I created a Twitter account after the disastrous Thursday Night Football game the Bengals had against the Browns on December 6. The theme was to put everything better than Andy Dalton's 2.0 QB rating performance on a twitter page, so I created @ShitAboveDalton. You can see some of the timeline below and also follow the page if you haven't already.
We are in the month of November and nothing says November like not shaving. I happened to shave both my face and head on November because I was Freddie Mercury for Halloween (In the second picture I'm the one on the right in case you couldn't tell).
I dyed my hair and facial hair black and with my skin being so pale, it was best for me to shave my head and face. Unfortunately this was on the first day of a tradition I have done for years which is to participate in "No Shave November." I am a day behind but each day I will be taking a picture of myself, then placing all of the pictures in a video to show you all the progress of my hopefully beautiful beard. My head hair is slow growing nowadays so I do not anticipate very much hair by the end of the month. I know what you're thinking: "Yes! More David selfies." You are welcome.
Diabetes Awareness Month
November, on a more serious note, is also Diabetes Awareness Month. Of course this is something near and dear to my heart as if you don't know by now, I have Type 1 Diabetes which is a very different disease than Type 2. My girlfriend, Amy, brought to my attention two pictures that perfectly explain to people how different they are:
I heard this in one of the billions of Spiderman movies once or maybe even in the cartoon back in the day, "With great power comes great responsibility." Well, my power is being diabetic. I have this disease for a reason. I believe in God, and God gave me this for a reason. It taught me to be disciplined and patient. It taught me that some things are just out of your control, but you can still contain. I am also given this disease because I have a voice. This will be my 142nd entry on this blog site and I have over 17,000 views so someone out there must be reading. My responsibility is to reach out to you guys and let you know some facts about this disease. I will start with some my sister posted yesterday:
Diabetes follows Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and yes breast cancer is an awful disease, and it kills an alarming number of people a year. Type 1 Diabetes is a different kind of killer. I look normal. If I didn't tell you I had diabetes and you didn't see my pump connected to my body, you wouldn't know. Every day though, this disease attacks me. There have been no off days since I was first diagnosed at the age of 12. It's there on the best and worst days of your life. It makes its presence felt too. If you are stressed, your blood sugar rises. If you take certain medicines, your blood sugar rises. Sometimes it rises for reasons you don't even know. So what, you are thinking? What's the big deal about high blood sugars? Here are the effects:
High Blood Sugars
You can get DKA, which is described below from the Diabetes.org website:
What if it Goes Untreated?
Hyperglycemia can be a serious problem if you don't treat it, so it's important to treat as soon as you detect it. If you fail to treat hyperglycemia, a condition called ketoacidosis (diabetic coma) could occur. Ketoacidosis develops when your body doesn't have enough insulin. Without insulin, your body can't use glucose for fuel, so your body breaks down fats to use for energy.
When your body breaks down fats, waste products called ketones are produced. Your body cannot tolerate large amounts of ketones and will try to get rid of them through the urine. Unfortunately, the body cannot release all the ketones and they build up in your blood, which can lead to ketoacidosis.
Ketoacidosis is life-threatening and needs immediate treatment. Symptoms include:
Shortness of breath
Breath that smells fruity
Nausea and vomiting
Very dry mouth
Talk to your doctor about how to handle this condition.
You can develop neuropathy, which is something that has happened to me. You begin to get numbness in your hands and mostly feet. They begin to tingle and also very sensitive to heat or cold. In severe cases, it can attack your organs.
It can cause a coma.
Kidneys can shut down or begin to not work properly.
These are just a few of the many effects high blood sugars can cause, especially over time. Doctors moderate your blood sugar levels through a blood test called a hemoglobin A1C which shows basically an average number your blood sugar was over a 3 month span. Speaking of blood sugar levels, a normal person's blood is between 60 and 120. I diabetic person's levels would come in higher than that. High blood sugars have a long term effect on you and in Lehman's terms, eventually kill you. Low blood sugars also can have a very negative effect on you short term. If you over correct with insulin, your body could get sweaty and shaky. I know I sweat like a monster when I'm low. My eyes also have trouble seeing things in real time. I have also passed out twice from low blood sugars. Many people go into seizures from extremely low blood sugar levels.
This is why it is so difficult for us diabetics. There are consequences if you go too high or low, but we are human. There are good days and bad days. Sometimes we don't feel like doing it that day, or sometimes we forget to program in a meal or we don't feel good, but we suffer consequences for those days. Diabetes is a serious and fatal disease that needs just as much awareness as any cancer or AIDS or any other disease.
My favorite charity for Type 1 Diabetes is JDRF and here is their website: http://jdrf.org/. You can show your support by making a video on their site which I will be participating in and also changing your profile pic on any social media site to this below:
Read more about my struggles with diabetes at the below links:
Now that all the serious stuff is out of the way, here are my top 5 least favorite local athlete commercials...this list was compiled after talking with a coworker about how horrible the local Elk and Elk commercials were and it spawned into talking about Carson Palmer's John Morrell commercial which, in turned, made me come up with this list, but first here are father and son, Elk and Elk and their famous comb-overs:
5. Carson Palmer//John Morrell-Carson may have left us in Cincinnati for greener pastures in his eyes, but Carson left us this gem of a commercial that will live in this city forever. Check out the referees.
4. Pete Rose// Kool-Aid- There terribleness of this commercial was saved by the Kool-Aid man (I have a soft spot in my heart for him) when he bursts through the wall. Pete is ridiculous in it though.
3. Bronson Arroyo//Champion Ford- Bronson makes cheesy comments but even worse, he cusses in the commercial. Did this actually air?
