Still The One

Mrs. Smitty and I woke up this morning, nearly 24 hours after SCOTUS' DOMA decision, and we found our marriage still intact.

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What's Love Got To Do With It

What is love?

Well, apparently, according to SCOTUS, love is love.

This is a good day.

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Progress Check

Good news from the doc.

I took a blood test recently.  The best, most ideal indicator of how "under control" diabetes is is the A1C test.  It's in essence how much of your red blood cells have sugar attached.  When sugar is attached to your blood cells, it's harder for them to squeeze into smaller capillaries like in your feet.  One reason why diabetics with out of control disease lose their feet:  blood isn't getting in there.

The A1C is a better indicator than the day-to-day glucose test I take, because that's a reading based on hour-by-hour eating and fasting.  The A1C is like a 3-month snapshot average, thus providing a really good glimpse of just how under control the disease is.  I can fake a day's worth of little finger-prick tests if I do shit like eat a boatload of sugar then take a couple shots of vodka, or eat a loaf of bread then do an hours-worth of wind-sprints.  You can cheat the gluco-meter.  You can't cheat the A1C.

A "normal" non-diabetic person would have an A1C result of somewhere between 4.5% and 6%.

My blood test:  4.8%.

Bam.

The doctor has put me on metformin, an oral drug with huge benefits.  He has also taken me off of insulin.  Further, my metformin dose is half the regular dose.  The goal is to even some day work me off of metformin.

Metformin isn't fake insulin.  In fact, it works specifically with my body's own insulin, which I'm producing some of.  From a med journal:

Many people may wonder, "How does it work?" Metformin belongs to a class of drugs known as biguanide medications and works in several ways. The medicine reduces the amount of sugar made by the liver, limits the amount of sugar absorbed into the body from the diet, and makes insulin receptors more sensitive (helping the body respond better to its own insulin). All of these effects cause a decrease in blood sugar levels. Since metformin does not increase the amount of insulin produced by the body, it is less likely to cause dangerously low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), as many other diabetes medications can do.

It also reduces my long-term risk of heart disease, a common co-occurring disorder with diabetics, and vastly reduces pancreatic cancer risk.

This is huge.  No more shots.  My body is working again.  Other diabetic risks diminish both because of my diet and exercise and because of this med.  I tend not to get hypoglycemic during my completely insane workouts now.  

I'm really pleased, and really proud.

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Some Good News About Crime

Despite the best efforts of the NRA to get rid of all gun laws and arm criminals, there is research that suggests we are on track to having the lowest murder rate in 100 years. This is also reflected in data that just looks at gun crimes. Interestingly enough, the same study shows that Americans believe that gun crime has been going up. This doesn't come as a huge surprise. Media saturation of violent events probably leads many people to believe such events are commonplace. I am not going to speculate to why this has gone down. As Jay has said on more than one occasion, it is very difficult to pick out causal factors when you are dealing with something this complex.

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Craft Beer Week

Christmas is nice and all, but around these parts of the web, our Season of Joy is American Craft Beer Week!

This is a week of celebrations and revelry from Coast to Coast, border to border.  Click here to find events near you.

There's a manifesto.

At 8:00pm EST this Thursday, there's a nation-wide toast.

And don't forget to change your Facebook and Twitter profile pics in acknowledgment of celebration of the holiest week here at ATK.

AND AS IF THAT'S NOT ENOUGH....

As of last Thursday evening, home brewing is legal in all 50 states!

From the presser:

On Thursday, May 9, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley signed homebrew legalization bill HB9 into law, making Alabama the 50th state to legalize homebrewing.

Post-Prohibition, homebrewing was not federally legal until President Jimmy Carter signed H.R. 1337 on October 14, 1978, which officially went into effect on February 1, 1979. Shortly after that bill was signed, the American Homebrewers Association was formed by Charlie Papazian and Charlie Matzen to promote and celebrate homebrewing. Since then, the AHA has taken a leading role in advocating for homebrew rights and supporting the legislative efforts of local homebrew communities.

Celebrate beer!

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Brew Day!

Last Sunday was again Brew Day at the Smitty household.  Joined by a few of our beer buddies from this blog, we took care of my "world famous" Maple Syrup Porter.

I had intended to do 2 brews simultaneously, but due to a small error (I didn't have the right ball vales and barbed fittings for my smaller set of mash/lauter tuns), we had to skip the American Wheat Ale and stick with the Porter.  Oh well...gives me an excuse to brew again!

My top-secret recipe, for those of you wishing to try my favorite brew:
9 lb Maris Otter
1 lb English Brown Malt
1 lb Crystal 40L
10 oz. English Chocolate Malt
1.25 oz English Fuggles (60 min)
0.5 oz. English Fuggles (10 min)
32 oz Grade B maple syrup (end of boil)
1 smackpack White Labs London Ale (WLP013)

Mash 18 Q water for 60 min at 154 degrees (water in tun @ 166 degrees)
Mashout 6Q at 175 degrees for 10 minutes
Sparge 23.25 Q water at 170 degrees

1 week primary, 2 weeks secondary.

Force carbonate 10.2 psi at 45 degrees for 1-2 weeks; desired volumes:  2.1.

And here, less than a day later, is some beautifully active fermentation!

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Today in Science History

Continuing in our chain of sciencey threads...


If you had the controls of the mars rover and could place historic tire tracks on the Martian surface, what would you do?

Head to the nearest high value science target? Sign your name? Write: “Hi mom”?

Nope.

I’d do what the folks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory did.  I’d draw a giant phallus.

Source:  link

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