Thanksgiving

Oliver & I had a nice Thanksgiving this year. We went back to the restaurant we went to last year, the menu was pretty much the same -- really good. The one major change was the cotton candy. In addition to the pumpkin pie we got a big puffy ball of pink cotton candy. That was pretty weird(?) but the meal was great. We went there with Oliver's coworker Ian, here are some pictures of us enjoying our meal.

After that we drove back home.. hung around the house for a bit and then spent the evening with the Sprouts. We don't have any pictures of that second party, but it was a lot of fun. Now we can't wait until Christmas..

Proof

Okay. Here's proof of my schooling and soon to be occupation. Just less than 9 months left! The semester is winding down and aside from oral exams tomorrow (yikes!) and a huge oral presentation (not looking forward to it).. most of my semester schooling is done! In December I'll be doing my OB rotation and aside from clinical, I will finally have some free time.. the downside being that my OB rotation is too far from home.. so I'll be staying in a hotel.. so all the free time will probably be spent watching crappy cable TV in the middle of nowhere, but who cares! 8-9 months left... Just in case you were wondering.

This Year's Fires!

WOW am I glad we moved! Last summer we lived in Diamond Bar California which is now on fire! On the picture below there is a dark orange and a lighter orange. The dark is a mandatory evacuation and light was optional evactuation. I circled the area we used to live in with red. There are so many fires across the state right now, that we currently have ash covered sidewalks and windshields! A man at the church even had to sweep the path on Sunday!

If you've wondered why we've been so silent.. Oliver has been across the world with his motorcycle at some bike rallies.. Lebanon to be exact.

I saw this today in the LA times, that guy has Oliver's sunglasses, helmet, harley coat, and beard!

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/

making a monster mask (repost from oliver's art blog)

Here is my clay sculpture for a monster mask I am making.
I have recently taken a class from a hollywood 'monster mask' maker: Jordu Schell.

His specialty is in latex masks and appliances or parts of masks that are applied with make up to actors faces. He has worked on loads of films, most recently probably Aliens vs Predator and some painting monsters on Cloverfield.

Cool and demented art, here is his studio gallery: http://schellstudio.com/sculpture.htm

I have cast this sculpture and poured a latex mask that I will paint. I will post more pics as I go!

Oliver's Paris Trip

I recently went to Paris with my company - Blizzard Entertainment - to announce to the world the latest addition to Blizzard's many franchises: Diablo 3 ! Here are all the pictures of this beautiful city. I saved lots of things for when Emily can go with me - going in the Louvre - on top of the Arch de Triumph - shopping, :) - but it was wonderful! can't wait to go back

a favorite

so i was packing to go to salt lake for the weekend... and when i took a break i turned on the TV and gene kelly was on -- dancing. you know, i'm not into dance.. really. not into it. but there's something about gene kelly, i don't know if it's the era, style, the energy, whatever -- he makes it look so effortless -- like he's just having a great time. he's a real artist. and i could watch him dance all day.

news

nothing is new with me, but oliver has had lots of excitement. i'm hoping if i post a teaser about what he's been up to he'll actually post some pictures..

he took a sculpture class from a guy that makes monster masks as a career for movies and stuff.. so oliver took a 9 week class and.. yup. made a monster mask. he sculpted it in clay, then made a plaster cast, then put this latex/rubber in the plastic and now has his very own monster mask.

also, his work (blizzard.com) is having a world wide convention in paris so he left this morning for a week in paris! here's the hotel. it might be for work.. but i think if your work is making art for video games.. going to a convention about your videogames is pretty sweet.

otherwise.. friday is my last day in my cardiac surgery rotation.. being gone from 5am-7pm is exhausting.. next is neuro -- spine and brain stuff, so ... yeah, it'll be an awesome summer, almost 1/2 done!

st patricks day traditions

every once in awhile i google my name, just to see what's around.. today after googling mine, i googled maureens.. aside from the olympic stuff, the heagany st patricks day traditions newspaper article came up..

for those of you who missed it..
story

yeah, maureen and i were quoted in it quite a lot.. but the writer really took it above and beyond our holiday traditions.. take a look. i wish we sat around the table telling riddles in thick irish accents.. maybe we can try that next year.

new home!

we're moving. here's the place. great neighborhood, can walk to trader joes, restaurants, and even ride our bikes to the beach.. we can't wait!

