Concert Calendar

Listed my upcoming musical excursions on the Pit blog. Go here to chekitout.

New Blog

Hey All,

I've started a new blog. New attitude, new year and all that junk:

Armpit Cogitations

Check it out. I profess my newfound love of baseball, trips, training, etc.

I'll still post to this one, perhaps double-up from time to time.

Swoosh

Such the slacker I am, had promised to post daily and then let life get the best of me. Ah well...here's an update:

My Substance Abuse Counseling class was soooooooooo tedious and "high school" on Tuesday. The professor gave us a scrapbook assignment, but didn't give a time limit, so certain classmates played YouTube advertisements that were 7+ minutes. Hello.....I finally had to speak up and put a stop to the nonsense, as the professor looked to be spacing out. I get more out of reading the book and watching Basketball Diaries then I do sitting in that class. Irritates me when I don't get my money's worth.

Last night in Trauma class we discussed DID, or dissociative identity disorder. DID is what multiple personality disorder was renamed as. The professor told some pretty interesting stories of how she came to diagnose her clients who had DID - a bit tip off is "losing time", which of course can happen when you black out from substance abuse, but that wasn't the case with these clients. Spooky stuff. Glad my brain is intact....for the most part.

Heading out for Denver in a few hours to hang with my cousins and hit the slopes. Can't wait.

All for now - will post pics of the trip soon.

Love me some Nic Cage matrix

This made me laugh. Although I think Kick Ass should be in the "serious brilliant" part of the matrix.

Speaking of matrixes, I believe that I'm meant to be with someone of my own generational matrix. Although I know many Baby Boomers who are down wid it, most of them just don't get it. Is it right to discriminate based on entire generations? I don't really care - I'm gonna do it. So bring on the Gen X'rs.

Tootin my own horn

So as I'm taking the elevator up to my floor at work, I check my email. I have a LinkedIn request from some guy named Tom Bouthillet. Nothing weird here, I get requests from people I don't know quite a bit. There is a personal message, however, that states he is going to blog about me today.

Wha? Well, that sounds a bit ominous.

I reach my desk, and open up my email and click on his LinkedIn profile.

This guy is legit. He works in Hilton Head as a Fire Lieutenant/Paramedic and is an avid blogger/social media user in health care.

I accept his request, and proceed to open up our hospital Facebook.

He had already linked to HIS blog post about ME on OUR Facebook.

A complete and wonderful surprise.

His blog post is about how social media is stepping in where traditional media, such as newspapers, radio and television is failing.

He also talked about what a good job he thinks I'm doing.

Wow. It was really nice to see.

Made my day.

To see our hospital blog, go here. For our Facebook, go here. And for our Twitter, go here.

Stir-crazy

I made it to work every day this week, despite the "storm" but am still feeling a bit stir-crazy. I've lined up a few thing this weekend that will hopefully satisfy that feeling.

Tonight noshing at the Central Cafe - yum, love that place. After that, who knows...the night is young.

Tomorrow, up and at'em early. Taking my mom to get her oil changed, then a little shopping, then a lot of cleaning. Taking in an art opening downtown in the afternoon, then having company over for dinner, drinks, what have you...

Sunday is sleeping in, then the usual Baby Day with the family. Ethan's pulling hair and chewing on it now, and really grabby with the faces - it's a miracle that his mother Mandy still has her hair. He's got some strength, so I'll be wearing my hair up and leaving my earrings at home. My goal is to get him walking in the next couple months - he really wants to, refuses to crawl and just loves to be on his feet, bouncy bouncy.

I'm picking up some ski goggles this weekend for my upcoming Winter Park excurs
ion. Can't wait to hang with my cousin on the slopes.

The reason Ethan is in a towel on the sink is because last Sunday when he arrived at my brother's "Burger House" extravaganza, Mandy lifted him out of his carseat and he had apparently had a blowout on the way over. There was poo all up his back - must have felt kind of warm and comforting to a baby, but if I were him I'd be embarrassed. He's good about laughing things like that off. Anyway, I thought he looked like a commercial baby, what with the blue towel and product placement so I snapped a pic post-poo.

The Blizzard of '82 - whatevs

Yeah, I wasn't here for this one. I was, however, in North Dakota dealing with multiple blizzards every winter, which lasted for 9 months.

So upon hearing the gloom and doom that's permeating local media outlets, I can't help but chuckle.

I've been through this before.

But then it keeps getting worse, and now FEMA is involved, and the National Weather Service is issuing server warnings.

So now it looks to be pretty bad.

I am at work now, and am longing to go home to my puppy and hunker down for the long haul.

The only thing I really fear is ice that knocks power out. That would suck. Bigtime.

Weekend offerings

Moving to my new digs in Tower Grove East. Spanking-new condo complete with an alarm system (not Oliver). I am now armed with a Club and some new mace. All set. ;-)

BurgerHouse on Sunday - love homemade shakes and my brother's grillin. He makes a mean burger.

