Most of my ill-conceived repugnance for Cincinnati stemmed from my antagonistic approach to rooting against my college friends’ sports teams, namely the Cincinnati Reds and Bengals. A large portion of my college friends hail from Cincinnati and as a consequence, my unadulterated love for St. Louis sports teams created a stable base from which could be fostered a lasting friendship.  I simply rooted for the Reds to lose to any and every other Major League team and watched as my die-hard Bengals fans/friends endured over a decade of horrific mediocrity.

Their pain and anguish of watching Akili Smith interceptions, Wily Mo Pena strike outs, and Chad OchoCinco’s slowly disapating touch down dances, made me happy.  My joy stemmed from the fact that they could then retort with calling me a bandwagon Boston fan and pointing out the tragic deaths of Cardinals players. [Note: referencing the tragic death of a sports team's player is only appropriate after enduring another 3-13 Bengals season.]

As a result, I came to view Cincinnati, the birthplace and/or home of Gib, Fat, Wade, Hern, Zelch,  Hoj, Jdawg, Wade, Cole and a myriad of other respectable Cincinnatians, as a desolate wasteland of losing and misery. Even after spending a few joyful holidays and the summer after college graduation in Cincinnati, I still viewed it with disdain. It didn’t matter to me that so many of my friends called it home. Some of this disdain may have subconsciously stemmed from my own hatred for my boring hometown, Wichita, KS, but despite this self-awareness, I still considered Cincy to be another boring example of Midwest America.

When I moved to Boston in the summer of 2004, I felt as if I had been jolted alive and awakened from some sort of zombie-like slumber in which I feel most of the Midwest is entrenched.  My return trips to Cincinnati were for the weddings of my friends, who had returned to Cincy after graduation to start their adult lives with jobs, to find lovely women with whom they could spend the rest of their days, and to start families. This is not what I had in mind. Even when I returned to Cincy to bear witness to these blessed events, I still couldn’t help but think of Cincinnati as a boring place to live, and while I didn’t begrudge the lives of my friends, I didn’t think that an existence in Cincinnati was for me.

So when I was getting my grove on to “I Gotta Feeling” and watching my friends and their wives dance around Wade and Lindz, imbibe alcohol with reckless abandon, and generally have an unbelievalbly happy time, I had another one of those jolts.

I looked out into the Cincinnati skyline from Paul Brown stadium and had my opinion of Cincinnati completely reversed. Maybe it was the heat of the moment and seeing the smiles and joy on the faces of people whom I love and respect, but when I woke up the next morning, it was still there. My opinion had changed and it was all seemingly because of The Black Eyed Peas. Indeed, I got a feeling.

Wade and Lindz are the second to last of my Cincinnati friends to get married. First it was Zelch and MJ right after college. Then Matt and Jo two years later. And then Jeremy and Tiff two years ago. Cole and Mary Lynn weren’t far behind. Gib and K-T tied the knot last fall and were followed quickly by Hoj and Kristin.  And now Wade and Lindz. [Note: Hern and Coll are getting married in 3 months, but I'll be studying medicine on an island and won't be able to make it back.]

As several friends made the observation that  they did not know when they would see me next, a stunning reality began to percolate in my brain and culminated in my “a-ha” moment on the dance floor.

No longer can I associate Cincinnati with losing and misery. No longer can I think of it as a boring example of Midwest life. No longer can I return once a year to see another friend get married and revel in old friendships renewed, starting up again where we had left off a year earlier, and eagerly looking forward to the next awesome occasion to celebrate.

Certainly, there will be more occasions to celebrate, as families are started and expanded upon, job promotions are achieved and companies are started, and maybe there will even be a Bengals Super Bowl party.

But I most likely won’t be there for those celebrations. I’ll be busy studying for a Pathology exam, reviewing flashcards on Psychopharmacology, or working late hours into the nite during clinical rotations or as a Resident. It would have been a comfortable excuse before that moment at Wade and Lindz wedding at Paul Brown stadium.

I might still have to use those excuses for some time as I begin the next portion of my life as a medical student, but I will truly miss those experiences. At that moment, Cincinnati was no longer the home of the Reds and the Bengals or a stifling example of the Midwest. It is the home of my friends, people with whom I created relationships with over a decade ago. So I can no longer use such a myopic view to cast opinions of Cincy. It is a bit disappointing in retrospect that I held such an idiotic and sophmoric opinion for such a long time, but it is definitely true: hindsight is 20/20.

Now I don’t have to “find a reason” to visit Cincinnati. Some of my best friends in the world are there. What other reason should I need?

