Moonrise Kingdom

 Recently I went to the movies with my family.  My wife calls me a movie bully because I always bully the two of them to see the movie I want to see.  Now that is of course half true, I usually want the movie to be at least kind of enjoyed by all parties.  This time though I was not going to stand down and I was set on seeing the movie "Moonrise Kingdom."  The movie is set in 1965 where a twelve year old boy and girl fall in love and run away.  This seems like your usual simple plot but what is not usual or simple about this movie is the way Wes Anderson puts his touches on it and makes you feel almost in the movie.

 This movie was real easy for me to enjoy first with its focus on what they call in the movie as "Khaki Scouts" which are exactly like normal scouts just with a touch of differences.  The color and feel of the island makes this all seem like an adventure land and mix that with the way it was filmed and we can all put ourselves in one of these "Khaki" scouts personalities or at least somebodies personality on the island.

 The movies by Wes Anderson are very quirky with this sense of humor that makes me laugh like a hyena with how it is presented on film.  Anderson has made other movies that fall in my top ten such as Rushmore, The Royal Tennonboms, and one of his first films Bottle Rocket.  If you have seen any of these films or any of Anderson's other films, this one fits right in line with the same humor and quirkiness. 

Once the movie was over and I had a smile from ear to ear my son lets me know that he thought of it as the dumbest movie he has seen (I think he was over-exaggerating a little) and my wife said it would have been a good rental.  Then I personally loved the movie and can't wait to see it at home on rental.  The movies develops the characters nicely, and even though the movie moves slow at times it works to help set everything up.  My wife and son let me know that they would have rather seen The Avengers or The new Spider man movie.  Those movies for some reason do not give me that want to go out and see them in the big house and I think the reason is because I personally am getting burned out on these high graphics, low plot movies.  Moonrise Kingdom in my humble opinion is the great summer movie because it wasn't digitally enhanced or with action all the time, but rather it was like a book (if I can remember how books go it has been so long) to where you can put yourself in the movie and become part of it.  Of course down the road I will see all the action movies and I am not trying to say that action/adventure/high graphic movies do not appeal to me because those Resident Evil movies are killer awesome and I can't wait to see the new one.  Until then I give Moonrise Kingdom 5 syringes out of 5 syringes for its great diabetes appeal with a feel good ending.  Can't we all just have one simple movie this summer that is not full of computer graphics, violence, really bad people, diseases, issues, and all other sorts of stuff.  So all you diabetics go out and see Moonrise Kingdom and escape your insulin fears for 93 minutes.

Be aware of bad generics!

 Over the weekend I was doing some shopping for a couple of last minute items for my sons nine day backpacking trip.  The things he needed were matches, a pack cover, and biodegradable soap.  My favorite place to check for simple items like this is my friendly Walmart.  While in the camping section there were a few new items they carry and I wanted to do a big warning to all of you that these items are not like the real thing so stay clear or at least understand what you are getting.  First is the "s-clip" you see above which is a poor attempt at re-creating the great "s-biner" by Nite eyes.

Here is a picture of the real deal "s-biner" that you should get if you want to attach water bottles, key chains, or survival gear to something.  Notice how the real "s-biner" is nice and rounded, wit a quality look to it.  Then notice the "s-clip is rough around the edges and looks like a meth head made it in his backyard out of some copper wire he stole from an air conditioning core.  The price is almost exactly the same and you will be much happier by not spending your money on the bad generic and just get a real Nite Eyes "s-biner."

Here is the next item that works as a descent cord but should never be thought of as the real "para-cord" that can hold actual weight.  The above is like your shoe laces (maybe even lower quality than your shoe laces) that is an all around product that will help you lash poles together, guy lines on your tent, or make a clothes line.  Just never use this as a means to support your weight in some sort of life or death situation.

Above is real para cord or what is known as 550 cord because it can hold 550 lbs.  This is the good stuff and costs maybe a dollar more than the cheap poly cord.  Why the difference?  Well para cord has seven individual strands in it that by themselves can hold 50 lbs each.  Then the outer shell has some sort of 32 flavors woven together that give it the rating of 200 lbs so together you get 550 lbs total weight.  This stuff can be used to save your life or just like poly cord as a lashing rope, guy line for your tent, or a clothes line.  When purchasing para cord you can find about a billion websites that sell it and just like fabric the more you buy the cheaper it gets just remember this stuff is pretty hard to cut so if you are buying lets say like 1,000 feet so you can make 10 100ft sets you might want to think about investing in one of those hot knives.

