I'm back. And I think my shoes are racist.

Hopefully my followers (2, oh yea!) weren't too worried about me during my absence. My blogging privileges weren't revoked due to the provocative nature of the Argyle socks post or to the mysticism of my amateur palm reading. I didn't fall down a well either (remember Baby Jessica? ah the memories). Suffice to say, I'm back and I'm ready to blog. Hopefully over the next few weeks I'll be rolling out some awesomeness truly befitting a place in the adventures in awesomeness.

So first my first post, I will share a harsh realization I learned about my footwear recently. After a busy day at work saving children's lives, one of the first things I do upon arriving home to unwind from all the child life saving is take off my shoes. Rather than their appointed place in the closet, my shoes prefer to hang out in the middle of my bedroom. Here is an example:
The shoes (and the slippers) are obviously having a grand time. At the bottom of the pic, the clogs, shoes and slippers are chilling, probably talking about something really trendy and awesome. The cordovan colored shoes at the top are branching out and spending some time with my dirty clothes. All is well, you would think. But no! Trouble is afoot! Pun intended.


The white shoes are off by themselves. Not only that, but they are hanging out in a pile of trash. Well, not actually trash but stationary and such. Now I'm not pointing fingers because as everybody knows it takes two to tango and throwing stones in glass houses is a bad idea (but would you really even throw stones in a normal house, seems like unseemly behavior).

But you start to get a feel for who is doing whom wrong in this one. Granted this is just a glimpse in time, a snapshot if you will, but it sure seems that the Converse is looking longingly over at the other group of shoes. Anyone who has been picked last for kickball (not that I was, I was awesome at kickball) or any other sport or not gotten asked to the dance or had a slushee thrown in their face by the cool kids knows exactly how that shoe feels. And what's worse, the doc marten has completely turned his back on the Converse. Man, that's cold.

So in conclusion, I hope that we all can all learn some valuable life lessons. Hopefully this inspires to look beyond ourselves and our circle of friends to those around us. Maybe there is a Converse trying to get our attention or maybe a Nike running shoe has to sleep in a pile of trash because we won't acknowledge him. Me, I envision a world where all shoes whether sandals or penny loafers, boots or some other random type of shoe, can live together in peace and harmony.

oh the possibilities

Has any of the two readers of this blog noticed that many of my best (or at least funniest by my defintion) are created late at night? Well, its true. And surprisingly enough, they happen to be late at night while I'm at the hospital. I'm not trying to debunk or demyth the ideal of a resident physician. The truth is that when I'm on call I spend a lot of time waiting for things. Waiting for patients to come, waiting for lab results to pop up on the computer, waiting until its a respectable enough time to go to bed. So in this waiting I entertain myself in various ways. Sometimes I read about patients. Sometimes I read about diseases. But mostly, I picture myself with facial hair. Tonight has been no different as I've deeply and meaningfully contemplated facial hair. Rather than idle thought, I decided to create fairly accurate images of what I would look like with different types of facial here. And here they are.

First, we have the simple goate'. And yes, that is in fact a picture of me. I took it of myself for residency applications. And yes, I'm smiling because I'm not wearing pants.





Simple, classy, and a little understated. And yes, this is my natural facial hair color -- bridging that beautiful hue between neon and jack-o-lantern orange. I think I need some cool, thick framed glasses though for the full effect.

Next up, the full goatee.



Honestly, I'm worried a little bit about getting chunks of food stuck in that beard. Its kind of weird, too, how I have facial hair growing out of my upper lip. That's just the way it grows though.

Next up is something a bit more "hipster"

Nothing says trendy like mutton chops and a razor-tipped goatee. Its kind of like an inverted, orange Christmas tree. Which makes it awesome.

For the fans of classic facial hair, here is a little treat named "the rollie fingers" after the great relief pitcher of the same name (and great is in reference to his 'stache).

A little comical, a little sinister, a lot of awesome.

Next up, the full beard. I've been listening to a lot of "indie folk" music lately, so I think I really need to look the part. And looking the part entails wearing plaid shirts (usually with pearl snaps) and growing a beard.

I think that it looks pretty good though. Kind of like a young Harrison Ford in "The Fugitive" before he became a fugitive and had to blend in. So it would be a good fit for me since I'm a doctor and will at some point in my life inevitably blame a one-armed or similarly de-appendaged man for some crime.

Fu-manchu. Enough said.

And lastly, the chin-strap.

I think for this to work, I need to get roid-ed up and get a tribal tattoo on my upper bicep and some large tattoo on my upper back. Of course, that is my ultimate goal in life, but you can't just jump to that...

