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Monday, 19 January 2009

  • Odyssey 2009

    In med school I made a good friend named Gabe. I think the reason we got along so well is because our personalities are so similar. One of the traits that we shared was that we are both, amazingly-remarkably-painfully lazy. We basically either studied or played video-games together whenever we hung out, never doing anything more active than plugging or unplugging the video-game controller.

    Last year he flew into visit me here in Sacramento and the plan was to drive up to Lake Tahoe because one of our other good friends was going to be there. Instead, we cancelled at the last minute because I picked up a new game (Call of Duty) that we were both hooked on, and we spent the entire weekend glued to my beautiful 50 inch plasma.

    Well, this year, he visited me again, and what is remarkable is that we were able to get our asses off the couch and actually drive to Lake Tahoe to snowboard. I just want to chronicle the events.

    Friday Night:

    In-N-Out - Because every journey should begin with a meal. This is the food Gabe requests because he can't get it on the East Coast. It was delicious.

    Sierra Snowboard - I needed to buy some snowboarding pants, I figured that if I'm going to take up this hobby, I might as well be equipped. I also bought a helmet, which at first seemed expensive, but then I'm now at that age where I can see that a trip to a hospital with a fractured skull and an epidural hematoma will be infinitely more expensive.

    KFC - Because I was still hungry. We ended the day with honey bar-b-que wings, potato wedges, and original and crispy chicken.

    Super 8 Motel - Ghetto looking motel that charged a reasonable 90$ a night on a long weekend.

    Saturday:

    Snowboard Rental - The smartest thing we did all trip was to rent all of our equipment at an offsite store. It was cheaper and helped us avoid the long lines on the slope.

    Heavenly - Gabe's first time snowboarding. He took the requisite first time falls but by the end of the day had sort of picked it up. He had a sour puss face the entire time and looked miserable and kept complaining that he was too tired to hold himself up and would just crumble to the ground and sit there for 20 minutes recovering. It was funny watching him eat shit a couple times, belly flopping onto the snow and ice.

    Heavenly Lunch - Whatever smart thing we did renting equipment offsite was cancelled out by eating at the cafeteria on site. $4.00 gatorade and cokes, $13.50 chicken tenders. Do I need to say more?

    We boarded for another hour afterwards and then Gabe declared defeat at the hands of the mountain. Nature 1, Gabe 0.

    Harrah's - We walked around Heavenly Village and meandered over the state line into Nevada where there was immediately a casino. We recovered in a bar and watched the Louisville vs Pittsburg NCAA game and enjoyed a few drinks. Actually I almost fell asleep because I was so exhausted. Of course in a casino I needed to gamble a little bit. So we played a few games of roulette. I promptly converted $16 to 90$ and just as quickly, back to $0.

    Harvey's Casino Steakhouse - Because every adventure should end in a meal. I was proud of how active we were, not a single video-game! We both agreed that our adventure deserved to conclude in a nice sit down place rather than a fast food joint. He ordered a New York Steak, and I a Prime Rib. Not as good as Lawry's but the cut was large, so they made up for it in quantity.

    Super 8 - We watched I, Robot, and just as we were about to fall asleep, were disturbed by the "galloping horses" upstairs. Gabe called the front desk to complain. It was at this point that I promised never to slum it again in a Super 8 or other crappy motel where the walls are paper thin and the beds sink in the middle.

    Sunday - Drop Gabe off to catch the shuttle to Reno airport, and I head back down to Sacramento. The end of a dream.

Saturday, 22 November 2008

  • Arco Arena

    A very kinda attending, Dr. Dong who seems at times more like a resident than an attending, invited me to a Sacramento Kings game wit him. Him and his business partners share a season ticket to the Kings games and divvy up the games they go to.

    Last night it was the Kings vs. Blazers. We were both eager to see Greg Oden in action (last year's first round draft pick who had knee surgery and thus wasn't able to play all year, so this year is actually his debut year).

