Crazy heat makes you almost do crazy things...

 The Dallas area is having some crazy heat right now.  something like 105 degrees almost every day and stuff.  Now with all this heat you find other ways to get out and about without any sort of heat exhaustion.  One thing I like to do is peruse the local pawn shops.  While I was at a local pawn shop this Trek 1200 road bike caught my eye.

 First thing I did was sit on it to see how close to my size it was, and what good luck I was in that it was in the ball park.  Then I gave it a simple first look over and verified the components as being shimano sora.  The wheels were very rough looking, the tires held air but were worn and dirty.  One of the shifters was twisted in a bit and the handle bars were of a cheap walmart re-wrap and dirt and grime was the game for this bike.

The price tag on the bike said 219 US dollars and I am making out a 2006 modish bike with about 100 bucks in repairs and maybe another 100 bucks in parts.  I hung around the shop till I could get someone to help me and this guy came over that knew nothing of road bikes and let me know how good of a steal this bike was at that price.  Then I asked them their bottom dollar and they were nice enough to come down to 200 US dollars, and I sat there and was thinking about it.  Am I the craziest diabetic on the planet?  Have I lost my mind?  Probably yes to both of those and lucky my brain kicked in and I walked away just proving that the August heat in Dallas makes us appreciate the coming fall.  The guy even went over to his buddy and they did an "Ebay" search for a similar bike and they let me know that they found one selling for 369 bucks on the bay's of "E."  Now I am about a thousand percent certain that first, just because it is for sale for that amount does not mean it sells.  Then who knows what kind of comparison this is because if memory serves me right Trek comes out with a 1200 every year and you can get them with all sorts of upgrades and stuff, not to mention the state of drivability they are both in. 

I love Texas but in this heat I might be losing my mind and need to start planning some camping trips in the coming fall instead of wasting my time on 80 dollar bikes being pawned as 200 dollar gems in the rough.  Pawn shops are a great place to get great gear at some amazing prices and if you visit regularly you can find these gems because most shops I visit sell any sort of quality camping and outdoor gear pretty darn fast.  The only thing is if you dress nice and are clean the workers usually don't mind you much business because their clientele is more of a desperate type instead of a perusing type.

Insulin Nation on insulindependence

Here is the recent video and web link to www.insulinnation.com on www.insulindependence..org and the recent San Diego U of "in."

http://www.insulinnation.com/insulinnation/2012issue5?sub_id=BE297Aic21jUD#pg1

When not to trust your water purifier

 These so called "water filters" are all the rage now with all these people who complain that tap water is bad for your health and bottle water is bad for you and the world.  What has come out of all this water is the evil of the world because it tastes bad and ruins the environment are these fake water filters.  You see in my had what says is a water bottle but you can do about the same filtering that this bottle does with a dirty gym sock in a coffee cup.  These are not to be used as any sort of purification systems and all they do is remove simple contaminants like rocks and dirt.  If the bottle costs less than 25 bucks or so it is a single filter system that makes water taste different than it normally does out of the tap.

 Here is another system of the same thing as the water filter bottle.  This is a water filter straw that is supposed to remove bad tastes and just like I said above about the bottle the straw does the same thing by just removing dirt, rocks, and alters the taste of your home tap water so that you think it is as good as that Fuji water in the square bottle.  Now don't get me wrong, these systems do remove contaminants from the water, they just really do over sell what they are doing to the water and in the end using any one of these devices will help your water it just is not the be all, end all water filters.  These are city slicker non-diabetic things to make you feel good about how you have a filter to make your tap water taste better like if you were camping.

 When it comes to cleaning water one thing you always know is that iodine is the best.  Even the pro water filters say to iodine your water for the best results.  The thing about iodine is that it leaves a funny taste to the water and now science has created another pill that supposedly removes the flavor of the iodine.  I usually just throw the taste pills in the trash and go with the bottle that matters.

I was talking to my friend Paul and we had a discussion on which is better iodine, chlorine, or even bleach.  Paul brought up how it is hard to carry bleach but it works pretty good (I am not certain on his science street cred).  Then chlorine dioxide is another type of water purifier that is readily available I just have never really used them.  I guess because the few times I have used them they just seemed like wizardry and stuff because I just have to trust the water is clean because when you use iodine the water is all orange and you know it is clean.  In the end read my blog and send me questions, comments, or concerns if you come across questions about cleaning water at: DaveHennesey@hotmail.com  and make sure you have the right water filter for your situation because who in the world wants watery farting diarrhea for a month?