Hippocrates In San Diego

Update

It’s been quite a while since my last post. The last time I had time to put anything up here, much of San Diego County was still burning. Fortunately the extent of the firestorm was not as broad as expected. The numbers of injuries was far less than we planned for, and luckily the weather changed later in the week. Firefighters continued to contain the fires, and after about a week the Santa Ana winds died out, the temperatures dropped, the humidity increased, and the fires were finally out. A small flare threatened Malibu once again later in the week, but a repeat of the previous week’s disaster was averted when heavy rainstorms passed through Southern California. Since the hot dry period of the firestorm, it’s actually been quite wet and somewhat chilly (San Diego chilly) for the last couple weeks.

Since then I’ve also returned to work; my extended peri-wedding vacation ended after the fires came to an end and I was on the inpatient service at our downtown hospital for three consecutive weeks. That was rough. By the middle of the third week, I was mentally exhausted and tired of getting up every morning. I’m about as far from being a morning person as one can be; although I do tend to be hyperproductive on days when I wake early, my preference is to wake up at my leisure. So twenty-one consecutive days of early awakenings was not to my liking. The three week sentence finally ended last weekend, and of course I promptly became deathly ill with the Virus From Hell that has completely eradicated any chance of having much fun this week. WIth all the storms passing through, the surf was amazing the last couple days, but I’ve been holed up at home trying not to die. I did try to go to one of my moonlighting jobs today, but after taking one look at me, the nurses sent me home to eat vegetable soup and to try to recover from my Plague.

Although I’ve been near my death these last few days, I have tried to spend some time doing some more photography. I finally broke out my new 50 mm lens and have ventured out to Pacific Beach and Balboa Park to try and make some art. You might notice that my old Gallery page (”Photo Gallery” on the links above) has been replaced with a simple link to Flickr; I just discovered Flickr and have become completely enamored. Flickr has done everything I was looking for in my own photo page; I wanted to be able to post high-quality photos, uploading several (even dozens) at a time, while keeping them neatly organized and providing space for my friends, family, and contacts to post as well (and even to put together a discussion area if I decide to start a group). I figured there is no reason for me to try to “reinvent the wheel” so Flickr has become the new Hippocrates Photo Gallery. If you’re reading this, please be sure to visit my Flickr page and sign up for your own account! Be sure to add me as a contact as well.

Here’s a small sampling of the photos I’ve been producing.

I hope you enjoy the photos, and I won’t be absent quite as long until my next post.