J Granger

I live in an apartment with a patio that has a utility closet which holds my washer and dryer. About 4 months ago I noticed a little mouse scurry under the door jamb, into my utility closet and under the dryer. It's outside my apt, but it grossed me out so I went to buy sticky mouse traps and rat food. Within the first minute of setting the sticky trap down, I caught the mouse and that was all she wrote for him. I left some more sticky traps down and the rat food/poison.

So a few weeks go by and I'm noticing that the rat poison is being eaten like it's going out of style. I hadn't seen any mice, but I figured any day now I'd see a dead one any day now. I even had to replace the poison after it all ran out so now I was starting to think that the stuff didn't work. Anyway, around the same time we started getting some rain in san antonio and frogs were coming out of the woodwork. I had a little frog who was living in a hole next to my front porch. He was there every night when I get home. We would acknowledge each other then go on about our business. One day I got home, checked the utility closet and was sad to find my little froggy friend laid out on the sticky trap. I was crushed. . . .

I didn't lay down any traps for a while and got rid of the poison because I figured the frog had been eating it. A few more weeks passed though a new frog came to hang out. Every night around 9 p.m. a little frog would crawl up underneath the door jamb and sit just inside my utility closet until the early morning. He did this every night, literally every single night, for about two months so I was hesitant to lay down any traps. About a month ago he just quit coming around. I would sometimes see him in the grass, but he quit staying in my utility closet.

Well, about that same time, I would notice that whenever I opened my closet door I would hear scurrying from underneath the dryer. Sometimes, I would open the door really face then get on my hands and knees with a flashlight and peer under the dryer. I never saw what was making the noise but I could always hear it.... Confident that my froggie friend was no longer staying in the closet, I set down some new sticky traps to see what I would catch. After a couple of weeks all I had caught was cockroaches. I kicked the traps under the dryer and would check about once a week. After I got back from being gone for my friend Charlie's wedding, I checked the utility closet. It had been about a week, and when I opened the closet I noticed a musty smell. I figured that I must have finally caught the mouse. So I got down on my hands and knees and lifted up my dryer......

Lo and Behold...there's a freaking snake on the sticky trap!! That noise was from a snake that was living in the bowels of my dryer. It looked like a young 2 foot long garter snake that had trapped itself on the trap. I used to catch snakes all the time when I was younger, but to tell you the truth, I probably would have flipped if I was doing laundry and saw that thing slither past my downy dryer sheets. I'll post a picture of it in the next day or so when I'm feeling less lazy. For now, it's time to sleep.

jg

I haven't posted anything worth reading in quite a while. I got pretty burned out at the end of the academic year. I was so exhausted and tired that I did something I've never done and hopefully will never do again....I fell asleep during a patient visit. It was the perfect storm...I hadn't slept much in the preceding days, something like 22 hours in 7 days. I had eaten lunch about an hour before the visit, and my clinic room was kind of warm. It was just a well visit, but at the end I remember the mom asking me something about a rash. I was struggling to keep my eyes open. The next thing I remember is waking up sitting in my chair in my empty clinic office. The door was open and there was a new chart on my door. I must have fallen asleep talking to them. I don't know if she tried to wake me up or just left the room. Either way, I estimated that I had been asleep for about 15 minutes. It was pretty embarrassing.

I spent the month of July working as the senior resident on the ward at Fort Hood. I tried to run as much as possible while I was there to pass the time.

In August I ran the Nike Human race in Austin. Basically Nike sponsored 10k races in 25 cities across the world on the same day. Everyone who ran wore the same shirt. The Austin race had somewhere around 10,000 people. I saw Lance Armstrong there. He's wicked fast now and I'm an old has been. I started toward the middle which made it hard to pass people. For some reason, little old ladies and people who've never run feel like they need to be at the head of the pack. Anyway, when I finished I noticed that people were taking lots of pictures in my general direction. Just before I started waving and signing autographs, I realized that Matthew McConaughey had also just finished the race. As we walked through the chute together and through the post-race snacks and goodies, I went up to him to say hi. I gave him a pat on the back, a "good race man," and a fist bump. He said "thanks man." Here is a picture I found of him after the race. If you look to his right you see his girlfriend (who I said hi to) and his baby in the papoose. If you look to his left, you'll see an arm in the picture. That's my arm!!! I know it's my arm, because we walked through that whole area together, and I was the only fool that was dumb enough to go shirtless next to Matthew McConaughey.



