Happy Hallowe'en!... (Ken-O-Lantern)...

It's Hallowe'en! and I like carving pumpkins :) During each holiday I try to do something creative... I try to challenge myself and do something interesting each year. This year I decided to challenge myself again... the following is my first attempt at this sort of carving so you'll have to forgive the crappyness :p On with the show!!!

I went to the grocery store and picked up this pumpkin for $2.50 :) Not bad! I wasn't as prepared as I would have liked to be this year... I'm getting forgetful in my old age :p I had to dig around to look for my tools :) The knife set you see there is actually a wood carving set, it serves its purpose when I'm carving pumpkins tho :p To tell you the truth, I don't recommend using wood carving tools to do your deed, since the pumpkin is organic and wet it ends up helping the oxydizing process. You can find pumpkin carving kits if you do some research.

Step 1: Cut out the top of the pumpkin... be sure the point of the knife is going towards the center, otherwies the cover will fall right in instead of resting on top :)

Step 2: Scoop out the guts. Some people like to try and keep clean and ONLY use the spoon... what fun is that? Get right in there! You'll notice if you compare the images below to the image in Step 1 that you can actually scrape out quite a bit of the meat. It went from about 2-2.5 inches thick to 1-1.5 inches. Ideally you want 3/4 inch to 1/2 inch though it's hard to achieve (evenly).



This particular pumpkin didn't have that many seeds. Many people like to use the insides to make pumpkin pie and / or toast the seeds :)

Step 3: Find a pattern you like... AND Carve 'till you're done! :) Actually, you should probably decide on the pattern before you even purchase the pumpkin :p


Unfortunately I didn't have time to complete it in one sitting. I had to continue the evening after. This resulted in a little shrinkage due to the dehydration, thus the smaller eyes and nose O.o

Step 4: Illuminate! Here is the finished product! TA DAH!


Again, considering I didn't take as much time as I would have liked, it's my first time attempting something like this and there was some shrinkage :p from leaving it overnight... I'm satisfied overall :)

For those of you who don't know, I am a regular KennySia.com reader :D

Hey, Kenny! Not many people can say they've had their face on a Jack-O-Lantern ;)

Eye Specialist...

On Thursday I left work early to attend my appointment with the Eye specialist. Surprisingly enough there wasn't a nervous bone in my body :)

I decided it would be a good idea for me to head home first, my dad was free that afternoon so I thought I'd drag him along just in case I wasn't able to drive safely after.

I drove over to the medical building, which coincidentally is the same building that I used to go to for physio. The sitting room wasn't packed, per se, but it was steady / busy. I filled out the paperwork and sat down patiently waiting for my turn.

A few minutes later one of the assistants called me into a room, asked me a bunch of questions (are you allergic to anything? do you wear contacts? etc...), then had me rest my chin on a contraption and made me look into that machine. The picture inside was that of a hot-air balloon floating over a strip of highway. She made me do the same thing with my other eye but this time the hot-air balloon was out of focus. Then I slid over to the next machine... this one was to test the pressure in my eyes. "It's just going to blow some air into your eye... ready?"

I wasn't really ready... even though she counted down. It was the strangest thing. And I felt like a retard because I flinched :p I thought she was going to walk over an punch me twice :D After that was done I went back to reception to wait my turn with the doctor.

Finally a room opened up and I was seated. The guy was running around like a chicken without a head... he sat down and asked what was wrong... blah blah... sty... blah... cyst... So he flips my eyelid and says it's just a sty.

"What do you want to do with it?"
"What can I do?"
"Leave it, or remove it."

To make a long story short, I chose remove it... That entailed him giving me an alcohol eyedrop (wierdest sensation... you can feel the alcohol evaporating :p), shoving a needle into my eyelid to freeze it (yes it's as painful as it sounds) "It's going to burn", he says... Fek, did it ever.
He told me to put some pressure on it and left the room while my eyelids slowly froze over... when he left I took a peek. W.T.F... I friggin looked like Quazimodo, for real. After that he took some strange contraption that resembled a medieval torture implement and clamped + screwed it to my eyelid O.o uh... I think he flipped it at that point too. I'm really not sure what he did after that... cut it out? Scoop it out? Donno... all I know is he said, "There we go, all done".

I then had to sit in the office for about 5 minutes put pressure on my eye and let the bleeding stop before I washed it out and left :) Easy!

Good thing for me I went to fetch my dad first... I'm pretty sure that if I had driven in the condition that I was in I would have much more different tale to tell :p

Here's what I looked like after that procedure...


Nothing spectacular... but you can see the bruise from the needle :/

Walk-In Clinics... Questionable?

