The last stretch

Looks like I'm almost done with the interview trail. 10 down, only 3 more to go.

Today I went out to visit UC Irvine. Their office is pimp - the penthouse of a gorgeous skyscraper. The view that the office overlooks is pretty amazing. I started the day off in typical bender fashion. The meeting room had a glass wall . I totally forgot about the glass wall and went face first into the wall leaving a nice grease impression of my face for all to see. Whatever.

Thoughts on Irvine. Cool faculty, residents that I wouldn't mind shooting the shit with. The chairman of this program is essentially the father of laparascopic surgery as far as urologists are concerned. The only problem is, people come from all over the world to be operated on by this guy. In virtually all cases, he is compelled to perform the surgery because that is what people are paying him to do. It means the fellow drives the camera and the resident watches. Not so great, but you get to work with a great guy. As part of the interview, we were required to tie knots, throw stitches, string needles, etc. We got to do it open, laparascopically and robotically. Open is easy. Lap is ridiculously hard. I failed. Robotically was awesome. I got to spend 30 minutes playing with a 1.5 million dollar robot. Even better than driving a Lamborghini. The only part that sucks is I went straight from irvine to LAX, taking a redeye to chicago and rolling into my next interview. Right now the weather seems to be holding steady so that my flight isn't delayed. 25F, feels like 16F with some light snow. I'd like a hot shower please. I should've invested in some thermal underwear...time to undergo some serious shrinkage.

-bender