The Worship of Questions

nature 99, nurture 0

2009-09-02T06:35:55Z

The researchers are perfectly comfortable with, and don't mention any suggested conclusions to be drawn from, the fact that they observe variable degrees of self-control and guilt in children as young as age two, and that the variation doesn't show any correlation with parenting methods or styles.

They observe it, and five seconds later you'll see them hemming and hawing over the role parenting plays in teaching morality.

Err, perhaps I still overestimate them; more likely those are the more conscientious and intelligent ones. Probably the majority of people have all the observations available to them: children's innate sense of responsibility, and innate norms that actually match ethical individualism: not to use others as means to your ends. But people also have their innate bias towards exaggerating control, and optimistic exaggeration of control over their offsprings' characters and thus lives, so they can obseve the innate morality and then boldly contradict their observations two seconds later.

The article is short, the description of the observations is fascinating: Guilt is a dropping feeling in the tummy.

Guilt and Atonement on the Path to Adulthood, The New York Times,

“Even if you don’t have that sinking feeling in the tummy, you can still suppress impulses,” Dr. Kochanska said. “You can stop and remember what your parents told you. You can stop and reflect on the consequences for others and yourself.”

But what if your child lacks both self-control and guilt? What can you do? And should you feel guilty for doing a lousy job of parenting?

Well, you could blame yourself, although researchers haven’t been able to link any particular pattern of parenting to children’s levels of guilt, says June Tangney, a psychologist at George Mason University. But Dr. Tangney, who has studied guilt extensively in both children and adults, including prison inmates, does have some advice for parents. (To offer your thoughts on parents and guilt, go to nytimes.com/tierneylab.)

make sushi

2009-08-31T01:12:28Z

A few days ago Natasha told me that she'd been reading about how to make sushi and she felt we should do it. I, smarter than escargot, said 'Sure!'

I had this internal un-critically-examined model of what is involved in making sushi. 99% of the task is about how to select and slice up the raw fish. The rest is, well, I already said - 1% of the job.

So we found what looked exactly identical to a RANCH 99 market in downtown Phoenix yesterday, and we bought a hefty king filet of salmon, which the fishmonger assured me was sushi grade. Natasha, being the one who did all this profound research which I believed must be robust in arcane detail, executed the task like this: "Ok Kirez, go find and buy some fish. Make sure it's sushi grade and can be eaten raw!" (I wonder if the pharaohs assembled 100,000 slaves and said, "Ok. Build pyramids!", because I'll spoil the story here, it ends up working just fine.)

We also bought Mischka some massive brontosaurus-looking femur bones coated with rich red bits and full of marrow. The two bones weighed 7.4 pounds. Freaking awesome!

I'm eager to see Natasha's insights into the slicing of the sushi. She's very excited about the preparations. We've bought nori (seaweed for the rolls, which she had me select), chopsticks (these have been lacking in my life the last year), wasabi, soy sauce, and the bamboo mats for making the rolls. Also, rice vinegar and rice. We bought clams as well but those weren't for the sushi.

She remains excited and throws herself into the sushi preparation. As I said, I had naively believed that 99% of the challenge is in selecting and slicing the fish, but I totally ignroant had already selected the fish.

She covers the bamboo rollers in plastic. I make the wasabi using a powder and adding equal parts water, which I'm surprised to learn is a BETTER wasabi, and less expensive, and which will last near indefinitely and allow you to make exactly the amount of wasabi you want, at any time. Also, making wasabi this way is like cutting onions but harder on the eyes!

Then Tash says to me, "Okay, cut the fish!" She didn't know anything about this internal model I had about What Constitutes The Massive Skill Set And Learning Curve Of Making Sushi, so she issues this command with zero sense of self-consciousness. I'm alone in my amusement.

So I got out my favorite knife, which is, contrary to all rational expectation, the bread knife --- very long, very slender, and very sharp, thank you Cutco. And Tash dictated to me the sizes of the pieces she wanted, and I cut them. (how high do you want these pyramids, pharaoh? Pharaoh points at the sky. Oh, ok.)

She assembled the rolls: vanilla-American flavor, with cream cheese, avocado, cucumber, salmon, rice, the nori. I grabbed the camera and took a few photos. The dog sat loyally and watchfully at our feet, and of course she got some sushi too.

Just uploaded photos via email to Facebook, behind the cut.

