Last Weekend

I worked my old job again for the U of U Ticket Office at the ASU game.  It was fun to just work with my friends and former managers Cleadus and Swain.  Back when I worked for the Ticket Office in Salt Lake I had a bit of a reputation.  After working so many years I had earned a position as a supervisors helper, so to speak.  I didn't actually work a window I just helped those who were.  I gave the appearance of not really working at all.  Some games I would take a few High School student employees and we would work in our own ticket office.  Here I would have to make sure everything went well and troubleshoot all the problems.  Swain was always very appreciative of the work I did and thanked me again at the ASU game.  Unfortunately, after working we went into the game and sat in some really good seats but the Utes forgot to show up for the game and they lost horribly.  

I had a few friends in town for the game, it was just a couple weeks too soon to have them all stay at my house.  It was fun to see them all and we had a good time.  We went to dinner and then went mini golfing.  It was kind of a weird thing to do but it is just where we ended up.  

This picture was down on the field after the game.  I was kind of depressed after the loss so I almost didn't even take this photo but now I have a reminder for my posterity. 

The next day...

My first NFL game!! Cardinals vs. Eagles.  Although I am not a Cardinals fan it was fun to see the Home team win.  

Our seats were not too great but I like sitting up high so you can see the whole game.  I managed to study enough and pass my test the next day even after all this football.  

Not to much to report on school for this post, this is just to say I am having a good time and don't just study all day all the time.

Welcome Back, to Jon Nichol Bloog

  New post after about three years or something.  I am not going to check, but it has been a while.  I am pretty sure there are very few people who actually even know/remember I have a blog.  My sister Jodi might still be blogging and so she may see the new post but other than that i doubt there is much traffic here.
  Well seeing as I have moved to a new state for school I suppose an update here once in a while couldn't hurt.  Studying occupies the majority of my time so this will happen when it happens.
Life recap:
  Born...fun times as a child living in Holladay..school...school...school...mission...school...school in Arizona.  Good glad we could get you all up to speed.  By all, I mean Jodi, and you already knew that much of my life.  Now we can start talking about all the new things in my life since July.  Well I am living in alone in a 1-bedroom apartment in Glendale, AZ.  I do not think you will appreciate how hot it is here when I say hot in all caps (HOT), so just know it is hot here and I am not a big fan.  The heat leaves me little choice but to study constantly and avoid the outdoor world which had been such a large part of my life previously.  Perhaps I will have to settle for Cabela's now and pretend I am outside as I walk around the store.
  School is everything I expected and more.  I have made 1 attempt to "get involved" in the Surgical Club as the 1st year liason, but was over-looked for some kid named Chase.   Who is this Chase?  I don't know him but that might be because I am one of 250.  I am surprised at how many people I know by name and how many faces are familiar already.  We are going to spend a lot of time together over the next two years so I guess I should get to know a few of them.  I wouldn't say I have really put aside my natural introversion and dis-like of people in crowds, but I am friendly on the outside.

