Discovering Nick Swisher Belongs in a Frat as the Tribe Come Back In Town

Thursday turned out to be much of the same as what I have been doing in the distribution center for the past week aside from two things.  First off, Nicky Swish, a.k.a. the biggest frat bro on the face of the planet, has his bobble head giveaway tonight.  This also resulted in me counting a lot of “Brohio” shirts that were sent up on Thursday to the novelty stands around the stadium and the team shop.  And because it is his bobble head giveaway this evening, pallets which held over a thousand Nick Swisher bobble heads made their way to the DC.  Also, with Kipnis now back off the DL, a lot of his bobble heads came in too.

Fast forward to Friday; I’m about to get down but before I can do that I take a nostalgic journey back through the lower and middle school.  I said what’s up to the OG herself, Ms. Beier and another fantastic teacher who goes by the name Mrs. O’Neill.  Side note: first and third grade were real.  Anyways, I had a bit of a different schedule that day so I didn’t have to be in until 1 p.m. on Friday.  Once there, I made my way down to the DC and helped finish up one of the last receptions of the day and then made the journey down to Nancy Schneider who is the retail and concessions manager.  Once there, her and I went up and around to every single novelty stand two or three times and moved shirts, hats, and other novelties around in order to draw the eye of the customer.  Every little detail about where brands are laid out, the placement of player t-shirts and making sure that the items on sale were moved forward was taken into account.  It takes the eye of a professional to see all of this stuff and it was awesome to see her go to work.  

Then, after I was done on Friday, I watched Asdrubal pound a two-run monster over the right field wall, enjoyed copious amounts of dollar dogs and watched some snazzy jazzy fireworks.  In general, another two good days under the belt.

Thursday May 29th

Thursday began with a trauma; I had to hold a baby. I hadn't held a baby yet during my project since there haven't been too many on my floor. I was finally called to the job and the baby I held was obviously not enjoying himself. He was coughing and crying constantly and with no parents or nurses around I had to make him feel better. I tried sitting, standing, turning him and holding him in several different positions but he continued to cry. Finally I found the right position. I put him over my shoulder and he stopped crying. I put the TV on and began making faces at him and soon enough he had stopped coughing and began to smile. I then was charged with another unique task. I had to push a man in his wheelchair downstairs so he could take in some sun. This was a bit rare since adults don't often stay on our floor. We stood out in the sun and talked about Cleveland sports for a while. Once I got back upstairs, the four-year-old boy was waiting for me. This time he wanted to go back to playing with the Legos. We met a new boy his age that joined in and then encouraged us to join him in a dunk contest on the mini basketball hoop. Since it was closer to the end of the week and many kids had been discharged or were resting on my floor, I decided to go up a floor and help my fellow classmate Clare on the sixth floor. She, another volunteer and I walked three patients around the hospital to give them a different atmosphere to explore and observe. We then went back and I held another baby before playing a Finding Nemo video game with two other young boys. It was a good way to end a day full of new experiences for me.

Wednesday May 28th

Today began with the four-year-old and I discovering the 20Q toy. After he learned how to play, he instantly became hooked and we probably played using every object in the playroom. Señora Botella stopped by and watched us trick the toy several times because the boy continued to pick complex objects such as a red bulldozer truck instead of just a car. With another volunteer, we went downstairs to watch the ball machine shown below. We ended up spending a while there because he wouldn't leave until the ball went down a certain path ten times. Today was a highlight for me personally because it was the first time I was told how important I truly am to my floor at Rainbow. I was always aware of how potentially vital I could be to the well being of the patients and their families throughout their stays at the hospital, but I never had been told specifically. Now that I have been here for about two weeks, I have formed bonds with not only the patients and their siblings but also with parents, extended family, and the nurses who have begun to speak out about how crucial my co-volunteers and I are. For example, the father of the four-year-old boy I have become so close with has been quite worried about the health of his other son. Even in such a dire time for him and his family, he did not hesitate to tell me that I make being in the hospital almost manageable. These types of comments are what motivate me to continue to make a difference on my floor during my last few days at Rainbow.

