I have a lot of catching up to do on this thing. I give you my thoughts on the recent past. This post is about Powell. This should be a busy posting week indeed...
Lake Powell
(NOTE: For a nice full recap of the events of Lake Powell, please see Adam’s or Iwan’s blog posts about the subject. And of course check out the videos on E’s site.) Here are some of my thoughts about the trip:
Powell was of course, awesome. I pretty much had an unbeatable time with a smile on my face from start to finish. The ability for multiple good friends who are also busy adults to come together and get totally away from it all and have a blast is just about priceless. For me, the trip was two things. One part was the celebration of Eryn’s birthday. The other part was a vacation for myself to celebrate the end of residency. Appropriately, somehow, the trip started and ended in Vegas.
To make things even better I was on call the night before I left. The call - the last one of my residency - was brutal. I didn’t sleep a single wink and had about 10 admissions. Nuts. I finished up my work, got to Pete’s house and napped it up for about an hour, then showered and was driven to the airport. My flight was delayed and I ended up skulking about the airport for several hours, unable to nap there for fear I wouldn’t wake up and actually catch the flight. On the plane, I slept some more, about 1.5 hours or so. So upon arrival in Vegas (and that was a LONG day), I had about 2-3 hours of sleep over the previous 36 or so hours combined. And of course as the night went on it only extended the ‘percentage awake time’. Ridiculous.
To solve the fatigue issue, I began drinking. A couple of shots at the bar and a beer or two later - I was sloshed. There are a series of things that night that I recall in hazy fashion and here they are:
Losing money at black jack, making fun of Iwan and Adam for playing Let it Ride, winning money at roulette, getting foot long hot dogs that were nothing less than incredibly fallic, calling the resident call area at (my old) work while drunk at 3 am, cruising to OG, watching some chick do crazy leg/pelvis/butt muscle isolation ‘quiver tricks’, busting out the “I’ve never seen that before and I’m a doctor!” line to that same chick (oh the shame, Michael), rolling out of OG only to be unintentionally driven to our hotel by some scamming hooker (this was hilarious), and finally, oh finally, getting to sleep.
The next day I felt awful. I still had too little sleep and was hungover to boot. Though looking back, I really think it was the fatigue and dehydration which killed me that day (of which the alcohol was a smaller part of than usual). Of note - never try to cure a hangover by going for a five hour drive in the desert. It’s pretty much a bad move every time. Luckily, I was able to sleep away some of the hours and pound a gatorade or two and then feel better by the time we arrived at the lake.
The first night on the boat was pretty cool. We slept on the docked boat, outside. It was a calm and clear night initially - we assembled the “Man Bed” and fell asleep looking at the stars. About 4 or 5 am, I remember waking up and there was a crazy wind and the stars had been replaced by blackness. I turned to Iwan (another lucky Man Bed member) and we joked about the inevitable rain. Sure enough, a few drops started and then it started coming down harder. The wind was howling and all of us (save Papa Roston and Senior Dips who were in a hotel that night) started scrambling around and picking stuff up and getting it below decks. I’m not sure why, but I have vivid memories of all this. I remember thinking, for lack of a better term, how “alive” the whole thing made me feel. Out of the hospital, out of the grind at work, a thousand miles away sleeping under stars, dealing with wind and weather. It was a hectic 20 minutes, but incredibly therapeutic as well. I didn’t mind that “squall” one bit. There were several moments like that on this trip - both hectic and peaceful - which were incredibly therapeutic. Ah the power of vacation.
Other stuff:
-I was extremely glad to finally hang out with one Liz Randall. I had known her more through Eryn than directly all these years. We’d sent books to each other and emailed a few times and such, but I’d never really hung out with her to any significant extent (high school prom in the limo doesn’t count). So that was pretty cool for me, and probably cool for Eryn to see all his peeps and Liz get to hang out. Liz is, as advertised, pretty much the coolest. So nice work Liz on being Liz. And nice work by me on getting to hang out and shoot the shit with her. Liz, you are one cool chick - best of luck to you in all your endeavors.
