"Black-dog" died

Ali aka "Black-dog" was Sarah, Rangi, Dillon and Emma's dog. Ali came to the US from New Zealand via Australia about 10 years ago. He was an awesome dog and wonderful pet to the Jeffries family and had lots of great stories. He farted worse than I do and you gotta love any animal that had worse farts than me! He died after having mouth cancer for a long time and will be sincerely missed.

Life other than that has been pretty much the same. It has been HOT HOT HOT here. I have been working a TON and was relieved to have a weekend semi-off to recover from this nasty cold I have not been able to shake while working so much! Next week is back in the thick of it with work every day and then meetings every night. Hopefully I will learn something at some of the meetings and teach something at others. It is the last week of Tim the medical student who has been wonderful and that is good since, although he has been fantastic and a blast to teach, it will be nice to take that burden off the plate during an already busy on-season.

I hope you are all well and glad to hear Tom is improving somewhat. Lots of love, me

THIS IS WHY I LOVE IT HERE...

FINALLY had a weekend of hiking and found a new spectacular hike... Lost Man Loop up the pass was spectacular. Then today I hiked Aspen Mountain before the rain and hail (unfortunately, I had forgotten to close my car windows and there was as much in my car as out!)... Clifford tolerated an 8 mile hike great so the next big adventure will be Mt Sopris (the 12 mile hike of a 14er close by). I had sprained my L ankle pretty bad on the Lost Man Loop but didn't really feel it til the night time when I watched Cesar Millan "the dog whisperer" give a talk/demo for a benefit for the Aspen Animal Shelter. It was fantastic. Fortunately, I have a good ankle brace at home from years ago when I sprained the ankle so just wore that up the mountain this am. When you have limited time to enjoy outside you do it rain/sleet or sprained ankle :).

As for the week... unfortunate work and family drama got in the way of making it very good. All will be dealt with though and luckily the work drama was resolved... not sure when the family drama will be but...

On to another busy week and weekend... I can't wait for Sept/Oct! BUT am loving the summer hiking :)

too good for pix

SO THIS WEEK WE saw the last day of a not so good staff member and signed on a GREAT doc to start Aug 2011 and a great PA to start Aug 2010... SO soon we will not be understaffed... until then, right now, I have been busy for July 4th weekend.... we have had a lot of changes including updating our emr which has caused a lot of headache and a little improvement...
Brad is working his ass off in CA but doing a great job... he is doing the High Sierra Music Festival for the weekend and then going to Santa Cruz to film a huge Aikido workshop with one of O'Sensei's students...
That is all I can think of for now but hiring great staff is HUGE and makes us all feel better!!!!!!!!!

my 8th year jazzaspen anniversary

My 8th year anniversary week. We celebrated Tues night with Brad's folks for his dad's bday, our anniversary and Jason's last night in town. We had a great meal. I also had gotten a great card on waking up and flowers at work! Work week unchanged from regular except we have a GREAT med student with us who is already a phenominal doc! Tis a pleasure working with someone so bright and so motivated. Then I worked today with Brad going on a fun raft trip and then he came home and we went to Jazz Aspen. They were celebrating their 20th year so we saw Christian McBride, Dianne Reeves, Patti Austin, Terence Blanchard, John Clayton, Maceo Parker, Fred Wesley, Dewitt Fleming and a great back up band... it was VERY fun and more fun than that was Brad and I getting into VIP and having awesome food etc... we were treated in style and we just "walked in". It was GREAT! Tomorrow we are going on a short motorcycle ride to Peionia with some friends for breakfast and then hiking in the afternoon (with me finishing ACLS- I hope). So a good week and a very good weekend of celebrating our anniversary! Who can believe it has been 8 years!!!!

