This a Blog for Type 1 diabetics, Campers, outdoor enthusiasts with diabetes and all sorts of stuff for anyone that likes to be outdoors. I have lots of Product reviews for outdoor diabetics, Suggestions for Diabetics, and fun diabetic items.
Here we have diabetic dress socks from the John Weitz collection from socks 4 life. Recently I have reviewed diabetic tube socks, diabetic casual socks from socks 4 life/ and even though they do not sell any camping or hiking styled diabetic socks they have given me these socks to try in my Monday through Friday urban surroundings.
These diabetic dress socks were really nice. They have a good thickness to them, the no seam toes, and the no binding tops like all diabetic socks. A big difference in the John Weitz diabetic sock is that these are 100% acrylic and that really stands out with a pair dress slacks. Have you ever seen someone wearing a nice pair of Brooks Brothers slacks and cheap cotton socks? The sheen of the wool on the slacks clashes with the rough dull look of a cotton sock. They really stand out like they put good thought into their slacks but could care less about their shoes and socks.
I have recently posted about how I am a Gold Toe sock person. They are quality made and have quality comfort that lasts. With these John Weitz socks I am a changed man. These socks are a solid home run in the diabetes world and would recommend anyone who wants or needs to look nice and also has diabetes to pick a pair or two of these diabetic dress socks. I received a three pack that had a dark brown, blue, and black and compared them with my Gold Toe socks and the John Weitz socks had comparable colors and a little more thickness which I like. Overall I would give the John Weitz diabetic dress socks 4 syringes out of five on my patented diabetes scale of one to five syringes. The reason I did not give them the fifth syringe was because they need more colors to choose from.
Today I have another diabetic sock review that I received from socks 4 life This time it is the brand "Sole Pleasers." I ordered a three pack of brown socks that I call a casual weekend style of sock. These socks are 80% cotton and 20% Nylon. The description on the socks4life website about the Sole Pleasers: "you are sure to have great moisture absorption as well as friction reduction to prevent further irritation." They also say they are "UPS" color friendly for all you package carriers.
These Sole Pleasers are alot better than the Soc Doc tube socks I reviewed yesterday. Now I am more partial to a casual sock than a tube sock so that does play into this as well. These socks were not quitters like the Soc Doc's and they felt more even on the leg and had a softer toe. The only downside to the Sole Pleasers is they did feel a little thin on the material. So I would give the Soc Doc the point for their thickness and they also felt all around of higher quality material (which makes it even more weird that they were quitters on me). Overall these Sole Pleaser socks are fantastic and on my patented diabetes syringe scale I would give them 3 syringes on the scale of one to five syringes for their use of nylon to create a wicking sock and for their even feel on the leg and also how comfortable and soft the material felt on my toes. The downside is I am not sure how long they will last (when they do wear out I will post about it).
Let me do a little disclaimer about socks 4 life , they do not pay me for these reviews or any advertisements I post about their website. They were willing to put their diabetes socks to my tests even though they do not have a camping or hiking sock they wanted me to try out their product. These are great people that truly try to have the best sock at the best price and they run all sorts of great discounts all the time. I would recommend for any of you diabetics out there, or any body for that matter to register on their website. They even overlap their sales with discounts on their productrs, plus you can get an email with another discount code to get them even cheaper and last if you buy a certain dollar amount they discount them all again. I call that a win-win-win situation and in the world of diabetes we can never have too many of those.
Well, my office decorations did not win me a prize in our companies contest. I do like how I used my glucagon injection kit as part of my decorations. These items were all taken from my wife's stock pile of random holiday decorations.
OK so to the gift. Yesterday I wrote about how my son, two of his friends and I went to the Endurance Challenge on Saturday. Well when we got back my buddy Paul was smiles from ear to ear. He had a camera out and was snapping all sorts of pictures. I asked him if he received a new camera and he replied no this is just an old camera he had for a while. Now this was about 10:30pm at a 7-11 gas station and the boys were tired and the holloween weekend crowd was out in full force. Paul opens the back to his car so the boys can load their gear from the weekend in it and he starts to move around this big box. Then Paul pulls out the box and hands it to my son and says: "Zaine, I have a present for you." Zaine took the box which was heavily used and kind of open at the top.The box looked to me like it was full of just random things Paul had in his garage. Zaine likes anything old and garage worthy so I did not pay much attention to it. Once Zaine opened that box he thought it was some old clothes and grabs at it. Then Pete the Chicken moved and scared him to death.
