Nat Arem's Blog

Well, I managed to be wrong on basically all counts re: NBA predictions. Shows what I know.

However, I’ve always felt like the Lakers had the potential to be the best team this year. It’s just that their series against the Rockets was so uninspiring I had a hard time picking them to beat a then-hot Denver team. I was proven wrong — they were able to rise to their level of competition. If they keep playing well, I think they definitely beat Orlando. If they play like they did against the Rockets (ie, taking games off) then Orlando can definitely pull it off. I hope it goes seven.

Congrats to my friend ZeeJustin for taking 5th place in the 40k WSOP event for $413k. I know he’ll be disappointed because he really wants a bracelet but it’s still a great showing. As of the writing of this blog, my friend Dani Stern is still in with four people left. He’s part of the poker reality showed that’s being filmed this summer in Vegas. It would be awesome to see him pull it off on a bunch of levels. First, sick dollars. Second, bracelet. Third, perfect timing for the TV show. Anyway, he’s guaranteed $548k. Gogogogogogo.

Finally got my celiac results back. See my post here about the original problem if you don’t remember it. I do have elevated levels of anti-gliadin antibodies. I’m well out of range for “normal” but, still, that doesn’t mean I have celiac. As I’ve read online, this test result simply means I’m very likely to have some sort of gluten intolerance or celiac. The only way to actually diagnose celiac is by eating gluten for a little while followed by a biopsy from the small intestine. There’s no one on the Cayman Islands who can do that biopsy. So I would have to travel back to the US to get it done. I might or might not do that. I didn’t really mind the endoscopy that I got in Costa Rica but I am not exactly eager to do another one. I guess the good news is that I haven’t had any more stomach problems and I’m pretty much feeling better.

I’ve also been trying to learn water skiing. It’s been a pretty big disaster. For whatever reason, none of us can even stand up. I’ve watched a bunch of videos and I’ve read a lot of stuff about it. I know I’m supposed to keep my knees into my chest and to let the boat pull me out of the water. That part works fine. I usually get pulled right up. Then I try to straighten my legs a little (never all the way, I know I need to keep them bent) and the skis just dip below the water surface and I can’t hold on for very long because I’m getting dragged beneath the water. When this happened the first day, I went online and saw that people have their skis pointed up and they lean back a bunch. So I tried that. Didn’t work — the skis themselves just went right into the water when I tried that. I don’t know what the deal is because these are wide skis and they’re supposed to be easy to stand up on. Here’s a link to the skis we’re using: http://www.bodyglove.com/products_detail.php?product_id=22791. Maybe I need longer or bigger because of my weight. Unfortunately it isn’t clear what the max weight is on these skis. Anyway, we’re still working on figuring out why no one has been able to stand up on them yet. I’m sure I’ll get it one of these days.

I guess the last item on the agenda is the NBA playoffs. Wow. These conference finals have been spectacular so far. LeBron’s shot was obviously great but all of the games have been competitive. I guess Game 4 in the west last night wasn’t all that close but overall both series have been exciting. I still think that Denver has a shot against LA even though LA has homecourt advantage. I’ve been really shocked by how well Orlando has played against Cleveland. Obviously tonight’s game is pretty big for that series but, somehow, I still think Cleveland will manage to pull it out. I guess we’ll see…

On Saturday we went over to the Westin Hotel on Seven Mile Beach. Sub and his girlfriend wanted to snorkel so we rented some equipment at the hotel. I couldn’t find a mask that would provide suction on my face. None of them were wide enough. I just swam around and whatnot while they snorkeled at Governor’s Reef (it’s a small reef very close to shore) for about 30-45 minutes. Then we went to go get some food across the street at a sports bar place called “Legendz”. They have pretty good food despite the lame name.

After food we went back over to the Westin and rented some Seadoos. Sub and his girlfriend were on a two person one and I was on a single person one. We did that for 30 minutes and we got some pictures on a waterproof camera but they still need to be developed. I’ll post them here whenever I get a copy of them.

Today we went over to the Ritz-Carlton around 1 PM for their legendary “Sunday Brunch”. It’s basically the best buffet I’ve ever been to in my life. The Las Vegas buffets don’t even come CLOSE in terms of quality. Unfortunately, because I am not currently eating gluten, it just didn’t make sense for me to get the buffet. Pretty much the only stuff I could eat was sushi and fruit. Which doesn’t justify a $100 pricetag. So instead I ordered off the menu while sub and his girlfriend got the buffet. Here’s a picture of me sitting at the table:

The girl over my left shoulder was pretty hot but she didn’t really come out well in the pic. Here are a couple pictures of the selection of food:

That’s really only a small part of it though. Tons and tons of stuff and they give you a few hours to pack it in. After that, we walked along the beach back to my car. Here’s a pic of sub and I walking with the Ritz in the background:

To put it mildly, Seven Mile beach is incredible. It’s got great sand, great water, great views, not too crowded, etc. Highly highly recommended.

Also, we saw this weird boat offshore. Here’s a picture of it. Does anyone know what sort of boat this is?

