What Appendicitis feels like, Portfolio updates, China & Visa

I’ve been getting asked recently, what does an appendix that is about to explode feel like?

Well – to me at least – it felt like getting sucker punched without the immediate impact of the punch.That is, just the aftermath. And it just hung around for hours. Then I started puking everywhere. With a fever. I couldn’t sit still, and needed any slight pressure on my body increased the pain.  It took 5 hours of this before I went to the hospital at 6 AM. About 14 hours later, I had blood tests, CT scans, urine tests, etc. etc. and was then under the knife.  I should also say, my symptoms weren’t normal – the doctors weren’t sure if I had appendicitis until after they operated.

I now have 2 or 3 inch cut in my abdomen and 6 staples holding it shut. I get them out today. It’s hard to move around, but I am healing quick.

Portfolio updates: I cut XRAY today, $37.38. one of the reasons I bought was price strength, that’s gone for the time being. I’ll buy it back, probably more expensive later. I owe the option traders a thanks, call buyers have let me reduce CROX down to about $30 and I’m still covered with calls – It’s a shoe company folks, they are going to make new styles of shoes, they will sell like other shoes. It will eventually have a PE of 15 again. I’m out of leveraged gold, I want to get back into Yamana, just the stock – SOON.

China is about to apparently open up shorting in the months to come – should be interesting, to say the least

Mark your calendars for the Visa IPO, March 20th – that’s a basket of worms for many reasons. Business Week wrote about some of the worms, I shared via google reader.