Doh

I'm pretty sure that BandAid's stock value is rising in direct proportion to how often I cook dinner for myself.

Hollywood Hills Hike

A few weeks back I signed up (through the Outdoors Club) for a game of ultimate frisbee at Lake Hollywood Park. Everything around here seems to be in a relatively famous area, for example: when I was growing up I played softball at Bayshore Little League - this doesn't have quite the same ring to it as the Beverly Hills Little League, but it really isn't all that different if you think about it. Cities name things (hotels, parks, little leagues) after geographic locations within the city (i.e. Bayshore and Beverly Hills) or after people that are important to the town in some way, it just so happens that the "stars" of Tampa, FL (i.e. H.B. Plant and Bayshore) are relatively unknown in other parts of the country/world whereas the stars of Los Angeles, CA (I don't think you need examples here) are famous everywhere. So it is easy to see how people who live in Los Angeles become desensitized to their surroundings, the wow factor that comes with driving on Sunset Boulevard for the first time declines significantly if you take that road to work everyday. I don't think that this makes them 'too cool', it makes them human - somebody has to live here! That being said, I have not reached that point. I am still tickled by the fact that about 75% of all movies, TV shows, songs and tabloids are talking about, referring to or based around people and places IN MY TOWN. It is awesome. So when I signed up for the game of ultimate frisbee I was not only excited to see if they have heard of 'The Cup' on the west coast, I was excited that I was going to get to spend my Saturday morning driving through the Hollywood Hills (maybe Will Ferrell would be outside getting his morning paper) on my way to Lake Hollywood Park. It turned out that all the stars and starlets were still tucked away in bed that morning but when I finally arrived at the park I got out of my car and found myself looking up at the Hollywood sign! Apparently, I was the only one impressed by this since it was not listed anywhere in the description of the event or in the directions to the park (that would have made finding the place far easier "just drive towards the giant white letters on the hill") and it was only mentioned once in passing throughout the course of the game ("your end-zone is between that trash can and the second "L"). For those of you who don't know, the sign originally read "HOLLYWOODLAND" and its purpose was to advertise a new housing development in the hills above the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. It was erected in 1923 and was not intended to be permanent but after the rise of the American cinema in Los Angeles it became an internationally recognized symbol and was left there. Throughout the years letters have fallen down, been knocked down, deteriorated, etc. The "LAND" portion of the sign was eventually removed to spell "HOLLYWOOD" and reflect the city, not the Hollywoodland housing development. The sign is located on the southern side of Mount Lee in Griffith Park and while there are many good viewpoints of the sign, it is no longer open to the public because it became such a frequent target of pranks and vandalism. Supposedly, in 2000 the LAPD installed a security system featuring motion detection and closed-circuit cameras... approaching the sign any closer than 50 yards activates an alarm and the police are called.

The alarm and the police are a myth as far as I'm concerned. After that game of ultimate frisbee I asked how close you could actually get to the sign (I'm guessing we were about a half mile away) and one of the guys told me that the best way to get there was through Griffith Park. My plan was to hike as close as possible (50 yards apparently) and then get a good picture for you. When I started my hike I could see the sign clearly with an obnoxious radio tower right above it. So the object of the rest of the afternoon was to get as close as possible to that radio tower. I did this LEGALLY through a combination of fire roads and foot paths in Griffith Park. It was almost surreal to be hiking through the brush and then come to a ridge and find yourself looking out over downtown LA. I (with pepper-spray always close at hand, mom) only met three other hikers all afternoon although I did see plenty others off in the distance including quite a few horseback riders. I knew when I was getting close (I had to approach from the back so I couldn't really see the sign until I came around the hill right behind it)
because I could hear helicopter tours flying by the sign about every five minutes. I never saw any signs indicating that I was somewhere I shouldn't be until I got right up close and read one affixed to the back of the "H" (a weak attempt if you ask me) and all that said was that vandals would be prosecuted, I was not vandalizing so I had nothing to worry about! I did have to jump one teeny tiny fence to get there, but again there were no signs on the fence and there was a clear path on the other side of the fence beckoning to me, telling me that not only am I not the first one with this idea, but there are enough other people with my idea to keep a nice grass-free path beaten down. In my defense I had not heard of the whole alarm and police within 50 yards thing until I googled it for this post but all in all it was a good workout, a good test of my mountaineering skills and well worth the (very minimal) risk involved ;)

