"The Most Important Reading You Will Ever Do"

How books have changed your life.

Training Daze: Off Week

Due to pool closure, allergies severe enough to keep me home from work on Monday (I'm just now feeling about 80% human), pump failures inducing sugar woes (yesterday was *awful*), and the fact that it's fit test assessments at work (which means no regular work workouts this week), I've decided to take the week off from my training schedule.

I'm dedicated and all, but not stupid. Things like breathing and steady sugar numbers (my god it's a fucking miracle to have on a pod that works after three straight failures) = good times. I also have a date on Friday that I'd like to be cognizant for. This will require things like breathing and steady sugar numbers.

The plan is to pick the training schedule back up where I left off come Monday morning.

Also, as a consolation prize for my shitty week, I finally bought this t-shirt:


Because I'm awesome.

One for the Road

More Reasons I Won't Be Reading the Twilight Series

This neatly sums up everything I intuited about the books.

They just stank too much of that Anne Bishop "I'm writing a feminist romance ha ha ha just kidding there are cock rings and child rape and incest but really I had feminist intentions because so many women just can't get over how hottt guys are which makes them weak and prone to rape and incest and falling in love with their rapists because rapists are hottt" thing.

Rapists, vampires, werewolves... whatever. You know, hottt dudes that you should "save yourself" for.

Yeah.

Omnipoddery: OmniPod Suckage

So last night I pull out one of the 5 new replacement pods I received from the Omnipod Insulet Corporation.

I went to activate one.

And the first one out of the box FAILED.

FAILED.

A REPLACEMENT FOR A FAILED POD FAILED.

I called them up, reported the failure. They are sending me another one.

I put on a new pod. Activated fine. But today I tested at 345 at lunchtime.

WHAT THE FUCK SRSLY?????????

The pods generally do this right before they fail (rising blood sugar followed by occlusion error beep, followed by flat line beep). I injected myself with my vial and syringe. I just didn't trust the fucking pod anymore. I expect I'll get a beep any time. If my sugar is still off when I get home, I'll have to change it out again and call them.

I finally wrote Insulet corporation a complaint letter. EDIT: I have now also called them and made a formal complaint. I think my 300+ sugar number is leading to increased amounts of ire, bitchiness, and distraction.

I've fucking had it.

I wouldn't trust a fucking form of birth control with a 20% fucking failure rate. Yet here I am, entrusting my fucking life - and limbs, and vision, and kidneys, and etc. - to a medical device that FAILS 20% of the time.

Back in Februrary, an Omnipod marketing manager had this to say about the "rumor" of a 20% failure rate:

“People on the product have some problems sometimes, of course, but the incidence is very low. That 20% figure is just ridiculous!”

Ha ha. Yeah, a 20% failure rate IS pretty ridiculous!

It's not just me, either. That's the kicker. I knew there was a 5-10% failure rate. I could have - maybe - lived with that.

20% is too much.

I haven't seen this many 300+ numbers since I left the fucking hospital.

Fit Test

Well, it's that time of year again - time for our quarterly fit test at work.

My blood pressure is about the same - still in the good range.

Pushups and situps remained the same - about 50 each.

My only real accomplishment was shaving off those 4 lbs that I'd gained just before the last fit test. I'm not manic about losing weight, but I'm committed to *maintaining* my weight, so I was happy to see that I'd shaved off those plus one, which keeps me at my base line.

I'm telling you - too much WoW and too many flourless peanut butter cookies was enough to tip me over the edge. I like maintaining my weight, if for no other reason than that clothes are expensive.

My measurements may be slightly better as well, but they sounded about the same to me as she read them off. Again: maintenance is good. I'll be able to compare them when they hand out our assessments next week.

Tired.

Now I am tired again. Man, I hate being sick.

I need to be at work tomorrow; I'm thinking tonight will be better than last night cause of the drugs and the fact that I'll be back on the pod in half an hour, but man. I hate being worn down.

I deal enough with sugar wackiness that when I have further wackiness, it's just.. just... really tiring.

Tomorrow will be better!

Breathing is Highly Underrated

I love it when the drugs start to kick in.

In other news, the new Omnipods arrived today as well, so I can get back off the shots. You don't realize just how annoying all those shots are until you don't have to take them anymore.

Being back on shots, even for a day, wasn't any fun at all.

Drugs

Apparently, my supreme sinus/throat discomfort is due to mere allergies, not uber-contagions, as I first suspected (whenever my throat feels like this, I'm afraid I have strep throat). This should excite me, since it's not actual sickness!

But it does mean I have to go back to work tomorrow, because it's not like I'm going to get anyone sick with my allergies (after last year's one-in-every-three people at work getting the flu episode, they gave us three sick days. Good call).

Fucking allergies.

At least I have drugs. And a heating pad. Which does make my whole head feel a little better.

I'm sure I will post about something interesting and useful at some point. Just not right now. Now I'm just going to go lie down again.

OmniPod Goddammit

Had the last pod in my box fail tonight while I was changing out my expired pod.

I have five pods in the mail to replace the 5 that have already failed. According to the woman on the phone (I was stunned that Insulet has 24/7 support. That part is nice, at least), those are due to me tomorrow. I've been calling to try and get new pods for two weeks. I realize they are trying to be helpful and keep me from paying out of pocket for them, but by not shipping me pods when I said I needed them - by making me wait for the Oct. 7th magical date that's in their computer - it means they leave you no room for their 20% pod failure rate. They give you no wiggle room.