Tuesday May 27th

This week began on Tuesday with me taking the four-year-old boy I had been with all last week back to the playroom. We searched through the cabinets filled with toys and found Connect 4. It only took a minute for our game to turn into a competition of who could put the most pieces in the board. He then joined me only my trip around the floor to comfort several patients who couldn’t leave their rooms by talking to them or bringing them toys they wanted. We met a seven-year-old girl and talked about how much we all like Spiderman. Next, we went outside to the hospital’s playground shown below. His grandma then came and wanted to spend some time with him, so I went off to play Wii with a newer patient. We couldn't resist Wii Sports bowling, and ended up playing with his grandma for about an hour. He started off a bit slow, but stepped us his game and was able to beat both of us. This day, however, was one of those days were the realities of being in a hospital struck me, as I overheard nurses discussing how they were uncertain if one of the patients would survive. Being in this type of atmosphere truly makes me appreciate all that I am fortunate enough to have and continues to fuel my urge to do all I can to help these less fortunate children.

Week 2 in the Kitchen

Monday
Another week of project had begun and we could not be more excited to get to work. But before we could cook anymore we had to figure out what exactly we were going to make (or attempt to make at least). So, we decided to deem Monday a much-needed tech/whatnot day. We worked on the technical side of our blog, adding links, photos, and tags to our posts. It took longer than we thought to do some of these things and is an ongoing task as we keep adding new blog posts, but we are getting the hang of it!

Tuesday 
As Kat and I were updating blog posts and grabbing our ingredients for breakfast out of the fridge, we get a call. On the other line are two of our friends asking if we needed some food critics for the morning. We figured that it might be a good idea so we invited them over for breakfast. We made egg muffins (with spinach, peppers, tomatoes, and cheese) wrapped in bacon. We also made pancake bites, an idea that we found via Pinterest. The recipes were a hit with the boys, who helped us make them. After our guests left, full and satisfied, we cleaned up from breakfast and moved straight to dessert. We made slutty brownies (layers include cookie dough, Oreos, and brownie mix) which are so rich you can only have one. Realizing that we had excess of them we made a trip to the Upper School to hand out some of our brownies.

Wednesday
Needing some more supplies and ingredients Kat and I made a trip to the grocery store to buy stuff for our upcoming recipes. While we were at the grocery store we decided to explore rather than just find our supplies and leave. We looked through most of the store: we paroozed the produce, fruits, herbs, bakery, meats, cheeses, and prepared foods to get some inspiration. We wrote down products we would like to incorporate in upcoming meals and left the store with our supplies and some cool ideas. We went back to our kitchen, unloaded the groceries, and edited our blog once more (a task that is never finished).

Thursday 
Coming from an Italian family pasta is one of my favorite foods. I swear every time I go over to my grandmother's house for dinner it is always spaghetti. So, we thought a spaghetti sauce would be a fun recipe to attempt, and very useful for our families. Adapting a recipe my mother got from a friend in Italy we got to work. The sauce was very good over spaghetti for lunch! After our sauce, being chocoholics, decided to test our luck by making a chocolate soufflé. For some reason we thought this would be a lot easier than it was. The soufflé ended up sinking and ultimately was a failure, but we realized from this failure that we had a long way to go before we could attempt something of this calibre.

Friday 
After our soufflé disaster on Thursday we were excited to have a full day with our mentor who could help us get good results. We made Chicken Milano, Twice Baked Potatoes, and Grilled Romaine. A gourmet meal that was actually easier to make than we thought! And it also utilized many ingredients one might find in the fridge/pantry, which is perfect for our blog audience.  The meal was amazing! Maybe my favorite one yet. We were excited to share our recipes with our audience in hopes that they may find them as delicious as we did!

Squeamish?

For the past two days I have been with Tara Bonner who is very handy with Robotics and Mechanical Engineering. Since I knew these things before starting my time with her little did I expect to observe not one, but two leg dissections. No, not surgeries, leg dissections. The team used two cadaver legs to be able to look at the knee. I would go into great detail here, but I believe Sra. Botella would prefer I not. Let’s just say I was able to stand as close as I needed and there were times I was told to come close and take a close look. At first I couldn’t believe it, it didn’t even seem real. While the blood and cutting of the skin was pretty gross. The worst part- by far- was when they sawed through the bones, at that point I had to step out. The point of all this was to examine the knee and test which kind of ACL repair works better in pediatric patients. I haven’t seen the ACL reconstruction yet, that is tomorrow, and truthfully I’m excited because they said that is the most interesting part. 

