Favorite movies that I can think of right now

Sorry, flipping channels and thought of stuff to write down, such as movies that I really like
1. Addams Family Values: the movie I just flipped to. Send the Addams kids to summer camp, hilarity ensues! "I'll be the victim!" "All your life" Amanda Buckman and Wednesday, during swimming safety class.
2. Batman Begins: This was on earlier. Christian Bale and Cillian Murphy are awesome. Katie Holmes can't act her way out of a paper bag.
3. Spaceballs: on yesterday. I remember when my best friend and I were in Yellowstone years ago, there is a geyser named Lonestar because of its distance away from geyser basin. The whole hike there, we just kept chanting "Lonestar" in our best Dark Helmet voice.
4. Drop Dead Gorgeous: Absolutely stupid movie, but anything that makes fun of beauty pageants is great in my book. Denise Richards' "talent" alone is worth watching. Also great parts by Brittany Murphy and Amy Adams.
5: Usual Suspects: I was almost late to get my hair cut because it was near the end when I flipped. Although the ending makes the rest of the movie pointless (think about it), it still rocks.

Triathlon week 6: ran 6.05mi, bike 16.5mi. Totals 33.7/75.5/10600. I suck.

Adios pelo largo!

Two hours ago, my hair was 22 inches long. I like my hair long, but it was starting to get ridiculous. It was hard to run with because it was so heavy, especially when sweaty. So I cut it all off. And, for those of you who are in the know about our old cutting hair off theory, I am not going through any major life changes. I just knew I wanted to cut it, and then I realized I had enough to donate. I may use Locks of Love, but I've heard they sometimes charge the recipients. I hope that's incorrect, but I may look into other services as well. I'll just keep 12 inches of hair in a Ziploc bag for now.

My hair is now 9 inches long at the most. It's shorter than I wanted, and I may have to go pigtails for a while, but my hair grows crazy fast (must be said in former capital one credit card accent with Eastern European dude). It also looks a lot like my middle sister's hair, which is good.

Why I hate the PPA

Look, I get it. If you park at a spot and don't donate your change, you should get a ticket. Ditto for parking in handicap spaces, double parking, parking in a bike lane, etc. In Louisville, if you were 5 minutes late getting to your car, no problem. A quarter got you 20 minutes, and, in general, the rules made sense. Then I moved to Philadelphia, where parking is apparently a serious civic matter. Here is a brief sampling of some of our run-ins with the PPA.
1. DH was 1 minute over his allotted time at a meter. When he arrived, the ticket was already on the windshield and not a PPA officer in sight. I admit, we were at fault, but I wonder if the ticket was on the car maybe a little early.
2. DH dropped off Max at doggy daycare, which required 20 seconds inside the building. Got back to the car, and a PPA vehicle was pulling up, but no ticket was on the car. 6 weeks later, we get a citation in the mail for failure to pay a parking ticket on time. Uh, don't you actually have to give the ticket, PPA? We got that one overturned.
3. DH parked at a meter that didn't require feeding until 9am. When he got there at 8:55, there was already a ticket. Also got that one overturned.
4. Parking on East-West streets is free on Sundays, while North-South streets charge at the regular rate. Except for Chestnut St, which is apparently exempt from the free Sundays rule, and also happens to be the second closest street to the gym and also near several churches.
5. I pulled up to a meter at the gym and I had 6 quarters, good for an hour and a half. I put the first two in, and got my :30. Then I put the 3rd in: the meter still read :30. This happens often in Philly because the meters themselves are possessed. So, I put in another quarter, still :30. Now I am angry because this has cost me 30 good work-out minutes. Happily, I saw a PPA official walking up the sidewalk towards me. When I asked her how to go about getting my money back from the messed up meter, her comment was "well, you can always move to a meter that isn't broken." Great, then I can lose all four quarters to the evil PPA.

The moral of the story is that the PPA is a little too gung-ho in this city. They are nearly omni-present because of their huge numbers of employees (DH's theory is that it keeps unemployment artificially low, like the professional gas pumpers in New Jersey) , and they have been known to write tickets for unexpired meters, tow cars parked legally, etc. Interestingly, the reason there are such large numbers is that they are supposed to be donating a large portion of their profit to the schools, public transportation, and the airport. However, despite revenue going up 50% in the last 5 years, the schools have not received a dime ($4 million was promised). The Inquirer ran a great series of articles on this recently; for a good one, click here.

Triathlon training, week 5: ran 3.25 mi, bike 18.65 mi, swam 3700 yards. totals 26.65/58.55/10600. To think, I used to swim that in a day, now it's been 5 weeks. Sheesh.

