In Search of Presence

A Letter to my MP

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 07:47:33 GMT

Dear Mr. Kamp;

First of all, I would like to thank you for standing for office and serving your country in Parliament. Whether I agree with your politics or not does not change the fact that the job of Member of Parliament is one with little reward and much hardship. Any Canadian willing to run in increasingly hostile election campaigns and serve their country in Ottawa deserves our respect and admiration. Thank you, Sir.

I am writing this letter today to ask you to stand up for what is right and decent within your caucus: Demand the resignation of your leader and our Prime Minister, Mr Harper.

On September 7th of 2008, an election was called by Mr Harper in contravention of his own election law. Why he did this has been the subject of much speculation, however it has now become clear to me that Mr. Harper had been informed that his government would run a deficit in the 2009 fiscal year. Mr. Harper knew that if he held an election in 2009 as he had promised, he would be hard pressed to win a majority while having brought this Country once again to deficit. So he called an election.

During the 2008 election campaign, Mr Harper insisted that electing a Liberal government would result in a deficit, while never once informing Canada that his own government would do the exact same thing. He implicitly, if not explicitly, promised during this campaign that the Conservatives would not run a deficit. I respectfully submit to you, Sir, that he lied.

In failing to win a majority, Mr. Harper was presented with a dilemma. Once the Liberals could elect themselves a new leader, one capable of organizing a proper campaign to defeat him, they could and would topple his new minority government on the deficit and issues of the economy. It is my opinion, Sir, that it is likely that the Liberals would have won a minority, if not a majority, in such an election campaign.

Seeing that the Liberal's leaderless, and incapable of fighting him effectively in an election campaign, Mr. Harper struck at the opposition parties on all fronts, in order to force a non-confidence motion. Threatening to eliminate the political party subsidies, while knowing full well that in doing so he would bankrupt all political parties except his own, was a measure that no opposition party could support. During a time of economic crisis, Mr. Harper played politics in order to force an election, and win a majority, instead of presenting solutions to real problems affecting real Canadians.

I have always respected Mr. Harper for his keen political insight and world class strategic mind. He is, quite possibly, the best politician Canada has seen in a very long time. However, this time Mr. Harper misread the Liberals and the NDP. The Progressive Coalition was born out of desperation by three political parties brought to an unprecedented brink, not because of their policies or agendas, but by a Prime Minister more interested in power than in governance.

Mr. Harper has lost the confidence of the Parliament. His unprecedented move to prorogue parliament in order to avoid a confidence motion demonstrates that he has no interest in governing responsibly, nor in allowing the majority of Canadians their rights in government.

Mr. Harper has stained the reputation the Conservative Party of Canada. He has ignored the traditions of great Conservative leadership, personified in such Canadian heroes as Joe Clark and John Diefenbaker. Mr. Kamp, your leader has broken faith with you, your caucus and your party.

When Parliament convenes once again in January, it could be a great thing. It could be a Parliament joining together with one voice to announce an economic stimulus package and a budget that will help Canadians find new jobs, allow Canadian business to compete on the world stage, and allow the reputation of Canada to regain what this repugnant episode has cost us. But this can not be done under Mr. Harper's leadership.

Please, Mr. Kamp, I beg you. Demand that your party become the great institution it once was. Demand that your party act in the best interest of Canada, not itself. Demand Mr. Harper's resignation.

Sincerely;

Brian G. Rice

bgrice@bgrice.com

Mission, BC

Please Donate

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:15:05 GMT

I don't care if you support the Liberals, NDP or the Bloc. Please, donate to their war chest in order to counter the Conservative attacks against the decision of the majority of our elected representatives. The Conservative party is the only party to have come out of the last Federal election with money in the bank. If the Coalition is to fight Mr. Harper in the unprecedented Constitutional crisis, they need our help.

http://www.liberal.ca/

http://www.ndp.ca/

Thank you.

Another Political Post...

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 08:17:23 GMT

Don't worry, things can't possibly stay interesting enough for me to keep blogging about this indefinitely.

***

As I sit here thinking about what will happen tomorrow when Mr. Harper heads to meet with the GG, there are a few ideas I wish to share:

