The 'stache needs your vote

I decided to mix it up with the facial hair and went down from the full beard to this really sweet '70s cop mustache. I think it makes me look creepy, while at the same time demanding that I never be taken seriously.

Having established that as my general image, I have decided to run for president of my pharmacy class. I give a brief speech tomorrow. The speech aspect doesn't worry me; I don't have that phobia. What worries me is that there are about half a dozen candidates, and those who I know are well-qualified. If I don't win the election, I won't be upset by it, but I would like the opportunity to serve my class. I like that the position is defined as a liaison between the students and the faculty, and between the students and the student council. That means that the biggest requirement of the job is listening to my fellow students and bringing their input back to council meetings. I like the sound of that, and it's something I'd be pretty good at.

I also think I have the right background for the position. I'm 26, and the average age of the class is 26. I'm only five years removed from my undergrad work, and I went back for two more years of science classes that ended a year ago, so I can relate to anyone younger than me. On the other hand, I've been working for the past five years, am married, and have a kid, so I can also relate to most of the older students. I'm very approachable, and in conversation I prefer listening over speaking. I don't consider myself a leader, and yet I somehow always end up leading in whatever I do. In my senior year of college, I was the student advisory member to the faculty library committee, and in my junior year I was editor-in-chief of the school paper, so I've worked with both students and faculty. I have absolutely no agenda of my own; my entire goal in seeking this position is to bring the ideas and opinions of my class to the table. Plus, I have a sweet softball coach mustache. So, wish my luck tomorrow. The worst that can happen is that I won't get it and I'll have one fewer commitment in my life, which would really not be so bad.

In other news, my wife had a job interview that looks really promising, and we have a buyer who is "very interested" in our house. He may make an offer this weekend. If both of those came through for us, I might be able to stop working at the casino, and that would be just fine by me. Thanks for reading, and come back soon. And if you're a member of the CU SOP class of 2013, vote for me, too!

It's trans-tastic!

The other night after work I was downright starving, so I stopped at the 24-hour Burger King drive-thru to try the new double crispy cheesyburger, an item that makes up for its lack of taste with an abundance of the letter y. I wasn't too impressed with the burger, but for two bucks (I got two of them) you can't go too wrong. After I ate it, though, I started thinking about how bad for me that thing really is. I tried to find the nutrition facts online, but Burger King only has info on their permanent menu and I couldn't find it elsewhere. I'm not going to let that stop me, though.

I figure the two patties are comparable to a double hamburger with no toppings on it (since the only topping on the little hockey puck patties is cheesy sauce and "tiny, crispy onions") which comes in at a modest 400 calories/22g fat/9g sat. fat/1g trans fat/26g protein (good!). So we just need to figure out the sauce and the tiny, crispy onions. I figure if we take the values for the sauce and "angry onions" found on the Angry Whopper, we're going to have a pretty good estimate on those. So, we dress up a regular Whopper with all the other items an Angry Whopper has (pepperjack cheese, bacon, no ketchup or onions) and subtract. That's an additional 130 calories/7g fat/3g sat fat/0.5g trans fat/12g carb/5g sugar. You can figure the cheesy sauce is more oil-based than the angry sauce, so some of that sugar is probably more like fat, but I'll leave it for purposes of this calculation.

So that tiny double crispy cheesyburger has 29 grams of fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, and 1.5 grams of trans fat. And I ate two of them and was still hungry. A growing young man like myself could conceivably have four of those in one meal. I don't think anyone should consume nearly 120 grams of fat in a single meal, even if you're knocking out your caloric requirement for the entire day.

I guess what I'm trying to tell you is don't eat at Burger King. Or maybe just don't get the double crispy cheesyburger. It's not even that tasty. Fast food companies drive me crazy. The dollar you spend on that double crispy heart attack burger could buy you some fresh fruit or a sizable portion of nuts. Organic, even. King Soopers is open 24 hours, too. What I really don't like is that BK and Mackey's are getting so expensive it isn't even worth the health risk to save money any more. Combo meals cost as much as eight dollars if you get cheese on the sandwich. Take your eight bucks to Subway and get a fresh fit meal, or to Chipotle (if and only if sodium doesn't cause you a problem, although there's plenty of sodium in the BK, too). I mean, it'd be better still to make a fresh sandwich for yourself or a nice, fresh salad, but I understand if you're on the go. I don't want to go so far as to say that fast food should be illegal, but I think what we should do is stop buying it. Let's take control of the free market and push it away from this unhealthy crap. There's been some of this already, but now companies have figured out the magic $1 menu rule. People will buy a Tasty Double Garbage Burger if you charge them a buck for it. I want one right now.

