It's been a while, I know

It has been a busy week. Shosh's grandmother passed away two weeks ago on Monday and the funeral was on Tuesday and we stayed over at her parents house for shiva. Everyone seems to be doing ok....


since then, a lot has happened. I am now officially Dr. Fein, having graduated from Einstein. That's right baby. Dr. Fein.

We also got our apartment - a nice 1200 square footer (2bedroom 2 bath) in Riverdale. However, I have no clue when I am moving in as I am unable to reach the current residents and have no clue when they are moving out.

Shavuot just came and went. I organized all my friends staying in here for one last fun holidy together - and it was really really nice. Despite the meals lasting rediuclously late, and people being in my apratment pretty much the entire day yesterday, I had a tremendous ammount of fun. My cheesecake was a hit (thanks Eagle), I leyned the second day and gave a dvar torah at lunch (one that the Rabbi said he had never heard before and he liked) - pretty cool, no?

I finished key to Rebecca - it was ok.. not the best Follett haswriiten, but ok. I started Jeffrey Deaver's Stone Monkey - just read the first few pages. I think my reading time will go down a bit these next few weeeks as I have a ton of PALS/NALS stuff to read and we just get a ton of magazines that i like to read- everything

Speaking of magazines - i started getting the NEw England Journal of Medicine about a month ago. What a great journal. Seriously. I never have read a journal and felt like I was learning something before. kudos to them.

Now its just a lot of packing to do in my apartment....

got my football draft tomorrow - we actually already did 15 players, and i got back Brady, which was cool. Also got Jordanas simchat bat tomorrow evening. Should be fun (and late).

anyways - i got some more LOST to catch up on.

later

Casino Night

Well, we had our Einstein singles shabbaton this weekend - which was a huge success as far as I'm concerned - it was rediculously crowded, and people seemed to be having a good time. Last night we had a kick ass casino night thanks to Josh, Tovah and Alizah (I know, i never introduced these people yet - hopefully soon I will). I was a blackjack dealer - very interesting to be on the other side of the table. Even had a 7 card 17 at one point - quite amazing. All in all I think people had a damn good time.

Nothing else new going on. We checked out the building we will be moving to - though we do not yet know what apartment we got. It looks good from the outside!

Nothing else really going on- finishing up Key to Rebecca, havce yet to get any new music to listen too. soon.

thats pretty much my weekend. We have our prom tomorrow night - which should be a blast!

4-8-15-16-23-42

Yes, boys and girls. That's right, I'm addicted to LOST. I finished the first season. Good season finale... not the best i've ever seen from a show, but very good. I watched episode 1 of season 2 an know I am stuck trying to scrounge up episodes. What a good show.
I started going to the gym to work out, and boy are my arms tired. No, seriously, my arms are tired.
The entire world finished Pesachim yesterday - I held off at the last couple lines bvecause I will be making my siyum with my brother in law Elnatan at my niece's simchat bat. Butm nevertheless, I will be starting Shekalim, today with Eagle.
We got Monte housing! a nice 2 bedroom in Riverdale. I'm psyched. And relieved. phew.
I got new glasses yesterday - rimless ones. Its gonna take a couple weeks for them to get here, but I am excited nonetheless.
What else? Sammy actually learned to slap 5. I put my hand out an dinstead of just going to grab it, like he used to, he now hits his palm against it several times and smiles while he is doing it.. very adorable.
Congrats to my dad in getting his Yellow belt!
I'm still reading the Key to Rebecca and have gotten no new music to listen to recently. I will soon, have no fear. I wanted to go see the DaVinci code today, but was unable too. X3 opens next week.. THAT is the movie I want to see.
anything else going on in my life? There is a single shabbaton thsi weekend here, and my cousins Rachelle and Adina are coming.. oh yeah - CONGRATS to Adina for getting into Einstein! Very exciting!

anyways, to all a good shabbos.

Yes!

Well, a huge burden was taken off my shoulders yesterday evening when my new friend Kate, the pediatric house staff person called me to tell me that I did indeed get a 2 bedroom apartment in Waldo (a.k.a Monte 3). I am very excited, as I actually started getting nervous yesterday about finding a place to live. Now I just face the grim prospects of packing.

