Barcelona!

I've been busy with work and traveling, and haven't updated my blog in a while... Miraculously, Bethany and I both got to attend PCR, a european cardiovascular conference for physicians and medical device manufacturers. This year the conference was in Barcelona, Spain, so we joined up and planned where we wanted to explore before and after the conference.

The conference was great, and Barcelona is definitely a fun place with a lot of old architecture thrown in with new modern stuff. (much of the city was built in preparation for the 1992 olympics) The city is also filled with a lot of Gaudi architecture, like th Parc Guell and Sagrada Familia (the unfinished church)... all this stuff is well... gaudy! old and highly detailed and featured, but a little much.

The Sagrada Familia

The main drag is called "The Ramblas", which by day is filled with tourists looking for shopping, coffee, or tapas. At night, there's a lot of nearby bars, and late night dinner establishments (dinner typically starts around 10pm in spain)

Here's a street performer near the ramblas scaring children as "the nightmare before christmas"


more to come...

learning more about my back

Back in November, Bethany and I got rear ended pretty badly. Unfortunately I was twisted back looking at the headlights when it happened, and unfortunately, my back hasn't been the same since. The pain started in my outer hip after running regularly for a few months. As I learned soon afterwards, hip pain actually occurs in the groin area, and back pain can stretch all the way down to the outer sides of your hips. A few X-rays later the doc confirmed that my hips are in great shape. Here's a pretty cool picture of my spine, with an area of cartilage wear. As it turns out, my L1 vertebrae has been wearing down a bit as you can see mostly on the rear end. (the right)



I'm working on physical therapy now to strengthen and stabilize my core, with some frustrating success, but I'm optimistic I'll be able to throw disc again someday, and hopefully play tennis.

I'm making a spreadsheet now to manage the number of exercises and stretches they've shown me in physical therapy, and will post an update in a month! This blog will keep me honest. ;)