A Twist on Wednesday

Today was very different.  I arrived at the Distribution Center to a surprise.  Clearly some of the concepts of school live on in the ballpark.  I, two other interns from different areas of the stadium and the rest of the distribution center made our way down to The Cleveland Clinic and took a tour of their distribution center.  Look, I never thought I could get so excited about a DC, but The Cleveland Clinic straight up has robots running around doing the majority of their work.  I can’t make this up.  It’s also gigantic and spans over a few blocks downtown beginning on 89^th street and ending around 93^rd street.  The way it works is all through technology.  There are magnets in floor and every location they are sent to is done through computers.  We also stopped in at their loading dock where they have fifteen loading stations, 3 of which only deal in bringing in perishable goods such as vaccines and medications.  After the tour, we made our way back to the stadium where Senora Botella came for a visit.  I gave her a quick tour of what the stadium looks like underneath, ventured into the batting cages for a quick look, into the Indians clubhouse, and made our way down to the DC but first stopped to try and find "Sly" Seth Cooper who was nowhere to be seen.  Her and I talked to boss-man Robert, and then finished things up.  After that, I was called upstairs into a conference room to participate in a mock interview which allowed the interviewers to finalize questions they want to ask and it gave me some practice.  Another good day at the work place. 

A segment of the DC at The Cleveland Clinic.

Two of  the dozens of robots that run around the DC.

We are making a dent

From the start of project, Sarah has been telling us that our main task would be to take out all of the yellow flag irises, an invasive species that if left unattended will in fact take over the entire marsh at the nature center. Yesterday Eric, Emily, Chris, and I were sent out in to the marsh to do the initial reconnaissance for the greater mission. However, after an hour or two of backbreaking work, it was hard to see that we were making any sort of progress in accomplishing out mission. So our crew resorted to general weeding in the gardens in the parking lot of the nature center.


Thank goodness, today we got some great backup. An environmental studies class from Laurel School came in to help us out with the infamous yellow flag irises. From their (somewhat late) arrival at 9:34 to their departure after lunch, the laurel school girls and their spectacularly entertaining teacher Dr. Smith were hard at work. They jumped right into their marsh boots with shovels and spades in hand, and ran right into the mucky muck of the marsh. Starting from the southern end of the marsh nearest the nature center, and working outwards, WE CLEARED ABOUT HALF OF THE ENTIRE MARSH! we used about 50 trash bags to accomplish the job. we were a well oiled machine!! the majority of the laurel girls would dig up the irises from the marsh, and then the senior project students would do the leg work carrying the trash bags to the wagons and we also lugged the wagons back to the trash can. it was great to have this instant gratification, and know that we truly made an impact on the invasive species of teh nature center today!

Back At It

Today was much the same as the last few.  As I will be spending the rest of my time here at Progressive field in the DC, that’s Distribution Center for those of you who aren’t down with the lingo.  Anyways, I started my morning off opening and taking inventory on shipments that came in last week.  The hundreds of hats and shirts that came in were a little overwhelming at first; however the squad kept me going and helped me out so we could each chow down on a delicious lunch. 

This afternoon was a little different.  After devouring my homemade sandwich, four-cheese cheez-its and other delectable goods, Todd, Chris and I brought in a new a few pallets from the dock of more merchandise.  I had never seen how the entire process is done.  We started off by taking each box off of the pallets and writing out the PO numbers on the side.  We then grouped each PO number and brought them into the shop and onto the rollers, each PO grouped together.  Then, we went through and documented how many packages in each PO, how they arrived (i.e. FedEx Ground, overnight, UPS, etc.) and went to the computer to input all of the shipments and turn them out as receipts.  The system documents all of the orders and allows us to cross check each piece should there be a problem.  Overall, it was another interesting day.  

Week 2

Monday:

We decided what better way to start the week than to plan out what we were going to do for the rest of the week. So we started this Monday in what was becoming our typical Monday fashion and creating a schedule for the full week. After that we decided it was time to attend to our blog because we we’re slightly behind on our blog posts and we needed to catch upon. Upon surveying our newly published blog we realized there where quite a few errors. We spent the rest of the day writing, editing, and manipulating the technical set up of our blog. This proved to be frustrating and time consuming as a lot of times dealing with technology is.

Tuesday:

This morning we woke up to a surprise in our kitchen. Two of our rather hungry friends decided to stop by for some breakfast. We are never upset when visitors stop by because we love the input on our cooking and also we need someone to eat our food because we also see, to make more than we expect to. For breakfast this day we made; pancake pops, and a bacon wrapped egg omelet. After enjoying our delicious breakfast it was back into the kitchen for us. We took some time to mix up some slutty brownies; which is cookie layered with double stuffed Oreo’s and topped with a layer of brownie. Once those came out of the oven we had to deliver them to our friends back on the Upper school campus because we had promised them some.