While I think that proroguing parliament is a blatant and transparent act of political cowardice, if the GG allows it, it is just as legitimate a tactic as the attempt to form a coalition. For all you coalition supporters out there: fair is fair. You may not like it. You may call Mr. Harper impolite names because of it. But don't stoop to his level by whining about his right to do it. We're supposed to be better than them, remember?
For my Conservative friends: please don't mistake my support for the coalition as support for the Bloc, or the separatists. I hate that the political necessity is to get into bed with the Bloc. However, Mr. Harper tried to play partisan games during a national emergency. He has demonstrated that he is untrustworthy, and he must be stopped, whatever the cost. Gilles Duceppe is actually less of a political threat to Canada than Stephen Harper right now.
On that note, I have a further point. Whatever their eventual political ambitions may be, the members of the Bloc caucus are duly elected members of parliament. They disagree with the way Canada is run, and they have chosen to work within the system to affect change to that system. You and I may not agree with the changes they want to bring, but there has to be something admirable in their participation in a process they disagree with in order change it. They are doing more for their beliefs and province than most people in Canada.
Do you really want to stop the coalition? Do you want to see us get back to a functioning parliament that solves our economic problems and can effectively govern our country till we can reasonably hold another election? If you do, then ask Mr. Harper to resign. He has proven himself to be an egoist to rival Mr. Cretien. Ask Mr. Harper to resign, and then ask the Conservative caucus to sit with the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc to present an economic stimulus all parties can agree on, and a budget that reflects the wills and needs of all Canadians. Then announce an election date that happens after the Liberals and Conservatives can hold leadership conventions. Hold an election where instead of name calling, each party presents their plan for the country, and allows the nation to vote on issues instead of voting out of fear. I think you will find that supporters of the coalition have fewer problems with the Conservatives as a whole, and more a problem with Mr. Harper specifically.
A final note to my Conservative friends. Kick those former reform guys out of your party, and reclaim it in the name of the Progressives. Joe Clarke was a statesman with honour. Even Brian Mulroney had more class than these reform guys. Stop voting against parties, and start creating a party that you can once again vote for. You'll be better for it, and so will Canada.

Amazing!!!

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:00:00 GMT

http://www.playauditorium.com/

This is potentially the most amazing puzzle game I have ever played.

Political Party Subsidies and Why it is Unfair that they be Cut.

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:23:57 GMT

I am going to ask you and all your friends to apply for a job.

It is not a good job. It involves a lot of hard work for not great pay (especially since most of you are lawyers, doctors and accountants and make more money now). You'll have to set up two households, one where you live now, and one in Ottawa. You'll spend a great deal of time travelling, not only between your old home and your new home, but also around the rest of the country. You'll be expected to work long hours, and sacrifice everything in your life for this job. Anything that you or your family does that anyone in the country might consider wrong will be blazoned across the newspapers, and will result in you being fired, even if the issue is private.

To get this job, you are going to have to spend a great deal of money convincing a large panel of your peers that you deserve the job. You, your family and your friends are going to have to go into debt if you have any chance of getting the job. But don't worry. I'll help you out there.

See, for every vote you get from your peers, I'll give you some money. Not a lot of money, but enough to pay off your debts so that when you have to re-apply for the job in a few years, you'll be able to go into debt all over again to try and get the job. So it all works out in the end.

But wait! Now that you have the job, I am going to change the rules. Now you aren't going to get that money. Sorry. Now you and all your friends are going to have to go bankrupt. You'll have to give up the job, and you'll have no way to re-apply when it comes time to. No one will lend you any money, you have no way to pay it back.

...

And people wonder why we can't attract good candidates for public office.

A response I wrote on the CBC website

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:09:45 GMT

Several comments here have suggested that Canada had the opportunity to remove Mr. Harper and his government, but didn't, so we should all just stop whining about his economic plan, and we should drop our support of an Opposition Coalition. All things being equal, I would tend to agree.

However, all things are not equal. Mr. Harper ran on a rather thin platform, but the cornerstone of that platform was that there would be no deficit. His own appointee, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, has said that the potential deficit has been created by the Conservative Government's policies. If Mr. Harper didn't know heading into the election that a deficit was likely, he is wilfully negligent. If he knew, then he lied to the Canadian people. Either way, his "strengthened mandate" is based on a platform that less than eight weeks after the election has proven to be false.

The Liberals and the NDP are not stupid. They know that the Canadian public are sick of elections. They know that if they topple the current government and ask for an election, they will spend all their time talking about party subsidies instead of real issues (there is no other reason, btw, why Mr. Harper would have included such a blatantly unfair and partisan measure in the Economic Statement, except for the purposes of spin). Yet how can they sit back and allow Mr. Harper to lie to the Canadian people and get away with it?

Forming a Coalition Government is a perfectly legitimate tool of the opposition in a minority government. And I, for one, am disappointed that the need exist for this tool to be utilized, but fully supportive of its use to topple a government that has shown this level of disregard for the Canadian voter.

I am so angry right now. And you should be too.

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:58:49 GMT

Six weeks ago, shortly after the Conservative failed to get a majority, I turned to my business partner and said "You know, I think Harper will try to force the Liberals to vote against a confidence motion so that they have to enter an election without a leader". And look at it now: Less than six weeks after the federal election, Steven Harper and his Conservative Government are taking a fiscal position that the Liberals can not vote for.

And why can't they vote for it? Well, over and above being the party that eliminated the deficit, Mr. Harper ran a campaign in the last election that said that if we elected a Liberal government, we would soon be in deficit. How could the Liberals now vote for as deficit?

