Best Western The Woodlands

... Cute little rolly-polly thing, but seemed just as blind and deaf as a possum. I never saw an alligator, although I sure kept an eye out on the swampy parts of the trails. Two white herons appeared too quickly to photograph. And the frogs were so loud that I could hear them clearly, even through my ear plugs when trying to sleep. I'll try to upload the recording I made. I'd bought a new pair of jeans in Dallas, figuring I'd find a Viking dealer who'd remember who I ...

So I get here in the early evening, long enough time to hang at the Starbucks till it closed, thats why the last entry was put short. That evening went to the Jolly Fox Club and met an Armenian, and a welder, and a cool guy Steven, he bought me some drinks. Great. Met the owner of that place, and of the Humphreys. Had some drinks, and a sort of bad night, got sick in the hotel, and cleaned that up ...

It is officially official. I just got off my last shift for a grand total of 493 hours of Paramedic Internship. My final day was actually enjoyable - very slow with only two transports. I'm looking forward to getting home tomorrow and seeing all my friends and family. I didn't get nearly as homesick as I thought I would, but I still did! I'm sitting in IHOP for the last time, mooching off their internet and eating breakfast. I've been here so many ...

Another sleepless night. I'm sitting here at IHOP typing this out, trying to stay awake. Finally got to sleep around 3:30 this morning only to wake up at 7:15 so I could go home. Had some good calls last night, though nothing spectacular. More and more I'm finding my preceptor has fewer problems with how I run calls - and even the things he does find he says is more style than anything. He does a 12-lead on everyone, almost regardless of age. Since this service charges for ...

... nothing really as good - but still no sleep. Though we did have this lady in her 90's who had a bradycardic rhythm with a bigeminy of PVC's. It was freakin weird - her blood pressure was normal, her mentation was normal, everything was normal. She did complain of a slight headache, but said it had started this morning. No one could figure out exactly what was going on and it was eventually decided that she'd probably been living with this for a while. Later!

We went to Bastop State Park. It is not very big, but good enough for my first backpacking experience! We hiked 3/4 of the trail the first day and stayed the night. The trail is small enough to do in one day but we wanted to camp out. It was very pretty but we camped in the wrong area and could hear the highway : ( Over all I enjoyed the hike.

So driving back and forth between Houston and Dallas/Ft Worth, I always pass the big Sam Houston statue in Huntsville. Finally one day I decided to stop and take a picture. Basically it's just right there on the side of the highway. I was trying to take a picture and all the truckers were honking at me. Someone told me it used to have a huge "bulge" in the pants area, but the town voted to have it shaved down.

What a great two days we all spent in Austin--meeting each other and learning more about the trip to Egypt. Both Chris and Kamran were awesome. They willingly shared their knowledge and personal anecdotes about the Middle East. The lectures were so informative --from academics on the growth of cities and the history of Islam to the nuts and bolts of what NOT to eat and what NOT to wear. I think when Chris put the ticket into my hand, I finally realized I was really going to Egypt!