What have we learned today?  From my previous posts you know there are all sorts of great generic items out there that work as good as the name brand equipment but there are items out there.  Then there are generics out there that are not worth anything and to avoid them like those weirdo's with diabetes (just kidding, I have diabetes).  Walmart does cary all sorts of great products just make sure you check in with me if you have any questions, comments, or concerns:  DaveHennesey@hotmail.com

How about a slice of artisian bread?

 I will tell you all something and that is to pay attention to what your friends are doing or anyone for that matter and don't be afraid to ask questions.  Back in May my friend Paul was purchasing all the food for our camping menu's during our climbing and rappelling certification trainings.  One thing he did was buy us cold cuts and stuff to make sandwiches.

Instead of buying some nasty half stale, dry, and probably going to be soggy sliced bread for these cold cut hoagies he bought some cheap artisan style sandwich rolls.  Sometimes the little things make all the difference and if you have ever had a plain Jane bologna sandwich on a camping trip, try next time to spend an extra 30 cents or so and get some fancy bread.  The fancy bread not only tastes better, it holds up better in your pack, and it also is a bit stiffer so it does not get soggy.  The other people that attended the trips were completely jealous of us an our super hoagies.  Remember just because you go camping it does not mean you have to eat roots and fried squirrel.  You can do simple things to make it an excellent experience.  The example in these pictures is my lunch today because we did not eat all our food last weekend so I get awesome hoagies for lunch.

Not sure if any of you watch commercials like I watch commercials but right now Red Stripe beer has the funniest commercials on the planet.  This dude reminds me of myself a bit.

Straps

 Yesterday I was out trying to find a nice running route around my office because we have some nice wide trails all around but they are all like one mile long and so I have to do alot of field crossing or road running.  So back to the story, I was trekking a new route to run and was having a bad run in the first place and second I found all sorts of places with no trails then I came upon this buffalo.  Now I love buffalo and at the time I was ready for a walk break so I thought it was time to get a photo. 

 Here is an up close picture of the buffalo which I knew they had them on this property I just was so lost that I did not realize I was running along the HP office complex.  HP used to be EDS and they kept cows and buffalo on the parts of the campus that was open fields so that first they had a tax break, Second, who is going to jump a fence with buffalo on the other side?  This also points out the reason that I keep pushing all of you to get out even if you are in the middle of town there is still adventures and wildlife to see.

 When people go trunk camping or car camping as it may be called, which is where you load up the car, truck, or SUV and park it at an outdoor place and camp near by you need to get yourself some cheap ratchet straps.  These straps are essential to every day life and to camp with a bunch of gear and stuff.  What makes a ratchet strap awesome is their ability to mechanically get tighter than you are able to pull with your wimpy little diabetic arms.  The picture above is of the ten dollar set from harbor freight and I have a pair of them and they have saved my but at least ten times so far and I always keep them in the truck with me.

 Here is a picture I found off the inter-web of someone using ratchet straps to hold down some expensive 6x6 cedar logs which each one probably weights a solid 75 pounds each and from the look of it they are longer than his truck bed.  If he would have used some good on twine or even rope there is a good chance with a hard take off or stop these timbers can shift and fall off his bed causing injury to others and we never want that.  That is why you make sure your gear is secure before you drive off into the sunset because it is not your life that may be in danger but others. 

I wanted to show you a picture of something to the untrained diabetic eye might think is a ratchet strap but is not.  The picture above is of a simple strap which just holds the webbing taunt instead of like a ratchet strap pulling the webbing mechanically tight.  Look at the metal piece in this one and compare it to the orange straps.  The orange straps have a device that moves up and down so that it cranks the wheel tighter and your load is held down with mechanical force.  The black strap above simply hooks onto two points and you pull the webbing and the metal part just holds it in place with friction.  So once you have read this post and you make the decision to move up in the world from twine spend the extra three to five bucks to get a set of ratchet straps and not gear straps or cargo straps.  Make sure the package says ratchet on it and usually they have the handles exposed out of the package so you can play with the actual ratcheting part.  Once you have mastered the ratchet you will find awesome other uses for them such as airing up tubeless tires.  The thing about a tubeless tire such as one on a kids tricycle or a wheel barrel is that you have to uniformly squeeze the bulge part of the wheel so that the sides make a complete seal on the rim and a simple ratchet strap can be placed on the tire, strapped to where the sides make a solid seal, then you just get a small amount of air in the tire and take the ratchet off and you just saved yourself ten bucks from having to take it to a shop to do the exact same thing.