My right-eye has been bothering me for a couple of weeks now. Last week I called up my doctor to make an appointment. His receptionist let me know that he was not accepting anymore patients for the day. I asked her if I could make an appointment for the next day and she said he was going to be out of town until the following week (Tuesday). Fek... I was pretty upset. I told her that I was concirned because I am unable to focus properly out of one eye.

"No acceptions", She says.

I've known my doctor for most of my life, his office is literally across the alley from my house, he has taken care of my family and is close with my dad as well. I know if I told her to tell him my name he would have taken me. That's IF I could have convinced her to tell him. Anyway, I made my appointment for Tuesday (today) and that was that.

Later that day my eye got worse, it wasn't able to focus on anything. It's bad enough that everything becomes blurry, but not bad enough that I can't safely drive. So I left work early and headed on over to a walk-in clinic.

Have you ever questioned how safe it is to sit in a room full of strangers suffering from one ailment or another? Emergency rooms, hospitals, clinics... it's all the same. The worst part is when you have someone hacking their brains out sitting next to you.

After about 1 hr sitting on my butt a room opened up for me. I then had to sit there for another 15 minutes before the doctor came in. She seemed nice enough. I remember being able to hear her while she was talking to the other patients in the other rooms. She's the kind of person who really loves her job and likes to make people feel assured. To be honest... it sometimes felt like she was patronizing me :p

I told her about the discomfort and how my eye was bothering me. I told her that I could feel a lump under my eyelid, she even felt it for herself. Her diagnosis - It's most likely a Stye. The treatment - hot compress, baby shampoo wash, and tobramycin eyedrops (antibiotic). I also let her know that it felt like there was something underneath my eyelid scratching my cornea... still, a sty. Oh yeah, before prescribing the eyedrops to me she tells me, "50% of doctors believe that this works and 50% don't". Nice... so why am I wasting my money on it?

Strange thing... when I reminded her again of my problem focussing she decided to get me to read the eye chart... I got down to the second-last row before having problems. What does that mean? It means that even though I am not able to focus properly my eyesight is almost 20/20... wtf.

So here I am almost a week later. The eyedrops and the rest haven't made much difference... and most importantly, my eye is still having trouble focussing. I kept the appointment that I made last week and took the day off to see the doctor. Again I was sitting in a waiting room full of people suffering from god-knows-what. It was well over 45 minutes before I was called on... Oh well, at least I got caught up on my current events :p I managed to read through a few interesting articles in this months Time Magazine.

Finally, my door opened. "Hey kid, what's going on? Are you sick?" :P My physician is great, he's watched me grow up and I never mind visiting him... even though it's never a good thing when you have to visit the doctor. I fill him in on my situation and when I get to the part when the clinic doc said it was a stye I was met with a priceless expression :D his hands dropped down to his sides and he began to shake his head!

"A Stye? Do you know what a stye is? Did she explain it to you"?
"Um... ya. It's like a pimple".
"Yes, a pimple. Pimples don't affect your eyesight!".

I was trying not to laugh because he was do dumbfounded by her diagnosis. He sat me down, turned off the lights and looked at the backs of my eyes. Nothing wrong with my retina... vitrious fluid is ok... there's nothing obvious. So then I got him to feel where the bump was... and reminded him that it feels like there's something scratching my cornea. I layed down on the table and he inverted my eyelid.

"Oooooooh... I see what you mean". It's never a good thing when your doctor sounds surprised O_o
"It looks like you have a meibomian cyst".
"Uhh".
He then proceeds to make his way out of the room and tells me to follow behind him. "Ok, I'm going to refer you to an eye specialist, we have to try to get you there pretty quick".

The receptionist called the specialist and setup an appointment for me. They said that they had a spot open for Friday, but I'm being squeezed in on Thursday.

At this point I'm getting a little worried but after doing a little bit of research it seems that it's a pretty standard operation. We'll see! ...

I Need Exercise...

Do you?...

Body Worlds 3...

! WARNING ! The following post contains extremely graphic pictures

A couple of weekends ago AK and I managed to take some time on a weekend to go to the BodyWorlds 3 Exhibition at the Telus World of Science (formerly: Science World). I had heard about the exhibition on the radio... many other people had seen the adverts on the side/backs of the busses around town or seen spots on the news.

The first time that I had ever heard of the plastination process was actually awhile back. I can't recall what show I was watching, but it was sometime in the mid 90s. Since then I had been fascinated but never thought the show would make it into Vancouver. Actually, I wasn't even aware that they were touring.

