How far can you go before you pee your pants?

 I don't know why I do these stupid games.  Maybe it is the diabetes in me thinking my life is one big game trying to stay alive but my recent game to play is how far can I get to zero and still make it to a gas station.  The above picture is my best so far, well I mean before I pee my pants and I probably could have easily gone a solid 4 more miles before I was walking the rest of the way to get gas.

 This one is 18 miles and to play the game I have to get into a routine because I missed an 8 and an 11 because I arrived at the station both times and got into my gas getting routine of turning everything off and getting the gas which in turns resets the miles to "E" and I lose my points or something (I only play this game with myself so keeping score means little just the pictures give me happiness).  The reason I created this game is because how far can I trust this government regulated electronic device that has an algorithm of speed/stops/air conditioner and other stuff to figure out what is left in my tank.  I want the truth as to how far I can go.

 Sometimes I open my fridge and just either feel like a grumpy old man or behind the times.  Last night I open the veggie drawer (which I seldom do) and noticed these apple slices.  These are not apples that were bought at the store and then sliced at home they are presliced and seeded apples.  The only thing I can think of is that my son refuses to eat an apple if it is not cut (he owns several weapons of apple destruction) but my wife must have bought these for him to get him to eat more fruits.

How lazy have we become that we can't even slice and seed our own fruit (grumpy old man saying this part), and why did I not make a fortune by doing this myself (entrepreneur saying this part)?  Someone is a millionaire for inventing apple slices and they probably don't even have a third grade education.  It was something like, man I sure do hate having to slice apples to eat, why don't I create a company that can do it and I can sell them in the store next to the raw/uncut apples.  Now he drives a fancy car and stuff.  In the end I did eat about half the bag and thought they were pretty tasty.

Here is your chance to be just like the Diabetic Camper or as close as possible.  www.woot.com has their flashlights on sale again and from this morning till now they sold out of the Rogue 2 model which is the one I have shown on my blog several times but they still have the Rogue 1 which is like half the size and half the light but probably still kick butt quality, design, and at 10 bucks get like two or three and keep them all over the house and 5 dollar shipping for everything you get that is a real deal.

http://sport.woot.com/plus/flaaashlights-ha-da-da-dee-da-hada-hada-da-da?utm_source=Daily+Digest&utm_campaign=d2b4afeadd-Daily+Digest+-+20120831+-+Sport.Woot&utm_medium=email

What a Dork

 Today I got a little bit busy at work and wanted to just post a bad picture of me in my official dork gear.  Check out the helmet first of all, it is the size of a watermelon.  For some reason I am too cheap to buy anything above the walmart level so it is like 8 inches of foam on my head.  Then my cheap faux dri-fit shirt that was another walmart buy.  Someday when I am a bit faster than a 15 mile per hour average I might invest in some quality get ups but until then I will dress to not impress.  Oh yeah those are fishing sunglasses with built in readers at the bottom of them.  Classic!

I forgot to show pictures of my bike now that I have replaced most of the acetone destruction.  The rims are from a buddy at work and now only have a few scratches from last weekends wreck and you can see my FRS juice in the water bottle and I switched seats with my son because it was one of those fancy "ittalia" seats where it feels like an axe cutting you in half.  I have got to develop some but calasys.  She is not going to win any speed records but she gets me from point A to point B on the road.

Above is the latest Red Stripe beer commercial that I love.  Now what diabetic has not been so low they had a five course meal from a vending machine?  I used to work at Hertz data center in OKC on the night shift in my early college years and would get a little low and do the vending machine dinner.  Great stuff, I was wondering how to do something like this for Halloween?  I asked my buddies to be my backup band in the commercials but they all said no.  I am thinking maybe dressing up like the lead singer, getting a microphone and having Kinko's make three card board things of the backup band and doing that.  Who knows but I love these guys.