Mr. Harper knew that his government would have to introduce a deficit budget next year. He had to of known it. His own Parliamentary budget officer has said that the current need to run a deficit is a direct result of the fiscal policies of this government. If Mr. Harper didn't know that they were going to run a deficit, then he is either wilfully incompetent, or he was lied to by his staff. Yet he ran a campaign where he said, repeatedly, that if Canada wanted a deficit, just elect the Liberals.

Why did he do this? I am unwilling to just say that he is a lying politician. Mr. Harper is a shrewd man; a political strategist beyond compare. He may be the best politician in the country. Why would he run a campaign based on a lie that he knew he would be called out on?

Simple. Mr. Harper called this election to try and win a majority when he knew that if he waited the year, which his own law insisted he must, he would lose. If he won a majority government, it wouldn't matter. Canadian's have proved to have short memories, and by the time the next election came along, Mr. Harper would feel confident that this issue would be "old news". If he didn't a majority, well, then the plan gets a little more convoluted, but even more genius.

The Liberals, NDP and Bloc cannot vote for a deficit. Mr. Harper ensured that by the way he ran his campaign. So six weeks after the election, he has Mr. Flaherty stand up in the house and make a statement, which must be approved by the house in a confidence vote, which the opposition parties can't vote for. He essentially forces a new election, six weeks after the last one. An election that no Canadian wants. And election that the spin doctors in the Harper government can say is the Liberal's fault. An election that happens before the Liberals have elected a new leader. An election that the Liberals can't win.

It is brilliant. It is wrong, but it is brilliant.

But hold on! The opposition have found a way out of this. A way that Mr. Harper didn't foresee, and didn't plan for. A coalition between the three parties. Form a new government, prevent an election, and stop Mr. Harper in his own tracks. A brilliant counter to a brilliant strategy.

Mr. Harper's team are already in heavy spin mode. They are calling this move undemocratic. They are attacking the opposition for ignoring the will of the people. The fact of the matter is that the opposition is using the rules of parliament against Mr. Harper, and he doesn't like it. Anytime the rules of parliament are used against him, he claims that the process is undemocratic.

Don't fall for this spin, I beg you. This is how the system is supposed to work. If a Minority Government is abusing its power to the extent that Mr. Harper is, this is the way our system has been designed to deal with it.

The three opposition parties are not friends. If they successfully form a coalition government, it will be because of the extreme threat Mr. Harper poses to our country, not because they want to work together.

So get angry. Please. This isn't an issue of policy. It is an issue of arrogance. Mr. Harper thinks he can do whatever he wants, and that the Canadian people will turn a blind eye. He believes he is smarter than everyone else, so the rules of decency and courtesy do not apply to him. This is cause to be angry. Call your Conservative MPs. Tell them that you will not stand for this. Let them know that if an election is called, you will vote for the Liberals, or the NDP. Let the Conservative government know that you will not allow them to treat you as if you are stupid.

Support the coalition. And if an election is called, blame the responsible party, Mr. Harper and his Conservative, not the Liberals or the NDP.

Some thoughts

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 06:04:42 GMT

Shar asked me to setup the crib on the weekend. Since I haven't finished with the nursery yet, I declined, and told her I would do it later. Because, you know, I have lots of time. Like... OMG less than 4 weeks!!! This is what kept me staring at the ceiling for a good long while last night.

So how does one focus on work, or anything else, at this time? I mean, I'm going to be a dad! Me! (Finally). There is so much... Everything... That needs my attention. I find that the time I spend at work is painful... Holding me back from where I want to be. But I have to work. I mean, someone is going to have to put diapers on the table and food on the baby's butt... Err... Maybe the other way 'round on that one.

Anyway, gotta get some work done before bed. I'm playing hooky tomorrow to go to the mid-wives. We're going to talk about Nitrous and other fun pain management techniques. Drugs FTW!

Searching for Presence, again.

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:34:10 GMT

With the passing of Labour Day, it is a time when we shake off the relaxing nature of the summer and again focus on work. In particular, I need to refocus my attentions from moving and setting up the new house to getting these business running as best they can.

I began thinking of what alignment I would need to in order to help me refocus my attention on the businesses, and I realized that Presence remains the appropriate want. I have spent much of the summer at home, doing many things, but very little work. I basically put the businesses into a holding pattern, just doing enough to make sure things didn't fall apart. Now that I am returning my focus to the businesses, the best thing I can do is focus on being present to them again, both from a physical perspective, and a mental one.

Further to this, I also need to start being present to the reality that I am about to become a father. I think I have been letting myself ignore the coming reality of this huge life changing event. If I am going to effectively balance my work life and my home life in the wake of this new arrival, I am going to have to be fully present to the needs of each area.

So my new alignment is my old one. I want Presence.

