World Series!

Wow! What a fantastic week its been! Since moving to Philly 3 1/2 years ago, Darren and I kind of adopted the Phillies (we are still St. Louis fans first, but it's like having both Twix and KitKat; I just like Twix more). Remember a few months ago when I blogged about how much I liked the Phillies and the Phanatic? Still true.
First, a couple of words about Philadelphia. This city is known for its psychotic fan base (a troubling statistic: something like 30% of Eagles season ticket holders don't have health insurance) and a penchant for violence (the Broad Street Bullies (aka '75 Flyers) and booing Santa Claus). Part of the anger in this town stems from the fact that none of the four professional teams has won a championship since the 76ers won in '83. This is known as the curse of William Penn. You see, there was a gentleman's agreement in the early 20th century that no building in the city would be built taller than the top of Billy Penn's hat on City Hall. This was broken in the mid-80s with the building of Liberty Place, and no team had won since. When the Comcast Center was finished last year, a replica of Willam Penn was placed on top, re-establising Penn as the tallest guy in town.
As for the World Series, Darren's friends I&S won tickets to the playoffs in the lottery, and knew they wouldn't be able to use the Game 3 seats. They offered them to us. Similar tickets were going on Stubhub for about $800 each, but we wanted to see the game. So here's how the rest of the week went (after the first two games in Florida).

Saturday: Oh man, we were like two kids on Christmas morning when we got off the subway. We probably haven't been to a sporting event this big (other than a few KY derby trips). SEPTA employees were handing out little pennants and the crowd was awesome. The fun kind of diminished as we walked up to the stadium, though. As we approached, sheets of rain could be seen heading right for us. All of a sudden, WHAM! Soaking wet...We finally got into the stadium and huddled under the stands with some friends of mine who had been there a few hours. As we stood there watching the rain and drinking $7 beers, we wondered if the game would be able to go on.

After about a 90 minute delay, the grounds crew starting to take the tarp off.

We reported to our seats, and used our rally towels as, well, towels to dry them off. 45 year old Jamie Moyer finally took the mound, and the game was on! Some highlights include Albert Pujols (my favorite player) winning the Roberto Clemente award for service, back-to-back homers by Utley and Howard, and Carlos Ruiz delivering in the bases-loaded ninth. As for me, I froze my tail off (although the rain had stopped, I was still wet from earlier and it was windy as all get-out). So what was my solution? Hot chocolate! One small problem, the line was roughly an hour long (seriously, the cashier would take the order, walk over, pour hot water, mix in powder, stir for 45 seconds and then take the payment; they couldn't have mixed it before hand?!?). Being a huge baseball fan, I go to a lot of games in the summer and I always get an ice cream sundae helmet. Well, as I was rotting in the hot chocolate line, I noticed the sundae line was wide open. So I, being stupid and cold, bought ice cream. I then froze for the last 4 innings.

The game finally ended at about 1:45 in the morning, and we took the subway back home, happy to be up 2-1 in the series.

Sunday: The Phils won this one 10-2, and even the pitcher hit a homerun.
Monday: The weather forecast for this one called for cold, and maybe a slight chance of rain. The forecast was wrong. In the fifth inning, the skies opened and it didn't stop raining for 24 hours. The game was 3-2 Phillies after the fifth, but then the Rays tied it in the top of the sixth. Then the commisioner decided to suspend the game. Pardon me? Suspend a baseball game? The World Series? The rain continued right through Tuesday, and the game was set to finish on Wednesday.
Wednesday: Watched the game on TV for this one. After Lidge struck out Hinske, the city exploded. Darren and I hoofed it to Broad Street (kind of the main street here in Philly) to watch the festivities. I did find it somewhat interesting that all of the people in the crowd kept saying how happy they were that the drought had ended after 25 years, and I don't think half of them were over 25. We saw the usual public drunkeness and petty violence (seriously, can't you take down road signs instead of harmless, hard-to-replace trees?), before visiting LOVE park and then heading home. We found out later that 76(appropriate for Philly) arrests were made. My favorite quote of the week came from Mayor Nutter, "You can be joyous, but you cannot be a jackass."
Friday: My usual Fridays are spent in the OR at Methodist hospital, which is on South Broad Street and right smack in the middle of the parade route. We finished up our surgical cases around 11am and then we headed out to watch the fun. We grabbed some cheesesteaks at a corner shop, some drinks at a corner bar, and then watched the sea of humanity. We had originally staked out some spots on the sidewalk, but as the parade approached, the crowd surged onto the median on Broad, and I ended up about 2 feet from the passing trucks (hence the good shots). You can tell just how happy this city is right now, which is something I haven't seen in my years here. Of course, now they're just setting themselves up by wondering when the Eagles Super Bowl Parade will be. Stupid Philadelphians, just enjoy the team that won!

