Happy Birthday To Me!

I'm sure all of our blog fans are feeling very informed about the events in Tim's life, but they are probably left wondering "where is Cami?" I'm sure it is quite obvious that I am not as committed to blogging as Tim is...I think he should be given the award for "Blogger of the Year". Yes, it was my birthday this past week and I am now 25 years old, but after going to a church dance last night I feel like I'm 17 again. I felt really sorry for the teenage boy who asked me to dance and I had to tell him I was there as a chaperone.

But back to my birthday. Spending your birthday at work is pretty lame, except for the part when all of your nice co-workers take you out to lunch. After work we went to Tim's intramural flag football game. While I was there I was surprised when my sister Wendy & her family showed up. They live about 40 minutes away from us but this is the first time they've driven up to see us. A few minutes later my parents also showed up (another surprise). It was fun to hang out with them and pretend to watch Tim play football, except for my Dad who really was watching Tim play.

After Tim's team won, my parents took us out to dinner at a Thai restaurant in Davis. And of course a birthday dinner with the parents would not be complete without Sean there. In fact, more and more these days, any dinner isn't complete without Sean being there. My birthday present this year was an entertainment center. I have been wanting one for a long time so I am really excited that we finally got it. It makes our apartment seem so much homier, if that is a real word. So in conclusion is was another great birthday.

Speaking of birthdays, my mom just turned 60 on Sept. 28th. For my dad's 60th a few years ago, we all surprised him and went to Disneyland. This set a precedent for my mom's 60th. Since my mom loves dolls and grandkids we decided to combine the two and take her to the new American Girl Doll store in Los Angeles. So after a lot of lying and pretending we got her down there along with the whole family minus Brent & his fam. Part of the American Girl experience was a lunch in a room decorated with bright pink Gerber daisies and lots of black & white stripes. Tim thought it was a little over the top, but I thought it was actually pretty cute. My mom sat at one table with all of the little kids and I think it was probably the happiest moment of her life. Tim says he's convinced my mom's corner of heaven will be decorated the exact same way.

The rest of the weekend was spent at the beach and admitting Monty Magleby (my brother in-law) to the hospital. He ending up staying there for about a week, but we still don't know what he had. It was seriously like an episode of House, only nobody solved the case at the end.

Sweet Sweet Fantasy Baby

Last night, at precisely 8:45 pm the Yahoo! Fantasy Basketball season officially kicked off, when Jeff Tolsma and his Rock N Roll Ballers chose LeBron James with the first choice of the 2006 draft. For the past two years, my college buddies and I have all competed in a fantasy NBA league. I won the whole thing the first year with my team The Mannschaft and then took second place last year (due to some rather dubious tactics that have since been banned) with my team Bad Medicine. This year, I have chosen the moniker The Rod of Asclepius and intend on continuing my league domination.

This year, instead of doing an automated draft, we decided to go ahead with the live-draft format. Essentially, all 12 teams take turns filling up a 13 man roster. You have 90 seconds to make a choice or the computer picks "the best available player." Unfortunately, I was randomly assigned the 12th pick of the draft, which put me at a slight disadvantage amongst my peers. My draft was highlighted by picking winners like Chris Bosh and Ray Allen, but also some real questionable gus like Erick Dampier (I had to scrape the bottom of the barrel in some of those later rounds). I will admit, though, live drafting was pretty intense. Since I was the last pick, I got to have 2 picks in a row. That meant I only had 3 minutes to check ESPN's official fantasy rankings, take a look at players overall stats from last year, and choose two players without running out of time. It was all quite stressful, and I think Cami was laughing the whole time in the background, but I can't be sure since I was in the zone and couldn't be distracted.

Fantasy sports have been a great way to keep in touch with a lot of my college buddies. There is always plenty of trash talking and controversy. Everyone gets hypercompetitive and invariably someone offends someone else, then we all have to choose sides and argue about who was right and who is being stupid... and it just reminds you that, though you love your old roomates, it's good to know that you don't have to live with them anymore. Anyway, every year I obsess over NBA statistics and waste valuable hours staring a computer screen full of numbers and percentage signs. Cami thinks I'm crazy and claims that if I devoted the half the amount of time to something else, like the stock market, we'd be bazillionaires. She's probably right.

PS Happy Birthday Cami!

The Interview

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is that time of year again. Every year, medical schools across the country are flooded with thousands of applications for admission. Annually thousands of students nationwide entrust their goal of becoming a doctor to an arbitrary committee which wields the power to ultimately determine whether or not certain students may pursue their dreams. Because I want to have a say in the future of medicine (and because UCD offers free lunches to those who participate) I have aligned myself with "The Powers That Be" and have enlisted to interview medical school applicants. Indeed, I have become the Man.