There were some other possibilities. Some other variants didn't make the list, including "the adolf", "the pedophile", "the creepy-uncle", etc.

nephews and niece

I'm finishing up my vacation and starting back at work tomorrow. I sepnt most of ht evacation in Utah. Since getting back to the STL, I've been going through the pictures I took and trying to find keepers. Here's some of my awesome nephews and niece.

So that's Troy. He rocks.

And that's Sabrina. Hopefully her mom won't get ticked off that Sabrina (or "Beanie") has a dirty face. Sabrina is a free spirit. Her dirty face doesn't reflect on her parents' parenting skills.

And Colt. Colt is like a cow -- he eats almost constantly. As you can tell from the pictures, I don't really like posed pictures or pics of kids smiling. But that's me.

fun with black and white

Another picture post. Good times. So I've been messing around on the computer with black and white. Mostly, I'm going through old photos I've taken and finding the ones that are more interesting/dramatic in B&W. Most of the pictures of people that I've taken fall into that category. It makes sense when you consider that I stink at taking pictures of people.

So here's the arch. In color the picture is kind of boring. And by "kind of" I mean "really".

Another arch shot. Got to represent the STL.

Here's a bridge across the Mississippi. I cropped out a ton of bridge but wished I had a bit more river to work with.

This is my bedroom. I was messing around with the wide angle. I didn't rearrange anything -- everything is in its natural position (including random bike wheel).

My buddy Sam from when we went on vacation last fall. I kind of like how his camera blocked out his eyes. Also of note, my camera is so much bigger than his.

Doesn't he look pensive? It's no wonder everyone wants to date him. He's got the whole angst thing going on which is only magnified, I think, by the B&W.

OK, so I didn't take this one. I included is mostly because I think the B&W makes the mullet look awesome. Nothing better than the open water and the wind in your hair (or mullet).

And last but not least, and awkward self-portrait. If you squint (and use your imagination), you might just see a bit of facial hair.

a low-down dirty shame OR the saddest sight ever

I was walking out of my neighborhood Staples with my xerox copies in hand when I came across a sight so wanton and deplorable, so deprave and perverse, that it shook me to my very core. Part of me cried out to flee from such a scene, but I found myself strangely drawn in. I could not shake my eyes from the mindless destruction that I faced. I grabbed my camera phone and took pictures in the hope that the images might stir something inside all of you so that such wickedness, which should rightly be abhorred, might not be repeated. I warn you, these images might be too graphic for those of a weaker constitution.

This is the scene from further out. This encompasses it in all of its horrific horribleness.

Moving closer in to the grouping on the left. Can you see the golden spongy goodness laying battered and destroyed on the cold, hard, unforgiving cement?

And look here below, the creamy goodness lying inside a warm blanket of cake, beckoning the faithful to a heavenly center. But instead of its near-divine purpose, it lies cast aside and disregarded. And again, Eden sinks to grief.
In case you haven't yet realized what this heavenly creation is, it is in fact a twinkie. My natural inclination when facing such travesty is to try to make sense of what happened, for it is only in learning from history that we can ever hope to unrepeat it. I submit my graphical recreation of what happened here. We start with our main player, Twinkie the Kid.

Through forces unknown, Twinkie the Kid finds himself in a free fall, from heaven to earth.

Now in his fallen state, he finds himself subjected to the heartless will of the boot.

Now I can't be sure exactly how it all happened. Rather than a combat boot, Twinkie the Kid could have fallen victim to a wandering cowboy (no doubt wearing a hat black as night).

As dark as these time are, maybe in fact it was not a wandering cowboy but in fact a skeleton who happened across the fallen twinkie.

The exact details remain dark and hidden. So there it is. I leave it to you to struggle to find meaning in all this, whether you view these events as an allegory to the state of fallen man, or a manifestation of the chaos of existence, or whether this in fact has no meaning and only serves to expand the outer limits of this nihilistic void in which we find ourselves. Me, I will weep with the tears saved only for the innocent. Do not cry for spilled milk, but cry with me, brothers and sisters, for the twinkie now departed.

Palm Reading 101

So its Saturday night and I'm at work. It has been kind of slow today (already took a nap and watched the Cardinals game). So tonight, I thought I'd do something productive and learn how to read my palm. Being the traditionalist that I am, I wanted to go to a reliable and trusted source: http://www.wikihow.com/Read-Palms




The whole experience has been quite informative and enriching, so I thought I'd share.

So that's my palm.

