Thoughts

SEPARATED AT BIRTH?
Silver medalist Sasha Cohen and Actress Christina Ricci and (thanks to Jason's suggestion) Gilmore Girls' Alexis Bledel






















Figure skater Emily Hughes and Actress Alyson Hannigan

C & O CUCINA
If you've never been to C & O Trattoria or Cucina, you MUST go. It is some of the best Italian food you'll ever have. But that's not even the best part. The best is the endless supply of their garlic bread rolls that they bake golden brown with garlic and then drown them in butter. It's SO good! After eating one last night, I actually said, "Of my goodness. I'm falling all over myself since this bread is so good."
Friday marked my co-worker's last day at work so we took him out for dinner at C & O Cucina. This location is a little more laid-back and less crowded (plus there's better parking) than the Trattoria one on the beach. For the first half, we had 6 guys at our table so the waitress carrying the garlic rolls kept coming to us and giving us a bunch of them. After my boss (a female) joined us, we toned down our bread asking . . . just a little.
Recommended dishes: Fetticcini Prosciutto and Rigatoni Sausage and Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto. By the way, the portions are humongous. All I have to say is that you can either order the dishes "Individual" or "Gargantuan."

PAPER AIRPLANES
My co-worker walked up to a bunch of us eating lunch and put down a piece of paper.
"I need you to give me your best paper airplane."
He went on to explain that his son just discovered the art of making paper airplanes and now wanted a fleet of airplanes. So, my co-worker thought it would be a great idea to have everyone from work make one. Some could go for distance, while other for tricks, while still others for sheer length of time in the air.
It's pretty tough trying to do something you haven't done in about 20 years (you should try it!), but I gave it my best effort. But it turns out, my plane was the worst. Imagine me, the son of an aerospace engineer, can't even make a stupid paper airplane that flies. Oh well.
We had a great laugh about it over lunch and even brought out all our planes and had a contest in our gym at work . . . while the patients looked on, completely bewildered that these so-called professionals would ever do such a thing.
We had a blast! (Pun intended)

BUMP IN THE ROAD
Karena's dad hit a little bump in the road while on the way to recovery. He was sent back to Kaiser, but should only be there a few days. Please continue to keep him and our family in your prayers. Thanks!

REMATCH
With today being President's Day, Mike, Luong, and Jason took advantage to come over for a visit. We got together for luch at Island's and had a rematch of our closely contested foosball match from the last time we got together.
The last time we played, Mike and I were up 2 games to none in a best of 5 matchup. But we couldn't win that last game and ended losing a heart-breaker in the last game.
After church on Sunday, Luong came up to me and out of the blue asked if we were going to have a rematch. And just like that, we got together. This time, Mike and I would not be denied. We won 3 games to 1.
And despite spending just a few short hours together, I have to admit that it was one of the best times I've ever had. It's time like those that I'm learning to really treasure.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING
Just in case you, like me, were wondering about Torino vs. Turin, here is the answer that I read from Sports Illustrated:
"Turin is the Anglicized version of hte Italian name, Torino -- just as Rome is of Roma and Florence is of Firenze. NBC is using the sexier-sounding Torino."

And in other news, despite having dinner with my family at Black Angus, I DID get to see little Nate Robinson dunk over Spud Webb. The restaurant erupted afterward! It was pretty sweet to see him have the right amount of flair with some love for the old school. On a side note, when we saw him play last year in college at a UCLA game against Washington, everybody kept taunting him by calling him "Gary Coleman!" It was hilarious. Still, after last night, I gotta give the guy some props.

NICK AND JESSICA
This is a little embarassing to admit, but Karena and I were avid fans of the MTV show "Newlyweds" featuring Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey. We found their adventures to be funny and sometimes similar to events/feelings we were going through as newlyweds ourselves. (Of course, I did know that a lot of that show was staged and set-up, but . . . )
and I hate to admit this even more, but I'm kind of sad that they're divorcing. It almost feels like two of my good friends are breaking up. I read the real estate article in the paper a few weeks back about them selling their home to the oldest son from "Malcolm In the Middle." And I keep hearing about all the tabloid fodder about them moving on, saying bad things about one another, etc.
It just breaks my heart.

FREE FOOD
Kaiser employees were treated to free food at the Del Taco that is scheduled to open next week. This was a test run for them and a big perk for us!
While I was treating my patient, my co-worker comes out and says, "Hey, Vic. Are you going to Del Taco?
"No, why?"
"Free food," he whispered.
I quickly helped my patient back into his wheelchair and said, "We'll see you next week!" and we took off. Since we only had 5 more minutes before the free food time was over, we ran down the street, along with about 50 other Kaiser employees. It was quite a site!
I got the Macho burrito combo that would have costed me $6.16. By the way, does anybody else think it's weird that they serve the burrito with fries instead of tortilla chips?
Afterward, I thought I'd have food coma, but I felt pretty good. I guess free food always makes me feel good.
The part that really troubled me was seeing so many employees walking out with multiple bags. One lady left with FOUR bags! That's just not right.

