It's Private...

I really despise election/voting seasons.

Now before anyone clamors on me for not liking it, let me explain.

I've had no less than 15 calls in the last week from various political/lobbyist groups asking me how I'm going to vote this election year.

I have 5 words for all these people.

IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

Now, I understand that these people believe strongly in the people or propositions that they are representing, and they really want said people/proposition to get through.

But the whole point of the secret ballot (and how all political voting is done in the US), is to protect the voter's political privacy.

To quote Wikipedia:

"A vote is an individual's act of voting, by which he or she express support or preference for a certain motion (e.g. a proposed resolution), a certain candidate, or a certain selection of candidates. A secret ballot, the standard way to protect voters' political privacy, generally takes place at a polling station."

Whether or not I decide to vote (which is another matter altogether), my vote is just that.  MY vote.  I may tell my family or close friends, but no one has the right to know how I plan to vote this coming election.

Plans for Saturday

This is going to sound really boring.

But It's time to winterize my apartment!

I rent a 2 bedroom apartment, but I have electric heat. Which gets very expensive over the cold Maine winters.

So I move my bed into my computer room, and only heat one room during the winter. 

But (there is always a 'but'), the process is not easy.  First I have to clean.  Now I'm not a complete pig, but I am a single guy living on my own.  So I tend not to keep my apartment sparkling clean. So today's agenda looks like this.

1) Clean my computer room, and move my bookcases into the living room.

2) Move my headstand, bed,  and dresser into the computer room.

3) Arrange the computer room so it's not a complete disaster area.

4) Collapse in bed and watch some QI on the computer.

Tomorrow, I'll post my results! :)

Trip Details - sorta...

I'm really excited for the trip to Florida next year.

Moreso than any Florida trip I've taken over the past 10 years. I normally go by myself to Daytona for 2 weeks, hang out with my friends, and relax.

This year, it's different. It's the first "family" vacation I've taken since my family was all together. The last time I had a family vacation was back when I was in high school (1989-1990), and we went down to Florida and went to Disney.

This year, it's my new family. Well, new to the internet/blog world. Chuck, Heather, Charlie and Annie are my family. I might not be related to them, but they are the closest thing I have in the world that resembles a family.

So this trip is going to be cool. I'll be experiencing Disney World 3 ways. First, this will be the first time I've ever visited Florida and stayed on Disney Property. Normally, I would stay in Daytona, and then my friends and I would go to Disney (getting up at 5:00am and driving 1 1/2 hours to get there). This time, no driving, no waiting in long line, no paying for a rental car/parking. It's gonna be darn conveinient.

Second, I'll be experiencing the park for the first time in over 10 years. A lot has changed to WDW. Some rides have come and gone, some new attractions, heck - even a new park has opened up. And I'm going as an amateur photgrapher as well. Being able to take pictures is going to be awesome.

And thirdly (and kinda most importantly), I'll be experiencing Disney through the eyes of kids. Charlie and Annie have never been to an amusement park of this size. Charlie's been to Canobie Lake Park, but Disneys is on a scale that's exponentially larger and more grand. I'l never forget my first trip to Disney/EPCOT. It was an incredible, awe-inspiring feeling. To see the grandeur of the parks and the size of the buildings, I literally felt like I was walking into a new world, a new dimension. That the outside world didn't exist and there was something cool or surprising around every corner.

And now that Charlie and Annie will be able to experience it for the first time, I can get to experience it with them.

And maybe - just maybe - I'll feel like a kid again.

I don't get it.

Not about diabetes today.

I don't get mainstream social networking.

I have colleagues and friends that say "You need to have a mySpace/Facebook page".

Why? I have 2 "presences" on the net. My Flickr page, and this blog. The MySpace's and Facebooks don't appeal to me at all (although I wish I were on Facebook during the heyday of Scrabulous - I would have loved to play multiple games at the same time), and Everything that happens in my life (that I feel comfortable sharing with the entire world) can be found at these 2 sites.

And to be quite honest, I've never seen a good-looking MySpace page. Most of them have garish, ugly backgrounds, and weird text color/backgorund combinations that cause my eyeballs to dry out just looking at them.

