As many of you probably know, I spent all of last week on vacation on The Jam Cruise. For those not familiar with the cruise, it’s basically a music festival or Jazz Fest on a cruise ship. This particular year, most of the artists are of the Jazz, Blue Grass, or Jam variety but there were a few electronic-style musicians as well such as Pretty Lights, Sound Tribe Sector Nine and Lotus.

FFrom the moment that I got to the airport, I started meeting fellow Cruisers. Pete and I managed to meet at least a dozen people before even setting foot on board the MSC Poesia, as everyone was super-excited. As soon as we got onboard the ship, we had a blast. We quickly set up our door decorations and were off to explore the ship. Much like last year, the main venues were the Pool Deck, the Theater located in the bow of the ship, the Zebra Lounge (similar to the Leopard Lounge from last year), the Jam Room and the Disco (both of which were located in the very rear of the boat).

The music was absolutely phenomenal. Now that I am much more well-versed in the artists themselves, I was much more aware of who was sitting in and playing with the other bands throughout the week. For me, the highlight had to be the Galactic set in the Teatro theatre or George Porter’s Super Jam from the last night on the Pool Deck.

To make the adventure even more fun, I managed to pull out a new costume (or variation on a previous costume) just about every single night. This made it so much more fun and made me look forward to running around each night in a different outfit. Compared to last year, when I had nothing out of the ordinary to wear even on the theme nights — this made the trip even crazier.

I think the best part of the week — and what I’ve been struggling to deal with all this week, was the great people that I met. From the people that I closely connected with over the week to those random characters that I’d just see periodically throughout the trip, everyone was so incredibly fun and awesome — that I miss all my new Jam Cruise friends.

It’s been difficult transitioning back into a normal work environment. Since the middle of December, things have been in chaos / holiday mode — and now things are settling back into the regular work groove that encompasses the majority of the year. Fortunately, there’s some good shows coming up here in San Francisco, so I’ll be able to get my groove back on fairly quickly.

All-in-all, I think I speak for everyone when I say that a good time was had by all… and I’ve already pre-booked for Jam Cruise 9 next year. If you’re interested, here are my photos from the trip:

After my discharge from Beth Israel hospital in New York City this past Monday, I quickly flew back to California to rest and recover. The parting words from the doctor went something like:

You will probably have some pain for the next few days, but as long as it progressively gets better you will be alright. Within a week, you should probably be feeling back to normal.

With that advice, I resumed a semi-normal life back in San Francisco. For some reason, though, yesterday I started to feel almost worse than I had in several days. Throughout most of the day while I was working from the confines of my comfy bed, I noticed that my pain level was increasing. Additionally, I was pretty much in constant pain all day long — no matter what I did.

Fearing the worst, around 5pm I realized that it was best to go back to the hopsital to ensure that I hadn’t had another flare-up. Considering that the flare-up last Friday came out of the blue, I’ve been concerned that it could suddenly get worse without much warning. My thought process was to go to the hospital, get my lipase levels checked, and make sure that I am not having a relapse. If I was, I’d have plenty of time to recover in the hospital prior to my trip next weekend.

The hospital was insane. I spent approximately 2 hours in the waiting room, but fortunately my Kindle helped me pass the time. In all honesty, I thought I was going to be admitted — so much in fact that I had packed an “overnight bag” with all my essentials and called a cab.

In the past 5 months, I’ve now been to four different hospitals in three cities. That said, I feel as though I have become somewhat of a connoisseur. After my visit to UCSF last night, I was thoroughly impressed not only with the staff but also the facilities. While they didn’t have the futuristic “swipe your forehead and behind the ear” thermometers that Beth Israel has, but it was pretty nice. Very private ER rooms with high tech equipment.

With the exception of my surprisingly low heart rate that I’ve had for the past week, there was nothing found to be wrong with me. The doctor explained that it was natural to feel concerned and explained to me the signs that I should look for as indications that my symptoms are getting worse. Those are primarily: Fever, Vomiting, Nausea, and significantly increased abdominal pain.

What slightly concerned me, I suppose, was that I had none of these symptoms last Friday when I was admitted to Beth Israel. The pain I was having was similar to what I was experiencing yesterday, though it came out of the blue. By 2:00 AM, I was discharged from my second hospital in three days.

Surprisingly, today, I feel fantastic. Maybe it’s that I’m mentally aware that my body is healing or maybe yesterday was the “farewell” pancreatitis pain that my body was coping with. I’ve had some mild pain here and there, but for the most part this is the best I’ve felt since last Thursday.

My plan is to take it easy for the next few days in hopes of maybe going back to the gym on Saturday. I am missing out on the Latke Ball tonight in San Francisco (the largest young Jewish party of the year) — but so it goes. If missing tonight prevents me from missing the largest music festival on the high seas —  well, I’ll make that sacrifice.