Paul and Deb tell us of how they came home that afternoon and this box was on their front door saying something like "please take me home" or something. Deb opened the box thinking someone left her a puppy. She really likes dogs and was excited. Then she realized this dog was a chicken. A couple of hours later the neighbors came by and told them they put the box on their front step as a gag. They received Pete the Chicken at a White elephant party and were planning on just dropping Pete the Chicken off at the vet for someone to take and make fried chicken out of. Paul instantly thought of giving Pete the Chicken to Zaine since he knew about his AG project.
Zaine was so excitied. He is in AG this year at school and well, we live in the burbs and are out of town most weekends so this limited his places to raise a farm animal. He wanted to do like a cow, pig or goat but he does not have the ability or time to make it to the AG barn every night of the week. So a compromise was he could raise chickens in our yard. Now he has been extremely slow at building this chicken coupe and with this gift of his first chicken, it hopefully will motivate him to finish the yard and the coupe. We of course have three dogs and an HOA that he has to keep this out of their sight and sound. So far Pete the Chicken is very quiet and she does not need much. What amazing fortunes and things that happen in this game called life. Pete the Chicken made us so happy and excited even after the game 7 choke by the Rangers.
What you see here is my fathers 1980's model Kelty backpack. I think he purchased it when he and my brother backpacked The Absaroka Range in Montana in 1982. He told me when he purchased this pack, it was the largest pack they sold. My father brought two of everything into the woods and he had a large frame as well, so carrying this large pack was no chore to him.
I inherited this pack in 1999 and have used it since then. Now over time there has been items that need some maintenance. The zippers have not fared as well as the rest of the pack. I decided to drop the pack off at a friendly tailor to see if they could repair it at a comfortable price.
The first thing the tailor wanted to do was replace the zippers with Velcro. I was not too hot on that idea but once she told me the zippers were going to cost me a pretty penny we went back and reviewed the areas Velcro could work.
I am real nervous that the tailor might not be able to replace some of these zippers or just that something might not go right and my pride possession from my father might not be able to make it into the woods again. Now this pack is so large that having six broken zippers has not slowed me down one bit. I am not sure of the size but extra large does not do it justice. The canvas on this thing is just amazingly thick but also not too heavy. It has that waxy feel to it as well and repels moisture if a quick rainstorm hits and I can't get my poncho out in time.
From the picture above you can see my fathers handy work of making a modified waist belt. In the 80's waist belts were no more than just 2 inch wide webbing with a metal buckle on it. My father the engineer he was and an FAA instructor took a bunch of padding sown into some heavy duty canvas and a flight buckle and made the most awesome waist belt I have ever had on. I added the blue zip ties to keep my fishing pole strapped to the side of the frame. I am not the engineer my father was.
What is nice about an external frame pack is that first of all they vent air to your back very well and you can adjust and modify them. See in the picture above the bare frame. The tailors first question was, when she saw the pack that could we remove the metal. I took two minutes and with the slide of two pins the cover slid right off.
When I got back to work I thought if the zipper replacement did go wrong I still could have a pack made to fit my frame. I could even just buy a new pack that fits this frame. The results will be back in less than 2 weeks.
In the end this is a 30 year old pack that has been from Texas to Wyoming and all places in between. Now there are newer and fancier packs, but when I wear this pack it just takes me back to when I was on the trails with my dad.
Recently I purchased a "Rite in the Rain" outdoor journal. Keeping a journal on trips is the best way to track what you did and when you did it. The easiest way to start a journal is to write what you eat and where you ate it. When you go back and review your meals it jogs your memory of the things you did those days. I usually keep an extremely random journal in my shirt pocket, one of those 3" by 5" small ones. I have extremely short term memory so my journal is filled with lists and things to remember.
My friend Paul keeps a journal on him when we are camping and he documents everything from peoples names, email addresses, and takes notes for future use. I have been very jealous on his maticulous note taking and his ability to pull his journal out and recap a conversation in the middle of the woods. The last journal I had suffored a terrible tragedy when it was washed and all that was left is the metal ring.
While I was at REI picking up some running gels (also good glucose substitutes) recently, the next isle had these "Rite in the Rain journals and with the upcoming Score-O campout coming I made an impulse buy and picked one up. I did use a 20% off coupon so in the picture where you see a price tag of 6.00 dollars, it actually came out to 4.80 dollars and I had a 10 dollar gift card.
