best week ever

janae went home this morning. it was sad to see her go, but it was really good to see her, so i'd say it's a great trade-off. we went to the coast, went around quito. swam in some ocean, ran on some beaches, ate some food, saw some sights, slept or didn't sleep on some overnight bus rides, got some wallet stolen (mine), climbed some mountains, played some soccer...it was a very full week that went by much too fast. a complete photo telling or word telling would be hard--it took me two hours to write it all in my journal today--so here's a list, and here's a sunset.

...paréntesis amoroso

janae arrives in quito friday, april 21st at 7:57 pm. she leaves a week later. those of you who check my blog every hour or so (or so i'm not only talking about myself, if you read my blog ever) should know that i'll probably be too preoccupied with happy happy happiness to think of a funny picture to go with a blog entry. so this next week figures to be a quiet one on the scene. so now you know--i'm not dead, and i'm not taking a secret trip to nebraska. i'm just a little busy, that's all.

f.a.q. vol 2

mystery interviewer: you've made quite a habit of actually soliciting comments in your blogs lately. can this be interpreted as an indication that you like getting these comments and perhaps receive some level of pathetic affirmation from knowing people are actually reading?
jeremy: ...yes.

m.i.: is this admission a similarly masked invitation for more comments?
j: hm. not sure i want to admit that one, mystery interviewer. let's hear from someone else. anyone?

aaron: how's the milk down there?
j: better than spain's, that's for sure. they have the boxed stuff that doesn't have to be refrigerated like the milk + sawdust combination that nearly had me give up breakfast in sevilla, but they also have real milk, which for some reason is sold in bags. i recently had my first successful opening and poring of one of these bags, wherein i only spilled lots of milk instead of all of it.

timmy: how long is it until the world cup?
j: well, timmy, it is 50 days. i know this because the newspaper puts a countdown to the world cup on the front page every day. which i think is incredibly awesome.

emily: do you guys have manzana sol or manzana lift down there?
j: i really don't know! i've never seen it, but good scientists like you and i know that doesn't conclusively prove it doesn't exist. as far as soft drinks go, say what you want about globalization and whatever evils you believe it brings, i'm glad there's coca cola everywhere in ecuador.

jeremy's mom: are you eating enough while you're there?
j: sorry mom, but probably not. i have moved my belt in to the last notch of my belt already. i haven't stepped on a scale lately, but i'm assuming this is a result in some form of loss of mass.

m.i.: broken hands, birthing babies, drilling holes in bones...do you ever get squeamish with all this amputation and stretching of body parts and blood?
j: i really had no idea when i got here how i'd feel about all of that. i hadn't really wondered, either, but at some point when i was looking at something impressively gross i realized i didn't mind at all and wondered if at some point i'd hit a limit. but on thursday i saw three testicles removed from their owners, and while i definitely felt sad for the rest of the day, i made it through without passing out or, you know, refusing to assist or jumping on the doctor to physically prevent him from continuing. so i think i can handle pretty much anything. although i do plan to observe black thursday annually.

m.i.: wow, that was too much information.
all (but timmy just stares at the floor and coughs): yeah! please shut up.

t: i think you're great, jeremy!
j: thanks, timmy. i think you're great, too. let's do this again sometime!

t: oh, i'd love that!!!
(others grumble. "suck up" and "brown noser" can be heard muttered in the shuffle to the door.)

elvis, ronaldinho, the beatles, radiohead, etc.

when i was studying in spain, i took a weekend to go to morocco. one night i went for a walk and came upon a group of kids. i only had about $2 on me, so i was pretty unconcerned about getting robbed, despite the fact that i was very outnumbered. we wanted to talk, but they didn't speak english, and my best attempts to pretend that i speak french weren't panning out. ultimately, we had a wonderful conversation by reciting real madrid's starting lineup to each other, like a race to think of the next player. after that, we named other famous players, and he pantomimed juggling the ball in the unmistakable style of one of the world's most famous players, and i shouted "ronaldinho!" and we all laughed and had a great moment. the scene made me very happy because of how little a language barrier can matter, and because of how little cultural barriers can matter, if both people are actually interested in making a connection. i don't know that kid's name, but we experienced an unexpected link that still makes me smile.