Rabbit trail. Wow. Sometimes I get all worked up about things like this. I think I'll stop there. Thanks for reading, and come back soon - and don't try the double crispy cheesyburger.

Blogging from class

Hello, faithful reader. I come to you today from room 1102 in the Education 2 North building at the Anschutz Medical Campus. We (well, some of us) are presently listening to a presentation about the Colorado Board of Pharmacy and licensure requirements. This is important for us to know, yes, but that doesn't make it interesting. All week has been like that. Monday: Introduction to the library, learning styles, and a personality inventory. (Free breakfast and lunch, though!) Tuesday: professionalism, pharmacy care, finding your strengths, and teamwork (the "corporate retreat" day), as well as intro to campus services. Wednesday: curriculum-related, extracurriculars fair, and a really good nap (not really). Thursday: clickers, ethics, career pathways, and medical terminology. Friday (today): Half day! I think I'ma take a nap later. Probably not, but it'd be nice.

This week begins the semester-long, non-stop sleep deprivation experiment. That's not 100% true; I get to sleep in on Saturdays and can probably go to bed early on the days I don't work, but I don't have a day off from both work and school until Thanksgiving. I'll let you sit on that for a second. Thanksgiving is 97 days from today, and my last day off was last Thursday (the 13th). So that's 105 days without a break. And I work the day after Thanksgiving, so the break is one day. I feel a little like Superman. I hope I get a prize at the end (other than the Pharm.D.).

So Tuesday is the first class that counts. This week is a course, and I have to pass it to continue into the Pharm.D. program, but it's not really pharmacy-related. 8 a.m. on Tuesday is the first lecture of Pharmacy Law. That should be fun after working all night. If I had to pick one potential problem for this semester it's that combination of working 6-2 Monday night and going to Law Tuesday morning. So if you're awake late Monday night or early Tuesday morning, think of me. And give me a call maybe. I won't be sleeping.

The pharmacy career paths exercise was sort of interesting. It asks you 48 questions like "How important is vacation and time off?" on a scale of 1 to 10, then tells you which areas of pharmacy are the best fit for you. Mine came back pretty high for compounding and clinical pharmacy, which interest me. Compounding is preparation of custom doses, medications with short half-lives, and special dosing methods like lollipops and creams. Doesn't that sound fun? Clinical pharmacy is a specialty field where you generally deal with patients in a hospital and with a specific disease, type of disease, or patient population (such as pediatrics or geriatrics). If I had to pick today, I would specialize in psychiatric pharmaceuticals or in addictions.

I'm not giving up just yet, but it looks like the Cardinals are going to run away with the NL Central and the Giants and Rockies will be the only players in the Wild Card race. If true, it means no playoffs for my precious Cubs. That's OK; they'd have lost in the first round anyway. The Cubs need to work on developing for the future right now; I think this season pointed out how thin they are beyond their top talents. I haven't looked at the free agent crop, but they do have money to spend, so that's one way to get better in a hurry. Time now to focus my fan energy on those lovable Colorado Rockies. A four-game series with the Giants begins tonight, and the Rox find themselves just three and a half games back in their division. A good homestand could put them in place not only for the Wild Card but for the outright division win, something they've never done in their fifteen seasons spent as also-rans (and one as National League champions).

I'm like 98% certain that the logo I used for my picture here is not a copyright infringement. I don't want to step on anybody's intellectual property toes here, so if any of my pictures belong to you and you don't want me using them, just let me know. I'll take them down immediately.

That's all on my end. Thanks for reading, and come back soon.

It begins!

For the first time since I started this pharmacy school blog, I actually have some pharmacy school to blog about! Today was orientation. Technically it wasn't class, but it was a lot closer than I have been in the past year. I took Biochemistry last fall, and that's the only course I've taken in the past academic year. Getting back into school might be a little rough on me. Luckily, next week's classes are pretty soft material. It's things like how to use the library, the Kiersey personality test, and basic medical terminology. That ought to get me up to speed pretty well.

It was nice to put a bunch of faces to some names. I'd communicated with a number of my classmates through facebook and a Google group that I set up for our class, but before today I had only met five of them, and four of those interviewed with me. Today was the first time all 161 of us P1s-to-be were on campus at the same time. I think officially we're not P1s until the white coat ceremony next Monday, but I am a pharmacy student at the UC-Denver Anschutz Medical Campus (see picture for evidence).

