40

Today I turn 40. 

I have been pretty vocal with people that this is not a happy occasion. I have no idea why, but I have a mental glitch that makes 40 seems very old. I have said that it feels like I am heading down the back side of the mountain of life. You can't even pretend to be in touch and cool when you are 40.  It has always been that way in my mind. 40 equals old. 

It has been worse for me lately. I really was down about turning 40. Sure, there are all of the usually qualifiers. "It's better than the alternative." "I've got my health, so that's great." And of course my older friends have chirped in with the, "You are young compared to me so shut up." I didn't say they were kind friends. 

I think part of my problem is that there are certain milestones that naturally lead to reflection. New Year's Day. Class reunions. Birthdays and anniversaries that end in 5 or 0. Frankly, I haven't liked what this reflection has shown. I am 40. What have I done? I don't have a career to speak of. I stay home with my kids. I haven't built anything - either physically or economically. It can be kind of disheartening. So 40 hasn't been much of a super happy fun thought. 

This past week the whole family was off. The kids had spring break, Heather was on vacation, and I was ... Um ... the usual. We decided to go to Orlando for the break. We had not been back since we moved to South Carolina in June. The original plan was to have a big 40th birthday bash one night. But living seven hours away makes it difficult to handle logistics. So instead we decided to see as many people as we could and do a bunch of stuff we had missed since we moved. 

So we went to a bunch of restaurants we used to frequent. We hit 4 Rivers Smokehouse and Flippers Pizza and Tijuana Flats. We went to Summit Church for Palm Sunday. We spent a day at Downtown Disney. We even got to try The Coop - the new restaurant by the 4 Rivers crew. All of that was awesome to experience. 

But what really made the week memorable was the time we got to spend with our friends. We didn't get to see everyone we wanted to see, but we did get to spend quality time with a bunch of people. By the time we wrapped up our roster of visits on Friday night, something had begun to dawn on me. I wake up as a very blessed 40 year old man. 

I like to poke fun at how often people use #blessed on their twitter and Facebook posts. But it really is the truest word I feel right now. I am blessed beyond belief. 

- I have a brilliant, beautiful, amazing wife who loves and supports me. She is pursuing her dream, and providing financially for our family through that. She is an example and model for her fellow residents - as well as medical students following in her path. She pushes me to be better and trusts me. 

- I have three incredible, gorgeous children. They are funny and talented and wonderful. I have the unbelievable honor of not only being their dad, but also spending every day with them. Yes, there are days where that honor feels more like a cruel punishment. And there are days I wish there were still bands of wandering gypsies I could sell them to. But, all in all, I cannot believe how lucky I am to have the time and relationship I have with them. 

- I have family who loves me beyond words. That is not limited to the family I was born with. It also includes my parents in-law, brothers and sisters in-law, cousins, uncles and aunts. As I grew into an adult, I was sad about how little I knew my extended family. But now I have such an abundance of extended family that it is impossible to keep up with all of them. My children have cousins who adore them and can't wait to see them - beautiful kids that will be lifelong friends. It is so wonderful. 

- I have friends, such sweet and faithful friends, that have been a part of my life for decades. It really struck me this week that I have multiple friendships of the intensity that some people will never find in their lives. These are people I would not hesitate to leave my children with. And they would trust me with their kids. I know that if something catastrophic happened and I called these people, they would be in a car driving to assist before I hung up. (Of course they would have to wade through about three levels of family who also responded.) They have kids that love my kids like brothers and sisters. As a dad, I cannot adequately express how much these kids and parents mean to me. 

- Most importantly I have a God who loves me to such a ridiculous, illogical, unfathomable level that he sent his Son to rescue me from a life of hopelessness, emptiness, and frustration. He loved me no matter how unlovely, hateful, irresponsible, lazy, and unfaithful I was. I find it quite appropriate that my 40th birthday falls on Easter this year. I get to celebrate my special day on the most special day. I don't have to fear getting older because of what happened on Easter. I don't ever have to feel alone or unloved because of Easter. And I can realize just how silly it is to be down about turning 40 because of Easter. 

So happy birthday to me. I truly believe I am the most blessed man around. Thank you all for the gift you have given me by being a part of my life. 