Questions about going number 2

 I was in the bathroom at work today (I know too much information) and was standing at the urinal going number one when I looked over at the feet of the person in the toilet stall next to me.  I noticed his pants were down around his ankles and that made me think about how I used to go pants all the way down as a kid but I haven't gone number two like that in ages and how that seemed like how kids go.  Then I thought more about this situation and that my diabetes has alot of influence on this because of my pump and I wear the 23" tubing on my ancient Animas IR 1200

 So I thought I would just kind of ask the few people that read my blog if they go pants down around the ankles because several issues came to my mind.  The first issue was cleanliness and how I know our bathroom floor or most bathroom floors have a substance on them we like to call "pee" and no matter what kind of industrial strength cleaner you use your toilet is surrounded by this "pee" so having my pants in that seems wrong.  Then second I don't like to have wrinkles in my pants so if they are all bunched up at my ankles on the "pee" floor they are getting wrinkled and the rest of the day I will have pee stains and wrinkles in my pants.  Last, is the insulin pump, like I said with a 23" tubing and the floor being of a greater distance I would have to unplug to put the pants down.  Now you have pee stains, wrinkles, and tainted insulin all from a good old number 2.

The above picture is more like me with my pants around my knees but with an insulin pump on my belt and usually my phone in hand playing some quality solitaire.

So in the long run do diabetics on "toobing" insulin pumps all go number 2 with their pants around their knees or is this like the genetic thing where some people can roll their tongue and others can't?  Maybe I am just a weirdo and other toobed diabetics are smart and get the extra long tubes and enjoy their pants around their ankles?  This does remind me of the first week I had my insulin pump like ages ago where I finally figured out how to go to the bathroom with an insulin pump on and one time I was not using the urinal but was in a stall going number 1 and my pump came off my belt.  Lucky for me with the 23" toobing the pump just dangled like 4" above the "bad zone" and I felt like the luckiest man on the planet.  We will probably never resolve this question but I am one to at least ask the question.  Do you go number 2 with pants around the ankles or at the knees?

One small issue and the rest is great!

 You all remember me telling you about my new flashlight a while ago (Yes I know I am a dork and like flash lights).  I wanted to give you an update because it brought to mind an issue we all deal with.  This is the Icon Rogue 2 flashlight with 130 lumins and runs on 2 AA batteries.

 This is one freaking awesome flashlight and for the 12 bucks I spent on it, there are no others like it but there is one reason I think why they sell these online for 20 to 35 bucks.  The reason is the button on the bottom.  You see in the picture above how the button protrudes excessively far from the bottom and what this does is always clicks the light into the on position.  Now this does not just happen on the rare occasion but it happens every time you put the light in your pocket or for me my brief case.  For a novice they would say this is a horrible design for a flashlight and that it wastes batteries and is a piece of junk, but I will tell you a simple fix around this.

My first scoutmaster taught me to do this with my flashlights at the ripe age of twelve.  He told me to turn one of the batteries around when it is not in use so that no matter what (OK so maybe broken bulb or water might cause it not to work) the light works.  Since then I have always done this with every flashlight in our house and my son does it as well.  The funny thing is once our electricity went out and my wife grabbed a flashlight and was mad as a storm that it didn't work.  Then our son takes it from her, opens up the top, flips the battery around and turns it on, and hands it back to her.  Using this simple trick will keep you from spending hundreds of dollars on wasted batteries and will prepare you for an emergency with with the gift of light.

First was the bad, now the good.

 Last week I showed you what not to get from FRS.  Today I thought I would share some of their good stuff.  Above is a picture of their energy/sporty/electrolyte thing that is real close to tasting like Tang without the thickness or sugar.  You get these in their free sampler with paid shipping and I have had several of these types of energy water add in types of things just never new when or where to use them.

 Earlier this month I was participating in one of our local diabetes exercise days and we did a nice 25 mile bike ride and ran into a gentleman that had a funky blue-whackadoo drink in his water bottle and I asked him why he had blue-whackadoo in his water bottle.  He then showed me he wears a water bladder on his back full of water and to supplement on his long rides he would drink the blue-whackadoo (OK it was Gatorade) drink along the ride when he needed energy or sugars.  This got me thinking and so I decided to put the FRS tang stuff in my water bottle for our ride last Saturday and wore my water bladder and give this system a test drive.

