We celebrated Thanksgiving this year with good friends, plenty of food, a ton of booze and, oh yeah, filming The Reunion of the Millennium.

I can’t embed the video but just click here to view it.

Find out more about this amazing couple by following them on FaceBook – Hers and His.

OK, so I finally received my Google Wave invite and now I’m setting it up. After signing in this is the first screen I see. I’m sorry Google, but isn’t this being a little anti-competitive? I’m an IE user. I did toy with using Firefox exclusively about two years ago (when it was all the buzz), but these days I generally don’t use it. Safari on the PC? Well, I looked at it, but what’s the point? So what about Chrome Frame in IE? Last time I had Chrome Frame installed IE was crashing on every second site I visited.

So that leaves me with Chrome. I like Chrome. Great UI, nice and fast etc. If it weren’t for the fact that one of the reasons I use IE is because it’s what all my users have in their SOE, I might just use Chrome exclusively. What I object to is being told I have to.

There you have it, you can use Google Wave so long as don’t use the market leading web browser. I wonder if it works with Opera?

I’ve had fun going through my “following” list on Twitter and giving love to some of my favorite tweeters each Wednesday this month.   This time around, I’m putting D-Tweeters in the spotlight, as American Diabetes Month winds down.

@tmana, @vovh, @MomsL8, and @rpederse – my fellow type 2 tweeters.

@CureT1Diabetes, her old blog was one of the first I found on the ‘net a few years back when I was looking for support on my type 2 diabetes as well as my husband’s type 1 diabetes.

@Childhood, whose young daughter was just diagnosed with type 1 in the past week and has been tweeting from the hospital.

@JayCutler6, whose Touchdowns for Diabetes program rocks, even if my favorite NFL team has been only so-so this season.

There are so many of us out on Twitter and blogging and living.  It’s a strong online community and I’m glad it’s out there.  :)

• ChronicBabe is hosting this installment of Patients for a Moment.  I would say Jenni did an excellent job, wouldn’t you?  I can’t wait to dig into some of the best in patient blogging.
• If you are part of the diabetes crowd that comes by my blog, have you seen A Sweet Life, the source for the healthy diabetic?  It’s fast becoming one of my daily reads, that’s for sure.
• If you missed my second vlog on the “Heart of Diabetes” and what I do to help reduce my risk of heart disease, you can see it here.
• Where to go, where to go, for First Bite Boulder?   Tonight we’re headed to Q’s Restaurant.   I’ll be sure to follow this one up with a review.
• And who should you follow on Twitter this week?  I’d suggest @ElizabethArnold for some good diabetes-related tweets, @shitmydadsays for the humor we all need in life, @hollyk for someone running a start-up company, and for the best tweeting news station in Denver, @cbs4denver.

The great stalwart of office apps is MS Office and with Office 2010 just around the corner I would always recommend it. However there are alternatives. If you’ve already signed up with Google Apps as your email solution then you’ve already got full access to Google Docs. But if you want to run things down on your PC and like the warm-fuzzy feeling of having your files on your harddisk (or NAS), but you don’t have a single red-cent left then you could always have a look at OpenOffice.

This version features one of my favorite actors, Alan Rickman. Samuel Beckett is a pretty awesome playwrite.

If you’ve decided to you run your own server and you have sufficient resources and know-how you could run your own email server. Alternatively you could make it somebody else’s problem buy using a “cloud” service such as Office Live (limited locations, not AU) or Google Apps. A nearby church with about a dozen people in the office recently switched from using MS Exchange to using Google, and they love it. The great thing about these services is that you can use your own domain, so you can be you@yourdomain.com rather than you@gmail.com.

@bernthis Oh goodness, Jessica is hilarious.  (If you don’t believe me, just look at her blog’s tagline – “read this blog – and I promise you’ll never have to meet my family”.)

@BestLight Lori is a kind, sweet woman who blogs over at Weebles Wobblog (and she’s here in Colorado so I have met her).  She is an open adoption and open records advocate who writes about the subject multiple places – and since my dad has been making the journey to find his own biological family over the past few years, I appreciate what she does.  Oh, and some of her tweets are downright funny, by the way.

@GridironGoddess College and NFL football addict.  Enough said because you all know I am, too, right?

@JaneRadio Who wouldn’t want to follow the former editor-in-chief of Sassy magazine?

@sipme I’ve known her since we were twelve years old and yet we’ve only met in person one time.  Before there was the ‘net, there were pen pals who wrote snail mail to each other.  Self-described as an intactivist lactivist socialist egalitarian Humanist Finnish-Canadian.