today a kid came in with a double fracture in his leg. he was named elvis. elvis! i asked if he liked elvis songs (at which mention the anesthesiologist and i broke into "suspicious minds"), but he said he didn't like elvis as much as the beatles, which led to he and i singing his favorites, including "i'm so tired" and "i'm only sleeping". there were a lot doctors in the room, and he was wearing his little hospital gown and laying on the surgery table, waiting for his anesthesia. it was a very similarly unexpected connection, and we both really enjoyed it. later i even found out he likes radiohead, which naturally delighted me.

oh, elvis. oh, music!

i ♥ lists

a chipotle steak burrito, with lettuce, sour cream, mild and hot tomatillo salsa, and guacamole.
a steak from my dad's grill
taco john's tacos and potato oles
prime rib
any pasta. with wine.
lamb vindaloo
lamb korma
garlic naan and mint chutney
(more indian food)
sake sashimi and about 200 other kinds of sushi
la mexicana
wings at the watering hole with real buffalo sauce and real blue cheese (NOT another country's best guess).
my mom's mashed potatoes and some meat dish.
the sandwich i always get at bisonwitches
a chocolate brownie and ice cream
coffee as i make it

...i'm hungry.

the circle of life

just as i was about to enter the men's dressing room after lunch today, i saw a doctor running my way. i asked if he was coming to the OR, and he said he was. i asked if he was late, not because i thought he was, but because i thought he wasn't--in my experience, late doctors walk just as slow as usual, unless knowing that they can be late because whatever will wait for them makes them walk just a little slower. he said "no--parto", which means he was going to do childbirth.

we discussed live births a little while we changed into scrubs, and i asked if i could watch. in my time here i've seen a couple caesarean-sections, but never a straight-up birth. so naturally i was pretty excited. the mother was already in there and ready to go, so things started pretty much once the doc was clean and gloved. after the first contraction, the doctor told me to help out by helping the mom sit up during the contractions.

it's hard to say whether the contractions were more evident on her face or stomach, or where they were evident first, but it was not hard to say when the contractions happened. as i moved my arm around her shoulders and held her into a sitting position, i first felt the heat flowing from her skin, and then felt her hospital gown damp with sweat. her hair, also damp and hot and smelly, fell across my arm. as the contraction intensified, i kept pushing her further into a sitting position until i had my arm all the way around her, and we were both leaning forward enough that i could see the baby's head crown, and then come out, and then the rest of the body follow.

relative to the husband nervously waiting outside, i have absolutely no qualifications that made my presence there more necessary than his. not that he wouldn't in some ways have been a liability, but it was a really unique event that i felt very privileged and blessed to watch. it was another moment i'll always remember when i remember why i'm glad i did this trip.

that where i am, there music snobbery may also be.

the operating rooms at work are hooked into a music system which, because God is good and His mercy is true, almost never plays muzak. it does, however, play a charming and diverse selection of music, including such hits as "all those things she said" by tatu (during the brain surgery! it was funny.), "karma chameleon" by culture club, "manic monday" AND "walk like an egyptian" by the bangals, lots of cumbia, and pretty much the entire reflections of passion album by yanni. one of the anesthesiologists really likes him. the ANESTHESIOLOGIST.

anyway, the other day i was singing caetano veloso (thanks, camilla!) and someone actually recognized it, which excited both of us. we had a very happy conversation about our favorite music (this is where i discovered who was responsible for the yanni), and i imagine each person's general enjoyment of the other skyrocketed.

these happenings have me brainstorming about a mix cd to bring in for the whole OR to enjoy. i was going to just make it, but then i decided not to rob my music-loving friends of the opportunity to contribute--this could be fun! any ideas?