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-08-16T21:25:42Z

I didn't expect to like this movie, which made my experience all the brighter.
* * *

Slumdog Millionaire achieves a remarkable effect with an imperceptibly light touch: a bright, life-affirming sense of life, in an ugly, gritty world and amidst the harrowing conflicts the protagonist confronts. There is serious ugliness in the movie, but the overall atmosphere achieves lightness and love within the gravity and suspense. Perhaps similar can be said of Life Is Beautiful and Amelie.

But that's starting soft on Slumdog's virtues!

The movie is a character-based movie, so it stands or falls on the strength of Jamil's character. But Slumdog doesn't muddy the waters -- its theme is starkly simple: the success of a boy, innocent and benevolent, who is unswervingly and indomitably persistent.

The story is entirely foreshadowed in his early characterization: in a world of ugliness, and cornered and abused by the evil people around him, he gets locked in an outhouse right at the moment he desperately wants to be free. What does he do? Nevermind how disgusting the world around him is! He jumps straight into the shit and fights on, and comes out triumphant. How does the world respond? It immediately punishes him again. And yet, he persists; we see his lack of anger and vindictiveness -- and again he succeeds.

What kind of emotions does his world evoke in us? How dark is it? We see his evil brother as a foil, and we see the evil people around him, all of which are quite realistic. We ourselves feel anger, horror, and the hopelessness of his world. But Jamil persists seemingly unscarred. Toward the end even the girl he loves has given up and rejects him --- but he persists. And his strength is both their savior.

Jamil's strength, the theme of the movie, is communicated with further delicious detail: look at him. Look how mousy and simple, slender, how unchallenging and unaggressive his facial expressions are. Look at the big, famous TV star towering over him, playing with him like a cat with a mouse -- and the brightest light of this characterization, the nickname that sticks to him: The Chaiwalla, the tea-boy. A position even lesser than a bus boy in our culture. The exquisite characterization continues: we see his consistency repeatedly, in the face of so many challenges, so many insults.

The movie opens with this scene and continues returning to it: we see an inadequate, mousy, ungraceful boy, intimidated, scared, utterly outclassed by the TV game show host. In the end, with no tricks of camera or special effects, just the weight of the story's trajectory and Jamil's heroism, we see a lion.

Objectivists can do even better at specifying the heroism: it's beyond persistence. Jamil's heroism includes honesty and, dare I say it, psycho-epistemology: unflinching commitment to the simple facts of what he knows. Because there is no strategizing, no manipulation or poker playing in Jamil's repertoire, it brings his indomitable will into greater relief.

Yes, the storyline contains strokes of luck. Jamil is struck by bad luck over, and over, and over throughout his life. Even in his final episode of triumph he is struck by bad luck. The luck, you see, plays both ways -- as in real life. It's true that the magnitude of his triumph depended on a stroke of luck, but even this conclusion slights the real story we see.

Whatever luck we witnessed paled in comparison to the little boy, who in abject poverty and desperate circumstances shows benevolence and courage as a child, and then grows into a veritable freight train of willpower.

blood glucose control update

2009-07-28T01:15:43Z

April-May 2009: average BG = 156.9, STD DEV = 75.5

June 2009: average BG = 112, STD DEV = 58.8

July 2009: average BG = 126.5, STD DEV = 66.2

average daily total of injected insulin: 54.5 units

Motivationally, I'm an absolute wreck right now. I have near zero direction or discipline and can barely keep myself going.

Blood sugars have been rollercoastering, with multiple weekly extremes in the 36-38 range. Only one of these had severe mental breakdown symptoms --- I felt myself falling down a slippery slope into a dark pit, realized what was happening too late, was clawing at the sides and finally made the consciousness explicit: "Oh no this is a sever hypo, quick get up and save yourself", and severe physical weakness and pain hit right at the same time -- and I actually did it, I walked to the kitchen and started eating a frozen juice concentrate. I thought Tash saved me, but in fact she found me in the kitchen incoherent but doing the right things. I couldn't remember most of that period, some of it came back though.

Too much of the day I'm listless. I'm not sure what I can do to force myself back on track. Workouts have been sporadic, though I just had a period of 3 workouts in 4 days that were pretty decent. My shoulder is injured which precludes most everything I want to do, so all I did was running and rowing.

