Stops along the Way - Portland Street Food Cart

After perusing the options we decided on the Portland Soup Company.
Paul's pickled beets, homemade mozzarella and arugula on a honey drizzled wheat roll was something he will try at home. My smoked pork butt had a distinct but not overwhelming smoked favor. The cabbage and apple salad was carefully composed to have a wonderful balance of sweet tang.

It will be hard to look at choices from other carts until the Portland Soup Company offerings have been fully explored.

Veterinary Nomad Journal Oct. 19, 2012
LAM 5 - OHSU Site Visit

Travel Tips: TripAdvisor.com

As an urban Veterinary Nomad, I am motivated to find the best value for the dollar.  Finding safe and functional lodging for the students traveling to sites I coordinate is part of my responsibilities.  When searching for answers to "Where to Stay? Where to Eat? or What to Do?  TripAdvisor.com is a great place to start.  Many hotels have solicited follow up reviews and given bonus reward points or a discount on your next stay for a Trip Advisor review.  This usually comes after positive comments from a post-stay survey.  Trip Advisor is social.  You can connect through Facebook and see where friends have been or have posted reviews.  I know you anti-social media folks always say that your are not interested in knowing that Diane is having a coffee.  But if you want to know about the best cup of coffee or even where you can get a cup of coffee near the conference hotel - go social.

Trip Advisor is mobile and it functions with GPS so you can review EAT, STAY OR DO options around your current location.  This is great when you are with folks and the dreaded question, "Where shall we go to eat?" comes up.  Instantly, minds go blank.  Everyone wants someone to offer a suggestion.  Any suggestion.  Not that the suggestion will be accepted.  Folks just want an offering to evaluate, criticize and reject.  When I use my iPad and TripAdvisor provides a list of restaurant near us, he group begins to ranks and prioritize the list.  The decision shifts to ranking the possibilities at hand.  The restaurant price is too high, it is too far, we need vegetarian options...and we can consider the reviews.  All of this decision making is an imminent consumer action.  This is why TripAdvisor reviews are so important.

I challenge you to take some time to write positive reviews.  This is a meaningful way to say thank you.  Help me keep good places in business!  It is easy to complain.   Remember, every place will have instances of disappointments.  The origin of TIPS  was To Insure Prompt Service.  TIPS were meant to be positive reinforcement for good service.  Now we also have the ability to reinforce good service or quality.  Remember the names of the front desk clerk or the morning breakfast attendant and use them in your reviews.  I find the best places have low turn over of staff and you can become a "regular" even if you are a Nomad.  It makes everyplace feel more like home because you have connected to the people there.  I am proud to state that I have become a Senior Reviewer on TripAdvisor.  Won't you join me?

1. Santa Barbara, CA, USA
2. San Francisco, CA, USA
3. Seattle, WA, USA
4. Florence, Italy
5. Rome, Italy
6. Copenhagen, Denmark
7. Portland, OR, USA
8. Venice, Italy
9. Lund, Sweden
10. Santa Cruz, Ecuador

• View my profile
• Create your own travel map or travel blog
• Vacation rentals at TripAdvisor

Travel Tech - Mobile App Flight View

An urban nomad can and should take advantage of the many awesome mobile apps.  Some apps help make your travels go more smoothly while others help you be more productive while on the road.  Some apps may help you find the best stuff on the road so you don't miss out.   This is the first of my Travel Tech blogs:

I monitor my flights with the  Mobile App Flight View.  It's on my smart phone and my iPad.  I can search for my flight by route or by Airline and flight number.  Once I find my flight I can see where the plane is coming from.  This is useful when you have the 10:40 pm flight from SFO to Ontario.  If the equipment (plane) is coming from Eugene, your in pretty good shape.  If the equipment is coming from Chicago and there's a big snow storm in the Midwest, be prepared for a cancelled flight.  Flight View is the same as seen on the flat screen monitors at SFO.  You can also use it to track arriving flights when you are waiting to pick-up a friend at the airport.  When your friend's flight is repeatedly delayed in SFO, you can follow the flight's progress through Flight View and get real time detailed status alerts.  You can even follow the plane on the maps a see your friend's progress in the air.  Pretty cool.

The Veterinary Nomad and Road Scholarship

WesternU has the newest College of Veterinary Medicine in the United States. Five classes have successfully graduated as of May 2011. The WesternU curriculum is innovative, integrative and complex.  The basic sciences in the first two years of the curriculum are taught through problem based learning.  No lectures.  Inquiry based investigation of cases with associated activities, labs and discussions.  In years 3 and 4, the medical education and clinical instruction is taught in situ through a "distributive" model.  Students begin the life of a Veterinary Nomad when they are sent out into the real world in the third year.   In two week blocks a third year WesternU vet student is assigned to a new veterinary enterprise or disciplines.  The third year will include zoo medicine at the Los Angeles or other  Zoo, beef cattle medicine at the Hastings Center in Nebraska and pathology at Antech Diagnostics in Irvine, CA.  This continues for 32 weeks or 16 courses with four interruptions (exam weeks).  Understand, this is not "shadowing" veterinarians in the field.  Students work to achieve educational objectives through group study, preceptor and faculty guided work in place.  They have continuous assessments and examinations throughout the year.  In the 4th year, the College assigns two CORE rotations, Internal Medicine and Surgery and the veterinary student selects six rotations.  The 4th year could be spent entirely in Southern California or around the world.  I know it sounds complicated.  It is. The logistics are crazy.

I am Associate Professor Diane McClure, a course leader for the third year in Laboratory Animal Medicine and Research.  As students begin this nomadic life of a new place every 2 weeks, my role as Professor is to follow along via cyberspace (black board, e-mail, mobile phone calls, texts and Facebook). I also visit each location at least once during the two week rotation when students are present. Face to face meetings are where the subtle issues come to light so they can be addressed before they become catastrophes. Thus, I am a Veterinary Nomad too.

Beyond learning veterinary medicine in all it's diverse roles, veterinary nomads are learning another set of skills. How to fit into a new work environment every two weeks, how to communicate with a tremendous variety of people in vet med and on public transportation, how to live out of a suit case and still have the resources you need to write papers, create PowerPoint presentations and maintain personal health and hygiene. This is a powerful skill set that is difficult to name, but I call it Road Scholarship.

This blog will share joys and travails of a Veterinary Nomad.

Disclaimer:  This blog is of my own doing and does not represent any official position or opinion by WesternU.  ~ Diane McClure, DVM, PhD