I need a better choice of words

I have a problem saying Happy Memorial Day. Memorial day is a day that we're supposed to remember those who have fought for our country and died. It really is a solemn occasion. Not something to be happy about. I'd like to thank all of those who have served. Your efforts are appreciated. Regardless of your stance on the wars, make sure you thank the brave men and women that make up the United States Armed Forces.

Making time

I've gotten a lot of news in the past few weeks that have made me re-evaluate some things. It started when I tried to contact a friend from college who lives in Charlotte. I was going to be spending two weeks in Charlotte for work, with a day or two off and I wanted to get together with her and her husband. The letter I got back floored me-

Hey Kevin,
I would have loved to do this, but unfortunately I have surgery scheduled. I was just diagnosed with breast cancer. Clearly I am not doing very well right now, as all I can think about is my 3 year old and 5 mo. Old. Anyway, things have been rough.

I haven't seen her since she was just pregnant with her 3 year old. I was always the person who was great at keeping in touch with everything and making sure that I knew what was going on. I didn't know she was pregnant again and had a second child. Needless to say, I've been trying to keep tabs on her and see how she's doing. I haven't been able to get in touch with her since she had the surgery, but will keep trying.

Next up was finding out that my friend Kristen from high school is moving to Arkansas with her husband because he got a job there. I don't know how I'm going to deal with that. I used to see Kristen almost every day. As we got older and I started traveling more and more, we started to lose touch, but we always managed to know what was going on with each other. We wouldn't see each other for months, yet whenever we saw each other, you'd never know it. The news of her moving to Arkansas really has hit me hard. I still haven't actually talked to her. I know that it'll be tough to choke back the tears when we talk because I'm tearing up now writing this.

All of this has made me realize how I've lost touch with a lot of people that meant something in my life. There was a girl I was friends with a while ago who disappeared off the face of the earth. I did some research and found a new email address for her. I sent her the following email this morning-

Sara-
I've been trying to write this for a long time. I've always wondered where you were and what you were up to. I've wanted to reach out and see how you were doing. I really have no idea what happened. To me it seemed like you were there one minute and gone the next. What finally got me to write was when I found the card you gave me before I left for Pittsburgh. I don't know if you remember that at all, but unfortunately in the end, I did end up with another really good friend. I lived in Pittsburgh until January 2004. Caroline and I both realized that Kristen's wedding actually (it was wedding number 20 in 18 months for us) that would never be us. We were really good friends, but that spark was gone. That said, we both agree that if I had proposed, we would be married now. She's getting married in the beginning of July.

In 2004, I moved back to NJ, living in Jersey City in the waterfront area. I absolutely love the area. It's close to the city, and I can walk anywhere I need to go. I'm currently dating a great woman who is jokingly robbing the cradle. She's 42. Unfortunately she's a Devils fan. She works in TV too. I'm still basically doing the same job that I've always done. I'm traveling all over the place televising sporting events, primarily now for Fox Sports. I do NASCAR from February through June, the MLB All Star Game and Fox's NFL A Game- wherever Joe Buck and Troy Aikman go. This year i'll be the engineer in charge for the Superbowl- my second time for that. I did the Giants superbowl in AZ as well.

Tim is working for another company as an Engineer now. He has 2 more kids. I think both kids from his first marriage are in College now (very scary thought). Jonathan is now married and working for WWE up in Connecticut. Tim (Bartender) is married and is in charge of the new grasshopper in Morristown. He has a baby girl, Saorise, and another on the way. I still email with Mike Murphy occasionally, he's the same. His daughters are all old now, which is scary for me.

I'd really like to meet for dinner or drinks at some point. I don't know where you're living now, so I'll let you pick a place. Although the grasshopper always works :). If you don't want to meet, I understand. I'd really appreciate it if you respond to this though so I know you're ok. It's always bothered me that we just lost touch. You can always call too.

I was disappointed when I got a bounce back stating Diagnostic-code: smtp;550 5.1.1 unknown or illegal alias:

I think it's human nature to want to connect to your past. It's not that I don't like my present or the future, but I don't like losing touch with people, and I fear what I'll miss. I like my friends. I don't want anything to happen to them, and I don't like not knowing what's going on.

I'm going to try my hardest to continue to track down Sara. I'm going to make sure that I make time for my friends, and make sure that I don't lose touch with Kristen, regardless of the distance.

I had cake

I had cake today with lunch (it is a holiday and it was red, white and blue cake). Ninety minutes after eating, I was 133. That's good. I got away with being bad.

What does match know that I don't?

