California, here we come...

Well, I suppose I was doing fairly well with blogging, but then medical school happened - or more accurately, decided to get worse. Anyway, since last Monday, we had the match for rotations and I matched to Arizona with about 80% of my closest friends. So on the plus side, I get to spend what should be the most enjoyable two years of medical school with many of my really good friends. On the other hand, I will be further away from the other fifth of the people I have gotten to know and love. Its kind of a mixed blessing I guess.

So, that was Monday. Other than that, I was relieved to have done well on a ridiculously difficult Pharmacology test on pretty much every antibiotic ever invented. I also managed to ridiculously awful on what should have been a really easy Cardiology test. The week was then closed out with a great Neurology written by one of the best professors I have ever seen. So that was pretty much the culmination of three weeks of medical school.

To celebrate the end of Truman's fall semester and the end of Neurology, Kirbi, Aaron and I drove out to Kansas City, Kansas for a Death Cab for Cutie concert. Unfortunately, we left a bit late and missed Alkaline Trio, Hot Hot Heat, et al. Much to our dismay, the KC crowd was pretty sedate. Seriously, the crowd just stood there. They were pretty much unresponsive to anything except for the heavy hitters off the new album. There wasn't even any mindless swaying going on. Well, except for the threesome behind us that kept making out. Thank you, Kansas City, for ruining what could have been an awesome concert. Go home and watch Laguna Beach you worthless bags of flesh. On a positive note, we stopped at a really awesome coffee shop on the way back. Small, good staff, and most importantly open until midnight... and it had a super-sweet bathroom. Really, I almost took a picture.

So we got back from KC around 3am on Saturday morning and I managed to crawl into bed and pass out until about noon. Saturday was spent cleaning and packing for my trip out west. By the time evening rolled around, Esther, Ben, Kirbi, Aaron, Vita, and I headed out to luxurious Leisure World for a round of bowling. We managed to choke down about one hundred tator tots as well as a veritable Whitman's Sampler of fried goodness. After bowling, Vita, Aaron and I went back to Vita's place where we watched "Say It Isn't So" until about 2am and then continued with random feats of internet interest.

I woke up Sunday and got ready to drive to Champaign to visit my brother. I packed everything into my car and headed off. I was thoroughly enjoying the 70mph speed limit on Route 63 and completely forgot the 60mph speed limit on Route 36. This proved to be pretty unfortunate as a Missouri patrolman zipped past me, made a U-turn and flipped on his lights. I knew immediately that he was coming for me. I pulled over and he came up to me and did his routine. I was shocked to hear him ask "you know your registration is expired?" My heart sank and I was waiting for him to flash the handcuffs. Fortunately, he told me that although he believed I was going a bit fast, he was going to write me a ticket for my expired registration. I could have jumped in his trooper pants and had an awkward moment with him right there. Seriously, a $67 ticket versus a $84 and an inevitable trip to driving school. Thank you, Mr. Trooper. Needless to say, from there on out, it was cruise control on 70mph.

So, my brief stay in Champaign was highlighted by trips to my favorite hangouts. This is basically a long day of errands at Meijer, Schnucks, the Saturn dealer, Barnes and Noble, and Pages for All Ages. I also briefly visited at Pro and Covenant, but things looked pretty busy in Emergency-land so those visits were fairly brief. Great Harvest was unfortunately closed so I will have to bring baked goodies when I head back. I also missed out on a trip to Friar Tuck's, but I think I'll head that way before I head back to Kirksville. So, if you have liquor requests, shoot me an e-mail before the 28th.

Now, here I am, finally back in sunny California. Some little ponderings that I would have scrawled into a Moleskine if I had one:

• Holy, Jebus. There are a lot of Asians in Champaign. About half the flight out to O'Hare didn't speak English. Not English as a primary language - English at all.
• O'Hare either needs more functional power outlets where I can plug in laptop or less people who want to plug in their laptops to watch NC-17 DVDs.
• Fox has truly done a service to the rest of the world by creating the series "The O.C." For anyone that hasn't spent five minutes in the area, real life is just like the series. People are really as ridiculous as they appear. I sat on my flight from John Wayne Airport to San Jose listening to these ridicuous women talk about how they prefer to let the "white trash" to the "heavy lifting." I felt so helpless with my only socially acceptable recourse being to leave the window shade open so the sun could add a couple years to their already wrinkled, plastic-surgery laden skin.

Fortunately, I'm better now. I just had a gigantic bowl of spicy beef and tripe noodles. That's right - tripe. I love tripe. I don't care if you are yacking your brains out right now - its delicious.

Also - thanks to Dave Koslowski for the hint on SomaFM. I've pretty much been listening it non-stop. I highly recommend the Xmas in Frisko, Secret Agent, and Indie Pop Rocks streams. You can also find them on iTunes if you look hard enough.