And the winner is…

Go see the 2007 Medblog Awards at Medgadget! Congrats to the winners, the nominees, and to everyone who participated.

I’m gonna be the new Dawg!

This is going on in the city where I currently live, Zapopan, adjacent to Guadalajara (they’re seamlessly interconnected, it’s not a stark border, even on a map):

A cousin of suspected killer Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean told CNN Tuesday that he saw the wanted man near Guadalajara a week ago. Juan Antonio Ramos Ramirez said he did not know at the time the Marine visited him at his liquor store in Zapopan that Laurean was being sought by authorities for murder….

Mexico has had a long-standing record of refusing to extradite suspected murderers to the United States if they face a possible death penalty after conviction. Mexico is opposed to capital punishment.

The FBI plans to circulate in Mexico either matchbooks or business cards with Laurean’s photo. The Marine’s wanted poster is on the FBI’s Most Wanted List with a $25,000 reward.

It’s on now, brah!

Disgusted

You know, throughout the Chargers/NE game, I always felt the Chargers were going to lose even while they were up by 3 then never trailed by more than 7-10 points. Why? Because you could see the inconsistency in their playing, the fly-by-your-pants style that won them big plays, but couldn’t deliver when it counted (like 4 trips to the red zone that resulted in 4 FGs only).

That’s NOT what I expected to see from Green Bay. As I saw Plaxico Burress saw through GB’s secondary like a hot knife through butter, the GB cornerbacks suckered on the simplest jukes, I had to wonder what all the fuss was about how awesome our cornerbacks Al Harris and Woodson were. When the secondary adjusted to get more “physical,” all that came of it was pass interference calls. Burress was visibly taunting Harris, and excuse my French, Harris did turn out to be the little bitch today.

I lost count of the missed tackles by ALL of the defense, but especially Woodson and Harris. Everybody was so flatfooted, lacking any fire, like the only thing on their mind was to get back to that warm bench. Well guess what? You got several months to sit your warm ass on the couch, because the season is over.

New York missed two field goals and had a touchdown called back because of a holding call. That’s 12 potential points that would have removed the need for an overtime in the first place–plays and opportunities allowed by the GB defense that should have never been.

But enough ragging on the defense, the offense didn’t exactly shine either. Favre in his press conference on Friday said he would like to sleep in on Sunday morning for a change, leaving the pre-game nerves to the younger guys. I think he slept past noon, because he hasn’t played that craptacular since Chicago’s loss. I don’t know if receivers were slowed down by the conditions on their routes and Favre didn’t adjust or what, but so many balls were overthrown (on the right route) or simply badly thrown (at the feet). Favre never looked comfortable and was constantly fiddling with his chinstrap. He too looked like he wanted off the field ASAP.

After throwing a pick while three defenders were chasing Favre to the sideline (throw it away already!), you’d think there would be restraint later when faced with similar circumstances. The interception on the very first possession in overtime was classically the worst of Favre. When the pressure is on, he feels the need to make the “big play,” and more often than not, he makes it for the other team. Manning threw his fair share of airballs and grounders to be sure, but other than one time, he didn’t cough up a pick under pressure, and certainly not at a pivotal point in the game. The stats of the two QBs were actually very, very similar; the difference was 1) the defenses, 2) penalties, and 3) the timing of the mistakes.

Nobody likes to lose, but losing because you were bested is respectable; losing because you didn’t achieve your standards (let alone excellence) sucks. Bart Starr was selected to present the NFC trophy to the winner: imagine the circle of history as Favre would have taken the stand to share the reception from GB’s legendary QB of yore. Imagine the Super Bowl matchup of Favre and Brady as GB and NE meet once again (in 1997, Bledsoe was the NE QB).

Now the only thing most of us can hope for to not have to endure more crap from New England fans than we’ve already had to deal with over the last few years is for the G-men to kick some ass against the Patriots. They showed in the final week of the regular season that they had a significant chance of toppling the Pats; now, with three more wins and all the confidence in the world combined with the lessons recently learned from 3 weeks ago, the Giants have an ever greater chance of getting the job done.

Gameday and the Medblog Awards Radio Show

It’s gameday once again for my Green Bay Packers, this time for the NFC Championship and a trip to the Super Bowl. The New York Giants, proving themselves a team to take seriously in Dallas’ defeat last week, I’m afraid to say is too beat up and inconsistent to be a match for the green and gold. I’m not a superstitious person, so I have no “jinx” worries by typing this before kickoff.

The big story on the game is the weather. The 3-day estimate for kickoff was 4 degrees. I just checked online about 45 minutes ago and found this:

That’s for about 1pm local time; kickoff is at 5:42pm, so you can be sure it’ll probably be a bit colder, certainly dipping lower as the game progresses into the night. The temperature situation is serious enough that the Packers issued a press release giving safety/health tips and advice to fans attending the game.

The advice given above doesn’t apply to the comfortable temperatures here in Guadalajara, so my prescription for gametime is the following:

Like antibiotics, you should not stop treatment early, even if you feel better. hehe

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In all the festivities I almost let slip by the fact that tonight is the Medgadget Medblog [Pre-]Awards Radio Show with the host, Dr. A, as well as Dr. Nick Genes, fellow Medgadget colleague and creator/coordinator of Grand Rounds. The show will be at BlogTalkRadio with the live broadcast starting at 9PM EST/8PM CST/2AM GMT. Be sure to log into the chat room a few minutes early to get comfy.

