September?!?

Seriously, where did September go? I can't believe it's almost October. I guess the fact that time is flying is a good indicator that life in Ann Arbor is treating me well. I'm almost finished with my first rotation with an orthotist at work. After this I will rotate one week with a certified orthotic fitter - fitting pre-made items like soft wrist and ankle braces, pre-made spinal braces, etc - and then one month with a pedorthist (all feet all the time). This first rotation has been almost 50% cranial remolding orthoses (lay term helmets) for babies with mis-shapen heads. The other 50% has been various knee orthoses, ankle foot orthoses, and some foot orthoses (shoe inserts). I've enjoyed interacting with patients and love seeing the babies, who will almost always smile when prompted, which is not true for all adults but most of them will as well. This weekend was my second one on call (the first was uneventful) and it started out before the weekend even began with a HALO install at the hospital Friday evening. Saturday we were called again and spent 4 hours in the hospital and another 2 hours today. Overall, it was certainly an educational weekend for me, but it was also beautiful outside while I was inside A LOT. My friend and co-worker Megan was the person I was on call with (so she was really in charge) and we had tickets for the Michigan-Wisconsin football game. We thankfully made it for the good part of the game but missed the pre-game and first quarter. The worst part about going to the hospital Saturday was directly related to my stupid parking mistake. Usually a trip to the hospital costs about $4 in parking. Knowing the meters are not monitored on Sundays, I decided to park at one (on Saturday!) and walk a little extra to the main hospital. So you can imagine my surprise when I walked up to my car and found not one but TWO parking tickets on the windshield. I really thought it was Sunday when I drove up, which doesn't make any sense, but I did. So now my attempt to save $4 has cost me 10 times that much. Won't make that mistake again!

Outside of work, the weather has been getting cooler each week, though still not cold, and football season has been fun. I took a few pics in the stadium yesterday. In the first picture, I circled where you can see some breezeways open to the outside. Those are at ground level, and the rest of the stadium is sunken in to the ground. So when we walked in, we were on Row 73, and our seats were on Row 18. This is great because there is not a fancy maze of roundabouts to hike up for getting around the stadium, but still, the stadium just looks a little short on the oustide. The second picture is a view from the oustide. So now that I have seen this "Big House", I must say that it is hard to believe the capacity is 107,000+ and that the reported crowd yesterday was 109,000+. A few ways they may have managed this capacity in such an average sized stadium: (1) the seats are no more than 18" apart (width), and (2) they make the visiting band sit on the ground by the field. I'm not even going to elaborate on how not loud the fans were, though things did pick up in the second half when the home team started playing. Overall, it was a good game, a beautiful day for football, and great seats.

View to the outside... row 73

From the street, hardly looks like a stadium!

The new box seats/press boxes.

Me and Megan, so happy to be outside instead of at the hospital!

The Wisconsin band - sitting practically on the field!

Oh, and lest I forget... The tailgating is not too shabby, though not as widespread as I had hoped. However, I must admit I have never seen so many cars parked on a golf course before. That's right, the University golf course is right across the street from the stadium and open on gamedays for parking and tailgating. I'm really surprised this is allowed, especially when there is so much available space outside of the golf course that is untapped on game days. See for yourself: