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.

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.

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.

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!

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...