& here's the street view from the porch.



and for practically the same price as our 1 bedroom apartment in the middle of nowhere california desert. sweet. (By the way - we are just renting this house, not quite ready to buy yet)

Update

So, we're sort of behind the times. The Honda Fit is pretty much fixed... and we're still waiting for the insurance to refund us our deductable! Anyway, that was time consuming and a real pain.

In other news -- I'd like to announce that I've done over 100 cases! That means I've provided anesthesia for over 100 procedures/surgeries.

My current stats are: 119 cases, 293 hours in the OR..
(that picture is an anesthesia machine)

Sweet. I still like it. It still gets scary and stressful sometimes, but I think it'll probably always be that way.

I'm waiting to find out my next assigned rotation... but rumor has it that my next rotation will be cardiac... you know, hearts & stuff. Anyway! At the end of May I'll be 1/3 done! Hurray. I can't wait for life without school.

In other news, craziest thing advertised on MSN, here's the surveillance video of a guy stuck in an elevator for 40+ hours. I'd go crazy. Seriously. Especially if I didn't have any concept of time, like without a watch? Yeah, crazy. http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/2008/04/21/080421_elevators

Crash! :(

It was inevitable that this would happen some time with the thousands of cars and hundreds of short stops on the freeways in California: We finally got in an accident. It was a 4 car pile up and we were car #2. We got hit pretty hard by an SUV but it looks like the fit may survive. We haven't had the insurance look at it yet, but it still drives fine. Luckily no one was hurt and everyone had insurance. (we still finished our date and had a nice dinner out!)

The white car shown was at fault and luckily he got the worst of it!

Newport Beach for Easter Sunday!

We enjoyed a peaceful Easter Sunday with Joe & Jamie (& Fam) at Newport Beach today and we all got plenty of sunshine. It was about 83 degrees out! Our favorite thing was when little Joe was checking out the waves and overcoming his fears of them, he finally dared to get in the water and said "it's not so bad!" Then one really came in hard and soaked him, but he screamed loudly "ITS NOT SO BAAAAD!"

last lecture

so, a classmate of mine forwarded this on... the original lecture was delivered at carnegie mellon university, this is a reprisal of it on Oprah, reduced to just 10 minutes... and although i'm not an Oprah fan, this is really great.

http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=ithct48cqw

living in california

so, we've grown pretty accustomed to living here... oliver and i took marc and maureen to hollywood last month while they were visiting, and for those of you who've never seen a celebrity, here's batman... walking home.

muzak

i've decided to copy a few friends and do the music thing, we'll see what oliver thinks of it! these are just a few songs i've been into lately.. i'll have oliver add a few when he gets a hold of the account!

also, that falling slowly won an oscar for best movie song -- oliver and i heard it this summer and it's so good. really great. and their acceptance speeches were really great too. made my night.

here's a link to them... the video's off of youtube since it's copyrighted or whatever, but here's the text..

speeches

i love how glen hansard ended with just "make art! make art!" and jon stewart gave Markéta Irglová another chance on stage after the orchestra started pre-maturely and she was shooed off. he walked her back out and just said this is your moment! you should get to enjoy it! or something.

CHIPPING PARENTS VISIT

We had a great time this last weekend with mom & dad (chips). They spent a couple of days here and we saw the local sites and got to go to Disneyland with them! Fun.

Also it was dad's birthday on Sunday and we [minus Em - she had to study :( ] all went to Laguna beach and they (the parents) LOVED it.

Birthday!

i had an awesome birthday last week! it was last tuesday and oliver was the biggest sweetheart. he took a half day off work, so when i came home from school he surprised me with this.

he even had the candles lit when i walked in the door! later, i found out that this cake was "just for show" and the one to eat was in the fridge.

oliver had made reservations for us to go to this new restaurant in LA called Takami it's on the top floor of some huge 20+ story building in the city. it was soooooooooooo good. and fun to drive around the city too. here are some pictures from that night.

Christmas catch-up

For those who don't know, Oliver and I spent Christmas in Salt Lake City. It was a huge change from the 70ish degree weather in California. Here are a few pictures..

We had such a great time seeing friends and family. Here I am with Oliver and my grandparents on one of our last days..