 What I found out is that this system was pretty darn good.  While biking my BG's can go sky high or crash, and even stay normal it just depends on my inner diabetes child on which way they are going to go.  With this new system I can drink a bit and give me some get up and go mojo and when I get to a light, then supplement with a nice gu or energy bar.  My recent riding has really learn that I need to keep some sort of electrolyte stuff going in me during rides to keep from cramping up in my neck.

Another thing I learned this late season about diabetes and biking is that even though gels and gu's come in a neat package, once they are opened the never stop leaking sticky fluid out of them.  Now I always bring them in a zip lock bag so to keep myself free from wild bears and bees.  Just a little hint from your favorite diabetic camper.

The end of summer

 Things get crazy and the summer winds down.  Earlier this week I asked my son if he wanted to camp the weekend of Sept 8 and 9th or if he wanted to try this archery tournament they are having near us.  From the picture above you know he chose the competition and actually did a cool thing and looked in on the inter-web and printed off these targets, taped them to boxes and well you can see that the black cat only had one head shot and three misses.  He needs to work on it.  Then later that night he asked me if I would be mad if he shot a rabbit?  My first thought was that he had already shot a rabbit and this was his light way of putting it on me but, he let me know that he had not shot one yet but wanted to know if he did, would he be in trouble.  I told him as long as he did it safe and it was in our backyard (8 foot tall fences) and he cleaned up afterwards I was OK with it.  Rabbits are a nuisance in our neck of the woods.

I wanted to show you all what they put out before they do the DDT fogging in our neighborhoods.  Now I am not sure what the fuss is about killing mosquito's but from my last check it was like 25 west Nile deaths and 0 fogging deaths.  Pretty sure that means this stuff is safe and for me and my diabetes I am sure it puts me in the high risk, so spray away and fly those planes that drop the nuclear mosquito fog stuff.  Heck if they had a DDT pill I would take it just to make sure I only have the one disease that will kill me.  Who would ever want diabetes and west nile?

We are in a commercial Renaissance period for sure.  The invention of the Tivo thing and DVR stuff has put an enormous amount of pressure on marketing firms to produce commercials that people (OK so maybe just me) want to see and maybe rewind 20 to 40 times (OK maybe just me again) so that I can memorize the words or find out the song in the commercial so I can get it on Zune.  The commercial above is one that I know is disturbing but I love it so much.  Not that it is an over weight dude in a speedo on the beach but his attitude.  This is just like what a good diabetic is on the inside, strong, confident, and alot of weird from the lack of insulin or maybe sugar in their diet.  When this commercial comes on I watch it probably a minimum of 5 times and the song is cool but I can't figure out what it is so I can download it on my phone.  When I grow up and have a sweet pot belly, I am so going to get some sweet shades, fine Italian leather shoes, and a speedo and do my thing down the beach like this dude.  He rocks!

In the end the summer is winding down because I am more excited about commercials than TV shows and my son is a little bit too free for his britches and needs some school structure to keep him out of juvenile detention or something.  That new commercial for Honey Nut Cherios is quite funny as well when the bee sees all the dead bugs on display behind the lady.  If you know the song from the southern comfort commercial above please send it my way so I can maybe be just a little cooler!

Who was the genius behind this?

My wife found this "FRS" company that is doing a promo where they will send you out some samples as long as you pay the shipping which is like 3.95 or something.  This is a pretty sweet deal because they send you alot of healthy stuff for working out and energy (I can use alot more energy now that my sinus/allergies are still killing me).  Here is the website for the free trial: https://www.frs.com/free-trial 

Since my wife was already getting the free trial she decided to purchase some of their other products at the same time with a discount code she had (you know kill two thingies with one bird or something).  One of the products she picked up where these protein drinks and from the outside they look great.  They are supposed to be orange cream and who doesn't like a cream sickle pop or an orange Julius?