    First of all, I have to mention how close the seats were to the floor, I counted the rows and saw that we were only 15 rows away from the court. It was amazing, I could see what kind of shoes the players were wearing, and even see the number 7 Brandon Roy (star player of the blazers) had on his shoes. I also noticed that two of the players had the same shoes as me, the nike Hyperdunks, although I have to say that the color of my shoes are way better (black and gray). Dante Green, a forward for the kings had the white and purple version, and Rudy Fernandez of the Blazers had the black and white version.

    But the fact that I could see their shoes was amazing.

    During the starting line up announcement the Sacramento Kings Dancers stood in the aisleways right next to us. If I wanted to, I could reach right out and touch one of them (don't worry Lana, i didn't). But compared to the Staples Center, we never could get that close to the Clipper girls.

    Also Arco Arena is very small and cozy, where Staples Center has three tiers (we always sit in the nosebleed third tier seats), Arco only has 2 tiers. In fact it wasn't very large (it always seemed very big on TV), and is comparable in size to Pauley Pavillion in UCLA.

    It was also only about 40% filled to capacity. There were a lot of empty seats, which was new to me since I was used to the full crowds in Staples Center.

    There were only 2 Sacramento Kings girls performances in total compared to the minimum of 4 the Clipper Girls usually do. During time outs and breaks the Kings girls were no where to be found. One of the Kings girls dance routines was a line dance. During the rest of the breaks they showed clips from rodeos. My attending kept commenting on how appropriate this was for what a "hick town" Sacramento is.

    At first I was making fun of the Rodeo video clips, and then suddenly I found myself being really entertained. It was a lot of fun seeing those bulls toss up the rodeo riders like rag dolls! sometimes almost 20 feet in the air!

    During one of the time outs, the Jumobtron (big monitor in the sky) went around and did the kiss cam thing (they focus in on a couple and the couple is supposed to kiss), and on the last couple, the camera lingered, and the guy bent down on one knee and proposed to the girl sitting next to him. She said yes. Everyone cheered, as did I, after all, isn't it nice to see true love on the jumbotron? I couldn't help but think that it would have sucked if she said "no" or "i need some time to think."

    Oh yeah, the Kings are horrible and lost by a large margin. They're horrible. Greg Oden appears much bigger without his warm ups on.

Thursday, 13 November 2008

  • Dinner

    I've been trying to eat more healthily by cooking my own meals.  That way I can control how many calories and carbs I end up eating.

    My culinary skills are rather pitiful, although they have dramatically improved from my microwaving-hot-pockets-or-corndogs-days.  Now, I buy a pack of frozen teriyaki chicken breasts (pre-marinaded of course) and dump half of it into a large frying pan.  Then I dump half a pack of frozen vegetables or combination of vegetables into the frying pan.  Turn on the fire, and let physics take its course.

    Frozen vegetables today included frozen peas and frozen corn.  Yesterday I used frozen spinach and frozen corn.  It has sort of become formulaic.

    Philip's Healthy Dinner = Chicken + (insert random frozen vegetable) + soy sauce + fire

    Although I haven't quite gotten sick of this, I'm starting to get the feeling that I should start expanding my recipes.

    Maybe I'll make drastic changes to the formula such as:

    Philip's Healthy Dinner = Chicken + (insert random frozen vegetable) + bar-b-que sauce + fire

    or

    Philip's Healthy Dinner = $$$ + Mcdonalds Grilled Chicken Sandwich

    Possibilities abound.  Any suggestions?

  • Veteran's Day - What really happened...

    Plans certainly went awry.

    Woke up around 7 am, played video games until 1 pm.

    Made some lunch.

    Took a nap.

    Woke up around 4 pm. 

    Studied a tad.

    Met friend for lunch at 7 pm.

    Came home and got ready for bed.

    no laundry, no basketball.

    Mission failed.

Tuesday, 11 November 2008

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