When is a Pixie stick a medical device?

 You know what is good with hanging out with other diabetics?  It is when they share free samples with you.  On my recent bike ride two weeks or so ago the leader of the pack, lets call him Jeff had some freebies for everyone to try and one of them was this "Quick Sticks" glucose stuff. 

 I fee right now we are really in a diabetes Renaissance period where we have new medical devices coming from all sides and fast acting insulin's that allow us to eat what we want and balance life with good carb counting.  Then the last is all the day to day things that make life closer to like those normal peoples lives such as insulin pumps and CGM devices.  There are those times though that even with a 24/7 watch of what we eat, do, and think about diabetes we can still get a little low and what the un-named person called "Jeff" gave me were these pixie stick'ish, glucose cocaine, sour low stuff that was quite interesting.

 These "Quick Sticks" have 10 grams of carbs and act pretty quick in the system (hence the name Quick Stick) but what they really appeal to are the inner diabetic kids inside of each of us.  These are really sour (I would like to try the watermelon ones to compare) just like any sugary kid treats with a neat packaging that makes them look like they are for everyone but, when you start reading all the information they are mainly for diabetics.  How cool is this and if I were younger these are what would be in my stone washed 16 year old Levi Strauss blue jean pockets to look like a normal kid with candy that is made for diabetics or something like that.

While reading the packaging it looks like "Quick Sticks" is working hard to get out and in the public diabetes eyes with their texting, book of facing, and tweetering written all over the package.  If you have kids or have an inner diabetic kid inside you I would definitely recommend these as an alternative to boring glucose tabs or as a change of scenery to your glass of OJ or banana, or whatever you do when the meter  says: "46" or something ridiculous like that.  Check them out at www.quicksticks.com and of course they would love for you to thumbs up them on the book of faces.  Disclaimer:  I received these from a person that had free samples and he nor anyone paid for my review, and "Quick Sticks" is welcome to give me any amount of support to help fund my goal of getting type ones outdoors.  So maybe in the future I might be lucky enough to pursue them to give me a bucket of pennies but for right now Please just understand it was a free sample and I am always willing to accept sponsorship dollars from any company.

How hot is too hot for camping?

This weekend did a quick camping trip in the wonderful 107 degree heat with the humidity levels in the stratosphere because rain was all around us just not on us.  The picture above is my trying to get a picture of "Ol One Eye" as I named him.  He is the lead raccoon that kept coming to our camp to terrorize me.  You ask why I call him "Ol One Eye," well that is because he only had one eye as you can see from my horrible picture above.  After 10 sneak attacks and 50 pictures later, this is the best I could get before he would bow up to me and give me the wink of the eye that if I took one more step towards him I might be one eyed just like him.

Now I like to keep something in the tent with me at night in case my BG's get a little low and I can easily reach over and snack on some gummy worms or something but with "Ol One Eye" roaming the camp with his band of brothers that lurked at the edge of the woods I knew that snacks in the tent was not a good idea.  The first thing we did was move the trash can just out of camp but not too far where it would be a lure for them instead of our camp.  This created a diversion to keep "Ol One Eye" focused on the trash can and not my sweet diabetic toes and stuff.  Then I made sure my BG's were slightly elevated so that to reduce the possibility of a midnight low.  Also another thing is my elevated BG's was good because the heat plus high humidity, plus camping outdoors can do strange things with your numbers and one night of an elevated BG is not going to kill me but if I got too low then that would be a serious issue (even though a brand new hospital was like 5 miles away).  If we had been doing something other than trunk camping then I would have hung a diabetes bag in the general area of my tent so I could get to my gummy worms in a short period of time.  Now I would not put the diabetes bag real close to your tent because if it did attract raccoons then they would be all over your tent trying to get the bag out of the tree, so remember general area but not too close or too far.