Evidence of having achieved presence will be:

Each of the four major corporate organizations being cash flow positive by the end of February
My personal budget being defined and met on a month by month basis
Every major renovation project at home completed within five years

Update

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:47:02 GMT

Wow. It seems that everytime I trun around, I haven't blogged in forever.

What has happened in the life of Brian since the last post:

1. Shar is still pregnant. Like, really quite a lot. We have 2 months to go, and I swear that she looks like 9 month pregnant already. Apparently not, since she measured at the exact right stage at her midwife's appointment yesterday. But still. There is a small human growing inside my wife's belly.

2. We find out more on Friday, but it appears that our future daughter has a duplicated collection system with one of her kidneys. This basically means she has 3 kidneys, two of which combined would equal one normal kidney. However, due to a bunch of reasons, which were bery nicely explained by a fun loving doctor with a knack for doodling, the "third" kidney is non functional and shouldn't cause any problems with the kids development.

3. We moved to Mission.

4. No, seriously, we moved to Mission. We bought this big, rambling house in the old (east) part of mission. It is near the Fraser River Heritage Park, and it has a view of Mount Baker, the Frasre River, and the Fraser Valley. It is a very solid brick home, but it does require a great deal of TLC. Which I have basically taken the last month away from the office to provide. It is now livable, but there is still a lot to be done.

5. Our friend Slatergirl has joined us in the new house for six months or so, and has brought along her two year old with her. Shar and I are getting a crash course in baby raising in advance of having our own. And there was much rejoicing. Yay.

6. I totally have been neglecting my health in the past month. I have been mostly on diet, and haven't been doing anything really bad, but I haven't tested my blood glucose in weeks. I need to get my focus back on my blood sugar, and make sure I am staying healthy. It is hard sometimes. Somedays I just want to not think about diabetes.

7. It is time to get back to work.

And that is what this post is really about. I have been so slacking in the last month. I need to get back to it, and refocus. The businesses are at a turning point right now, and I really need to give them a lot of time and attention. I need to focus my energies on them right now. So now that i have typed that out loud, I am going to actually do it.

cheers.

Which is what th

Arg

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 05:11:37 GMT

Thursday, March 6, 2007, 9:05 PM. Blood Glucose 9.7(!!!), 2000mg daily of Metformin.

9.7! That's the highest in weeks. I guess the whole wheat buns at Earl's aren't as whole wheat as they could be.

To the future him/her/it...

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 07:07:34 GMT

Friday, January 22, 2008, 10:00pm. Blood Glucose 8.8 (okay, so I knew I shouldn't eat the cream of broccoli soup at Quiznos... but so good), 2000mg of Metformin daily. Still with the headaches.

So as of eight weeks ago, Shar and I pregnant. Well, six weeks plus two. The way the conception date is measured is bizarre to me, but it gets set from the end of the last cycle, not from the moment of conception. I guess maybe this makes sense, but we are pretty sure we can pinpoint the conception, and it was closer to six weeks that eight. But anyway...

Shar reads this blog called dooce. On it, the women writes a monthly letter to her daughter so that she (the daughter) will have a mom's eye view of her childhood. Also, I imagine that a leather bound version with embarrassing pictures will be kept around to show to the high school boys that she is brave enough to bring home.

Now, I don't know if I will be able to be consistent enough to write something every month. It seems like every time I look up from my keyboard these days that I am three month ends behind again. But an occasional note from daddy on the joys experienced during one's demonchildhood might be appreciated in later life. Plus, I expect that by the time the little bundle of miseryjoy may wish to know that at one time, /his/her/its parents where young, hip, and cool. Err. Or boring and crazy... however you wish to interpret it.

So some might consider this bad luck to be doing this so early in the pregnancy. Or even during the pregnancy at all. But since I am a thoroughly selfish person who is only doing this for himself and not for him/her/it anyway, I am going to go ahead.

So, without any further ado:

Dear <Future>Squalling</Future> Parasite growing in my wife's belly.

I have wanted this for so long now that I can't remember when I first wanted to be a dad. I'm sure it was sometime in my late teens while I was working at a bible camp that I realised that I truly enjoyed spending time with young adults, being a role model and older friend. Or maybe it was watching Ed with his two kids, and realising how much love they had for each other, and how willing they were to bring me into their family.

But whenever it was, I have been bugging your mom to do this for nearly fourteen years now. It's okay. She's always this slow. You'll figure that out.

So now that you are on your way, I find that my self assuredness and confidence has fled. I am nervous. I have a lot of ideas on how to raise kids (You'll find that Daddy has a lot of ideas about everything), but now I wonder if I will be able to put those ideas into practice, or if the overwhelming force that is a baby will shatter my ideals into a sleep deprived million pieces. I wonder if you will hate me, or find me not charming and funny, but dorky (I know I'm a geek, but somehow the thought of you thinking me a geek sits awkwardly with me). I worry that I won't be the cool, video game playing dad that you and your friends like, but that I will be the dad everyone makes fun of. I dread the day that you or one of your friends kicks my ass in an online match...