UCLA - CTICU

Ahhhh I'm busy... our month of CardioThoracic Intensive Care Unit (CTICU) classes ends this week and I can't decide if I am more nervous or more excited about the prospect of finally working on the floor! I have worked three shifts on the unit so far but the vast majority of my (and the other new hires') time over the past month has been spent in lectures learning about what we can expect to see in our patient population on the unit and how we are expected to monitor and care for them. Our final exam is this Thursday: it is three hours long, it is all short answer/free response and we have to pass with a 90% to officially start working on the floor full time. One of the things they keep drilling into us is that you have to know and use your support system when you are on the floor because there are always going to be things that come up at work that scare/overwhelm you and getting help from your coworkers is the only way that you (and your patients) will survive! Today at the end of class they showed us this video from the CTICU's Christmas/holiday party this past December. It was made by the unit's 'Spirit and Enrichment Committee' and it chronicles the experience you have as a new hire in the CTICU. In the beginning of the video you see pictures of the last three or four new hire "classes" (I call them that for lack of a better term, they are the last three or four groups of nurses that went through orientation on the unit - we just took our picture today so we aren't in there yet!). Then you see us in class (look for the giant three-inch binders!), learning how to work different machines and taking the test. Then you get to see pictures of the unit, the current staff and the rooms, patients and some of the procedures. You see how we prep a room for a patient coming up from surgery, and all the different drips and monitors we have to manage... it is crazy, our patients are the sickest of the sick! Like I was saying before, they really stress how important it is for us to trust and rely on each other so the unit plans a lot of activities for us to do together outside of work (like have holiday parties), you get to see some of this at the end of the video. Anyways, I thought it was a good way to show you what I've been up to and to give you an idea of why I haven't been posting much lately ;)

Here is the video's description on YouTube: "Here at UCLA's Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit (CTICU), we take care of pre-op and post-op Adult Heart Transplants, Pediatric Heart Transplants, Bilateral Lung Transplants, Single Lung Transplants, Heart and Lung Transplants, Aneurysm Repair, Dissections, CABGs, Valves, Pediatric Congenitals such as Tetralogy of Fallot, Atresias, Single Ventricles, DORVs, Norwoods, Glenns, Transpositions, ECMO, Balloon Pumps, VADS, Thoratecs, Abiomeds, Heartmates... Life in the CTICU is fast-paced and never quite the same, but that's just the way we like it. We work hard and we work together as a team... we're a good group, dedicated to giving the highest quality care to our patients."

Making Maple Syrup...well sugar really

Spring Break 2008

I think this picture pretty much sums up Kacy, Patti and Elaine's trip to LA. Their flight arriving late and then us rushing off to the House of Blues set the tone for the rest of the trip. Remember that Julie was still in town for the first couple days after they arrived, so The 1606 went from housing two people and three pieces of furniture to housing six people and half of the furniture departments at both Target and Pier One. Add to this the fact that I was spending eight hours a day at the hospital and then instead of coming home and studying (boring) we sampled many of the local restaurants and bars and you can see how it was madness. But it was fun madness. I miss you girls already and Elaine, you will be happy to know that I have gotten multiple text messages from your Taco Tuesday admirer and I think he is almost as excited as I am that you will be moving here ;)

