'Tis The Season To Give

To give gifts that is. I'm glad I finally got my shopping done. It's always now that I find that I'm in fact pretty poor. Poor......as in very thin wallet.

Friday, my coworker Heather and I were trying to figure out how much we make an hour. We divided and multiplied, added and subtracted. We are taking home about $16.50 per hour (after taxes). In residency I was taking home about $9.50 per hour. But in residency I was working 76 hrs per week, but now I'm working about 40 hours per week. Still, that translates to $350 less per month now than when I was in residency. A delivery guy from UPS makes $27 per hour ($56K per year). I just hope that we do get a big tax refund.

We received another snow pounding today too. It came down pretty fast. Then later came the rain. The whole place became a big slushy. Seems like Sunday we'll get even more snow.

My flight to LA has been moved up to 11/21 (Friday) morning. I hope this way I can beat most of the traveling traffic.

First Day of Snow!

Today is the first day of snow in Columbus! I woke up to about 3 inches of snow and then another 2 inches fell. I was 30 minutes late to clinic, but our patients were late by 1 or more hours. Not many showed up anyway.

Football and Snow

It looks like OSU football is going to the national championship game after all! Yesterday both #1 Missouri and #2 West Virginia lost! Those were some interesting games. So that makes OSU #1 in the nation and so far we don't know who's going to be our opponent. I wonder who's #2 now.

In other news things getting colder here in central Ohio. It's not as bad as before so far. In the past we would have gotten snow by now. The forecast says that we would get our first snow accumulation probably this week. January is supposed to be the coldest month though. I'm glad I'll be in California for Christmas and New Years.

Post Thanksgiving Photos

I had a great time on my trip home to California during the short break. Got to see my brothers and parents all at home. I was surprised my flights were not totally full and that only my flight back to Columbus was delayed by 20min and the flight to LA was on time.

Thursday night we went out for a family dinner, which was great. My girlfriend Ivy also came along. We watched the movie Enchanted afterwards. It was a very nice movie...very magical...almost like Snow White combined with Cinderalla.

Friday night Ivy and her roommates cooked up a mean Thanksgiving dinner! The turkey was great and Ivy made her famous cheese cake and corn cream soup (with puffly cheese crust). It was a pretty nice meal and I was very full that night. We rented a movie called "Click" and watched that Friday night also.

Then came Saturday....Ivy, my bro Jack and I decided to go to the LA Autoshow. They had a lot of new cars on display! I remember the autoshows used to be after new years, then last year they moved it up to December. This year was over the Thanksgiving holiday. I guess that's a good thing since more people were off of work. We saw the new Nissan GT-R, BMW M3 and the Lamborghini concept. It was fun...better than last year due to the variety. Ivy was my model for the majority of the day. =)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow is my trip to LA for my Thanksgiving break. I sure hope the flights don't get delayed. It seems like so far so good and Thursday should have less travelers than today. I think my break will be pretty low key....mostly just hang out with my family and my girlfriend. My flight into LA is almost midday tomorrow, so I don't expect to do a lot of things.

In other news, I heard the price of gas this year may hit $4 per gallon. Then last night the price of a barrel of oil almost topped $100. At times like this, I wonder how it will affect the shopping season. I'm happy that I have a Prius because of this....the last time I went to the gas station was 20 days ago and I only used 8 gallons of fuel so far. But then my apartment complex is raising the fees for water utilities for next year. I'm hoping to save money on electricity this winter since it doesn't feel very cold in Ohio like I remember in the past.

Boston....WOW!

Just came back from the ACR conference at Boston, MA this morning! I spent 5 days there. It was my first time visiting Boston and I must say that it's a great city to learn about American History! I went on the Freedom Trail, which is pretty much a walk in which you just follow a red line. You'll pass by all the important sites that you read about in middle school textbooks. Come to my Picasaweb for the photos. I included some descriptions of the locations.

The ACR conference was only busy from Day 1-3. Then Days 4-5 we pretty much have workshops and sporadic lectures. We took some time in between to do sight seeing. I feel like I got a lot of return from this trip, both from ACR and also from just visiting Boston. Next year's conference will be in San Francisco!

