Ouch :(

My hernia is hurting. A lot.


So since I'm being kept awake, I may as well update about last weekend.
Started it off by going out on Friday night to bid farewell to Antonio, who's leaving to be a Pilot in Puerto Rico. Sad farewell. Ended up going to a diner with Anges afterwards and had a good chat. And ate a fantastic omlette too. Yum.

This is where it gets interesting. Randomly decided to drive down to Santa Barbara with Anna on Saturday morning (300 mile drive or so), so left at 11amish. Took the 880/17 to Santa Cruz (where the Oil Change light came on in my Beamer, so I got an oilchange quickly whilst Anna and I grabbed a McD's for lunch), before taking Highway 1 south to Monterey. Stopped briefly in Monterey whilst I had my RoKS conference call, then went around 17 Mile Drive, which was gorgeous, but could have been vastly improved by it not tipping down with rain. Ah well. It cleared up by the time we reached Pebble Beach, and was gorgeous from Carmel onwards. Carried on the 1 South, following the coast all the way to San Luis Obispo. It was so beautiful, all the folded hills and cliffs, and just the flat, unbroken ocean to the right, with soaring blue skies and a warm sun... absolutely fantastic drive. Loved it. It started to rain just before SLO though, with some absoltely abysmal weather for about 10 mins or so at one point. Stopped and looked at the elephant seals just after the sun set, which was kinda cool, then hopped back in the car and drove the rest of the way to SLO.

Went to a packed pizza place in downtown SLO, and ordered an Extra Large pizza between the two of us. Biiiig mistake. Pizza was ginormous, and I could barely eat half of it. Continued driving then in the dark down the 101 to Santa Barbara; Arrived there around 9.30, and just as the rain stopped, my windscreen wipers broke. Hella annoying. Also failed miserably to find a motel with empty rooms, and we ended up chasing leads through the night until eventually, just before midnight and 20 miles further down the 101, just past Ventura, we found a motel 6 with rooms. Needless to say, I completely crashed.

Woke up *reasonably* early on Sunday, and drove back up into Santa Barbara, where Anna and I grabbed some breakfast, then went shopping. I bought an awesome t-shirt, but it's just a little too small. So sad. Headed down to the beach, where we walked along the pier, did some more shopping (I got a bunch of those flat pennys you can get as souvenirs from machine thingies for my little sister), and then sat on the beach for a while whilst I called some of out new AIESEC members about RoKS. After that, Anna and I headed back up to this goregous Italian resturant, ate some *very* garlicy stuffed mushrooms and a fantastic pasta meal, before getting back in the car and heading back to San Jose. Fairly uneventful journey back, seeing as it was dark for most of the time, and got back just before 11pm. I caught up on my email, and promptly crashed again.

Didn't wake up on Monday until *very* late (It was a public holiday, Presidents Day, in the US, and I had the day off work), whereupon I promptly forgot that I was supposed to go to Half Moon Bay with Anna, and tried to fix my car's windscreen wipers instead. Figured out what was wrong, but wasn't able to permanently fix it, so went to a nearby mechanics instead. Ended up leaving it there all day, but what they said would be a 30 minute job turned into a much longer job, and I ended up having to take it back the next day because they messed up. Cost me $80 too, which was kinda bleugh.

Spent the rest of Monday doing organising for RoKS, and got an early night. Tuesday was work, then headed to San Jose for the EB meeting around 7 (so I was able to call in to the RoKS conf call at 7.30 before EB at 8 without dying in a car crash). Wednesday was work, and a fun evening of more conference organisation. At least, that was the plan, but a new trainee from Sweden had flown in that day, and I ended up driving down to Santa Clara to spend the evening with her, Patricia, Saldy and Kristy. Went for sushi, then grabbed a 12 pack of Corona and headed back to Patricia's place. Was actually a fantastic evening, it's been too long since I've just hung out and had a good, meaningful conversation. The beer was a plus too. And putting Hysteria on at full volume on the way home, followed by the Darkness - Bareback, was just awesome.

And finally, tonight was work, then driving over to Palo Alto at 6 to pick up my Eddie Izzard DVD, then going down to San Jose for our new members Orientation followed by a nice relaxing game or two of bowling with the new members. Great evening, the orientation went really well, and getting to know our new members over bowling was really fun.


I'm *supposed* to be driving down to LA for the conference (the one that I'm the Organsing Committee President of, so, y'know, I really should be there :P) at the weekend, but with this hernia causing me pain just by sitting up, I don't know how that'll go. Maybe I'll get someone else to drive and I'll lay out on the back seats. I dunno. It's sure stopping me from sleeping though, and *that's* not good. I have a stressful weekend ahead of me, making sure this conference runs smoothly, and I don't need to be in pain and/or sleep deprived. I'll be both by the end of the conference, that's for sure, but I'd prefer not to start it like it :P

Anywho. I guess I should try and sleep and ignore the pain.