PROPS
I have to give my props and say a big "thank you" to Daryl for thinking of me and getting me a very thoughtful gift. Since we've been spending everyday with Karena's father in the nursing home, he'd thought he'd hand-deliver to me each episode of this season's 24 without the commercials for my iPod. So, I'm all current with this season and haven't had to sit through 15 minutes of commercials each time. It's been a real time saver and somehow, the episodes are even more intense coming through those great headphones the iPod has.
So, thanks Daryl!

LIFE AT KAISER
Here are two stories that exemplify life at Kaiser:
(1) I had worked with my patient about 6 times and got her better with only very minimal pain. Then, as she's leaving, she says to me, "I have to admit, I was skeptical when my doctor sent me here to Physical Therapy. But she knew exactly what she was doing. I'm lucky to have such a great physician." Gee, no thank you for me. No, good job. Nothing. I do all the work, and the doctor got all the credit.
(2) My co-worker was trying to find a phone number and address for some Kaiser speciality advisory board. He called our hospital operator and they had no clue what it was. He called other departments, other hospitals, looked all over the Kaiser website, looked in various Kaiser manuals and handouts with no success. Finally, he did a search on Google and he got all the info he needed and more. So, as it turns out, it seems Kaiser's search engine is no match for Google, even for Kaiser related things. How sad it that?

WINDS OF CHANGE HAVE CHANGED
Well, the winds of change blew. And then, as quickly as they came, they seem to be going away.
Still, it's all good.
(Oh and by the way, it wasn't what some of you were thinking)

FRIDAY NIGHT CARL'S
My co-workers and I have been eating at Carl's Jr. on Friday night's to hang out with each other outside our work environment. And although we had originally planned not to talk about work while we were there, we always end up complaining about our job and work place.
Still, it's been good to hang out with the guys in that way. We've forged a bond we didn't really have before. And I think we understand each other better and that helps us at work too.
In fact, it was interesting the way these Friday nights at Carl's started. I usually have to wait around for an hour anyway before I pick up Karena and my co-worker John also had to wait around an hour before going to his Bible study in Santa Monica. So, he started grabbing a quick dinner at Carl's Jr. I ran into him there one time and we had a really good conversation about our families, our lives, our plans for the future, our faith, etc. And since then, it's grown to include 3 other people.
Who says Carl's Jr. can't provide quality?

COSTCO
Costco has quickly become one of our favorite stores. We love it so much that it hurts us to hear that people often times abuse it.
For example, I heard that my co-worker recently took in his 3 year old dusty TV, DVD player, and VCR into Costco without a receipt or any of its original packaging.
He walked straight up to the return line and said he wasn't satisfied with his purchase after 3 years and he was given a FULL refund. Costco's policy of their member's being 100% satisfied or their money back is good. But I don't like to see that policy getting abused, especially by a Christian.
I found out later that he also did the same thing a few months back with his cell phone that he had been using for 2 years.
Sad.

SUPER BOWL RECAP
Although I was sad to miss out on watching the game at Enoch's with Koinonia, I was glad that we were able to help Karena's dad sit up in the wheelchair twice during the game. Thank God he's finally starting to take a turn for the better.
Anyway, the game was pretty fun to watch. It featured a little bit of everything, even though it was relatively low-scoring. I was rooting for Pittsburgh since I've been watching so much ESPN these last two weeks. All they've been showing are sob stories about Jerome Bettis, Hines Ward, Bill Cowher and other Steelers who've overcome adversity, criticism and/or are approaching retirement. So, I'm glad they won. Plus, Seattle's loss gives me more to trash talk about with Ko! =)
As for this year's commercials, I did like the Budweiser card show/wave one where one crowd pours the beer into the mug. And I did also like the sheep streaker one, Ameriquest's medical misunderstanding where the guy kills the fly, and Mastercard's MacGyver commercial. Karena's favorite was, of course, the sentimental young Clydesdale one.
And I guess ABC agrees that sex sells. Because right after the Super Bowl was over, they showed an episode of Grey's Anatomy (Karena's favorite show) where the three female main characters are all in the shower together. Of course, this is just a dream sequence in the show, but ABC figures it knows how to reel in male viewers. I remember a few years back, they showed an episode of Alias right after the game and Jennifer Garner came out in the skimpiest bikini. The next day, my co-worker didn't say anything about the game, except, "All I know is I'm going to start watching Alias from now on!"

WINDS OF CHANGE
The winds of change seem to be blowing again . . . maybe.
I'll keep you all posted. Usually, when the winds of change start blowing, God opens the door and shoves me through it. This time, I see the door starting to creep open, but I'm not so sure this time around.
We'll see.