R U

2009-07-27T02:43:56Z

R U --
this code is almost universal in its possible usage media: email, sms, phone, or shouted / rough whispered / hissed in a crowded/loud public environs; similarly, its economy is sweet for visual transmission such as hand signal, scratched on a wall or window, etc.

Its generality requires some contextual cue, however, so if the receiver has reason to believe that the sender needs *specific* information, the receiver may be anxious as to which specific info is prioritized.

"R U?" is short for:
Where are you? How are you?

and in its most specific possible intent, What is progress or status of current objective?

...all of which are intuitive depending on shared context. It's a fabulously useful and economic signal.

russiandoctors.org/forum hacked

2009-07-21T00:32:55Z

The forums for the Russian American Medical Association are very valuable to freckletash, she's used them extensively in preparing for her exams and some networking.

Today they got hacked by, according to the claim, Kurdish hackers:

Click on the image to see the full size version.

36

2009-07-19T18:15:05Z

I've gotten a sense of alienation from seeing this number 36 and that it applies to me. These numbers became oppressive after 33, I think. Like suddenly that invisible opponent in the ring with you is packing another 20 pounds behind his punch: Whoa! Where'd THAT come from?!

About five entries I've been wanting to write for the last 5 days and still haven't gotten to it...

But yo it's my birthday, look at me!

Disneyland

2009-07-18T05:30:55Z

That's my wife.

For me, it's the happiest place on earth because of how much she enjoys it. Getting to experience her experience of it -- that's priceless.

I can't believe how wonderful my life is. I'm shocked when I think through the illogic of how much good luck I have and how little it results from the things I work for. I mean, it's like I aim at a target, shoot, I believe everything should work just right, I miss the target drastically and manage to knock a tin can into a Rube Goldberg machine that pours me a Latte and sticks $1000 in my pocket. And my life seems to be a maddening continuity of this event happening about three times a week.

I only realized at the end of that paragraph that they made a movie like this once: Forrest Gump.

Which completes the circle, doesn't it? If you ever asked me which movie protagonist I most resemble, you wouldn't expect Forrest Gump to make the top 100, would you? But there it is, a box of freaking chocolates.

Oh, she simultaneously wrote a post about Disneyland and beat me to the punch of using that photo. Hey -- I got that photo in ONE SINGLE SHOT. I mean, she walked up and said - "wait! I want you to get a photo of me jumping in the air", she gave me about one second and jumped, I snapped, and that was the output. The previous and following photos are totally different locations.

Ha. So sometimes I shoot and get exactly what I want. Still, that Forrest Gump insight is frightful in its accuracy.

I told her in a chat message, "You CANNOT use that photo to blog, it's MINE, I'm using it!" and she didn't see the chat, she walked in at that second and handed me her laptop with her post written in it, for me to preview, and I started cursing as I saw the image because I wrote the chat too late.

The Sporting News writeup

2009-07-16T07:32:57Z

The Sporting News posted a good piece
From late in the article,

For the viewer, it was the kind of compelling blend of unblinking physical horror you get from watching the last mile of an Ironman, but with the "Festivus Feats of Strength" curiosity and creativity of the aforementioned competition full of dudes named Magnus. I joked with one of the competitors that that the games would be on ESPN2 in five years. He shook his head. "Three." At the very least, as a spectator sport, it has raw potential, especially if they continue to serve three dollar beer and keep the whole low-carb carnival feel to the whole thing.

Scandinavians, by the way, were out in force and proud with it. Mikko Salo of Finland won the men's division, Annie Thorisdottir of Iceland placed 11th in the women's division overall, and the Danes provided moral support from the stands.

monadnock

2009-07-16T06:30:41Z

Strange that I never knew this ("Monadnock" was the name for an architectural project by Howard Roark pivotal to the plot in The Fountainhead). The only monads I ever knew about were all related to Spinoza's metaphysics.

A.Word.A.Day: Inselberg - noun: An isolated mountain or hill rising abruptly from its surrounding. In US it's known as a monadnock.

crayola, not conservative enough

2009-07-06T07:52:49Z

I just bought my wife a box of 64 Crayola crayons. I know her well... and I knew this was a perfect gift for her. (She's stressing right now over her exam in ~32 hours.) We'll be traveling in the car, this will be perfect for her to play with in addition to studying.

But the real motivation was to give her referential definitions for color vocabulary. It's no good trying to describe "lilac" or "sienna" to her, then looking for something in the environment to point to.

DISAPPOINTMENT.

