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.

Here we go, Cubbies!

Well, it took long enough, but that Cubs rally beard finally worked! I don't think that was it; it was probably the return of Aramis Ramirez and a mental adjustment at the All-Star break, but they are now a half game ahead in the NL Central. That's what I'm talking about. And in the meantime, the Rockies went ahead and took the Wild Card lead! Even after today's loss (and Giants win), they're a game up. That's sweet.

So there's this deal in Colorado - when the Rockies score seven or more runs in a game, Taco Bell will give you four tacos for a dollar. Last year there was no other condition; this year you have to buy a drink. It's still a good deal, but I think it's probably a major factor in my high triglycerides. I think I've missed it six times that they've qualified, and for three of those I was in Hawai'i.

We have two more weekends before school starts. I'm freaking out. We also put our house on the market today. I'm not thinking it'll sell, but if it does we have the chance to chop about 50 grand off our mortgage by moving into a cheaper house. That would certainly ease some of the financial strain of going to school full-time.

Just a quick one today; go Cubs!

20 days isn't a very long time

The first day of class is 20 days from today. That's three weeks from yesterday. I have this weekend and two more, and then I'm officially a pharmacy student. Now all the prep stuff is swinging into high gear. I need to send back my financial aid letter so I can get some loans, and order some books, and go to a CPR class in a few weeks. I also need to buy a printer and Microsoft Office, but I guess those could wait for the first week of classes.

The big news in my life is that my car got totally boned by the hail storm we had on Monday. All of the severe weather missed my house (thankfully) and my workplace, so how did my car get so badly trashed? Well, I decided to car pool to work that day, and I didn't drive. We parked at 44th and Ward, which Denver residents will know was the area hit the hardest. When I got back to my car, my rear windshield was all over the inside of the car. Both rearview mirrors were shattered and both tail lamp assemblies were damagaed. And any panel of the car that faced up or toward the rear was thoroughly dented. The body shop said it could take a month - or longer - to get it fixed. Apparently they have to replace the roof panels, and apparently that's a touchy part to deal with. So I have a 2009 Dodge Charger for the next month. That thing can really haul.

Driving into the aftermath of that storm was cool. It had stopped hailing and the wind had died away, but there was a thick, soupy fog remaining (probably from all of that hail evaporating). It was like a scene from a movie. We drove into what looked like a solid wall of condensation right before we got to my car. Also, all of the trees in the area were completely bare of leaves. There was a pine tree in the parking lot that looked like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I'm pretty sure it was healthy and robust when I left that afternoon. So after we surveyed the extensive damage to my car and I drove off (with no mirrors and no rear glass), I drove right back out of the fog. For about two minutes I had no idea whether there were any cars behind me because there was almost zero visibility, and then it abruptly cleared. It was eerie.

I'll probably be posting again this week as the school prep takes off.

The slowest day in sports

Today is the slowest sports day of the year. There are no games in baseball, and the other three major sports are in their off-seasons. The NBA and NHL drafts have already taken place; NFL camps don't start for a few more weeks. Golf brings us the British Open, but that won't start until the wee hours of tomorrow morning. Even Major League Soccer is dark today. If you're desperate for action, the WNBA brings us five games and the NBA summer league has six. When I used to work on Wednesdays, this day was just torturous. Wednesdays are slow days in the casino, too, and having literally nothing to watch while sitting around is just... yuk.

My wife suggested I tell some antidotes in my blog. So, for carbon monoxide poisoning, fresh air and oxygen is best. Amyl nitrate, sodium nitrate, and thiosulfate are indicated for cyanide poisoning. I think she meant I should share some anecdotes, but if you want more info click here or read the Wikipedia entry on antidotes.

How can you make an error in the MLB All-Star game? How can you do it if you're Albert Pujols, playing at home in the middle of an incredible, Hall-of-Fame caliber season? How can you do all that and go 0-3 at the plate? I guess he's trying to prove he really isn't a machine. Josh Hamilton had a throwing error, too, but he didn't belong on the All-Star team to begin with. It's disappointing to me that in the game that's supposed to showcase the best talent in the big leagues we end up with two errors. Seems to me the best of the best ought to hold it together for a couple of innings. Dan Uggla had two in one inning last year. In fact, the last All-Star game without an error was in 2002, and that game ended in a tie. Maybe this is the reason baseball isn't taken seriously by many people any more.