 

 I did a workout and came home to crack open one of these protein/fiber FRS drinks and the first thing that startled me was nothing came out.  Then I thought that maybe there was a protective film under the cap to be doubly sure these were safe but, nope there was no film.  So I thought that maybe they separate and need to be shaken up real good to get them to pour because there was still nothing coming out of this drink.  I shook, and I shook, then opened up the bottle and what came out was this thick baby food substance that was no drink.  This was like sludge that would not come out and I had to shake the bottle vigorously just to get it started and once it started it kind of was like baby food poop. 

 

Once I was done and drank/ate this protein sludge my mind started wondering who was the genius that thought to package this product in this manner?  When I finally understood what this was and the physical properties of it my brain easily said something like a wide mouth container and the words "this product is very thick and needs to be shaken vigorously to come out" on the bottle.  So all in all the taste was bad and the texture was worse but I would not recommend this product and would recommend their other products.  So go onto the inter-web and pay your 3.95 dollars and get the sampler platter and visit my facebook "Dave Hennesey" page thing where I posted a video of me trying to pour this stuff out.  I am going to have to figure out how to put videos on this blog in a simple way.

 

 

 

FRS protein shake being poured out

I am a bad Diabetic!

 I posted yesterday about how today was my sinus/allergy/ear/nose doctor appointment and today we had some nice light rain.  The rain was doing wonders for whatever ails me but still it keeps me from having to turn the sprinklers on.  This doctors office is in one of those medical office suburbs where it they look like a bunch of identical fancy houses but instead they are all offices with the same address just different suite numbers.  If you have been diabetic for any time you have definitely seen these suburb office parks.

 The time was getting past me while I drove around looking for number 503 and kept just coming across the 200's and the 100's till my small brain finally realized the numbers went from the 100's in the front to higher numbers in the back, not left to right.  The bad thing about these suburb doctors villages is that the parking is limited and it there was that light rain I was telling you about. 

 Lucky for me i found a great spot at the right doctors suburb office house thingie and I ran in only like ten minutes late.  I would have been on time except for my voyage to find the magical diabetes zamfir flute hidden building (OK, I know that made no sense but come on I have diabetes, give me a break). 

 The spot looked odd with the "no step" to the curb and I was feeling like a million diabetes bucks until two hours (yeah this doctor is real slow) and the rain had past and I noticed my truck was somewhere it should not be.

 I freakin parked in a handicapped parking spot!!!  How bad of a person am I?  The first thing I thought of doing was to do a citizens arrest and take myself to the county jail for this crime, then I thought about how I should have a ticket or my truck should be towed.  I did a quick walk around to see if any police officers had left information for me to pay a fine or ticket but nothing was there.

So, I just went back to work thinking how bad of a diabetic I am.  The good thing is that in the first photo in this blog is a picture of two other handicapped spaces that were clearly marked from the front that were empty the entire time I was at my appointment but, as I pulled out there was a usual vision that we have all seen coming into the parking lot.  The vision was of a classic 90's Chrysler mini-van with a handicapped rear view mirror dangle and as I pulled out the jumped or handied themselves into the spot I was in.  How in the world did I not see the giant blue paint job on the parking spot?  I must be going either crazy or lazy, either way I need to find a way to redeem myself for this error (even though it was completely not intentional) and do a good turn for someone that is handicapped.

Pedal Power

 I have told you all about my struggles with allergies this year.  If I run one day I am out for the following two days but recently I have been doing a little biking with our diabetes group.  The local diabetes group has been training for the Dallas Tour De Cure and since the diabetes rally the group has just kept on having training rides since we built so many bonds and friendships.  The only thing is I have been using my sons road bike since he has been away backpacking at Philmont.

 Now that my son is back I have to get my road bike back into riding shape and if you can tell from these photos I had alot of work to do.  You are wondering how I have so many broken spokes?  The answer is I left an open bottle of muratic acid in my garage and it basically destroyed any exposed steel in my garage even my garage door.  I had to have a guy out to get my garage door fixed and have been putting off working on my bike till I had the nerves to do the project.  I don't know why I was scared to work on my bike but it made my diabetes shiver in my pants.  Then over the past couple of weeks I did a little research and found out I am just a wuss and working on your bike is as easy as riding a bike.  So I contacted one of my co-workers to see if he had some rims laying around the house and to my luck he did.  Then I purchased some new tires, tubes, and a new chain and I was in the bike repair business.