Out Of the Box: Introduction

When Josiah was a little guy, preschool television had not completely exploded into the mega-billion dollar industry it is now.  There had been some major hits like Bob the Builder, Blue's Clues, and Barney.  But there also was a lot of stuff that fell into two major categories: Canadian Kids Television and Crap.  Nickelodeon had not launched Noggin (which later became Nick Junior).  Disney had not come up with Preschool Disney.  Entities like Baby Einstein and The Wiggles were just coming onto the scene. So for those early morning hours after the big kids went to school and before preschools got out, these stations tried to fill the hours with shows they purchased from other groups.  That is where Canadian Kids Television came into play.  For some reason, there was more groups in the Great White North that funded kids tv.  So they had developed more shows.  It was always amusing to hear all of these shows with their Canuck accents and our children learning words, sounding like young hockey players.  (The same thing happened with The Wiggles, except with all of our kids sounding like extras on Crocodile Dundee.)  Disney and Nick snapped up rebroadcast rights to these shows and filled their lineup (PB&J Otter, Franklin, Little Bear).  Unfortunately, they also purchased a lot of shows that fell into the Crap pile.  Sometimes these were also Canadian shows, but more like Quebec (technically, it is Canadian, but they like to remind us that - like a divorced couple - that province has TWO parents and one is France.)  This explained shows like Doodlebops, because there really wasn't any other possible explanation for that monstrosity.

Before long, Disney and Nick realized that creating their own shows was far more profitable than buying existing shows.  So they slowly replaced all of the imports and created their own shows with infinite merchandising rights.  Brilliant financial move.  But for anyone who had children in the first few years of the new millenium, we will always remember those other shows.  One such shows that landed squarely in the Crap pile was Out of the Box.  It was so dumb.  Absolutely ridiculous.  They had the "clubhouse" like Barney.  They had the two super-earnest hosts like Blues Clues.  And they had, well, not much else.  Oh, wait, they also had this horrible theme song set off by terrible puns.



Whenever I hear the phrase "out of the box," this is what pops to mind.  It has made me hate the phrase even more than most people who are encouraged to think outside of the box.  This past Sunday, we had a guest preacher at Summit Church.  He talked about living outside of our box.  I held in my usual aversion to that line to listen.  He was talking about how we can have extremely busy lives and still be unbelievably bored.  We get into a monotonous routine and get stuck in a rut.  As a result, we start to make choices that are easy and comfortable to stay in our box.  He challenged the church to start to be willing to move out of their box (or comfort zone or hedgehog or whatever catch phrase you happen to embrace).

I looked at Heather and we both said the same thing.  We already got out of our box.  Back in February, when we had to turn in our Match List for Match Day, we knew we faced a tough decision.  There was Orlando - the place we called home and loved dearly and had lived the majority of our married lives together.  It had our church, our friends, our kids' schools.  It was close to both of our parents.  It had doctors that Heather had spent two years with and residents who were wanting her to work with them.  Then there was Columbia.  On the surface, there was no reason to pick Columbia.  I had been there three times - once in high school for a yearbook conference, once to take the kids to the children's museum while visiting family in Rock Hill, and once for a wedding.  It was the place we turned North when traveling to Rock Hill.  It had Steve Spurrier and team fans who found it hilarious to only use part of their mascot name to sound obscene.  But we had this gut feeling we were supposed to go there.  Heather's interview there had been amazing.  She felt drawn there and felt like they wanted her.  I really only had her word to go on.  But we both were willing to make the jump.  So we listed it first and ended up matching there.  In that moment, we were out of the box.  If we had stayed in Orlando, that would have been the easy and comfortable and rut-increasing choice.  Leaving for Columbia was the right choice.