I start school in 30 days. Now I'm sort of in freak-out mode. I went almost instantly from tired of waiting to needing more time. What happened?

YOUR HEAD A SPLODE

I really meant to post an update somewhere along the way in the past month. Sorry. I've been way too busy to do the little things like sleeping and blogging, which is really too bad, given that stuff has actually happened now.

First things first: July 2, 2009 was the first day of 24-hour gaming and $100 bet limits in Colorado casinos. I was off that day. July 3 was a madhouse. I'm not scheduled to work later than 2 on any day, which is pretty much the same schedule I had when we closed at 2. The difference is that with 24-hour operation I have the chance to be kept late if we're busy, and we definitely were. I should have seen that coming, what with it being the start of all this new gambling and a holiday weekend... I left at 5:00 Friday (the 3rd; scheduled until 2), 4:30 Saturday (scheduled to 1), 2:45 Sunday (instead of 1), and 4:30 Monday (instead of 2). Last Friday I left at 4:30, and last night I set a new personal best by working 5 p.m. to 5:15 a.m. On the one hand, I'm making much, much more money than I ever have. On the other hand, I'm squeezing 40+ hours into four days of work when I'm scheduled for 31 and I'm seeing the sunrise more often that not. It's just a good thing I took a part-time schedule, because those full-time dealers are getting really hosed.

Anyway, on last Saturday the big packet from the school finally arrived. A lot of it was advertisements and order forms for various books, lab coats, study guides, and the like that we can buy from different student organizations at the school, but it also included all of the instructions for the week-and-a-half of orientation that starts in just 33 days. It looks like that week will be a nice, gentle easing into school, which is nice since I've taken just 4 credits in the last academic year. The same day my financial aid award letter arrived, too. It looks like I'm going to have enough to pay the mortgage, which is fine. Between Jaime and my own hours at the casino and/or my intern job, we should be able to put food on the table and keep the lights on. I hope. I'm a lot more relaxed about it than I have been because 1) I'm making a killing right now, 2) Jaime finished her internship and can start looking for a job, and 3) We hacked the crap out of the budget and got it a lot more manageable. I don't know that taking on new debt to pay existing debt is a great idea, but sometimes you gotta do some weird stuff to get by.

Xander turned one a week ago. He's so BIG! We had a really nice party for him at the house, and then I put on my uniform and worked a 10-hour shift. I can do this for a while, so I guess I'm not complaining, and if I can put away a few bucks this month I won't have to work so much over the next four, so... yeah, it's worth it.

I should be able to post a little more often over the next few weeks as school gets closer. Thanks for reading!

2 months to go!

My cat's been hunting. A couple days before we left for Hawai'i, he left this on the floor by the front door (inside). I don't know what he thought we wanted to do with it, but apparently it was only fun while it was still alive. Then the next day I found another one in the driveway, with the same squish out the back but otherwise pretty much intact. Gross, huh?

Hawai'i was exactly what I needed. I feel so refreshed. It also knocked almost two weeks off my countdown. We're two months to the day from our first day of class. Tomorrow will be 60 days. Friday will be eight weeks.

How about those Rockies? If me going out of town is all they need to start playing better, I'll leave more often. Today's win gives them 11 in a row, which is enough to close the gap in their division to a measly ten and a half games. They probably shouldn't have lost so many earlier. My precious Cubs are a different story altogether... I started growing a "rally beard" - basically not shaving until the Cubs are back in first place - and they promptly started losing. The Rox helped them out, too, sweeping the Cardinals and the Brewers. I'm starting to think I'll never shave again. If I have two months' growth at orientation, I'm going to be known as the guy with the crazy beard. So, let's go Cubbies!

Apparently the first people to submit their aid paperwork are now getting their award packages. I'm looking for mine in the mail every day now. It'll relieve some stress once I know what our financial situation will be for next year, and by extension, how much I have to work. I'm pulling for none, but if you've read my earlier posts, you know that's just not possible. Well, maybe I can win some sort of large cash prize between now and August 14th.

Sunday will be my first Father's Day as a father. I'm excited for that. I love being a dad, and I'm especially looking forward to future Father's Days and getting cards made by Xander (and hopefully by his future brothers and sisters, too) in that sloppy kid handwriting. I know that's not too far away. I just hope pharmacy school doesn't make me so busy that I miss all of that stuff. I would hate to have a four-year block of Xander's childhood missing from my memory, and even worse, to have four years of his childhood missing a dad in his life. I keep telling myself that won't happen unless I let it, but it still frightens me. I guess just being scared by that is enough to prove it won't happen. At the very least, I'm glad I'm doing this now and not when he's a few years older. If I disappear from his life for the next four years he'll barely remember it by the time he's 10.

