Hi Jay,
They never told me how much of my lobe they took but the surgeon said he
took more
than he had originally anticipated taking because he found some scar
tissue.  The surgery was
pretty easy, I went into the hospital and had my surgery Thursday morning
and came home the following Sunday.
For the first few weeks I slept most of the time but after two weeks I
started going for walks (I was bored to death)
and after a month I went back to work.  I'm right handed but play golf and
baseball left handed.  As far as side affects
there are several,
1. I have a pie shaped blind spot, if I look at a clock dead center I can't
see from about 9:30 to 11:30.  It doesn't create
   a lot of problems, although my head always seems to find open cupboard
doors in the kitchen and if someone threw me something I
   would usually take it in the head before catching it. It's gotten better
over time, your brain seems to compensate for the blind spot.  I can
   play Ping-Pong now and I couldn't just after the operation (couldn't
keep an eye on the ball).
2.  I'm more emotional now, not for most things but it's really embarrassing
when you cry at sad movies.
3.  I find I have to proof read anything I type now because I have a bad
habit of mixing up or dropping certain letters (I'm also turning 45 next
week which could explain a lot)
4.  I find my sense of direction is messed up, before the operation if I was
driving a long distance I could just take a quick look at the map before I
left and never look
   at it again till I got to my destination.  Now I get lost very easy
(it's very frustrating).
5.  My short term memory is not as good as it use to be, I use my palm pilot
a lot just to make sure I'm not forgetting to do something that I should
(that may be a result of
   being in my 40's more than the operation).
6.  My doctor told me that most times after this type of surgery the
patients end up going on some type of anti-depressant, I can understand why
because there are days
    when I seriously consider doing that but know that it's a side effect I
just fight it and don't let it get to me too much.
A few months after the surgery I had two seizures within 3 weeks of each
other (I've never had them that close together before) but since then I
haven't had any problems.
Anyway I've rambled on too long here, if you have any other questions feel
free to ask.

Mike