Buffalo Pharmer

So why did I change the name of my blog? Well, the Buffalo is the mascot of the University of Colorado Boulder. It's not really supposed to be associated with the other three campuses (Denver, Colorado Springs, and the Anschutz Medical Campus). They don't use the Ralphie logo any more, and student organizations aren't allowed to, either. None of the other campuses has a mascot, so I don't personally see the harm in borrowing the buffalo, but apparently the administration does. Whatever. So I dropped the buffalo from my blog. That said, the Buffalo Pharmer name was such a great pun, and people seemed to like it, so I think I'm going to switch back next week. Sorry to keep doing this to you.

There are some things that I like to do but hate to have done to me. Tousling my son's hair is a good example. I know it doesn't really feel good to the recipient, but I can't resist. He's too cute.

It occurred to me that my last several posts were written on very little sleep. I bet that makes them seem whiny. So sorry. I'll try not to do much more of that. Last night, I got three hours of sleep after work before my exam. What a difference that made! Now maybe I'll end up with a good grade in Principles of Drug Action.

I wasn't really looking forward to the Masters, but it turned out to be a great show. Seeing Phil Mickelson win it, the way he did, with his wife looking on, put a lot of perspective on the whole Tiger Woods thing. I'm sure what Tiger and his family are going through is very difficult for them, and I don't mean to diminish that hardship for them. But Tiger's predicament is directly the result of Tiger's actions. Yeah, it's tough for him, and yeah, he clearly wasn't 100%. I think we forgot, though, that Lefty's wife AND mother are battling breast cancer. It was a stark contrast. And I get the sense that while Tiger's off-the-course issues were getting in the way of his golf, I think for Phil it's the opposite. Over the past year, golf has really gotten in the way of Mickelson's personal life. It was refreshing to see such a high-profile guy who has his priorities in the right order. I like Tiger, and I admire him as a competitor, but as a family man or even as a man, I'm not all that impressed.

The weather has been extremely nice this past week. It's made studying a little difficult. I got to go to the Rockies home opener on Friday. I love baseball. It was a perfect day. I got sunburned on the right half of my face. The Rockies won.

My son split his head open on a door frame. Again. He's fine, but he's got six stitches in his face. He gets them out today. I feel bad for the guy. It's just about half an inch above the spot where he got hurt last time. If he can get another injury running sort of perpendicular to those two, he'll have a nice Harry Potter-style lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. That might make me feel better about it. I mean, kids are going to get hurt, but I feel a little bad that he's going to have facial scars for his whole life. Well, maybe not. I got burned on my hand pretty badly as a child and the scar lasted for ten years or so. Then it spontaneously disappeared. I guess that could happen with Xander, too. Here's hoping.

Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to come back to whatever URL I'm using next week. Check them both, just to be sure.

Well this all blew up in a hurry

A lot has happened since I last posted.

We got a house. It's in Thornton, which is closer to several of our friends and also (a little) closer to school for me. It's also not much further from work. It's a great balance, and it's a lot smaller payment than we used to have. That was the entire object of this move, after all. We're getting a nice house of the same size in a good neighborhood for something like $70,000 less than we sold the old one for. And if the real estate market turns around like everyone says it will, that house will go way up in value. So that's all good news.

Now the loan approval is tricky. In the last month we've seen business levels at work drop from near-record highs (largely due to the novelty of 24-hour gaming and higher bet limits) to all-time record lows. My paychecks are half of what they used to be, and still going down. I believe we'll recover, and if we don't I'll find a different job to get the bills paid, but the loan underwriters may not agree with me. So at this point I feel like I'm holding my breath and hoping. I should find out at some point this week, which is good, since we have to be out of our house by the 26th. (If you live in Denver and want to help me move, that'll be the morning of the 24th.)

Yesterday I took the last exam in Science Foundations I. That class is done. I will pass it, although not with an A. That's OK. Your GPA doesn't show up on your pharmacy license. I'm thinking I'll probably have a B in the course. It feels good to have finished something already. That was quick, wasn't it? Tomorrow is the final exam for Principles of Drug Information. I've already earned a C in that class (if I skip the final) so no worries there. The potential sad news is that we could lose people from our class this week. Actually, I think they let you finish the semester first, but you can't continue in the curriculum if you have one F or two Ds, or a GPA below 2.0. So anyone who fails one of those classes, or gets a D in each of them, it's no more pharmacy school for that student. I don't want to see my class shrink. We've already dropped from 161 to 158 students (I don't really know what happened to those three, but they were gone after the first week - probably accepted somewhere else or realized that pharmacy school wasn't the way for them) and I know we'll lose some more along the way, but it still breaks my heart to see someone put in that much work (and tuition money!) just to fail out.

The ethics committee met for the first time last week. I can't discuss anything that was said in the meeting, but it looks like it's going to be a busy year for us. I dig it.

How about those Bears? That week 1 loss was a little bit of a fluke there, but JAY CUTLER is lighting it up. Now imagine what he could do if he had some real receivers! Maybe the Bears can sign Brandon Marshall in the off season, or trade for Calvin Johnson.

It was cool to see the Rockies make the playoffs. It was heartbreaking to see No-clutch Troy Tulowitzki make the last out of two home games with runners on first and second. But the Rockies are for real, and everyone important is under contract, and if ownership forks over a little bit of money in the off-season, the Rockies will contend for the National League West next year. We can talk about the Cubs later. I like to stick with a winner.

And thankfully, basketball season is soon upon us. I'm sure the Nuggeys will be a frequent topic for me in the near future. Plus, I'd like to see more of those cool NBA ads on my blog. They look more professional than the little text ads that pop up normally.

We've been calling this week "hell week." We had two tests (Science Foundations I, Law) yesterday, one tomorrow (Drug Info), and one Thursday (Professional Skills Development). My case gets especially fun because I had a training class (Advanced Customer Service) at work yesterday and I get to go in to pick my new, less money-making schedule this afternoon. So that's two of my days off that I go up to Black Hawk for instead. I'm going to make a total of nearly 22 dollars for those two days. That will at least cover my gas for the trip. I'll have to make sure I stop off at the Golden Gates casino to enter their football pick-ems contest. It pays $250 to the weekly winner, and I was close two weeks ago (13-1, but three people were 14-0).

I don't really want to overload you any more at this point. I'll try to get a picture of the new house up and talk a bit more about it next time. Thanks for reading, and come back soon.

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.

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!

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.