It may or may not have been Amit's 21st birthday as well

No one said it was going to be easy

it was getting hot in herre

Me and Samir

the groom's clowns (and Yosh)

the reception hall used to be a Catholic church.

Mr. Miyagi will tell you that there is no defense for the Crane Technique

typical Yogen and Moose

Lebron James is the celebrity spokesman for Sheena Weds Rishi Water: The Official Refreshment of the Patel-Patel Wedding

It took a while, but all of us eventually ended up in the same picture

All 8 "groom's attendants", without the groom this time

7 of 8 "groom's attendants": Larry, Colin, Samir, Me, Rishit, Safi, Yogen, and Chiraag

Moose, Yogen, Samir, Rishi, Colin, and Me

what's become of the newspaper of record?

Quote Unquote | Pantsuit of Many Colors

Somewhere in New York, there's an editor deserving of a backhanded slap.

If you think I'm a geek, be glad I don't have the Sad Mac tattooed on my leg. This is the leg of the guy working in the Apple store. At least he takes his job seriously.

death of a laptop

My mighty IBM Thinkpad T40 died a couple days ago.  I went out for a run and when I came back I heard a clicking sound.  At first I thought it was the perpetual-motion ceiling fan (more on that later) but on closer inspection that clicking noise was emanating from my computer.  I was aghast to find a black screen that read "Disk write error.  Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE to restart."  Needless to say, restarting didn't help anything.  Nor did throwing the computer in the fridge for a while (the wrist rest felt overheated).  I guess I subconsciously knew something was going to happen because I just happened to buy a 500GB external hard drive two weeks ago.  My subconscious isn't the smartest of my consciousnesses because I wasn't able to back everything up in time.  I did save my pictures and a majority of my music collection.  As a matter of fact, my computer died while transferring the rock n' roll folder.  It crapped out while copying the Snow Patrol album (on track 5 to be exact).

What a fantastic laptop it was though, it's actually remarkable that it lasted almost 5 years.  It was a real International Business Machine, not a lenovo (not that I'm going to trash lenovo - my understanding is that they have maintained superior product quality despite the ownership transition).  It had Bluetooth when you still had baby teeth.  A 70 GB hard drive in a laptop was nearly unheard of back then.  And the keyboard is the finest laptop keyboard ever made.

I'm typing this post using my Eee pc (as you may recall I named it mofeen... the thinkpad was named spottieottie).  I'm wondering if the Eee pc purchase wasn't also somehow driven by my subconscious knowledge that my regular computer was going tits up.  Again, this lesser conscious didn't consider that I might be better served with an adult sized keyboard.  Oh well, at least I have internet access and email access at home.

My laptop isn't the only thing broken around here.  I feel like I'm living in the House of Usher.  The ceiling fan that I couldn't turn on for 2 weeks is now stuck on medium speed and I can't turn it off.  The disposer in the kitchen sink doesn't work and my car is making more noise than the F-35s that buzz my house on a daily basis.  I'll be going to LA for the weekend, so I'm basically expecting to find my house at the bottom of a tarn when I return.  On the plus side, I did buy some new spectacles for the first time in 3 or 4 years (I can't remember).  I'll post a picture when I get around to it (heard that one before?).  I'm now 40% more emo, although if you find me at a poetry reading or dive bar that serves only PBR loudly discussing the side effects associated with increasing doses of Paxil then just stab me and make sure it's fatal.  "Run-on sentence" has to be one of the most apt terms in the English language.

Useless Knowledge: My 70GB hard drive contained 36GB of music.  No wonder it died.

it's just like rounds... only grander

I made a case presentation at our department's grand rounds conference this morning. The presentation went off without a hitch, I fielded a question from the kooky lady without sounding incredulous (although Chris assumed a large amount of it for me). The faculty seemed to appreciated it as well. I couldn't have asked for a better situation, really.

Apart from that, I've done a little more exploring about town. I enjoyed some drinks at The Prado restaurant in Balboa Park with the psych residents. It's a very pleasant place to spend an evening (if you're ever in town). I also went to the 24 Hour Fitness in Hillcrest close to the hospital instead of my usual location near my house. I probably should have guessed going in that it was going to be a little awkward, but it was far and away the gayest place I have ever set foot. The locker room was horrifying. I won't be going back there.

Sunday will be my 1 year anniversary in San Diego. I can't say that it felt like the year went by quickly. I think spending every third night in the hospital makes a year seem longer than it really is. After working hard during my intern year I felt very confident at the beginning of this year that I could handle starting a new residency. Unfortunately, that confidence was fueled by ignorance. After a year of seeing the devastating things that can happen to someone who looked relatively normal 10 minutes ago I have to say I've been humbled. I know that I've learned a lot, and people keep telling me that I've learned a lot but I still feel like I don't know anything. Weird, huh?

Useless Knowledge: The primary predator of the mandrill baboon is the leopard.

