Robbie
Random tidbits:
I think the one that stands out was during president Obama's last year in office. He came to the house and we did a private event for him and about 20 people. I was involved in everything from designing the menu to meeting with secret service. It was an unbelievable and humbling experience. When you hear his motorcade roll up, the house is literally shaking, and then all of a sudden he is standing right there in the house. The biggest thing that I remember is when I said, 'Mr. President, I'd like to introduce you to my wife Julie.' I have a photo of that exact moment hanging in our house.
Michael
Random tidbits:
My twin brother is an identical twin. When we were 18 years old in Germany, we had the mandatory draft for the military service. You could optionally do an alternate social service, which my brother did. I was in boot camp during the first three months. And they had night alarms where eight soldiers came into where we were sleeping, hammering on pots and pans and yelling at us. My heart was racing. I went back home for the weekend and I told my brother about it and he said 'Was it Tuesday at 2:00 AM? I woke up on Tuesday night at 2:00 AM. My heart was pounding. I was sweating and I couldn't fall back asleep.' There were 400 miles between us. The week after that we had another night alarm. Again, it was a stressful situation. I came back home and he said, 'don't say anything. Was it Wednesday, 3:00 AM?' That was a change in our relationship - much for the better, because before we were always trying to go our own way. Then we realized that having a twin might be something special.
Josh
Random tidbits:
I walked in as a line cook right before Art Basel and I got absolutely crushed my first two nights. And then the sous chef left for vacation and turned to me and said, 'the station is yours.' Learning by fire was absolutely awesome. I started as a line cook and then I became a roundsman and I learned all the stations, then became junior sous, and then ended up spending a month at Nobu 57 in New York, and then I was promoted to executive sous chef for the new one in Los Angeles. I did all of my major management training with Nobu. The experience was amazing.
Nina
Random tidbits:
My grandfather, Jerry Greenberg, passed during the summer of 2020. He was a photographer for National Geographic and many other magazines. He helped establish Pennekamp park as a Marine sanctuary and was a totally inspiring character. He started his own publishing company, teaching people to use his underwater housings for cameras that he manufactured himself. There were no suitable underwater cameras for him at the time. He was diving until he was 94 years old, lived down in the Keys, and really loved interacting with people interested in the water. His wife, my grandmother, was the artist and she did true to life drawings of fish, marine invertebrates, and birds all over the world. She used the drawings to make plastic identification cards so that you can bring them under water. It has been a hard summer losing my grandfather, but I think that he would be very happy if he knew that people were continuing to enjoy the places that he enjoyed himself. And, he taught my daughters really to enjoy and be adventurous in the water.
Linda
Random tidbits:
My new book is about making food. It’s called The12 Week Diabetes Cookbook and the subtitle is - Your super simple plan for organizing budgeting and cooking amazing dinners. It’s 12 weeks of recipes. My theory is that, if you have the food in the house - you are more likely to cook a heathier meal. At the beginning of each week, I give you a shopping list for the entire week and recipes based on that list. Also, it’s a book for a budget. The average meal is about $5 per person per meal. All of the recipes have been vetted by the American Diabetes Association.
Leticia
Random tidbits:
Hi. I’m a little bit of a hummingbird. Reach out to me if you would like help engaging emotionally with your audience, in a meaningful way, whether it is through social media and digital marketing, programming or event development, as well as in developing cookbooks.
Prashant
Random tidbits:
There's different conditions that would warrant retinal surgery. Some of the more common things are membranes that form on the back of the eye that can distort vision. Sometimes those membranes come after a patient experiences an event that causes floaters or things that move around in their vision. A common surgery that we do is called a vitrectomy, which is where we we go into the patient's eye, under anesthesia, and remove the gel inside the eye that causes the floaters. If there's a scar tissue in the back part of the eye, we can remove that scar tissue. It's very small. It's about 15 microns in thickness. It's really one of the more delicate surgeries in all of medicine. Another is retinal detachment, where you have an acute worsening or loss of vision. Typically it starts peripherally and then it works its way over to the center part of the vision. We can often fill the eye up with a gas bubble that puts the retina back into place and apply laser treatment. Over time, hopefully the patient can regain some or all of their vision.
Lucy
Random tidbits:
Recently, I helped pinpoint certain equipment at Jackson Rehabilitation Hospital that could help hundreds of people. Or sometimes we say - Hey, ‘Do you want to go fishing on an adaptive boat, like a family?’ And then we’ve paid for that, which is really cool.
Liz
Random tidbits:
There's a lot of information out there and I understand sometimes it can be difficult to parse. In the world of medicine, 97% of doctors are vaccinated. This tells you something. What I see on the ground every day is that the vaccines work. Our hospitals are full right now in Florida. We don't have room for heart attacks, or for strokes, or if you cut your finger off because the whole hospital is full of COVID. 99% of those people have not gotten vaccinated. mRNA technology is outstanding.
Donna
Random tidbits:
Inside one of the gyms I go to, Body and Soul, is a little shop called Tina B. I like to buy things there. I also love Marshall's and TJ Maxx. I saw the Florida dress on a lady in Palm beach walking down the street. As she passed me, I thought in my mind that is the most adorable dress I have ever seen with alligators, Seminoles, avocados, grapefruits, oranges, and flamingos. I just loved it. I went to another shop and lo and behold, the lady is in there and I could not help myself. She said it was from a museum on Los Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. The designer had copied a tablecloth and made this dress to promote the museum and Fort Lauderdale. I told my husband that is the most fabulous dress I think I will ever have in my life.