We will be leaving in just a few weeks.  In the words of Ron Burgundy, I am a swirling ball of emotions as we prepare to go.  Normally, my response is to blog about stuff like this.  For some reason, I have hesitated to do that this time.  But I feel that I would be robbing myself of a positive outlet for me to think through this process.  And I feel that I would be robbing others from knowing the impact they made on my life.  Between now and our move in June, I plan on writing a good number of posts that will be in the "Out of the Box" series.  Some of them will be looking back at the last four years of medical school.  Some of them will be looking ahead.  And a great majority of them will be trying to explain why I have grown to call a tourist trap my home.  Instead of listing all the things I will miss about Orlando, I will write about the things I am thankful that I got to experience in Orlando.  Some of you may find yourself splayed across this site in those articles.  For that, I apologize in advance.  Some of you will not.  For that, I apologize in advance.  I know that this is the Internet we are talking about - the haven of the disgruntled, wronged and cynical.  But if I don't include you in a post and you felt that I should have, please do not take offense.  I mean no slight.  After thirteen years of living in the City Moderately Beautiful, I have to trim things down.  And if it really bothers you, let me know and I'll write something special just for you.

The first in this series (well, actually the second, since this technically is the first - although this is more of a prologue or forward and shouldn't count towards pagination) will look back at Florida State University's College of Medicine.  It will post sooner than you think.  I hope you will join me on my journey of self-reflection as we move out of our box.  Out of the box. OUT of the box.  Take one box...

Going Home

At the end of the week, we will load our stuff in a truck (shudder) and drive back home. Well, I guess that is what to call it.  I consider Orlando my home.  I was born in West Palm Beach and lived there full time for eighteen years, and during the summer for another year.  So, I suppose people would call that my "hometown."  Honestly, though, I detest West Palm Beach.  I hate South Florida in general.  It was different when my parents still lived there.  But my dad passed away twelve years ago and my mom moved and lives in Tampa.  I still have family down there, but I don't think I've been down there since my Grandma's funeral almost seven year ago.  Hard to call that "home."

I spent four years in Orlando during college.  Heather and I moved our little family back there in 2002 and we stayed there for seven years.  I think that part of the problem is that we moved around so much during our time in Central Florida.  We have lived in Winter Park, Orlando, Oviedo, and now Winter Springs.  In college I lived in six different places.  During our second stint in The City Beautiful, we lived in five different homes.  So, as we begin our third go round there, this will be the twelfth different location I where have resided.  (This not counting the four different addresses in Tampa I had, one in Orange Park, and one in Tallahassee.)  That makes it rough to really connect - when you are constantly having to pick a new Publix, a new pharmacy, a new gas station.

But there is just something about Orlando that resonates with us.  I remember when we lived in Tampa, we used to drive over to Orlando - just for the day.  We didn't go to the parks or anything.  We would go to a Super Target or walk around City Walk or Downtown Disney.  It was our place.  Going back this past week to work on the new house, it just felt familiar.  That is NOT to say that it is the same place we left.  You may think that not much can happen in an area in two years.  But that is very wrong.  As we drove around, we had to take stock of what was still in business and what wasn't.  There is an entirely new massive apartment complex with parking garage across the street from UCF.  Multiple restaurants have changed hands or closed down.  Our hot dog place closed down.  The Beef O'Brady's we used to go on Sundays after church is gone.  The Oviedo Mall is even more of a corpse than it was when we left.  One word that cannot be ascribed to Orlando is "static."  It changes more than any other area I've ever frequented.

Orlando is such an unique city.  It really is three cities.  You have the tourist Orlando on the West side.  That is where you find Disney, Universal Studios, Sea World, International Drive, the Florida Mall.  You have whole communities that have popped up and grown due to their status as support to the tourist areas - Kissimmee, St Cloud, Lake Buena Vista, Celebration.  There are residents out there.  But there is also a constant massive coming and going of tourists.  We like that side of town as a place to visit - but we hardly ever go there.  It's too crazy, too busy, too expensive.  It's humorous - when we talk about moving back to Orlando, people invariably mention Disney.  In the eleven years I've lived in Orlando, I think I have been to Disney a handful of times.  And, I have only paid for tickets myself maybe one or two times.  I had friends who got me in, or someone else bought me tickets.  Those places are just too expensive to go a lot - unless you can manage annual passes.  But we will go over to the surrounding features a couple of times a year:  the Lego store, the giant McDonalds, the big movie theatres.