The coolest thing we did was one boy brought a light up Frisbee and we played night Frisbee and had a blast since it was only 89 degrees at night.  The night Frisbee was probably the highlight of the trip and now I realize that to camp in north Texas in July and August to plan on resting during the day and playing cool night games.  Also with the high humidity it was great for spider spotting.  You ask what is "spider spotting?"  The sport of spider spotting is when the spiders are all out at night because of the right conditions and with a flashlight their eyes glimmer like small diamonds and you can find every one of them and have fun trying to see which types of spiders are in your area.

This is the funniest commercial on the planet and I wish that I was invited to this cool kid party.  I saw this commercial on TV and rewound for 20 minutes just listening to it.  These guys know how to party.

Kohls coupons

 Every month I get a 10 dollar gift certificate coupon thing from Kohl's department store and every month I say "Hey I am going to use this free money this month."  Then time goes by and it expires and I bought nothing.  Then when I do make an effort and remind myself to go and save some green on new clothes I walk around like a mental patient that just escaped out of the hospital with his dairy air showing out of the back.  I can't figure out what I want from Kohl's.  Now, I am not sure how nationwide Kohl's department store is so if you are wondering what I am talking about just think of a department store that doesn't sell real nice things but they sell middle of the road stuff.  Like instead of carrying "Polo" they Carry "Chaps" which is nice just not "Polo" and I am rough on my clothes so to waste good diabetes money on clothes I am not really into or is going to wear out pretty fast than I can just throw the gift certificate coupon things in the mail till I know what I need.

 Then one day it hit me while trying to find a way to convert all my whitie tightie cotton underwear to those fancy high performance "sport" underwear I took my gift card coupon thing into Kohl's and found out they sell this stuff there and not just that they sell these fancy undies there they are almost always on sale.  The only issue is they don't make the fancy "sport" underwear in the whitie tightie style but instead you have to get them with the compression legs built in.  Why do I need to compress my legs and keep my junk in the right place with the same undergarment?  Anyways, I found the above Adidas undies that were as close to whitie tightie style as I could find.  These models are called "trunk" which cracks me up like I need to have "trunk" associated with a pair of my undies.  So the undies were originally 24 bucks, but Kohl's had them buy one get one half off which made them 36 and with my 10 dollar gift card coupon thing they came out to 24 bucks for four pairs of Adidas "trunk" style performance "sport" underwear.  Now ever month I will go and pick up a few new ones and soon will be all "sporty" with my undies.  The reason I am making the switch is because usually during the weekdays I love my whitie tighties but on the weekends in the summer and when its warm I like to wear shorts.  Now when camping I like to wear what are known as boat shorts that are kind of like underwear but with a gazillion pockets and built in underwear but they are not really appropriate in public so now with my new undies I can wear any pair of fancy shorts without built in underwear and not have to worry about chaffing from cotton whitie tighties.  At this point everyone is saying: Dave this is way too much information, but now you too can use your Kohl's gift card coupon thing and save money for more insulin or glucose tablets.

My friend Mason sent me this picture of a t-shirt he picked up in Maine.  I laughed so hard and thought I had to share it with the world.  Such a fun play on words.

Sock update

 I wanted to give an update on my "sole pleasers" diabetic socks I first reviewed back on January 10th of 2012.  So it has been about six months since www.socks4life.com sent me these socks and I must say they are quickly becoming one of my favorite socks to wear with khaki's or some black tennis shoes while mowing the lawn or maybe just sitting around the house in a nice old pair of whitie tighties and a mustard stained wife beater undershirt (those last two are of course jokes, I would never do either of those).

 All of us young type one diabetics have always had such funny jokes about diabetic socks and what the heck they are good for or are they considered diabetic socks because they don't have any sugar in them?  Well the truth is that some smart person told me that the difference is actually something in the construction of the sock is not binding around the leg but instead woven to where the grip comes from the vertical something another.  That is about where my A.D.D. kicked in and I just heard Charlie Browns teacher talking from then on but, I was convinced and wanted to try and now I am a believer that they really do feel different than normal people socks even without the sugar in them.

The biggest concern I had with these socks was that if they would hold up over time or would my big toe and pinkie toe be sticking their heads out after some time.  From the pictures you can see that there are no holes or even noticeable wear on the socks and I wear these guys probably once a week or so.  Now I don't camp in these socks and they are not tube or dress socks.  They are really good to wear with blue jeans or khaki's in an IT meeting and you want to fit in.  If you have never tried sugar free diabetes carb counting socks then I definitely would say to go to www.socks4life.com and buy a pair or two. 