Over 4000 students apply to UCD every year. Of those 4000, only 400 will be extended an invitation to interview for the 92 available spots. That means 97.7% of those who apply to Davis end up doing something somewhere else. The numbers are intimidating for even the most qualified applicants. Add to that the actual monetary cost of applying (I think Cami and I spent $2000 on interviews and application fees) and you start to understand just how taxing the whole process can be. So, anyway, I signed up to be a student interviewer for all of the applicants coming into Davis and had my first interview today.

The interrogation or should I say "interview" took place in Scrubs Cafe. Actually, looking back, my jokes about using bamboo shoots at the beginning of the interview probably weren't so funny, considering that the guy is an Afghani refugee whose family fled the Taliban (yeah, that Taliban) in the 1980's.

Despite that minor indescretion, I think the interview acutally went really well. That is, until Sean (who discretely snapped this photo from across Scrubs Cafe) and Fernando walked up in the middle of the interview to ask me how it felt to have to repeat my first year of medical school. At least, that's what they were planning on doing, until I introduced them to my applicant as two guys who were flunking out of medical school. I think my Spidey-Senses must have warned me that something was amiss and I needed to deliver a pre-emptive strike.

Like I said, the interview went pretty well. Now I have to decide whether or not to reccomend the guy for admission. It is kind of weird to think that I hold this man's fate in my hands. I am the one to decide if his childhood dream finally comes to fruition. Well, ok, I don't pull that kind of weight around here. In fact, I'll be lucky if my recommendation is even considered by the real powers that be. And, as difficult as this little dose of responsibility is to handle, I am having a harder time justifying my acceptance into school now that I know there were guys like this running around.

Tim

Ain't Nothing Like A Bowl Of Fruity Pebbles

The other day we invited Sean over for dinner. Sean comes over for dinner a lot these days. He recently moved into our apartment complex and is one of the politest mooches you could ever hope to meet. We have a good time when he's around and we were sitting around chatting when Cami and I got that rumbly in the tumbly that could only be satisfied with some sugar cereal. So we all hopped in the car and drove down to the grocery store to buy a box of Lucky Charms, Fruity Pebbles and Cookie Crisp. Quite possibly the three most delicious cereals known to man (and, according to the box, an excellent source of fiber!).

We were walking up our stairs to our apartment complex when we bumped into our neighbors Evan and Ethan. Ethan turned four on Tuesday and Evan is his hard working Dad. Evan was looking a little tired, so we invited Ethan to our Sugar Cereal Party, giving Evan some well deserved rest with his wife and two week old baby. It took Evan about .342 seconds to think the suggestion over before he consented, so we all headed into our apartment and sat down at our table for a sugary treat.

I sat down and poured Ethan a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. The kid was psyched to get his mouth on some of that fruity goodness. Just as I was about to pour the milk into the bowl, we heard a pounding on the front door. It was Evan, who just remembered that his kid has some sort of allergy to artificial dyes (the kind of stuff Pebbles are chalk full of). He had in his hand a box of All Natural, Organic Rice Krispies and suggested we feed Ethan that instead. So I had to take Ethan's Fruity Pebbles out from under his salivating mouth and pour him some Rice Krispies instead. I felt like I was literally stealing candy from a baby. We all felt bad eating Lucky Charms in front of Ethan, so we kind of hid our bowls behind the cereal boxes and ate while Ethan just sort of stared at us longingly while slowly munching on his whole grain treat. Somehow, I think organic cereal sort of defeats the purpose of a sugar cereal party.

I considered giving him a bowl of Cookie Crisp because it didn't contain any artificial dyes, but I am glad I decided against it becase for the next 20 minutes or so Ethan was climbing up the wall. He found some rolls of wrapping paper and started using them as a light saber. After that, he "played" video games (ie held the controller in his hand and yelled while the TV was on). Shortly after that, he started run laps around the room, pulling DVDs off the bookshelf talking a million miles an hour. He went nuts when he found our vaccuum cleaner. I think at one point smoke was coming out his ears, but I can't be sure. I shudder to think what he might have done with some sugar in his tank.

Fortunately for us, Evan came to pick up his little tornado before I was tempted to tie the kid down and dangle him from the balcony. In any case, the sugar cereal party was a hit, I just don't think we'll be having another one anytime soon.