So as I mentioned. I brought my nephew Lucas here to San Antonio for a quick visit. I drove to Hobbs on a Friday night then drove back with him on Saturday morning. We went to Sea World, the zoo, the museum and other random things like a train ride. He had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures to prove it. You can also click here Lucas Pictures








That's all I have for today. I'll try to keep this regularly updated now.

jg

Lucas is visiting me here in San Antonio for a few days. I'll post some pictures of our trip. Later today.

Jeremy

So, I haven't updated in a while. I'm working on a major overhaul of the website to include password protection. I'm taking down the pictures for now and think that in the next week the new website will be up and running. If I know you and we're friends then you'll get the password. The site has become a bit too popular so I gotta put the lock down.

jg

I've been MIA lately. I mentioned in my last post about the DVD I was working on for our end of the year banquet. I'm going to recap the day of the Roast (as we call it) and the fiasco that it was for me. The event was on a Friday night at 7 p.m. Thursday after work I got back to work on the movie at about 6 p.m. once I got home from work. I had a lot of editing to do and a lot of additions to make the video flow nicely and make sense. I sat at my computer from 6 p.m. until 4:30 a.m. and was still not done. Work started at 6 a.m. and I didn't think that there was any point in trying to sleep at that point. I drove into work about 4:50 a.m. and laid down to sleep around 5 a.m. in one of our call rooms. I slept there for about 45 minutes then woke up to get checkout on the patients from the night team.

That day was the graduation day for the 3rd year residents so I was the lone senior resident on the ward. Also, the resident in the PICU had to go to clinic in the afternoon, so I had to cover there as well. So, I had four pagers that I had to carry around (one of which we don't even know the number for actually). Anyway, around 10 a.m. I realized that I forgot to put a soundtrack to one of the portions of the roast. I also hadn't burned the DVD yet which takes about an hour. So, my staff covered me for about 30 minutes while I ran home to pack up my desktop computer and bring it back to the hospital. I worked on the roast at work in the afternoon in between patient admissions. I started burning the DVD around 6 or so and finished at 7, arrived at the banquet at 7:15 a little late, but still ok.

The day before I took a look at the guy's set up and AV equipment to be sure of what stuff I would need. I hooked up my DVD player and audio equipment then realized that I left the DVD remote back at the hospital. I couldn't navigate the menu on the DVD without the remote. I had an "Oh Crap" moment right then and realized that I needed to go back clear across town and get the remote or buy a new DVD. I drove to Office depot, but they didn't have any. I started driving to the hospital, but after calling up there realized that the remote was at home. So I drove home, got to my front door and realized that my keys were at the hospital..."CRAP!!!" I started back across town, stopped at Conn's Electric and bought a new DVD player. Only problem was that the remote didn't come with batteries and they didn't sell batteries there. So off I drove back to Office Depot to buy batteries. I showed up 2 hours late to the Roast but still in time for the movie portion. I reported back to the hospital that night and when it was all said and done I had been awake for 42 hours with a 45 minute nap. I was tired, irritable and my face was cramping when I talked.

I'm off to study.

I've been working on editing a series of skits for our end of the year banquet for my Residency program. It would be a lot of fun if I didn't have a real job already. The banquet is friday so hopefully I'll have the finished product here in the next couple of days. I've also been working on updates for the website I made for our program SAMPC PEDS. The updates have to be done by Tuesday before some people come to check out the program. Between the video and the program, I've been sitting in front of the computer for hours upon hours. My eyes are blood shot and I'm dreaming in computer code and video editing jargon. Hopefully this will be over soon. I'll update when it's all over.

Jeremy

So I'm at my last patient of the day on Friday. It was a 12 year old girl in for an annual school physical. When I first met her she walked up with two cups of coffee in her hands, accompanied by her mom. I commented, "Ah, you didn't have to bring me coffee...thanks." I was expecting at least a pity chuckle, instead she paused, stared at me, then said "I don't get it." I realized that she was going to be a typical I'm a little too cool for this place, adolescent. As we walked into the clinic room, she goes: "So what are you like a teenager or something?" I've commented before on how I often get asked about my age. It's been a while though since a 12 year old called me out on it. It got worse though. She kept making random rude comments throughout the encounter which I usually ignored or tried to make funny comments about. At one point though while I'm typing the note she states: "So, you must not have a girlfriend." Ouch!