Also, later in the day today we went out on the boat in the sound so sub and his girlfriend could do some tubing. I think they had a good time — sub ended up falling off at one point so he’s probably going to have a bruise or two tomorrow. Tomorrow we have a few hours in the morning before I have to take them to the airport for the flight back to Atlanta. Fun weekend though!

Sub and his girlfriend flew down and got in around noon today. We haven’t done too much yet but we did swing by the beach. Picture #1:

Pretty sick beach.

Sweet, I love game sevens … even in the second round of the playoffs. I am pretty sure that the home teams are going to pull off the victory. I’m picking Boston over Orlando and Los Angeles over Houston.

However, I don’t think it matters too much because I think the teams that are waiting are going to beat whoever comes out of these matchups. I like a Cleveland v Denver NBA finals with Cleveland winning it.

I think the only team with a chance to beat Cleveland is Los Angeles but I just haven’t seen any consistent focus from the Lakers this post-season. For all I know, they may turn it on against Denver (assuming they get by Houston) and show some of the potential they showed in the regular season — but I am not hopeful. Obviously they’ve had their good games (like Game 5 against Houston) but having off-games against a team like Denver just isn’t going to work. They need to play top-level focused basketball every game and I don’t know if they can do that.

I also FINALLY scheduled LASIK surgery today. I’m getting it done the week of June 8th at Kremer Laser Eye Center near Philadelphia. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time so I’m hoping that I turn out to be a good candidate and the surgery goes well. I don’t really mind wearing contacts while they’re in, but it’s a pain in the ass to have to think about them every day. There are so many times that I’ll be in bed watching TV and I just want to roll over and pass out. But then of course I have to get up, go to the bathroom, take out my contacts, etc, etc. And sometimes I’ll be driving and suddenly my contact will pop out or it’ll get stuck on my eyelid or something. It’s actually kind of dangerous. Not because I can’t see but more so because it’s distracting to deal with a contact while driving. Anyway, I’m happy it’s finally going to happen (probably) and after the eyedrop period to help my eyes heal I should be free of contacts and all of this nonsense for awhile. Maybe even forever if my eyes don’t change anymore.

I don’t know why, but the title is the hardest part of blogging for me. Most of my updates are not really worthy of any specific title. There have been multiple times that I’ve thought about blogging only to give up because I can’t think of a title. That’s not optimal though. I’m going to start just saying something like “untitled” or whatever going forward … assuming I can’t think of a good title. I guess most of my blog posts are kind of piecemeal bits of info anyway.

Last week I took a trip to Costa Rica to meet with some people in our office. It was pretty miserable. I was feeling really sick for the few days before the trip and basically through the entire trip itself. But not cold/flu sort of sick. I just had a really bad stomach ache and felt very bloated the whole time. I couldn’t stop burping to try to feel better (didn’t work) and I was also having trouble eating because almost everything I ate made me feel worse. I got some tests done at the hospital there and everything came back pretty normal. No tumors or life-threatening problems. Not that I expected to find something like that but I figured I needed to be checked out just in case. I’d rather not chance it if I can catch something as early as possible. I researched a bunch of my symptoms and I theorized that it was possible that gluten was causing my problems. I’d been eating more gluten-containing foods and many of the symptoms lined up. So about a week ago I stopped eating gluten and within about 24 hours I was starting to feel a little better. And 48 hours later I felt almost normal … although I still didn’t feel great because I’d eaten so little for the last 7-10 days.

Now, a week later (and zero gluten), I feel normal. I am still not 100% sure if it’s a gluten problem. And there’s a large range of gluten problems. Anywhere from a moderate intolerance (and maybe I went over the edge) all the way to Celiac disease. For those who don’t know, Celiac disease is an auto-immune disease where your body attacks itself when you eat gluten. It destroys nutrient-receptors in the small intestine and causes a lot of discomfort and stomach pain (even if the pain isn’t necessarily coming from the stomach). Anyway, I got some followup blood tests yesterday to check for Celiac. The blood test isn’t conclusive for a Celiac diagnosis but it’s a pretty standard first step to check for the antibodies that the immune system produces when gluten is being consumed. I’m also getting some other things checked out because there are some other problems that overlap with a lot of my symptoms (such as thyroid problems). I am not 100% sure it’s a gluten thing, but I would say I’m about 85% sure it is related to my recent stomach problems. Either way, the important thing is that I feel significantly better and I don’t appear to have any serious life-threatening problem.

In other news, Jeff Williams (aka, yellowsub86) and his girlfriend are coming to visit (again!). Regular blog readers will recall that they came to visit me in Costa Rica in January. Now they’re coming to visit Grand Cayman this weekend. A week ago I was pretty worried that I would be a miserable host because I would have to lie in bed in pain the whole trip but now I am pretty excited for it. I’ll be sure to take some pics and post them on the blog.

Lastly, I’ve really been enjoying the NBA playoffs. Obviously some series’ have been better than others, but it’s a real pleasure to watch LeBron do his thing. He’s an incredible athlete and the Cavs are a really sick team. I’m also really excited to see how these LA-Houston and Boston-Orlando series turn out. I don’t always follow sports as closely as I once did (ie, in the mid and late 90s) but I really enjoy the NBA playoffs and this year’s have been great.