i keep thinking songs like "cold brains" by beck would be really funny, especially since they're in english, and the irony would be totally, beautifully, deliciously lost on all, but then i considered making a mix of things that would actually go well in that setting. although it's a real shot to my indie pride to recommend sigur rós based on a fondness for yanni, i have to think someone having their tonsils removed to "olsen olsen" would be a really moving experience. (and if you played a video of the procedure in slow motion, you'd totally have their next music video. at the climax (when the choir comes in), the doc would triumphantly hold the tonsils over his head and the nurses would somberly and gracefully back away, bowing. the patient would stir, rise, and begin dancing. fade out.)

oops, i lost my train of thought. you can see my difficulty here. so everyone, go to town! help me out!

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

i'm home from work today, sick for the fourth time in the month i've been here. but this time i've graduated from just diarrhea to full on puking AND diarrhea. which is way cooler. (apologies for the picture, but that's funny! and cool!) i really hate throwing up, and to be honest, i think binge drinkers and people suffering from bulimia deserve extra respect, because i just couldn't do all that throwing up.

so today is a boring, crappy day. but friday was probably the best day i've had in ecuador. i thought i might tell you about it. the first good thing that happened was the discovery that i was working in recovery with maira (probably my favorite person in the OR), so we got to talk and whatever all day, which made me happy. maira's kind of like my friend betsy, which is definitely a good thing because while there's only one betsy, you can never have too many betsys. but that's not enough to make it the best day ever. to be the best day ever, you'd need some good video-clip style moments you could make into a highlight reel of the day. like the point at which dr. calderon the anesthesiologist decided to teach me to dance cumbia, so he, dr. cueva (another anesthesiologist), marta (a nurse), ximena (the boss of all the OR nurses), maira and i all danced in the OR. it was awesome. then ximena bought several of us lunch, which was obviously a bigger deal for the community happiness it created for me than for the $2-3 it saved me.

before the day was over, maira and i agreed to go get dinner that night, which marks the first time i've turned my work friendships into actual hanging out with ecuadoreans outside of work. which is obviously a good thing for me. they're real life ecuadoreans!!! i was having so much fun at work i stayed an extra hour, and then went home.

while i was there, i talked to janae (probably my favorite person ever) and we discussed when would be the best dates, and then she bought tickets to come out to ecuador. probably mostly to try the cuisine here, but i think partly also to see me. this took my already good day into the stellar-sphere (it was stellar, see). i went back to the hospital to meet maira, and as we were leaving we also asked fanny to come with us. TWO ECUADOREANS!!! i just doubled my productivity!

i had lots of fun at dinner, and afterwards we decided to go to a dance club. so i got to use my cumbia dance lessons and was also instructed in the finer points of salsa and regatón dancing. well, "instructed in the finer points" is probably a blatant falsehood. "was taught" might be an exaggeration. but maira DID shout in my ear what kind of music was being played each time a new song started, and then after awhile pointed at some guy doing a good job and said "DANCE LIKE HIM!!!" there was obviously lots of laughter and lots of good times. i think maira and fanny were both very impressed with my skills.

so that was my friday. it was good. in other good news, i made it through this whole story without having to go to the bathroom. i'm so happy!

f.a.q.

q: how's ecuador?
a: how's the united states? i don't know how to answer that question.

q: ok. um...let's start with basics. give me some cold hard facts about quito.
a: quito is a city of 1-2 million people, and can be found at an elevation of 2850 meters, or 1.7 miles.

q: how's the currency exchange?
a: the exchange rate continues to be 1:1, because the official currency of ecuador is the US dollar.

q: what time is it there? are you on pacific time?
a: actually, until today i was on eastern standard time, but due to your daylight savings time i'm central now, because ecuadoreans don't want to get up earlier, so they neither spring forward nor fall back.

q: eastern?!? aren't you west of us?
a: actually, no--if you look at a map you'll notice how far south america creeps out east. weird, huh?

