Last Sunday (August 16, 2009) I went to Disneyland with the family. I decided to bring along my camcorder and see what I could record. After a day I had an hour and 15 minutes on tape (yes, I do use a camcorder with a tape. For the techies out there, I have a Canon HV30.)

The first hour was from random things filmed throughout the day. I whittled that down to about 20 minutes but then had to split it in half because of YouTube’s 10 minute limit for non-partners. The last 15 minutes was the Disney Fireworks show. I had heard from a friend that the Disneyland’s fireworks “sucked,” but I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the show. I thought it was pretty good. The fireworks display can be viewed in the last two video clips.

Also, the video editing was just for fun. I just wanted to try my hand at it and see what I came up with. It’ll probably be extremely boring for anyone not related to me — well, my mom actually said it was boring to watch (But she was referring to the raw, unedited footage. Although, she didn’t say anything after I showed her the edited one, so this one might be boring too.). So consider this your fair warning!

But if anyone actually does watch, I’d suggest clicking the “HQ.”

Disneyland (1/2)

Disneyland (2/2)

Fireworks (1/2)

Fireworks (2/2)

For those of you who don’t know, I am a huge photography fan. Every once in a while I get to go out and shoot some pictures. Granted, I don’t get out as much as I’d like to because of school and all.

Anyways, I decided to start a Photoblog. You can get to it by clicking on the link right below the header or by clicking here. Hopefully I can spend an average of one day a week to shoot something interesting enough to post there.

I’ve also added another category on this blog. The new category is “Outside of Medicine” and I will use it to post random nothings about my life that have nothing to do with medicine (I’m sure that was obvious by the name I chose for the new category). For the longest time I avoided mixing personal life on this blog. I felt that there was some rule stating that this blog had to contain only medical school and healthcare related posts.

But then I realized it’s my blog. I can do whatever I want with it. So I’m adding another category in an act of silent rebellion (although I am still not sure what I am rebelling against). Yeah. So watch out, world!

Lenovo is having a giveaway for this back-to-school season. Now I’d normally encourage others to go with Apple unless they absolutely must run windows (even though I know about and use Boot Camp). But if I were to get a PC, I’d definitely go with these guys.

You can enter every day from now until September 14. They are also running some online sales for the next few days. So if you’re in the need, stroll on over to Lenovo.com. But be sure to click the widget below and see if you win anything. Go ahead.. you can thank me later

Over the past few days I have re-watched the two Disney adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia — The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe & Prince Caspian.

I was always a big fan of the books so it was interesting to see the beloved characters portrayed on film.

And it got me thinking about the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres. I have often seen these genres grouped together. And I suppose there are similarities between the two. One must be able to suspend one’s own belief in reality for a moment to really get into the story.

But there are differences. In Fantasy, one tends to find magic, dwarves, giants and the like fighting with swords, spears and arrows. In the SciFi realm, there are distant galaxies populated with multi-colored aliens, space battles, and energy weapons.

I’m just wondering… why don’t we ever read about a futuristic, space-traveling, laser-toting dwarf?

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On another note, I was thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. I found my post from last year about what my resolution for 2008 was going to be. I don’t think I have anything else to add to that list of two. So I guess I’ll just have to stick to those.

I just came home from the grocery store because I needed to buy some bread. So I walked in, picked up a bag of 6 rolls and then looked for a cashier. But there were only two cashiers working. As I looked at aisle one I saw a cart that was packed with food. You’d have thought she was preparing for Thanksgiving dinner.

I turned around and got in line at aisle ten. This was the 15-items-or-less line. But it had quite a number of people. Just as I got in line, I heard some older (and by older, I mean older than me) lady call out to me. Turning around I saw that she was about to push her cart into a lane that was just opening. But, noticing I only had one item, she called me over to go ahead of her.

And I drove home thinking, “I like nice people.”

This is not at all related to medical school. But my last post was written while still on vacation in Kauai. These are some of the pictures I took while over there.

(Click on the thumbnails for a larger view)

A while ago, I mentioned that I received an email from one of the editors of The Differential — a medical student blog that is part of Medscape. Medscape is a part of WebMD and is aimed at health professionals and students.

The email, as I wrote before, asked if I would be interested in joining The Differential as a student writer. After a few email exchanges with the editor, I am now one of the medical student bloggers at the Differential. As per our agreement, the posts I write for them will not be showing up here (at least not immediately).

So check out that site. There are currently seven authors, all medical students. And everyone should be posting at least once a week.

Courtesy of MichaelMoore.com

I guess I’m slow. I’ve heard that before. But I finally got to see Michael Moore’s documentary on the American Healthcare System. This was my very first Michael Moore documentary. I didn’t watch bowling for Columbine or Fahrenheit 9/11.

Prior to watching this film I thought that Michael Moore was pretty obnoxious. Not that I’ve ever met the guy. He just came across that way to me. He seemed confrontational. But maybe you need to be that way to produce an effective documentary.

Throughout the film, Michael Moore introduces the audience to various Americans. We get to meet them and find out about their difficulties in the system of medicine that Americans seem to have accepted.

As a documentary about the atrocities of the American healthcare system, one would expect to see the negatives. And Mr. Moore does not fail to deliver. He presents one tear-jerking story after another and with his sarcasm points out how broken our system really is.

At one point he brings a group of Americans who have health problems resulting from their work at Ground Zero of on 9/11. These rescue workers had many problems that they just could not afford to deal with back home. Moore took them to Cuba where they were treated free of charge.

I consider this film to be an argument for Universal Healthcare. As an argument, I didn’t expect an unbiased view. Even so, Michael Moore did point out some of his critics. And one can easily find the opposing viewpoints with a quick Google search.

Without getting into a debate about the merits or pitfalls of universal medicine, I previously wrote that there are two entities that keep America from going the route of universal healthcare. Those two are (1) doctors and (2) Big Pharma. (see my post: Reforming the U.S. Healthcare System for more).

Overall, I think it was an excellent film for anyone interested in healthcare in America. Is it a good generalization of the state of things in this country? I don’t know. My mother had cancer a couple years ago and was very well taken care of by her insurance (not going to name them, but the founder is briefly mentioned in the film). Maybe my mom was the exception and not the norm? I just haven’t been in and around the hospital system to know. Nevertheless, the film does offer one viewpoint and its probably that we should take a look at.