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Today I figured out how to get holidays to show up on my iCal... lucky for me, I happened to be wearing a green shirt anyway this past Monday so when I got a text message from mom asking if I remembered to wear green (thats right... she can text!) I promptly took a bathroom break from our lecture, took this picture on my phone and sent it to her! Here we are later that night at Ques:

Room 2.0

I have a new found appreciation for everything that goes into decorating a house/apartment/room... Kayla and I came to L.A. with basically nothing, and we really hadn't improved upon the situation (aside from the floral couch and emerald green chairs - thank you very much to kayla's grandma) until Julie arrived. Its not that I hadn't tried, I just didn't know where to begin! I couldn't un-pack until I had a dresser so that I knew what I was going to need to store in the closet and under the bed, and I couldn't pick out a dresser without picking out a desk and a bed because they had to match and I couldn't pick out a duvet cover because I didn't know what anything else in my room was going to look like! Are you getting the picture? It was overwhelming to say the least... then Julie arrived. One morning I left for class and the same afternoon I come home to FURNITURE! It was awesome.

SuperDiamond

Kacy, Elaine and Patti arrived in LA on the 8th... they were supposed to land around 1pm but after a crazy day of weather and delays I ended up picking them up around 8pm. Since they were originally arriving in the late afternoon, we (Julie, Kayla and I) decided to surprise them with tickets to see a Neil Diamond cover band, called SuperDiamond, at the House of Blues in Hollywood that night. Their delayed arrival meant we were cutting it close so we ended up going straight from the airport to the House of Blues, they changed in the car while I drove (what troopers). The band was... interesting - I wish I could have taken some pictures (priceless) but cameras weren't allowed inside. Kacy, Elaine and Patti had been up since about 2am (LA time) so we sent them home early but Kayla, Julie and I stayed and had a great time singing 'Sweet Caroline' at the top of our lungs :) Here we are waiting for the valet:

Julie's Trip to LA and San Fran

My trip to CA was split between visiting Paige in LA and then visiting Steve, Brenda and the little ones in San Francisco. I started in LA with Paige. I went to help her get her new place set up, to show her some of my favorite LA spots and to help her buy some essentials for her apartment. We had a great week, including going to see "Superdiamond" a Neil Diamond cover band! Paige, Kayla and I were among the last people to leave the House of Blues that night. I went rollerblading everymorning on the beach and we had some great meals at my favorite LA restaurants. I then went up to see the SF Seligsons and the cuteness of Isabelle and Marshall in this video is more than I could ever explain in words!

Studying

LA Marathon

The LA Marathon was this past Sunday and I volunteered at the water/Gatorade station at mile 25. We were told to arrive at 7am but when I got there we had to wait to set-up until the 'bike tour' was done. I wish I had known about this bike tour beforehand! It turns out that they open up the course for a bike race on the morning of the marathon... I use the label 'race' loosely, as the vast majority of bikers were just out to take advantage of the street closings for a cool tour of LA which is something that I would definitely be interested in next year. Anyways, once the bikers were done we set up folding tables lining an entire block and then packed them with cups of water and Gatorade so that we wouldn't have to worry about filling once the race started. It was fun to see all the different groups go by (handicapped, pro men, pro women, mortal men, mortal women, etc) and it made me a little nostalgic for my cross-country days, but not so much so that I wanted to be racing - by the time the runners got to us they looked like they were more than ready to be done! The exception to that rule was the lead pack of runners, they flew by us at somewhere around a 5:20 minute mile pace - let me put that into perspective by saying that when I ran cross-country our races only lasted for THREE miles, my personal best time was 18 minutes 55 seconds... that would put me at about a 6:20 minute mile pace and you will just have to trust me when I say that no one would have described us as "graceful" by the end of a race ;) These guys (and girls!) were not only running much faster than we ever did, they were running more than EIGHT TIMES as far (26.2 miles)! And they made it look effortless! It was worth volunteering just to see them. Here is a picture of one of the leaders passing our water station:

Best Wishes!

john has had haircut issues lately as well...

Deja Vu