Xander is walking all over the place now, and starting to talk. We've been teaching him baby sign language, and he's picked up a few signs, but last night he said his first meaningful, communicative word - "up." He's said some other things, like "cat," "da" (that either means "Dad" or "that" - I'm not sure yet), and something close to "dog," but "up" is definitely the best communication he's exhibited so far. He really means that he wants up when he says it, which is great. He's also a lot more mobile than ever. The other day he was chasing the cat around the house with a fly swatter and giggling. The cat hates him, I think, but he loves to go after it.

Someone pointed out after my last point that spiders are meat. I knew this, actually. My complaint was that he won't eat the clean, safe, cooked meat that we give him, although this isn't as true any more. I guess the live spider experience broadened his horizons. He's now interested in some meats, particularly at breakfast. We took him to Denny's last week and he dug in to some bacon like it was the best thing he'd ever tasted. I have to admit bacon is pretty good.

What encouraged me about the spider comment on my last post was that I actually have at least one reader! So, faithful reader, thank you. I hope you keep coming back.

The Final Countdown

This might have just been an excuse to put that sweet picture in a blog post. But we are in the last week before classes begin. Friday is orientation! Technically, the first class class will be next Monday, but I'm sticking to my original August 14 date. After all, if I fail to appear on campus and get my ID that day, I will lose my spot and and it will be filled by someone from the wait list. I thought that was a rather harsh policy. And honestly, how many people are sitting around waiting for that call? "Yes, this is the CU School of Pharmacy. Can you be in Denver in three days? I know you've been waiting for four months for this call and made a bunch of other plans for next year, but if you happen to have $18,000 lying around to pay for your tuition, you can totally start right away!" I'm guessing they have that policy just because it's the only way to guarantee that students show up to get their IDs that day.

My son won't eat meat. This doesn't really bother me other than the fact that he wants to eat everything else he finds. Dog hair? Yep. Batteries? Sure. Live spiders? You betcha. I'm extremely grateful that I was asleep for this one. My wife got to witness him pick up a sizable spider by one spindly leg, look at it, and try to put it in his mouth. Of course this would scare the crap out of anything, so the spider took off down his arm, causing Xander to laugh, probably because it tickled. Just thinking about it gives me the heebidy jeebidies.

I got CPR certified Wednesday morning. I was a little intimidated about going to a CPR course for health care providers, but it turned out not to be so bad. It was also very asocial, with almost no student-student interaction. I'm glad to get that out of the way. Plus, if you collapse in front of me, I have a vague idea of what to do about it. It would really help if you were a limbless torso that clicked whenever I compressed your chest with enough pressure to pump your heart.

We have our first showing of our house tomorrow. It was pretty exciting to get that call. We actually got a call Thursday evening, but my wife and I were both going out with my brother watching Xander for us, and the house was a mess, too. I didn't want him to have to get out of the way of a showing, and I didn't think it was in very good condition to show, either. We did a total cleaning/painting/organizing blitz and now we're all set. Hopefully the potential buyers will fall in love, but I'm realistic. It's going to take a good deal of time to sell this house, if it sells at all, and that's fine.

The official countdown to school is five days, including today. Also, I have homework! I guess I'd better get working on that. Well, I still have five days. That's a ton of time, right?

Blogging just to blog

Yeah, I think that's what I'm doing right now. I can't say I have much to report, but I feel the old bloggin' itch, so here goes.

My son is great. My wife took him out shopping with her yesterday and ran into an old friend. She said, "Hey, buddy!" and Xander (my son) reached right out to her to be picked up! Then her husband walked into the store and said, "Hey, buddy!" and Xander reached out for him! Later, he walk/crawled over to a complete stranger and pulled himself up on her legs. I think that's great. At some point we'll have to teach him about "stranger danger" but I love not having one of those babies that cry whenever someone besides mommy or daddy is holding them. He's a doll in the church nursery, too. All the workers half expect kids of that age to lose it when their parents walk out of their room, but Xander just wants to get down to business and start playing with all the cool toys.

Of all the things I'm going to hate about the rigors of a professional school program for the next four years, not seeing him enough is my biggest worry. I'm comfortable taking out enormous loans in order to get through, and I don't mind getting a good night's sleep less than once a month. I can handle all the pressure of rote memorization and mindless regurgitation. None of that scares me, or at least not as much as it would most people. What I'm worried about is missing four incredible years of my son's life. I already feel like he's a different kid by the time I get done with my four-day work week. How much am I going to miss over the course of four months of school?

Xander is putting himself to sleep this week. You don't know how incredible that is. Feed him a bottle, change his diaper, set him in his crib, pull up the blanket, and seeya later! I hope that lasts, though I'm sure it won't.

Orientation for school is 11 days away. Now I feel like it's too soon. I guess I can't make up my mind about what I want.