(By the way, if you’re wondering how the fundraising for iPump is going…  As of midnight last night, I have received 59 comments, which means only $14.75 is going to the organization so far.  So please, tell your friends to come on over – and hey, maybe you even want to tweet about my fundraiser.  Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Also, this Saturday is World Diabetes Day, so don’t forget that for every page view I will donate a quarter to Taking Control of Your Diabetes, up to $100.  That’s only 400 page views – you know you want to take a look. )

September 28, 2009.

The alarm goes off early.  Oh, so early.  Whose bright idea was it to take an early morning flight home to Denver from this quick weekend trip “home” to Wisconsin?  Oh, yeah, ME.  After all, I’ve burned through all my vacation time and need to get to work as soon as possible on this Monday morning.

Hey, wait a second…  My right arm is still completely asleep.  And numb.  This better end soon.  Come on already.  Come on, wake up!!!

***

Six weeks later.

And from that moment, I’ve had an issue with varied degrees of numbness, tingling, and pain along the right side of my arm and hand, in my ring and pinkie fingers on that hand.

Of course, I freaked.  I Googled.  The most likely problem is ulnar nerve entrapment, sometimes called ulnar nerve neuropathy.

Yeah.   That word.  I saw that word and I haven’t seen a doctor.  That word which should scare the pants off anyone with diabetes.  Most certainly someone who claims to be a diabetes advocate, right?  Even at the Connected Council meeting, I was quietly suffering with the knowledge that something was not quite right.

Truth is, I’m still searching for a primary care physician.  I need to find one who listens to me, who understands how my type 2 diabetes is treated, and who isn’t willing to pass me off to a bottle of Vicodin or muscle relaxants.  I’m not willing to go back to the one I was seeing – the practice managed to lose my electronic medical record, for goodness sake!

Obviously, this presented a problem.  Fear of what might happen at some doctor’s office was holding me back from seeking a live-and-in-person medical opinion.  I didn’t want to be chastised for poor blood sugar control (because I control it pretty well according to my endocrinologist) or even worse, getting that dreaded “all in my head” phrase.

I chose instead to take the suggestions of what Google searches told me about the condition.  I stopped leaning on my right elbow on the bus while I slept during my morning commutes; I limited the time spent at the computer in the evenings; I stopped sleeping on my stomach with my elbows bent at my head; I even gave up my wimpy 3-lb dumbbells.  The numbness and tingling and pain is much better than it was and I’ll be willing to bet that by the time my endocrinologist appointment comes around in three weeks, it’ll be gone.

And if it’s not, the possible ulnar nerve neuropathy (cringe – there’s that evil word again) will be the number one issue I bring up at said appointment.  The number two issue? Asking for a recommendation for a good primary care provider who works well with the endocrinologist’s practice.

The Office makes me LOL. Seriously, its one of the best shows ever.

My dude be crunk as F***!!! (ALL CAPS)
Watch as Drumma Boy Makes A Beat From Scratch in the studio

via Drumma Boy Makes A Beat From Scratch.

Yes.  I tweet.

Yes.  I follow.

And here are some people/organization/cats you should be following.

@SafetyNurse Because I once worked for a medical device manufacturer and learned more about what can go wrong in the operating room than anyone should, now I read this sort of stuff with great interest.

@KellyRawlings Editor at Diabetic Living who isn’t afraid to tweet diabetes-related mishaps (and is cheering my return to vigorous exercise)

@SI_PeterKing He knows football.

@veronicaeye Insights on everything from feminism to football.  And everything in between.

@MrBaconpants Doesn’t bacon say it all?

@Powells Best.  bookstore.  ever.

@sockington The cat who tweets.  And who makes me really think twice about having my own brood of felines.

I like to keep an eye on things around Net Neutrality, but I will certainly leave it to the experts to put forth some thoughts and opinions about the recent CRTC Decision on this issue.

CRTC Sets Net Neutrality Framework But Leaves Guarantees More Complaints
Michael Geist
Wednesday October 21, 2009
The CRTC’s net neutrality (aka traffic management) decision is out and though it does not go as far as some advocates might hope, it unquestionably advances the ball forward on several important fronts. When considering the decision, it is important to remember that 12 months ago, there was virtually no ISP disclosure of traffic management practices and even an unwillingness to acknowledge that there was an issue. Today’s CRTC decision signifies that traffic management is not a free-for-all and the days of ISPs arguing that they can do whatever they please on their networks is over. That said, it also guarantees that traffic management practices such as throttling will continue and it is going to take more complaints to concretely address the issue. READ MORE

Net Neutrality Developments
Marie Elliott, SaveOurNet.ca
According to Michael Geist, the Canadian government should take some initiative and aid the complete enforcement of net neutrality in Canada. Now that a policy has been created regarding net neutrality, the government needs to make sure that ISPs are following this framework correctly. Geist mainly places this task in the hands of Industry Minister Tony Clement. Geist thinks that Clement should become more engaged in the issue. Fortunately, Clement has stated he is “watching those [Internet Service] providers very closely and [does] not want to see a situation where consumers are put at risk in terms of their access to the Internet.” READ MORE