Tomorrow I get an EMG on my legs. I don't even know what an EMG is, really. At my physical in April, I mentioned to the doc that I've been feeling a sort of uncomfortable pressure in my legs, especially after sitting for a few hours in a row, but lasting long after I stand up. I was worried it might be a blood clot. First thing they tried was an venous ultrasound; that didn't show anything. Oddly enough, the feeling went away for about a month after the ultrasound. It's been back the last couple of days, coinciding with my return to work from vacation. My self diagnosis is that it's a chiropractic issue, and that pressure on the nerves in my spine is creating a phantom sensation. If the EMG doesn't show anything, I'm going to get an adjustment and see what happens.

This has been a really long entry! Congrats if you've made it this far. I'd better stop here for now. I'll be back for a 50 day update, if not sooner.

80 day update

If you like my blog, there may be something wrong with you. Seriously, though, if you do, check out this one. This guy is doing the same blog I am, only he's one year behind me. CU is even his first choice school! At this point in the application process, his blog is a lot more interesting than mine.

It looked for a second like I was going to have a sweet set-up. The Target pharmacy by my house was all set to give me some intern hours this summer, and then I found out that you can't get the intern license until you start school. So that's going to have to wait. Bummer.

All of my transcripts have been received. All of my financial aid forms are in, too. They're processing students starting in the summer right now, but I should get my award package in June. That's also when they send out the fall schedule, orientation schedule, list of books, etc., etc. I may wait to post again until something from the school arrives.

Saturday we leave for Hawaii. That's going to be a great time. I'm thinking about buying a laptop before we leave so we can watch movies on the loooooong plane ride (five hours in the air from LAX to OGG). I actually already bought a computer once this summer, from Dell, but it got back-ordered twice. On the second time, I cancelled the order because it wasn't going to get here before vacation. I figure I can either buy one from the store or I can order a better one for less in a month or two.

Technically, it's already Wednesday, which means we have only 79 days to go, but I haven't slept so I count that as 80. You know, 80 nights of sleep to go. I'm in Hawaii on day 70, and there's no way I'm blogging from the beach, so don't expect much out of me for a while.

Happy birthday to Jaime!

Today (Wednesday) is my wife's birthday. I can't tell you what I got her because she might be secretly reading my blog. But tomorrow we get to spend most of the day together, which is rare these days with all our various commitments.

I called the financial aid office a few days ago. They got all my forms and I should get a decision back from them in the middle of June. I also bought a laptop; that should come by the end of the week. I'm excited 'bout that part.

Sigh. This summer is boring. I kind of want to go to sleep and wake up August 13th (I want a day to get ready for school). Well, I guess we're going to Hawai'i in a week, so that'll be great.

I got my new schedule (at work) today. It doesn't start until July, but it's exactly what I wanted: Friday-Monday nights, and the Friday night starts late (7 p.m.). I can make plenty of money on this one, but still have time for school. If I can lose the Monday, it's even better. That'll definitely work for as long as I need it to, even during school (I think).

OK, I need to get some sleep. This is the worst blog entry ever. Sorry!

3 months and counting

Well, the Nuggets did like I wanted and took care of business. It was cool to see graphic basketball ads next to my blog instead of the usual pharmacy tech school text ads. Hopefully the boys in powder blue can go take it to the Lakers. I think at this point they're over any psychological hang-up about historical trends or not being able to win in LA or any of that business. I hope.

Orientation starts three months from today. This means I'm going to post two countdown entries in three days, since Saturday will be 90 days. I hope you like the countdown!

There's still been little change in my enrollment progress. More of the waiting game. I did start memorizing the top 200 drugs to help fend off the boredom. I have 25 down, 175 to go.

A little off-topic

I had the itch to blog, but there's been no change in my pharmacy school adventure, so I'm going to talk about the latest bandwagon hometown heroes in Denver - the Nuggets.

