Fifth Anniversary

Today is the fifth anniversary of the day that I met my wife. We were on the way to a Halloween party and my friend had stopped to pick her up on her driveway. I was in the back seat. The rest is history. Today, to celebrate, we decided on the spur of the moment to go to Lavanda in Palo Alto. It was a lot of fun. I had a great lamb chop and Talli had a seafood soup. For a report from Palo Alto, click below.

Cooling Trend

The cool weather is here. The other day it only heated up to 61 degrees. Next weekend daylight savings ends. The following Monday is Halloween. Time for fun. No, I don't mean the candy. I mean fun holiday festivities for the next couple months. I love this time of year. Plus, Talli and I are almost done preparing the yard before her mom comes to town. In this picture, Talli's mom is the one in the middle winning this year's Seattle Health Expo. She's going to be competing in the WADL World Bench Press and Dead Lift Championships in Reno. We'll be picking her up and driving her down here after she competes. Also up on my schedule is planning out a small formal pond for our backyard. I just want to have it ready for stocking with a couple koi and a few goldfish including a 6" shubunkin. Once everyone hears the size of the pond I'm going to build, they're going to groan about the koi, but hear me out. First off, we fished the koi out of a tank of feeder goldfish. They cost 26 cents each. One is mostly white with some orange on the head and tail. The other is not so pretty. It's yellow black and gray. They're still in quarantine though, so we'll see if they'll survive. Current fish count to be put in the pond is 6 goldfish. All of them are between 1 and 2.5 inches, with the exception of the shubunkun. The koi are both about 2.5 - 3". Now for the size of the proposed pond. It'll be about 4.5' by 7.5' by 3' deep. That is the size of the area of water. The frame will be larger than that obviously. So, that's a smidge over 100 cubic feet. Putting the size at 750 gallons and the surface area at 33.75 square feet. It won't be huge, but it won't be small either. More information will follow as the plans develop.

Happy Halloween!

As a halloween special, I have an environmental message delivered in the form of a music video:The Climate Mash. This is a fun Monster Mash parody for anyone who doesn't agree with the current administration and their stance on global warming. If you are a rabid Bush fan though, just skip the cartoon...you won't like it.

Late Night Update With David van Sunder

Here's a late night blog update. Today was a good day because we got a break in the middle of the day because one of our patients rescheduled. What does that mean? We got to take a trip back to the house and have lunch with our black and white beagle, Hunter. He gets some exercise and companionship and we get some pleading looks for food and to be let out to chase the squirrels. All in all, a fair deal in my book.

Crazy? You Be the Judge

This morning a very strange thing happened at the clinic. We had a new patient at 9:00. We arrived at 9:02 because we hit all red lights. The first thing the patient did was complain that he had been waiting for 10 - 15 minutes and asking if that's how we ran our clinic. I told him that if we run into traffic or a train, then we might be late a couple minutes. I gave him the paperwork. He started filling it out. It would have only taken 3-4 minutes. I asked him for his medical card so that I could photocopy it, but he ignored me. Then after a minute he said that he was very angry that he had had to wait and that he was uncomfortable being in the clinic. (Probably because of his insane temper.) He said that he thought he would leave. (He seemed agitated. Must have had some personal issues even before he came.) I told him that he was welcome to take his business elsewhere. He said that he would, even more agitated that I didn't care that he was taking his business elsewhere. I wished him luck and he stormed out. Then I had to chase him out to give him his prescription that he had been too dumb to take with him. Well, I must say that I was happy to see him leave. Any person that behaves that way is not welcome at our clinic. We give everyone so much one on one attention that his attitude would have been too draining for his business to be worth it. At least this way we didn't have an issue about maybe kicking him out after we started treating him. Where do his problems come from? Well I have to say that he did drive a very large truck. I'm sure his truck's size disappointed the ladies greatly... Now that I've blown the little steam that I had left, I'd just like to say one thing. People can be such incredible hotheads. Because we were two minutes late, the patient left. That means that he had to have wasted a minimum of 20 minutes if he lived right by our clinic. Now, he's going to have to expend time finding a new place, making an appointment and going there where he most likely will have to wait 5-10 minutes before he is seen. My question is, is he that stupid? Was his outburst worth it? If he was trying to upset me, it didn't work. It just confused me. I really didn't think anyone was that dumb, but he had to prove me wrong. Well, good for him for putting in the extra effort to surprise me. The rest of the day went even better than the morning when we lost sparky. Everything else was just smooth sailing. All the same, I can hardly wait until Friday. Talli and I have a dinner planned at Elliston Vineyards that will involve appetizers, dinner and star gazing. It promises to be a great night! Updates to follow.

The Time Has Flown

Wow! It's been over two years. I thought that I'd be back here a lot sooner than this. A lot has happened since the last time I've posted. I can't even begin to catch you all up. Let's just cover all the trips that Talli and I have been on since the last time I posted. We went to Cancun twice, Venice once, Peru and Costa Rica. The trips to Peru and Costa Rica were amazing. We especially loved Cusco. The trip to Macchu Picchu was amazing! The city itself was fantastic. If only Lima had been half as beautiful. Unfortunately, it was a dump. Costa Rica which we went to just last month was a beautiful place as well. We stayed at the Marriott San Jose Costa Rica. It was nestled in a small coffee plantation. We took a trip on the zip lines through the rain forest canopy. That was quite an experience. We also took a rainforest hike and a river trip. The country is just breathtaking with all of its biological diversity. On a work note, Talli and I are halfway though our lease at In Stride Physical Therapy. The physical therapy business is going well. We were mentioned in the Argus newspaper on the front page of the Local Section. It was a mention for some work that we had done with one of our patients. It was a tremendous honor and one that we are proud of. We also went through the certification process and are now a certified green business. Now we're just settling into a slightly more calm part of the year. Hopefully, the physical therapy will slow down a little as it usually does and I can get a little bit more into some more outside projects. For now, I'd better head to bed or else I'll be too tired for work tomorrow. I will return here though in less than two years. That I'm sure of...this time.