Reading In Bed

Here's a nice pic of Haley reading in bed. Please note the joy she is experiencing as she reads a book about outer space. When you are done being amused at her amusement, please turn your attention to the portrait of our dog, Gob, in the background.

Haley's New Camera

 
So, I got Haley a new camera for v-day (valentine's day, not to be confused with Vagina monologues day, also referred to as V-day). Unfortunately, the first one that was scheduled to arrive the day before v-day was stolen from UPS before it ever made it to our doorstep. Then newegg, who is normally incredibly efficient at shipping things out in a timely manner, didn't mail a new one out until Monday (after contacting them 3 times). To make a long story short, we now have the camera and it is cool. We went with the Canon SD1000 which is smaller than a pack of cigarettes. Here is a test shot of Haley cooking tonight.

In other news, did anybody else watch American Idol tonight and get left with the thought "ambiguous gender?" There were no fewer (and maybe more) than 3 dudes who I could have swore were females. Granted they sounded male, but all I could think of was that dude from youtube known for his ambiguity and as a staunch defender of Britney's honor. As intolerant as it may sound, I liked it better when we weren't bombarded by transgender people. Call me old fashioned, but I like it better when men act and look like men and women act and look like women.

Farming

Now that it's been in the upper 60's for a month and a half I decided a couple weekends ago to get the garden started up again. After hours of "researching" through google I came up with planting outside in raised rows. The past two weekend I (with Haley's help) have been preparing our backyard - including digging out more giant roots - I have the sore back to prove it). Additionally, I have quite the germinating setup going on in our office. If you can tell from the picture, I have two suspended fluorescent lights over a number of small peat pots with everything from tomatoes to peppers to black-eyed susan vines, to any herb you can thing of. The strange thing on the outside is one of those $2 reflective heating emergency blankets that you can buy in the camping section at Walmart. It does a great job at keeping the plants around 80 degrees in spite of the inside temperature of our house (thermostat currently set at 62 - though our house is around 72 due to the warm weather as of late).

I'll try to keep the blog updated with our garden progress. I am expecting big things to come out of the garden this year. Oh, and note the brilliant blossoming of our Peach tree. That thing has been blooming for two weeks now.

Multitasking

I don't know if any of you out there are like me where you will have a really good idea about something you want to blog about but then you forget it. I blame it on stuffing my head full of medical stuff that everything else slips out the back door. I've been trying to slowly make my way back into my blog here for a while, but life gets busy.

Anyway, even though I wasn't able to figure out what I was going to blog about I'll talk about Haley's computer. I recently upgraded her (yeah, the computer is female) to a total of 6gb of RAM, up from 2gb. That may seem excessive, but I'll tell you, if you do any kind of intense computing it is really nice. Right now I am popping this blog out, listening to music, updating my other website to Dreamweaver, editing photos to put on this blog, and I have a couple other programs open and my computer doesn't lag in the least. I am currently using up 70% of my RAM at 4278mb. I don't know how we ever got along with 2gb.

All this blogging reminded me of my original blog that I was gonna post. Here it is:

NEWEGG.COM: awesome company. I built Haley's entire computer from parts ordered through them (as well as hundreds of dollars of other miscellaneous computer upgrades through the years). They usually having things out the door and in your mailbox in 3 days. Not only is their service great, but they have competitive, if not the lowest, prices around. So, for Valentine's day I decided I was gonna buy Haley a new camera. She is getting more and more into blogging these days (haleystwocents.blogspot.com) and I figured she'd like to have pictures of her own to go on her blog. Also, with our frequent travels, I figure she may like to join in the photo fun (PS, we are heading back to Mexico this summer after the boards).

Anyway, back to my Newegg story. I order the camera on tuesday from them with a scheduled delivery day of Thursday. Then on Thursday, I get home from school and see a small box on the doorstep of our house. I pick it up and it is much lighter than I expected. I open it to find out they sent the memory card I ordered in a separate box. However, There is no camera or camera box in sight. I then go and check on the tracking number and am presented with the following: 02/14/2008 7:11 A.M. MERCHANDISE IS MISSING. UPS WILL NOTIFY THE SENDER WITH ADDITIONAL DETAILS. / ALL MERCHANDISE MISSING, EMPTY CARTON WAS DISCARDED. UPS WILL NOTIFY THE SENDER WITH DETAILS OF THE DAMAGE. I then contact Newegg (via online chat - their preferred method) and made them aware of the problem. I explain it was for valentines day and that I would appreciate it if they would overnight me another one. The guy on the other end said he would try but no guarantee. He also said he would email me to keep me updated.