Score-O starts off when they give all competitors the exact same map 30 minutes before the event starts. This short amount of time is where winners and losers are made. You have to plan your route and with a team it is hard at times with one map to know the distance between points and also the compass bearings. So I used my handy dandy journal to write our course, a note, compass bearing, and distance. As I was writing the course on my journal I was thinking how hard it was to get my pen to write on the paper. After some days later I realized that it was not the paper but the pen I was using had issues.
For the price I would say that "Rite in the Rain" is a little on the high side to use everyday. I would keep this product as my outdoor journal and keep another journal for everyday. The diabetes side of me loves this product because I want to get my AIC's under that famed 7.0 and I think a journal would help with that. Writing down my numbers, food intake, and what I am doing will keep me aware constantly of how I am doing and give me the ability to document a base line of activity and diabetes. The next part would be to create some sort of spreadsheet and track my journals together or something.
The blurry part in the picture above is where I kept my sweaty thumb while I was navigating through the wild cactus plants. Overall the "Rite in the Rain" notepad was great but I would like to get it at a lower price. I give it 4 syringes out of 5 syringes on my patented diabetes camping scale.
In our backpacking group we have a little joke we play with the people at REI. We ask them to show us the backpacking cots. Age and laziness has gotten a hold of us and we as adults have figured out how to backpack a cot with us in the woods. Now, the joke part is that the REI sales reps tell us every time that there is no such thing as a backpacking cot and if you did try to backpack your cot into the woods it would either not come home with you or you would not come home. Instead of saying "backpacking" you substitute "low profile" in your description of a comparable cot.
What we have found best is the Byer cots. These cots fit in any 2 person backpacking tent and the cot weighs 7lbs to 8lbs depending on the model you get. Make sure you get the Allagash or the Trilite. They have the military style cots as well but they are too tall and have the unprotected legs that tear holes in the bottom of your tent. They also weigh too much and are too bulky to cary.
Someone has now figured a way to take the weight out of the Byer cot and truly deliver a backpacking cot. This came from Luxury Lite out of Lake Jackson Texas. This is one smart person that used light weight fabric and aluminum tent poles connected by a system of round clips that takes five pounds out of the existing Byer cot and it is significantly smaller as well. Now I have never used one of these models but from the videos I found and the website it is exactly the same principles as all the other low profile cots. The only thing is they want 219.95 for one of these cots. Now that is alot of green for a cot. Is it worth the savings of five pounds? Maybe it is and I am certainly going to save up for one or find a used one on the web.
This past weekend was "Score-O" out in Bridgeport Texas. I love this event so much. Now I never really do very well but, the enjoyment of teaching others how to navigate with a map and compass in a game environment teaches so much in 4 hours than I could teach in a week. Above you can see this years map. Your team gets a map 30 minutes before the competition begins and it has around 75 points on it worth various amounts from 5 points to 50 points for the single hardest point to get. The event starts at 1pm and ends at 5pm and everyone gets the same map with the same points on it. The start and finish line are the same place. So the competition part is how well you plan out your route stamping your map with the punchers that are located at the way points.
The legend on the map is amazing. The people that put this event on each year really make a safe and fun event that I feel comfortable having any age scout wandering the forest or lack of forest rolling around in the cactus and getting chased by the free range cows. They mark every deer stand and rock cluster in the area.
With diabetes and orienteering, I make sure to eat a large breakfast and we had some killer breakfast burritos with sausage and egg and hash browns on the side. Lots of carbs for about 6 miles of hiking. I turned my basal rate down a bit much and my BG's were a little high in the 2:30pm time frame so I bolused and turned off my temp basal rate. The day was warm as well so bringing a water bottle is essential and planning your route around the water buffalos helps keep you hydrated. A personal first aid kit, pocket knife, and the propper clothes ensures a successful time.
If you are an outdoors type of person and also like the thrill of competition. Then lets say you are not a fast runner, swimmer, or can hit a softball propperly. Then you should consider taking a look at orienteering. This is a low cost, high thought processing, and active sport that is so overlooked by many people. Just put ther city you reside in and the word "orienteering" in a google or bing search and you will come across events and clubs in your area.
When I first heard and saw people using YouTube I was thinking who in the world is going to watch 30 second clips of people acting dumb. Now several years later I must admit that YouTube has saved my life and taught me a thing or two. I have found clips on how to repair my trucks window regulator, hunt wild hogs, and how to use electrolysis.
I have been telling all of you lately of my current obsession with buying cast iron on the cheap and trying to clean and rehab it to new like conditions. Now this has been lots of elbow grease and my wife wondering when I will go to bed and stop scraping skillets.