Wednesday:

We found ourselves at a bump in the road to find our fridge and pantry extremely low on supplies. Putting our heads together we decided that it was time we took a trip to the grocery store. The grocery store was a great place for us to get hands on experience with food and pick out food specialized for our future recipes. After a long trip to the grocery store we found ourselves back in the kitchen only this time not to cook up to unload all the groceries. We then spent the rest of the day getting caught up on our blogging and editing our blog. In addition we decided to take the time to update our social media ad brainstorm ways to get ourselves more out there. You should all follow us!

Twitter: 2Blondes_Mixer

Instagram: 2Blondes_Mixer

Thursday:

I’m not sure if it is true for all families but we realized that both of our families loved to make their own spaghetti sauce. We put our heads together and developed our own spaghetti sauce. It took some time to make but we loved the way our sauce tasted once it came together. We then enjoyed our sauce over a nicely portioned bowl of pasta for lunch. With our stomachs full we headed back to the kitchen. Feeling rather adventurous we thought that we should try something more challenging and tried baking a soufflé. Sadly, this blew up in our faces. Rather to be more literal I should say that it collapsed. Realizing that our cooking skills weren’t as developed as we thought we decided to leave this failure out of our blog posted which we uploaded later.

Friday:

Perhaps the best way to end a long week of cooking our mentor came over to mess around in the kitchen with us. Together week cooked up some grilled romaine, chicken Milano, and twice baked potatoes. We learned a lot during this cooking session. Some of them are that you don’t have to cut open chicken to tell if it is fully cooked you can just use a touch test and that you have to poke holes in your potatoes before you bake them or else they will explode. We got lucky this time. The time cooking seemed to fly by and before we knew it we were able to sit down and enjoy the great meal that we cooked. After enjoying our meal it was back into the cyber world for us and we worked on our blog once again. We still realized that we had some kinks in it that needed to be worked out but we decided that we would save it for the next week.

Read more about the food we make at:

http://2blondesandamixer.wix.com/blondes-and-a-mixer

Foot Biomechanics

On Thursday and Friday of last week I spent the day with Dr. Tammy Owings who works in the biomechanics section of the biomedical engineering department. I got to see the technology she uses with patients to determine the correct footwear, mainly for people with diabetes. Many of her patients have ulcerations on their feet that will eventually cut open and become infected if not treated properly. Patients with the ulcerations are unable to feel there feet as a result of complications with diabetes. If continuous mistreatment occurs for a long period of time the patients may need amputations on their legs. I was able to see and use some of the technology she uses to determine the pressure points on their patients feet so she can get them the correct footwear. 

This is a picture of the pressure points of my left foot. It is in 3-D so you can  tell where it is the highest. The pink places are the highest and even though mine are high in some places those who need special shoes are many times higher than mine.

Inspiring Hope

Previously I had spoken with Ela Plow, the Principal Investigator of the lab, to understand her work, but last Friday I was able to see her work in action. I was able to observe 2 stroke patients going through their physical therapy routines, it was truly inspiring. Both were towards the end of their treatment and as I was told had improved by leaps and bounds. Both had a strong determination to not allow this unfortunate event to prevent them from continuing their lives. Neither, wanted sympathy or felt sorry for themselves, they simply wanted their old life back.

I watched the first as he struggled to lift a bar over his head and keep it there for a length of time. It truly looked like an intense work out for him, but he would not take a break he was determine and focused. He was on the right track and he wasn’t going to stop just because he was a little tired.

The second was impaired cognitively but that did not prevent him from social interaction. From the moment he walked into the room he made easy conversation and small jokes. He asked questions about why I was here and what I was planning on doing with my life and how my project was going.  He was happy and determined to push away the problems that arrive in the aftermath of a stroke.

Even if it wasn’t their goal, both of these men impressed me and gave me hope for my grandfather who also suffers from the complications of a stroke. My hope is restored that someday, like these men he will also take leaps and bounds towards his past self. 

Week 2 Thursday and Friday

Thursday and Friday were two of the slower days I have had thus far on Rainbow 5 since several of the children that had been at the hospital all week and even longer were fortunately discharged. The others either had tests or were quite tired and wanted to rest. This basically left me with the four-year-old brother I had been with all week who wanted nothing more but to gain access to the playroom. This time he brought us bananas and apples and made us some waffles, french fries, toast and donuts in the toy kitchen and we sat down to eat our breakfast shown below. We then experimented with the Legos once again, building houses, pools, cars, and even mobile houses with pools. I finally was able to get him away from playing with the Legos, and we played hide and seek with a toy waffle until moving on to mini basketball and soccer. I visited a few other kids but they didn't want much more than a few toys. One solved a few puzzles with me. Another painted a butterfly cutout I had brought her. The rest of my time was spent washing many toys, organizing the playroom and decorating it with a few drawings.