Anyway, you aren't even big enough yet to have significantly grown Mommy's waistline (no matter how much she claims to need new jeans because of you). But I look at your two little cousins, both of whom are going to be within two years of you, and I realise that I am going to have soooo many conversations with their parents about what trouble you talked them into. I just suspect somehow that, being the product of Shar and I, you will be a little trouble maker.

Anyway, that is all I have for this one. I hope these letters end up meaning something to you one day. I know I would have liked to have had something from your Grandma that would have let me get to know her as an adult. Maybe, whether I am here or not, you can learn something about me from these letters that being your Dad clouded from you.

Sleep well, little one. And if you feel the urge to kick Mom in the bladder, you have my permission.

Love,

Dad.

Update

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 03:32:28 GMT

2:23pm, February 9, 2008. Blood Glucose 6.3, 2000mg daily of Metformin.

So I went to the specialist on Tuesday. Apparently, I have moved my blood sugar into the asymptomatic range. Which is a little confusing to me, since it is still higher than I thought it was supposed to be, but hey, he's the specialist. He told me that it is probably a result of both my diet and the medication, but mostly the diet right now. He congratulated me on that, but warned that lots of people start off well, but end up going back to their old ways once they start feeling better. He also told me that I should start taking my glucose tests before and after meals, so I can see how different foods affect my blood sugar.

My fingers look like I'm a chronic heroin addict who doesn't know you aren't supposed to use your fingers.

Anyway, the specialist was confused as to why I wasn't feeling well. He told me I should be doing fine. My response, of course, was that I'm not doing fine. I find it interesting that when presented with this piece of information, he kinda shrugged his shoulders and told me I'd feel better soon.

And I do, sorta. The last two days I have felt a little better. Or, rather, I have felt better for longer, before I start feeling my pulse in my left eyelid and I start feeling like crap.

It has surprised me the number of people who look at me confused when I say that I feel my pulse in my eyelid. This is something that happens to me periodically, and then generally goes away. It never really occurred to me that this may not happen to most people.

I mention the pulse in eyelid thing because I have been watching a lot of House. So I, of course, am paranoid that I might have some other illness other than diabetes that is causing the eyelid thing and the fatigue and the weird not-a-headaches I have been getting. So I go to webmd, and type in "pulse in eyelids". It was not reassuring that Lupus is the first search result, btw.

Anyway, I think I am probably going to feel better over the next little while. I am getting a handle on eating more frequent meals, and I am slowly getting used to the idea that everything I love to order in restaurants is bad for me. Next time I will talk about how much I hate that restaurants don't seem to get that 5% of the population is diabetic, and we can't fucking eat 95% of what they have on their menus. Then I will also talk about how much I hate when people afflicted with a specific disease or issue crusade for tat issue, and how much of a hypocrite I am.

Things I am not supposed to do

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:14:04 GMT

2:45 PM, Thursday, January 31^st. Blood Glucose 11.5, 2000mg daily of Metformin. Headachy and distracted.

So I did today what I promised myself I wouldn't do. I looked at the menu, and thought to myself, "how bad could a few onion rings really affect my blood sugar?" Well, apparently, a lot. 11.5 is the highest reading, by a significant amount, that I have had in a week. And I feel like Ass. So, I have learned two things: 1) Breaking my diet has immediate consequences, and 2) My diet change probably has as much to do with my lower glucose levels as my medication does. So I need to keep being good.

Damn it.

I so was planning on breaking diet tonight and getting right hammered on vodka sodas. Oh well. I guess that'd be a bad idea.

Slow Changes

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:04:15 GMT

6:37 AM, Wednesday January 30^th, 2008. Blood Glucose 8.6, 2000mg of Metformin daily. One of these medications is keeping me up at night.

For reasons surpassing understanding, my blog gets fed to LJ, but any comments posted at LJ stay at LJ. So I wanted to respond to Mike's response to me, but I wanted it in my actual blog.

Me Spadoink wrote:

yeah, this sucks on so many major levels.
i think though that you're lucky that you're not on the needle.
i hope that you can control it enough with your diet that you never have to get there.
my dad got type 2 from his blood pressure meds over the years. he tried to control by diet, he's on the needle now but he ate desserts all the time, saying that cheating a bit wouldn't hurt...but he had cake every time i came to visit.
my mom has type 2 diet controlled right now. she stopped drinking her 3L of coke a week but still has ice cream and stuff. i worry about her
my uncle got diagnosed type two years ago, back when i was living in chetwynd, he was also really bad about teh diet and he's on the needle now.
my other uncle ended up in the hospital with some kidney issues and ended upon the needle. he'd avoided the doctor for quite a while cause he was self employed and didn't have extended health...which is pretty much a bullshit excuse cause he was on OHIP.

ummm, i guess none of this is really reassuring.
i think though, that there are thousands of other stories where people can live pretty reasonable lives if they follow the dictates pretty thoroughly. i've seen you do some pretty amazing things with diet and exercise when you wanted to, you just have to get to a point where you accept that it's something that you want.

also...what shar said.

i should deal with my own denial better as well.
i'm high risk for lots and lots of reasons.
i should be tested.