I don’t have the opportunity to wait until another friend gets married. There won’t be a “Save the Date: Hoj’s Big Promotion Party 2011” coming in the mail. I won’t be getting a “Gib and K-T made their 1^stMillion Dance-Party Extravaganza” or “Fat and Jo’s Triumphant Cincinnati Return House Warming”. Those aren’t the type of things my friends are going to be sending invitations for. Those events will occur, but when you have a close group of friends like mine, who have grown up together, been each others best friends for the last 11 years or longer, and see each other fairly regularly, those events won’t need much pre-planning. They will just happen. And I probably won’t be there.

No, don’t be thinking all crazy and believe that I’m seriously considering moving to Cincinnati any time soon. That thought has not entered my mind.  It is simply that my high-horse finally died and I can see my friends from Cincinnati for who they really are: a group of special people who happen to be fortunate enough to grow up together, involve other random people in their lives (thanks Gib!), and now have the wonderful opportunity to continue on into adulthood and parenthood as life-long friends.

I don’t think there are too many things more special than that. Except for maybe a Bengals Super Bowl victory. But I won’t be holding my breath on that one. Instead, I’ll make it a point to visit a great group of friends in the years to come, most of whom happen to live in Cincinnati.

The difficulty of this course was in the wide scope of subject matter that was included: mathematics, philosophy, electronics, neural networks, sociology, economics, etc. But the basic premise of the course was to examine the questions of “what does it mean to be human?” and “can we blur the line between humans and robots so that they are indistinguishable?”

At the time, it was some pretty heady stuff and it required me to do the required readings at least twice in every case in order to fully grasp the subject matter. Obviously, the question “what does it mean to be human?” is pretty deep, but as a class we were legitimately trying to derive an answer to that question through conversation, readings, and experimentation. I don’t believe we ever really “answered” that question, but I have recently found myself analyzing recent losses in my life through this same lens.

Over the course of the last weekend, I suffered two losses that were significant to my life. One was human [a cherished friend]. The other was a robot [my computer of nearly 4 years]. In some ways, the loss of both in the course of two days was quite poetic, as I had “known” both for almost the same amount of time. These simultaneous losses have allowed me to revisit the two major questions presented in “Robots and Humans” over the past week and to finally derive an answer to them.

The demise of my friend Broadway, as he was known to his friends in Cambridge, was a difficult, protracted, and confusing ordeal. The demise of my computer, a Dell Inspiron 2200, was a much shorter, but just as difficult and confusing ordeal.

Broadway was a 71-year-old gentleman whom I knew through a program for which I used to volunteer. He was beloved by all who knew him because of his self-less attitude, charm, and love of music. I met Broadway my first day in Cambridge and made it a point of visiting him routinely even after I moved to the other side of town. We usually spoke about sports, particularly the local teams, but he also told me about his days as a younger man and the varied experiences he had lived. As I’ve written about before, I don’t have any grandparents, so to have this wizened perspective was quite fulfilling. Over the last 4.5 years, I had several enlightening experiences with Broadway, including a favorite where he and I caught the bus to the Asics factory store to find the best deals on high-quality athletic shoes [one of his specialties was finding the highest quality goods at the most affordable prices].

Inspiron 2200 arrived at my door nearly 8 months after I arrived in Cambridge, a replacement for my college laptop that had become too slow to run the latest programs and was too cumbersome to realistically take anywhere. As a sleeker and faster model, it immediately improved my quality of on-line use, software use, and mobility. It easily held all of the documents that had existed on my previous hard drive (I named one folder on it “old computer”), allowed me to effectively use the latest software necessary for work and play, and made me feel like I had purchased a new car in the level of care I gave it.

These two entities filled my life with innumerable joy and greatly improved my quality of life. One was a cherished friend who helped me understand my place in the world and motivated me to pursue my calling of becoming a physician. The other was a cherished assistant with whom I entrusted my most private secrets and most public of desires. Both succumbed to a mysterious illness.

Broadway had been a model of health for the 70+ crowd. A wiry former-athlete, he used to tell me how he was a master on the hardwood back in the day, used to do hundreds of crunches a day, and did his very best to avoid processed sugars. His body was confirmation of those boasts. When he began feeling a little ill seven months ago, I don’t think anyone who knew him felt that it was anything more than a cold. But he began sleeping more than usual. And his doctors visits concluded with more questions than answers. Eventually, he had to leave his home to get more focused care in a rehabilitation hospital. The last time I saw him, he was a shell of the man I first met nearly 5 years ago. He was no longer the spry individual who would carry multiple gallons of milk several blocks to get some extra exercise or simply go out for a stroll to all corners of Cambridge. At this point, I was deeply concerned for his long-term welfare. When he passed away last weekend, there still had been no determination as to what had begun this tortuous path to his demise.