Things Calming Down

These last two days have been much quieter at the stadium.  After the Indians completed their home stand against the Detroit Tigers, they went off to Baltimore to take on the Orioles.  Things are very different at the stadium when the Indians are out of town.  There aren't as many people present at the stadium and the all-around atmosphere is more relaxed.  I have spent these past two days in the distribution center with the merchandise.  With not having to worry about moving apparel and other merchandise into to the team shop and other various locations in the stadium, we took the time to bring in new orders, move merchandise from one shelf to another, clean up, and put the new clothing and other apparel on the shelves for the next home stand.  With there not being as much to get done, there have been less people in the distribution center than when they are home.  Over these past two days, I've really gotten to understand how to document and package shipments and returns and where to put the merchandise.  I have also helped create a few signs that should speed up the process of sorting and packaging.  Things seem to be going smoothly as they should, and the break before the Indians come back is one that is much needed.   

Houston, we have reinforements

Yesterday, when our senior project group got to the nature center bright eyed and bushy tailed ready for another day on the job, the first words out of Sarah's mouth were "get ready to get dirty". Boy oh boy was she right about that. Today's task was to go into the nature center's marsh and pull yellow flag irises. Sarah explained to us that irises are exactly the plant that the nature center wants in the marsh, but the native plant to this region are blue  flag irises. The yellow flag irises that are coming in and trying to take over the space are actually originally from eurasia and were brought over to america some time in the last 200 years.

Such a task was certainly daunting. Luckily for us, right as we were strapping on our knee high boots and rubber gloves, a bus from the Gross Schechter school puled up headed by no one other then Aaron Lee the ping pong extrordinaire! Aaron and the rest of the crew were 5th 6th and 7th graders from schechter, and they were exactly the reinforcements needed to get this job done.

Until next time!

p.s. I also got a button that says I <3 Nature and I wear it proudly.

Wednesday of Week 2

Wednesday was another busy day on the fifth floor of Rainbow. A seven-year-old sister of a patient was determined to beat me in air hockey. At first she couldn't, but when I returned from lunch, she was a new player. She must have went through some serious training while I was at lunch because she greatly improved and was able to squeeze out a win. Another patient asked for drawing materials, and together we drew. I was surprised yet delighted that she wanted the 3-D bird I made a few days ago that was falling apart. The four-year-old brother of a patient that I had played house with twice this week came back for more. This time we added Legos into the mix. We spent hours constructing several different pools with water slides and diving boards for the family to enjoy (shown below). Since he keeps forgetting my name, he decided that I should be called "dudie woodie" after I taught him the word "dude." The seven-year-old girl that also hung out in the playroom Monday and Tuesday was leaving that day, so she and I decided we had to go through her cycle of playing with the air hockey table, the toy kitchen, and the toy tractor a few more times. Busy days like these pose a challenge I did not expect when I started my project: balancing the time I spend with the kids. I have found it difficult at times to tell someone I have to take them back to their room in order to comfort other patients. Some of the kids, especially those who are siblings of patients, never really want to stop playing. They have too much energy for me.

First Two Days of Week 2

This week I have met several new kids, including the four-year-old brother of a patient who loves to play house. On both Monday and Tuesday we spent hours playing and he still begs me to play each time he sees me. At first we were acting out the life of a regular family with several action figures and toy cars, until day two came along and we discovered Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, who became close friends of the family. A seven-year-old girl who I have spent lots of time with thus far this week played along as well. When she wasn’t playing with the boy, however, she cycled through mainly three activities: air hockey, making meals in a toy kitchen, and riding a toy tractor. She could go through that rotation for hours. Another five-year-old boy wanted to join in the fun and luckily, they all played together well. The two boys and I ended up racing in the hallway but one, who was driving a police car, gave the other a ticket. I also visited a few patients that could not leave their rooms, including a four-year-old boy who watched The Incredibles with me. We then played Yahtzee, however, neither of us knew how to play so we came up with our own version of the game. Through my project, I have been given the opportunity to form bonds with these kids and alleviate the stress of being in a hospital whether they are patients or siblings of patients. The playroom depicted below is their escape (I am encouraged not to take pictures with anybody at the hospital in order to protect patient confidentiality). I also have the vital job of taking these kids of off their parents’ hands so that they can indulge in an hour or so of free time for themselves.