  Just some clarification so I don't have to explain this multiple times.  I am at the Midwestern University, Arizona Campus, College of Osteopathic Medicine.  Osteopathic Medicine is the same as your everyday doctors there is just a focus on primary care and using a technique called Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (OMM).  Many people think Chiropractor, but this would be a superficial explanation.  OMM is quite different yet shares some similarities to Chiropractic care.  After school my name will have a DO (Doctor of Osteopathy) after it.  I will be board certified and licensed to practice the same kind of medicine you are used to.  I will also have the tool of OMM to diagnose and treat my patients.  Many MD's have seen OMM work and wished they had the skill and an option like that to offer patient whom pharmaceuticals are insufficient.  OMM is rarely the "back cracking" you would think.  Most of the treatments I am familiar with are similar to Physical Therapy and finding the dysfunction and treating the muscle by positioning the body in a way to allow the muscle to "reset."  Also stretching and massaging certain muscles can help.
  Osteopathic medicine has traditionally been more open to alternative medicine but it is not alternative in its primary focus to heal patients, and most commonly uses the traditional treatments of Western Medicine.  With the current Health Care situation and the lack of Primary Care Providers DO's are expected to fill the void.  Nationally there are about 900,000 MD's and about 100,000 DO's.  The number of DO's is rising currently while the number of MD's is contracting.  In the near future you will be more and less aware of the DO's treating you.  More because there will be more out there and less because you may never even notice they were different from an MD as they treated you.
  A stigma exists about DO's that they are people who couldn't get into a normal Medical School.  Truth is many of my peers chose to only apply to DO schools for many reasons.  I did apply to both and was not accepted to any MD schools but I felt my personal philosophy of health and medicine would fit more along the lines of Osteopathy.  I could have delayed my education a year and got into a MD school it just wasn't worth it to me.  My opinion of my home state school has deteriorated over the years and typically in-state applicants are considered first.  Applying to only school outside of my state made it a little harder.  All my excuses aside I am happy and excited to get trained to heal.
  I appreciate how Osteopaths consider more to a disease process than just what is going on inside the body microscopically.  Treating patients must consider the social, spiritual, and many other factors in order to properly heal.  I have also noticed how diagnosis by palpation (touching/pressing/feeling) is a key focus for osteopathic medicine.  In the even I don't have a CT scanner or something I trust my palpation skills will aid me in treating.  In the end I will be able to work in a Hospital or go into Private Practice and see patients and write prescriptions if I need to or use OMM to treat them.  I have no problem with allopathic medicine (MD school).  I just don't like the majority of the time prescription drugs are the only option.  In the end you can just call me Doctor and you will never know the difference unless you hear about the countless stories of how MD's tried to treat with drugs and a DO was able to cure with OMM.

  All that being said people also just want to know what kind of doctor do I want to be?  Well i have had an amazing experience for the previous two years to be an Emergency Department Tech.  I am EMT certified and I just stayed in the ER and did EMT duties there.  I got to see up-close how ER doctors work and what their typical day was.  I loved every minute I spent there.  I had some of the best co-workers and they became like family to me.  So you might see where this is going, I probably want to be a ER doctor.  Well, part of working in the ER is you get to see all the doctors who come to see patients on consults and I saw nearly every specialty.  I could easily remove many options from my list from those experiences.  One group of physicians we saw regularly were the Trauma surgeons.  I have seen and am really interested in surgery, so if I was doing any surgery it would probably be Trauma.  I have it down to these two options and I am about 95% sure I will end up in one of these two positions.  Many things to consider before I make any final decision and luckily I don't have to make one for another few years.

  Any questions?  Good because I was exhaustive in my explanations.  As always everybody out there needs to pray for snow.  More to come soon.   I need to get up-to-date so I can tell you all about this weekend and all the fun we had.  You might consider following me on twitter and instagram. @drjnichol4077 for twitter and drjnichol on instagram.

Some skiing pics i took. This is about it for my meaningful contributions to my own blog. Maybe one day I will be more on top of it.

Skiers are Kristin (Photo 1 and 2) and Jeff (Photo 3) Campbell

Liar Liar

So I know I said this post would be about the Southern Utah trip but I went climbing today and liked a couple of pictures a lot so I thought I would post them here.

We are in American Fork Canyon

Sorry to those who were there and who are not pictured. Sometimes with photographs that is just the way it goes.
Climb On!

Post or else....

The wait is over! I have posted again.
Here is what i am up to. I ride my bike to school everyday and then ride my bike in the opposite direction to go to work. Here is what happens when that goes wrong....





I guess it doesn't look that bad. I just got a flat going around a corner and fell off of my bicycle.
I am not fully ready to make a big long post about my life other than i go to school go to work and play whenever i get a minute. I will prepare though and my next post will be about my big adventure in southern Utah with my roommate Jonathan C.