Yesterday morning, I was asked to take a look at someone profile on match.com to give tips. I had an account on match and met a wonderful woman on there. We weren't really a match because of my schedule, but we remain friends. I know several people who have met their mates on match.com or something similar and are happily married. After looking at the profile and giving tips, I see that had this thing called Daily 5. I figured I'd look, what was the worst that could happen.

I did indeed look, and low and behold, I know the person it says is my number 1 match. She and I are friendly, but I haven't seen her in years. I've always thought she was attractive and would be fun to hang out with. Now I'm beginning to think hmmm, maybe we would be a good match. I'm tempted to contact her to let her know and see what she says.

As far as my numbers go, I had more lows yesterday and today. I talked to the doctor today, and he is probably going to reduce my dosage on Tuesday morning. That'll be the first step to being off medication. The downside about that is that he wants me to test myself more often to make sure that I don't go back up consistently high. My goal remains the same. To be totally off medication for diabetes by the end of the year. I don't want to rush it, but I am totally committed to this.

Are you #&*%ing kidding me?

I just got back to my hotel room and there was a wet paint sign on my door handle. The door itself looked like it was cracked slightly open too. I lightly pushed on the door handle and it was indeed open. My hands also slipped on the handle and onto the wet paint. I immediately went down to see the manager (who was 12). He brought security up, we made sure that there was nothing missing from my room. There wasn't. He offered the usual apologies, and offered to buy me a drink tonight. Luckily for him, I'm not currently drinking.

All in all, it's not that bad. I got some paint on my fingers which washed off and and I walked to a place for dinner because I didn't think I should make the room service dude knock on the wet paint, although that may be justice. When I came back 45 minutes later, the wet paint sign was off the door handle, but the paint is still wet. What I don't get is why they had to paint the door. It looked perfectly fine and was already not closing properly due to multiple coats of paint.

As for the diabetes, today was a back to normal day for me. My numbers today were between 83-135. Perfectly normal. I have no explanation as to what happened yesterday.

Roller coaster of numbers

It was never my intention to make this a blog about me or medical things, but with my recent diabetes diagnosis, I need a place to outlet information. Maybe someone will stumble upon it and offer some comments.

Today I did nothing out of the ordinary for me. I woke up and was at 98. Not a bad fasting number. I ate a Quaker Oats bar for breakfast. Normally I have one of those or Cheerios for breakfast. Occasionally I'll have a bagel. Before I was diagnosed with diabetes, I rarely ate breakfast. If I did, it would have been a Sausage McMuffin and a Coke. Not exactly the way to start of the day, but I digress. I didn't really do anything this morning. Two hours after eating, I was at 61. That's low. So Low, that my meter told me so. To get myself back up, I had a Kit-Kat mini and a small Reeses Cup. Thirty minutes later I was at 115. Not bad, but almost on the high side. Forty minutes later as I was leaving for lunch, I was back down to 78.

Knowing that I was trending low- very low, I was a little reckless at lunch today. We went to Five Guys and I had a cheeseburger and some fries. Basically whatever didn't fit in the cup they put the fries in. 90 minutes after eating, I was up to 180. That's very high. Thirty minutes later -- 2 hours after eating, I was at 126. Three hours after eating, I was 106. An hour later, I was 51. This afternoon I pretty much sat around and did nothing. At least in the morning I was on my feet and doing some occasional walking. I immediately went and had a Special K bar, and thirty minutes later I was 84. An hour later on my way to dinner I was 77. Dinner was a grilled chicken Caesar salad. I also had 2 small mozzarella sticks. They were yummy. Mozzarella sticks used to be a staple of my diet. I was going with the everything in moderation notion there. So, here I sit an hour after eating and I'm 99. I can't wait to see my 2 hour post eating number.

It should be noted that I've only had water to drink for the past three weeks, so it's not like that's skewing my numbers. Also, I've felt OK during most of this. When I was at 180 was when I felt funny. I didn't feel ok at 51, but not as bad as I felt at 180. I'll update the blog later with my 2 hour number.

My body is not making this easy

I am 100% committed to getting off medication by the end of the year. I am going to do it. My body while seemingly happy about the changes I've made in my life, is starting to resist a little bit.

First it was shin splints over the weekend. For the first time EVER, I had shin splints while on the treadmill. They were so bad that I got off the treadmill and stretched for a few minutes and then got back on. I was doing fine for a while, ad then when I went to speed up, they came back. I decided to cut my losses and go for a longer period of time at the slower speed.