q: boy, i'll say! i'm really learning a lot from you, jeremy! what a wise and interesting person you are! anyway, what do you do all day?
a: what a nice compliment! i appreciate being esteemed by you, mystery interviewer! i work in the OR at hospital vozandes quito in quito ecuador. i work from 7-3:30, and generally speaking i come home and lie around a little, read, write in my super awesome travel journal (if you're going to leave the country soon, become friends with millhouse first because he gives excellent journals as parting gifts), or do things like that. then i go for some kind of walk to some part of the city i haven't been to, or to some sight to see or something.

q: 7am?!? that sucks!
a: while technically not a question, i'm going to let it slide because it is so unquestionably and irrefutably true.

q: hey, missionaries can't say suck! so are you tired?
a: i didn't say it, you did! i'm pretty much tired all the time, yeah. except for when i go to bed for some reason. culture shock has failed to cure my mini-insomnia, it seems. this week i started running in the mornings (BEFORE work. which begins at 7am.) to tire myself out. pollution + elevation + asthma + i'm not in shape at all = i'm really glad no one's out at 5am, or my cross-country shame instincts would probably run me to my death.

q: hm. that's...fascinating. you overdramatic weirdo. so what are you reading lately?
a: what a good question!!! i'm actually in the middle of three books right now, but i just finished wuthering heights by emily brontë, and the one i am about to put most of my efforts into next is cien años de soledad, by my good friend gabriel garcía márquez. this will be a re-read, but this time i'm doing it in spanish. in some ways it's as much a vocab-building exercise as it is a celebration or savoring of probably one of the best books ever written.

q: so why haven't you responded to my email yet?
a: hey, that wasn't an approved question! stick to the script! weren't you going to ask me something about how awesome the people of ecuador think i am? something about all the female nurses in the OR?

q: no, i want to know why you haven't responded to my email, and by the looks of your inbox, i'm not the only one who's wondering.
a: sigh. ok. i'm sorry to you and everyone who has written me and not received anything back from me. i keep myself pretty busy here, and have just not had the time to sit down and write the emails i want to write. but i'd like you all to know i very much appreciate hearing from you, and it's a special treat to hear from my friends while i'm over here.

q: see, that wasn't so hard, was it? anyway, this has been fun. we should do it again sometime--maybe some other readers could submit some questions?
a: sure, that'd be great--they could put them in the comments section if there's something of general interest they've been wondering about.

q: sounds great. talk to you later!
a: bye!

that's why they call it a bedpan.

the vomit was green. dark green. and it smelled the like the worst bad breath you could ever have. like if you slept for three days solid and then woke up and went around smiling and laughing really close to people. (have you ever thought about sleeping beauty's breath? that guy had to kiss her, and she'd been sleeping for AWHILE! talk about morning breath! it'd be like decade breath!) anyway, it kept coming in little mouthfuls. just when it looked like it was over, there'd be more convulsing, more doubling over, and more mouthfuls of green goo.

she was a middle-aged woman, about 30 minutes out of surgery. the puker, i mean. she was a little nauseous. she was laying down on those little hospital beds on wheels, which is where i fit in: i was holding the pan she was puking in.

i finally got to work in the recovery part of surgery, and it was everything i hoped it would be. while i was holding the old puke pan, i was thinking how much the scene was exactly like what i'd hoped everything would be like. although the color of the vomit was completely optional. when she was ready to go back to her room, she said "gracias" and i stroked her hair and said "nada". it was pretty much perfect.

google earth--put the world in perspective!

i have no idea if this will work, but it would be super awesome if it did. if you don't already have google earth, you definitely should regardless of this post. you should go to earth.google.com and download it. then, if you follow this link ( http://h1.ripway.com/jeremyhowe/quitoplaces.kmz.zip ) and download the file "quito places.kmz.zip", it will open in google earth and show you some of the places i've been and talked about here, such as the cathedral, the statue, the hospital where i work, and the apartment where i live.

if you're not already addicted to google earth like me and some of my friends, i don't blame you if this seems like an extremely laborious and not very worthwhile process. but if you are one of my friends for whom this is not new (chad, aaron--i'm looking at you), please let me know if the link and file download works.