Long story short, they didn't do anything else yesterday besides listen to me complain about how this was putting a hurt on my V-day plans. Today I did what I should have done yesterday - called them. After explaining the problem they are overnighting me a new one.

I don't know what the moral of this story is. Maybe it's that if you work for UPS you have access to cheap valentine's day presents for your girlfriend at the expense of another dudes plans to impress his own girlfriend (wife).

Oh, and the picture is one from this last Christmas on the beach in Navarre Fl, where my sister, Maria, lives.

countdown to step 1 of the boards

Just signed up. Here's the damage.

Coming Home

My BIL (brother in law) Marc got home from a deployment to Iraq yesterday. Apparently they made the local news.

60th post boo yah!

I thought I would post my current favorite internet video. If you don't think this is funny the first time, watch it again. then repeat. every time you watch it, it gets funnier. I recommend limiting your views of the video to 10x/day or you may not get anything else done.

Iran So Far Away: A Digital Short.

SNL - Iran So Far
Uploaded by Pfff

How To Build A Freakin Awesome Arbor For Under $130

Man, who has time to blog these days…seriously? I have so much to write about, but no time to do it. I have been making audio notes on my phone about things I want to write about. Maybe I'll get to them one day. Things like how Jesus passed me on the freeway coming home from Atlanta. Things like Fry-night with the Atlanta gang. Things like six flags and how I have totally forgotten how awkward teenagers are (and horny, for that matter)…Those things will have to wait.

This weekend, I (we) built an arbor in our backyard. We had been talking about making one for a while now. We were considering buying one already made from Lowe's for three hundred bucks. Luckily I was feeling ambitious and decided to build one from scratch.

With some rudimentary plans taken from various websites we set off to Lowes. 2 hours later and $130 poorer we left Lowe's with 2 bags of Quickcrete, a box of nails, a box of screws, a post-hole digger, and some wood: 4-4x4x10, 2-2x6x16, 2-1x6x10, and 2-2x4x10 (all pressure treated). I borrowed a screwdriver and jigsaw from a friend (thanks Will) and with the help of my hammer, table saw, and circular saw I was set.

So, the first hole was kind of a random one and the rest were also kind of eyeballed. It is really hard digging deep holes in this South Carolina clay (my forearms are killing me right now). Somehow in the end, the four poles ended up kind of straight and level and the thing actually looks like we put it in a good place in our back yard. I wouldn't recommend eyeballing it, especially when you are gonna use concrete to permanently put it in the ground, but it did work out for us.

Today, I laid down the top; cross beams and then the other crossbeams to go across the first cross beams (see picture). Then to finish it all off I put in a couple benches on the sides (again, see picture).

Basically, I think we got really lucky in eyeballing it. It kind of makes me want to build something else, but I doubt my next project would end up so good (ask Haley about past projects I have made – she'll never forget the original projector stand I made back in Utah).

Babysitting the kids

Babysitting the kids
Originally uploaded by Rob Egbert

Yeah, so Maria may not let me babysit her kids again anytime soon. Actually as I write this, Emma is wandering the house looking for her mom (in a surprisingly calm manner - knock on wood), Abby is watching Elmo, and John is in front of the computer playing a video game. I guess I can't criticize parents any more for letting technology raise their kids. It makes things so much easier.

I guess I have a long way to go before I am ready for kids of my own. Of course just being around Maria and Marc's kids fulfills any desire I may or may not have for hanging around children for the next couple years.

Navarre Sunrise

To start of my thanksgiving break, I decided to skip class and head down to Florida to spend some time with my sister and her kids while her husband, Marc, is over in Iraq. We are gonna head back up to Atlanta tomorrow to meet up with Haley and spend time with her family.

I was looking forward to doing a little fishing, but apparently there is a "red tide" right now down here in the gulf so I wasn't able to throw a line out. However, I was able to head out early this morning and snap off a couple pictures as the sun came up. Nothing like waking up at 5:00am while on vacation.

Workin It

fall colors
Originally uploaded by Rob Egbert

You ever feel like you study your life away? Neither do I. Though you'd probably think that I'd feel that way. Really, though, I probably don't study as much as I would work if I were working full time. It does suck when I have to study on weekends before a test, but for the most part med school isn't that bad. Pictured here are a handful of the books I would like to know inside and out before I take the boards this next summer.

In other news, today in class someone asked what the difference is between a "string sign" on barium enema of Crohn's disease and an Omphalocele. I fully realized that nobody who reads this blog will get why that is funny, but trust me, it is. Really funny. It was asked by the guy who always asks random, non-relevant questions. I'm pretty sure that today's question topped them all, though.