Heading east, the next area is Downtown Orlando.  You have the big buildings, the government offices, the giant courthouse, the arenas, the performing arts center, museums, SoDo, Baldwin Park.  It is the arts, sports, and cultural center.  This area is similar to many other large, but not massive, cities in our country.  Again, it has its residents and its normal traffic.  And people in the other areas only go there when they have to.  If they have to go to a government outpost, a hospital, a lawyer, a basketball game, a play.  There is a night life, but it is hardly as robust as the city wishes it had.  They are constantly trying to boost the area and renovate areas of it.  I know they have been trying to get more traffic (and fewer homeless people) to Church Street since I got to UCF in 1992.  It is a constant battle against urban decay.  But some people love this area of town - and it certainly has its purpose.

The farthest east is the UCF area.  The University of Central Florida is considered a metropolitan university, since it is housed in a large city and was built after the city was founded.  It is not in a town that grew up with the school - like Gainesville or Athens, GA or Knoxville.  But, in many ways, UCF is actually a college town.  The East side of Orlando was nothing until UCF started.  And as the school has exploded, so has that area of town.  I know that Oviedo bristles at being called part of UCF's reach - but it was a horse farm until UCF boomed.  Now the college is massive.  It is the biggest in Florida and the second largest in the country.  It probably will pass Arizona State before long.  I has an amazing campus with more and more opportunities.  It has a Medical School, a football stadium, new basketball and baseball stadiums, a great concert venue.  They are starting a Dental School.  It is a great place.  And that whole area of town has benefitted from its growth.  This is the area where we have always lived.  And we really like it.  Everything you need is right there.  And if there is anything else you want to do, it isn't hard to get out to it.

[There is a fourth district developing over at Lake Nona - partly due to the new Medical School.  It is called the Medical City - with the school, new hospitals, research facilities, all that stuff.  In a few years, it will deserve its own paragraph.  Right now, it is still in process.]

Lots of people have asked how we liked Tallahassee.  Honestly, we hated it.  I know some people are fiercely defensive of our state capitol.  Those people are called Seminole fans.  Seriously, though, much of what makes people like Tallahassee is exactly why we disliked it.  They talk about the great stuff they did in college.  Exactly.  We are not college kids.  I have told numerous people, if you are a student whose goal is to party and drink and have a great time - Tallahassee is a great place.  If you are a politician who needs to go to the office in between running for re-election and whose goal is to party and drink and have a great time and hit on college girls - Tallahassee is a great place.  For families, it is a rough place.  It was oppressively hot.  There were not a lot of options that didn't cost a ton of money.  It was not a great experience.

That is not to say there are not some great things about Tallahassee - or the last two years.  The city administered recreation facilities put anything Orlando has to shame.  The kids were able to join gymnastics programs, go to water parks, or join sports leagues for minimal money.  Those were great things.  The school the kids attended was a great experience - but that was more due to individual teacher than the school as a whole.  We have had some good things happen.  Heather had a great time at the FSU Med School.  I lost a bunch of weight.  The kids and I have a stronger relationship now.  We return better people, to be sure.  But there were not many tears about leaving the city.

I think one thing we like about Orlando is the potential.  While we probably will not go to Disney or Universal often (or at all), the potential is there.  We could go there, if we wanted.  On a Saturday when there isn't anything to do, we could go to the science center or walk around one of the shopping villages. In reality, our day to day lives are not much different in Orlando and Tallahassee.  But they could be.

The biggest thing about going back to Orlando, though, is the people there.  I think that is what really make Orlando feel like home.  We are going back to people who love us and who we love.  Yes, we have people that fit that bill in every city we have ever lived.  There are friends and family in Jacksonville and Tampa and West Palm Beach and Rock Hill - and even Tallahassee.  But the quantity of people in Orlando who are close to us is so much larger.  That is what hurt so bad about leaving.  It wasn't the Magic or Mickey or Super Target or Del Taco that made leaving Orlando so bad.  It was leaving those people.  It was knowing that for two years that we would rarely be able to see them.