and for the rest of you, addictions aren't so bad once you get used to them--download google earth and join the fun! the time-consuming, all-encompassing, super-fantastic, semi-overwhelming fun!

rebuild! restore! reconsider!

unexplained absences like these are totally going to foil my plan to become a famous blogger with a large and powerful readership. unfortunately this update will likely be completely devoid of any salacious details or titillating tidbits that might otherwise have the whole of the internet at my doorstep.

this last week i flew home to the united states for an exit interview. exit interviews, for those of you who aren't familiar with the terminology, are what you do when you don't get into med school. if you the reader are finding this out for the first time and are like most of the people i've told already, your next question is probably "didn't get into which one?", to which the answer is all of them. if you the reader are at all like me you are probably similarly reeling with disbelief. (ok, i didn't really reel in disbelief or expect anyone else to do the same).

the interview was on monday, and i found out that my scores and grades and everything are all good and should not be changed, but that the person who interviewed me, while pleased with my interpersonal skills, was not convinced i really wanted to be a doctor. i can understand his confusion, because the mailing address for applications to university of nebraska medical center janitor positions is only different by like two numbers. anyone could potentially make the mistake.

so they encouraged me to apply again (they even told me i'd be a strong candidate (again)!) and agreed that my experience here would probably make my desire to be a physician more palpable, more real, more...documentable.

this setback seemed pretty frustrating at first, but at this point doesn't seem like a particularly big deal, and will probably end up being useful in a couple different ways down the line. we shall see.

anyway, i was back at work today and i watched brain surgery. brain surgery rules. it rules. should i be taking my camera to work with me? do you all want to see brain surgery pictures? if any of you who are about my age had similar time-passing habits around 3:30 on weekday afternoons around first through fourth grade (by which i mean watched teenage mutant ninja turtles the cartoon), you might have also wondered if brains really pulsate like that one bad guy who was just a brain controlling a robot (but had eyeballs and mouth inexplicably on the surface of the brain). and now i can tell you they really do pulsate like that. and it's really, really, REALLY cool.

by the way, let's all sing the praises of wiki one more time,

because this is too awesome.

i promise i'll get back to more regular updates...starting...now!

la mano sangrienta

they finally came! it's the pictures of the mangled hand! one last time, a warning: these pictures are pretty gory and if blood, broken bones, displaced pieces of skin, missing fingers, or the like scares you, don't follow these links.

here's the top of the hand before

here's the palm of the hand before

here's the x-ray before

here's the hand during surgery

here's the hand post amputation

here's the x-ray post

here's post-surgery--the fingers made it!

another post view

sunday evening photo extravaganza!

that's right--it's time for a bunch of pictures! i had a fantastic weekend and saw a whole bunch of great things. the first week here has been very stressful and difficult in many ways, but i didn't decide to do this to work on my tan, so i'm glad the learning opportunities have already started. and besides that, it's been lots of fun!

quito is divided into new quito and old quito. new quito looks like an american city, and old quito looks like this, with plazas and colonial architecture. when i saw that statue in the distance i just HAD to go see it. so i did. by the way, did you know you can make the pictures bigger by clicking on them? you can.


here's a shot from halfway or so up.









here's me and the statue. i think we hit it off ok.











this guy's name is marco. he saw me try to get that picture about 10 times before i got it right. he asked if i needed help, and i said we could take each other's picture. i think he thought that was weird, but eventually he agreed. that's the city in the background.








here's the city. it's big! and isn't it pretty? it's tucked away in a valley. anyway, that's what i did saturday morning. saturday afternoon was church stuff time.








awana translates to oansa in spanish. remember the balloon under the legs and the last kid has to run it back to the front? these kids are ok at it, but i totally would have won if they let me play. oh, i pleaded! i begged!







if i didn't tell you the kids were awesome and i had a lot of fun with them, i think this picture would probably cover that fact. or the next one.