The color names have changed substantially. Where is indigo? Where is teal?

They've invented "mauvelous". "Granny smith apple green" (which isn't). The "tan" is actually closer to a "British tan".

Oh, this is frustrating. Who would have thought the Crayola corporation would take the arrogant role of linguistic activism?

(freckletash doesn't care the slightest, she's jubilant, playing with her crayons!)

June blood glucose control - big success

2009-07-01T06:55:21Z

Big month: I got back on an insulin pump, with a new Minimed Paradigm 722.

I also tried the 4-5 day Continuous Glucose Monitoring System (CGMS) trial, in which my blood sugars were recorded every 5 minutes for 4.5 days straight, enabling me to see what actually happens to my blood glucose in response to food (different kinds of foods), sleeping, waking, and exercise. We were able to see and quantify exactly the big jumps in blood glucose when I a) ate wheat, b) exercised, c) woke up. We were able to confirm that my BG stayed steady while I slept.

Anyway, my important numbers, from my public google spreadsheet:

AVERAGE BLOOD GLUCOSE: 112.04
STANDARD DEVIATION: 58.78

I thought my whole month blew up when my 'system' crashed on June 27th. On that day, I changed infusion sets. Immediately after changing and for a couple hours subsequent, I went hypoglycemic. This indicates insulin is flowing successfully from the new infusion set, but I have injected too much insulin.
Then something mysterious happened, and the infusion site seems to have shut down: my BG shot upward as if I had zero insulin AND stress acting on me. I started taking corrective boluses... and hours went by as I waited too long to confirm they weren't working. I ended up recording two BGs over 300 (one was 351). Fearing the pump had a problem (tubing?), I started injecting APIDRA ultra-fast insulin from a pen. One of those heinous coincidences -- the pen also failed to work, and I was unable to see that it didn't work.

In sum: the pump infusion of insulin stopped in an unpredictable and undetectable way (normally, failures are immediately perceptible). Then, my attempts to correct failed, but I couldn't get immediate feedback of the failure, it was also undetected. Finally, I resorted to an outside. usually foolproof system... and this injection failed TWICE. During this time, I'd spent 1/3 of the day severely hypoglycemic, then 1/3 of the day severely hypERglycemic (high blood sugar) and absolutely miserable from it.

(Among symptoms: severely bad mood, peevish and angry, which I was aware of, but nonetheless the suffering and experiencing of it was potent.)

As a result, my numbers got badly screwed up in that one day. Otherwise, June has been a wonderful month, and very probably the best control I've experienced since I was diagnosed as a Type 1 diabetic 15 years ago.

AVG BG and STDEV to June 12
I'm on the 12th day of June, with an Average Blood Glucose of 108.95 and a Standard Deviation of 47.86.

About June 1st, I wrote:

Here's the beauty: AVG = 93.7777
And the beast: STD DEV = 54.577
...which will only grow larger, unfortunately.

In fact I did much better in June than I had reason to expect. I'm very happy about this.

My goal, now, is to persist in this hypervigilance.

Back in May, I was fantasizing about how Type 1 diabetic youth could have, for example, their characters in MMORPG, Second Life, the Sims, etc, be diabetics --- and integrate their scoring on blood glucose control with their characters' success and capacities. This woud be easy to setup, and bring the same kind of hypervigilance to their real-life health and even survival.

photos of the new pentagon

2009-06-29T07:55:39Z

Just a couple photos.

Until Friday I was somewhat frustrated with our progress. On Friday afternoon I sat down with the architect in his studio and we hammered stuff out.

Over the phone, the architect was hopeless. In person, and while working in his archi-cad, he was much better.

But he was frustrated and started whining that he couldn't concentrated. I got up and took a break, when I returned, his approximately 20-year-old, mexican, bilingual assistant was in his seat.

Then the work really started moving. The architect was hopeless at articulating his thoughts or ideas, he was slow to get conceptual stuff (as best I could tell), but when we started working in the CAD software, he got better and the conversation got better.

Then he got out of the way and let his uneducated assistant take over, and the work suddenly accelerated dramatically... and actually got done.

At one point, I was prompting the architect: "Look, I am sure your software has snippets we can cut and paste, drag and drop, to represent toilets, showers, sinks, and other features. You should even have a mop sink and water heater, and windows. Let's drop those in there so we can have numbers and sizes attached to our thinking."

