Posts Tagged ‘unversity of florida’

R&R Leave and Engagement

// November 6th, 2010 // No Comments » // Life

I have started to realize that I am a two-post-a-month kind of guy. Currently, it is a feat to find the free time to make a blog post. I do enjoy doing it, but it interferes (while I’m deployed) with gym time, or general web browsing time. On a good day, we get about 5 hours of solid free time, and the gym typically takes half if you include the post-workout shower. Anyhow, for the lack of posts, I feel as if I’m continually reminiscing on the past month; this post is indeed no different, but no less exciting either! You’ll notice that the countdown I had in the top right corner of the page has changed. I am coming home very soon! And the last countdown said “– days until University of Florida Homecoming”. We lost; enough said! However, that ticker was really just a countdown until I would be in town for some much needed R&R leave after 10 months of being deployed. So this post is about my leave: it will be brief and include plenty of photos. 

Dual Monitors
The first think I did on leave was went shopping: I bought another computer monitor (ASUS VH236H) to complement my other one and a very sweet and impressively adjustable stand to mount the two monitors to my desk.
Dual Monitor Arms
Basically, Erogtron’s LX Dual Side-by-Side Arm is a mount with two arms that suspend my monitors above my desk, allowing me to maneuver them around to any position I feel the most comfortable at the time. I can also rotate each monitor 180° (from landscape to profile) in case I am editing a lengthy research abstract or debugging some code on my website. A secondary monitor is an invaluable tool when you are multitasking or even doing homework.

The next thing I purchased on leave were Vibram’s Five Finger KSO’s. I’ll have a more detailed description on what I think about them later.

After all the fun of buying new things, I went out with friends, celebrated my birthday (October 15th), and had a blast tailgating, before I was thoroughly disappointed with the results of the game (Loss: 7-10 Miss St.).
gators-were-bait-unfortunately   tommy-cait-and-jaxyyyyyyyyyyyy the-last-shibang-at-gator-city god-bless-america
After the game, my girlfriend (now fiancé) and I took a trip to visit Melissa and Mike for some fun fishing (or lack there of) and spend a night in a relaxing cabin by the water. 

a-picture-of-the-city-from-our-hotel-view mel-and-cait-before-the-fishing-or-lack-their-of
After a night at the cabin, we planned a trip to Miami in the Four Seasons Hotel.  Assuming we were in South Beach’s backyard, we were unpleasantly amused when we arrived to find that South Beach was a $50 taxi drive away. We decided to go out in the local area (considered the “Wall Street of the South”, so a brochure said).  I had some gourmet mini-burgers and she had some fish tacos that were both amazing.

Finally, when my R&R Leave finally started coming to an end and it seemed like the best opportunity, I proposed to Cait.  And yes, she said yes!

 

 

 
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My Research was Approved for Publishing!

// August 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Research, Uncategorized

For the past two years, I have been involved in a research project in the College of Public Health and Health Professions at the University of Florida regarding the driving performance issues of returning military personnel with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The research in general has been very demanding and rewarding — it has very much defined my life before this deployment. Numerous read articles, several written abstracts, many days in the hospital, dedicated help from many, mentoring from the best, and late nights gathering and analyzing data later, the resulting manuscript was finally approved last week for publishing in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy (AJOT):

Reference:
Classen, S., Levy, C., Meyer, D., Bewernitz, M.,  Lanford, D., M., Mann, W.C.  Driving Performance of Returning Combat Veterans with TBI: A pilot study. Manuscript accepted on 07/29/10. American Journal of Occupational Therapy.

Here is also a video of some of what we do in the Trauma Rehabilitation Center for Returning Military Personnel at the University of Florida:

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