Net Neutrality in Canada Still a Work in Progress
Michael Geist
Monday October 26, 2009
The release last week of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s report on Internet traffic management – known as the net neutrality decision – attracted national attention. Canadians, Internet service providers, and politicians debated whether the regulator had struck the right balance in addressing how ISPs manage Internet traffic. While some headlines seemed to suggest that the CRTC has given Canada’s ISPs the green light to do as they please, my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) argues the reality is that the decision establishes several notable requirements and restrictions, but leaves the door open for further action from the government. READ MORE

CRTC dropped the ball on net neutrality: Charlie Angus
Decision leaves consumers and users out in the cold
(From a news release dated Thursday, October 22, 2009)
OTTAWA – Yesterday’s CRTC decision on Internet traffic-management practices is a blow to the future of digital innovation in Canada, said New Democrat Digital Affairs Critic Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay). The decision allows Bell and other giant Internet service providers (ISPs) to throttle the internet traffic of competitors or end users if they see fit. This interference will be bad news for small third-party competitors and leaves consumers subject to digital snooping and interference from cable giants. Angus said the CRTC has once again failed to stand up for the public interest. “Basically the CRTC has left the wolves in charge of the henhouse. ISP giants have been given the green light to shape traffic on the internet in favour of their corporate interests,” he said. “This decision is a huge blow to the future competitiveness of the internet.” READ MORE

Did the CRTC just crap the bed on Canada’s net neutrality decision?
Wirelessnorth.ca
The answers so far are no, yes and maybe. Depending who you ask. Brush up on the announcement and initial reactions here: Peter Nowak has excellent coverage today of the CRTC call (long time coming) on net neutrality in Canada. Michael Geist and Ars Technica offer some balanced opinion. What everyone seems to agree on is that CRTC’s framework is reasonable, and is highly progressive relative to where the debate was just a year or more ago. We’ve argued in the past for economic solutions to ISP capacity which is what the CRTC is also stressing. READ MORE

The Open Internet: It’s for everyone
Marie Elliott, SaveOurNet.ca
Free Form created a video about keeping the Internet free and open, and how this will benefit people everywhere. Check it out!

Net Neutrality FAQ: What’s in it for You
Tim Greene, Network World
PCWorld
The FCC has approved a notice of proposed rule making on the subject of net neutrality, and here are a few questions and answers to help shine a light on what that means. (See “FCC takes first step toward net neutrality rules“) What exactly did the FCC do? The FCC agreed to consider what regulations, if any, to impose on ISPs about the applications and services that they allow, ban or rate limit. The process calls for formally proposing rules and holding public hearings on them. A vote about the rules themselves will take place sometime next year. READ MORE

Came across this mix just checking out some new music today and viola!! Hot music. Check out Wayne’s latest mix via www.weareyoungmoney.com (currently underconstruction) “No Ceiling Mixtape”

01. Swag Surf
02. Ice Cream
03. D.O.A.
04. Skit (Feat Gudda Gudda)
05. Wasted
06. Watch My Shoes
07. Break Up (Feat Short Dawg & Gudda Gudda)
08. Banned From T.V.
09. Throw It In The Bag
10. That’s All I Have (Feat Tyga & Zipp)
11. Skit (Feat Shanell)
12. Wayne On Me
13. I’m Good (Feat Lucci Lou)
14. Poke Her Face (Feat Jae Millz)
15. Run This Town
16. I Got No Ceilings
17. Skit End
18. No Ceilings (Feat Birdman)
19. Oh Let’s Do It
20. Single
21. Sweet Dreams (Beyonce Feat Nicki Minaj & Lil Wayne)
Download No Ceilings

Please Feel FREE to Comment!!!

How long have I been blogging?  That’s a question I often hesitate to answer.

This particular blog began November 9, 2005 over at Blogger as a way to talk about my type 2 diabetes and hypothyroidism diagnoses earlier that year and how I hoped to be much healthier in my thirties.  However, I’d been using the URL for another version for a few months prior, nothing at all to do with health matters.   Talking about our love for visiting Montana, about my dreams to become a nurse, and just random writing that came along.  (Yes, things didn’t turn out exactly how I planned on the nurse thing though the pre-requisites have proved useful in understanding diabetes and other disease mechanisms as I blog about health.)

