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!

LOL...

All these text messaging shorthand of words and abbreviations get kind of confusing. LOL, WTF, NBD, J/K, how are we supposed to keep up with all these? BFD right? Well, it is a BFD!

Whenever I would text message some joke or funny comment to a coworker, he would reply with "LOL". I thought that stood for "lots of love"! I'm not sure why I thought that, but I figured that's what it meant. It didn't seem like the most natural thing to say in that context, but, being in California, I figured it must be a common response to something funny. Well, as my good friend Aaron pointed out, it means "laugh out loud!" That makes so much more sense! TTYL!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Happy Thanksgiving! I wasn't sure what to expect this year in regards to my Thanksgiving weekend. Every year I look forward to the holiday weekend because it means lots of relaxation, great food eating, and football. My favorite thing to do is eat a huge meal and dessert, and then just lay around all day watching football. Being in California this year, I was looking forward to the time off work, but didn't know how enjoyable the weekend was going to be. As it turns out, it was a great weekend!

I spent Wednesday night through Friday evening in Sacramento. I stayed with a coworker of mine and his wife, Nick and Carrie. It was great! They have a nice house and they're so enjoyable to be around. On Thanksgiving evening, we went over to Carrie's parent's house and had both fried turkey and smoked turkey. Both were great, but the smoked turkey was the moistest turkey I've ever had in my life! At the house were both sides of parents and siblings. They were all so nice, it really felt like I was around actual family.

Today, I was back in Santa Rosa and was able to get more settled into my place. This afternoon, I went to Bella Wine Caves, a beautiful winery in Dry Creek Valley. A friend of mine was pouring, so I decided to go check it out. It was a great time! 4 miles off the highway on a single lane road. It is so much more of an intimate setting in the hills than Napa Valley is. Napa Valley wineries are right off a busy highway, and the wineries in this area are off a single lane road. Definitely gonna take people up when they come visit! Soon I'll post pics of my condo so you all can see it.

First Sunday in Santa Rosa

Well, here I am in Santa Rosa. My first weekend here. I finally moved up to Santa Rosa for good. And none too soon, as I have grown weary of weekdays in Santa Rosa and weekends in Sacramento. I treated myself to Tater Tot Casserole as my first meal in my new place! Gotta keep to my Nebraska farm roots. However, I did sip on a glass of Cabernet grown here in the Northern Coast as I ate my casserole. Midwest farm boy meets California wine country!

I am a little irked sitting here, though, as I have found some things in my condo that are less than acceptable. My dishwasher smells like burning rubber when it runs, and it drains through this nozzel into the sink (disgusting). My washer quit working on me after three loads. This condo complex can't have satellite dishes, so I had to buy out of my two year contract with Dish Network after only 3 months of having it -- kinda pricy. There's no silverware holder for the dishwasher, and no drain baskets or stoppers for the kitchen sink. And finally, the middle of the bathtub is lower than the drain, so I have to use a squeegee push the water to the drain after every shower. Yes, this all kinda pisses me off as I am paying a good chunk of my salary to rent this freakin' place! Oh well, I guess a nice conversation with the landlord will have to be had.

Here's some picks of the area I took today. Enjoy!Vineyard 15 minutes from Santa Rosa toward Napa Valley
Overlook of Santa Rosa
Sunset at the Pacific 30 minutes from Santa Rosa (that's me!)

A day at the office...

Yesterday was a bit of a crazy day in the life of this Medtronic clinical specialist. I did four clinical checks between 8 and 11 o'clock in the morning (not too strenuous). But then the fun started. I got told to drive up north to a town called Fort Bragg. It's only a 2 hour 15 minute drive!

So I left Santa Rosa at 11:50 and drove through the wine country, into the redwood forests which ends at the Pacific Ocean. It was one of the most amazing drives! A two lane hwy going through the redwoods that ends at the Ocean. It's like in a movie or something. And then I drove 20 miles along the coastal highway (cliff down to the ocean on the left, hills to my right!) to Fort Bragg. I only had cell phone reception for 30 minutes of the drive, so it was me and Dr. Laura most the time!

I did two checks in Fort Bragg (1 hr) and then headed back to Santa Rosa for another 2 hr drive. I finished my 240 mile excursion at 5:00 PM just in time to get to the hospital to do 5 implants. I ended up getting home at 11:30 PM. Crazy day!

SHHHHHH!

Freekin' A! I got "shushed" by an anesthesiologist during an implant yesterday evening. Can you believe that?! I need a freekin' governor on my voice so it keeps it below a certain decibel level.

Tanner-isms

I've realized that there are things about me, quirks if you will, that my roommates over the years have pointed out that are actually true. How have I come to this conclusion? Well, these same Tanner-isms have been observed by coworkers here! Recently, I was working with my boss in a clinic and was telling some information to a doctor while she watched. Afterwards, she observed that I was talking "pretty loudly" to him and was using very "large hand gestures"! I told her that my roommates (ahemm, Levi and Jeff) in college used to yell at me for talking when they were trying to sleep. I didn't think my voice carried that much but I guess it does!

I've also been accused of being a "heel-walker." On an upstairs wood floor, my footsteps can be heard pretty loudly from below, or so I've been told (ahemmm, Aaron and Levi). I went to the Walking Company to buy insoles for my shoes and they had me stand on a pressure senser to see how the pressure distribution on the bottom of my foot is. The guy said, "Wow. You put a lot of pressure on your heels!" I couldn't help but laugh. I guess I am a "heel-walker!"