Why the need for on-line social acceptance? I'm not knocking anyone who uses mySpace/Facebook. If it works for them, then more power to them. But the fact that some people have thousands of "Friends", but how many do they actually know? I mean I have 5-6 really close friends, and I know them pretty well. But to say "I have hundreds of friend on my mySpace page" is ridiculous. For instance - Leo Laporte (of This Week in Tech, and the TWiT Network) is in a friendly "friend race" on Twitter (another thing I don't get) with John C. Dvorak and Kevin Rose (the founder of Digg). Why? They have literally tens of thousands of people following them. Now I know that they have a certain geek celebrity status, so the rules aren't quite the same for them, but for a normal person to say there are thousands of people following there every word? Hehe.. to me it's almost like high school - it's a popularity thing, and I've always hated popularity contests :)

So to all the people that have been telling me to join a social network - please stop. I have my blog, and I have my Flickr. I might not be on the leading edge of Web 2.0, but I'm happy where I am.

Wow Addons Part Deux - a relief to the insanity

Back in January, I posted about my unbelievable frustration with maintaining the addons for World of Warcraft. Finding the right places to download mods, installing them correctly, making sure all the libraries are up-to-date... it was a mess.

Now my friends have shown me the light - WowMatrix.

Here is the best, easiest, and by far most conveinient way to download, install and maintain AddOns for World of Warcraft.

And it's easy - Go to the link. Download the program (no install needed, it's self-contained), extract the zip to your desktop, and run it.

It scans your AddOn Directory, matches up what you have with what it has in it's database, and tells you if you are running any outdated AddOns. Click on "Update All" and.. Viola! Instant upgrades for all your installed mods.

You can also download new mods from the program, but the only downside to that is you have to go online to get screenshots to see if it's something you want to install.

I found 5 new mods that I now can't live without, and I'm really glad my friends pointed me to that program.

The whole diabetes thing...

I'm still trying to figure it out.

My BGL (blood glucose level) has been up and down more often than an elevator in the Empire State Building.

In the morning after I wake up it's about 120 - a bit high (the high morn is 110), but manageable.

The weird thing is I eat a 45-60 carb breakfast, a 30 carb snack at 10:00, a 60ish carb meal for lunch. Then I test my levels at 5-6 pm and I'm somewhere between 70 (which is the bottom of the range for BGL, and 90).

So what is causing my high levels in the morning?

I'm thinking I must be bottoming out over night, and my pancreas is compensating by pumping out the sugar to level me off, and byt he time I get up it's gone over the normal high.

I was told by the nutritionist that I should eat a 30 carb snack before going to bed, but I noticed my levels would skyrocket to 135-145. so I'm not sure if I'm eating to many carbs (therefore naturally increasing by blood sugar from the food) or not enough carbs (therefore increasing my blood sugar through pancreatic secretions).

Needless to say, it's something I'll be talking to my doctor about when I see her in November.

Diabetes - Month 1

Well those of you who don't know about my Flickr account don't know that on 8/8/08 (lucky day my ass..) I fell down a 1/2 flight of stairs, taken to the hospital, and then subsequently diagnosed with Type II diabetes.

So, basically my world has kinda been turned on it's side.

I'm on a carb-restricted diet (which isn't all that hard to follow), and I'm on 4 types of medication to control my blood sugar (Woohoo! NO needles!). I test my blood sugar twice a day, and take meds twice a day as well. And I've basically cut all non-essential foods out of my diet.

The plus side to this (trust me there is one) is that I have more energy, I'm sleeping through the night, and I'm starting to lose weight. I'm down to 250 pounds (I was over 300) and I'm feeling healthy again.

Some days it's really hard to keep a stiff upper lip, but for the most part - I'm doing well. Heather, Chuck, Charlie, and Annie have been a tremendous center of support for me, and without them I don't know what I would have done. Heather especially is great, because she has type 2 as well, and know what I'm going through.

I'm also keeping my job at TD Banknorth. With the merger of Banknorth and Commerce, there was a period of time when our little department didn't know if it was staying or going. We found out last week, and it's relived a huge amount of stress off me.

And next July, I'm headed to Florida with Chuck and the gang for a week's stay at Disney - On property. I'm really excited for this trip, and the fact I get 3 week's vacation next year as well.