For the next three days I’ll be camping in Rocky Mountain National Park.  It’ll be my first backpacking hike, which will be a fun little adventure.  Unfortunately I’ll be missing the Germany/France match in the Euro semi-finals, and due to poor mobile signal, I may not even know the result until Saturday when I am back home.

A small loss because camping and hiking at Rocky Mountain will be a blast.  I hope to take lots of pics.  And if Germany makes it to the final, I’ll be able to watch it on Sunday.

I knew the two weeks in Europe would go by very quickly. It was great to visit my friends and family in Germany and reunite with old friends in Prague.  The weather was stormy at times and Rock am Ring got cut short as a result, but overall I had an enjoyable time.

My hip injury is improving a lot and I managed to do a little bit of climbing last week in a gym in Stuttgart and got back to my usual diet routine this week and even did some yoga and mild resistance training. The road to recovery is going well, and I am very fortunate for my good health.

Now, I just need to get to all the errands I have to do now that I am back.  No rest for the wicked.

The title pretty much explains all my happenings for this week.  I enjoy rock climbing, and this past weekend I tried a climb that was harder than anticipated, and before I could clip in a rope, I took a free fall 3.5 meters  (12 ft) downward and injured my left hip and pelvis badly.  Fortunately, I had a great belayer and a spotter who both prevented my head from hitting the ground.  My rock climbing friends mean the world to me, and I will never be able to fully repay them for saving my life.  I was able to walk with assistance afterwards, and a full exam in the ER and a CT scan showed no fractures or internal hemorrhages.

The really hard part was recovering to a point where I would be able to travel with this Germany/Czech Republic trip coming up.  During the past four days I did approximately 3-4 weeks worth of intense physical rehab in my home which included stretching, water therapy, and deep tissue myofascial release.  I guess it helps to have a medical degree.

I am feeling much better and I am ready to travel in the air to see all of my friends and family in Europe.  I will be able to rest for some days before attending Rock am Ring .  I’ve taken the recovery day by day and have improved each day, but we’ll have to see how a full day of traveling in an airplane will be.  Again, I feel extremely fortunate that this is not much worse and cannot express how much gratitude and love I have for my friends in the rock climbing community who aided me this past weekend.   I don’t know how well I will ever recover from this or how/if I will be climbing in the future, but like I said before, I will take this day by day.

With that said, I am excited for my trip. Los geht’s!

God, it’s been forever since I last wrote on this page!  It’s been cool being back in Colorado and getting back into shape since working all day long for five weeks straight in New Mexico as the urgent care doc.  In the past full week of being back home I’ve been skiing, gone rock climbing, and got back to my dietary and workout habits.  It’s been awesome!

I am getting ready to head back to Germany to rock out at Rock am Ring and see my friends and family on the European continent.  Should be fun.   And when I get back to the States afterward, I’ll figure out what to do with my life.  At this moment, I’m just going to stay in the moment.

Speaking of the moment, go check out my favorite band of the moment The Amity Affliction.  Fucking powerful music!  Can’t wait to see these guys in Germany.

I’m at the midpoint of my physician assignment in the middle of New Mexico, and things have been going alright.  It’s been great to get back into urgent care medicine, and I’m relieved that I can still do acute emergency care.   I’m also humbled by how little the residents have here, but they somehow find a way to put a smile on their faces and live life to the fullest.  It’s good to serve these underserved patients.

With that said, I can’t wait to get back to Colorado in three weeks.  I think I can get about one or two more ski trips in, and I’m looking forward to getting back into rock climbing.  I’m a little out of shape and expect to be a bit rusty, but pretty soon I hope to get back into proper rock climbing form.

I’ll be spending the next month in New Mexico for a physician assignment.  It will be mostly for work, so I won’t be able to explore the outdoors too much.  However, I’ll make it a point to get outside a little on my off days, and I will have my rock climbing equipment on hand in case the opportunity arises.

Before all of this I get to see Iggy Pop in Denver tonight, so that should be a lot of fun. I’ll be back in Colorado in May, and then I’ll have to look and see what is up.

Uncertainty sometimes makes for exciting times.

It turns out that a huge snow storm last week left a bunch of snow in the Colorado mountains, and I was able to do some skiing in Keystone this past weekend.  I skied through trees and did some black diamond runs with moguls.  It’s amazing how far I have come along in these past few months.

I have skied a total of 19 times this season and if I go out next weekend, it will be a total of 20 plus days of skiing.  Pretty good investment in my season ski pass.

Most likely, next weekend will be my last weekend of skiing fun because I am most likely heading out to New Mexico for the month of April for a physician assignment.  That will most likely signal the end of the skiing season for me, but there is rock climbing in spring and summer (and fall) and of course I am looking forward to that!

I never thought I would get so interested in skiing after being in Colorado for over a year now.  In my first season I have already skied a double black diamond and am getting better at moguls.  Needless to say, Colorado and its activities can be quite addictive.

I’ll probably be skiing this weekend since there is fresh new snow during this week and next weekend may be my last weekend of skiing, since I could possibly be in New Mexico next month doing urgent care work.

No need to feel sad about it, since rock climbing season will soon be around the corner.

Just got back to Colorado after a ten day stay in California.  I visited some relatives I hadn’t seen in forever and explored San Francisco a lot and visited Los Angeles.  The area of San Francisco was great, and visiting Alcatraz was definitely a highlight. I even biked the Golden Gate Bridge and explored Muir Woods, a national heritage site with redwoods (some of California’s largest trees).

The trip ended in Los Angeles where I walked around north and west Hollywood, which was really cool.  Best part was going to see my Atlanta Hawks play (and win!) against the Lakers and Clippers on back to back nights.

Atlanta beat a Kobe-less Lakers squad by 29 points and then played their hearts out to come back from a 17 point deficit against a great Clippers team to shock the crowd and win.  It was awesome and inspiring.

I have some errands to do in the next few days, and then I am going to Vail to ski and possibly rock climb in the area.  Adventures never stop and life is an exciting journey.

I am currently in California clearing my head and absolutely loving this place!  I walked all around San Francisco and visiting Alcatraz Island yesterday.  Today I am going to chill in Palo Alto and check out my cousin’s workplace (Google) and the Stanford campus.

I’m also looking forward to hanging out in San Jose and checking out the coast line of California before wrapping up the trip in Los Angeles to see my Atlanta Hawks, who are unfortunately struggling at the time, but nonetheless I’m excited to be checking out some NBA basketball in Los Angeles.