July 2005

July flew by. I feel like I got even less done this month than in June. I'm doing more experiments, but not getting any useful data yet. I also haven't managed to get through many papers yet.

The job shadowing ended up going well. But it sounds like my preceptor might have been steering me away from RadOncs due to the competitiveness. I e-mailed someone at OHSU to see if DOs were welcome and she replied, yes, but that 140+ people apply for the ONE residency spot they have per year! UW has 2 and of the residents currently in training, two are DOs, but I get the feeling that I need a fallback.

I've started my residency program ranking spreadsheet which includes RadOnc, Rads and Path programs, in that order, at this point. A lot depends on Becky, since her JD career options would be greatly enhanced in CA. It sounds like we'll probably stay in the Western states but I definately need to do more research on programs; reputations, DO favorability, competitiveness, research, etc.

I finished my one video game for the summer, Jade Empire. It was ok, but nothing like an addictive MMORG. I also got some reading done. I'm trying to finish 'The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down' and 'House of God'. I finished my Biochem review book, so after I get done with those two, I need to jump on Micro Made Ridiculously Simple. I also purchased a Rio 6GB MP3 player on Ebay that I've been using to listen to lectures. I've got about 3GB of songs and 3GB of lectures and it's working well so far. To round out the geek factor, I re-installed my med software on my Pocket PC. Since I got my MP3 player, I had a whole 512 MB SD card to fill up with s/w I purchased off Ebay. Now I have just about three programs of everything.

Working out on the other hand, isn't going too well. We just got the pool up and running after the pump broke down. And the dogs are now in good enough shape to do some running with me. So hopefully I can work off a few pounds and get into a bit better shape before school starts in 6 weeks.

Tucker is helping me rebuild our porch in the backyard. Last weekend we tore off the roof and the 1/3 that is falling apart. Tomorrow, starting at 6am, we hope to get most of the structure complete so that all we have left is the roofing.

Only other event worth mentioning is that we spent the weekend before last at my father's in San Diego. Is was a fun trip and the boys had a good time. Colton even got to ride a horse for the first time.

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll have more to write about next month, a trip to Seattle, Miho moving in, great research results, finishing more review material and getting in decent shape. Shoot high right? :-)