With my new method of cleaning, I can stop the scrubbing, and oiling and just put the iron in the 5 gallon bucket with some sodium carbonate and hook up the battery charger and presto! In lots of time depending on the carbon and rust factor you have bare metal clean cast iron.
Watching all of these videos I learned an important part of electrolysis and that is to buy a "Manual" battery charger. Very important because all the new chargers that have the jump battery built into them are automatic charges. I picked the charger above from "Big Lots" for 50 bucks and it was 20% off sunday so that made it 40 dollars. That is a deal on a 2-10-50 amp manual charger.
I forgot to get a before picture of the pan above. This is after 2 hours in the electro-cooker. Once you remove the metal from the science experiment you have to take a scrub brush and get the loose carbon and rust off of the pan.
Before I put the pan in the solution I didn't even know it had this no. 5 and 81/2 IN. stamp on the bottom.
Here is a shot of the inside part. This skillet is probably 50 to 75 years old at least. You can tell a little on the age if they have a ring on the bottom. The ring was on skillets during the days when people cooked on wood stoves. The skillet has a nice flat and smooth as butter feel to the metal. I would put this in the crepe making department in my pantry.
It is hard to tell the difference in collor. The skillet on the right is the one I just used electrolysis on and has a silvery metalic look to the pan. The skillet on the left is one I picked up about two months ago and heat cleaned the rust off. Once I dried the electrolysis pan it instantly started to surface rust. I pulled out the bottle of veggie oil and sealed it real quick to stop this from going any further.
All of this started when my wife wanted me to pick up an extra set of cast iron to use at our house. We have one set at our cabin and now miss it at our house. Me being the cheap person wanted to buy used and found lots of rusty gold. I had heard of alternative methods of cleaning cast iron and came across the video earlier in this post. Now I have volunteered to teach a cast iron cooking class and have learned mountains of information about cast iron and how to care and restore it. The internet is our friend!
Today I hear it is supposed to be like don't blog about diabetes day or something like that. I question what in the world is "no diabetes day?" When I look at what people are trying to do for this day I think the idea is in the right place just the logo and message is a little confusing. The idea of no diabetes day encompasses why I blog in the first place. This blog has its roots from my daily readings of type 1 blogs and in particular one of my favorite blogs http://www.sixuntilme.com/. One day Kerri had posted an article on how her wedding dress had a secret insulin pocket and no one knew about it or could see it. Now I love how Kerri writes and her take on type 1 diabetes, the only thing is I am a guy and if you have read any of my posts you can tell I spend alot of time in the outdoors. So I was sitting there thinking how she gives her personal touch on daily living with diabetes and that got me thinking about my 24 years of camping with diabetes and all the type 1's that I have met through camping and scouts and how I have helped teachothers to be type 1 outdoorsmen. My head started to turn its wheels about why am I not reading about guy stuff and diabetes? There are all sorts of blogs that talk about children, teens, adults, runners, and athletes that deal with their diabetes. There are also blogs of parents or spouses of diabetics and children, these blogs have alot of motivational posts about how families deal with diabetes on a daily basis. I love reading all of these blogs but none of them seemed to conect with me as a diabetic outdoorsman. Friends at my work came by as I was reading about Kerri's wedding dress and they looked at me and questioned why my lunch period was being spent looking at wedding dresses? That is when the diabetic camper came to life, my friends told me I needed to share my experiences of an outdoorsman with type 1. I love to live my life and enjoy it to the fullest and that is what this blog promotes.
I hope this blog has found those type 1's out there that feel this same way as well. I don't need to complain about my disease, complain about how much money I spend maintaining my diabetes (don't get me wrong I like to discuss how to save money maintaining), or have a strong passion that has me shaking my fist at the diabetes gods. This is just a bunch of fun, outdoors, camping, product reviews, and getting into trouble playing life with diabetes.
So to all those out there that have to take a day off from complaining about diabetes or whining that you have to deal with this, I hope you wait till tomorrow and read this post. I think the no diabetes day should be more like "What hobbies does your diabetes have," or "What does your diabetes do with you." Something that emphasises how we are more than diabetics and we each have things to teach one another that allows us to play life with diabetes in the room. For the rest of us we will enjoy life and share it with diabetes to the best we can. No need to take a day off when you enjoy life. Lests all post about how we each solve the diabetes rubics cube each day. Life is too short to whine and complain about how bad anybody has it. Relax and have some fun! We are all given challenges in life that are hard, how we deal with those challenges is how we develop character.
