OOOOOOOOOOOklahoma!

Yes, here I am, in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma is famous for oil, a musical, wind, and football (mostly Barry Sanders, OSU).

My temporary place of residence is at the Medical Inn, which is conveniently located one block from the VA hospital, where I will be spending part of my day tomorrow, and three blocks from the main hospital. While the Inn may lack the niceties of other hotels in the area (I stayed at the Radisson last year), it makes up ground in the free wi-fi and closeness-to-the-hospital departments. Something to consider, to be sure. Also, they have a spectacularly low rate for students interviewing at the Health Sciences Center. All of this makes me wonder: why did OU direct me to other hotels which were both farther away and more expensive (even with the student discount)?

I spent a little time today wandering around, and had some decent Brisket at George's Happy Hog BBQ. Pretty solid stuff: chopped brisket on white sandwich bread with a bag of Lay's potato chips and a Diet Pepsi. I should have gotten sweet tea, but I can go back tomorrow night. On the way to get lunch, I snapped a photograph of the State Capitol Building from the parking lot of the VA.

Trip to Houston

This post is out of order, chronologically, as I visited Houston before I went to Detroit. The dates are hazy, and I am too lazy to look them up. It was a sweet trip. I visited with family in the morning, and we had a long and amazing lunch at a South American joint, the name of which escapes me. Not that I really ever tried to commit it to memory. Following lunch, I got a nice tour of the medical center Mecca. This was truly something to behold. It may have literally been a mile of road, on either side of which were hospitals. I've not seen anything quite like it, and the 'medical mile' (so dubbed by this guy) is home to two Level 1 Trauma centers.

Later that afternoon, I got together with two friends from NSU: Nick Denbesten and Desiree Gallagher. We met at a local brewpub, had a few beers, and talked shop. Des extended an invitation earlier that week to put me up at her pad, which was much appreciated. Being a graduate student does not pay as much as people think.

Got up the next morning for the interview at Baylor. Above is a snap of the sunrise reflecting off the buildings of downtown Houston. The interview went as well as I wanted it to (always nice) and then it was immediately off to the airport, to head to the Motor City.

Trip to Detroit Rock City

So I interviewed in Detroit, at the Henry Ford Health Sciences Center. The interview went amazingly well, and I was far more impressed with the site than I thought I would be. I had some time to kill the day after the interview, and visited the Motown Museum. The museum is the old Hitsville, U.S.A. building, where Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson began recording some of the best music anyone has ever heard, about 50 years ago. The highlight of the tour was, of course, getting to see the 'snake pit', aka Studio A. It was truly an emotional experience for me, standing in the same room that had seen the likes of Diana Ross and the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, and dozens of others. Among the former denizens of that hallowed studio were the Funk Brothers. If you don't know who the Funk Brothers are, do yourself a favor and look up their history, and/or watch the amazing documentary "Standing In the Shadows of Motown".

Since photography and video were not allowed inside, I snapped this picture on my way out. It was extremely cold, and I was happy to have been able to hold the phone still enough to get this picture.
That's it!

Concert

Jennifer and I went to see Radiohead last night in West Palm Beach! The show was incredible, and they played most of their new album. On top of everything else, it was the FIRST show on their North American Tour, so they were not fatigued from a long tour. This makes for a good show. We had a really good time, but got in late, of course, as WPB is about 45 min. North of us. Fortunately, I got to sleep a little late today, so I am caught up on my 8 hours. The opening band was awful, but that's sometimes par for the course. We're going back in just 11 days to see The Police and Elvis Costello, on the same bill!! WOW. That will be pretty much it for our summer concert fun, as these shows cost a good bit, but we definitely got some good ones in...

First Post

This is my new blog. From here, you will revel in my wild, decadent existence. I have a brief list of things to do before I leave South Florida, which is posted to the right side of this blog. My wife Jennifer and I were discussing this the other day, and realized that time is running out for us here in Florida. It's not as though we're leaving tomorrow, or anything, but we may be here for only another year or so. That's pretty much contingent on how far along I am on my dissertation, of course. Time is moving by much more quickly than we had anticipated, and definitely more quickly than we thought it would (hence, the name of the blog), which is why we had that conversation. Anyway, more to come soon. Maybe I'll have some documentation each time we check off an item. Maybe some if we add an item, too.