Disclaimer: I received a 25 dollar gift card from www.socks4life.com to purchase several different pairs of socks to try and review for them.  The website has not paid me for this review nor has anyone ever given me a single freakin dime for all this hard work to keep you diabetics safe and sound in the outdoors so if you want to sponsor me or have a company that wants to advertise with The Diabetic Camper feel free to contact me and we can spread the word on camping with diabetes to more people.  The reason I reccomend you purchasing from socks4life is because they really wanted me to first help them verify that the socks they carry were of the highest quality and second they worked with me to find socks that fit my lifestyle so feel free to contact them with all your questions because they really are good people with freakin great prices.

Encyclopedia Brown

 The great author Donald J. Sobol passed away last week and that made me a bit sad because he was my favorite author during my grade school years.  I loved reading Encyclopedia Brown books and one year I had one of those read-o-thon things and I read enough books to get a free banana split.  That was the best banana split ever (because I had to read to get it).

 That was about my extent for the love of books.  I now read books that you would refer to as "magazines."  These so called "magazines" leave out all the bla bla bla boring stuff and give me what my A.D.D. brain needs and none of the fluff.  One time when I was seriously sick as a kid with watery farting diarrhea my mom read my Encyclopedia Brown books to me and I would try to solve the cases.  That is about the time my mother realized I would never be a private detective or any sort of detective.  Not a once did I solve the case like Brown did and going back a few years ago I read one of the books and uh pretty simple stuff to figure out, don't know why I could never do it as a kid.

When my son was younger I wanted to share the books I read as a child to give him a feel for what it was like for me.  My wife did this with him for all the books she read as a child and he loved them all so I was pretty pumped that Encyclopedia Brown was going to be a big hit and I could go out and buy the entire collection for him to read.  Then just after reading one book he said to me, uh that book was boring and I realized at that moment it took a special kind of kid to appreciate the good books of Encyclopedia Brown.  Now with Donald J. Sobol passing away it seems like I am getting further and further from being a kid any more.  One day I am going to have to be responsible and take care of a family (wait I am already grown up with a family?).  Until then I will  stick to reading my fancy books called "magazines."  I still remember writing my first book report on Ramona Quimby age 8 which was apart of another great series of good old books.  They need to write books like these again instead of all the ones with kids and their adult issues.  Let kids be kids again and use their "imagination" again.

Eye in the sky...

The Alan Parsons Project- Eye in the Sky Album:Eye in the Sky (1982)

 One day at work someone asked me if I had a band aid because first I am an eagle scout and they always test me to see if I am prepared and second because I am the diabetic that carries a purse full of drugs and drug paraphernalia.  It took me a bit but I did finally find my band aids and they were happy to have something to cover their paper cut.  While I was going through my hoarders episode of medical crap collectors I came across a small bottle of eye drops and that got me thinking of why I keep eye drops with me.

 If you know anything about me you know that all the luck I have is bad luck and recently I not only scratched 85% of the skin thingy on my eye but I decided to do it again while getting my rock climbing and rappelling instructor certification.  Since those two life changing events (OK maybe eye changing events) I now carry eye drops in my pump supply purse (which fits in my larger purse) and also a bottle in my truck and another bottle at my house.  The reason for all this is for all you out there that have never had a piece of dirt in your eye or never poked it with a stick or even just had an eye irritation but ANYTHING IN YOUR EYE HURTS LIKE HELL!!!  This is just a secret hint for all you out there that have a standard first aid kit and have not modified it to work in a diabetics life.  This is one of those things I keep in my hoarders episode of medical crap collectors bag, because being out in the woods or further than 30 miles from a walmart and to get something simple in your eye and having to try to wash it out with your wonderful iodine laden swamp water is not going to work that well or what most people do is just rub it till the whole lens is scratched and you still have the crap in your eye so just having a simple thing of natural tears goes along way and weighs nothing in your first aid kit.  I would also say a safety pin should be with this and also dental floss or one of those plucker's things.  These are all around our houses but in nature there is no safety pin trees or dental floss grass for when yo get turkey jerky lodges so deep in your gums it feels like you would almost pull your teeth out to get it.  Trust me you will thank me later for this advice.