Also, the Firebird has some choice musical offerings this Sunday: Santah, California Wives and local Art Majors. If I have made progress on my place, I may check them out. Santah sounds chillingly like Vampire Weekend, so if you're looking for a fix, look no further. I dig the Art Majors.

Speaking of dumb dogs...

So this morning, I let Oliver out to potty. I stay in the covered porch while he roams around.

Today he ran up and down the fence with the dog next door for a couple minutes.

He usually does this.

But since there's snow on the ground, he wasn't thinking ahead.

See, Oliver has very sensitive paws. He can only take being in the snow for a few minutes before he can no longer stand up.

Because my dog is a wimp.

So because he hadn't pottied yet but instead chose to play with the dog next door, I knew what was coming.

And I thought it might be a lesson for him to learn.

So after a couple minutes of playing, he ran to the END OF THE SNOWY YARD, probably a good 50 feet away, to potty.

I have a long yard.

Now, he could have gone 5 feet and pottied by the house.

Oh no. Not my Oliver.

He got to the fence, went potty, and then that's when it happened.

First his front left paw came up, and started to twist in the air like it was spazzing out and he had no control over it.

I started to call him back in, knowing what was about to happen. He still had three good paws...he could make it.

Well, maybe not.

His left back paw did the same thing, mimicking the movements of the right front paw.

So what we have here, folks, is a dog with both paws on one side of his body writhing in the air because the snow is like FIRE and it HURTS and he can't put them down.

What do you think happened next?

Yup. He fell over into the snow.

He wasn't going to even try and make it back to the house.

He laid there like he was an invalid.

So I walked out to the END OF THE YARD, picked his wimpy little carcass up and carried him back into the house.

As soon as I placed him on the kitchen floor proceeded to dance around as if he deserved a treaty treat.

Um, no, I said. Only brave dogs get treats. Wimpy dogs get laughed at.

Now, mind you, Oliver IS a smart boy.

He knows the names of his many toys - if I tell him to go and get Bear, he fetches the rabbit. If I tell him to get Ducky, he gets the duck.

He knows commands like Sleepytime, Outside, Car, Ice Cream Cone, Bath, Up, Down, Sit, Speak, Lay Down, Beg, High Five, Shake, Get Down, Kisses, Water, Food and Treat.

But the dog doesn't do well with time or distance when it comes to snow.

Smart in some way, challenged in others.

Like most of the people I know, myself included.

I needed a good laugh...

It's been a week. This made me smile.

Toilet humor + puppies = happiness.

I love training

So I've really been struggling with trying to like running. I know I will never love it. But I've really tried to just tolerate it.

And it's not working.

But what I've discovered is that I love training.

I love preparing for a goal, a race, an obstacle to overcome.

I read something today that reminded me of my love of training.

It took me back about six years when I was training for sprint triathlons. I loved getting on my bike and pumping out 20+ miles a day. I enjoyed getting in the pool to see if I could go just one more lap further than I did two days prior. And I dragged myself out in my running shoes to plod along just enough to be able to do a 5k.

But what I liked most was getting out of bed at 4:30 and hitting the bike, the pool or the road with a big goal in mind and milestones to hit.

Both of which I did, and loved every minute of it.

So I feel like I've reconnected with my old self, in a way, remembering why I ran. I ran to prepare, and didn't just run to run.

So I guess you could say I will never BE a runner. But I would like to call myself a triathlete.

So there.

Whew

Finally shook my crummy mood and made some progress on my office.

Big changes in the works. Life is good.

Found a neat print of a show I recently went to where I discovered a fab new band, Bagheera.

So I bought the print for $1, and went to find a frame for it.

I ended up finding a kickass frame for half off, and the gal at the hobby store custom matted it for free because she likes the band too.

Love it when life comes together like that.

Um, yeah.

Holy hell, I'm crabby.

Like raging crabby.

This is very out of the ordinary for me. I usually only have one crabby day a month. It's one very mean, angry PMS day.

This is not that day.

This is an extra crabby day. Oh, goody.

I do not like feeling this way.

I hate everything about this day.

I hope I get over this soon. Like, in 5 minutes would be ideal.

Late

I'd wanted to start off the year by blogging every day.

Oh well. I'm not going to kick myself for missing the first three days.

The new year has kicked off to a fine start.

Hitting my training hard, adding some neat classes to the mix (kettlebells, TRX, Yoga).

Myoplex came out with a new shake, Cafe Caramel. My new favorite.

Working on my master plan for BJH social media. It will be a banner year.

Finishing up my PhD application and elective course proposal for Lindenwood/UMSL/Fontbonne. Hope to start teaching somewhere as early as the summer, perhaps the fall.

Will be moving into my brand-spanking-new city condo later this month. Looking forward to living next to a Billikens coach and one of our ER docs. Good neighborhood, including my favorite restaurants and organic grocer.

Planning a couple of trips this spring - possibly Seattle for a conference in April, and Chicago. Heading to Winter Park for skiing in Feb, and definitely overseas somewhere for my birthday in May. Gotta give that passport some ink.

Classes start up again the week of 1/24. Looking forward to my Trauma and Substance Abuse courses.

2011 is going to be, in a word, outstanding.