Mountain Sound

So Allison and I just returned from a very much needed vacation.  We decided to forgo going home for Christmas to visit family and friends because it is always hard to decide how to divvy up our time and we usually feel that we just disappoint those we love because we are not able to spend more time with them.  Instead we used our hard-earned non-existent cash to go to Breckenridge, CO and these are the things I learned from our vacation (good ol’ list style). 

·      I really love skiing.  I know this is kind of a ‘no duh’ statement but I realized just how much I have missed it while out there and this just reinforced how badly I want to get back to Minnesota for residency so that I can go more often.  Also living in Arizona for the last 2 years may have been one of the worst ideas of my life (this was also just reinforced).

·      I am incredibly out of “skiing shape.”  You may be thinking, ‘well of course you are Justin, I’ve been watching you balloon to close to 200 lbs the past couple of years.’  Well to that I know and over the past couple of months I had been working really hard on it.  I actually was up to biking 75-100 miles a week and I wasn’t having any problems with endurance.  What I kept running in to was that within an hour of skiing my feet would start cramping horribly and I would have to take a break or ski a run with my boots undone.  This lead to me researching this problem and finding strengthening exercises for my feet.  Hopefully next year when I get to go skiing again I will not have this problem.

·      I need to go skiing with my old HS friends more.  I love my wife dearly and I love spending time with her more than anything but unfortunately at this time she is not at the skill level to try any run on the hill.

·      That being said I really think it would be awesome next year or the year after to get a group of friends together to go out west to go skiing.  We could either get a couple hotel rooms or better yet rent a bigger condo or house.  It would be an awesome time to go skiing (or snowboarding if you wanted to be that way) with my friends and to spend the nights drinking and going out on the time with them.

·      Breckenridge, CO is an amazing little ski town.  There is a ton of restaurants, bars and things to do.  They also have a really good bus network that is free and once you get to downtown most of the things are walkable. 

·      Breckenridge is really up there.  They actually have the highest chairlift in North America and for the first time in my life I actually felt the effects of the thin air. 

·      I need new skis.  My lil Atomics are amazing to turn on a dime with and can hold an edge like none other but they really sink when I get in to any snow that is more than an inch deep.   Also I am having issues with my bindings.  It seems that my forward release on my left ski is jacked.  I tried turning the DIN up to 12 on it and I was still releasing once I put a couple pounds of forward lean on them.  If you have any suggestions on how to repair them (without buying new bindings) I would love to know. 

·      I also need a new ski bag.  I really want to find one that has a hard cover or bottom.  I had a really hard time lugging mine around the airport with skis on one end and dirty clothes on the other. 

·      Lastly, I have a new 10 year goal.  In 10 years I will have either purchased, in the process of purchasing or building a ski home.  Right now I have 5 places that I would really consider.  Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge, Sun Valley and Park City.  If I had to pick right now I think I would go with Breckenridge but I know that I may just have rose-tinted goggles on right now since I just had an amazing time there.  I do know a few things though it will have to have at least 2 bedrooms (probably more like 4) so that we can have guests and it also must have a hot tub.  I used to think that I would need it to be a condo since I really want a pool as well but after not entering the pool last week I know that is not a must anymore.  I also figured out that it doesn't have to be ski in/ski out (making the condo even less needed) and that I would have no problem driving 2-3 miles to get to the hill.

Ho Hey

I updated my blog all for Tony!!   Seriously though I will have some words of wisdom sometime soon.

BUT, I will respond to that article that you posted on facebook that I haven't actually read but can get the gist of from the title (and I initially was just gonna post this on FB but it kinda got long).

I really think that physicians should play an important part in battling the obesity epidemic in this country and should be actively helping their patient's to lose weight but at the same time this should just be one tool that people use to help them lose weight.  Blogs, nutritionists, work out plans/personal trainers and hopefully soon some better weight loss medications and surgeries should all be used as well though and should .  I can only speak from the physician standpoint in this case and the fact is we are really really undertrained in this area but I know a lot who would like to be better trained.  I was thinking back to the first two years of medical school and I am pretty sure we only had 3-4 hours total of lecture regarding nutrition and exercise plans.  Since then though we have had a couple hours learning about bariatric surgery (has some interesting developments for the morbidly obese) and another about how effective weight loss medications have been (actually fairly successful) but as I already said, it would be nice to know more about nutrition and physical activity.  There is one caveat here though, it really depends on the specialty of the physician.  For example, someone like a radiologist does not need to worry too much about nutrition and exercises because they are not involved with the long term care of a patient.  I will admit though that overall physicians need to do better in helping their patients more with their weight and need better training in it and to be more proactive (especially with some of the newer things).

Emenius Sleepus

Here's a crazy little piece of information for you.  The average human circadian rhythm isn't actually 24 hours, its 25 hours (variable and with rounding).  That means that naturally your body wants to go to bed an hour later then the night before and hence wake up an hour later as well.  If it wasn't for light our bodies would continue this pattern all the way to resetting itself 24 days later.

Reintroduction

HELLO WORLD!!!!!  I’m back.  According to the great blogging community known as Xanga I haven’t written a blog post since May 1^st, 2007.  I actually didn’t mind Xanga except that it wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing website and because of that, along with the fact that the 4 people I know who still blog use blogger, I figured I would switch to it as well. One thing I am really hoping to get out of blogging again is taking pictures and then posting some of them on here.  I figured the 2 people who may actually read this may also want to see some of the things are going on in my life.  I used to take pictures all the time and loved it but over the past couple of years I have taken about 5 that weren’t with my camera phone and it makes me sad not to have photos of the many amazing adventures I have been on during that time.

Obviously a lot of things have happened since I last wrote a blog entry 4 years ago.  I think the 2 biggest changes in my life is that I am now engaged and also in medical school. In a couple months I will also become a married man.  I love my fiance and there is no one I want to spend the rest of my life with more then her.  She has a wonderful family as well so I won’t have to be regretting the visits to and from the in-laws as well.  Maybe if you are all lucky I will get her on here for a blog post or two or who knows maybe I can convince her to start her own blog.

As for going back to school I am really wondering which blow to the head when I was a child made me crazy enough to think this was a good idea.  Being here has made me realize how much I really hate school and makes me wonder if I chose the right career choice for myself.  But at the end of the day I know that I really do want to be a physician and I actually really do enjoy the clinical classes we take (hate the science ones though).  It also doesn’t hurt to remember that between Allison and I, we are already $130k in debt after one year and I need to get through this to just make a dent in that.

Now, if you’re ready, take my hand and join me on this journey.  I promise that it won’t be one you will regret.

P.S.  While writing this post I took a massive dump.  It was the first poop that I have ever taken that actually clogged the toilet itself.  Normally if I clog it it’s because of the toilet paper as well but this one was strictly the turd.  It made a nice horseshoe after coming out of my butt and that was unable to make it down the toilet.  So I probably should go and unclog that.

Testing

This is just a test to see how this thing looks, will write more soon.