Life = Changed

So, I haven't posted in a billion years. This is why:

My little Lucie is amazing. I'm so proud. When she was born (by c-section, which is a horrifying experience when it's a stranger, let alone when it's your wife/child) the song playing in the operating room was Won't Get Fooled Again, right at the middle part with the synthy-sounds and when he comes back in and screams. It was great. I will someday make a movie demonstrating it's awesomeness.
In the meantime, I must prepare to send out Residency applications tomorrow, pack to leave my family for a month and go home to Utah. It will be great to be home and chill with the brotherhood, but I am dreading being away from the little one for so long. She's one week old today! Ok, enough sap.

P.S. My daughter/child/kid/baby (all of which sound really weird when applied to myself) was born, much to her father's appreciation, on a nice even date: 8/24/2006. Isn't that nice? Dad and I expatiated about it's goodness--a lot was said about prime numbers and lowest common denominators, and voir dire, and the weigert-meyer rule.

P.P.S. Somebody buy my car please. It's fun, but I'm getting like 37 yards per gallon.

P.P.P.S. I hope, if I'm ever accused of a felony, that I'm picked up in a 2007 Red Cadillac Escalade eating a salad with a bounding carotid pulse.

P.P.P.P.S I am not above admitting that I am so proud that Lucie is a redhead. It's the bomb.com

Gariman Visit

Gar and Nariman made their way out here cross-country style. Twas great to have them here for 5 seconds. Here are some highlights.

Ryan's belly gives Melissa's a run for it's money. Although, it shouldn't really be running anywhere at this point, and who's money does it think it's spending anyway?

Ryan was quick to show off his puter and josh was quick to be jealous.

Nariman collapsed, exhausted from 87 hours of nonstop driving.

A balloon celebration heralded gar's attaining the quarter-century mark. Is there a cool word for quarter-century? Something like sesquicentennial?

We went to Don Pablo's for dinner and took lots of pictures with camera phones.

We went to D & B's and played video games. Ryan and Nar nearly "beat" House of the Dead 4.

Melissa was a very good sport and came along. I think she loved watching me play Tekken 5 the best. We did a photo booth thing that's supposed to show you what your kid will look like. It was horrifying, I'll scan it in soon.

We cashed in our Ticket spoils for these knocker things that I somehow couldn't master.

In this shot, gar is asking, "how did you master that knocker, Nariman?"

We made a sweet b-day cake...

and blurry ryan liked it...

and gave me an excuse to take a sweet photo.

Then blurry ryan did sit-ups. that may be the first time i've ever seen him exercise on purpose. Ever.

Lastly we stayed up all hours talking and watching sweet Ben Folds vids.

It was great having you two. Please come back! no, seriously, please come back...it's lonely. Hold me...

something doesn't belong

I took one item from my desk and put it on Melissa's and somehow it looks really awesome.

are you ready for some football!??!?!?

I had never been to an NFL game so when a nurse offered her tickets for yesterday's Ravens/Giants game I couldn't resist. I dragged my poor 39 weeks-pregnant wife. She is so pregnant that she defies the laws of physics as you can see here:

Amazing, eh?

We had a pretty sweet view of Baltimore from the stadium.

How cool is this?

This dude next to Melissa was SCREAMING out instructions for the team/coaching staff/referees. I don't think they could hear him.

ahh....

The halftime show was thrilling. Here, the band is obviously formed in the shape of an epididymus.

Ravens only got a field goal out of this posession. Very disappointing.

This is a doctored photo. The moon is from a different picture than the Domino sign. They were like 30 seconds apart though, so I don't feel bad.
On the way back to the car a nice person let us cut through the Suites to an elevator so poor Melissa wouldn't have to walk so far. Guess who we saw? Cal Ripken, Jr! It was pretty sweet. I'd be a whole lot cooler if I'd gotten a photo.

argh

my idiot cat ran away into the forest tonight whilst I was taking this photo:

After some brilliant flashlight and coaxing maneuvres, he's now back inside.
Thrilling...I know.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh DORK OUT!

After a recent hiatus from the shblog I return with...Duh Duh Duh...nothing that exciting. I just watched the keynote speech at the Apple WWDC developer conference. Can I just say, Apples are so dang sweet. I wish I had enough money to buy all of my family and friends their own personal iMacs. Actually, I wish I had enough money so that I could do that but still live comfortably.

in other news, my life has been a bit of a roller coaster lately. First of all, little Lucie is going to join us imminently. I am so excited, a bit stressed, and very anxious for her to get here. In the midst of this I went to the dermatologist a few weeks ago to have a mole removed, which for me is pretty much a weekly ordeal. This time however a few days later I got a call from my dermatologist himself asking me to call him back. Generally if a busy doctor is actually making phone calls himself, it's not to tell you, "just wanted to remind you to floss nightly." It turns out I had a bleeding melanoma. I mean "bleeding" in the british cursing sense and not in the literal english sense. Fortunately we (or I guess he) caught it very early. After some extra tests and a very long-seeming, nail-biting 2 weeks, everything looks normal. Although I have apparently bought myself a lifetime supply of dermatology appointments and sun screen. I really don't want to offend anyone who reads this with more serious health experiences. I realize that I had the "paper cut of cancers," but I'll tell you...my little livestrong bracelet holds a bit more meaning for me now. I had a few experiences while I was getting the whole diagnosis/prognosis thing squared away that I think will change me forever, and hopefully will make me a better doctor. At least a more empathic doctor. I probably need to physically read a book, or "listen" on rounds in order to actually become a better doctor. Some of you may recall the 1991 film the Doctor with William Hurt and that lady from Big. The movie is cheesy but I always loved it. Anyway, I kept thinking of it as I had crappy experiences as a patient. I'll just list a couple of them:

