I Feel Like My House Is Burning Down

That's what my friend Ryan Zoradi told me over skype from El Salvador. I feel the same way. Tonight a wildfire swept through Montecito, destroying homes and parts of my college campus. I can't tell you how many memories were made on that campus, like my friend Lesley said in her blog, it is our other home. I go to sleep tonight with a very heavy heart and fear for the students who are spending the night on campus in the gym. I can't imagine a more terrifying scenario. I can't believe this is actually happening. Tonight my thoughts and prayers go out to Westmont and Montecito. I pray that God would protect the area and save what has not yet burned. I pray for the safety of the students, residents, and fire fighters. I am thankful that all my friends in Santa Barbara are safe and I pray the same if true for all those effected by this tragedy. If you read this, please pray.

Life Long Goal Complete

One of my dreams in life has been to show up at a restaurant and have the server say to me "the usual?" I always envisioned this dream would be fulfilled much later in life, after I had retired and moved to Florida or something. I would show up at the local diner for breakfast with a newspaper in hand and the waitress would say "goodmorning Dr. Brown, the usual?" And I'd say "yes" and sit there and enjoy my eggs, toast, hashbrowns, and coffee and grumble about how the world was going to pot.

Today I realized I can cross this goal off my life of things to do before I die a lot sooner than I had antcipated. I have been working in the emergency department at Littleton Advenstist Hospital since late August. For those of you who don't know, I work as a scribe in the ED. As a scribe, I assist the doctor in the documentation work, such as taking down notes on charts, entering orders, etc. Anyway, I usually work from 7:30-3:30. I have been making a habit of getting up a little earlier so I can get a hot breakfast at work. For a while I tried a couple things, but for the past two months or so I get the special omelet. It really is the perfect breakfast food because it hits all the major food groups. So I usually arrive around 7:10-7:20 so I can be a little early in the ED. For the past couple of weeks I have walked into the cafeteria and the woman working asks me if I want the usual. It is incredible. Being able to complete this life long goal so early in life is really exciting. Now I will have all kids of time later in life to complete other life long goals. Working in the ED has been a great experience so far, but the best part may be completing this life long goal, only time will tell.

A Minor Miracle

This past Thursday (October 30th), I decided to be spontaneous and book a flight to see Katie this coming weekend. Given some recent developments, I had to go see her. Side note: if anyone from the Menifee School District is reading this, which I doubt, you are bad people. Given your actions, I would not feel comfortable sending my child to any of your schools. Anyway, back to the point at hand. I jumped onto Southwest.com to look at prices. This was the first part of the miracle. I found a flight for this weekend under $200. I couldn’t believe it. If memory serves me correctly, the price of flights increase exponentially the closer the flight gets. I booked this flight 8 days out and got Southwest’s lowest price. Maybe the people at Southwest are just good people, or maybe I got lucky with the fares, either way, it was a miracle to get that price.

Now comes the second part of this minor miracle. This Saturday I had been planning on seeing a concert with my buddy Ky. We were pretty excited about this show. It featured Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, one of the greatest REAL hip-hop acts of all time. We were supposed to see A Tribe Called Quest perform earlier this summer at the Rock the Bells tour, but they cancelled last minute because another emcee from the group, Phife Dawg, was suffering complications from his diabetes. So this weekend’s show was going to slightly redeem last summer’s mishap. In addition to Q-Tip, the show featured the Cool Kids, a hot up-and-coming hipster rap group. We were fortunate to see the Cool Kids and Rock the Bells and they tore it up. They performed on one of the side stages, so they had a smaller set, but still were hot fire. So this Saturday’s show was going to be awesome. But once I made the decision to go see Katie, I was presented with a dilemma. Visiting Katie took priority over the show, regardless of how good it was going to be. However, I still had an extra ticket and felt bad for bailing on Ky. We spent about a half hour texting in an attempt to figure out what to do about the tickets. Literally within seconds of reaching a final solution, I received an email informing me the concert had been cancelled and I would receive a full refund for the tickets. I read the email several times just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. After confirming that it wasn’t a trick, it became obvious that God wanted me to go see Katie this weekend. There is no other explanation for the way things worked out so perfectly. I believe in miracles, but I don’t think I have ever experienced one so obviously. All this got me thinking, maybe I will try to visit Katie on short notice more often…