pay off the computer AND the car. *sigh*

Sometimes being an adult really sucks