So it's back to shots for a day until those fuckers show up. I just took my 15u of Lantus. It also means leaving work early tomorrow so I can pick them up before the the apartment office closes (I had them change the delivery address to my work address to avoid this problem in future). When I'd assumed I'd be sent pods well in advance of running out, I figured having them sent to me at home would be no big deal. I'd have a week or more to pick them up from the apartment office.

But it doesn't work like that. In order to get replacements I don't have to pay for out of pocket ($35 a pop) before the magical Oct. 7th date, I have to call them every time a pod fails and have them ship me a replacement.

Goddammit. 6 pods in 30 have failed.

That's a 20% failure rate.

I realize it's a new technology, but these guys have seriously got to get their shit together.

Friends in the Garden

This small male mantid showed up yesterday among my morning glories:



This morning, when I pulled out my bike to go biking, I found an enormous female. Seriously, this thing is as long as my hand.



I generally find small bugs pretty cool, but after South Africa, the big bugs give me the shivers, initially, even if I know they're perfectly harmless. It's only after I talk myself down that the "Hey, cool!" factor kicks in.

Only Slightly Belated Pic in Honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day

My nephew Christopher, my mom, and my new niece, Kaylee.

Early to Bed and Early to Rise

I have a lot of crap to do tomorrow.

Til then!

Good Signs

I find it a good sign that my date for Saturday sent me an email this morning full of pirate-y goodness.

If nothing else, should be a swell time.

Mmmm rum.

Well, shit

The pool at the gym is out "until further notice."

When I inquired at the front desk if the pool was having repairs done or something, he said, "Oh, I have no idea what's going on with the pool."

Way to go Urban Active customer service!

You know the one thing gyms could TOTALLY improve on? Their fucking customer service. It never occurred to me before because I've never really had to inquire after anything, but today it really hit home.

These people don't care if you show up. Most of the time they appear to be sneering down at you instead of, you know, being happy and encouraging. Going to the gym should be a fun, invigorating experience. You should feel better afterward. And, generally, I do, provided I don't interact with the front house staff behind having them barcode me in.

That's really the trouble. Gyms are always hard sell to get you in the door, but they figure that once they've got you locked into a contract, they don't really have to offer anything anymore. After all, you signed the contract!

Thing is, they don't realize that people who are locked into contracts at gyms they hate will go rant to all their friends (and all across the internet) about how crappy their gym is, which means you may have one person for a year, but you just lost 5-50 possible memberships (depending on just how much and how irate their rant was).

Come on, people, is it so hard to let your front house staff know why the pool is closed?

Seriously.

And now I'll be getting really behind on training scheduled - and on my weakest event! Which kind of irritates me a lot, actually.

And...

We have internet!

Civilization has officially returned.

The Calvary

I seem to be one of The Few, The Proud, The Brave who had power restored yesterday. It came on about 6pm. It was beautiful.

This morning, I saw three power trucks on the road, and though there were still quite a few street lights out on my route in, and several blocks still without power, there was... progress. Which, you know, really, was all I was hoping for. Some kind of indication that we weren't stuck in the second half of The Stand.

They're using the fairgrounds downtown as the staging area for the power and debris trucks, and I passed them on the way in. It was pretty awesome to see 50 second shift trucks and crews get geared up for another day. I very nearly took a picture. It filled me with love!

On the one hand, I don't want to blame Dayton for being incompetent - most of the crews were in Texas, and it took them that extra day to get up here. But you know, it also doesn't surprise me that this get noticeably better once you get in the folks from out of state who know what the fuck they're doing.

It doesn't help that Dayton Power & Light just goes out of its way to look incompetent:

Other major utilities in the region, including Duke Energy and American Electric Power which serves the Columbus area and southeast Ohio, offer the public specific projections, by telephone or Web site, about when customers in given areas can expect to have their service restored.

DP&L lacks the technology to do that, Tatham said.

Often, residents have been able to determine where power has been restored by "driving around," Tatham said.

Yeah. It's an incredibly organized strategy we employ.

Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer said he has been in contact with DP&L about the repair schedule, but needs to know more about when each area is to be reconnected. That would help the sheriff's office deploy patrol officers accordingly to deter criminals who might try to loot in areas still without electric service, Plummer said Tuesday.

DP&L relies on information that local governments relay about reconnect priorities, Tatham said.

"As far as identifying priorities down to a neighborhood, that would be difficult to do," Tatham said.

Right. Because... making a priority list in the event of a disaster isn't something that... people do. Shit, if FEMA doesn't do it, why should DP&L?

Retards.

In any case, there are still lots of folks without power this morning, but at least there's progress.

Then everybody will head back to Texas.

Tonight's Training

Tonight it's 20 minutes swimming and 25 minutes running.

These are the times at which I start to get a little nervous. I'll do fine and all, but you start giving me 30 min of an exercise (my first 30 min swim is next week) and 20-30 of something else, and... whew. It's the anticipation that will cripple you.

So, um, I'm just not thinking about it?

Or thinking about the last 8 weeks?

I may have some hiccups with insulin adjustments next week when the times get longer. I'm just forgiving myself for those now, cause I know that leveling is going to be really frustrating.

Onward and tra la and all that.

How Did I Miss This One?

Ellen and Portia got married.

This makes me terribly happy.

Quote of the Day

"Vision without execution is a hallucination."
- Thomas Edison