Inspiron 2200 had been more than serviceable over the past 4 years. We had spent countless hours together and performed innumerable tasks for both work and leisure. Of course there had been minor hiccups here and there, but it could always handle the updated software, the multitude of simultaneous tasks I asked it to perform, and the occasional ride in an un-padded backpack before I got it its own neoprene sleeve. Then, about three weeks ago, after updating my music service provider, it began to show alarming signs of a downturn. At first, the Internet was running slow. Then it wouldn’t boot up in its normal fashion. A few days later I got the dreaded “Safe Mode” warning. I could see the writing on the wall when I tried to run virus software or perform a “system restore.” Nothing happened or an error warning would flash onto the screen. Inspiron 2200 was circling the drain; something had infected it terminally. I immediately transferred all of my pertinent documents and files onto a thumb drive and prepared for the worst. When I awoke last Friday morning and tried to boot it up nothing happened. I powered it down and rebooted; again, nothing happened. Inspiron 2200 had flat-lined at 7AM that morning. I went to work knowing that Inspiron 2200 had performed its last task.

It might seem like a misguided comparison to speak of Broadway and Inspiron 2200 and their demises in the same article. But as I mentioned earlier, their simultaneous demises have allowed me to definitively answer those questions that were first posed in my “Robots and Humans” class seven years ago.

The difference between man and machine lies in the same difference that separates humans from almost every other animal on the planet: emotions. No matter the increased technology, the faster the processors, the more complicated programs, the more human-like exteriors, robots will not be able to express emotions. Some individuals who are on the cutting edge of robotic technology would probably disagree with that statement, but what they often neglect to consider is that humans themselves do not have a firm grasp on emotions. How could we instill emotions in a fabricated machine when we don’t even understand them?

In “Robots and Humans”, the professor made the argument that emotions could be boiled down to a simple software program, allowing for certain “emotional” responses dependent on the underlying circumstances. But the determination we made as a class was that emotions are so widely varied across individual experience and situation that no program could be written to encompass such possibilities. Again, those on the cutting edge of robotics would disagree with that assessment. But the over-arching issue at hand is that humans themselves do not truly understand what causes some to differ in their emotional responses to similar situations. Experiences are too widely varied, histories too complex, and beliefs too individualized to accurately make an algorithm that would depict emotional responses.

I didn’t think I would cry when the rabbi read the sermon for Broadway. But I teared up when he made mention of his nickname and I remembered first meeting him as he carried a box of things into my new home.  When Inspiron 2200 couldn’t be booted up that Friday morning, I didn’t think twice about it, except that I’d have to check my e-mail at work. I thought it would be uncomfortable to toss a shovel of dirt on top of the casket at Broadway’s burial site. But I simply thrust the shovel into the mound of dirt and reflexively deposited it on top of the casket.  When I comfortably placed Inspiron 2200 in its leather carrying case and shipped it off on Saturday to be used for spare parts, I thought it was a fitting end.

The difference between man and machine is defined in the comparison between Broadway and Inspiron 2200. There were no emotions involved in the demise of Inspiron 2200.  I had certainly spent countless more hours with it than Broadway over the last 4 years, but it had not provided me with anything that my next computer will not. Broadway provided me with a relationship that words can not fully express.

The day that a robot provides a human with the same relationship as another human we should all be worried. Because it will not be because we have created a technology that is identical and indistinguishable from humanity. Rather, it will be due to the fact that humans have devolved emotionally to the point of being indistinguishable from a computer program.

One of the most celebrated smash-hits of the last decade, Wedding Crashers chronicled the ridiculous antics of two best friends whose favorite past time was attending weddings to which they were not invited. The characters, played by Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, made it a point of celebrating the nuptials while playing fabricated familial roles in order to get into bed with various bridesmaids or guests.

In honor of one of the greatest movies of the 21st century, I, too, decided to crash a wedding…

The opportunity to be a Wedding Crasher arose this past weekend when The Great Snowstorm of ’08 befell the Smith-Johnson wedding. One of my college roommates and his wife, Stan and Helen, were in Boston for Helen’s cousin’s wedding, which was to be a small, but formal affair. Most of the bride’s family were to be arriving from the Midwest and with Logan Airport closing down on Friday, several key members of the bride’s extended family were unable to get into Boston.

Luckily, I decided to brave the winter snowstorm on that Friday evening and meet Stan and Helen at a bar in Allston after the rehearsal dinner. Accompanying me to the bar was another college roommate, who resides in Boston, his beautiful girlfriend, Beeker, and the gf’s bff. All in all, the five of us walked into the bar to be confronted with the only place to sit being a table for four.  Due to this unfortunate turn of events, and my then current mental status being that of a complete jerk-off, I decided to leave the other four at the table and head straight to the bar.