3:56:11

Well, I ran the Rock n' Roll Marathon on Sunday and had a terrific run. It's probably the best marathon I've ever run, despite being 25 minutes off my best time. I pretty much ran a consistent 9:00 minutes per mile for the entire 26.2 miles, including 2 bathroom breaks. I slowed down towards the very end, the last 2 miles or so, not because my legs were wearing out cramping like they usually do but because I was feeling nauseated. I'm not sure what's up with that, it's never happened before and the sensation went away as soon as the race was over.

I drank a ton of fluids which I think helped stave off all the cramping (but led to the aforementioned bathroom breaks). The cloud cover broke around mile 20 or so, making the end of the race kind of hot. The crowds were terrific and well-distributed (unlike in Chicago where all 2 million spectators are in the Loop and you can go 4 miles out on the west side without seeing a soul). It was awesome to see my friends drive by (which was a totally awesome coincidence). A few of the interns were out and cheered me on as well.

I celebrated after by devouring a Chicago-style deep dish pizza, 2 Aleve, and falling asleep. Maybe I'll post a picture of the medal if I get around to it.

a sorry-ass post for my sorry-ass blog

Meera is sick of seeing my last post, and I guess most of the rest of the world is too. I'm not sure if anyone reads this any more, I think I would consider a blog dead if it hadn't been updated for 2 months.

I can't say I've been too busy to post, at least not until the last two weeks. I was on elective in April and boy was that a nice break. I'm doing my last inpatient month of the year right now so I've been pretty busy. As a matter of fact, I'm on call at the hospital right now.

I'm typing this post from my new Asus eee pc. In my usual habit of naming all of my gadgets, this little 2 pound wonder has earned the name "mofeen". It's a long story related to it's weight (2 pounds) and a forged prescription for morphine I heard about last year. Ask me to tell you the story the next time you see me in person.

Apart from work, I've been doing a lot more running lately. I've attempted 19 mile runs each of the last 3 weekends. It's gotten a little easier each time, but I haven't been able to finish it without walking yet. I've been doing it without carrying any water or 'ade, I might try it with my Camelback this weekend and see if I have better success. I'm still tossing around the idea of running the San Diego Rock n' Roll Marathon on June 1.

I've joined a weekly kickball league, we play on Tuesday nights. Our team is called "Where My Pitches At". It's a good time, but my kicking skills are a little rusty from a couple decades of disuse.

Californians and dogs. I think I'll have to reserve a separate post for this. Maybe I'll combine it with a post on Californians and driving. You can probably guess where this is going.

Anyway, I'm alive!

zen running

Back in the day when iPods were too large and expensive to run with, I'd run without listening to any music at all. It was a nice time to clear my head and eventually I realized that running was my form of meditation. Sure, I've tried the whole sit-down-cross-legged-in-a-quiet room deal before and you'd know why it never worked for me if you've ever seen me attempt to sit cross-legged (the picture is from my last trip to India nine years ago at Vasukuttan's chorrunna). I' m terrible at Malayalish. Anyway, when I lost that quiet time during my runs when my iPod shuffle and later my iPod nano came around. Sometimes the music helped motivate my run, but too often some slow R&B song would wiggle it's way into my ear and totally kill my pace.

Lately, I've got a lot of stuff to think about; mainly things related to work so I've decided to start running sans iPod again. It's working wonders on my breathing patterns and I'm better able to maintain my pace over the course of a long run. Of course, I'm also getting serious about running again after having an awful time this year. It doesn't hurt that running marathons with an iPod can get you disqualified under USATF rules.

I was out running tonight and fell into a rock steady pace and breathing pattern, I was just past my turn-around point and hauling up the hill on La Jolla Shores Drive in a total zone that prevented from realizing there was a biker pulling up beside me about an arm's length away. He was staring right at me and moving just barely faster than me. "Nice pace" is all he said.

That felt pretty good. Exceptionally good. Way better than all those "Looking good!" cheers you hear on marathon routes. I hate when people yell that at me, because you know damn well that after running 26 miles you look like a lot of things and none of them are good.

In other news, I got this thing in my email about my high school 10th reunion. There's a whole website with information about the events. A lot of people have responded to the invitation and have left short blurbs about what they've been up to for the past 10 years. It made me realize how many people I've simply forgotten about and that for the most part I already keep in touch with the people I'd want to see. I'm not going to be able to make it back home for the reunion (sorry Nicole!) because I've got a few too many weddings to go to this summer and fall and only a limited number of vacation weeks. I need to use them wisely.

Meera and I going to Berlin in a few weeks. The one with the Germans, not the one with the pretzels. I haven't been to Europe yet, so I'm pretty pumped. I'll be taking my camera of course.

And yes, you just looked at Rammstein wearing lederhosen.

Useless Knowledge: Dr. Dre is 43 years old. Incidentally his birthday is two days apart from Rihanna's birthday, who's 20. The difference is quite obvious when you look at the picture.