And that's my palm with my lines marked with the magic of computers (go microsoft Paint)

And here's the line by line breakdown:

Heart:

content with love life

freely expresses love and feeling

suffered some emotional trauma

Head:

creativity

short attention span

Life:

energy

vitality

Fate:

self made individual

develops aspirations early on

Hand shape: FIRE

spontaneous, enthusiastic and optimistic

sometimes egoistic, impulsive, and insensitive

do things boldly and instinctively

So that's me according to my palm. While I'm not exactly sure what emotional trauma I suffered, I'm sure it happened

argyle socks

As many of you know, I am a man of many passions. And by passions, I mean strange obsessions. One of these "passions" is Argyle socks (like I said, strange obsessino). Argyle socks are, in my opinion, the coolest things ever. Definitely the coolest type of socks every made. I own quite a few pairs of Argyle socks and count them as some of my dearest possessions. Tonight I decided to chronicle my love of these socks through photography. Here are all my pairs.

So I was recently on service in the NICU for a month. My team consisted of me, Phoebe (another resident), Dr. Saunders (our attending/boss) and Kevin (a NICU fellow). Early on, we learned that Phoebe and I shared to some extent a love of argyle socks. I would even talk about my socks on rounds. Then one day Phoebe and Dr. Saunders both wear argyle socks to work. But alas! I was on call and had worn normal, white ankle socks. However, I had forgotten my ID badge at home. I either had to beg people to let me in to the NICU or call rooms for 30 hours, pretend to be Phoebe and use her ID, or go home and get my ID. I opted for going home. While I was home, though, I did pick up a pair of Argyle socks to complete the team. Here we are.

That's a lot of Argyle. Here is the sock by sock breakdown.


Don't worry, Phoebe actually does have two feet. I'm not sure where her other foot went cause I'm pretty sure it was there at work. So the moral of the story is that Argyle socks rock. On a side note, I want to make a sock puppet for work but it would be too difficult to pick a sock to say goodbye to.

pictures

So it turns out I don't have too much to say about my life, so I'll keep posting pictures.

Unfortunately the words aren't 100% parallel to the box. I wasn't sure if, in the end, I wanted St. Louis straight or the edges. I opted for the box as it forms a frame.

Some place was going to through renovation and had a bunch of newspaper in the window with the cool colored signs.

I eat burgers here a lot.

Yea graffiti.

I like this one. Its in front of a place called Dressel's. Its a giant dragon.

more pics

So I wandered around my neighborhood again yesterday taking pictures. I've got some good ones that I'll post in batches over the next few days (motivation to keep checking back). This first batch is of a bunch of tables at a place called Wildflower. None of the bars have their patios open yet -- all the tables at this particular one and all pushed together, thus facilitating the pictures. I climbed up on some concrete thing to take these. And while I did touch up the colors a bit, I think that my sense of composition and depth still legitimize me as a [amateur] photographer.

I'm not sure what those math equations mean. I'm about 14 years removed from my last math class.

I think the tree branch shadow is kind of eerie in a good way.

recent news

So I have some updates. First of all, the t-shirt I designed came in. This is a picture of me wearing it.

Notice how smooth my arms look. Sweet. For those of you not in the medical field, prn is an abbreviation we use when writing prescriptions. It means "as needed", like for a pain med or something of the sort. Essentially, it makes the shirt totally awesome. This shirt represents the first phase in my grand plan for either world domination or financial security. The main idea is that the "hugs prn" phrase will spread across the country from children's hospital to children's hospital with various editions of shirts until at last I take over the world (with the proceeds going to charity).

Next up is a portrait drawn by one of my patients. He was my patient last weekend. We sent him home on Sunday with the diagnosis of "viral syndrome" but he hasn't really gotten better. So he came back into the hospital on Tuesday and is getting all kinds of crazy tests done. Everything is still negative, which is good. Anyway, he drew a picture of me.

I think that it looks just like me, Dr. Clay. I go by Dr. Clay to patients and families. Definitely easier to say and remember and Dr. Sontheimer and it doesn't make me feel like an old academic dermatologist either (not that there's anything wrong with that). So that's me right now.

More pictures -- saint louis in february

So here are some pictures I recently took. I just got a wide-angle lens for my camera so I walked around my neighborhood taking pictures of things on my day off saturday. I like to walk around and take myself too seriously.

This is a clock at an intersection leading into a neighborhood. I jumped up on some scaffolding to take the picture. Kind of abstract or something.

About a half-block from my house is this theater. It is a real small place with my favorite pub attached (desert toasted ravioli) on the side. I've been meaning to go see a show but as many of you may know, I'm lazy and cheap.

This (and the next one) are shots of a local hardware store. I like to take pictures of signs. I'm not sure why, but I do.

So I live across the street from a giant catholic cathedral. On the side is this statue of an angel blessing some kids.

So this is just a wall with some dead vines on it. I don't know why I like the picture, but I do.