After grabbing a quick pint, I ponied up to the table where Stan and Helen were sitting with the bride’s family. After making quick pleasantries with each of them, and downing my pint in lightning quick fashion, the bride’s father, Rick, sent Stan and I to the bar to acquire a few shots for his daughter. The bride-t0-be and her bridesmaids were seated in a booth on the opposite side of the bar, sufficiently removed from the family, but not out of the line of sight of the bride’s father. As Stan and I headed over to their booth, two shots of Patron in hand, I noticed that there seemed to be a little extra room at the booth.

The bride-to-be quickly imbibed the shots and after making some small talk with her and the bridesmaids, Stan retreated from the table to tend to our other college roommate. I, on the other hand, seeing a window open, decided to crawl right in. I continued chatting up the bride-to-be and her three bridesmaids, eventually sitting down with them in the L-shaped booth after the bride got up to get some water. In the course of discussion, I asked when the wedding was taking place the next day; with some incredulity, the maid-of-honor “reminded” me that it was at 5PM. I looked at her with a hint of confusion, but it was quickly replaced with a grin when I realized they thought that I was also from out of town and was attending the wedding the next day. I informed them that I actually live in Boston and didn’t even know the bride or groom. I believe some of their confusion may have arisen from the several drinks they had imbibed at that point, or they were simply struck by my charm and good looks. Either way, I summarily received a verbal invitation to the next day’s wedding from the maid-of-honor.

I later sheepishly relayed the invitation to Stan without the thought that I would actually be attending the wedding. To my slight surprise, both he and Helen were ecstatic about the idea, even indicating that I could take the place of Helen’s parents at the wedding, who were trapped in wintry Toledo, Ohio…

The next morning I called Stan to see if his excitement had been enhanced by the several beers he’d had the night before or if the offer still stood. To my surprise, Stan told me that Rick, the bride’s father had actually asked him earlier that morning if I would be in attendance. [Disclaimer: A true wedding crash would not entail being invited by the bride's father, but I am using artistic license in my description.] Knowing that I had absolutely nothing going on that evening, I whole-heartedly agreed to attend. The true dilemma then ensued. The bridesmaids from the previous evening had not been particularly attractive. The bride-to-be was quite attractive, but the bridesmaids left a little to be desired. In the spirit of Wedding Crashers, I knew that the night was meant to end with me literally charming the skirt off of some lucky lady. With the knowledge at hand, I decided it was best to bring a date of my own, rather than chance it.

Upon getting off the phone with Stan, I called my friend Bethany to see what she had going on that afternoon/evening. After a slight hesitation, she agreed to meet me at the wedding once she determined she had a “wedding-worthy” dress.

I arrived at the wedding nearly 30 minutes early even though I had been at the same ballroom for a Christmas party the weekend before. Bethany, due to my lack of detail in the location of the wedding, initially got off at the wrong T-stop and had to walk 10 minutes in the snow before arriving shortly before 5PM. I was quite apologetic for my indiscretion, but she didn’t seem to mind too much. By that time, nearly every one of the 60 attendees were present, along with a few random stragglers like Bethany and myself. For the most part, people seemed to know one another, and there were even several good-looking friends of the bride in attendance. Yet, I was not upset about my decision to bring a date to the event.

The wedding itself was a brief non-denominational ceremony, high-lighted by a touching, but thoroughly adjective-laden love sonnet read by the bride’s brother. The reception ensued as the ballroom was then transformed into a dining area and dance floor. When we finally took our seats at the appropriate table for dinner, Bethany and I were greeted with the name placard of her parents, whose first names were eerily similar to our own and their last name was only one letter off of mine. In a completely appropriate outcome, the couple seated next to us quickly assumed we were married.

When it came time to cut a rug, Bethany, myself, Stan and Helen decided to own the dance floor, despite serious competition from a wide-eyed three-year-old whose frenetic dancing must have been aided by at least 3 Red Bulls. The other wedding guests who were of the same generation did their best to keep up, but the four of us grooved to the never ending series of ’80′s hits that were spun by the DJ. By the time the weekend DJ decided to play something from the last 5 years, everyone still on the dance floor had consumed at least 5 drinks apiece (or at least the reckless dance moves seemed to suggest that). The 40+ crowd that remained seemed to be glued to the sidelines, wishing that their knees and hips still allowed them bump-and-grind in a similar fashion as to the 20′s crowd. Maybe they knew something more than we all did, or maybe they aren’t big fans of T.I., but I appreciated that they stayed out of my way as I spun Bethany around and Stan and Helen danced like it as 1999.

As the reception came to a close, our group of four was still dancing the night away… but like any true wedding crasher, I knew that the night didn’t end with the close of the reception. So Bethany, Stan, Helen, and I collected our things and headed out into the snow-covered Boston night in search of another party, another drink, and maybe something more in line an Owen Wilson inspired end to the evening…