Another guy asked how it was possible to see through cancer with an X-ray. I was the only person around me who thought it was funny, which surprised me because isn't the answer obvious? Cancer isn't lead. It is like other bodily tissues. X-rays pass through all kinds of body tissues, why not cancer? You can see through cancer on X-ray the same way you can see through skin, muscle, organs. I mean, isn't that the point of x-rays? to see through things to get at what is underneath? Of course you can look through cancer.

I am by no means smarter than your average med school student. But sometimes when I listen to other people's questions in class my ego gets boosted ever so slightly.

Gob with the sneak attack

DSC_0621
Originally uploaded by Rob Egbert

Gob's new favorite way to try and eat our food. he is quite the crackhead. (PS, haley didn't give in).

Really?

Wow. This story is amazing. What is wrong with us? We want to hear about people's little domestic spats? This is the most mundane story in the world about a dad who is mad at a mom because he doesn't think she disciplines the children very well. Why would that make national news? Why does anyone care about this story?

I can't believe this is a story worth writing up and I can't believe that I have now blogged about it.

Gob vs. Snake

snake - ai
Originally uploaded by Rob Egbert

After rocking my test on monday (see previous entry) I took Gob out hiking in Modoc, SC. After we had been hiking for just under an hour, job was slightly ahead of me wandering back and forth along the trail. All of the sudden, I see little Gobby fly about 6 feet into the air, apparently scared to death. Apparently, this little guy had taken a lunge at him (pretty sure it bit him). I then took a half dozen pictures of him while Gob barked and barked and barked. The snake was less than intimidated. As we walked back to the car, I kept a tight eye on Gob, looking for signs of poison (I am far from proficient in identifying snakes). He seemed fine, if not a little shooken up from having the crap scared out of him. I later found out it was the "black rat snake," quite harmless. Sure made the hike interesting though.

Whoop whoop (cop siren)

MCG Buildings-6ai
Originally uploaded by Rob Egbert

Haley asked me to take some pictures for the cover of the MCG telephone directory (yeah, the major one that gets sent out to thousands of people). Excited to get my photography out there, I jumped on opportunity. I wanted to get a really good shot of some of the buildings on campus and decided to go out early to get either a night shot or early morning sunrise shot. So, picture me standing out on the corner of the "busiest" intersection on campus: Where Laney Walker Blvd. meets 13th street. It is 6:00am and I have my tripod pointed at the MCG cancer center (pictured here) and begin taking pictures. Not three shots later, a black and white came screetching across 4 lanes of traffic (well, more like 4 lanes, no traffic - it is really early), flying onto the curb in front of me. Of course I smell some harassment coming on, but continue to take pictures. The cop gets out of his car, I explain what I am doing, he asks for some ID (which of course I didn't need because it is lawful for anybody, let alone a student of the institution to take a picture). I show him my ID and it should be over, right? Well, he then proceeds to call it in, then call every other cop on duty, then the local chief on duty, and then the head chief that wasn't on duty. I then point out to him that anybody can take a picture of anything in public at any time and that he was, in my mind, harassing me. He then said something about security and a post-9/11 world. I let him know that I understood, but by showing him my ID, I should be good (even without an ID, I should be good). He then proceeded to ask me questions for a half hour. Yes, a half hour. Interspersed in this half hour, they guy repeatedly made phone calls asking people what he should do with "this kid." I was very tempted to just walk away at this time, knowing full well that I had every right to do so. Better yet, I should have continued to take pictures and ignore him - but I didn't want to provoke him. Oh, and officer Barbara (yeah, real name, and yeah, it was a dude) wasn't the brightest star out that morning. He had to repeatedly ask me what group I was taking the picture for, even when he had it written down in front of him. He had previously asked me the same question 3 times. I ended up having to make a couple phone calls on my own in order to get a name of some faculty on campus who would back me up. This guy was an idiot. When he was finally satisfied, he left me with a parting message "hey, buddy, at the end of the day I got a job to do just like you." Thanks, officer Barbara, for that deep thought. You still harassed me for a half hour over nothing.

I really think it may have had something to do with my slightly darker skin. I wanted to tell him that I descended from the same Northern European ancestry that he did, but I didn't want to push my luck.

p.s. this isn't the picture we are using, but it is my favorite.

perspective

stars
Originally uploaded by Rob Egbert

haley and I went to look at stars the other night. sometimes, after you've been studying for about 10 or 11 days straight, it is nice to pull your head out of your dark tunnel and look up. At the end of the day, studying and test taking don't really matter. Oh, and by the way, I rocked that test in to the middle of next week.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

JibJab

Man vs. High Tide

Sunday, September 30, 2007
10:41 PM

Friday afternoon. Big test. Done at 11:00. The plan? Go fishing in the ocean to celebrate. Drag the wives down to Savannah for a day of fun in the sun. Get to Savannah around 1800. Dinner at local fish house followed by stop at Basspro shops.

