Hodge Podge (robots, minivans and stealthy spiders)

I've been meaning to write about some things for a while, but just haven't taken the time to do so, so this will be a smorgasbord of little observations and stories.

Back when I was doing a rotation at Wash U, I noticed these signs around the corner from the OR:

Needless to say, I was quite intrigued and wondered what they meant. Did they really have robots roaming the halls...and if so, what would they do to me if they found me? Well, the day that we go Squishy's first ultrasound, as I was going back to the hospital, I finally met the robot. It was meandering down the hall, and I'll have to admit that I was a little disappointed (my imagination had come up with something a little different). Apparently it is used to deliver stuff (not sure exactly what) between different departments. But it has a sensor on the front that causes it to stop if it detects somebody in front of it, so the mayhem that I imagined might happen when meeting it in a dark hallway is pretty much nonexistent. Anyhoo, robots roaming the halls does nothing but help Wash U in my eyes.

I've been traveling around the country over the last few weeks for residency interviews. I feel like I've become a pretty good traveler...able to pack my bag in minutes, and have come up with outfits that enable me to zip through security lines at the airport. I've also had the chance to drive quite a few different rental cars over this time. I feel like I could almost start a car review blog. My favorites include the new Toyota Camry, whatever the Chevy model is to the left, and the awesome Dodge Grand Caravan below to the right. The best part is that for all of these I ordered a compact or economy car, but due to some reason or another these were the ones I got. I think the smaller cars (Chevy Cobalt, Civic) I've driven are lower on my list because I had to hunch over and duck down to see out the windshield.

On one of my drives up to Chicago, a very strange thing happened. I had been driving for about 2 hours with nothing exciting going on (I'm sure that anyone that has made this drive before would agree that there's really nothing exciting the entire way). All of a sudden, a fairly good sized spider ran down my windshield...the inside of my windshield! I don't know where he had been hiding, or why he decided like this was the moment to make his move, but it startled me. I was even more startled when he fell off the windshield as I was trying to squash him with a Nutri-Grain wrapper. I was finally able to take care of him without crashing or swerving or anything like that. I guess that's a good thing about the minimal traffic on the Illinois highways (outside of Chicago at least). So any of you making long drives this holiday season...watch out for Spiders!!

I also got to visit the University of Minnesota. While I was killing some time before my flight I made a stop at the Mall of America. It....was....big. It had 4-5 stories, and many stores had 2-3 locations in the mall. It was a bit confusing to walk by a store multiple times on different levels...I was proud to only kind of get lost a couple times. I was tempted to ride the log flume and other roller coasters in the center of the mall, but decided instead to wander around and look for any interesting stores (which they did have...my favorite was the magic store where the workers were dressed up like knights and peasants and jesters and wizards...I wanted to go inside and just take it all in and see what these people were like, but instead I chose to admire it from afar...I didn't want to embarrass Linzi). Anyhoo, I also found a delicious crepe stand and treated myself to a fresh Nutella crepe...delicious!

I also came across a photography store (actually, I don't know what the store was...I just saw the picture below). Those of you that know Linzi knows that she has a secret desire to do a maternity photo shoot...how much do you think we'd have to pay her to take some photos like this?

Finally, I just wanted to share with all of you my favorite commercial of the last couple months. I don't know if it's that Dimwit reminds me of Kip from Napoleon Dynamite, or if it's because he calls the crab "Lady", or if I just want to try a griddle stick, but I think it's hilarious. Anyhoo, thanks for sticking around to the end.