I am changing my life slowly. In the last two weeks, I have quit drinking, quit smoking, and have gone a diabetic diet. I just don't think I have it in me to start with the exercising yet. Give me a month. Actually, Shar and I may be moving in April, and I think that that change might be a good opportunity to integrate exercise into my daily schedule, as my daily schedule will drastically change anyway.

I have noticed one of two reactions from people to my news… well, one of three.

Reaction 1: Well, I (or my friend) have diabetes, and I (or my friend) eat X and drink like a fish.

Reaction 2: Oh man, I should go get tested too.

Reaction 3 (My personal favorite): Well, it could be worse, you could have Cancer.

I am way too polite to actually say:

Reaction to Reaction 1: Good for you, I want to live, Fuck-wad.

Reaction to Reaction 2 (which, in all fairness, I might actually say… at least the first part): I think that is a good idea, I am living proof that this is a good idea. BTW, weren't we talking about me here?

Reaction to Reaction 3: Fuck off and die you horrible, stupid person. I don't have Cancer, I have diabetes. Yes, I know it is manageable. Yes, I know it is treatable. Yes, I know it isn't the worst thing that could happen to me. But it is happening to me, and I am having trouble dealing with it. Your platitudes about how much worse off I could be are not helpful, and they are idiotic. There is a good chance that I have permanently damaged kidneys. There is a good chance I am going to go blind at some point. There is a good chance I could lose limbs. So forgive me if I am not dancing for joy because I don't have Cancer. Thanks, but a Hug would have been better.

…

Okay, so my reaction to reaction 3 may have been bottled up for a bit. Sorry for those who actually said that to me, I know you were just trying to help.

So anyway, Mike, I think it is a good idea for you to get tested. Apparently, there are more than 400,000 people in Canada who have undiagnosed Diabetes. That number goes way up, btw, for aboriginals. My Doctor told me that there is a new Diabetes diagnoses every 7 seconds, worldwide. So ya, Mike, I think it is probably a good idea if you get tested.

I don't know which medication it is, I am on a couple right now, but something is keeping me up at nights. Now, for those of you that know me, you know that that is not normal. I can sleep anywhere, at any time, for as long as I want. The entire experience of sitting and staring at the ceiling on a night by night basis is something I have never experienced before.

For the record… I don't like it.

My new reality

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:42:41 GMT

Tuesday, January 29th at 6:15am, Blood Glucose level 9.0. 2000mg daily of Metformin. God I feel like crap today.

So I have always struggled with the blogging thing. I pick it up from time to time with the intention of blogging every day, and then after a few days it stops. And that is okay. Now that i have a stable blog space, I can just write when he mood strikes, and on it goes.

In the past, I have tried to blog consistently about work, about politics, and about my marriage. These haven't stuck for long. But now, I have something I think is important for me to keep a journal of. Important enough that I really need to do it several times a week, for the rest of my life.

You see, I have diabetes. And apparently, it isn't just diabetes. It is uber/OMG/how-are-you-still-alive diabetes.

I went to my doctor before Christmas with a sore arm. I have always had desks jobs involving constant use of computers, so I figured I had some kind of repetitive stress injury, and that I'd get a script for good meds and a lecture on good posture, and off I would go. But noooo. This is where I tell you that is generally a bad idea to go to the Doctor's office having had three or four pints (It was a afternoon appointment on my day off, and I had a few with lunch. Back off). Because your Doctor, who you never go to see because you don't like Doctors, will decide you are an alcoholic and send you for blood work to see if your liver has built a barstool for itself and set in a supply of good scotch.

And then the blood work will show that your blood sugar runs so high that you should be in some kind of diabetic wonderland.

Anyway, after delaying my blood test till January (like I was going to do it over Christmas...), I got a call from my Doctor the day after my test telling me to get my ass into the office. Yep. Diabetes. Normal people's blood sugar runs between 3.5 and 5.5 after a 10 hour fast. Mine was 13.5. 7 is considered diabetic. "But I feel fine," I say. "Your Diabetic," she says. "But couldn't the test be wrong? I had a six pack the evening before the test," I say. Disapproving look, "Did you stop drinking 10 hours before the test?" she asks. "Umm... ya," I say. "Your diabetic," She says.

After some more of this back and forth, I talk her into doing another test, an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT). Great, i think. This test will show that I am fine. No problems. In two weeks, when i get the results, I'll be fine.

So I get absolutely shit faced, several times, and I don't start modifying my diet. My wife didn't like this, but hey, I was in denial.