Facebook makes things like that easier.  But it is not a suitable replacement to sitting in their living room and laughing and holding their baby.  It is not the same thing as eating together and watching your kids all run around a play place.  It can't take the place of standing next to them in church, or going to a movie together, or sitting at a table and talking for hours.  I know that on our trips back during the last two years, it was always stressful to try to fit in time for all the people who wanted to see us.  There are friends from Lifepointe Church, First Years Preschool, International Community School, UCF, the Apple Store, First Baptist Oviedo, Defender Ministries.  I think that is what makes the thought of coming back to Orlando so sweet.  It is like they all are standing there with their arms open, waiting to hug us.  That is actually the picture I have in my head as I think about it.  I see hundreds of individual faces smiling and saying, "Welcome Back.  We missed you."

In the back of my head, I know that there is a good chance that this is only a two year return.  When residency comes, we may have to move again.  And that time it may be for good.  I know that.  It lurks back there, haunting the trip back.  For the next few days, though, I am going to ignore that thought.  I am going to dwell on the fact that I finally get to go home.  And I can't wait.

Flavor Enhancing

I am aware that many of you know that I attended the U2 concert in Tampa on Friday. And you probably are thinking that I am going to talk about that in this post. And while I promise I will do that soon - I am reserving that for something special. (Just keep your eyes open on ye olde blogge.) Instead, I am going to talk about something even more important that I did on Friday.

I ate a bat.

Well, in the interest of complete honesty, I didn't eat the entire bat. i only ate a forkful. But people at my table consumed an entire bat. Mostly it was Greg. But my sister, nephew, and even my mom scarfed some down. Now before you go and start wondering if there are strange practices afoot at Hacienda Staples de Lutz, let me explain that the bat was eaten at Hot Rod's BBQ and Grill in Lutz, FL. I am attaching a handy link, in case any of you fine readers are interested in visiting that establishment.

As I talked about in my Nobel Prize winning post on restaurants, I like to try new places. One of the joys of traveling is eating at different restaurants you can't find back home. And I also am a big fan of the whole "support your local business owner" mindset. The local owner is what gives an city or town its personality. Any city can throw up a McDonald's or Subway. That is what makes so many drives seem like there is just a movie loop running out the window. Walgreens, CVS, McDonald's, Exxon, Burger King, Subway, Walmart, Publix, SunTrust Bank, repeat. We all know exactly what you are going to get at places like that - which is part of the reason they became so popular. And it definitely is the reason they became so boring.

Local places bring depth of personality and regional taste. It is fun to find a new place and try it. Sometimes you meet the owner. You get to experience something unique and new. You can walk into a Sonny's BBQ and order a boring and predictable sliced pork dinner. OR, you can find a place like Hot Rod's and find grilled bat. I am teaching my good buddy Greg this approach to food. For much of our friendship, he sticks to the same things. And that's fine - that is the way some people operate. But when he is with me, he is forced to think outside of that mindset. Sure, it is to make me happy - and maybe because he's afraid I'll jam my finger into his sandwich. Today, though, I think he had enjoyed our weekend of food exploration.

Thursday, we drove down to Orlando after Greg got off work. We grabbed dinner at 1 Fresh Stir Fry - a local Tallahassee company that I documented in that aforementioned Pulitzer Prize winning post. It was as awesome as I had hoped - actually better than usual. 1 Fresh had been gaining extra points since I tried their peanut sauce a couple of weeks ago. We both definitely gave our bacon cheese burger rice bowls two grunts up.

On Friday, a free breakfast buffet came with our hotel stay. I used to be a guy who could put a real hurting on a breakfast buffet. The Shoney's in Tampa used to fear me and my friends as we drove in. Since I developed my egg allergy, though, breakfast is not a huge deal. I usually just eat something so I don't feel sick later on. [Side Note: If you are going down to Disney or Orlando and looking for a hotel, try the Comfort Inn on Park Parkway in Lake Buena Vista. It is right outside of Downtown Disney and costs $29 a night on their fall promo - $39 with two adult breakfasts. You can definitely do worse.] Anyway, the buffet was what I have come to expect from most of this sort of place. Pan of bacon, pan of sausage, pan of lame pancakes, cereal, blah blah blah. It is really a picture of what is wrong with mass produced food places - and national chain restaurants. Boring, predictable, serviceable, unmemorable food.