My “work” for the Medblog Awards was done back when Medgadget was responsible for collecting nominations and determining finalists, and since the final vote belongs to the public, I’d let things slip a little (and as a judge, my blog, however not worthy of being among them as of late, isn’t eligible anyway) In general, my blogging activities have taken a back seat to the administrative hassles at school, but this should show that I’m still alive and kicking and still not without humor. I feel bad for not promoting this earlier, but better late than never I s’pose.

If you can’t tune in tonight, you can catch the show archive anytime thereafter. Watch Medgadget on Wednesday, January 23rd, to see who the official winners are (and what lucky individual gets that Kindle)!

Epiphanies, Part 2

There is no part 2 after all, sorry. Apparently I’m not as enlightened as I thought I was, though I know I had more high-falootin’ idears a week and a half ago.

Something about Mexico and butting heads with administration and school officials after a two week sanity break kinda had something to do with my regression back to mere survival mode. When one worries about shelter, security, etc. one doesn’t usually afford time for philosophical musings.

I’d rather get to talking about other things, and just write about the school stuff in small morsels that doesn’t compromise ongoing efforts. This crap ain’t over yet, but it is progressing in my favor somewhat…I can say that much for now.

Epiphanies, Part 1

Happy New Year!! I missed you all! I’m writing this in a Best Western in Monterrey, Mexico–a small overnight stopover on our way back to Guadalajara. I know in my last post that I said I’d write with a big update of school and all, but honestly, I never could get it together to post. All the stress of being away from home with the little one, worsening family tensions (outside us), and a much more somber tone from everyone it seemed, and we were ready to come home at our leisure shortly after Christmas, pending errands and things of that nature to do.

Then I came down with a rather virulent Man Cold. No sooner than I had started working that bell, Claudia got it as well. Then A got it–her first little cold ever. Knowing I was “Patient Zero” made me feel bad about it, but funny enough, she withstood it better than we did. New Year’s was just a couple of days away, so we figured “what the hell,” and decided to get better before adding more stress of yet another trip. Suddenly, I had a mini-epiphany: I thought to myself, “Why am I trying to hurry home to be there in time for offices, etc. to open (and school to start, but I can’t start with them), when they certainly won’t be in a hurry to help me?” Usually, I’d be stressed arriving before a school start a day or two before with so little time to get settled, recover from trip, etc. (I’m not a spring chicken anymore), but this time I said, “Screw it!” and will be arriving tomorrow, THE DAY OF. How about them apples!!

The title of the post is “Epiphanies,” and wouldn’t you know it, today is the celebration of the Epiphany (which, by the way, is the gift-giving part of the Christmas holiday here in Mexico–something I forgot about when I booked these tickets, reminded quickly by the crowds). I’m not going to go into any spiritual parallels–that would take too much brain power than I have at the moment–but I did have more than a couple of breakthroughs in the way I saw things.

First, like a scripted Zen Hollywood moment, I really did finally understand I am nothing. I am obviously nothing to the medical community, not even being a degreed/licensed anything medically–that was never in doubt. However, I am also a nothing to my school. My ace-in-the-hole in dealing with school was always that they couldn’t possibly stand their ground charging me for that unattended semester when they know they’d lose me as a student and forego 4x that amount in lost tuition. Even my being that cynical and making it all about money I overestimated my importance. What did I miss? The fact that my place can be replaced by any number of wide-eyed, eager, naive 20-somethings just waiting to have their shot at a medical career too. To be kind, UAG isn’t exactly “selective,” so it’s not about supply/demand, it’s just that there’s no shortage of students wanting to be physicians. Many will make good doctors if given the chance; quite a few have no business being anywhere near a white coat, but they all will come, and the school knows that. Losing me or any one student is meaningless. That was a tough lesson.

Second, I have no idea why this is happening to me right now, but one day soon I’ll be able to make some sense of it. Whether one ascribes it to “God’s plan,” or simply a time where lessons were learned, the worst that happens from this doesn’t break up my marriage, doesn’t carry the diagnosis of a terminal illness, or God forbid, the loss of a loved one. I’ve had a few friends and even a couple of doctors simply say, “Well, can you just go back to your old job? Or perhaps even turn this around and get a clinically relevant IT position somewhere?” (ie, medical informatics) At the time I heard that I was insulted, even though I knew they honestly, truly had my best interests at heart being people that I love and have known me for years. “I am not a quitter!” kept telling myself. But you get beat down so much, you start questioning yourself and wondering if the lesson that needs to be learned is “Enough is enough!” There have been precious few months of peace and tranquility in my life in the last 3-4 years, especially so since I started medical school. Nothing seems to come easy, without drama, without struggle. I’ve never expected things to just fall in my lap, but damn if I didn’t keep asking myself, “Is it supposed to be this hard?” I’ve been thinking lately of this Demotivators poster (and then saw this new one when getting the previous link…heh) and wondering if that’s me. It’s not about the academics, but academics isn’t the only player here. I am not willing to let it all go just yet, but I did have a “light bulb” moment that perhaps this isn’t supposed to be for me, which is a huge step for me to admit with seriousness, even if I’m nowhere close to accepting it should things go that way.

We have to be at the airport at 7:15am and I just saw it’s almost 2am, so I better finish this once I get back home. It’s weird having the juxtaposition of wanting to home so badly so you can settle back in, etc. but not know if you’ll have the home in a matter of weeks.