Mike Nicolini

20 YEARS!!! Hell, it seems like 20 years since the 10 year reunion to me. I guess I am lucky – when I am 80 it will seem like I’ve lived 160 years. Anyway, since high school life has been nothing but good times, bad times, happy time and sad times… and I wouldn’t change a thing.

After high school I went to NMSU without a goal or notion. I changed majors about 7 times during my time there, but I was living with Trav, Vance, and Wright so it was mostly fun with occasional sobriety vacations mixed in. Eventually I decided I needed a change and transferred to UNM, met some great lifelong friends, still hadn’t a clue as to what to do with myself. Finally, in my Junior (4th) year I decided to stop the charade and got a job at LANL until I could figure out what my passion might be – if there was one.

I liked living back in Los Alamos . There were a lot of us still around to hang out with. I had blown out my knee skiing that season so couldn’t do much mountain biking, which had been my previous recreational passion. I, therefore, learned how to kayak and that became my new reason for living. For the next six years I kayaked, kayaked, kayaked, and …. Took an EMT class. Hey, that was pretty cool – maybe I like medicine. I started investigating career paths in medicine and shadowed a few people and decided I wanted to be a Physician Assistant. After a couple years of obtaining the prerequisites needed I applied to some programs. During the application process I had moved to San Diego with my girlfriend, Laura Davis (class of younger than us). After 6 months in San Diego working as a temp Nurse Aide (loved SD, the job was pure HELL), I was accepted into a program in Phoenix .

PA School.

After PA school (2001) I got a job in Cardiothoracic Surgery in Phoenix . I love CT Surgery and have been doing it ever since. While working in Phoenix I met my future wife, Jennifer, while rounding in the hospital. She was in her Residency in Med/Peds and was post-call, meaning she had been working for the last 24 hours straight and hadn’t had a shower for awhile. Oh Yeah, she was hot! We dated for a few years and during that time she had finished her residency and had been in private practice. We were married in 9/02 in Santa Fe and still living in Phoenix . After about a year of marriage we decided to leave Phoenix – too hot, too big. We wanted to be closer to family, and my wife being from NC and I from NM – that’s what we had to choose from. It was actually a difficult decision between Asheville and Santa Fe and it came down to where we could find jobs. We moved to Asheville.

While we were in between jobs and homes we spent 6 weeks in Europe, and that is where our first beautiful child was conceived – best we can figure in a hostile next to the Charles Bridge in Prague . Isabella Sophia was born 3/25/05 and as all of you who have children know, my life was changed…. Now I have to do all my cycling at 5am before the kids get up! Our second Daughter, Emma Noelle, was born 11/13/06. They are both the love of my life. Number 3 you ask?... well I won’t be calling on Topher just yet.

Life in Asheville is great – I couldn’t wish for a better place to live. When I am not with my family or working I am usually on my bike. I have recently gotten back into ultra endurance mountain bike racing and road cycling, which helps keep me sane. Unfortunately the hard drive on our home computer crashed 3 weeks ago and I don’t have any photos to attach at this time. You all will just have to believe me when I say I am chiseled and handsome as ever with not a grey hair on my pristine body.

I would love to hear how more of you slack-ass fuckers are doing, so how ‘bout writing in.

Mike Nicolini
Riokayak3@aol.com