the glory and the horror

Free Derek Webb

It seems to be a takeoff of Craigslist, but it’s a little different. Angie’s list is something I first heard of on NPR, and finally signed up. It’s small and still growing, but it looks like it’s going to be a good resource, I think. I’ve already submitted several reviews of my own on a couple services we’ve used since arriving in Houston. Essentially, it’s a consumer-driven review/rating system for various service businesses in numerous cities around the US. It started in Houston, so I assume that’s where most reviews are. I know one person in Birmingham has tried to use it, but it wasn’t running yet for them. Dallas is supposed to have their section up as well. It has categories ranging from electricians to dry cleaners to pet groomers to piano tuners (and movers!) and more. So please, give it a try, and help give some business you liked some good publicity, and help steer people away from the crappy folks.

For similar websites, check out resellerratings and dslreports for online retailers and broadband internet, respectively.

After graduation, we went on a 7-day cruise of the western Caribbean out of Galveston, with stops in Key West (home of Hemingway for a while), Georgetown in Grand Cayman (where all the bad guys hide money), and the island of Cozumel (where they have spectacular SCUBA diving) off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula.

This was a much needed excuse to do a lot of nothing. As Kathleen said a time or two, the beauty of this sort of vacation is that you’re not allowed to cut it short, or bring too much “work” along with you. It’s basically a done deal, a set amount of time that you MUST be away from home, MUST be away from work, and MUST be in a different setting. Most people on this cruise were looking to do a lot of hanging out, walking around seeing stuff, shopping, tanning, and drinking, and that sort of carefree attitude was very apparent on the boat. Lots of alcohol. Lots of people by the pool, reading, tanning, sleeping, etc. Internet access was expensive (basically 50 cents a minute!), so people couldn’t hide away and surf or IM. It was a crowded enough cruise that people had to talk to other people, especially at breakfast and lunch in the dining room.

We boarded the ship (Rhapsody of the Seas) on Sunday after driving all morning from Dallas. It was a mostly uneventful drive after graduation the night before. Of course, there was completely unpredictable traffic in the greater Houston area, but I’m pretty sure no one is surprised by that. The highlight of the drive was the fact that I got to ride with my old college roommate who has been working overseas for the last 3+ years. It was a great opportunity to catch up on things and hear about his life. He had made some good friends through work and church overseas, and was going to miss them, but was looking forward to being closer to friends and family.

Anyway, we made the drive down without anything really interesting to speak of. Once we got to Galveston, we found the cruise terminal without a problem, unloaded, and got our luggage checked in while Kathleen and her mother went to park the car. This put us on the boat pretty quickly, as the check-in/security procedures were quite benign (this was Royal Caribbean Cruises, for those wondering). They have this SeaPass card, which is both convenient (such that you’re not carrying a lot of money on you) and an evil ploy to get you to spend more money (which is easier – to just swipe a plastic card, or carrying and counting out cash?).

So the food was amazing. Our waiter was from Turkey and our assistant waiter was from Romania (the region of Transylvania, no less!), and they were very nice and fun to talk to. Part of me wishes we had the chance to hang out with them outside of them being our waitstaff in the dining room. They even had a Ben & Jerry ice cream place on board. That wasn’t included, though, and you had to pay extra for that.

So our first stop was at Key West. Not so much to speak of. We didn’t get there until the early afternoon, and so we got off the boat and just BARELY made it in time to get to Hemingway’s house. Apparently, Key West has been home to many many Pulitzer prize-winning authors, and is currently home to a couple of famous authors right now (Judy Blume and some others).

Our feel is that it was just a nice beachy place to drink and eat some REALLY good key lime pie. Other than that, we weren’t too impressed.

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So it’s taken WEEKS for me to put stuff up. So here’s this much, and some pictures up to this point.

The side of the ship as we were docked in Key West

Hemingway wrote a lot of stuff here. Kathleen would know more about what he actually wrote while in Key West.

One of many polydactyl cats that live on the grounds of Hemingway’s former residence. You can actually see that extra toe.

Part 2: I’ll try to get us at least to some of the on the boat stuff, and maybe all the way to the Grand Caymans.

Kathleen is asleep on the couch, post-call, and we have both just finished our first week of residency. We’ve made it. Two calls for Kathleen, early mornings for both, lots of procedures for me (I’m on a GI rotation), one busted beeper already (mine), and my first stupid intern mistake.

So I’m on what is essentially a consult service, so we just see our old patients and wait for new consults to come in. Occasionally, though, and this was one such occasion, we will admit someone directly to our service if they really only have a GI issue. In this case, it was a lady with melena. Anyway, since I am one of two interns, this patient is mine. We do the H&P that afternoon, no problem, and the attending asks me if I’ve got the admit orders, and I say yes. I know how to do those. I’ve been doing them for about a year now, already. Anyway, I finish writing up my H&P, and go on my merry way, totally forgetting to write the admit orders. It was the last patient of the day, so I head on out, and realize on the drive home that I’ve forgotten these orders. So I call in and have to give the nurse the admit orders over the phone! That’s pretty bad, for those of you non-medical types. Admit orders are supposed to be written when the patient is admitted, as the name implies. It didn’t end up making a difference, as I had already written the orders for other things to be done, but it was still pretty bad form to have to call up the nurse to do that.

Anyway, now that I’ve got that particular major embarassing moment out of the way, I’m probably good for another week or so before I mess something else up.