 The gear cartridge exchange was fast and simple and the only issue I had was the tires because my wife had the tire chop stix things that help you pull the tire onto the rim with her.  A few hours later and I had a working cycle.  Now don't get me wrong I do still have rusty bolts on the derailleurs, crank, headset, set and everywhere else but for my slow butt the bike rides like butter now.  Then on Sunday my son and I took a nice 45 mile bike ride and I have found a sport I can perform while allergy season is killing me.  Good thing for me I have an appointment with the eyes, ears, nose, and allergy guy tomorrow and hopefully there is some sort of unicorn blood I can drink or fairy dust that will give me the energy of 10 diabetic ox's.

The other day I was picking up some scripts from CVS and saw this magazine on their rack.  Who would have thunk-it that there is a cure for us silly type one diabetics and that we can just not eat sugar and our diabetes goes away.  I didn't buy the magazine because diabetes is fun for me but if you want to beat the betes without drugs you should look into this magazine.  How stupid do they think we are?

Light my Woot.

 Earlier this week I told you about the new fad on the inter-web where companies post daily discounts on electronics, household items, and sports and outdoors stuff.  I purchased last week two 50 degree sleeping bags for the right price of 20 bucks plus 5 dollars for shipping.  This purchase was off of www.woot.com where they have a thing where once you buy something, everything else you buy is free shipping.  So this enticed me to look for maybe another deal to have shipped for free.  What I came across was a flashlight they had on their closeout woot thingie. 

 This flashlight was called the Rogue 2 made by Icon, so I did a little research to see if this was of any quality flashlight because they were promising 130 lumins (the standard in measuring the brightness of a flashlight) and it ran off of two AA batteries.  With my research I found out that the brand Icon was like some sort of division of Streamlights which make some kick butt flashlights at a kick butt expensive price.  This Rogue 2 flashlight was being offered at the crazy low price of 12 bucks, so I did a little more research on what the other discount retailers were charging for this model of flashlight and to my surprise it was around the 24 dollars on the low end and near 40 on the high end so that made my decision even easier and I clicked the buy now button and payed my 12 bucks for another freaking flashlight.

 Why am I so obsessed with flashlights I don't know but I just like to know I have something for the dark.  Fall is around the corner and my running will be at night so maybe that is one reason and with that I usually sweat toxic diabetes waste and a typical flashlight makes it only one year before the electronics go out.  Then I am always also on the quest for the brightest cheapest CREE bulbed flash light I can find (I am a huge fan of the CREE brand of bulbs).

From these pictures you can see that this Icon brand must be some sort of urban fashion or something with their wicked cool aluminum that has like a halo of metal around the actual metal that protects the batteries.  The metal also is of a nice heavy gauge and feels sturdy and the the top is threaded nicely.  This definitely was a great buy and should give me about a years worth of fun, or until I can get more lumins for less.

How much is a life worth?

 We all remember the ford pinto case of 1972 or at least have a vague reference to it about how ford was not willing to spend 12 bucks to protect the fuel tank from rear end crashes.  The company "bean counters" used tables that showed sales numbers and potential lawsuits that once the crash tests found this issue too late to retool the factories and the cost benefits were not worth it to compete with Volkswagen and their small car race to market.  So in the end we all say that greedy ford was not willing to spend 12 bucks to save peoples lives.  Now lets look at this from another angle.

