I’ve seen magicians do that tablecloth trick…you know, pull a tablecloth out from under a bunch of glasses, plates, silverware…the works. We got a new rug from my mom a while ago, and thought that the only place that would be be good for it is in the living room to replace a much smaller rug we had. That one basically just fit underneath the coffee table. So anyway, I spent the better part of today moving all the furniture out, including the big hutch that our entertainment system lives in. Heavy sucker. With the help of these dollys, I was able to move everything out. Now just waiting for the floor to dry and I’ll lay the rug, and move everything back in.

Whew…
Would have been a lot easier if I just had a magician to whip the old one out and put the new one in.

Several weeks ago was my 30th birthday, and Kelly said she wanted to buy me a new grill for it. I currently have one large charcoal grill that is rusted and out of shape. It’s also really annoying to just cook for two because it’s so large and takes too much charcoal to get it hot enough. I also have a small Weber kettle grill that was here at the house when we bought it. The legs fall off of that one if you try to move it. So, it was time for a new grill…

Of course I wanted charcoal, but it’s such a pain when you just want to grill something real quick, but ideal for smoking and slow cooking. So I was leaning towards a propane grill for day-to-day use, and just keep the Weber for when I needed it. I looked around a lot at fancy grills with rotisseries and infrared burners, but to get what I liked seemed like a lot more money than we thought was a good idea. I lost interest a little because I couldn’t find something that was “the one” and also within price range.

Until today…we happened to stop by Lowes just to see what they had in stock. I had been to their website a ton of times so I thought I knew what they had to offer. Then I found it. The best of both worlds. 1200+ sq inches of cooking surface. Side burner. Propane powered…AND charcoal powered!

Excited to put it together tomorrow, maybe even try it out! Might post some pictures.

So, we’ve pretty much slacked off for a year an a half with updating this beast. A LOT has happened since then. Lemme highlight a few:

• Kelly graduated from SLU. Woot! BSN!
• Kelly turned 30!
• Kelly started working at St. John’s Mercy Rehab Hospital
• I quit Boeing
• I started working at Scottrade
• Both of us are learning how to wakeboard
• I discovered the pain of waxing my back
• I turned 30!
• We adopted the puppies out to my sister and brother-in-law. Kelly’s allergies grew out of control, and with much sadness, we took them to a good home. They now have a lot of room to play, as well as a 3 1/2 year old to chase

Although this post hasn’t been terribly enlightening, we’ll try to update this more often.

Some videos to entertain ye:

Well, the BBQ fest isn’t going quite as planned (looks like that’s par for the course). Due to massive storms earlier in the week, Jason couldn’t make it down to Austin because the airports were all closed. On Wednesday, I started getting a sore throat, Thursday it was worse, Friday was about the same, and today I have a full blown flu running. Nate also happened to get the flu, so we are about equally as miserable as the other.

Last night, we did eat some BBQ at Stubbs, and were quite pleased. The BBQ in Austin is famous for being able to stand on its own with no sauce needed. There was sauce provided, and it was pretty tasty, but the brisket and ribs were seasoned to perfection, and just ridiculously delicious.

After that, we wandered around downtown Austin, mostly around 6th St. 6th St. is a famous here…kind of like a South Street (Philly) area. A lot of bars, tattoo places, pizza joints, etc. It was pretty crazy, and there were riot cops and SWAT teams, and Paddy wagons galore. Nate and I were figuring that Austin is a rough place, but then remembered that it was Mardi Gras. We didn’t hang around for too long, and finally went back to our crazy hotel, and slept.

Today, at least 2 more BBQ joints, and probably go visit the state capitol and maybe a museum or two. Will write more later and upload some pictures.

For once the weather reporters didn’t get it wrong. We got hit pretty hard by an ice/snow storm over the past two days. We had 70 degree weather earlier in the week. Then it rained all night Wed night / Thu morning. The temperature plummeted 40 degrees and the rain turned into sleet and ice that fell all day Thursday. Sometime after dark, the ice turned to snow and over the night deposited 3-4 inches of snow on top of an existing 3 inches of slush/ice. By morning, the slush core was more or less frozen solid, and the snow sitting on top of it created pretty hazardous conditions. I decided I was going to go to work, but couldn’t get my old truck into 4×4 (which means it’s rear-wheel drive), and couldn’t get Kelly’s car unstuck. Kelly had the day off because her buildings were without power. So I decided it wasn’t worth it to a.) unstick the cars at my normal go-to-work hour of 6 and b.) even if they were unstuck, probably not worth risking the drive. So Kelly, the kitties, the puppies and I were all home to enjoy the winter wonderland.