 OK, here is something I saw last Friday as I left work and headed to Kohl's to get some underwear with my 10 dollar off coupon.  I have seen some dumb things people do with their cars, but this is probably one of the most stupid I have seen in a longtime.  What car needs a mustache on the hood?  Yeah that is right, none!  This person probably paid 60 bucks for this thinking they were cute and now their car is the laughing stock of the parking lot.

I can just imagine when they take this car into the dealership to trade it in for some sort of upgrade and they want more money because all the money you put into it like a stupid mustache.  Would you list this on the eBay motors posting?  Nice KIA with low miles green metallic in color and comes with the optional mustache on the hood.  Simply ridiculous but it stopped me and I am putting it on my blog.  Someone was telling me that they saw a Volkswagen bug with eye lashes on the headlights.  I would put that in the same category as a mustache on the car department which is the "How can I get people to make fun of me while I lower the value of my car at the same time" category.

I'm looking for a heartbeat

Don Johnson "Heartbeat" (1986)



 I have been looking for months now trying to find a heart rate monitor so I can see why I am the slowest sugar diabetic runner on the planet.  The more I run the slower I go?  How is this possible?  So I thought to do a little research and wanted to see what my heart rate was during my run so I could adjust from there.

 The first thing was to figure out what I wanted in this device.  Of course I wanted a heart rate monitor and the time then I thought hey what about GPS with a down loadable route with speed?  Then I went to the store and all of those came off the table because they wanted at least 400 bucks for something with all those features.  Then I adjusted my wants and needs list and decided to just find a heart rate watch that did not require a chest strap.  Someone once told me the straps can chafe you in the wrong places.  Then while surfing eBay one day I found the unit you see in these pictures that was a watch, stop watch, calorie calculator, and of course a heart rate monitor.  The price was 6.99 with shipping included and I was so happy because how hard is it for a company to make a heart rate monitor?  All they had to do is install two fingers that count the pounds and puts it on the screen.

 The watch arrived on Saturday and it was like super good plastic and high quality for a 6.99 watch with six functions.  I instantly put it on and started reading the instructions and the first let down happened at that time.  The watch does not do constant heart rate monitoring but you go to the function on the watch and put your finger on this red dot on the side that gets your heart rate but that is it.  So I thought OK not what I wanted but this would make a good camping watch so I could stop at any time and take my heart rate to see how I am doing and it told the time so how bad could that be?

How bad could that be?  Well it turned out to be pretty bad because on Sunday I participated in a "Tour de Cure" training ride coming up in Dallas in two weeks and thought this would be a great time to at least try out my monitor to see how well it could do.  In my head I was thinking how inaccurate could this thing be like just giving me a ball park figure is better than not knowing at all and so what if this thing was like 20% off, then it was as good as my blood glucose monitor is and how bad is that?  Well my friend Ken would tell me what his heart rate was on the ride then I would test mine (I was working about twice as hard as Ken was) and my heart rate was always about 60 thingies below his which my resting heart rate is like 88 and from the pictures above you can tell that it is off just with me being idle.  In the end all those people that laughed at me for buying a 6.99 dollar heart rate monitor was right that I just waisted 6.99 dollars on a watch that tells me what my heart rate definitely is not.  Now I am back to the drawing board and going to have to pony up some real money and get one with that bra thingy.  Wait till my 19 dollar GPS unit arives I bet it will work perfectly fine!



What do you mean alcohol is not for wound cleaning?

 I know, I know, I know, you are tired of hearing about all this new fangled wilderness first aid stuff but I learned so many new things to do and use that I can't wait till someone gets seriously wounded on a camping trip.  Wait, that is not what I mean.  What I mean is that now I feel extremely prepared "if" I ever have a situation in the backwoods that I will know what to do to get everyone one out safe.  One big eye opener we learned about is that for cleaning a wound you are not supposed to use alcohol or alcohol wipes.  You are supposed to use povidone iodine prep, which as you can see in the picture above comes in handy dandy wipes now so you don't have to keep those old nasty jugs of that stuff in your first aid kit.

