Mr. Peabodies Wayback Machine!

OK, not really. Archive.org is a site that takes snap shots of websites. Ed told me about this site tonight. Here is a history of mikey.com through their eyes. I created the domain in 1995 according to whois. I thought it was a year or two earlier than that. I'd swear I had that domain in mid 1993 before I left for Colorado. The account was with netcom.

Here is the first snapshot they took where I had content. Yes, that is me in the clown outfit. I ha learned to create balloon animals and dressed that way for Halloween for a few years.
I actually did earn some free CD from the CDNow link.

My site after the dot com explosion. I took down this site an put up almost nothing.
Gee, my first blog. This blog went stale after a year. Then I started this blog.

The Moleskine Cult - I'm a member.

I've seen these notepads call moleskines, but thought, "Yike, $10 for a small notebook." I decided to start the diabetes journal to track food intake, glucose levels and someday exercise events. I wanted a small quality notepad. I bought a moleskine. This was important enough to use a good journal.

I after I started looking online for a cheaper price, I stumbled upon a series of pages about using the Moleskine as a PDA using the GTD method. GTD stands for "Get Things Done", from the book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.

In the most simple form, you capture things to do. You Give it a context. You branch it to a project if needed. I bought another Moleskine to follow this method. Lets see if I become more organized.

I combined what was written in these articles:

• GTD Introduction
  
• Hacking a Moleskine
• PigPogPDA - A Moleskine Hacked into a Complete System
• Also interesting, Yet Another Moleskine Hack

I've been a fan of the complex todo list for years. It has taken many forms. For years I used a small journal at work to both track todo lists and important notes. I tend to recopy unfinished tasks to the page for the day. Even now I keep one pad for the todo list and one for general scribbling.

I used the classic day-timer for years. Then came the newton. I owned a 110, the model before a network port was added. I used it for a 2 couple of years. Then came the palm pilot. My biggest issue with these is that it took to long to write things down. My handwriting is horrible. So I could never get the data entered as fast as scribbling things on paper than typing the important points into an email or document after the meeting. I even tried the Logitech IO2 Digital Pen. I have even tried a highly customized view in outlook. I have also just kept a vi or notepad window open and typed, then reformatted what I typed in.

The IO is a pen with a scanner. You use special paper with the special dot pattern. As you write the pen scan the dots and captures your strokes. the problem with the IO, is that you still have to deal with handwriting recognition. It was more painful to correct the text and format the text then to just type in the note manually. If anyone with good handwriting want to buy the IO from me, make a reasonable offer :D.

We will see if I threw my money away, or if this works.

I have diabetes.

This is something I have expected the doctor to tell me at some point in my life. I took it like a geek. I bought some books and started reading. I've always been a fan of the Dummy's series. Diabetes for Dummys was no exception. It is well written and informative. It helped me gather a lot of information from one place. I also bought The New Glocose Revolution for Diabetes. Also well written.

I also bought a journal to track food intake and my glucose readings. I have found some natural food that has caused my glucose level to drop. The first was cinnamon. I found it in this study, Cinnamon Improves Glucose and Lipids of People With Type 2 Diabetes

When I added cinnamon my glucose level dropped a couple of points. I was weird eating it the way I ate it. I just mixed a teaspoon with water. The cinnamon caused my morning number to drop from about 155 t0 148.

The next food I found was Oolong Tea. It is documented here, Antihyperglycemic Effect of Oolong Tea in Type 2 Diabetes. My sugar went down a few more points. My Morning number dropped a few more points. My numbers during the day dropped to the high 120's.

The last food I added was Steel Cut Oats. The most simple form of oatmeal. I now add the cinnamon to the oatmeal.

Overall, in the morning my number is in the low to mid 120's. 2-3 hours after a meal my numbers are in the low 100s.

Yep, I took on this problem like any other problem. Do my research. Find some possible solutions and try them out.

Experimentation with food is painful, literally. I take a level before I eat it. then 30-45 minutes after. Then 1.5-2 hours after I ate . Sometime 3 hours after I ate. By 3 hours, I like to see my number 115 or lower. Even the smaller lancets they use these days can hurt after a while.

By the time I met with the doctor, I had known for a week. I had already made progress and lost 10 pounds. Yes, a 321lb man can loose 10 pounds in a week with little issue.

I'm now at 306lb man. My first goal is 290. That will be on diet alone. That is still 3200 calories a day I can eat. I hope to be at 290 by the end of October.

By then the temperature will have cooled off enough to go for lunch time walks.

Once I have gotten myself down to 290, my next goal will be 270. At 270, I can still eat about 3000 calories at day to get to that weight. After 270, loosing weight is really hard for me.

My problem is the closer I get to the 2000 calorie mark, the harder it is for me to stick to things. Even with diabetes, I like to nosh. I'm told it's all in my head :D

We will see how things go. If I can get down to 235 by this time next year all should be good. I had my body fat measured by using calipers a few years ago. The calculation had my lean body mass at 188. So allowing for 25% body fat, that is 235lbs.

Although the BMI has me at a maximum of 154lbs. At 5'6" and 154lbs you don't have 22 inch thighs and 18 inch biceps. When my arms and legs thin out a bit, that is what they'll be.

The hardest part is work. They bring in lunch. Being a software engineer in the Silicon Valley, there is the issue of the meals have to have vegetarian dishes for the Indians. Now being diabetic, bringing in pizza for me is as bad as Hamburger day when there are no garden burgers for the vegetarians. So it is time to educate the guys at work and get them to stop ordering pizza.

I guess I've rambled enough. I'll keep posting my progess now and then.

Is mikey.com for sale?

No. I've never thought about trying to sell the domain. But I do get emails once in a while.

Before I bought my condo, I had a pat answer to people making inquiries. "Make an offer that would be a down payment for a ho0me in the valley." Obviously everyone passed.

I just received and other query today. Some one claiming to have a business idea and my domain would fit with the plan. I replied giving three initial conditions. They are:

1. Email to mikey@mikey.com has to be forwarded to me for 5 years. After 14 years, I want time to find every software license and website membership that is tied to that email address.
2. I want to know how the domain will be used. Not sure I want to blindly hand over the domain.
3. The offer has to be a whole number with 6 figures. I don't need the down payment, but paying off the second mortgage and my car would be great.

I am waiting to see if there is a reply.