2 sinkers
1 large bopper
5-pack assortment of swimbaits
1 pack of BPS supershad III fake minnows
3-way swivel

2 hours later I am sleeping, dreaming of the next day's events.

We had been planning on going down to Savannah for some time. Recently, my study mates and I have taken up fishing. Every Saturday morning for the past two months or so, we have spent down on the river trying to catch largemouth bass or large stripers. Though we have technically caught largemouth (I even caught a random member of the Pike family, the Chain Pickerel), We have been disappointed by the smallness of the fish and by the amount of time it takes us to pull in 2 or maybe 3 fish.

Discouraged by our bad luck/inadequacies as fishermen, we decided it was time to try something else. Garrett lives down in Savannah and we heard there are some good inlets down there you can take your canoe/kayak to and catch some serious ocean fish. And so we headed down.

5:30am rolled around pretty early, having gone to bed around 1:00 the night before (as well as every night for the past week or so--we did have a test on Friday). We stopped at a bait shop to pick up a casting net and a minnow bucket, which eventually saved the day…

We put in at the fishing dock at the inlet to the "Back River" between Tybee and Little Tybee islands. We had heard from numerous people that the fishing is awesome there and canoes/kayaks are more than sufficient to get your way around. We had also heard from both the Basspros and the bait shop owner that it was really windy out and that Saturday was to have the largest tide of the year (9+ feet). Not to be discouraged, we testosteroned our way out into the sea.

At first the waves were a little choppy, but appeared innocent enough that we lulled ourselves into a false sense of security. About halfway across the 1000 yard+ channel the wind really started to pick up as did the incoming tide. The current got real strong and the waves got really choppy. The only thing more amazing than the fact that we didn't capsize is the fact that there was hardly any water in the boat after we finally did make it to the other side. We gradually made our way around the island, looking for a cut to go in between the different waterways. All around us was tall grass that seems to thrive in the brackish water of the incoming and outgoing tide. As we navigated our way through the grasses, we quickly realized that we would need some calmer water if we were going to be able to get a cast out, let alone catch any fish. Unfortunately, we spent the better part of the next 5 hours navigating our way through rough water, fast wind, and few fish (which means we saw a few fish and caught none).

After rowing for a couple hours, we made our way around the island and somehow made it back to the main channel separating the two islands. The water looked even worse than before, with increased wind and this time the water was going out, the tide having peaked and switched about an hour previous. Tying down all our equipment and taking a well-earned rest, we chilled in the tall grasses on the edge of the channel. Luckily the ride to the other side was much better than we built it up to be.

Once on the other side, we hugged the shore and I decided to get out of the boats and try my new toy out. As I awkwardly cast the monofilament/nylon/lead net out into the water, I felt weak and defeated. Then, to my astonishment, I managed to catch a tiny minnow. I repeated the throwing of the net only to catch a shrimp. Encouraged, I continued to cast that net out into the water until I had about a dozen shrimp. Justin and Garrett also got in on the action and within about a half hour we filled our little minnow bucket up with shrimp.

We then headed back to the pier to meet up with our ladies for lunch. As we enjoyed our footlongs from Subway, we mulled over strategies to hunt our elusive water-prey. Luckily the ladies didn't mind us going back out and we decided we would meet up with them later for dinner. Now encouraged with our live shrimp for bait, we once again set out. Though the shrimp rigs proved heavy for our small rods and reels, we managed to get a couple good casts out there. I even had fish on my line on 3 different occasions, but unfortunately I have been fishing for bass too long and tried to set the hook before the fish managed to ingest my entire bait. You can imagine how excited I finally was to actually feel a fish tub on the end of my line and you can probably also imagine my letdown when I didn't pull them in. Such is life.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention all the dolphins while we were out there. At one point, we were fishing in between some docks when a dolphin came within about 5 feet of our canoe. It scared the living crap out of us and this giant fishlike thing rose and then lowered back into the water. It was the last thing we were expecting and seriously, it gave me quite the startling. We continued to have dolphins swim all around us for a good part of the day as we went in and out of the channels.

So, yeah, we still suck at fishing. However, we did manage to get back with a bucket full of the freshest shrimp any of us had ever had. We fried it up plain in a little butter and it was good. Very good. Than, after paddling sunup to sundown (quite literally) I got a really good night's rest. It was awesome.

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Studying really sucks! I support healthy wrists.