 I have carried these around in my diabetes pump case for several years now just thinking they were for like major accidents or surgery.  Not that they were for cleaning any wound and that you are supposed to always use these instead of alcohol.  Our instructor went into details on why but from what I can read in my notes is that alcohol like removes oils and stuff but povidone iodine like soap actually cleans the wound.  disclaimer:  I am an accountant and always check with someone who knows a hell of a lot more about medicine than I do before quoting me or my blog like these are scriptures from the bible.  The neat thing that came up about this and why it is on my mind is that my buddy Dustin last Monday was telling us how he cut his finger pretty bad recently and that he learned in his red cross first aid class that he should put povidone iodine on his wound and that was interesting to me because I learned the same thing in my wilderness first aid class.  How funny it is that first aid is taught the same no matter where you learn it and he also did the same thing and replace his alcohol in his first aid kit with povidone iodine just like me.  Now with diabetes we do need to keep alcohol around because it does remove the oils on our skin so if you are like myself and wear a pump the skin needs to be as oil free as possible so the tape sticks best.

 This morning I was out in my garden cutting a few items out that were ripe and needing to be pulled and one of the things that drives my wife crazy but is a game to me is to plant all sorts of different pepper plants and not mark them so I have to wait to see what is what when it produces fruit.  I think the peppers in my hands are sweet cherry peppers but I will find out when I bite into them.  That is how the game goes, sometimes they are sweet peppers and sometimes they are habinero peppers and I am bleeding severely from the mouth afterwards but I must play the game.  One of these days I will learn how to identify all my peppers besides the jalapeno, bell, Cayenne, and chili peppers.  The rest are like playing Russian rulet with your mouth.

Here are my red grapes this year that are so sweet and so good that you can actually pick them from the vine and eat them (well just be sure to not eat the brown recluse spiders that like to live in them).  I am so happy with this years crop but also kind of sad because I was too slow to trim the runners back at the beginning of the season so when I finally did cut them back I lost about half the crop because the vine was already blooming.  I guess gardening is just that way, sometimes you have a huge crop but the produce is not the best and sometimes you have a small crop and the produce is diabetes heavenly good.

How's your Head?

 Recently I told you all about my wilderness first aid class where the instructor brought me up to speed by educating me about how a bandanna is not a first aid item and that I need to get 3 cravats for my personal first aid kit.  I went looking online for different cravats because to me it seemed that someone has made a dual purpose cravat and of course they have as you can tell by the picture above of a digital camo cravat a guy is using to rob a bank and if he gets shot or something his cravat face mask will be used to save his life.  This must be an outdoors man bank robber but, I also thought that it would help people like my son who rarely know where their first aid kit is or what is even in their kit.  If the kit is cool like the digital camo bank robbers mask above he would love to have them in his pack for all sorts of bad reasons and maybe one time it might help him get out alive.

 Here are some pictures of how to make an arm sling.  The reason I put this on here is because everyone who tries to make a proper sling the first time runs into the issue of how do I go around the neck.  It is like the age old toilet paper question of does it go over or under, and we all know the toilet roll goes over not under.  The arm sling is weird because the underside of the sling goes to the far side of the neck and the outside part of the sling goes straight up.  See these are the things I teach all of you that others don't tell you about and also you see how they are folding over the elbow piece.  Well don't do that and instead fold an overhand knot with the small corner of the cravat which will create a well for the elbow to rest nicely in.

 These are more pictures of things to make with a cravat that are almost always overlooked and under used.  The eye patch works great and the hand and head bandages are awesome as well if you tie them properly.  One bandage I learned at wilderness first aid was the hip sling thingy.  It is the one above that looks like someone is making a bad bikini out of a cravat.  This bandage was surprisingly good at how if you had a wound on your hip like falling off a bike and getting road rash it would hold you nicely till you got to safety.  The big one the chart is missing above is the sprained ankle bandage which is worth its weight in gold if you tie it correct as well.  I personally have had to use the sprained ankle bandage and it is almost as good as those sprained ankle boot thingies.  Then the one that cracks me up the most is the sore tooth looking head wrap thing.  What this is used for I don't know but somehow it should be used.

 Here is what happens when you have cravats but no knowledge of how to properly use them.  You wind up with the mummy affect and that usually just creates more issues than actually solving anything.  So know your proper bandages and don't make your person a mummy.

My good friend Ken gave me a cravat recently that he acquired from his work.  The big thing about cravats is that they are large enough to be useful but pack very small.  With that they are also sewn in a manner to where they do not unravel which is not the case with a bandanna.  They are small and unravel if you try to cut them up for large wounds.  These packages also come with a couple of safety pins as well so see even the single use cravats come with multiple items.  What it all boils down to is a little practice and prep now creates a best possible scenario if any situation ever arises.  We never want anything to go wrong but how many times have we read a story of something small happening to a person and it gets out of control and they die from it.  Prepare for the worst and expect the best.  I think that generally goes for everything with diabetes right?