take a minute to soak this picture up. first notice that i very nearly made it into the picture. next, notice that the camera is on the ground, and then notice the hot chocolate spilling out of the cup that my camera is about to soak up. now notice once again how cool all the kids are.







this morning i went to mass at the cathedral you may have noticed sticking up in some of the other pictures. here's what it's like inside.









here's the cathedral from up close. i don't know who thought the clocks were a good idea...i guess it was high tech at the time or something.








ok, so that's it for the photo fun! i have about a million other pictures, but i'll spare you. until i get mangled hand photos, of course.

in the OR

here are some people i work with. they're all pretty nice, but unfortunately the two ladies with whom i spend most of my time, and whom i most enjoy, weren't there when i took the picture, so this is sorely lacking. it seems likely there will be more later.

anyway, my first week of work is done. glorious! i'm finally getting the swing of things, which means more freedom (obviously) and less boredom. halfway through the week this internationally renowned pediatric orthopedic surgeon from the US arrived to work for three weeks, as he does once a year. it's been great talking with him and watching him work. he works a lot with cerebral palsy kids, and yesterday i observed while he shortened one leg to match the other leg, which involved removing the plate that had previously been placed in the boy's hip, cutting out a chunk of the femur, shortening the hamstring, and lengthening the quadricep. then there were botox injections to reduce the spasticity of those muscles as well as those in his hands, which are constantly held so tight that he's always bent at the wrist. the way botox puts old ladies' faces to sleep turns out to be invaluable in treating kids like this, because while the muscles are sort of paralyzed for several weeks, physical therapy can stretch the muscles, and with time normal usage can return. needless to say, i'm fascinated at every step and this is starting to look like an invaluable experience for me.

the dude with the hand got it smashed in a machine at work. he ended up keeping his ring and pinky fingers--the rest was amputated. the next day the doc brought his camera and showed me tons of pictures he'd taken. i gave him my email address and asked him to send me them, but that hasn't happened yet. i'll keep pestering him, though, and maybe you all will get to see it! (don't worry, i'll just post links to the shots for those of you who don't want to be greeted with that kind of fun upon coming to this page).

ok, this was a relatively dry entry, but that's just the way it is sometimes!

i'm official!

see? it's true! i started work this week, and i've really liked it so far. presently i work in the operating rooms prepping the instruments for surgeries and transporting patients from rooms to the surgery area. it's not as much dealing with patients as i was hoping for to start out with, but it's only starting out, and it's turned out to be all kinds of fun. i've met a whole bunch of nurses i like a lot who speak to me in spanish and who don't mind how long it takes me to prep a particular surgical procedure or how many times i make them repeat the english names of instruments in accents so thick i think it's a spanish word i've never heard before.

(the next paragraph is pretty graphic. don't read it if you're squeamish or you want to live with the terrible sensation of having missed out on something really really cool. otherwise, read on because it's awesome!!!)

as a bonus, i often sneak over to watch the surgeries. today a trauma patient came in with a hand so mangled it looked like someone with a congenital hand defect had tried to commit suicide by cutting his fingers and thumb free of his hand. with a hammer. no, wait--worse than that. look at your hand. see how if they're relaxed they all kind of curve one direction? most of this guy's hand did that. in the x-ray, one of his fingers pointed exactly the opposite direction of the rest, and one took a right angle turn at the first knuckle and his thumb seemed to be seriously considering sending a declaration of independence to the rest of the hand. and then there was his palm area. take a moment to appreciate how many bones there are between your wrists and your fingers. feel around there and notice them all--there's a lot! this guy probably has a lot more pieces of bone between there than you do. i say probably because on the x-ray it was all just a big white blur. you just couldn't make out anything. to give you a feel for the general state of this guy's hand, consider that the doctor had been tooling around in there, cutting, removing, suctioning, for probably 10 minutes before he declared "i found a tendon!" to the nurse. no one besides me laughed in the operating room, but am i the only person who thinks that's kind of funny? maybe you had to be there. and not be everyone else who was there besides me. hm. maybe the problem is me.

