Post-Thanksgiving Wrap-up

Thanksgiving was great. We drove up Thursday morning to my aunt and uncle's place in Milwaukee. It was a beautiful sunny day, albeit very cold and windy. Two of my cousins and their wives were also in town for Thanksgiving. We went to this great buffet place for brunch. They not only had turkey, of course, but they had several other meat choices. I particularly enjoyed the barbeque ribs. After stuffing ourselves, we went back to my aunt's home to sit around and sleep off brunch before having dinner. Sometime in the early afternoon, the desire to get out of the house struck me, and I went off with my cousin Alex to find the only shop open on Thanksgiving day, Starbucks. After procuring the necessary coffee and tea, we returned for a nice Korean meal. Unfortunately I had to go to work the next day, so we had to leave soon after dinner.

The next day I was still not completely recovered from the previous day's feast, so I was pretty groggy in the morning. I actually slept all the way to work (on the train). You'd think the day after Thanksgiving would be slow, (most people would rather not have surgery on this day), but the work schedule was about a busy as a normal day. I got on the train to go home and promptly fell asleep. In fact, I was sleeping so soundly that I missed my stop in Oak Park. Next time I'll remember to set an alarm before I snooze.

-Brian

Almost Thanksgiving

Time sure does fly. We've been in Chicago for almost five months, and we've been married for a little over a month now. We've had two brief snowstorms so far this year, but nothing major so far. Still, its definitely getting a lot colder, and the days are pretty short and getting shorter. I don't particularly care for the short days, but otherwise I kinda like the winters in Chicago. Growing up in Alabama, we never got much snow, so now as an adult I relish the frequent snow storms we get. In particular, I like the effect that fresh snow has on this town. A blanket of snow makes even the most run-down Chicago neighborhoods look tranquil and beautiful by covering up the ugly flaws and muffling the distracting noise of urban life. I particular enjoy the way the white snow reflects the street lights at night, brightening the evenings and almost making up for the lack of sunlight.

We're headed up to Milwaukee to spend Thanksgiving with my aunt and her family. We were going to fly down to Huntsville to spend the holiday with my mom and sister, but between work and expensive Thanksgiving plane tickets, we decided to defer the trip till the week after Thanksgiving. It'll be Kelly's first time visiting Alabama. Should be interesting.

-Brian

San Diego

We were in San Diego last week for a medical conference. I somehow got chosen to give a platform presentation based on some work I did during residency. It was a bit weird to be pushed back into an academic setting, if ever so briefly, after becoming used my current non-academic environment.

When we landed at the airport, it was bright and sunny. Having just left overcast Chicago, we both had the same thought, "Why didn't we move here?" We got the rental car and drove to the nearest Chipotle for a quick bite to eat, then headed over to Elmer's house. We actually spent most of our time in San Diego visiting with my friend Elmer who lives in northern San Diego. Somewhat coincidentally, Hale, a friend from high school, was visiting from Orange county with his family. Between Elmer's kids and Hale's kids, there were five of them running up and down the stairs and in and out the door. It was quite a gathering. After a barbeque dinner, we played board games into the night.

The next day we checked into the hotel for the conference. Despite being nervous about the talk ever since getting back from the wedding, I think it went over pretty well. In any case, it was good to be done with it. I chatted briefly with a few familiar faces from Boston, but we had to get to the airport pretty quickly to make our flight back.

Thankfully, Chicago is only 4 hours from San Diego as compared to Boston which is 6 hours. I think about 5 hours is my limit before I get antsy and claustrophobic on an airplane. I spent most of the flight playing a mindless computer game while Kelly listened to her ipod and slept. This time when we got back home, thankfully nothing was missing.

-Brian