Crack for Nerds

My sister gave me Guitar Hero III for Christmas. I asked for it because my resident friends always sit around and play it and I never felt confident enough to play along. So when I finally got it home and plugged into the PS2, I got completely hooked. Not really addicted, but it has taken up a lot more time than I thought it would. I didn't do any training for my triathlon until today because all I wanted to do was sit on my butt. I am also re-reading the Harry Potter books and I have cut way back on the amount of time for that.
Back to GHIII, I am currently dominating the "easy" levels, although freakin' Slayer killed me with "Raining Blood". Took me 4 tries to beat that, on EASY! All I really want to play is "Cherub Rock" anyway!
The rest of Christmas was also great. DH got a Roomba, but we haven't started it yet (worried about the train tracks around the tree). Seeing family and relaxing in general was also very nice.


Triathlon training week 4: ran 5.5 miles today, swam 2 miles last Sunday. C'mon, it's Christmas week! Totals: 23.4mi/29.9mi/6900yds

Home for Christmas

Only two more hours at work and then we are leaving for the promised land (clearly, I'm not working that hard if I'm blogging, but I have time before clinic). The last two weeks or so have been busy as hell and I can't wait for a chance to relax. I've had very little time to exercise with meetings and presentations and last night's dinner party (which went great). I did manage to run 4.5 miles and bike 8 on Sunday. I'm taking my running shoes and swimsuit home so hopefully I can do something.

Quick thoughts:
1) I love Christmas songs, but some of the most inane lyrics ever penned are in them, such as
-"Christmas comes this time each year" - Beach Boys "Little Saint Nick". I mean, come on, when else would Christmas come!?!

2) Did fairly well on my in-training exam for ortho this year. My percentile rank didn't really change but as a program we did terrible. I don't know what we are doing wrong or are we hiring dumb people or are we not reading enough. Ugh, maybe we need to build in protected reading time or something.

3) I have sinusitis and my teeth have been aching for 3 days (maxillary sinus pressure). Not that you care.

4) Merry Christmas!

Back from Florida, Picture Time!

1) I went with a few people from work to Ft. Lauderdale over the weekend. We were there officially for Stryker Spine's Pediatric Spine Deformity Symposium, but it was a great social outing for all. The weather was fabulous (80's, sunny) and coming back to Philly was torture (30's, sleet, but DH was waiting at the airport with a warm car and a smile).

2) I love pictures. Unlike a lot of people I know, I obsess about having all of my pictures filed in chronologic order as soon as they are printed (OCD much?). I have no boxes of pics sitting around my house. I do have about 15 photo albums dating from middle school to present (I left pics from before then for my mom's albums), and I look at them pretty often. The first decision that DH and I made about our wedding was the photographer (I got a crapload of photos for not too much dinero, see http://www.southernpics.com/). I recently ordered most of 2007's photos off of snapfish.com and they should be in any day now.

So, while I wait, here are a few more classic shots that I scanned from mom.

I just think this is a cute pic. That's my cousin in the background, and probably her purse and hat (she was waaaaaay more girly than me).

Another fabulous shot of the famous day I stuck the water hose down my little sister's diaper, filling it with water and leading to its untimely removal. My granddad looks either fairly amused or disturbed; can't tell. What also makes this great is that the whole thing was caught on video and is played every year at Christmas.

Last but not least is the shot of my dad after I kicked his head into the bottom of the swimming pool (complete accident I swear!). He got a good gash that was really a lot uglier than it was dangerous. But man does he look pissed! It's a good thing he actually thought it was pretty funny.

3) Triathlon training week one (Dec 2-8): run 6.2 miles, bike 12 miles, swim 0
Not great, but considering my trip, the weather, and generally busy week, it's okay

New Goal for the New Year

Okay, I am starting to realize that maybe I am not in as good of shape as I used to be. It is hard working 70-90 hours a week to get on and stick to any type of training regimen. I maybe work out an hour or so a week, either a run or a swim. If sitting on my butt watching TV was training, I'd be all set. So, I've decided to enter a triathlon to give me a goal to train for. I'm going to try a Philadelphia all-women's triathlon in August called the SheRox (I didn't come up with the name, thankfully). See more at http://www.sheroxtri.com/home_4.htm.

Here's the plan, for the next 3 months starting in January, I am on a pretty easy rotation, meaning most of the time I will work about 10 hours a day. I will be taking in-hospital call about once a week or so, but I will have off the next day. The rule will be, if off of work by 7pm, go to the gym for 1 1/2 hours for cardio/stretching. If post-call, sleep if I need to, then one hour at the gym. Workouts will consist of 1 hour of one activity, then 1/2 hour of another. I will probably have to do the one hour runs either late at night or Sunday mornings when the treadmills are empty. The schedule will be a little more dicey once I start back up at Abington Hospital, which is usually a bear of a rotation.

What I need for now is motivation from friends and family, a kick-ass song list for the iPod, and a bike. I can start training outdoors once the weather warms up some (aka March).
Wish me luck