Ann Arbor

Ryan and I are currently visiting the curiously unique town of Ann Arbor, Michigan. We are staying with my sister and brother, Amy and Jeff. We were able to drive down, I mean up, on Wednesday night. Part of the point of this trip was to have an interview at University of Michigan's Med/Peds program.

So the whole interview process is excellent because it involves free food. Ryan and I ate at the Grizzly Peak Brewery with the Med/Peds residents. This was a chance for us to ask the residents questions and to get a "feel" for the program. I have been blessed with the cold that was passed around our small group so I had a drippy nose, man voice, and hurricane force sneezes. Thankfully, the residents were understanding and didn't act too disgusted with my snot face. The residents were all very nice and explained in great detail all of the parks and outside happenings occuring around Ann Arbor. It is a great city and has tons of stuff to do.

Today was the big interview day. Ryan dropped me off for the first meeting at 7:30 a.m. We had a short overview, met the internal medicine chairman and then I had 2 interviews before lunch. Fortunately, my first interviewer was a fellow pole vaulter in college. He was great to talk with and was very laid back. My second interview was a guy that had a similar upbringing and had travelled quite a bit. He was really interesting. I've found that I much rather get to know the people who are interviewing me than to ask questions about the program- I think a program is a program is a program and the people are what counts. We then proceeded to have lunch with more residents and then another interview in the afternoon. This was my last interview of the day and hmmm . . . unique.

Well my overall impression was a great program, great people, and still trying to figure out if it's the right fit for me. Ryan did go on a tour with a real estate agent today to look at the city and houses. So we would have to pay $80,000 greater than what we paid for our current home for about half of the size, which was disappointing.

The day finished off excellently no less because of our brilliant brother in law, Jeff. He got us tickets to see "GROOVE", which is the U of Michigan equivalent to Stomp. The performance was preceded by the group, My Dear Disco, who were awesome!! We were so impressed. Their lead singer has an amazing voice. Then the GROOVE performance made all of us want to come home and bang on trash cans. It was great!!!!!!

Tomorrow looks to be a great day- snow storm and a trip to IKEA . . . can't beat it.

Thanks for listening.