Sports are amazing. Yesterday featured some great games. To start with, Mets vs Cards, Glavine vs Suppan. I still remember the Glavine of last year, and I'll be honest - I'm still waiting for him to horribly implode in a crucial situation. Call me faithless, but I thought last night was going to be that night. Up by 1 on the Phillies and begining a tough road stretch in St Louis. But Glavine pitched briliantly, and the Mets bats (including Cliff Floyd) came to life and they won 8-3. Glavine is 6-2. wow.
Lets go to the Bronx now. Yanks vs Texas. Yanks go down 9-0 after 1.5, 10-2 after 3. But they battle back, led by perrenial all-star and pretty boy Derek Jeter and take the lead 11-10. And despite losing that lead 12-11 and then Rivera blowing the save, they end up winning 14-13 on a Jorge Posada 2 run HR. Amazing! And posada had made an amazing play a the plate earlier in the game. What character. To win 14-13 at home without arguably their 3 best power hitters - Matsui, Sheffield and Giambi, wow.
And then the NBA playoffs. Yes, the Nets lost - but the beter game was Clips vs Suns. This game went to double OT and lasted until 2:10 am EST. There were sequences of rediculousness including back to back steals, a blown non time out call, a 8 second violation on a smiling Sam Cassell, huge missed free throws by BOTH teams, and the Suns held on to win it. I think they will win the series, but I'm really pulling for the Clippers.
I haven't listened to any new music lately or seen any movies. I'm still watching the first season of lost (and in the last episode i watched "In translation" they actually used the phrase "this is very lord of the flies.") I love it. I also love how one of the characters i named John Locke. Interesting side point - the third episode of Lost is titled "Tabula Rasa" - which happenes to be one of the key ideas of English philosopher John Locke. Interesting, no?
great show.

Anyways, my step uncle's father passed away the other day so we're going to go pay a shiva call tonight. Baruch dayan haemet.
And - in good news, my cousin, Adina, just got into Einstein!!! Pretty exciting. It will definitley be funny seeing her in Monte.

adios

Lost, NBA Playoffs And a New Short Story.

Ok... so lets start with the last one first. My latest short story, The Pile, has been published by Ad Libitum, the Einstein literary journal. If you would like to read it, click here and then click the second of the two options given to you. This one is sort of based on personal experience and is dedicated to NR.

Anyways, lets see. I have spent a good deal of the past two days watching the first season of Lost. I am now 15 epsiodes in, meaning I am almost 2/3 done with the first season. And let me tell you, this show is good. The premise - 48 people or so survive a plane crash on a deserted island. They are very far off course so there is really no hope of anyone coming to get them. It started off a little bit like Lord of the Flies, but quickly diverged. Strange things are happening on this island. I know many of you reading this probably have a lot of answers to some of my questions, like - where the hell was that wire going into the ocean, what's with the polar bears, the hatch and the freaking monster, but I want to find out myself. If you dont know what I'm talking about I storngly suggest you buy season 1 on DVD and watch. Regardless, the show is good, and addictive. very good character development, which as you know, I love. watch it. now.

NBA playoffs - I love it. I have become down on the NBA a bit since Isiah Thomas has destroyed me beloved Knicks and turned them into the league laughing stock, but the playoffs are still good fun. Dallas vs San Antonio. Now i used to love the spurs back in the David Robinson era, as Eagle can attest too - and while I thank Duncan for helping Robinson win a title, I do not like him all that much. I like Manu Ginobli and Tony Parker even less. Thus, I am elated that Mavs have gone up 3-1 in the series. Now let me ask you this. Down by 5, 30 seconds left with no timeouts and the other team has the ball - what would you do? foul right away, right? right. wrong. the spurs did nothing and let the mavs have the game without even giving it a chance. I see this series rolling away from them like the basketball away from Ginobli as time expired in Game 3.

FFL is starting soon, though it seems we might not be able to do it all in one day. We shall see. Meanwhile in FBL, i had 3 AL pitchers going last night and amazingly enough, ALL had good - great games. The best, none otehr than my -23 point disappointment last week, Kevin Millwood. Be consistent, please.

Almost done with tractate pesachim, though I will be holding off finishing it until the simchat bat of my niece, Jordana. Oh, speaking of her - here's a great picture of Sammy and Jordana....
ok, so Sammy is happy and he's torchering Jordana, but he's only 9 months (tomorrow) so, we'll give him a break.

Anyways, I'm off to play some video games with Etan.
later

The weekend

Well.. what to say... went to Shosh's parents for Shabbos... it was very nice, much nicer weather wise than the genious meterologists said it was going to be. However, my mood was ruined on Staurday night as my 2 NL relievers blew it and lost me my NL week. oh well.

Shosh went to go visit her grandmother today. From what I understand, all is status quo. Sort of just waiting. It sucks. I went to my parents with Sammy and we had a good time. We say my Safta (Sammy's great grandmother) and my aunt and cousin and my brothers. We had fun.

Just got back though - it was a very long day so this post is short. Just watched Gray's Anatomy though tonight - 1st part of the season finale. AMAZING! Definitley watch it and watch the 2 hour season finally tomorrow!!!!!!

gnight

The Developing Human

One of the most interetsing things in the world is watching a baby grow up. Especially between age 6 months -18 months. Sammy is doing something new almost every day. 3 weeks ago he couldn't feed himself. Now he feeds himself cheerios and other finger foods and is grabbing for the spoon and anything that we eat. 1 week ago he couldn't pull himself to stand, and now he does (smoetimes). It is really so amazing and pretty cool. And it certainly helps that he is cute!