I've been rooting hard for this team since they acquired Chauncey Billups. I love the Nuggets, and basketball might be my favorite sport to watch. Sadly, Denver is a one-sport team. Two years ago, the Rockies went to the World Series, and by the time they made it that far, the bandwagon was enormous. What people never talk about is that the Rockies were near the top of their division all year, won 92 games, and finished the regular season winning 13 of 14 games. It wasn't until about number 10 of those wins that anyone even noticed. But by the time Rocktober rolled around, everyone was a "hard core Rockies fan." Then when the Red Sox scored 6 runs in the third inning of game 3, suddenly it was all over and they were the same old Rockies that had let us down for so many years. Even though that wasn't true. I mean, it was the freakin' World Series! What Rockies team in the past even sniffed something that awesome?

I'm off the already off-topic topic. My point is that our fans are so fair-weather for any sport but football. Even in the midst of losing Jay Cutler, a lot of Broncos fans honestly believe that (1) they're better off without him and (2) the Broncos have any kind of a chance to make the playoffs this year. Ridiculous. Meanwhile, the Nuggets are in the midst of their best season in team history - ABA included - and only now can we start talking about them. On the day the Nuggets clinched the Northwest Division, the Rockies had won something like three games in a row. But the only topic of conversation on sports talk radio was Jay Cutler. This was some 10 days after he was traded to the Bears. Even after the Nuggies took it to the Hornets in round 1, no one seemed to notice. The record-tying 58-point road win in New Orleans wasn't even nationally televised. It drives me crazy that now, all of a sudden, the Nuggets are worthy of discussion. People, they've been this good all year. Why do they have to come within 2 points of sweeping the Mavericks for anyone to notice? Where were you people all year long?

Well, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Now let's go watch them destroy Dallas in game 5.

My adventure in Aurora

I love my new campus.

On Wednesday, I met my wife for lunch and then an old friend for coffee, both in Aurora. We live on the opposite side of Denver, about thirty miles from the CU medical campus, which is close enough not to need to move but far enough that I don't know the area at all. Several of my future classmates have asked where the good places to live are, and I really can't tell them anything. The general buzz is that the area immediately around the campus is not the safest, but that as you move south the neighborhoods get better. So I thought I would travel back home by driving up Peoria, which forms the western boundary of the campus.

I started at Peoria and Parker Road, which is absolutely gorgeous. Heading north on Peoria, the houses are well-maintained, the fences are wooden, the cars parked on the street are newer models, and everything is pretty green. All the way up to Mississippi, things look pretty good. From Mississippi to Alameda, the houses are older and some of the lawns are overgrown. The cars aren't as nice, and some of the fences are crappy chain-links, but it had the feeling of an older neighborhood. I did see kids walking around, which is a good sign, and my thought is that it was still safe enough to live in, just on the bottom end of middle class instead of the top.

At 6th Avenue is beautiful Del Mar Park. It's huge, with a new playground and lots of people recreating. That seems to be the boundary between nice and sketchy. After that park - immediately - the older but still nice houses were replaced with abandoned businesses, empty lots, dilapidated housing, and a general vibe of unease for me. It doesn't get any better until Colfax....

....where the beautiful brick and glass edifice of University Hospital suddenly appears, set against the matching backdrop of all those medical campus building. The other three corners are still run down, and the businesses on the west side of Peoria still make me nervous, but the campus is just perfect. I fell in love with it the first time I saw it, and I still love it. There's also a slowly growing wave of gentrification surrounding the campus. To the north is the apartment complex 21 Fitzsimmons, which is new and literally across the street from the new pharmacy building. If you're looking for a place to live while you go to school, you can't go wrong there (it is expensive, though). I think in about five years all the areas immediately around the campus will be pretty nice.

Anyway, I love the campus, and I can't wait to make it my home away from home over the next three years.

Happy Mother's Day, too! Call your moms.

100 days

With just 100 days to go, I find myself itching to get started. Most of my preparation is complete; now I'm just waiting on other people (like the financial aid office). My big concern these days is financial.

I work as a full-time poker dealer in Black Hawk, a small mining town 45 minutes west of Denver that in 1991 brought in legalized gambling in order to preserve the historic aspects of a town that was pretty much falling apart. Because my wife worked part-time this year, and because we are homeowners with a baby, I need to work full-time through the summer and then continuously through the school year. My hope is that at some point I'll be able to quit the casino job and start doing a pharmacy internship, but I can't wait for that to fall in my lap, so for the time being I need to find a part-time schedule that works with my classes.