I was listening to 1190 AM radio yesterday to "The Wall street Shuffle" where they bring up this cost of life issue and the ford pinto case and they bring up a point that got me thinking about how we should value life and what companies do for us.  The issue with the 12 dollar part to fix the ford pinto is that people would still die from driving the car so the 12 dollar argument should be that every car should be made at any cost to be the safest thing on the road.  When in reality you know that buying the cheapest fastest car made on the block is probably not the safest one on the road.  We all see these crash tests and know the number of stars that cars get.  If we cared about our lives so much that we put the blame of lost life in the hand of the manufacturer then they should spend every dollar possible to buy the safest car on the road, but in reality we take a risk with everything we buy.  So the drivers of the ford pinto in theory knew that driving a car may lead to death and we know this to be true even today.  Same goes for buildings, roads, bridges, electronic manufacturers, and even pharmaceutical companies.  We all know that we take a risk with anything we purchase but we get reward by taking those risks.  We can drive across town in no time because we take the risk of driving a car.  Even taking our insulin is taking a risk that it is safe and will work properly and the reward is that we get to live another day to have people make fun of us because we cannot process a cookie properly.  So the point is when you see the law suits for drug manufacturers or car companies just think about the other side that you are not walking to work and you are taking a risk

Yesterday I posted a couple of articles about an Oklahoma lawsuit and of the Blitz company that went bankrupt because of the lawsuit.  I meant to post this information with them as well but had to help a friend at work get a fridge to his house (you know what happens to someone that has a truck, they always help their friends) and I ran out of time to finish my post.  The point of it all and what the guys on the radio were talking about is that these people were trying to re-start a fire by pouring gas on it and once they put the gas on it the can was left next to this lady and the fire started and jumped to the can and caused it to explode.  The thing is though the can states clearly on it not to keep it near open flame and since the lady won her lawsuit the gas can maker went belly up and all other US gas can companies are halting business because a warning not to do something is not enough to keep them from paying for peoples stupidity.  This all goes down to taking risk for rewards.  The people wanted to start their fire fast and they used the gas in the can, knowing it had risk but, once the can blew up they blamed the manufacturer should have done more to protect them.  When things like this happen and frivolous lawsuits happen we all pay with the 300 people that were laid off, and the other US companies that laid off their gas can people which causes foreign manufactures having to add more safety to the cans because you have to keep them safe for stupids and then we all have to pay more for our cans.  Take this to the level of diabetes and my argument last week where if we personally had the chance to take risks with our own life to use products that have not met FDA or FCC requirements but have a higher risk and reward for using them.  So next time you are home during the day and they have those commercials about suing every company that has not worked out for you, just remember the risk/reward philosophy and own your life.  Just a little something to think about.

Oklahoma maker of plastic gas cans will close July 31 | NewsOK.com

Oklahoma maker of plastic gas cans will close July 31 | NewsOK.com

Lawsuit Filed for Severe Burns Suffered from Exploding Gas Can

Lawsuit Filed for Severe Burns Suffered from Exploding Gas Can

The New online Fad.

 I know all of you sign up for these "deals" on such websites as www.dvor.com, www.leftlanesports.com, www.altrec.com, and one of my favorites www.woot.com.  These Internet sites usually have you sign up and they email you about once a day for greatly reduced sports and outdoor items that last for only a few days.

 A few of these "sales" have caught my eye with greatly discounted knives or flashlights but on www.woot.com they had me hook, line, and sinker with this deal of two sleeping bags for 20 bucks.  Now these are not any sort of 0 degree bags but they are 50 degree bags which in the Dallas area works out great for about 6 months.  Then I have had an issue with replacing my 25 year old "White Stag" triangular cut 45 degree bag.  This bag I have is perfect for everything except cold weather and I have sampled all sorts of bags and nothing is like the stag in the way it feels.  I just need a bag to get me through the few cold months.  So when these 50 degree bags came up I did a little research and found out that alot of people were using them as a bag liner to add 10 to 20 degrees to your existing bag and at 10 bucks for a sleeping bag liner I was buying away.

 The bags arrived on Saturday and to my surprise they are actually nicer than I was thinking they would be.  The shell is of a high quality polyester and the fill (what is inside the bag) was more than what I was expecting.  The only downside I can really see at this point is the width at the top of the bag.  These are not for wide shouldered individuals but when I try this sucker out this winter I will give you an update if having a more "mummyish" style bag bugs me or not.

If these bags do not work out as a winter addition to the stag ( I will give my son the other bag so he can do whatever with) I will probably throw them into the emergency supplies stock pile as a good bag for when the zombies come to eat my brains or something.  Last thing is that the shipping on www.woot.com is great because anything you buy in one day is 5 bucks shipped to your house so 12.50 bucks per bag and hopefully winter will be good.