So I go to get the OGTT done. This is a special test. You fast for 10 hours, and then they take blood. Then you drink a 75ml high glucose drink that tastes like poorly made orange crush. Then you sit in the lab for two hours. Then they take more blood. Then two weeks later, you go see your Doctor, and she tells you the first test was a mistake, and that you are fine.

Except...

The "normal" result for a OGTT is somewhere below 7.5. Diabetic is around 11.5. When you score a 20.9, the lab gets your results to the Doctor in under 12 hours, and you end up sitting in her office again being told how worried she is about you.

Apparently, I have probably been diabetic for a while. Like, years. And it would have happened so slowly that I would have just constantly been resetting my definition of "feeling good" to a lower and lower state. So when they figure out how to treat me, whether it be higher doses of Metformin, or insulin, or whatever, then I should feel better than i have in years. Or something.

Anyway, There are a bunch of other problems that they aren't going to touch till I get my blood sugar under control. High (VERY HIGH) Cholesterol, Kidney problems, etc.

But now I feel like for myself, and maybe for my family, that I need to detail this new journey I am on in some way. This is a very drastic life change, and I think it will help me to write about it. And maybe about other things as well.

The Doctor told me that there is the Book of Medicine, and then there is the Book of Medicine for Diabetecs. Everything is treated differently and more seriously when you are diabetic. Maybe there is a Book of Life, and a special one for Diabetics too. I don't know.

A women in front of me at the bank the other day said that Diabetes was the best thing that ever happened to her. That it saved her life. She quite everything that was bad, and started doing everything that was good, and now she feels better than she has at any other point in her life, and she is healthier than she has ever been before.

I want to be her. I want to feel that way about my diabetes at some point. I'm just not really sure that I am done being scared and uncertain yet.

Announcement

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:30:54 GMT

I thought I would give everyone an update on my situation.

My fasting blood glucose was 13.5 (7.5 is considered diabetic) and my glucose level 2 hours after taking a 75ml glucose drink was 20.9 (11.5 is considered diabetic).

So, my doctor has confirmed the diagnosis of Diabetes. She has put me on 500mg of Metformin twice daily, going up to 1000mg twice daily in a week. Apparently my pancreas does produce insulin, but my body doesn’t use it. Metformin is supposed to convince the body to use the insulin. I pick up a blood glucose meter today, and with it I am supposed to track, at least twice a day, my blood glucose levels. This will let them determine what dosage of Metformin I am supposed to be on, or if I will also need insulin shots.

She has referred me to a specialist at VGH, so hopefully I will get in to see him soon. Apparently the wait time can be from days to six months, depending on what he thinks of the blood work. My Doctor seems think I will get in pretty quick.

My latest round of blood work came back with another disturbing number. One of my urine tests that she did (I am not really clear on what it was for… my Doctor does not explain things well) that is supposed to give a result under 2.0 gave a result of 137. She is now concerned that the diabetes has caused kidney damage, but she is going to wait for the specialist before she does anything about it.

She is also going to wait on my cholesterol situation till I see the specialist. She thinks I may need to go on cholesterol medication, but she doesn’t want that interfering with the results of the Metformin.

I asked her how I can have such high blood sugar and yet be asymptomatic. She looked at me, and said “So, you work a lot, right? 10, 12 hours a day? You have a lot of stress? You feel tired all the time because of the stress and lack of sleep? You have a hard time getting going in the morning?” I said yes. She said, “Ya, it isn’t stress or over work. You have diabetes. You are not asymptomatic, you simply misdiagnosed the symptoms.” It was at this point she told me that I need to cut back my work hours and stress.

Anyway, thanks for everyone’s support and help. I will be back at work on Sunday. I am working from home today.

Experiences you don’t need at 6am

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:59:32 GMT

So my phones beeps at 5am-ish this morning. Apparently the servers were down at work. I call S, and tell him to get his lazy ass out of bed. I log in, and yup, server down. S calls me back and says he'll look into it. So I shower, feed the dog, and start getting ready to go to work at 5 something on a Sunday morning.

As I am walking out the door, S calls back and tells me everything is up. In fact, he can't find any evidence it was ever down. I walk back to my PC, and would you look at that, I misspelled the URL I used to check the server status. Chalk that up to 5 am with no coffee.

So we do some tests, and everything looks fine, so I send S back to bed. Then I get to thinking about back to bed for myself. But I am up, showered, dressed, and I already have my shoes and jacket on, and I have to come to work today anyway. So I walked the dog, and started my drive to Abbotsford.

Traffic is dead, as you would expect at 6am on a Sunday morning, and me and the guy in the car beside me are playing leap frog at stop lights. The last light before the Grandview onramp to the highway, the guy gets ahead of me. So I am four or five car lengths behind him, accelerating onto the highway, when I see headlights coming up the ramp the wrong way. I slam on my brakes, and I see the guy in front of my try to swerve to the right just as the oncoming car does the same thing. The two cars collide, head-on, doing about 50 or 60 klicks each.