He got vague, "Yeah, definitely, we have those, and we'll do that."

When I returned and his assistant was on the computer... all that stuff got populated and placed in about 5-10 minutes. Duh.

What does this guy do? Acts like a hippy with his long stringy hair and baggy jeans. His more professional, more articulate, faster, and seemingly in every way more competent, uneducated assistant, was ten times the architect he was in every measure that I could perceive.

I'm tempted to fire the architect and cut a moonlighting deal with his assistant.

From ArrowheadCF-new-empty-box

don't fire the specialists yet

2009-06-29T07:29:13Z

had to combine several disparate elements into a single graphic.

this resulted in over-styling them. having a hard time escaping from that.

frustrated.

Also, it looks a lot more over-styled when I look at it outside GIMP, eg on a web page, than within the canvas.

Also, I wish I were an artist. I love the ideas and concepts I come up with, I've never been able to realize them, so instead I end up crufting together stuff like this.

From ArrhdCF-first-header-work

trajectory unfulfilled

2009-06-28T07:52:07Z

Charles Darwin has a posse; This entry has a trajectory

http://www.impawards.com/2006/posters/v_for_vendetta_ver3_xlg.jpg

http://athletics.wikia.com/wiki/Fatal_Fitness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salute

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1056987

http://iviesinchina.com/the-politics-of-hypocrisy/

http://theclicheproject.bigcartel.com/product/gold-black-gunmetal-powerfist-medallion

http://www.mychefbyrequest.com/

http://media.photobucket.com/image/power%20fist/awiakta/fist.jpg

http://fitness.wikia.com/wiki/CrossFit

Some bizarre 2005 cases of rhabdo in pubMed

http://www.crossfit.com/mt-archive2/2005_09.html

http://69.90.174.246/photos/display_pic_with_logo/70882/70882,1185452674,1.jpg

http://www.purdue.edu/bcc/history/images/tn_black-power-fist.JPG

PTOSSing - silliness, I'm afraid

tomato soup

2009-06-26T04:45:57Z

freckletash's meals are so good that it's difficult to match them by going to good restaurants.

Tonight - something she just dreamed up:

7 large tomatoes
1/2 sweet potato (large)
1 tbsp butter
2 cloves garlic
salt, pepper, chili pepper flakes
3/4 of a 16 oz. italian sausage (the kind flavored with anise), diced large

She grated the sweet potato, added to melted butter in a frying pan with a tablespoon of water, and simmered for 1/2 hour. While it simmered she fried the sausage.

She poured boiling water over the tomatoes, and after 30-40 seconds, pulled the skin off. Then she grated them by hand.

She added the sausage to the sweet potato and butter, turned the heat up till it boiled again, then mixed in the grated tomato sauce. After everything was boiling she added diced garlic and spices and simmered for another 10-15 minutes.

Served with basil, sour cream and toast.

Unbelievably good.

westering

2009-06-25T14:52:23Z

Tash and I are visiting California for about 10 days...

July 7th, Tash takes step 2 in her medical licensing exam. Step 2 involves professional actors, playing 'patients' with conditions, and the examinee must demonstrate her clinical skills. This can only be done at 5 regional centers throughout the U.S.

We'll visit with radiantsun and mhat

July 8th, 9th - visiting mudita and Kathy in Carson City, NV near Lake Tahoe

July 10th, 11th, 12th - The CrossFit Games

July 13th, Monterey, Carmel and PCH southbound... so Tash can have a bowl of clam chowder. I'm only half joking. She's been wanting me to take her back for the clam chowder for, oh, about 10 months.

July 14th - Disneyland!!!

We've considered climbing Mt. Whitney, seeing the Redwoods, or spending more days visiting crossfit affiliates. The ferry to Catalina Island is interesting, as is hiking with geeks on a Sunday (but Sunday will be at the Games). We'd like to visit the San Diego Zoo, but doubt we can fit it in.

Right now I'm trying to wrap my head around Disneyland; I needed a small attitude adjustment. Tash will be ecstatic the whole day. I know this is perfect for her and how much she'll love it, so I've sold myself on it. I'm looking for any little tips people can give me on how we can get the most of it. I've barely read a single page on it so far... I learned about FREEPASS! which is pretty cool, minimizes waiting in lines. Is there a way to get discounted entrance tickets?

hello kitty burpee

2009-06-22T20:31:49Z

For songofapollo, RE: workouts including HK "Hello Kitty" Burpees

the enigmatic author

2009-06-19T16:29:04Z

Here is the ABOUT THE AUTHOR page for the New York Times Bestseller Your Religion Is False.