So, this is a wee bit overdue

February, eh? Let's see..

Organised a football match for Sat 4th from 10am until 3pm (with a picnic lunch), and although virtually no one turned up until 2pm (that's AIESEC for ya... and I thought TagSoc was bad!), I and Jesus, and Farid and Colin when they showed up, joined in with another group of guys, and once the sun came out, it was a pretty decent game. Gary, Marija, Helena and gang came at 2pm, and they played for a bit whilst I sat out and chatted to Marissa. Ate food, played a bit with my aerobie, and then headed back to my hotel for a quick shower before dashing off up to San Francisco with Anh, Saldy, Alex and Agnes for a Bay Area EB meeting. Pretty bad evening... arrived an hour late due to traffic, the meeting wasn't what we wanted it to be, and I got got on the wrong side of San Francisco's one way system after dropping some people off at one of the BART stations. Blah.

Was supposed to go to a San Jose Sharks ice hockey match on Monday evening, but was feeling pretty run down after the weekend, and decided to have a nice, quiet night in instead. Anna called, and she came over and we ended up watching The Matrix.

Spent the rest of the week desperately trying to get my work done, both at Sun and for AIESEC (events stuff *and* the conference I'm organsing for the last weekend in Feb... only 5 days away now!!!), and on Thursday evening I ended up going out with Gary, Colin and James to the Britannia Arms to meet up with Marissa, Juliana and Tracey. Ashley turned up too, with a friend, which was cool. Another excellent night there, and Marissa ended up absolutely plastered. Highly amusing evening though, everyone had a good time.

Spent Friday trying to get my work for Sun finished, and that evening my parents arrived. Was great seeing them. Took them back down to my hotel, where we dropped off bags and stuff and went out to Cattlemans for a steak. Delicious, as usual.

Went up to San Francisco on Saturday, where we booked Alcatraz tickets, walked around Fishermans Wharf and Pier 39, went to Lombard Street, Golden Gate Bridge, and then Golden Gate Park, where I managed to completely fudge my parallel parking. I needed to call into a RoKS OC conference call, so my parents wandered around whilst I did that. Afterwards, we went around the Japanese Gardens in the park, before heading to Chinatown for the Chinese New Years festival parade there. Wandered down the main chinatown street, looking at all the stalls, before meeting up with Agnes, Colin and Mark for the parade itself. Was slow, and whilst there were some interesting bits, it was mostly kinda boring, so my parents and I left before it was finished and went back to Fishermans Wharf to a restaurant there. Went back via the Bay Bridge, and stopped off on Treasure Island so they could get the view of the city. Very pretty, as usual.

We came back to San Francisco on Sunday and went to Alcatraz in the morning. Went around the island quickly, listening to the audio tour... was still quite interesting, despite me going there before. After that, we tried to get to Union Square for the trams, but the traffic was awful and there was no parking, so we went to some other place that they wanted to go, withsome coloured Victorian houses. I forget where.
After *that*, we went down to San Jose to Westfield shopping mall, where they went around looking in various shops, and I bought a protective case for my Palm T|X. Then it was time for food at The Cheesecake Factory. Yummylicious. h000ch starter, massive main meal, and sadly not enough space for one of the 40 odd cheesecakes.

Monday was Napa Valley day, and we spent the day rather pleasantly going to several winerys, where my parents sampled and bought wine. Was a gorgeous day, and I'd never been to Napa before, so it was really good. Went to Sterling first, all th way up the top of the valley, then went to another 2 or 3 as we headed back down the west side, stopping for lunch at a deli place.
Got back home earlier than usual, so we went to Fuddruckers for a massive burger, and then came back and watched Bill Bailey's Part Troll, which Dad quite liked.

Tuesday we went south to Santa Cruz, stopped there for a while and had a nice walk along the beach (didn't go to the boardwalk though), before heading along Highway 1 to Monterey. Lovely little shopping town/city place, with an awesome aquarium. They had a fantastic jellyfish display too, and I got some really cool photos. Got back around 7pm, and I went back to San Jose for my EB meeting whilst leaving my parents here to go have a valentines dinner somewhere.

Up early on Wednesday to take my parents to the BART station so they could get to the airport, then into work to catch up on Mon and Tues. Completely died Weds evening.

Thursday was another work filled day, followed straight by heading down to San Jose to interview potential new members for our LC, followed by a GPM. The GPM was amazing; we had almost everyone there, and managed to keep it under an hour. Very good stuff. Then it was a quick EB meeting to review all the applications, before giving Agnes a lift to a house party and me getting home and collapsing in a heap.

