October 31 - 06

Renal Calculi. If you've had these then you will understand what I'm about to tell you.

Last Saturday, I came back from flying. I had taken a new Mexican friend of mine along with one of his Guatemalan bosses for a tandem flight. The flight itself wasn't great and the trip was rather long and exhausting. For some reason, as opposed to my usual habits, I was not paying attention to my fluid intake and got dehydrated.

That night, we came back to the city, had a greasy Peking Duck and noodles and I was ready to come back home, shower and go out with Roberto (my new mexican buddy). All of a sudden, I'm walking into my apartment and I feel a light pain in my lower back. "Must have been caused by carrying the glider or some false movement" I thought to myself. I took a shower and as I stood under the tropical rain simulating shower, the pain in my back increased to a level I had never experienced before. I quickly laid on my bed and couldn't help but to curl up like an agonizing worm screaming in pain. Less than 20 minutes later, all the Peking Duck and noodles were harmoniously flowing out of my mouth into the toilet and sink. It looked like a Supreme-Pizza, the ones with all the ingredients.

I thought there must have been something wrong with the food, it had to be food poisoning. Although I did not have the strength to type a message on my phone, I still did it and asked my friend Roberto if he was feeling bad from the food we had just had. His response was negative. "Damn, then the waiter must have poisoned me on purpose" - I kept thinking. The pain grew bigger and it felt like someone was stabbing my back with one of those wavy knives (like the one at the end of 'Face Off') and then kept digging in search of more pain. This was by far the worst pain I've felt in my entire life. I've been through rough episodes of pain when I had migraines, but this one beats them all. I honestly considered jumping out of my 23rd floor window.

A couple of hours passed and I lied miserable and lonely on my bed hoping for the food poisoning or whatever it was that I had to go away. No such thing happened. I called my father in San Francisco (he's a doctor) who quickly diagnosed me with kidney stones. My new friend Roberto was kind enough to accompany me to the ER.

The trip to the hospital in the car was not pleasant at all. There was no possible position where I could find some sort of relief. The pain was there and had no intentions of leaving my body. Screaming, grabbing on to any object around me, with my eyes closed and squealing like a dying pig, we made it to the hospital. I could only hope to pass out in order to stop feeling the pain.

I walk into the ER with one arm around Roberto's shoulder. 'Hello? please! somebody do something to help me!!!??!?' All the chinese nurses, doctors and guards standing there stared at me and started whispering to each other: "ooh, a foreigner - oh wow he speaks chinese! - wow..how bad ass!". At that point, I was able to ignore the pain for half a second in order to make room for the anger inside of me that was about to burst out in cussing chinese words. "Can you please helm me the @#$@#%@#$ out!!!!" They all looked at me like I was crazy. Then one smart person behind a counter and a glass window with a small round hole in the middle took the initiative to say: "hey, come over here, first you register, then you pay, then you can see a doctor" - Great.

I followed the procedure and still in great pain walked into the doctor on duty's office. The man is sitting on his chair arguing with his wife. I tried to be a tolerant person and allow him to solve his private life's matter and then attend a dying patient. However, after 5 minutes, Roberto and I could not comprehend how this doctor could watch me sit in front of him, obviously demonstrating signs of acute pain while he discussed some petty issue with his stubborn spouse.

'HEY DUDE!! A LITTLE HELP PLEASE' my friend and I shouted. The guy reacted quite quickly and asked me to pee in a cup for further testing. - Sir, at this point, I have no desire to urinate, I'm dehydrated, clearly no water is inside my bladder, any solutions? - 'Go pee!' he insisted. I followed his orders and walked out like a scolded kindergarten boy who's been caught pulling on a girl's ponytails. I walked into the bathroom, and without getting too graphic in the description of what followed next, I'll simply tell you that nothing came out just like I had predicted. I walked back gave him the empty cup and said "here's your urine sample, doctor".

Having an ultra-sound on my back was the next step. Quickly, the results came out and I had a 6mm calculus blocked in my ureter. What does a stone like this look like? click here. Looks pretty painful huh? The ureter is the tube that connects the kidney with the bladder, then the urethra connects the bladder with the exit...or penis. Here, this should explain it better. The stone forms for various reasons inside the kidney and is then introduced into the ureter which is when the unbearable pain takes place. The ureter reacts to this 'thing' invading its duct and contracts creating very painful spasms. This is what I was feeling on Saturday night. I was then given a shot which sedated the ureter giving the stone more space and therefore stopping the pain.

Normally, most stones are able to flow down the ureter in a few days and fall into the bladder. Once in the bladder, it makes its way to the urethra and is then...pee'd out. This last part is not painful as opposed to what one may think. The worst part of the entire episode is the initial ureter spasm. So which stage am I at this exact moment? I had two ultrasounds done: one on Saturday night and one today, Tuesday morning. The stone is at the exact same place, which is unfortunate. It means it's not been descending as it should and that I'm in for another few weeks of pain.

Anyways, to finish the story above, that Saturday night, Roberto stayed with me the entire night and we went back home at around 5am after an exhausting day filled with flying, watching a Russian guy land on a tree, and treating a kidney stone. Below is a picture of the recovery room. I'm that tiny head in the back surrounded by locals with their various corresponding diseases.

For more information on Kidney Stones visit this website.

To avoid Kidney Stones, drink plenty of water.

October 27 - 06

A taste of fame. I gave out about 50 signatures today! Well I'm not actually famous, but when I landed behind Dameisha on the soccer field of a small village primary school, about 500 little kids rushed towards me to make sure I was a foreigner and started asking for autographs.