Mosquito problems.

 The Dallas area and probably areas around you are fighting the dreaded mosquito this year with everything they have.  The problem with our modern day mosquito is that they can give you the West Nile virus which is potentially deadly.  Now I am not one who has really given two thoughts about the dangers of west Nile or getting anything bad from a mosquito bite except the mild skin irritant.  With the mild winter we just had and the current summer heat, the mosquito is out in full force west nile'ing everyone who sits on the porch of any fancy urban taco dive in town.

So what does our local and state governments do to stop this pandemic from killing off mass amounts of their tax payers?  The send out the fogger trucks to spray citronella smoke in our neighborhoods to fight back, but is this all we can or should be doing in this issue?  I was listening to the radio recently and I forgot who was on or what the station was to give them credit but, they brought up a good point about the DDT ban.  Now, I know almost nothing about science, chemistry, or unicorns but they mention how our current mosquito and its west Nile blood sucking straw could easily be taken care of with the use of DDT which was banned in 1972 because it was thought to cause cancer.  So with this information I did a little research and found out that yes, DDT was banned because of the book  Silent Spring, published in 1962 by author Rachel Carson.  The little research I have done does not include me reading this book and please refer to some of my older posts where I go into talking about the books I read called: magazines.  The talking voices on the radio brought up the lives that DDT use could be saving in African countries where malaria kills large amounts of people which is another disease the blood suckers carry.  Once I hear all of this it now gets me interested to put the two together that instead of DDT we used to use, now we pump twice as much "other stuff" to try and kill these bugs that the old stuff did much better and has not been confirmed but has been linked to bald eagle eggs having thin shells and cancer.

This whole thing might be boring to you but to think about that whole butterfly flapping its wings in Kansas might cause a tornado in Texas subject comes to my mind.  I wonder how people who die from malaria or west Nile might have felt if their lives could have been easily saved if we used a chemical that might hurt them or might not but they would have not died from malaria or west Nile.  This could be me just getting caught up in one of those UFO/ government conspiracy theories but I do think about individual rights and how mas bans on something could be a restriction on those that could be saved.  Could "us" diabetics have a better life if we had more choices on products that have not gone through the slow moving government control of new insulin pumps, virtual pancreases, blood glucose monitors, and insulin therapies.  Maybe even these options could cost less and be more readily available to more type 1 diabetics if the companies did not have to spend so much on half of their redundant testing.  These are just questions the west Nile argument brought to my mind.

Bottle Water Isle

 So I was shopping at a name brand store last night picking up a few items I needed to stock up on for the week.  Lunch items were on the list, dog food, and all sorts of items and one of the items my wife likes to have around the house is a 24 pack of bottled water.  We all have seen how the water section at the store used to be just a small section at the end of the Gatorade's and powerades.  Now it seams that water gets its own isle at the store with all the varieties of what aisles you.  About thirteen years ago I was coming back from a canoeing trip in the Minnesota/Canada boundary waters, and my co-driver was a manager of a bottled water plant.  We had a discussion on how they found out that tap water was healthier than bottled water, because bottled water had no additives and tap water has fluoride and all sorts of other agents to keep it safe to drink that also have health benefits.  Then he let me know that the future of water was to add supplements to water to give you the fluoride you need, or B vitamins, or any supplement that can benefit you, he can put in his water and sell it to people.  This was amazing to me and last night I realized how right my friend was thirteen years ago.  The one that gets me now though is coconut water.  What does coconut water do for you?  Now I was buying milk last night and they also had coconut milk?  Now I am really confused, is a coconut filled with water or milk?

 Then last night I came across what I would call the most confusing water on the planet.  This is alternative energy water?  Is there a windmill or a solar panel on the side to store energy?  How is this alternative energy, maybe you pour the water over a turbine that spins and makes electricity?