-Papa Roston and I shared a pretty cool moment out on the boat. It was some good after-dinner cigar time, and PPR and I got to talking about all sorts of stuff. Some of it was jolly and trivial, and some of it was deeper and more meaningful. Its kind of hard to describe, but the whole conversation was one of those feel good moments where things just seem to come together and life briefly seems to make perfect sense. I have a tremendous amount of respect for old PPR, and I was fired up to spend some quality time with him like that.
-Some of my other favorite times on the trip were when we were both coming and going to our spot in the rocks on the house boat. When we ‘shoved off’ the first day, and PPR put in his Traveling Wilbury’s (or whatever it was) - that was pretty cool. And during the trips I enjoyed looking out the side, watching the scenery float by, and thinking about things. All this normally happened while someone’s IPOD was blaring away. I vividly recall the song “This is for all the lonely people” playing once, and another time it was “Everything counts in Large Amounts” (Depeche Mode) that got me going. Both songs are now featured on my ipod.. And when they come on, my thoughts immediately turn to Powell.
-Quality time with the boys (in this case E, Iwan, and Adman) is always rock solid. I love, simply LOVE, that no matter how far away I go or no matter how many new places I see or live in, or no matter how much more divergent our lives seem, I can always come back and hang with the crew and pretty much resort to an older mentality that uniformly results in having an absolute blast. When I get to see ‘my boys’, I’m always giddy about a day or two before, because I know that I’ll spend the entire time laughing and smiling. And Powell was, of course, no different. I’m convinced we could hang out at the DMV (or play hangman in a car) and have a good time.
-I gave wakeboarding a good five or six attempts with little success. My foot popped out of the binding once, which didn’t help. But in the other four or so attempts, I just wasn’t getting it. I suppose I would have liked to have given the old WB another shot, but given the immeasurable fun of dueling tubes, I figured it wasn’t worth wasting everyone else’s time in the boat as they watched me learn. I still would like to try it - seems like a blast. Next time. (Although when will dueling tubes NOT be an option?!) The sheer euphoria of dueling tubes will not soon be matched, methinks.
-Sleeping outside in perfect weather under the stars (and in a Man Bed no less) is damn good for what ails you.
-Despite the presence of Eryn’s mom, there was no political fall outs. This was a good thing. I think it reflects the fun of the trip. Everyone was having such a good time, there was no point in bringing all that shit up. It was good to see Eryn’s mom again. As I age, I’m definitely enjoying the transition of treating friends’ parents as equals rather than as the authority figures as they once represented.
-The cab driver at the end of the trip, who took Iwan and I (the last of the Fellowship of Lake Powell) to the airport was a nut. He can best be described as an ‘active conversationalist’ (“You see what I’m saying, right? .... RIGHT?!”) who was channeling Papa Stup something wicked in his discourse on the proper way to play roulette. Iwan and I were in stitches.
My Big Take Home Point from Lake Powell:
Residency is over. This is mind-blowing to me. For me, Powell was a way to usher in the new era of my non-residency medical career. Powell is the celebration of the end of a tumultuous and difficult three year period. I can honestly say (and this is not a small thing) that residency was the worst three years of my life. The intern year was the most brutal. And during a lot of my second year I sort of felt lost. It wasn’t all bad, of course. And the good part is that things are definitely on the upswing and I’m downright excited about my future. I think that the only giant hurdle I have left in settling in to my full fledged adult life is the whole Iraq issue. But I’ll get to that on a different day (and probably on many different days).
I think that during residency I kind of felt both “locked in” and at the same time without direction, which is a strange thing to figure. Graduating residency is like coming up for air. Near the end, I started thinking about a new question, which is, “I have four years left in military servitude and then what”? I never knew the answer to that question, but I think Powell, time with friends, and maybe a conversation with PPR has helped shine light on the answer and solidify things a bit.
I have essentially four years to freedom. (July 1st, 2009, to be exact). I never had a definite plan after that. But now, I think its clear that I need to bring my ass back to San Diego. Thanks to the Powell crew for helping me see that.
Eyes on the prize, boys. See you in four.
“Don’t give up until you....drink from the silver cup...”
(and if you can't do that - Bird Dog it Chet!)
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