Friday was mostly work again, and I spent the evening getting stuff for RoKS sorted. I got the contract with a hotel finalised on Wednesday, and the website was up and running by Thursday afternoon so I made a bunch of promotional stuffs for distribution, advertising the conference and how to regsiter. Also created a spreadsheet for Karina to use for reg stuffs.

And then it was the weekend. And I've written enough now, so you'll have to wait a while for that!

Now it's time for me to pick up my car from the mechanics.

Further to the last entry

http://kevan.org/nohari?name=Nebhead

I know this whole thing got rather bandwagonny, but if people still have time and patience, I'd like them to do this one too. The previous one was about positive personality traits; this one is about the negative personality traits. I'm much more interested about this one.

Ta!

Interesting

If everyone can click the link and fill out the johari personality thingy about me (6 clicks is all it'll take, no asking for email addresses or anything), that'd be awesome.

http://kevan.org/johari?name=Nebhead


I'll do a proper update of this week sometime in the next few days. Been ultra bust recently, and my parents have been here for the past 2 days, which has been fun. Off to Napa Valley tomorrow, which should be nice. Had some great warm weather here too; got sunburned last Saturday (3rd Feb!), which makes a nice change to the usual winter weather in the UK :P

Le Surgery

I've had loads of people call/email/IM me this afternoon about the surgery I mentioned in my last post, so I thought I'd just give a bit more info here.

I posted this a while back, and it's what I need surgery for. Basically, I have a hole in my abodminal wall, and it needs patching back up.

One option I have is to have an incision made by my bellybutton, and the wall sitiched up. It leaves a very small scar, but the wall is under tension as it is now distorted by being pulled over the hole, so it's likely that this method will cause the hernia to reappear at a later date.

The second method, which is what will happen, is to make 3, larger, incisions in my side, and for them to do keyhole surgery. Rather than stitching the wall up, a fine mesh is placed over the whole and stitched in place. This covers the hole, and allows the muscle and fat to gradually grow back and heal itself.

Yeah. Any other questions, just ask, and I really appreciate everyones concern :)

More info can be found, as always, at Wikipedia

t3h busy

So, yesterday was fun. All day at work, followed by driving straight down to San Jose through rush hour traffic for an Info Session at 6pm, which went really well. Then hung out for an hour with Agnes and Ahmed (and ate a jacket potato in one of the university food places), which was great. Then annoyed Anh for another hour while he created a powerpoint for the GPM at 9, which we then went to. That was looooong, but good. And it was great catching up with people who I hadn't seen since before Christmas.

Managed to get home by about 1130, and I promptly died in a heap.


I had a surgery consultation this morning at 10.30, so I was able to sleep in a little bit. Headed down to the hospital in Fremont, and put my car in to be Smog Checked while I went to the appoinment. Got prodded a bit, was told my options (surgery or better surgery, basically :P), and arranged to have the surgery done on Wed 8th March. Awesome stuff, no hassle or anything. Though I bad news when I went to pick up my car; It failed the Smog Check, and it'll be $100 just to figure out what's wrong. And then most likely another $100 or so to fix it. Not good at all :/

Ah well, c'est la vie. Now all I need to do is survive this coming week, so I can show my parents around San Francisco next weekend.

Blah

I'm getting into the (bad) habit of updating once every week or two again. Bad Ben.

So, last week mostly consisted of me working during the day and mooching around in the evening. I've been getting increasingly busy though, as work hots up and as my responsibilities as Events Coordinator for AIESEC Bay Area and OCP for the SouthWest RoKS start to kick in too. Plus, as my parents arrive next weekend, the weekend after that I'm supposed to be in Portland, and the weekend after *that* is out RoKS, Feb looks like a pretty interesting month :P

Friday evening I spent at Marija and Helena's place, along with a bunch of other peoples. They were celebrating their 1yr anniversary of being in the States, and they had a bunch of awesome photos from their time up on the wall. Was really cool looking over a lot of the stuff that I'd done with them over the past 6 months.
Saturday I woke up late, and mooched on over to Palo Alto to spend a few hours hanging out in a bagel shop with Anna, before heading back and doing pretty much nothing else for the rest of the weekend. Watched a fair bit of Stargate, which was good; have now just started Season 6.

This week has been pretty busy; Tuesday was an EB meeting down at SJSU, then I was back there yesterday for an Info Session at 9pm, and I'm back down there straight from work tonight for an Info Session at 6pm and our first GPM of the semester at 9. Phun.

Also yesterday I appear to have spent about $30 worth of credit as my phone called Aditi in the UK whilst it was in my pocket. I've spent about $200 on phone credit in a month... I blame Meredith :P