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25 Years and Counting
It was one hell of a hot and humid day in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia 25 years ago. Nevertheless, we did the deed. And it was one helluva party that folks still talk about to this day.
Today my wife and I celebrate 25 years of marriage. There have been some moments along the way Some up. Some down. But we’re still here, together finding more.
So Happy 25th Anniversary to us.
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Blood Glucose Monitoring on the Apple Watch Is Probably A Long Way Off
Every year as we near Apple’s iPhone and Apple Watch announcements rumors circulate and recirculate about Apple including a blood glucose monitor for the Apple Watch. It would be great if that happens someday. In my view it’s probably a lot further off than most of those hoping it happens want it to be. Here’s why I think that.
I’m a Type 2 diabetic. Checking my blood sugars has been a part of my life for 14 years or so. I’m painfully familiar with the prick your finger method and relied on it until a new endocrinologist prescribed a Dexcom G6 sensor. I’m now using a Dexcom G7 sensor. I don’t use an automatic insulin pump, just the sensors for monitoring via my iPhone and Apple Watch. I treat my condition with injected medication, both insulin and GLP-1.
The Dexcom sensors (both generations) were indeed a plus in my life as they provided a better way of monitoring, allowing me to better gauge diet and exercise, which will always be the biggest part of any diabetic’s regime.
But neither Dexcom model was a fire and forget it solution. There are times when I have to check my blood sugar with a finger prick because there are so many variables that can affect your glucose levels. The Dexcom system does provide a method to calibrate and recalibrate based on actual readings from a finger prick. I experience periods when I don’t need to recalibrate often and periods when I do.
If I’m traveling for a more than a day or so I have to pack my kit for finger pricks, because travel can be one of those variables. An inadvertent bump of the sensor on my arm can throw readings off for the remaining life of that sensor. (You have to change to a new sensor every 10 days.) AND to be frank, the tech is still far from perfect. Sensors fail occasionally and, as is the case with all tech that fails, it happens at the most inappropriate time.
Dexcom’s sensors are classified as a minimally invasive medical device. The device inserts a small filament under the skin, and yes it feels like a small needle insertion. That filament takes its reading from the interstitial fluid between cells. It does not read directly from the bloodstream. The device is held on by an adhesive patch.
When Dexcom introduced its Apple Watch app it was a decided monitoring improvement over the iPhone App which I viewed via a widget on my iPhone Home Screen. The iPhone widget far too frequently needed a touch of the screen which opened the app to update the reading.
The Apple Watch app offers a complication that displays data more consistently, needing less frequent touches to refresh the readings. (The complication is visible in the photo above showing a reading of 157.) That said, the Apple Watch tends to disconnect too easily from the sensor, defaulting back to displaying readings from the iPhone when that occurs.
I also find that the Apple Watch app reading is more current than what the iPhone is showing, but you do still need the iPhone app to communicate readings with your endocrinologist.
In some instances I’ll need to reboot both devices to reconnect things up on both my iPhone and Apple Watch. Dexcom technicians have told me these disconnections have to do with Bluetooth connection issues and are subject to the same vagaries and variables that exist with many other Bluetooth connections. I also need to be aware of which arm I have the sensor attached. I wear my Apple Watch on my left arm and if the sensor is on my right arm there will be more frequent disconnections. I don’t sleep with my Apple Watch on, so waking in the morning requires a waiting period for the watch app to reconnect.
The goal behind the push to include blood glucose monitoring on an Apple Watch (or any other smart device) is obviously to cut down on the need for finger pricks and possibly the use of minimal invasive medical devices. But also, in theory an on device sensor communicating directly with watchOS should show readings more consistently and be much less subject to the vagaries of Bluetooth connectivity.
I certainly can’t prejudge any new system or technology that hasn’t surfaced yet. Certainly I’m one who hopes Apple or some other company can eventually tackle this issue and provide a workable solution. That said, convenient as this annual rumor always seems to be, I believe blood glucose monitoring on the Apple Watch is a lot further off than most hope or think it might be. I’m also reasonably sure that finger pricks will still be needed if for no other reason than to calibrate sensor readings with actual blood glucose levels.
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
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Avengers Assemble for the Grandson’s Birthday!
Whew. Just completed a big weekend with the grandkids celebrating our grandson’s 4th Birthday. When the selected theme is Spider-Man, you end up with all sorts of Avengers as well as more Spider-Men things than you can possibly imagine.
Quite a fun time. Also an exhausting one.
Whew.
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Sunday Morning Reading
Sunday Morning Reading is on hiatus this week as we’re traveling to visit the grandkids. Sunday Morning Reading will return next week.
(Image from Mr. Abstract on Shutterstock.)If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.
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One of Those Midwestern Nights.
Lovely evening after a lovely day.
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Adding An Item To The Bucket List
We’ve been doing a lot of travel this Summer, mostly driving. Wandering down familiar roads and those not so familiar I’ve found my eye landing on old houses, old barns, and other old structures.
Some of these I’ve driven past many times before (like one pictured above). I’ve driven past it easily hundreds of times. Perhaps I’m just paying attention in a different way. Others are new to me.