Once I was completely confused about alternative energy water just below it there was urban detox water.  Now I have seen my fare share of detox supplements at the local GNC store but, what is an urban detox?  The only thing that comes to mind is from the move "The Program" where the guy on steroids gets his pee sucked out of him and someone Else's pee put in him.  So I have to assume that urban detox is a bottle of clean pee?  Maybe not but to see the water isle and how each year we put a drop of another supplement in a bottle of common tap water and sell it as some form of health potion just amazes me.  Now don't get me wrong I have tried a few of these waters and most taste funny or cost too much but when I come across one that tickles my fancy I will try it out.  Just don't plan on me trying the urban detox clean pee water stuff any time soon.  Also if you can help me out with this coconut filled with water or milk issue please leave a comment and educate this diabetic.

Outdoor Retailer show excitement

 Not sure if all of you subscribe to the free emails from www.backpacker.com but if you don't you need to because they put all the good articles on this website and email you when they do.The actual magazine is really not for us in the south but when they do gear reviews there is no other place to get all the details.  Recently the Outdoor Retailer gathering just happened and Backpacker has shown us the future of what gear will be looking like.  Above is about the laziest thing I have seen in a while.  Here is the backpacker magazine review:

"For larger straps, check out Sea to Summit’s Accessory Straps with hook release which come in various widths and lengths of webbing, from one to two meters. The easy-to-release hooks are made out of galvanized steel which can bear incredibly heavy loads. I recommend the 10mm-wide and 1.5-meter-long version, which comes in a pair that costs $10 and is perfect for wrapping around packs or strapping gear to a roof rack. seatosummit.com"
Now I would say this is a strap for people that are too lazy to lift the buckle to release the tension.  Of course I am not saying I would not buy one of these straps if any of my current sleeping bag straps break.  It just seams funny that someone sits around all day long trying to figure out a way to make a strap easier to use.  How do people get these kind of jobs?

Here is an improved spork?  What is new about a spork?  CRKT made the eat'n tool which added a knife on the side to cut your mouth while you have a piece of steak on the end and some milk and cereal in the spoon part.  Here is the backpacker magazine review:

"Also check out the new Alpha Light Long Spork ($9, .4 oz) and is perfect for stirring and eating out of deep pots and dehydrated food bags. seatosummit.com"

I would say this is just another attempt to do simple things to a tried and true product and get money out of us fools.

Now we get to some very interesting game changers.  Here is this Helio fabric welded water pressure thingie.  It holds water and you then pump it up and get pressure so if you need plumbing in the outdoors here is a simple way to get it.  Say you need to shower or wash something.  Now I don't see all the potential yet but, I can tell this is something that would be cool to have around.  Kind of like the microwave when it was first brought into the homes and everyone just boiled water in it, then they popped corn in it, and finally we do everything with our microwave.  This is probably not like that but similar.  This item was not reviewed by backpacker but I went to the ORD website and came across it.  Check it out here:  http://www.snewsnet.com/snews/Trade-show-dailies/ORDaily/ORD_DAY1_SM12/index.html

Last I came across this Big Agnes tent that does not come with zippers.  In stead they use magnets to open the doors.  This is another game changer in my humble opinion.  Just like my idea of sewing in LED lights into a tent and having them all go to a USB cord.  Then the tent comes with a rechargeable flashlight that has a USB port on it.  So when you get into the tent and you want some light you just hook your flashlight up to the tent port and then turn on the lights.  Pretty cool idea huh?  Yes, you can say I have camped alot and look for lazy man ideas or just putting two items together.  Well this magnet tent door idea sounds really cool.  This would help with all those late night pee breaks and having to find the zipper.  you can now just push the door open and go out and leak the night away.  Here is the review from trailspace:

http://www.trailspace.com/articles/2012/08/02/fishhook-zipperless-tent.html

Most of this future outdoor equipment is alot of fluff and slight modifications of other items but, in the long run we are really seeing alot of new products that revolutionize and re-engineer what we take to go poop in the woods on the weekends.  I am really excited (and I don't usually get excited about new fangled gear0 about getting my little diabetic hands on some of this cool stuff.  Now if we can just get the temperatures below 105 degrees and I am ready to do some camping.