What I Did on a 4-Day Home Call

Happy Thanksgivings! I didn't go anywhere because I am on home call. My call month will end in about 6 hours. It sucks to spend a 4-day weekend alone. Both of my collegues drove home. One of them actually have 5 days off because of a cancelled clinic on Wednesday. This weekend I end up going to the hospital twice. Both are for non-emergent consults, and one of which turned out to be idiotic.

Any way, because I have nowhere to go, I did do all of my shopping online. I find price comparison online is much more efficient and often you can save on taxes. I can also avoid the crowds by shopping online. I noticed Amazon and other places started having a mark-down starting 12am Thursday. So I did my shopping all on Thursday. I only bought a couple of things. My girlfriend is getting me the Apple iPod Touch 32GB!!! Finally I can get rid of my old Palm TX.

I also watched the movies Untraceable and Pineapple Express. I like Untraceable - it's almost like the Saw movies, but less gruesome, better plot, and more suspense. Pineapple Express is a waste of time and not even funny. It's about pot smoking junkies who witnessed their drug dealer commit a murder.

In my other spare times this weekend I thought I'd do something with my spare Lego parts. With what I have available I decided to build an excavator powered by pneumatics! It's my original creation, and it took a lot of trial and error. I'm still missing a few parts, especially the pneumatics components. I have those parts on order and once I get them it'll be as simple as hooking up all the hoses, 4 switches, 1 pump and 4 cylinders. This also has a homemade air tank to store compressed air! I made the tank out of a small shampoo bottle. I'll post more photos once it's complete.

It'll be 3 weeks before my vacation. My mom will return to LA tomorrow. It seems like whatever needs to be taken care of in Taiwan has been done.

Passed ABIM Exam!

It's been a while since my last post, haven't it? I guess I was more busy than lazy during the last month. First I found out that I have passed the ABIM exam! I had a feeling that I would pass it. I only slept a few hours the night before the test due to anxiety, but I felt prepared and the questions were similar to MKSAP 14. I'm glad I bought the book and CD series. I found MedStudy books to be inadequate for preparation.

Last month my aunt and grandmother came to LA to visit. But I wasn't able to meet my aunt in LA since her stay was only 2 weeks. I was able to meet my grandmother for a few days in late October.

From October 24-29 I went to San Francisco for the ACR annual scientific meeting. Yes, I was just there in September! This time the airfare and hotel were prepaid, so I spent a total of about $450 of my own money (to be reimbursed later). My girlfriend Ivy flew to SF again for the weekend. This time we were able to meet with a couple of her grad school friends and visit Alcatraz. It was my second time at Alcatraz! For some reason October weather is much warmer than September.

I then took an extra 2 days off and flew down to LA! That's when I was able to meet with my grandmother. My bro Fred came home for a dinner. The last time that I visited LA was the July 4th weekend. So I finally got to assess the earthquake damages in my room. Luckily there were only a few damaged toys. On Halloween night I went with Ivy to a huge Hollywood block party! Some of the costumes and clothes, or lack of, were outrageous! I went as a knight and Ivy went as a sexy nurse. Both of us got a few comments at the party! My next trip back to LA would be December holidays and we plan on a trip to Hawaii!

My mom and grandmother just flew back to Taiwan a few days ago. It sounds like there were some damage to our rental house from the summer typhoons. Here in Ohio, the last leaves are falling. No snow yet. Our temperatures are still in the 50's now (was 70's in the beginning of November), but I have started noticing more cloudy days.