Regardless, it makes me wonder what stories these structures contain. It’s also making me think that I might need to purchase a non-smartphone camera again and schedule some time to just travel and take some photos of these buildings and their stories.
So, I’m adding that to ye olde bucket list.
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Typepad to Shut Down on September 30
This blog is named Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3. I may be a theatre geek, but I’m not a fan of the three-act structure. The name came about because there were first and second acts preceding it. The first act was on Windows Live Spaces (long since dead and gone) back in the day before I ever thought of this as something I’d enjoy doing. Then there was a Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 2 on Typepad.
Well all plays, regardless of act structure have an ending. The curtain is coming down on that second act in the same way it did on the first one. Typepad is shutting down. Per the announcement on the Everything Typepad blog, the service will shut down on September 30th, 2025.
Typepad users have until September 30 to export their data. After that, all access will be terminated.
Everything in the corporeal world reverts back to dust. So do all the bits in the digital one.
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Fall Feelings and Cotton Candy Clouds
I think we’ve moved out of the summer heat for this year. Temperatures have cooled. Humidity and the haze from Canadian fires have been replaced with direr air and crystal blue clear skies. It feels like we’re moving into Fall.
I’m not sure if it’s the real thing, or what some call Faux Fall. Either way I’ll take it.
Mornings are cool. Not quite crisp yet. Just cool. Midday temperatures are comfortable. And then the nights cool off again. We’ve experienced that in three different Midwest states on our travel recently.
The icing on the cake has been a steady stream of what my daughter used to call Cotton Candy Clouds. They’ve been floating through the crystal blue skies constantly since Saturday, regardless of where we’ve been.
I’m just going to call it all pleasant. Yup. That’s the word. Pleasant.
Of course we’re bound to have a warmup again at some point before things change for good and we complain about missing Summer.
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Governors Are Standing Up
For the moment at least it looks like Democratic governors are going to be leading the way rhetorically as we attempt to find our way out of the dictatorship we find ourselves in.
Yes, you read that correctly. We’re already in a dictatorship. That’s my view. Most, including the dictator himself do not want to openly acknowledge it, because as I said in this post, once he claims it all, he cuts off the spigot of easy money from campaign donations. A grifter never cuts bait while there’s still a pond to fish.
But that’s not what this post is about.
Governors are indeed standing up and making some noise. We’re getting different styles and approaches and that’s a good thing. Tossing different kinds of rhetorical punches from different directions makes it tougher to defend against, certainly when your opponent has a tough time completing thoughts and sentences.
If you’re paying attention at all, you already know that Gavin Newsom is playing hardball in his mimicking of Trump’s bombastic style, albeit more in the style of the Savannah Bananas. Juvenile as it may be, on that level it’s working, and has gotten under Trump’s skin more than whatever disease is causing all of that skin discoloration and makeup experimentation on those small hands.
Wes Moore of Maryland has invited Trump to take a walk with him on the streets of Baltimore. If you’re going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk. Moore even offered a golf cart.
Taking a different approach, Minnesota Governor and former VP candidate, Tim Walz isn’t being shy about expressing his thoughts either. It feels very midwestern stern even as he did take a jocular swipe at Trump’s cankles.
Washington State Governor Bob Ferguson also issued some strong words about Attorney General Pam Bondi’s threats to prosecute government officials over immigration policies. Ferguson is strong willed, lawyerly, and reminded Trump of his legal defeats at his hands in Trump’s first turn at the wheel.
And rounding out the current pushback, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker addressed the Trump threat to send National Guard troops into Chicago by telling the Trump administration to stay out of Chicago. You have to admire this quote:
If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me, not time or political circumstance, from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law.
You can find the full text of Pritzker’s statement here and watch it below.
In discussing Pritzker’s remarks on social media today I responded to a friend who wondered what could be done to actually stop Trump from sending in troops. I answered that there was probably nothing. But once they get in, they’ll have the devil of a time getting out if it comes to that. That’s The Chicago Way.
It’s good to see these governors taking stands, at least on a strong rhetorical level. That’s the first step and is long overdue. Multiple approaches on multiple fronts addressing the multitude of threats is a positive.
Cynically you can argue that they each may be positioning themselves for higher office. I don’t think that matters, because this is when and where the fight is. More governors need to do the same because obviously the politicians in Washington (if they ever return from hiding) don’t have any knees left to bend.
But tough words are going to need to be matched with tough actions in the days ahead.
Buckle up.
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
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AI Smoothing The Rise of Fascism
This a quick link to a great piece by David Todd McCarty called The AI Ponzi Scheme And The Greater Fool. Go read it.
Although the piece is richer and deeper than the point I’m singling out, McCarty ties the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence to rise of fascism, neatly summed up by this quote from the piece:
“Once we get to a point where nothing is trustworthy, an authoritarian regime is free to lie with impunity.”
I concur.
I will also go a bit further and say we’ve already reached that point. It’s how we handle it now that we’re here that matters.
Again, go read the piece.
Image from Annie Spratt on Unsplash.
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Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3
Musings on life, the theatre, technology, culture and the occasional emu sighting
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 