Catching up with August

Unfortunately, Blogger was acting up when it came to posting pictures from my phone, so I fell behind on posting what I was up to. In a nutshell, what I did in August was determined by two factors. One was that I had more weekends off than normal, and the other was that each weekend someone in my household left town.

For example, when Megan and Paige went on their annual trip with my in-laws, the Dilger side of the family, I found myself with a wife-and-child-free weekend, so Dan, my neighbor, and I took a last minute trip to visit Bill in the Norfolk/Virigina Beach area. We spent the days drinking beers on the beach, the evenings drinking beers at the bars, and late nights drinking beers in Bill's backyard.

Another time, Paige's Nana and Aunt Sheri took her for the weekend, so Megan and I took advantage of our ability to eat out for every meal. One of our favorite restaurants was The Cultured Pearl in Rehoboth. We loved the rooftop seating. Basically, the roof was a large koi pond and the tables sat on these wooden platforms that were functionally islands connected by walkways on this pond. More importantly was loved the food. By my count, the two of us had three appetizers, three entrees, and a desert. Our bellies didn't let us forget afterward.

One weekend, when Megan was away, Paige and I went to the annual summer pool party thrown by my coworkers the McCarthy's. Paige had a great time, and spent nearly the whole party in the water. The two us of spent the following day doing a wide variety of activities, and when it came time for me to come up with dinner, Paige, out of nowhere, said "I want to go back to the pool party!" My first thought was "what?" but then, I responded "let's see what Daddy can do about that." I called up Pam McCarthy and sure enough, they were lounging by their pool with a few guests finishing up the prior day's leftovers. Seeing an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone (dinner and child entertainment), we went back to the McCarthy's.

Now I wonder if Paige thinks there's a perpetual pool party going on at that house. I hope she doesn't believe she can just go to a pool party anytime she asks for one...

Dinner in Bower's Beach

After this my phone smells like seafood

Dinner in Bower's Beach

McCarthy annual party (through their screen door)

Now what?

Summer's cooling down, getting much more pleasant

Picking fruits and vegetables from our garden

I rode the exact same Zipper I rode as a teen.

The clinician in deep thought

Muxtape: The Year My Wife Was Born

That's 1977. The mix starts with "Solsbury Hill" because Megan really likes that one. It's notable that today's date could be written as 08/08/08, which is kinda cool. It also happens to be my sister's birthday. She's 33 (another repeating number!) Happy birthday to Mary. Even though she wasn't born in '77, I picked it because... well.. you guessed it... the repeating 7's. Or is it because it was Megan's birth year? Or do I simply like the music of 1977 better? Well, enough of that, here's the music.

A Unit Clerk Leaves

Kevin, one of the nighttime unit clerks, recently left his job here at the Kent General ER. He had to move back to NYC. He was at our ER for about six years and was one of the more efficient ones. It actually seemed like he had more free time than others in his position because he could get twice the work done in half the time. He made his often difficult job look effortless. The only times I heard him complain was when he'd say "you can't save them all, doc" which meant I was giving him too many orders too quickly. We developed a pretty good work rapport. If I had a complicated request, I only had to partly describe it and finish with a "you know what I mean," and he knew exactly what I wanted done.

He was approachable, befriending most of the night shift staff. He had a broad range of interests. Mainly, I bonded with him because we both liked to geek out over technology and hip hop music, but the real reason why he was such a good friend to all of us was simply because he was fun and easy to talk to. Despite the morbid and overwhelming nature of ER work, he always kept the atmosphere there positive and cheerful. His last night in the ER ended with tearful goodbyes from some of the nurses. It was that reaction from them that inspired me to write this blog entry.

Kevin was the first to tell me "You like classic hip hop? You like Tribe Called Quest? Then you're going to like Kanye West."

mp3: "We Don't Care" by Kanye West

Also, without hesitation, he declared The Low End Theory as the greatest hip hop album of all time.

mp3 "Buggin' Out" by A Tribe Called Quest

Chillin' with Max

Dinner in bill's backyard

Aircraft carrier

A tour of the naval base

Doing absolutely nothing at Virginia beach