ADDENDUM: motorcycle ride was fantastic... beautiful scenery and discovered my bike gets about 95 mpg on the highway!!!! it was a great ride and a great brunch in a beautiful setting with great friends... all in all a great weekend!

good interview

This past week at work was interesting. Monday was full on "on-season" and VERY busy! We had a medical student join us and we put him to work fast and furious. He has only just finished his first year but he is IMPRESSIVE. Actually better than the second year FP resident we had just last month. Tuesday was similar and then it slowed down. I thought Friday would be crazy due to Food and Wine being in town but it wasn't which was pleasent! Friday night a new recruit came by and I spent the weekend entertaining. The new recruit was also IMPRESSIVE and she wants to come here so I am very excited. She would be able to come here and take over when I retire (10-20 years down the line). I hope it works out. We also are in the process of hiring Shari, an ex-back staffer we trained who went to PA school and is graduating and wants to come back to work for us. She is very smart and good so would also be a nice addition!
Finally, spent some time with the Manosevitz family as Brad's mother had a fund raising party for her new non-profit today at a house that was also IMPRESSIVE and full of stuff from the owners world travels that was eclectic and interesting. I have never before been in a house that had a real throne in the bedroom!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On to another week of work... more next week...

re-entry and palisades

This week was one of re-entry. It was busy but better than expected at work. I got some hiking in and got all the laundry done so I consider it a success. Then I went for a few hours to the Palisades Blue Grass festival yesterday to see Brad play a “tweener” and he did great! He played mostly his originals and it went over great. He even got a standing ovation on his song “real radio”. I came back to do work as I have to do ACLS today- time to stop putting that off. Got a hike in before the work and the rain after waking up to snow in June. Glad I closed the windows last night and didn't freeze :). Next week we have a medical student in the office and will have an interview next weekend with a potential hire for 2011. I hope it goes well. I also hope you are all well. Lots of love…

almost 12 days of camping...

Day 1... went to my friend Nikki's 50th b-day in Northrop near Princeton hot springs... HAD A GREAT TIME with great folks, food, camping in her back yard, music (Brad even got to play with the band since 2 of the members were friends of his... a totally awesome suprise)... Nikki, a pilot and owner of a TT, taught me how to drive my car more appropriately and that made all the difference in our cross country trip... twas a great way to start our journey

Day 2... drove to Green River, UT in SIGNIFICANT wind... the car did great... hung out with an old couple from the Netherlands in an RV park

Day 3... drove to Honeycomb Rocks in UT in wind/dust/snow... bought appocolypse goggles just in case... had a great night at Honeycomb Rocks which were awesome with me hiking around and Brad taking a canoe trip in the reservoir

Day 4... drove to Benton Hot Springs along the Extraterrestrial Highway and enjoyed the Hot Springs... I got another great hike in that night and the next morning in that cool area

Day 5... attempted to drive to Strawberry but almost ALL the passes were closed... got a GREAT coat from Brad in Lee Vining and then drove about 300 miles out of our way since Tioga, Sanora, M... and another pass were closed BUT made it over a very snow/sleet/rained out pass and stayed in an already set up tent (very water proof which was good), got banded (tickets to get in the next morning) and dinner

Day 6... got in and set up tent city with everyone... had rain/snow/sleet/GREAT FRIENDS/music/2 10x10s and 1 10x20 making a warm and dry music/living room for us all to hang around in

Day 7... here comes the sun!!!! actually it rained most of the day but then cleared up that night and we had more music/sun/friends etc

Day 8... sun/hikes/more sun/more hikes/more great music, friends, food... EPIC happy hour, brad floating on the lake, Lyle Lovett and others plus awesome camp jams

Day 9... more of the same with Prince's "Kiss" blue grass style... priceless :)

Day 10... packed out and said a sad farewell until next year to great friends...Tioga still closed but this time got over Sanora which was slow but beautiful... camped at a great place along the river and had a great hike

Day 11... drove to the high dessert hot springs in Nevada and hung out with some folks that were of a different culture than us

Day 12... continued on Highway 50 (the lonliest highway in the USA) and we were going to camp out BUT since we were in my studly car actually drove the >700 miles home instead!