One of the paragliders, 清修 Qing Xiu, organized an event for a primary school in some village about 130km East of Shenzhen. We took off from a peak about 5km away from the school's soccer field and made quite a show as we flew above their heads and landed a few feet away from their eyes. Once we all landed, they had organized a ceremony and gave us flowers as appreciation for our 'performance'. When I landed I could hear one of the voices amongst the crowd say: 'let's wait until he takes his helmet off to see if he REALLY is a foreigner!' When I took my helmet off they all shouted: 'woooooooow, such big eyes!!' For most of those kids, I was the first foreigner they had ever seen (besides the ones on TV). That's when they started approaching me in groups of dozens asking for an autograph. Some brought a notebook, others a piece of paper torn from the flower bouquet's wrapping.

During the ceremony they introduced each one of the pilots as if we were war heroes. The children cheered while sitting on the grass under the striking sun. We all sang the Chinese National Anthem (which I surprisingly already know!) We were then awarded with flowers and red ribbons tied around our necks. I did not bring my camera on this day, but here are pictures Baliang and Qiqi took of the event. It was quite a Chinese moment.

waiting for take-off	take-off from the air	LZ stands for Landing Zone	the red glider is me	Baliang and I coming into landing pretty close
	salute		autographs	autographs

October 13 - 06

Paragliding: the greatest sport on earth! For me that is. Today I went out to Xiaoying (small eagle - name of the flying site). At first, it seemed like the wind was going to be crossed, but when we got off the boat right by the LZ (landing zone), we noticed it was going to be a perfect day for flying. We hiked up like 15 minutes and I was second to take off. I flew over 4 hours today and did my first spin.

Ah...I cannot emphasize enough the feeling it is that a person gets when hanging up in the air whether it's 5 minutes or 5 hours. All of a sudden, your problems temporarily fade away making it impossible to think of anything or anyone. When flying, you're watching the ripples on the ocean to make sure no strong winds are coming, you watch the trees underneath you and make sure it's not getting too turbulent, you look for clouds above your head that can help you thermal up, you look for spots where the sun strikes at a 90 degree angle where it is likely to create strong temperature differences, you look at the eagles flying a few meters away from the tip of your wing, then you follow them because you know they're better pilots than you are. They know the air better than we do.

Today I did my first spin, I don't think I can describe exactly how it works, just imagine a washing-machine at it's final stage and then picture yourself hanging to the walls of the rotor. Reaching forces of over 3G's, there comes a point when you can literally feel the blood in your brain rushing down your neck, chest, arms and all the way down to your feet. At this point, you feel you want to scream as your eyes tend to roll back and your vision turns darker and darker, until you get to the point you pass out. This however, is something you'd like to avoid, passing out during the middle of a spin is 'no bueno'. Many students around the world have died while learning spins and passing out in the process of doing so.

After the long flight, we went back to the little restaurant and celebrated Qiqi's first flight, and I celebrated my first spin and longest flight so far...I think.

Baliang 'kissing' me (photo: qiqi)

October 12 - 06

New York's plane crash. I think that the fact that the real tape of the plane hitting the building was published on CNN.com hours after the incident, proves that this time, the government has nothing to hide. Why? they didn't do it.

So why, after 5 years, is it still hard for them to release tapes and images of 911 that the public is asking for?

article on CNN.com

October 11 - 06

Smart waitress. A few days ago I was in a restaurant when all of a sudden I spotted a mouse sprinting across the floor.

I shouted: "waitress!! waitress!! there's a mouse running around your restaurant"
Waitress: -It's OK, it doesn't bite-

October 10 - 06

Old-style Fishing. In the province of Guangxi, down the Li River (漓江), fishermen have a quite unique way of fishing, the use cormorants or 鱼鹰.

For those who don't know, a cormorant is a type of bird (wiki). These birds however, are far from being ordinary tweeties. In China, their wings are clipped at early stages which limits their capability of flying high and far. Instead, they develop extremely dexterous swimming skills and are professionals when it comes to catching fish. How do they do it? They dive, swim underwater, and catch their prey.

What have the Chinese done for thousands of years? They've trained these birds and use them on a daily basis to help them fish everyday's dinner. How does it work? Each fishermen has anywhere between 2-10 cormorants. During the day, these birds simply rest on a long bamboo pole or on the edge of their master's canoe: see pictures below:

At night, it's time for work. The fishermen go out on their boat or bamboo raft with a big lamp hanging in the front whose purpose I will explain in a bit. Once out in the water, the fisherman steers along the areas where he predicts a high predominance of fish. Then, he literally kicks the birds into the water one-by-one (the kicking part is not so pretty, but hey, that's how they do it). The bird then swims like a regular pond duck using its feet until it feels like starting the job when suddenly...

The fisherman ties a rope to the neck of the cormorant so that when it catches a fish it cannot swallow it. Once the fish is in the bird's throat, the fisherman pulls out a long bamboo rod and digs into the water waiting for the bird to stand on it and give up its prey. The bird seems to know exactly that it's its duty and that the fish must be surrendered. However, don't think this is all that cruel, the rope on the bird's neck is loose enough to allow small fish to go through, which means they can still feed off of smaller fish while they work. The fisherman then retracts the bamboo pole and grabs the bird by the neck as it hangs over a basket where the bird spits out the fish. Then, back into the water.

The light hanging in front of the raft is important for two reasons:
1. the most obvious reason: it lights the water so that the cormorants can actually see the fish they're about to catch
2. a more interesting reason: the cormorant will actually not swim outside the lit area, why? they'll get lost in the dark. It's a way for the fisherman to make sure they birds do not escape.