Only a few days left!

Only Thursday and Friday left for me in Ohio! Sometimes it feels sad to leave, since Columbus is a pretty nice city without the traffic and pollution of LA. When I left Columbus after med school in 2004, I never thought I'd be back here again. Now with me starting work at Kaiser and putting my roots down in the West Coast, I think the chances of me coming back to Columbus is even less. What I will miss the most is the awesome bike trails that Columbus has. I will definitely not miss the snow in the winter and the humidity/rain in the summer.

Speaking of bike trails, I made another YouTube video. This is in slightly higher quality and the sun was out. There were clouds too, so some parts of the video go in and out of the shades.



Also the fireflies seem to be out earlier this year. I think it is probably because of all the rain that we had and the warmer spring. Here's a video of fireflies as viewed from my apartment window.



As you can tell, I'm liking my little Canon SD960 IS camera. The high-definition videos are pretty awesome.

As I wrap up my fellowship, I had the chance to go out to lunch at Max & Erma's at German Village with Heather, Snow, and Stacy (our new attending). It seems like the next year will bring new things to all of us.

I am still in the process of packing all my stuff in the apartment. Today I took all my shelves apart, packed my printer, clothes and bike equipments. Tomorrow, I will pack my computer, clothes, and kitchen and bathroom things. I'll end things up by cleaning the apartment. The movers will be here Friday. Also, it turns out that I can get a refund for the unused portion of my parking permit, so that's an extra $100 that I'll get back! Ivy's flying in Friday night and we'll stay at a local hotel since my room will be completely empty by then. We should drive out at about 8am.

Bike Video

I made a bike video! I made it using the Canon SD960 IS on RAM mount. The video is composed of clips from about 20 minutes of bike ride. I rode for more than 1 hour, so this was just a taste of what I saw on the trail. I chose a day where there was not a lot of people on the trail so I could go faster. It was overcast and I shot the video in regular definition. When we have more sunny days, I'll make another video, this time in high definition.




I'm one week from my drive back to LA!

School's Out...

...at least for OSU students. Graduation was yesterday. Today a bunch of U-Hauls showed up at our apartment. Pretty soon it'll be my turn to move!

Last week I was the preceptor for 10 medical students for their ICM course for 2 days. It went pretty well, and I hope they learned something from me. Then last weekend I got certified for advanced cardiac life support. It was easier than I remembered. I guess having some experience at USC made it much easier. It does suck to spend 14 hours in the weekend for it and the certification only lasts 2 years.

Now that I got those out of the way, next is a bunch of paperwork. My program director told us that we need to audit other fellow's charts to make sure documentation is complete. I got that taken care of today. Then today we were informed that we need to turn in 10 patient satisfaction surveys. I could probably do that in the week, even though my patient load is much less now. The problem is for Heather to complete that, since she only has 2 days left here. Also, I'm initiating my pension withdrawal/transfer. It looks like I have to make a visit to human resources to get the paperwork completed. After that's done, Kaiser Permanente also has some paperwork for me to complete. The paperwork just don't stop!

I haven't even started packing anything yet. I think, first I have to decide what stuff I want to bring along in my car and what stuff I'll ship with United Van Lines. I'll probably spend the next 10 days just packing stuff. I need to make sure I do my laundry on the day before the move and to end my internet and electric services. I need to call OSU parking to see if there's a refund for the unused portion of the parking permit. I need to turn in my OSU keys and pager. There's also a move-out checklist to complete for my apartment. I have to turn in the keys and ID card to get my security deposit back.

In the meantime I continued to ride my bike when it's not raining. I'm a bit over 700 miles now. Ohio has been having a lot of rain and storms and I wouldn't ride in those. The next 2-4 days could be my rest day because of storms. I did get some ride in today. I picked up my pace now to 18-22 mph on the flats. It's been a while since any one passed me on the bike path. I think I'm getting up there now. The bad part is that now almost every day I have muscle pain (kind of like before when I would run 5 miles every day), so rest days are definitely needed for a couple of days per week.

Today, toward the end of my 18.5 mile loop, I caught up to a person riding his bike at a pretty good speed. He was wearing regular T-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes. When he saw me tailing, he picked up his speed to average of 20 mph, which is about my speed. I drafted for a couple of miles and, boy, that made my muscles much better! At a stop light, he looked back and said, "Hi." I looked at him, and replied, "Good day for a ride, huh?" Then I realized he's quite young, and he told me he's 15 years old! Half my age! Well, I told him that he's doing pretty good for a teenager. He said he hopes to get biking outfits like those I was wearing, which made me feel a little better.

Columbus has more sun than LA!

2 more days 'till LA! I just realized that in Columbus, we actually get about 1 more hour of day time than LA. Our sunset is currently 8:56pm while LA sunset is 7:56pm. That's why when Ivy visited she wondered why there was still light outside at almost 9pm. How cool is that? It's not summer solstice yet, but Alaska is already having 24 hours of sun.

I've stepped up my cycling a little bit by doing about 18.5 miles 5-6 days per week (depending on weather). I'm close to 600 miles on my bikes. I got rained on pretty hard today again, and I was riding extra fast just to get home. I got dirt and water spray all over my bike and along my back all the way up the helmet. The tires are amazingly grippy even on the wet pavement. When I visit LA this weekend I'll be bike-less for 5 days. I hope I don't get deconditioned that fast. Also it seems like my bro Jack has gotten into road bike too. He just got a bike just like mine.

Want to ride with Lance Armstrong? In August, there's a bike ride for cancer sponsored by OSU Medical Center (http://www.pelotonia.org/). They offer 25-180mile rides. I believe you need to commit to raise $1000-$2000 depending on the distance. You can get sponsored by companies or friends so you don't pay that money out of your own pocket. But the interesting thing is that those involved will get to ride with Lance Armstrong! Too bad I won't be here by then.

There's so much to do this month: study for ACLS, preceptor for ICM courses for medical students, fill out pension withdrawal forms, pack some stuff for the big move, and complete my apartment check-out lists.