Day Two and Three

Kurt leading the feild just to get us started. He won this race. Here is how the rest of the weekend went down:

Day Two(Saturday): An early rise at 5:30 to get breakfast and then to the race to register and warm up. Alan fed us really well and we ended up going through 40 lbs. of bananas throughout the weekend. Alan although a little crazy was very generous and kind to help us out in all the ways he did. Of course Men's C rides first in the cold because nobody like us. We went off at 8:00 am. Lets just say i was nervous. I couldn't calm down all morning. i tried warming up on the trainer with the ipod but was just racing inside all morning. We finally got on the road and i just tried to keep up the whole time. The pack wa together until the first climb when CSU got to the front and set a fast pace and split the group. I would liketo think i could have stayed with them but i just got caught between two other riders and the gap just got bigger and bigger. I found a teammate and pulled him up a bit on the climb. He got past me but couldn't make it across the gap either. So i was left out in no mans land for about 6 miles. It was painful because we had a strong head wind a couple climbs and then a long false flat. On the flase flat i grouped up with a Mesa State College guy to try and catch a Colorado School of Mines guy 200 meters infront of us. Just after we caught him he fell off but we got caught by two Denver Unuversity riders and some other guy. I rode with them pulling here and there until i started pulling into a big head wind and they decided they didn't want to ride with me anymore so they attacked and i just waited for the other guy to match. He kind of did but not enough to catch them. On the second to last climb i was catching then all but the top screw in my water bottle cage fell out and so i almost lost my bottle and i couldn't get the bottom screw out while riding. So i had a dangling cage and every few turns on the crank it would catch my chain. All in all it slowed me down a bit but i didn't get caught by anyone behind me so i guess it was all the same. Final Standing: 21st, 15 minutes down or something.
Later that day was the Team Time Trial. We fielded a team of three because our forth, Clark, crashed out of the Road Race and had to get stitches in two of his fingers. Eric and I were both new to racing and Joel is coming off an injury and didn't have the legs to really crank it up on the TTT. But we finished ahead of one team and got Third.
We went out to dinner and then went to bed.
Tyler ended up winning this sprint for fourth during the Road Race.

Day Three(Sunday): Another early morning, awake by 5:45 and drive to Fruita. Again the Men's C division went first again and it was a bit cold. Eric had to go home early so it was just Joel and I in the Crit. We had a two lap clinic where we worked on cornering and closing gaps. Funny thing those were the two things I was nervous about going intothis. Unfortunatly the clinic didn't help. Right out of the gate we approached the first turn and i got cut off and locked up my back wheel. I stayed upright but lost my position completely. Well i knew that CSU was going to set a hard pace from the start so i tried to keep up with that but ended up in no mans land. I don't think anyone made it up to that group for the rest of the race. I ended up getting caught by the chase group and stayed with them for the remainder. I finished three seconds down on that group only cause i was dead tired and didn't feel like sprinting to the finish for 22nd place so i ended up in 23rd. We watched the girls kill it in their race and then the B division guys did really well also getting 1st, 6th and 7th. We went to lunch at a local pizza shop and headed home. I took some pictures and here they are.
Here is Dave during the Men's B Crit. After a Third place finish in the Road Race and going on a solo breakaway for a lap during the same race he said he didn't really have the legs to place well in the crit. I guess 6th just isn't good enough for this guy.




Here we have Sarah and Zoey respectivly. They are both Nordic Ski Racers for the U and did really well in the 90km Nationals Race. Zoey went on to win this Crit.










Alisha is Dave's wife and loves to climb. She doesn't love the Crit style so much but she still puts the hammer down.

And their off...

Well i began my official racing career this weekend. I raced my bicycle on the roads near Grand Junction Colorado in the Mesa State Collegiate race. Since so many of the pro riders have funny blogs about the goings on in their peleton i thought i would enlighten you on the over serious over zealous world of Men's C collegiate racing. We are the bottom of the bottom. No one looks up to us and yet we keep riding. We dream of one day riding at the next level and slowly we climb our way out of obscurity. I am breaking this into two different posts because there is just so much to say.
Day One(Friday): School, then work, then rush to pick up the bike and luggage, then to meet the team to drive to Grand Junction. After being delayed multiple times we finally got on the road only to hit traffic from a crash in Orem. Oh how i hate Happy Valley. We ate dinner in Provo and waited out the traffic. Finished up the drive and got to Alan's house at around 11:00 pm. Alan was our host for the weekend. Sleep finally.