AK and I headed out to Science World on a Saturday. When we got there we caught a glimpse of the lineup (this was around 1:30-2pm) it was ridiculous. Aside from the lineup trying to find parking was near impossible. We ended up going to the driving range that day :P... And I'm pretty sure that I pulled a muscle in my back O.o But that's a story for another time. I called another one of my friends that day (KL) and he mentioned that he was also wanting to go to the show. He pointed out something that we should have done before we headed out to the show... pre-purchasing tickets online!!!


After golfing I went home and did some research :) Buying the tickets online was easy enough, so I made a purchase and we tried again the next day (Sunday). The lineup was no shorter than the day before (surprise, surprise) but this time we came prepared. I walked over to the far side of the line and saw the pre-purchase line :D There was no one there! Soooo... if you are planning on going to the show my advice to you is to prepurchase your tickets online!

Our package included:
Entrance to ScienceWorld
Entrance to Bodyworlds exhibition
Entrance to 'The Human Body' Omnimax show.
Total: $30

For another $5 we could have had the Audio tour... which is one of those things that you walk around with and dial in which display you're standing at. I'm pretty sure it just reads to you what you can read yourself. anyway, I didn't think it was necessary so I opted out... AK didn't have a choice because I bought the tickets :p

We entered and then made our way upstairs to the Exhibition entrance. The rest of Science World is mainly Kid's stuff so we didn't bother checking out those displays... I'd seen most of them before.

There was a lineup for Bodyworlds and they were letting people in at set intervals; roughly every 15 minutes. I was excited to be going in, I had my camera ready, etc... then the lady checking tickets had to go rain on my parade and tell me that we were not allowed to take pictures in the exhibition :( Ah well. Everyone else seemed pretty excited too. The recommended time to go through the exhibition is at least 1hr. I made sure we had 2 hrs before the Omnimax show because I knew that I'd be taking my time, reading every word that was written and carefully examining all the displays. In case you're wondering all the displays are made using real cadavers. Many people think that they are just very elaborate mannequins, nope, it's the real deal. For this reason the exhibition has also generated much controversy. It's all a matter of personal opinion.

I could go on-and-on about the exhibition but I'll try to keep it brief. You can, of course, look up other (more professional) reviews and articles. After entry into the exhibition there were a few cases with bones/cross-sections a number of them exhibiting disorders such as arthritis. Not far from the first glass displays is the first of many full-body plastinates. It's amazing the amount of time they must have invested in preparing each of these exhibits. The skin has been stripped off all the bodies exposing the tissue and muscle underneath. There were a couple that showed the joints in the hips, knees, jaws... the interesting thing about those ones were that the joints had been replaced with artificials. I wish I were allowed to take pictures :(


The Horse and Rider is an exhibit that I was hoping to see but was not there.
Further into the exhibit there are a couple of cases that contained specimens composed entirely of blood vessels (arteries & veins). That was trippy. There was a fully-formed rooster composed entirely of vessels. Towards the end they had a cross-section of an obese man. The cross-sections are about 3mm thick. Thin enough for you to be able to see right through and see where the fat deposits were. Then at the very end is the room with fetuses. There was an alternate route for those who would rather not see it. I found that 2 hrs was a good amount of time for us to get through the whole exhibition although, personally, I could have spent all day there. We strolled through the little souvenir shop at the end where I picked up a DVD and a book (~$60) a little on the expensive side, but meh... I like reading about wierd stuff.

After that we, both starving, went to watch 'The Human Body'. It was not a bad film, but nothing new. AK fell asleep partway through :D bugger... I paid for his tickets too!

If the Body World Exhibition ever stops into your City I recommend you go check it out. It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience and its educational merit is invaluable.

I'm A Terrible Friend...

Last month I got a call from JM... he called to check on me... and then remind me that I had forgotten about his 30th Birthday :( How crappy is that.

I'm the kind of person who doesn't like to celebrate my birthday... but sometimes I forget that other people do. Also, as a result of my ways... I am probably one of the worst people when it comes to remembering birthdates. Lucky for me I have a great best-friend. He's cool about it, and managed to have a nice quiet night with his wife. AK & I met up with him a week after and had some nice 'catching-up' time... time is certainly flying... *sigh*

International Sandcastle Competition...

A few weeks back my parents went over to Harrison Hotsprings with some friends... it was an outing to go see the Sandcastle Competition.

This competition is held annualy and draws competitors from all over the world. The competition main event takes place throughout September and the exhibition continues through to early October. Here's a link to the official site. This is going to be more of a photo post... perhaps I should start a flickr account? :p (keep in mind, there were many more entrants than these, AND they are in no particular order... enjoy...