The website lists the author's purported name as Joel Grus.

Otherwise, he is that cliche: a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Perhaps he's a would-be cult-leader, a narcissistic attention whore salivating at the imminent adulation of groupies of, er, thoughtful people. Hence his self-conscious restraint.

It's more likely the author is in fact a group of people, a collaborative effort. Otherwise the next-best explanation is a lone individual impossibly fathered, illegitimate and anachronistic, by Mark Twain and Woody Allen. Thankfully in his work, Grus more resembles the father.

the crossfit diabetic: before and after

2009-06-13T16:58:09Z

Ambitious title, but all I'm giving is an excited preview.

2004-2007: I used the pump with Novolog and Humalog insulins (at different times).

2007, March: I went off the pump and switched to injections of long-term insulin, including both Lantus and Levemir

2008, January: Found and started training in CrossFit

2009, June: Returned to using the pump.

From 2004-2007, and indeed from 1996-2001, a combined total of 8 years of using an insulin pump, my basal rates remained consistently at or above the convenient unit of 1.0 units/hour. I vary that rate depending on sleep and activity schedules, so that I might go to 1.5 from 05:00 - 07:30 (historically). I spent more time at 1.1 and 1.2 and 1.3 units/hour, but during more active times and when I was training, I could spend 70% of my time at 1.0 units/hour.

In changing from Pump W/ Novolog, to Injections W/ Levemir (March 2007), I could not compare the effectiveness of Levemir to Novolog; the context and process muddled this comparison, and I never really saw it. I then had to change my injection schedules over time, and my injection amounts, and I never saw a clear change due to my adoption of CrossFit as my training methodology.

(My training methodology prior to January 2008 had been 70% distance running, 20% swimming, with small bouts of bodyweight strength training in the form of pushups, dips, handstands, rock climbing.)

Now I've been CrossFitting for 1.5 years, and I've started on the pump again, and we have the AFTER PICTURE: A basal rate of 1.0 is clearly too high. I am going low constantly, repeatedly. I am now being forced to lower my basal rates, the dominant rate is probably going to be 0.8 units / hour.

My basal metabolism is markedly more insulin sensitive due to my crossfit training.

The implications for insulin dependent diabetics are significant, meaningful; but they are even more profoundly meaningful for type 2 diabetics and pre-diabetics. The control sample was not "couch potato with high glycemic diet"; the control sample was extremely fit, healthy distance runner, swimmer, climber.

AVG BG and STDEV to June 12

2009-06-12T16:39:59Z

I'm on the 12th day of June, with an Average Blood Glucose of 108.95 and a Standard Deviation of 47.86.

As I've said before, those two numbers tell the story. My AVG looks super, but the STDEV shows I've gone hypo way too much.

The more interesting story is that those frequent hypos, by my unconventional hypotheses, are correlated with the extremely productive creative thinking sessions I've engaged in recently.

Yesterday's hectic day had 11 blood sugar readings between 6 am and 11 pm. I said I went hypo 4 times, which seems exaggerated, we only see 3 hypos:

20090611
22:53:00 93
21:07:00 71
19:51:00 53
18:08:00 77
15:48:00 151
12:48:00 44
11:55:00 105
11:23:00 41
10:00:00 147
8:43:00 148
6:04:00 109

veterinarian pharmacology

2009-06-12T16:27:20Z

So, veterinary medicine is not just a better political-economic model for health care than what we've got for humans...

http://www.coreynahman.com/antibiotics.html

Tash has been suffering from allergies (welcome to the Sonoran Desert!) and probably exacerbated by the high-power air conditioning which causes me to dive under a blanket at random times throughout the night, and keeps her sleeping under three blankets, in Phoenix, in summer.

I'm not sure which method will work best for us: internet, Mexico, or veterinary pharmacology.

first crossfit WOD on insulin pump

2009-06-12T16:18:08Z

Near the end of an intense day, I'd just gotten my insulin pump attached, and clients arrived to workout earlier than expected.

I managed to send myself hypoglycemic in the confusion, for about the 4th time yesterday (which means I no longer had glycogen stores to fuel muscle exertion through the bulk of work in a workout that takes beyond 20 seconds and through the ten-minute range...)