So I call 911. I get transferred to ambulance dispatch (apparently police listen in and will dispatch too, if they think it is required). They dispatcher asks me what wrong.

"Well, there was just a head on collision on the east bound onramp at Grandview and No.1," I say.

Pause.

"Did you say a Head on collision on the on ramp?" he asks.

"I did. Some idiot drive up the wrong way," I say.

Pause.

"Okaaayyyy…" and we proceed to the getting of help.

Have I mentioned I still hadn't had coffee yet? Starbucks needs to open earlier for these type of situations.

Anyway, I walk over, and the guy who had been in front of me walks over, and we shake hands. Nice guy, young. Had borrowed his dads car for the night, and was heading home. Seemed sober, had a sore wrist, generally a nice enough guy. Smoke was coming from his car, so we moved a respectful distance away.

Not so the other guy. He was on his cell phone, calling a friend. Not 911, but a friend. He couldn't speak English very well, and he just loitered beside the smoking car while the other guy and I directed traffic.

I give it three minutes, maybe, before I hear the first sirens. There are like three cop cars speeding down Hwy. 1 towards us. An ambulance and two fire trucks show up. A cop, after asking if I was a witness, asks me to stand to the side near his cruiser and wait to give my statement.

So I was in perfect position to see the driver who came up the ramp the wrong way go from having a bad day to having a really bad day.

As I said, the guy was ESL. The cop did the usual white guy thing when faced with this situation. He just spoke slower and louder. So the cop asks for a driver's license. Oops, don't have one. Okay, what about registration. The guy looks confused. Then the cop asks the one we have all been waiting for. "Sir, have you been drinking tonight?"

The guy's look of confusion doesn't go away, so out comes the breathalyzer. I didn't see the read out, but the cop showed it to the driver and says "well now, that is over, isn't it?" Combined with having no license, this is enough for a quick frisk and an invitation to sit in the back of this nice police cruiser.

Eventually, I give my statement, and they send me on my way. Off to work to fix phantom server problems.

But all I could think about, during the whole thing, was that if I hadn't hesitated at that last light in taking my foot off the clutch, I would have been the first one down that ramp. And that kinda scares me. Just a little.

My right wing is showing

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:01:15 GMT

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/10/15/taser-death.html?ref=rss

There have been 16 tazer related deaths (that is, deaths of suspects that have been tazered by police during their arrest) in Canada since the introduction of the Tazer. There are no stats that I can find on the number of times the tazer has been used on suspects since it was introduced. Now, unless the number 16 represents more that 1% of the number of times a tazer has been used, which I find hard to believe, then this seems like a very low number to me.

Lets just put it in plain spoken right wing: Don't resist arrest, you won't get tazered, and you won't die. Be glad they didn't pop a cap in your ass.

Let the lefty crying begin...

What I cooked last night

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:15:49 GMT

My wife decided to get a bit devious on me. I have been working a lot lately, and have not recently cooked anything for my wife. Anyone who knows us knows that this would be considered bad by her. So last night, she tricked me.

Our new tenants have just moved in, a nice couple from the Okanogan who need to be in Van for the year. Shar suggested that I invite them to dinner last night. So I did. As I was shopping for the meal, however, it hit me. She had tricked me into making dinner by framing it in terms of the new tenants. And she knew that I would go slightly overboard cooking for new people.

So this is what they got:

The appy was prosciutto wrapped bocconcini, with a selection of olives as garnish.

The salad was my Tomato, red onion and asparagus salad with blue cheese dressing

I served beef tenderloin medallions with a blue cheese sauce, roasted garlic rosemary potatoes and caramelized squash and zucchini.

Desert was fresh raspberries and blackberries in a vanilla whipped cream.

It wasn't bad, if I say so myself...

Photo Album: Fence

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 11:37:35 GMT

Fence

fence sep 002

fence sep 003

fence sep 005

fence sep 006

fence and arbour sep 007

fence and arbour sep 008

fence and arbour sep 009

fence and arbour sep 010

fence and arbour sep 011

fence and arbour sep 012

More photos...

Photo Album: My Blog Photos

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 11:56:14 GMT

My Blog Photos

fence sep 002

fence sep 003

fence sep 005

fence sep 006

fence and arbour sep 007

fence and arbour sep 008

fence and arbour sep 009

fence and arbour sep 010

fence and arbour sep 011

fence and arbour sep 012

More photos...

Photo Album: Food

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 10:47:14 GMT

Food

potato pear blue cheese, braised beef 001(1)

potato pear blue cheese, braised beef 002(1)

potato pear blue cheese, braised beef 003(1)

Photo Album: Active Life

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 14:57:41 GMT

Active Life

logo

Blog list: Links

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:51:18 GMT

Links

My LJ
My old blog
Wiebeco Investments Ltd.
The company i work for.
Linkedin
Facebook