One day left of med school! Todya was excrutiating as we had multiple lectures about stupid stuff I dont care about.

Jake Peavy pitched a good game today which is nice for me. I also volunteered to lain the second day of yom tov here I gotta learn it.
No new music yet, still in midst of Key To Rebecca.

peace out H town

Locked and Loaded

Well, I am sitting here typing from my new kick-ass setup here with my new 19inch flat screen and Dell computer (thanks mom and dad!). 2 days left of med school. Pretty Exciting, but scary at the same time. In 7 weeks, i'm an intern on the floor. Yikes!

But plenty to do till then. Haven't listened to any new music or gotten any further in Key to Rebecca since I last wrote since I have been spending my time setting up this computer. Shari came by to visit yesterday - that was fun.. .we had a good time. Sammy likes her.

Last night my fanatsy team got killed. Kevin Milwood. Ouch. Blown saves x2 (Todd Jones and Tom Gordon.) and bad hitting. oh well.

Today was Fun Day at Einstein - this year , Chabad got all the meat which was awesome.

Oh yeah- I now have my Tivo hooked up to my computer - how awesome is that?

methinks that is it for now.

D

Last Post.....

... from my old computer.. because I have a new computer to set up today!!! Yeah me!!!

Lets see - what happened this weekend. Shabbos was nice. It was just Us for dinner, and then we had Etan (who recently returned from his trip to nowehere, Aisa) over for lunch. I'm in the middle of Key to Rebecca now, which is pretty good. Saturday night I watched Flight of the Phoenix which was simply eh. I like Giovanni Ribsi though from his Boiler Room preformance, so i'll give it a barely passable 2 stars. I listened to the Arctic Monkeys album - and again, just an eh. There has been so much fuss about them recently. I really expected more - perhaps I need to listen again and tone down my expectations.
On Sunday we went down to Cherry Hill to visit Shosh's aunt/uncle and cousins. And her grandmother. Unfortunatley today, shsoh's grandmother had a massive stroke and is in the hospital. So, we're awaiting word on her status. But it's a good thing we go to see her yesterday. A really good thing.
I got a TON of books from Shosh's Aunt - now i have a lot to last me for a while. We watched Desperate Houswives and Grey's Anatomy when we got home - both awesome. And, I must admit, I borrowed th LOST DVDs from a friend and I'm going to start watching it = )

BOTH my fantasy teams won this week and both were last day wins, which is exciting. Todd Helton is back from the DL as is Nick Lowry, so that should add some more stability to mny first place NL team.

D

TGIF

Seriously folks... thank goodness its Friday. I hate geriatrics. I mean, I dont hate ALL old people - just the rotation. I have to admit, after being in Kings Harbor nursing home today - its pretty damn depressing. I haven't been to a real nursing home since my Uncle Imre (my paternal grandmother's brother) passed away something like 15 years ago. All the old demented people lined up in their wheelchairs like an empty bumper-car ride in the amusement park. Pretty depressing. Seriously. But, 5 more days left of the rotation - nay, of medical school. So i can suck it up.
Last night was my award ceremony. It was pretty cool. I got my award for Excellence in Pediatrics, and it was extra nice since a) the dean pointed out that I am going to CHAM (in all my wisdom) and b) there were a ton of people from CHAM there at the cermony - including the residency director, Dr. Skae; the doctor I think of as my mentor, Dr. Avner andDr Ozuah - current interim chair of CHAM (who was the keynote speaker). So it was very nice. The food was good - much better than the average run of the mill Einstein food.
Let's see what else is going on. Actually listening to My Chemical Romance right now - my first impression is that it is just ok.. i don't love it but it is bearable (which is more than i can say for a lot of that kind of music). The song Helena is good and so is Thank you for the Venom.
Not reading anything right now - going to start The Key to Rebecca tonight, by Ken Follet. I've become a big Follet fan - his latest one, whiteout was very good. MI III came out today, and i really want to see it - but alas, i can't yet. oh well.
Gotta do some more PALS stuff this weekend, and I have a daf or two to catch up on. But that's about it.

Anyways, good shabbos to all and god bless.

Did I say EVERY day?

well apparantly i didn't mean it. Anyways, since my last post - I have been doing geriatrics. Very boring. very broing. not exciting at all. And taht's pretty much it. I watched Regarding Henry starring Harrison Ford - pretty good movie. And tonight is my awards dinner - so i am excited for that.
Sammy got himself from sitting to his knees (not in crawling position, but as in a pull-to-stand position) yesterday. muy exciting! he is also a bit sick now, which is not fun for him or us.

gotta run

Danny