In 2003, I had a short-lived blog, also at Blogger.  I didn’t really have time to write back in those days, so it was more like a pre-teen diary.  It turned into a LiveJournal that same year, where I could keep that diary a bit more private.  I still have the URL for the LiveJournal, but I don’t post there anymore.  I don’t feel the need to keep a diary anymore – either I just put the stuff out there on my public blogs or I keep my thoughts to myself.

Even before that, I had a webpage at geocities.  Talk about a blast from the past.  I’m talking back in 1996, back before I met Greg in person, back when I was in college in small Stevens Point, Wisconsin.   And when I stop to think about it, it was kind of blogging.  I would write about autobiographical aspects of life, trying to piece together how that made me who I was at that present time.  And somehow I hoped that some of the people from my childhood in Illinois would find the webpage and make contact with me.  (Sigh, it took many more years for that to happen.)

My, my how things have changed since that first webpage.  I never would have imagined that I’d be accessing the ‘net on a smart phone or that I’d be all a-Twitter, not unlike the text-based BBS where I first “met” my future husband.  Or that I’d be able to reconnect with all sorts of people via Facebook, including quite a few from that suburban Chicago childhood.  Or that the ‘net would be THIS big.  Or that I’d finally be able to make some money from my blogging ventures after a long journey through administrative assistant and accounting clerk jobs to do what I really love.

So, there you have it.  This blog has been around for four years (next week), in two different venues.  But I’ve been writing on the ‘net much longer than that.

I don’t profess to being a blogging expert, far from it. But despite the infrequency of my posts I do consider myself to be one (small) step up from beginner, and from that lofty vantage point I feel 100% qualified to offer sage advise to newbies. So here goes…

Why blog?

Simple huh? Why not? Actually there could be many reasons for blogging. Maybe you just want your 15 minutes of fame, maybe as a communication tool for a business, group or sport team, maybe to share your great and infinite wisdom with the unwashed masses. The reasons people blog are as varied as the people themselves.

Blogging sites

Next you’ll be needing somewhere to host your blog. Don’t worry, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist or be bank-rolled by a millionaire to get started. WordPress.com and Blogger are just a couple of free options.

I started out using Windows Live Spaces. For me it wasn’t a smart choice, but if you’re just blogging for family and friends it might be the right fit for you.

Got the look?

Your blog is yours, right? So it shouldn’t look like anyone’s else’s. While the default theme is functional and looks just fine, you should take a little bit of time looking though some of the other included templates and play around with a little customisation. Just remember the K.I.S.S. rule.

Get connected

If you have a twitter account, a Facebook page, a YouTube channel etc, there’s a pretty good chance that you can link them.

For instance…

• When I post to this blog, it automatically tweets a link
• When I tweet, my Facebook status gets automatically updated
• At the end of the day (I’ve set it for 21:00) LoudTwitter bundles up all my tweets for the day and posts them as a blog entry (which in turn tweets that I’ve blogged, which then updates my Facebook)

This way I’m always posting, even when I’m not posting.

Publish. Publish. Publish.

Of course the whole point of having a blog is to blog. So get writing and posting already. Just make sure you think about subject categories on your blog, and always tag your posts so that people can find what you’ve written.

If you don’t like the built-in editor that your blogging service provides you, you might want to check out some offline blogging editors. Personally I use and recommend Windows Live Writer. It’s free and works with pretty much any blogging service.

Happy blogging

Sohh Reports

The track listing for 50 Cent’s Before I Self Destruct album has landed online and shows the rapper’s long-awaited fourth solo project featuring a total 16 tracks.

Shown via iTunes, the deluxe album only displays one feature which is Ne-Yo on their “Baby By Me” collaboration.

Before I Self Destruct

1. The Invitation
2. Then Days Went By
3. Death To My Enemies
4. So Disrespect
5. Psycho
6. Hold Me Down
7. Crime Wave
8. Stretch
9. Strong Enough
10. Get It Hot
11. Gangsta’s Delight
12. I Got Swag
13. Baby By Me (Featuring Ne-Yo)
14. Do You Think About Me
15. Ok, You’re Right
16. Could’ve Been You

(This Is 50)

Fif has described his new album as being “harder” than previous releases.

“Not particularly this song, but the entire project — I meant for it to be a little harder and what I fell in love with about hip-hop and within hip-hop,” 50 explained about his upcoming project. “I accomplished it. Before I Self Destruct is absolutely harder than Get Rich or Die Tryin’ or other projects in between. The Massacre had some real aggressive content on it, but there were other things I wanted to do, like ‘Ryder Music,’ ‘Baltimore Love Thing,’ ‘Build You Up,’ featuring Jamie Foxx. This project, I kept all of those things out of it. I just made it what I wanted it to be. This album is my album right now. It’s like the prequel to Get Rich — the things I missed on that project.” (MTV)

He previously said the project would land in stores on November 17th and feature production from Dr. Dre.