In a crowded waiting room trying to get a chest x-ray:
Secretary [loudly]: Wait, what does this say?!?
Josh [sheepishly]: uh, I just need a chest x-ray.
Secretary: yeah, but what is the indication? Mela...what?
Josh [whispering]: uh, I had a melanoma removed...
Secretary [shouting]: a MELANOMA???
Josh: [big eye roll] yeah...thanks.

Another fun moment:

Doctor's office discussing pathology reports
Nice doctor: You have a great prognosis: With this class of melanoma you have a 90% long term survival.
Josh [confused]: I'm sorry, 98%?
Nice doctor: [clears throat] 90%.
Josh [jaw drop]: Uh...ok.

Actually, from a second opinion the real number is probably more like 95% if not better. I realize that before this experience I would have thought that telling someone they have a 5-year survival rate of 95% would sound great, but you know what? It really doesn't. It sounds awful. In fact, 99% sounds awful. Any discussion of how many alternate universe versions of me will be DEAD in 5 years is NOT going to bring me any sort of comfort. I hope I don't ever forget that.
SO ANYWAY, as I said before now all the tests are back and everything was normal so I'm officially asking for all of my worldly possessions back, Mr. Homeless Man sir. Sorry.
Besides a bit of insight, I also scored a totally sweet scar from the experience. Wanna see? (Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach):
Wow, that is far too large of a picture. Actually, I'm not sure which is more horrifying: the scar, or all of the remaining moles and hair. Or my haircut.
So that's been my "excitement" for the last bit. I suppose it might be cheesy to include some post-near-death "i love my family" stuff here.

I love my family.

And my friends.


And now for something completely different.

Saw The Lady in the Water. I liked it a lot. I probably would have had my usual unreasonably excessive adoration except that the suspension of disbelief was hampered by being constantly yanked back into the real world as my daughter attempted to auto-cesarean herself. Seriously, the bulge in my poor wife's abdomen was more than a little distressing. Let's get this baby born already! We video'ed the baby kicking her wait out of her mama's belly. I will try and youtube it...directly [in a southern gentleman's tone, not in Steven-the-network-administrator tone]

Sar: love you, can't wait to meet little man. Gar: can't wait to see you dude. Next week! Lar: I love you so much. I don't think you'll ever know how much.

Trauma is over. I survived (ha). I'm back on the Urology service now. It is very affirming. I feel really good about my career decision. The stuff I get to see everyday is pretty darn neato.

Ok, I believe this makes up for almost a week without a post.

Peace out.

p.s. the switchfoot album The Beautiful Letdown is awesome. ***Cheese Caution***: I really appreciate some sweet music with a general carpe diem motif in the lyrics. I found it very helpful. It allowed me to rock. hard. you should all download it and basque in it's hardcore cheesiness.

Take care folks.

p.p.s. I just reread my post and noticed that I spelled bask: basque. awesome.

WTF?!?!

Man, I think I gots me the Jungle Rot. And maybe the kind that was diagnosed 40 years ago. On top of that, people with trach's that are clogged with unmentionables have the 2nd most powerful ability to make me vomit. 2nd only to 10 roller coasters in a row at six flags.
This is my last all night call at the traumarama. I can't say that I'm upset. I need sleep. BRO: you coming out? ER What! P.S. Do you need my real phone #? Cause I think the french phone # I gave you on your blog may have been difficult to decipher.
Peace out y'alls.

Holy sweet

Did y'all notice that the french nemesis NASCAR driver in the new Will Ferrel movie, Talladega Nights, is none other than Sacha Baron Cohen?!?!  Who's excited?

***UPDATE***
Please check the CNN.com video about the above film. There is an interview of Sacha Baron Cohen who will not come out of character and says funny stuff.

JOSH OUT.

What 3 years of medical school looks like

RocketFest 2006

So, we convinced our amigos to come launch some ballistics the other day. It was a day of many failures, a few successes, and one success that was so successful that it failed. Please enjoy the amazing extravaganza of photos thanks to emmy's discovery of my cameras rapid fire feature:

Our raison d'etre.

Melissa is ready to go.

Aron is ready to rock.

The rocket was violated...err...readied.

A safe distance was gained

Melissa was both giddy and cautiously confused.

BLAST OFF! After this shot our necks actually rolled off backwards.

Aron was quite proud of the first launch.

The next launch was equally mind-blowing.

Let the rapid-fire shots begin:

Aron ran like the wind but could not catch the rocket.

Emmy was thrown into a fit of vogue-ing by the excitement.

And now for some sweet action shots:

The smoke from the launches nestled in the grass.

The girls prepare for the launch.

10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...

This is ground control to Major Tom!

The penultimate launch was actually a tactical disaster as evidenced by aron's disappointment.

The last set of rapid-fire pics deserved nothing short of a 70's montage. Please enjoy.