Every night we try to go to drug rep dinners. I was kindda disappointed that my first few meals were either salmon or steak. Then yesterday, the last night, we had dinner at Morton's. I got there jumbo shrimp, crab cake and jumbo lobster!!! Boy that was the best dinner ever. Good thing I went on the Freedom trail, which took me 6.5 hours to complete. I probably burned off a bunch of calories.

If you haven't visited Boston before, I would highly recommend a few days visit. I think the best times to visit would be spring and summer since the current temperatures are freezing. My next trips will be back to LA for Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Years.

Holiday's Approaching

It's hard to imagine I've only been in Ohio for 4 months! Time really do go pretty slow here. I hope that now with my studying on track, that time will pass quicker.

Next week I'll be heading off to Boston for the annual American College of Rheumatology conference. The majority of the department is going from OSU. It's going to be a 6-day event and I hope I get some free time to study and sight see. I've never been to Boston before. Some one has told me that it's a pretty "happenin" place and that I gotta have sea food. I'm not really sure where to visit in Boston. I don't have any friends there either.

My family had just gotten new cell phone number yesterday! It looks like I have a new phone too. I'll be able to pick it up when I get home for Thanksgiving. I hope my flight, being early in the morning, has less chance of getting delayed....as would be expected on a busy travel day. My brother is gonna pick me up from the airport on 11/22 morning.

Fall Colors

Fall is here and we are finally seeing the trees change color! These few days have been pretty cold, with night temperatures dropping below freezing.

Those of you who know me know that I hate snow and the cold. Snow is fun to watch, but very dangerous to live or drive in. The only time that I ever got close to an accident occurred during slow and spinning out on the highway.

That reminds me of needing to get new tires for my car! Gotta go shop this weekend. Snow usually starts mid November here.

In other news my bro just went on his flight to Hawaii today. That sounds really nice right about now.

Ivy and I are keeping our December vacation on the down-low, since we do plan on a trip to Taiwan and Japan next year. I planned on a 6 days/5 nights road trip to Arizona and New Mexico, but may expand that to 7 days/6 nights. We'll try to spend New Years Eve at Las Vegas if the hotels are not too expensive.

Ivy recently went to a couple of Halloween parties; her photos are already posted! One is at a night club "The Dream" and the other is at Universal Studios.

Brush Fires Bad for Travel

It was great to see every one again in LA! I arrived at 1 am Saturday. My girlfriend Ivy picked me up from the Ontario airport. We didn't have a lot of time to do many stuff, so Saturday we basically went to Santa Monica for the day. My mom flew in from Taiwan Saturday night and brought back lots of food. I was very happy to see my dogs again. I could tell they were very happy when they recognized me. I never knew Bowser could wag his tail this hard! My brother Fred was home for the weekend too, since he's studying for step 3. It was good to sleep in my room again, although it was pretty empty.

On Sunday Ivy and I went to Huntington Library. They were having their orchid show, but boy, was it pretty boring. I enjoyed the out door garden more. I remember not so long ago that there were no entrance fee. Then my mom told me it was $6 when she went recently. Well, when we got there on Sunday, the fee was $15!!! It would be worth it for someone who enjoys flowers. It was worth it for me because it gave me a chance to just stroll around with Ivy. =)

Then came Sunday night...my flight back to Columbus was a total nightmare! We experienced very strong winds and dust storms on our drive to the airport. I had no problem getting on the plane, then as the plane was about to take off, the pilot brought it back to the terminal! I was like, what??? There was a delay because of the high winds and brush fires. One and a half hours passed by, and we took off anyway in the strong winds! I saw fires everywhere on the mountains.

I missed my connecting flight and was forced to sleep over at Las Vegas airport. I chatted with a lot of people sleeping at the airport and looked like flights from San Diego and Irvine were also delayed. I couldn't get to work on Monday and had Heather cover me in the hospital. I didn't arrive to Columbus until 4:20pm, which was about 11 hours late.

All about movies and football!

Just one week till my trip to LA! It looks like my mom will fly back to LA a day early so I'll be able to see her Saturday night. And also my brother Fred is preparing for his step 3 board exam around the same time. It'll be interesting going back. I also miss my dogs...wonder if they remember me?