On Monday when I went to the gym while stretching, I felt something pop in my left leg. Nothing major, I was able to continue stretching and jog my usual 5k. This morning when I woke up, I was in pretty intense pain on the right side of my back. I don't know what caused this, but now, 15 hours later, it's still bothering me just lying down and excruciating when I try to walk. I didn't go to the gym today.

My numbers on the high side higher than they have been lately, peaking at 150 2 hours after eating, but under an hour later, I can be 80. I had much better control of my blood sugar on days when I get a good workout at the gym. I can only hope tomorrow will be a better day.

A life changer

On April 29th I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. This shouldn't have been a surprise to me considering I am overweight, have a family history of diabetes and at the time drank probably 2-3 liters of Coke a day. My numbers when I went to the doctor were extremely high. A normal person should have a blood sugar between 70-120, occasionally spiking as high as 140 after eating. My blood sugar was 353 when tested at the doctors office.

In the 3+ weeks since the diagnosis, I have had to take a pill twice a day. I have to test my blood sugar at least six times a day. I've cut out all soda. I haven't had a caffeinated (or carbonated) beverage at all. I've gone to the gym 5-6 times a week, walking/jogging a 5k ever day. I've been more careful with what I eat and when I eat it. I'm looking at labels, trying to be smart about the amount of sugar and carbs I put in my body. I've cut out alcohol. I'm eating broccoli. I've cut out most potatoes. Unfortunately I was never a big sweet eater, so there wasn't much to cut out there.

The doctor initially wanted me to lose 100 pounds. I'm 6'2", and was 280lbs. I liked the prospect of losing 60-70lbs. We settled at 80lbs. When diagnosed as a diabetic, all my other numbers were excellent except for my triglycerides. They were at 325, which is about 180 points higher than what is considered good. When I went back for my 2 week check up, I had lowered my triglycerides by 225 points. I had lost 12 pounds. The doctor was very impressed with my progress so far, and has said that if I lose another 20-25lbs, I will probably be off medication.

My blood sugar for the most part has been much better. I can tell a difference in my moods and my ability to concentrate. I still occasionally have blurry vision, but that is probably due to my blood sugar levels still getting under control. By testing myself so often, I learn how different things affect my numbers. When I exercise in the morning, my numbers for the whole day are generally better. When I get in the 150 range, I start to get tired and have a hard time concentrating.

I don't know what the future holds for me. I can tell you I hate the thought of having to take a pill every day for the rest of my life. I plan on doing everything I can to not have to do that. We'll see how it goes as the year goes on.

You never know what you'll find...

My job has a lot of interesting people. It also has a lot of independence. Sometimes, when you take one of those interesting people and you put them alone in a dark room, great things happen -- you might end up with an award winning idea or broadcast. Other times, you end up with something you want nothing to do with.

Over the past few weeks, there have been rumors swirling around the compound that one particular person has had dates meet them in the compound, spend a few hours with them, perhaps exchange massages in the dark room the person spends all their time in. It has needless to say made some people feel uncomfortable in their work environment. Two weeks ago, someone noticed that this individual was on a website that they shouldn't have been on. As the administrator of the computer network, I was asked by that persons administrator if I could either confirm or deny the claims of visiting the pornographic website. I do possess that ability, and much to my chagrin, I was able to confirm it.

It's not uncommon in my industry to walk past a bunch of people looking at some girl on youtube with large breasts, or perhaps a girl flashing from last nights game on a "highlight" reel. That kind of behavior is almost accepted in the trucks. What makes this persons actions different is that he is visiting gay websites. That is why people are saying something, and it's making them feel uncomfortable.

I'm not a fan of people openly looking at girls in the truck, but I'm not against it either. I'm not going to lie and say that I've never stopped and watched whatever they were looking at. I also am very uncomfortable with the double standard that exists - that it's "ok" to look at straight porn, but when it is gay porn it's a problem.

I talked to the owner of my company about it in generic terms since there are potential legal repercussions here. Initially, he asked can I block that person from getting online. The answer to that question of course is yes, but it's not that simple. Here's what's going to happen. The person's supervisor is going to confront him with logs of information tracked over the weekend, presenting it as a case that the person was surfing the internet while we were on the air and they should have been working. The person will know at that point that he has been outed, because the websites visited are right there. I'm working on a proxy page that every person will have to go to starting next week when they first log on to the truck network. It will outline an Acceptable Use Policy that you have to agree to in order to continue. At that point, you will be able to get on the internet, knowing that your traffic is being monitored, and filtered for porn. Unfortunately for those who complained about this, they will be blocked from going to any porn sites they may have visited as well.

All of this means more BS work for me. I can't wait until next week when people start asking why is there all of a sudden an Acceptable Use Policy they have to agree to.