If that aint country...

 I am not sure if all of you have every taken the country drive over the weekend but last weekend while visiting my family in Oklahoma we were driving out to a pool party at one of my brothers life long friends and came across this farm out in the country.  I tried to snap a bunch of pictures of what this guy has decorated his property with but if you zoom in and read the signs it is quite funny.  The picture above is of a bulldozer scoop and it says: "I used to push fat @SS b.s. around."  The road frontage was full of funny signs like this.

 Apparently the gentleman has a beef with the city council about some sort of business he wanted to have on his land but they did not approve his request to have his property reclassed so now he puts his feelings on funny signs that are all over his property.  The sign above said something that my brother said was funny but I did not get a good picture of it so just enjoy the recycle old electronics and appliances sign.

Here is the corner of the property and the guy went so far as to make a fake headstone that says something about R.I.P. the people that wronged him and that they are cheap. 

Lets say you are adventuresome and want to move to the country.  I always say there are a few "types" of country living. There are the huge open farms with agriculture going on them, then there are the small farms with a bit of agriculture and livestock, then there are the places like the pictures above where people live in the country so that nobody can complain about the trash in their front yard, and last there are the meth trailers in the country where they all have a four wheeler or two out front with tons of burnt trash on the side and a falling down front porch and maybe an electrical cord connecting a few other trailers near by.  Now I am not saying any of these are bad just this is how it is when you look for land in the country.  The reason I know all this great advice is because when my wife and I decided to purchase some land for weekend use our real estate agent was good about telling us which category all the properties we were thinking about lied in and then he would take us to one of them to show us about each type.  With that knowledge we found a perfect ranch that we love and use regularly with a minimal amount of meth and trashy neighbors.

I still love this video!

I came across an old email today from my wife that had this video clip in it and every time no matter what it makes me laugh.

 Last night while sorting out the real mail from the junk mail I came across this volleyball magazine for my wife.  She is a coach and so every now and the she gets these buy our stuff sort of magazines so I decided to flip through it and see what the latest and greatest knee pads and nets were this season.

Then halfway through the magazine I came across this advertisement for PR Bar which is a product we all got to try out at my San Diego trip to the U of "in."  We had case after case of these bars and let me tell you something, they might not be the best tasting bar on the planet, nor are they the best meal supplement bar, but they are probably the best diabetes bar on the planet.  What makes these so good for diabetes you are asking yourself?  Well friend they only have 22g's of carbs and just like in the advertisement above they get your body to burn your fat as fuel, so this is a win-win situation.  Now they aren't bad either, but I wouldn't put them down as the best tasting and they do give you substance in your belly but I have had other meal replacement bars that filled me up better.  Now those two things should not be taken as criticism or anything I am just stating how they worked on me and I have had tastier and more filling bars but they either had a gazillion carbs or were pumped full of sugar and there is no perfect bar for every situation.  These bars are not what you are going to grab when you blood sugars are low (because they only have 22 carbs people!  I know I tried) but when you are hungry and your blood sugars are in your target zone these bars will hold you down and not get your sugars out of the target workout zone.  Now one bar I did try that was always pretty darn good (all the bars were good just some are chocolate coated and were a bit messy in the heat) was the peanut butter berry bar.  Now this bar says it is a granola bar but think of it as a soft bar made out of peanut butter and other stuff.  The next question you are going to ask me is where do I get these PR Bars?  Currently you can only order them over the phone or online through their website but if you are diabetic and want something that does not spike your blood sugars or if you are a person that likes to have an energy/meal bar then order a couple of cases of these guys now and in about six months when these bars hit the local shelves you will already be apart of the "in" crowd and be able to brag about how you knew about these bars through your favorite blog (OK so maybe my blog is not your favorite but work with me I need lots of attention) and you have been eating these awesome bars for a while now.  If you zoom in on my picture above there is a 12 dollar off coupon.  Now let me give you a disclaimer so you don't think my house is made of PR bars.  I have only received sample PR Bars through U of "in" which is a part of www.insulindependence.org and they nor did anybody promise me anything or pay me anything (trust me I would love to get something in return from this blog) to write about this product.  I just wanted to help my other type 1's and the rest of you normal people out there.  Enjoy!