For lunch, we were driving between Maitland and Oviedo and decided to stop in at Famous Uncle Al's Hot Dogs in Winter Springs. Now, this was not a new discovery. It was one of our favorite places when we lived in Orlando. It has awesome food and it is very reasonable for what you are getting. We sat at the counter. Greg got a jumbo beef dog with cheese and fries. I had a cheesesteak and mozz sticks. The food took like five minutes to come out. We were completely in and out in less than 30 minutes. Greg's food cost like $6. (Mine was a little more due to the appetizer.) I noticed they had changed the bread on the sub, so I asked the lady at the counter about it. She explained their thought process and asked what I thought. The grill chef asked where my kids were, since we usually went with them. I explained we had moved. You don't find that at most places - the personal touch. The waitresses there always remembered our drink orders. The grill chefs recognized me. That is an awesome feeling - and adds even more points to a restaurant.

For dinner, we would be in Tampa. I had heard about Hot Rod's BBQ and Grill a few months ago when my sister sent me a web article about the place. I found a coupon for the place on Restaurant.com and we were set. We had reviewed the crazy menu online and seemed ready. (I know it was a bold choice for right before the U2 concert, but it paid off.) The restaurant is a small building that is made to look more like a run down shack than it is - kind of feels like it belongs in a Louisiana swamp or the Everglades. My mom and Greg ordered the turkey leg. My sister and I both got the pulled pork. And, of course, there was the bat that Greg ordered. Yes, they have farm raised fruit bat on the menu. How can you pass that up? They raise the bats right there. It is one of their gimmick dishes - along with the 15 pound cheeseburger and the 1 ½ pound cheeseburger. (I really wanted a cheeseburger. But my query of "Do you have any normal sized burgers?" was met with laughter. And a quick "No.") So how was it? The pulled pork was absolutely amazing, with a delicious vinegar sauce - as it should be. The turkey legs looked like they actually were from a pterodactyl. The sweet potatoes were enormous. Everything was really really REALLY good. And the bat? Well, it tasted like chicken. No, seriously, it had a mix of ham and dark meat poultry flavor to it. It was good - really good actually. But I wouldn't order it, especially with that dang yummy pork.

So after the incredible concert, we left this morning. Around lunch time we were in Homosassa. We started looking for a local place, to keep our winning streak going. I saw a promising joint on the right - Sub Station. It was kind of strange. Sub Station would seem to be a sub place, but it advertised tons of pizza options. Either way, win win. We went inside and their menu was even more extensive. Fried chicken. Pizza. Calzones. Subs. BBQ. I was having trouble deciding. The owner asked what we wanted and I did the smart thing. "What is your best stuff?" He suggested the pizza, the cheesesteak, and the BBQ - "we make it out in the back." Well, now. That changes everything. I'm always nervous about getting BBQ at a sub place (or a pizza place) because I don't want to just get stuff out of a tub. So I ordered a pork sandwich. Greg got the cheesesteak. And we also got a couple slices of pizza - you know, just to try it all. Man o man. The 12" steak sub was only $6.99. And it was amazing. The pizza was really well done New York style with a light crispy crust. But it wasn't greasy or anything. And the BBQ pork was actually pressed on a Cuban roll - which was just an added twist that made the sandwich even better. Top it all off with really fresh crispy fries and spicy sweet baked beans. Again, the owner and staff treated the customers right. The owner personally walked a pizza out to a group of older people - who were stunned at the size of a Medium pizza. "The large one we have to put on a different table," the owner quipped. It was so good I wanted to find a way to make it back to Homosassa.

So, in addition to the fun I had speaking at ICS and rocking with U2, I also got to have some great local food. Stuff like that makes a trip or vacation go from "really good" to "incredible." Think about it. When you are off on a trip somewhere and you discover a great restaurant, that becomes part of the memory - part of the story. So when you talk about that vacation, you include that small detail as well. It is a flavor enhancer. It adds flavor to your time together and provides a platform for a memory. It makes your story even better. It makes the memory stronger. So next time you are out on the road, try a local place. It may become a great memory - at the worst you helped out some small business owner who can use the help. Either way, it is a tasty way to jazz up your trip. And remember to try the bat.