2. Pete Rose//Muenchens- Pete and his trophy wife try to help sell some furniture. His acting and hat....both bad.
1. Bronson Arroyo and Chris Welsh//J.T.M.-The lyrics are bad; the acting is worse. I actually like both Arroyo and Welsh but when you are first of all promoting J.T.M. which is awful with a bad song, and an awkward mustached sad man, you get to be my least favorite commercial.
So this week started with the Bengals losing to the Browns. They looked more like the 2002 Bengals instead of the team that knocked off Green Bay just one day earlier.
Just as that tragedy was being written in Cleveland, the Reds were busy getting swept by the Pirates, the same team they would be playing in Tuesday's wildcard playoff game. They didn't seem excited nor did they look like they played with any sense of urgency. They would later fall to the pirates in that playoff game. They played, it seemed with no enthusiasm or heart and it was more of a slow death rather than the shocker that happened in last year's playoffs. The sad part of the game was that the big money players (i.e. Phillips, Bruce, and Votto) played with what seemed like no heart.
Congratulations though to the Pirates who earned it and their fans deserved it except that one kept punching Mat Latos' wife in the back of the head which is a shame.
Let's go back to Sunday. One of my top five shows of all time went off the air, Breaking Bad. The writing on that show was spectacular and the characterization, acting and directing was second to none. Vince Gilligan, the creator's premise was to turn Mr. Chipps into Scarface and that he did over five amazing seasons. He went out on top and on his own terms which is rare for any show. The ending did solve things which is better than any 'fade to black' ending and I definitely appreciated although the final episode would not make my top 5 episodes of the show. I am still in mourning over the show going off the air. I will be sad to see it go and I'm not sure there's anything on right now that compares other than maybe Mad Men.
Yes that is an original drawing by me with the iconic sketch from the show that I drew to the best of my abilities. As you all know my talent is writing and not drawing but that is my first career self portrait and some say I look like a love child of Hank Hill and Boomhower from King of the Hill but I believe I look pretty sexy if I do say so myself.
Anyway, I apologize that you had to get through all that boring stuff to get to what I wanted to write about I don't normally bury the lead but I wanted you to feel all the buildup of this terrible week to get to what happened today which is a ridiculous story that may be entertaining to you so I thought I'd share it. Well for about a week or so I've been nursing a red eye. Well it was sort of in both eyes so I attributed to allergies. My doctor had me taking this over the counter allergy medicine for eyes and Zyrtec. Well I was actually taking Kroger brand Zyrtec because for some reason real Zyrtec is through the roof expensive. All medicine costs too much so don't even get me started on that. Anyway it wasn't really cleaning up my eye. It kept getting worse until it became bloodshot red. People have been asking me to get it checked out like coworkers Mindy and Mitch so finally I went to the nurse at work. Turns out I have this rare form of pink eye which in my case should be called bloodshot red eye which is highly contagious. Anyway they send me home from work and I drive to Kroger to get my prescriptions. I decided to go through the drive-thru. First of all, the car in front of me was pulled into the drive-thru backwards. What the hell right? So I waited a mile away so they could pull out so I can pull in the right way. I know, I know. That's what she said. I finally get pulled in there and the lady said they only had my antibiotic and not my eye gel. Please don't call it a gel lady because that sounds nasty. I prefer drops. Well they said they'd have it tomorrow. I was thinking to myself "lady can't you see my eye is redder than the inside of the sun. I need it now!" I ask her to see if any other Kroger in the area has it. The Kroger in Newport has the drug. Thank God. I couldn't get off my high horse yet though. The prescription is $47. She said that she just wanted to let me know. Well thanks lady. I could go buy a video game with that kind of coin and you say it as "oh by the way." I told her I'd call and see if my doctor had any alternatives. She then preceded to check me out with the antibiotic which was only $4. She sent me a slip to sign and I go to put my debit card and Kroger card into the tube and bam I forgot to put my car in park so I moved up some. My hand held onto the Kroger card but not my debit card. By now there is a car behind me waiting to go. I have to put the car in park and get on my hands and knees looking for this card. I, embarrassingly tell the woman I lost my card. After looking for it I noticed it had fallen into this slot on this tube machine that is impossible to get anything from. The employee and her manager brought brooms and flyswaters out to try and get it, but failed. I then, with my highly contagious eye, go into 5/3 bank to cancel my card, which was stolen two weeks prior and I just got, and ask for a new one. I then go to the pharmacy and ask for them to just get my $47 prescription filled at Kroger because I'm over dealing with all of it. So that is how my week has gone and it is only Wednesday that's not even mentioning the lingering pain and nerve problems I've been having in my hands and feet. I'm still keeping a smile though and I hope this ridiculous story made some if you laugh. Beware I'm posting my eye next but in order to get to the "of the day" section you will have to scroll past it.
Winner of the Day: The I Phone 5. I usually write these things at work but since I got sent home and my damn computer is cracked I wrote this whole thing on the Blogger app which doesn't have as many features but it got the job done!!
Loser of the Day: Obamaphone. Until my sister Laura brought Obamaphone up yesterday I did not know it existed. I could talk about government shutdown and Obamacare and all that. I have opinions but it is best I keep them to myself. Obamaphone however is crazy. They give people on welfare a cell phone and a plan. These people aren't getting the Jitterbug which is what they should be getting if this plan exists with basic features. They're getting IPhones which I'm paying an arm and a leg for and now I'm paying for theirs.
Quote of the day:
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Song of the Day: "Fly Away" by Nelly--look it up on YouTube. I have no idea how to post it on this app.
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