SomaCow

I am a Geoff. I host a show. It’s an opiate for the masses. You are a mass. A Sessy Mass. Join me, as I talk about my life, and answer the question Do You Want To Die?

I am always looking for new places to walk. As I mentioned, Florida has a pretty extensive parks and trails system. This Saturday, friends have invited us to enjoy some time in the Orlando Wetlands, a water reclamation facility consisting of several hundred acres of neato outdoor paths and animals.

We’ll be taking cameras, so I hope to have some good shots for next week’s entries. I’ve been fiddling with the Instamatic App on my iPhone, which takes regular pictures and injects groovy filters and color enhancement to them. It’s nothing you couldn’t do with GIMP, Photoshop, or a hundred other photo manipulators, but I am enamored with it, nonetheless. ‘Cause I am a Hamster.

Thanks to spb13 for showing it to me! I love photography! I like the moment in time, the fleeting second forced to exist forever. Maybe that is why I take so many pictures now, to try and prove I was here, I lived, I saw things. Sad? Probably. But I think my life is enriched, when I look over the things my family and I did together. So screw you, Native Americans!

Anyway, hopefully I can tinker with the new app. Take some Hipstamatic Heron shots.

Sunday I intend to head down to Lake Eola in the morning and walk around the Fall Fiesta. It’s your typical arts and crafts and chicken on a stick fare, but with 600 booths and supposedly some fall weather on the way, I intend to make use of my legs and catch up on some people watching.

I keep trying to talk my camera and art friends into consigning some of their work to me, and I will rent out a booth and try to sell their wares. So many of the existing artists put up their art for exorbitant prices, I think a booth with some fair to low prices would move stock like gangbusters.

Life is settling nicely. I get up, I have a healthy breakfast, I work, I don’t eat out at lunch, I eat three times during the day, small, balanced mini meals, usually beans, spinach, green stuff, lean meat, and whole grains or nuts. My ring is falling off my pointer finger as I type this. I should be on track to be down 100 pounds by December.

Can you imagine? I am already 90 pounds down. NINETY EFFING POUNDS. I would accept people’s congratulations, but when you lose 90 and realize you need to lose 110 more…

Man, I was a big piece of pork.

Speaking of pork!

I made some awesome pork tenderloin, along with sweet potatoes, beans, and Jen made us a Big Damned Salad. Even with the use of maple syrup and some OJ in a marinade on tonight’s pork, my blood sugar just rang back a 77. The beans, people. Beans are good food. Get yourself some damned beans.

For today, I seem to be managing the diabetes. Makes for a nice day!

I am Geoff, and I am answering the question, “Do You Want To Die”, every day.

A friend of mine had a daughter who wanted a turtle. She got the turtle, and the parents got a new job, cleaning up the turtle’s environment. If you have ever had the pleasure of being gifted a red eared slider, you know that turtles do two things – poop, and stuff.

And they really don’t do all that much stuff.

All that turtle number two makes a certain… smell. Most reptiles are stank; the smell of omni-or carnivore offal is pretty awful, I must say. If you do not want to be overcome with stank, you need to clean often, and provide plenty of fresh, clean water.

Now consider that a turtle needs about 10 gallons of water for every inch of shell, or carapace, length. So a little 2 inch turtle needs about 20 gallons of water to swim in. Except you can’t really fill a fishtank full of water, or else the turtle will crawl right out. So you need a 40 gallon tank filled halfway.

Until the turtle grows another inch. And then you need to buy a new tank. Neat, huh?

Except the average red eared slider grows to about 12-13 inches. So figure on needing a 120 gallon water load, hopefully in a 200-300 gallon tank.

And even if you buy a great filter, and perform water changes religiously, they can still stink quite a bit.

Oh, and they carry Salmonella, so you need to sanitize after handling them, their cages, and maybe their food.

Oh, and they need UV light, so get them a good sun lamp, preferably one that heats their basking zone to 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

Oh, and they need nighttime UV and heat, too, so they do not catch chill.

Oh, and they need some substrate, so get some rocks, but not too small, or they will choke on it. Static tongue, you see.

Oh and they need a wet-dry filtering system, because in-tank filters cannot handle the load, and side tank bio-wheels cannot operate with the half-filled aquarium tank.

Oh, and they should probably see the vet, at least once a year for a check up.

Oh, and if you can, feed them in a separate tank, to minimize waste issues in their primary tank.

Oh, and they really could use some sun, so consider taking them outside once in a while. Make sure you sanitize after that, too.

Oh, and watch out for egrets while you are out there.

Oh, and the water needs to be about 75-85, with cooler spots and warmer spots, so they can self-regulate.

I knew all this taking on the responsibility, but because the idea of keeping a turtle is worth the trouble to me, I was willing to do so.

I was not willing to have diabetes. Someone else picked it out for me. Someone else raised it on cigarettes and large iced coffees loaded with sugar and baconators and martinis with cheese stuffed olives and cases and cases of Dr. Pepper. Someone else chose to lock it inside of a small cage, out of the sunlight, and overfeed it and not take it to the doctor and allow it to get out of control.

But a good person seems to have come along, and is willing to take on the responsibility of maintaining the requirements of the disease. He knows that it is a royal pain in the ass, but he seems to be capable, he doesn’t complain (much) about the extra work, and he will hopefully keep showing up for the job. He seems to think keeping me alive is worth the trouble. Even with all the pooping.

Doctor’s appointment tomorrow. Hoping for good news, and looking forward to showing him my glucose blood sheets. See if I get an A!

 

 113: Shuffle the @&*# Up! [1:02:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

SomaCow Media, Inc. is proud to present SomaCow, brought to you this week by Diabetes. After finishing Mustangsally’s brownies, we are all now far more bloaty.

In this hour, we learn, through the magic of the Tarot, that Mickey is the unwitting victim in a plan to destroy SomaCow. Tune in to hear the startling details as The Chick That He Is Dating makes a desperate and transparent bid for his complete control by taking him to the Big Apple, where she will attack, mummify, and then consume him alive before reverting to her natural Arachnid-state.

I can only thank God, or, as I like to call Him, Kevin, that we were alerted to this nefarious scheme by the mystical cards He dealt. We also learn that our producer should not complain about not making enough money with SomaCow, as she was preordained by the fates to be brokity broke broke.

We unwound the tangled web TSTMID weaved (wove?) with the following strumming tunes:

MC Lars – Turn Your Cell Phone Off & iGeneration
No More Kings – Sweep the Leg