Today I watched the movie The Heartbreak Kid. It's not a very good movie. The jokes are pretty predictable and old. They are crude and grotesque, but I think that's just what the Farrlleys are known for the funny-gross jokes. Storyline is weak and the acting is just okay. I think Ben Stiller did well, but the rest of the cast are just deadweights. Any way, I'm glad I didn't spend the money to see it.

In other movie news, I got my hands on a "possible" rough draft of the Transformers 2 movie!!! I got it from a website owned by Dreamworks SKG. It's not a script, but just a simple 13 page storyline. I read throught the draft and if the actual movie is anything like it, then the movie would ROCK!!! It's slated to open in 2009.

College football news: today the Buckeyes burried Kent State! Then LSU was bombed! The new ranking are not out yet, but before this weekend we were ranked #3 in the AP poll. Cal was sittin pretty at #2. I expect both Cal and OSU to move up to #1 and #2 next week. USC has since been out of the picture at #10.

TV, Video Game, and Friends

Just watched this new comedy show called The Big Bang Theory. Man was it funny! It's about a bunch of nerds and their daily life (like trying to get a date with a girl). The first episode started out with 5 nerds in a LAN party. What's so funny is that they used a lot of scientific terms that I actually understand! They almost reflect the type of people I would hang out with in high school or college.

In other news, I've been playing the new game on DS: The Legend of Zelda:Phantom Hourglass. Gosh, this game is so addicting! I even got the strategy guide to help my quest to rescue Zelda, but I found so many typos and mistakes in the guide. Because of that I don't know if I'll ever get all the gems and treasures. Any way....that's what I've been doing on my free time!

This rheumatology consult month has been pretty busy. Last Friday I didn't leave the hospital until 6:30pm and most days I leave at 5pm. So because my time is spent in the hospital more, I actually met some of my friends back from med school! I'm just glad that I still have a few friends here.

Record Heat

Man! Was it hot in Ohio this weekend!?! It was 90 degrees yesterday and 91 degrees today. Tomorrow it's gonna be 90 degrees again. I was told that this weekend we broke the record from 1951. It's currently 10pm and still 77 degrees outside. I actually like hot weather rather than cold. So I hope this means a warmer winter. I sure hate snow.

My mom is flying back to Taiwan tonight from LA. Looks like the remodeling is almost done at our apartment there.

Only 12 days before flying back to LA!

Trips

Hay! My mom plans on going back to Taiwan next Sunday to take care of some business. We had bought a home in Taipei some months back, but the remodeling process has taken a toll on our time and money. It seems like the remodeling is done, so my mom is going back to check it out. We plan on renting the place out in the near future.

In other news, I've been very home sick and I miss my girlfriend very much.....so I just bought a plane ticket to LA! The cheapest I can find is about $300+ for the weekend on Expedia. I'm flying to Ontario airport on 10/19 and returning to Columbus on 10/22 morning (red eye flight). I'm gonna bring lots of food back!

Dubai photos are up!

My girlfriend has added a few photos from her trip to Dubai. The place looks pretty amazing. I didn't know it was a developed resort area. Looks like a good place for a vacation, but she says it's still very hot over there. I bet half of the year the temperatures are in the 100's. Also seems like things are pretty pricy there. Go check out her photos. I think she looks great in the dress in the photo to the right. I thought it was a black dress, but it's dark brown. Any way, you are one sexy babe, sweetie!

New to Blog!

Wow this month is winding down pretty fast, eh? Pretty soon I’ll start my first consult month in October. It’s supposed to be pretty busy, but nothing like residency. I still have weekends off, so that’s a plus. Easy months do pass by fast.

In other news school started for the OSU campus last week. There were lots of students moving into the apartment complex. So last week was extra loud. Things quieted down already, looks like people are back to studying.

Other than that, it’s still pretty hot and boring over here. A few friends of mine were saying they’re going to visit St. Louis sometime in fall, so I may go there for a visit. There’s no holiday in October, so I’m already counting down the days to Thanksgiving (60 days left)!