sorry if that was too graphic. unfortunately i didn't even come close to adequately describing the scene that was that guy's hand.

settling, etc.

here's the sunset the first night i got into ecuador. i guess it's pretty alright, right?

so far my time has been spent getting settled here and acclimated to the altitude (about 2 miles high) and the missionary culture and the being here. i'm pretty sure it's the altitude that's giving me these headaches, and everyone says that goes away in a couple days. so...hooray!

on the acclimating to missionary culture tip, the first day i got here a missionary took me out to lunch. he was talking about his daughter growing up and that struggle for him. he told me he'd always liked country music, and now that she was getting older she was requesting certain music and how that was hard. he mentioned her asking for shania twain's new cd, and that that made him uncomfortable. let's cut to jeremy the music nerd's thoughts, shall we? "yeah, that'd be pretty hard for a country music purist to take--she's more generic pop than country, while still claiming some of country's aesthetics. but maybe it's more her image and lyrics. i'll ask why he's uncomfortable just to make sure." dan replies that he's not comfortable with some of the values she advocates in her music, so i nod my head enthusiastically and agree. gosh, that was close.

anyway, tomorrow i will start working at the hospital. i'm pretty excited to check that out, and a little nervous, too. apparently next week is a busy week because some surgical specialist is there, so i'm guessing it'll be a little stressful right from the beginning. but i came here to learn and to serve, so i guess there's no point in waiting around for things, right?

we have touchdown!

this post is coming to you live from ecuador! unlike the falsified moon landing, though, i really am here, and hopefully very soon i will have not faked photos to prove it. hopefully those will also show a bit of the area i live in, and what the house/my room looks like. you'll see, all in good time.

needless to say, i'm excited stupid to be here and would be napping now to make up for the nearly no sleep i got last night if i wasn't too excited to be here to sleep. this happiness for being here is just barely enough to make me feel better about having gotten into miami so late (after midnight) that i only had time to go to a hotel, go to bed, think about the guitar part on "big house" by audio adrenaline, imagine myself playing it (probably to a throng of adoring christian fans), realize i left my guitar on the plane, wake up in a start, call the airline which was obviously closed, go back to a fitful sleep before waking up at 5:15 to make more calls, get my guitar with enough time to board the plane but not enough time to locate and give patronage to an airport cinnabon (the second most important reason for visiting miami), and then arrive here, sans breakfast. what i'm trying to say is, i missed seeing shaq. but despite that huge setback so early in the trip, i'm still happy about my whereabouts. and my howabouts. you know. it's a good thing, being here.

when i went to this page i was pretty pumped i had 7 comments. ok, so maybe most of them were some kind of internet craziness devilry, but the point still stands that it would be pretty cool if that actually happened. so post away! until next time...

oh, by the way, i don't really think the moon landing was faked. just for the record. and i really am in ecuador. i'm totally not just hiding in miami, going to the clubs in search of shaq. or jlo. or snoop.

lift off!!!

so, it's officially time to leave the united states of awesome and try something new. thanks to everyone who wished me a hearty farewell. and i guess the non-hearty, limp ones were appreciated, too. in case you've already forgotten, tonight i fly from chicago (i got my visa just fine, by the way) to miami, where i'll spend the night (spotting shaq at all the hott clubs) before i fly out to ecuador in the morning.

those of you who received my initial "come to my blog!" email are doubtless wondering where all the limitless wit and humor i seemed to have been so enamored of went. or you were wondering what exactly i thought was humorous in the first place. well...i don't know. sorry. but maybe in the future i'll be funny. come back soon to see!

final preparations

ok! i promised i'd update, and here it is!

i have all the papers i need to leave, and i have made an appointment to get my visa on february 23 in chicago. i will be there for awhile and will eventually fly from there to ecuador, probably around the first of march. so synchronise your watches on my mark for a 1 week countdown...starting...now!

ok, seriously--i've got the chills! this is exciting and scary and really truly going to happen! yay! yikes!

i suppose i should start thinking about packing...