Three music lists that I created at Playlist.com. See the full post link for the playlists...


The Pop Out Player works the best. The embedded players below don't seem to be completely compatible with Blogger.

99 Johnny Cash Songs:

Another 21 Johnny Cash songs:

Various songs that Richard likes:

Happy Birthday

I'm a bit belated, but I thought I would share a few snapshots from my birthday last week. Cara-Lea planned a special surprise for me where she arranged for us to meet up with Richard, Shelly, Kaley, and Connor along with our friends Doug and Tonya Beardsley in Baltimore on Saturday, the 4th. Well, it was a surprise until I kept bringing up the topic of "Let's go to DC to see Connor" and she finally just had to spill the beans. Anyway, long story short, on my birthday, the 3rd, I knew we were going to Baltimore the next day, so for my birthday we just went out to eat at a place called the Thai Pepper.
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It was really good. Prettiest plate of food I've eaten in a while. Unfortunately, my nice camera was in the car so here are couple snapshots of us with my cell. Cara-Lea had tofu with green beans, and I had red curry tofu. It was quite entertaining trying to get rice eaten using just chopsticks...but we improved dramatically as the meal progressed.

Long White Coat - The End of a Journey

Friday, August 22, 2008. The day of Cara-Lea's Long White Coat ceremony. The day we had been working toward since we left Texas. I wish I had written this on the actual day, as it's hard to retrospectively capture all the happiness and joy we were feeling...but even a week later we are still pinching ourselves to make sure we are not in a dream.
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The Long White Coat ceremony marks the end of Physician Assistant school for Cara-Lea. She's been incredibly persistent and resilient to get to this point... a lot of sleepless nights and stressful days for both of us. I'm very proud of her.

Even now I do not think we are feeling the full impact of what has happened--mainly because Cara-Lea will be at her rotation site until September 20, and we both had a very busy week. But I think when December rolls around and we are both out of school for the first time, our brains will finally let us realize that IT'S ALL OVER.

Getting back to the actual day... it was made even more special since some of our family were able to join us. (Unfortunately we only had 6 tickets to the event or else we would have invited more of our family.) Cara-Lea's parents and brother drove up and arrived early Friday morning. My parents flew in to PHL around noon that same day. Cara-Lea had to work that day, so I prepared a lunch of lasagna (from the freezer, don't be impressed) for the group. Cara-Lea got home to enjoy part of it. Then we all went our separate ways to nap before the big event.

We got a bit of a late start leaving for the ceremony...it was quite a stressful ride as we got stuck behind a notorious Philly trolley, and Cara-Lea knew if she was too late they wouldn't let her on stage. Five minutes before the scheduled start time we dashed into the building. Fortunately, all Cara-Lea's classmates were still in the main hall lining up.

My parents had arrived early from their hotel and had saved us all seats right in front--perfect for pictures. Except that when Cara-Lea actually got her White Coat, I pulled the trigger a fraction of a second early and the flash didn't recycle quickly. So I didn't get the "best" shot of her, but I don't think I'll be forgetting the moment in my own mental picture anytime soon.

Afterward, after the graduates marched out, we took several pictures with some of her closest classmates. Then we went outside (it was a gorgeous day and weekend) to get some family shots. We were all pretty hungry and looking forward to dining out, so they didn't have to suffer through my normal long drawn out picture session. Then we were off to Su Xing, an all vegetarian Chinese restaurant on Sansom Street downtown. We dropped the hungry crowd off, then Dad and I had a bit of an adventure parking the two cars, but we finally found spots and joined the rest inside.

Cara-Lea's closest friend in the program, Aida Gallegher and her family joined us. I'm sure it was an adventure for them as they are not vegetarian. But at least for me, the meal was amazing. I think everyone felt the same.

It had been an eventful and long day for all of us, so we all went our separate ways to rest up for the big weekend ahead--which will have to come in a later installment. To see all the pictures from the day go to Photo Gallery of White Coat Ceremony.