Crazy Day

The last 24 hours are just a blurr! I found out yesterday evening that I would have to travel to the town of Chico (home of Sierra Nevada beer which was founded by two college students--how sweet that would be!) which is 3 hours from Santa Rosa. That wasn't great new as I would have to wake up around 5 am, but that's been done before, so no big deal.

So then last night was the first time I've had plans with friends outside of work since I've moved to Santa Rosa (not that I don't enjoy my coworkers, but it's good to diversify!) We went to a Messiah Sing-a-long at a local high school. For those of you enthusiasts of classic music score, this is Handel's choral piece based on the life of Christ and is where the "Hallelujah Chorus" came from. I sang parts of this score in high school, so a sing-a-long sounded fun (I'm showing my dorky side)! At this sing-a-long, the audience is the choir and they handed out the music at the door (I think I may by my own music and practice for next year.) I sat by an attractive girl who I mustered up the courage to talk to! She ended up being a senior at the high school, so of course, I got her number, and will probably tutor her in calculus. (That's a joke by the way, it'll probably be trigonometry) :) During the Messiah, I was really enjoying myself and surprised at how much of the music I actually remembered. The "Hallelujah Chorus" is the third song from the end and I really wanted to sing it, but I decided it'd be best to leave at intermission which was at 9:00 PM since I had to wake up around 5 AM.

On my way home, I received a phone call informing me that I needed to go to Redding instead of Chico (240 miles from Santa Rosa) and that the clinic starts a half hour earlier. This necessitated waking up at 3:30 AM to leave my place by 4! Needless to say, I wasn't real excited. So on my way I texted Aaron since he's on the east coast and figured he'd be on his way to work. Well, I had been on the road for an hour and Aaron informed me he was just leaving for work (he's three hours ahead of me!) How ridiculous!

Overall, the clinic went well, the patients were nice, and my coworkers in Redding were very glad I came. I got back to Santa Rosa at 5:30 PM (a 12 hour work day with 8 hours of driving) and had a beer at a local bar with some friends. I had a Sierra Nevada, kind of an ironic beer choice in retrospect (refer to first paragraph)!

Condo Clarification

Just so you all know, that's a mirror on the wall behind the bookshelf in the picture with the kitchen table. Kudos to you who figured that out, but I think it could be confusing to the untrained eye and make my place seem twice as big as it is :)

My Pad

I figured I'd post some pics of my condo for ya'll to see. I'm definitely happy it. For those of you who heard me complain about how small my place in Sac was (see July blog), you'll hear no such complaints about my new place (it's four stories)! Well, maybe more like multi-split-level, but I like to describe it as four stories! But hey, I got a great deal!

2 car garage


Living room


Kitchen/dining room


Stairway to master bedroom and then guest room


View out my back patio

Bad Ass Ride!

Well, my bad ass ride finally arrived! Lincoln Navigator what? Cadellac Escalade who? No thanks, I'll take my freakin' pimpin' Toyota Rav4! That's right, my Rav4 is here, and I'm kind of a big deal in Santa Rosa now. Tanner Augustin has officially exploded onto the scene! No more minivan for me. Although I had gotten used to those looks I would receive driving that thing around. I just resided myself to the fact that every girl who saw me in the minivan assumed I was a young family man with kids. Not anymore! Now I feel like rugged mountain man. Bear Grylls, I'm sure, drives a Rav4 as no other vehicle screams rugged mountain man like it does. And I think Dog Bounty Hunter drives one around too. Goodbye family man image. Now when I drive by with my 2Pac's Greatest Hits thumpin' the ladies are thinking, "That's the kind of man I want to be with!" Some even yell, "Hey Tanner!" (That's right, they know my name. How do they know it, you ask...they just do). I just smile back, give a wink, toss out my card, and keep on rollin'...that's how I roll. That's how I do it.

Work Peeps

These are some of the Christmas pictures my team took. We give Christmas cards to all the clinics and hospitals. In the top pic: in the back (from left) is Steven, me, and Dan. In front (from left) is Gary, Rebecca, Amy, and JP (the boss). Amy is in a chimney, not a trash can.The ugly Christmas sweater theme was my idea. Although, in Cali, I couldn't find ones that were extremely hideous! I was looking for the ones with one huge picture of Santa Clause and just couldn't find them. Interestingly enough, though, I was at Macy's and saw a Polo sweater for $250, and it was uglier than anything I could find at Goodwill!

Great Weekend

It was so fun having Aaron around for a weekend. It's been months since I've seen someone from home, and I was really missing that. One of the things I realize I miss most about being around long-time friends are the inside jokes! When you've known people for several years, you have so much to make fun of and bring up from the past...it's great! You really don't have that with new friends.

We spent the weekend in Sacramento, not Santa Rosa, because I was on call this weekend. Yes, you heard me right, I was on call. :( I was pretty frustrated going into the weekend that I couldn't get out of it, but that's the job I guess. But the Lord definitely answered my prayers in that I only had one page while Aaron was here! That's pretty much unheard of. In my previous on call weekends, I've always had at least a couple calls per day. So Saturday was callless and we had a blast! Also, we stayed at a nice hotel downtown paid for by Medtronic, so that was kinda nice.

Last night we ate at a restaurant called Stonegrill & Bar. I had a Kobe steak for the first time. I was kinda disappointed with it. It wasn't as tender as I expected it to be, especially considering the Japanese massage the cows to make it more tender! At this restaurant, you actually cook your own meat on a 750 degree lava rock in front of you. (It's moisture activated, so if your finger is dry, you can actually touch the rock and not get ridiculously burned). I just seared it a couple minutes on each side and had a nice cool, red center. I love my rare steak!