My first instinct was to, well I won't tell you what my first instinct was. I wasn't too surprised that her mom didn't say anything to her about the comment. I ignored it and kept on with my note and asking medical history questions. The rest of the encounter was much of the same. After she left and after I finished crying, I packed up my things and went home to watch the part on Good Will Hunting where Robin Williams tells off Will Hunting while they're sitting on the park bench. It made me feel a little bit better...

Yeah right, overall I thought it was kinda funny and pretty sad that a 12 year old feels comfortable talking to an adult like that. I'll tune into Jerry Springer in a few years to see her on tv.

Time to sleep.

I'm back at work after my week off. In that one week I traveled a little over 2000 miles. It goes with living in the 2nd and 5th largest states. It was my first birthday in years that I actually ate birthday cake on my birthday. I'm in a better mood also since my trip. I've become so ancy of late. I'm ready to move out of San Antonio. It's starting to feel like I'm on an extended business trip and not really like home. Everything seems a bit sterile and unfamiliar...not quite all that cozy. Up to this point I feel like I've lived life having fun along the way while I worked my butt off. These last two years however have felt more like someone pushed the pause button on my life while I learn some medicine. Friendships, relationships and other aspects of my life in general feel like they are in suspended animation. I've started to weed out my phone numbers in my phone as well. I'm usually pretty good about calling folks to check in and see how their life is going and all. I'm pretty low maintenance and don't expect every phone call returned or email answered. After a year or so of those unanswered phone calls and emails however I start to wonder what the point is. I'm turning my energies toward running and work. I figure I might as well try to run as much as possible and read as much as possible while I'm here....what else am I gonna do? Anyway, off to sleep.

jg

Yesterday I drove from El Paso here to Santa Fe to see my mom. It's my birthday today too and I haven't had birthday cake in a few years so I thought that home would be a good place to get some cake. Nothing huge planned for my birthday tomorrow. Last year on my birthday I ate escargo in Nashville with my friend Brianna. The year before that I was flying from London to the U.S. on my birthday. I can't quite remember what I did before that. Someday when I have a big house and some spending money, I'm gonna throw big parties on my birthday. Until then, it'll be happy birthday songs to myself in whatever city I happen to be in. Time to sleep.

Jeremy...29 years old.

I'm sitting at my favorite old coffee shop in El Paso, TX watching a dust storm blow through. I had to check twice to make sure I drove to el Paso and not Lubbock, TX. People are scrambling around on the patio trying to gather their papers and make it back inside the shop before their eyes are sandblasted and their belongings carried off in the wind to Mexico. I spent the weekend in Hobbs, NM. It's my hometown and has found new life with the surging oil prices. It's an old oil town that boomed and busted in the 80s. My high school years there I remember being excited about the first Wendy's and new Sonic being built. It seemed to be making a comeback until gas dropped to pennies for a gallon. We lost 10% of the population (10,000 out of 30,000 roughly). Oil started to make a comeback and in the interim we built a prison, Super Wal-Mart and Home Depot. So now Hobbs is enjoying a resurgence with new hotels and restaurants next to run down muffler shops and oil field equipment. It's a weird mix.

My driver's license expires on Thursday so I had to renew before driving to Santa Fe. I have friends in El Paso and wanted to see it one more time. So I'm here. I renewed my license which took about 5 minutes. I had waited in the San Antonio DMV for an hour last week and finally left after only 6 people had been helped in that hour. I was number 462 and they had only progressed from 432 to 438. I'll spend a day here then head straight up I-25 to Santa Fe, stopping along the way to see family and go stare at some birds at Bosque Del Apache.

Ok, one funny story. I was babysitting my nephew Lucas last night. I was getting him ready for bed by turning off all the lights and was about to turn off the tv. He was still feeling pretty energetic and is a happy go lucky kid. He bounced over to the coffee table and grabbed a container which I'm assuming he thought was full of jugo (juice) or something. It was dark and the TV was acting as back lighting for Lucas. All I could make out was his silhouette as he tipped over a GoldBond medicated foot powder into his mouth. I saw a puff of powder in the air and then Lucas was silent. I think he was a bit stunned and maybe worried whether he'd get in trouble. I asked him if it got in his mouth and he nodded yes. When I turned on the light he had a mouth full of white powder and looked like he had rubbed a powdered donut all over his face. I had to laugh as I helped him wash his mouth out.

jg