Party in San Francisco

A week and a bit ago I had the chance to head out to the Bay Area with the the lads in my ortho class to visit a number of orthodontic practices. It's a neat oportunity we have to pretty much have the doors and books open to us all with the goal of us all better figuring out exactly what size practice we want to be in and how we will manage staff; how many docs and how to structure patient care. Oh, and since that stuff is pretty boring to the average blog-reader, I'll just put up a few cool photos from our trip instead of talking more about that(along with entertainment/value ratings).

At the beach...not quite as warm as it was at the OBX a month earlier. :)

4.5 stars out of 5.We biked the bridge, from downtown SanFran to Sausalito across the bay. Windy, but very fun.

5 stars out of 5.
We also took a ferry ride back to the Wharf...fun, but not as fun as you might think unless you love boats. Funny story:

So, there were 250-odd people like us who loaded their bikes onto the lower deck of the ferry boat to get back across the bay. To fit all the bikes, they were loaded tightly side-to-side while alternating front and rear wheels to allow pedals to interdigitate more ideally. Basically, each bike had about 3 inches of total space laterally. Well, the first 15 or 20 bikes were supported by a big metal bike rack to sort of get things started. When it came time to get off the boat, just imagine 250 people crammed into a small space jostling to get to their bikes and get them ready to disembark. One lady (who should be nominated for a Darwin) began complaining loudly that someone moved her bike; that it wasn't where she had left it. Think about that... how in the world would someone extract a bike that is so tightly intertwined with dozens of bikes on either side of it? Shortly she realized she was looking in the wrong part of the queue, and that her bike was on the other end of the ferry. But instead of trying to blend in, she proceeded to complain that someone had instead moved the whole metal bike rack during the 25 minute boat ride from one end of the bike pile to the other. Completely impossible...and everyone seemed to be very aware of that. Well, everyone but her that is. Her husband tried to hide, her kids tried to move away from her (can't blame any of them). She was convinced that the rack had been moved because "I didn't put my tire into this thing when I put it on the boat." Umm, actually, she must have. Even while getting off the boat, she persisted in that fact that the rack had moved during the trip, not that she just didn't know what the heck was going on. :) You know that old paranoid saying "they're all going to laugh at you?" Well, that was fitting for her.

3.5 out of 5 stars (3 without the aforetold story).

And just for good measure, this is a nice shot of me eating jellyfish (dead serious...it was cold and disgusting). A UNC ortho grad in SF took us to dinner at an "authentic" Chinese place. Considering everthing was in Chinese only and that we were the only 6 Americans in the place, I'd say that qualifies as authentic. It made me grateful for Burger King and McDonalds. And that I went on a mission to a country where I could eat for two years. :)
1 out of 5 stars (that one was simply for the experience).