In November, the voters of Colorado approved an increase in our gaming limits, along with 24-hour operation and the addition of craps and roulette. These changes take effect July 2, which means new schedules for everyone. They released the list of schedules this week, so I'm spending most of my time figuring out which schedules will work for me. The problem is that I want to work full-time for six weeks and then drop down to 25 hours in the middle of August. Officially, this can't be done, but I'm working on some clever ways around the rules.

But really I just wish the next 100 days would be over, so I could stop worrying about and planning the future and start living it! Well, we'll see how it all works out. It depends on some other things, too, like how much financial aid I can get and what kind of job my wife ends up with. I guess 100 days is not that long. As someone on facebook pointed out, it's only 0.273 years!

Just some thoughts

I feel like blogging a little but I don't have a whole lot to share. I sent in my financial aid forms last week. I also started a Google group for the class of 2013. Members of the class should join the group if you haven't already.

Swine flu is driving me crazy. I'm sorry, it's H1N1 flu now. Like it should have been all along. I'm pretty sure we're dealing with just one fatality still in the US (ordinary flu kills 36,000 annually) but people in "infected" areas are wearing surgical masks and trying to stockpile Tamiflu and generally freaking out. Yes, it's serious, and yes, it could become a global pandemic, but it's not the apocalypse! We have drugs to treat it, and we know the prevention steps that we should have already been doing. I guess it's a good reminder to stay clean and sanitary. Seasonal flu remains the bigger threat, though! Grrrrrrr....

I'm going to look like a moron when H1N1 kills millions. I really hope that doesn't happen.

I guess I'm going to bed now. Oh, one other thing! If you're reading this on facebook, it's because I imported my blog. The blog address is http://buffalopharmer.blogspot.com.

105 days and counting...

110 days

Not a lot going on in the past couple of days. I sent in my financial aid paperwork. That's a frightening prospect. We're going to borrow a lot of money over the next four years. I'm looking for ways to lessen the amount we're going to need, but I think it's going to just be a lot of loans.

Today marks 110 days to go before the first day of class. I really can't wait. I've got a bit of senioritis at work right now, though. I'm not too keen about that. It's turning me from a superstar into a pretty lousy employee. I just can't focus any more. It no longer interests me. But I need to work hard, and make as much as I can over the next 110 days! Grrrr...

Poked and prodded

On Monday afternoon I allowed a very nice, competent, and tiny medical assistant to stab me in both arms, inject something into my forearm, prick my index finger, and suck blood out of my elbow. I took all of this lying down. Literally.

I'm a bit of a fainter.

Why all the torture, you ask? Apparently, working in the medical profession requires quite a few immunizations. Luckily, I got the complete MMR series as a child and I've had the chicken pox so that's two I don't need to get. But the right arm was a tetanus booster (DTaP, actually), the left arm was Hepatits B (I need two more of those - grrr). The injection in my forearm is a TB test. I really hope I pass that one! The finger prick and the blood draw aren't related to pharmacy school; that was just for blood work as part of my physical. We'll come back to that.

This felt like a big step to me. A week before I mailed off my deposit and various acceptance- and residency-related forms, but certainly all these needles mark the most painful part of the pre-pharmacy process for me. That tetanus injection site is still sore. It's completely sunk in for me now - I am going to pharmacy school in less than three months. In fact, I have a lot of work left to do to get all those ducks in a row.

Anyway, welcome to my new blog. I'm going to try to keep posting throughout the school year for all four years of the process. Maybe that can offer a bit of a unique perspective for incoming pharmacy students in the future. And maybe I'll continue it after graduation. We'll see. Whatever the case, I hope you enjoy listening to me. It's not always going to be about pharmacy school, but I'll try to keep that as the major thread that sort of drives the blog.

Oh, and the blood work came back with some disturbing results. I have really high cholesterol. So high they want to put me on a statin drug. I'm only 26. I sort of guessed this would happen, because my dad suffered a mild heart attack earlier in the year and has dealt with high cholesterol for the past decade, but it still sucks. I'm 6 feet tall (with shoes on - apparently I'm only 5'11", officially) and weight only 165 pounds (naked out of the shower - apparently I'm 170 in the doctor's office). You wouldn't look at me and think anything was wrong. In fact, my medical history is spotless. No surgeries, no chronic conditions, no medications, no allergies... well, now I have a history of high cholesterol and will be taking Lipitor or something like that. My hope is that a few months on the drugs with some drastic diet changes and an increase in exercise will bring those numbers into check and I'll be able to drop the drugs. I don't really want to start taking pills for the rest of my life starting this early in the game.