A new person at the gym whom I wasn't expecting, required a lot of attention and time; and instead of taking everyone to the track (another client strangely arrived very late), we stayed at the gym. I hadn't worked out at 06:30 -- canceled on Stoker, my workout buddy by text message at 06:00, sorry Stoker! -- so I was thinking of starting everyone and doing a deadlift workout, which I can fit in between sessions of attending to everyone else.

Tash said I needed to do a met-con workout instead of power lifting; I pointed out that I had to take care of everyone else. Then, with our plans thrown awry, and with a lighter load because a few clients were out of town, we finished one group and the second, lighter group was scheduled to do:

HELEN,
3 rounds for time,
400 meter run
21 kettlebell swings - 53 lbs
12 pullups

...which is a relatively quick / short met-con (I expect to do this in about 7:30 - 8:00 minutes)

I was able to join them (these clients had never done a workout with me before or seen me do a workout). I did FAT HELEN, using a 72 lbs kettlebell and chest-to-bar pullups, just like the European CrossFit Games Qualifier.

I unhooked my recently installed insulin pump, put it on the table, Tash ran the timer and called 3-2-1-GO!, and I did my first CrossFit workout on insulin pump therapy. It's possible the hypoglycemias and glycogen shortage slowed me down, but I finished in 9:51, which is plenty fast for FAT HELEN. Heavy KB swings are slower, but I did break my sets, once on the 2nd and twice on the 3rd set, and my forearms were fatigued causing me to break the pullups to 3-4 sets on the lat round, possibly due to the glycogen fatigue.

Those 72 lb (2 pood) kettlebell swings absolutely smoked my forearms -- and I didn't notice what they'd done to my trapezius until I sat at the dinner table and tried to lift a mug of milk. I now know that heavy kettlebell swings hit the traps more intensively than power cleans or deadlifts.

goodbye needles, goodbye schedule

2009-06-12T15:57:43Z

My new, Medtronic-Minimed Paradigm 722 insulin pump arrived yesterday, late in the busiest day I've had in months.

After two years and four months of injecting 3 x Levemir (every 8 hours) per day and between 5-9 Novolog injections per day, I'm off the Levemir schedule. I no longer have alarms programmed for 06:00 a.m., 14:00 and 22:00. (I could sleep in!)

I popped the box open, tried to ignore the volumes of documentation, put the battery in the pump, filled a reservoir from an unused, large, American vial of Novolog, attached to an infusion set...

...and had forgotten how to rewind & set the motor to the reservoir's fullness/position. (Apparently the memory that was guiding me on these operations was built as much from the old Minimed 506 and 507 as from the newer Paradigm series that I only used from late 2004-March 2007.) I took a few minutes to remember how to do that -- the very brief instructions I *had* managed to glimpse had thrown me off, because I had seen a warning NOT to use the REWIND feature (if x, y and z, which didn't apply).

I got the infusion set placed in my side... right in the old site on my love handle, which is going to have to move around a lot more now that I know about the interference from scar tissue. The canula went deep and hurt, and I felt it for at least 90 minutes after I'd installed the infusion set.

That's the problem. How am I going to find sites where the canula doesn't hit up against muscle, causing both pain and impeding insulin infusion? I'm going to have to switch to a different infusion set, which inserts the canula at a low angle to the skin instead of perpendicular.

a fat grace quickie

2009-06-07T00:48:30Z

The workout: 3 minute AMRAP (as many reps as possible in a limited time) of very heavy Clean & Jerks. Warmup with 5 x 135 lbs and 2 x 185 lbs, then the first was a 3 minute AMRAP of 225 lbs clean & jerks. I only completed 6 (surprise to me, I thought I'd get more than 10 and possibly 12-14).

Then (already pretty thrashed) I did the 2nd set, AMRAP in 3 minutes of 185 lbs clean & jerks. Toward the end I got angry and aggressive. This is something which frequently happens to freckletash but not me.

Normally, of course, you're used to having control over your behavior. So experiences like this where you suddenly become aggressive and shouting without any apparent control over it are odd. (Cool observer remained somewhere inside watching the uptick in frustration and impulse.)

This was at the Luke AFB super-secret fighter pilots' gym. I'm still trying to zero in on how the General who runs Luke got intro'd to CrossFit. It's extremely cool that he's so solid in his support of it, unlike the vast majority of the govt's smurf nation.