The puppies love snow. They were super excited every time they went outside, and loved eating, running, playing, fighting, rolling, sticking nose in, falling over in, and sliding on the snow. I have some pictures (click on the picture below to see them all) and a video of one of their tussleing matches. Enjoy our wintery wonderland…

View the small video (4mb, low quality)
View the large video (40mb, higher quality)

I got my first stab from my wife / nurse yesterday.  She and Erika have been giving flu shots to people, and I got candidatized. I’ve only ever had one before (last year) so I don’t have to much to compare it to, but I can honestly say that she was better than the one I got last year through Boeing. I didn’t even feel it this time, although her comment of “You’ve got tough skin” kind of worried me at first. I thought maybe she had to stab me again, but then I looked down, and it was already in my arm.  Anyway, she’s gonna be great at this nursey stuff…she’s good already.

Some of you know about the BBQ Fest I had earlier this year in Kansas City. Well, part 2 in the 3 part series has been planned. My brother-in-law has some meetings in Austin, TX which happens to be one of the planned BBQ capitals. So Nate and I are going to fly down to meet him on the weekend, and have a BBQ craze! Looking forward to it with great anticipation.

Day one of adult trauma clinical: So I stay up until 1:15 a.m. working on the pathophysiology, drugs, nursing care plan, nursing diagnosis and plan of action for my patient and get to the hospital and am told that they discharged him. Which means that I get to try to find a patient to play with for the day. The night nurse decides that I can share a patient w/ my classmate because she’s “difficult” meaning that her O2 stats were in the 50’s all night long (we like to aim for 98-100% saturation in healthy adults). Came in from a fall as a result of a CVA (cerebral vascular accident - fancy talk for stroke) with a broken hip. The nurse who was responsible for her was too busy to come give us a status report (don’t even know if she had seen her at all) and the pt kept us busy enough trying to get her to respond to our voice, checking LOC, and doing a.m. care (pesky O2 masks…. the amount of oxygen needed to just keep her stats above 80 was so high that it dries out the mucous membranes and tongue - she had kept trying to take it off all night - if someone had just given her some good oral care consistently they could have improved her comfort) The first time we pass meds always takes the longest because you need to look up all the drugs, rates of administration, check for drug to drug interactions, etc. About 30 min after her meds got pushed the patient began sweating and her eyes rolled back in her head. I went out to track down her nurse and she came in and decided to call the doctors. She had heart sensors in place, connected to monitors at the nurses station (not in her room) and when we looked back we saw that she had flat lined for about 30-45 seconds before her heart started beating again. She did that 2 times. The daughter arrived at about that time, requested the discontinuation of any measures other than comfort. The doctor asked us if we had ever seen anyone die before, and that this is what it looked like. So we took off all the stockings, braces, blood pressure cuffs off of her and left her oxygen mask on, discontinued any medication besides morphine and left her with her daughter and son.

Tomorrow I’ll see if she’s still with us…..

It’s almost the end of October! Which I am told, means that after the students desperately claw their way up this pile of books, papers, classes and clinicals is where we finally reach the top and can see down to the other side. I can’t say that I quite believe them, because even though it’s supposed to getting easier from here on out all I see are the “to dos” that I have to get done to stay on top. I still have an enormous amount of papers, journals, care plans, tests, a proposal for a community project, and a pile of reading that keeps on growing. I just went through a final in one class and midterms in the others. I have finished Lifespan II and will begin Lifespan III Monday. My friends and I look around to see who’s missing and I am just thankful that as we come back in after that week of test after test after test after test that I’m still occupying a seat.

P.S. I start my adult trauma clinical @ St. Louis University Hospital this Tuesday and Wednesday for 6 weeks. My clinical instructor, Bobbi said that we’ll see everything we’ve imagined and a lot that we would have never thought of. I’ll try to post all the interesting stuff, which means the gross stuff of course….

If you aren’t aware, Tom Cook and I are currently en route from Sacramento to St. Louis for a major road trip. I set up a separate blog for it…

roadtrip.melnickzoo.com