Oh man, I love me some baseball.

Choices, Choices

After weeks and months of applying and emailing and interviewing, I have accepted a fellowship position at the Campbell Clinic in Memphis for the 2010 year. Hooray! My parents are so happy to have me back within driving distance (and I'm pretty happy to be back close to my family too). The fellowship came highly recommended by Dr. Herman, who is my favorite attending and who did his fellowship there. It's also great because all of the staff there is so friendly and also very well known within orthopaedic societies. I think I was sold when the attending who picked me up started telling me about how good bike riding was in Memphis and that he was doing an Ironman on Nov 1st. Trust me, having an attending to train for two things with will be awesome.
Other things going on:
1. Bike riding to work is getting very hard. It's been dark in the mornings now for several months, but I combated that problem with a new headlight (in addition to my tail light). It's actually easier to avoid traffic when you have car headlights to look for. The current problem, however, is that it is cold in the mornings now. I can solve most of that by wearing my windbreaker over my jacket, but it's my hands that are freezing. I now need to buy a second pair of full-finger gloves or quit for the winter.
2. No running until next year. Preferably, I would have quit running when I first got injured, but with my triathlons last summer, that wasn't an option and I had to train anyway. But now that there's nothing going on, I'm finally going to let the thing heal. That also means I'm going to have to start using the wimpy elliptical machines that I hate so much (I consider it exercise for girls who don't like to sweat). I have to do something other than bike or swim or I will go bonkers.
3. My sister is only two months away from delivering my first blood-related nephew, and I can't wait! My other sister just recently got engaged and I now have another wedding to look forward to!

Confessions of a Tired Ortho Resident

I'll admit it, my job is pretty cool sometimes. I take broken bones and I fix them. Other times, my job is not so cool. Want proof? I am thirty years old, I now have two gray hairs (bastards!), and I have homework tonight. Not just a math worksheet or a report on the major exports of Arkansas, mind you, but 50 pages of textbook to read. I am also currently at work (it's about 8:15 on a Tuesday night), so this reading is clearly also going to be done crappily or very late at night. I am also blogging, which, as you know, is not reading 50 pages of textbook.
I am also not happy because I am tired. I am usually pretty borderline narcoleptic (seriously, you cannot turn the lights down in a lecture for more than 10 minutes before I assume some slack-jawed, slumped over, come-hither-legs-posed comatose state), but it has been much worse lately. I can now fall asleep while operating (not with the knife, but if I'm not really participating), watching TV at 8 pm, and sometimes while walking. It's become a true hindrance to my ability to learn in lecture, and it's also kind of embarassing to fall asleep at work every day. I can think of two reasons for this: (1) I have mono (2) 5 years of sleeping no more than 5-6 hours a night is starting to catch up to me. I have also been flying all over the place looking for fellowship positions (pediatric orthopaedic surgery, fyi). I have to admit, my favorite spot so far has the fellow taking ZERO call nights and weekends. Goodness knows I need the rest. I would probably spend the extra time training, anyway.
As for training, without any races coming up, it's getting hard to be motivated over the winter. My shin splints also flared back up, so running is out until the inflammation completely resolves this time. I LOVE riding my bike, but I find my lack of suitable riding clothes somewhat embarassing (and somewhat dangerous) at this point. I did finally get gloves to combat the nerve compressions in both of my arms.
Enough complaining for now, gotta get back to my patients.