What I learned from the first presidential debate

1. Barack Obama "doesn't seem to understand" a lot, according to John McCain.
2. John McCain is very well traveled. For every place Sarah Palin hasn't been, he has.
3. The candidates prefer to talk to Jim Lehrer than each other, despite Lehrer's best efforts.
4. Candidates continue to misrepresent things their opponent just said, despite it being obvious to the least educated viewer that it's not what the opponent said or intended.
5. This "Wall Street" versus "Main Street" language isn't going away anytime soon. Ugh.

Don't worry -- it's not blood

Two days before Oliver was born, Wes went off to Michigan with his residency for their annual retreat. The event involves some education, some feedback on the program, and "bonding," which for 26-30-year-old emergency room doctors involves drinking (Wes did abstain in order to insure he could safely return to Chicago should I go into labor) and, this year, playing paintball. Seems safe, right? I'll let you figure out what happened here.

What Wes does all day

Lots of people have been impressed to hear how much time Wes has "off" this month to help me with the baby. And while it is great to have him home, and he definitely does help a lot, he is definitely not "off." Honestly, I don't know that Wes ever will be. Partly it's just his personality. But this month it has more to do with his responsibilities as a chief and his ongoing interviews for a job next year. A large, large portion of his time is spent on the computer doing the residents' schedule for the ED. Unfortunately, his duties as an administrative chief (doing the schedule) overlap with his rotation as the education chief (running morning report for the interns and organizing weekly conference, etc.). For at least the last week, Wes has spent seemingly every waking moment working on this schedule (which all three of the chiefs have or will do, in turn, each working on four months of the year). The good news is that Wes's duties lighten as the year goes on. The bad news is, well, he still has two months of scheduling to go, and as the computer screen shows, that's no easy task.