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!

And by Fred, I mean DEATH.

I miss fruit. God, I miss fruit. I miss it like my name was Seth and I just got banished from West Hollywood.

I miss it big time.

Right before I was diagnosed with diabetes, I was drinking fruit juice by the truck load. Fruit juice, it turns out, isn’t really all that good for you. Damn you, Welch’s!

According to what I read online, I should and can eat some fruit, in some ways, but I am terrified to “ruin” my perfect record of kick ass blood sugars. So far, I have only been willing to eat some tomato slices, half a banana, a few raspberries, or a few bites off the fruit bowl at First Watch (Breakfast restaurant, try it some time! I get the lean machine, and for nancy food, it’s pretty great!)

So, help me out. Exactly WHAT can I eat, fruitwise? Or better still, what CAN’T I eat? Apparently watermelon is good, but, jesus, it’s just fructose and water, isn’t it? So much reading.

I love all of your comments, and I love being kept honest, be it by my family, a listener, a friend, or a mix of that. But, I have to be honest here.

I have not been exercising enough. Here is all that I have done this week

Sunday – 5 miles woods/trails walk. Low impact speed, carried Rowan for maybe five minutes, LOTS of strolling, not much heartbeat lifting

Monday – Jack Shit. Fail day.

Tuesday – Walked 1 mile

Wednesday – Walked 1 mile

Thursday – Walked 1 and 1 half miles

Mind you, walking a mile takes about 15 minutes. If walking is to be my exercise, I need to be gunning for 45 minutes, and either corroborating that with a load (carrying baby or weights), or an incline, or faster walking speed.

SO I am doing less than a third what I should be doing, and that is just not cutting it, fatty boom blatty. WTF, Over? DWYTD?

My intention is to kick it up a notch, and be accountable to you, surely, but also myself.

So, a friend suggested I get on this website – http://www.dailymile.com (Thanks, Heather!)

I have done so, my name is Geoffrey Peace on there. Feel free to friend me, watch what I do, whatever. I am going to go familiarize myself with the site, and see what the all is entailed. Hopefully it will help me to remain vigilant, because I am doing great with medication, and I am doing much, much better with diet, but exercise is inconsistent and con right now.

It’s nice to listen to podcasts while you walk. Try ours sometime!

It’s amazing, the neighborhood I live in. There are people who spend their whole afternoons bustling in their yards, warshing their cars, watering their begonias, trimming up their crepe myrtles (sadly, not a pancake), and generally just being outside all evening long.

There are all kinds of birds, and dogs, and a snake, and possum families, and a cockatoo, or maybe it was a cockatiel… I am only sure of the cock.

There are buzzards in the sky, and a moon, and various barbecued smells, and spanish rice smells, and burning maple leaf smells.

There are crunchy underfoot leaves, and crunchy underfoot acorns, and crunchy underfoot kitties (ack!). There are hills, and ponds, and cute little yard things that don’t do anything but rust. There are myriad wonders on my streets.

There are stodgy neighbors, and friendly neighbors, and stoic neighbors, and republican and democrat neighbors, but I don’t hold it against either of them. There are hot neighbors, and smelly neighbors, and neighbors that wave back (my favorite kind!)

There are also two wonderful girls, willing to traipse about with me as we lap the neighborhood.

We chat with each other, and squeal with delight at the butterflies and dog poop, and build up a healthy appetite for the dinner (SHARK MEAT!) we will cook together.

This evening, a year ago, would have consisted of eating Popeye’s Fried Chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, cole slaw, and biscuits drizzled with honey. In a carbohydrate and salted fat stupor, we’d have drooled ourselves into a doze-coma watching Food TV, or some god-awful reality show, while our child fussed at her lack of stimulation and stayed up, possibly too late, watching her dad slowly kill himself between trips to the bathroom.

Plus, stinky smoke.

I really, really enjoyed tonight.

Not just for the great dinner, conversation, and some light exercise. Not just for the nice weather, friendly neighbors, and happy child.

I enjoyed it because it can be like this all the time, if I merely insist that I try. My wife is supportive, my kid is up for anything; the only person that was holding us back… was me.

It’s like we were on a stagecoach, aimed for the cliff, horses lathered and laboring, wheels fittin’ to bust off, and I kept whipping and whipping and whipping, driving us ever closer.

I am glad I put down the whip.

I am glad I am letting go of the reins.

The horses may lead us to water, or perhaps make us think.

But they don’t want to die.

I have no idea what I am talking about. Man, shark and green beans ROCK!

Still, I know some naughtiness has been sneaking in. Somehow, there are eggs showing up pretty frequently in my diet, along with more protein than is necessary, and at some meals, I am eschewing (that means shunning, or avoiding, for those of you “reading” from Tampa. Just think of what you do with education, or soap) carbs altogether.

Which is a no-no. I may have yet to go to “diabetes education”, but I know I AM supposed to eat some carbs. Diabetes is not equal to Atkins, forsooth.

Incidentally, I am somewhat concerned about “diabetes education”. It sounds like “defective citizen reprogramming” or “12 hour snooze fest” or “Department of Motor Vehicles times 1,000″. It sure is taking a long time to get scheduled. I will probably need to start calling people. I am learning the truth about modern medicine and doctors – the squeaky but polite patient gets to live.

Anyway, in an effort to eat a carb, today I had a slice of whole wheat bread, a 1/4 cup of brown rice, and a tray of raspberries. The raspberries were delicious, and I feel pretty balanced. I have been enjoying back to back days in the 100s on my blood sugar, which is right within that magical 70-120 range.

Today it occurred to me that I am a different person than I was. I am angrier than I used to be. I really need to work on that. The whole idea of this blog is that I supposedly do NOT want to die, but it’s obvious that anger leads to ragey blood, and ragey blood leads to heart snap, and heart snap leads to pine box. I cannot help that I get pissed, but I can learn to redirect that anger to something useful.

But along with that, I now have… I am not sure what the word is for it… Drive? Ambition? People, I had a break today and chose to use it to walk.

To walk??!?!? WTFBBQ?

If you have known me for, oh, any length of time, you know that I am the kind of guy that will circle a business for a half an hour (or force dear nurse to do so) waiting for a parking space in the “cush” zones.

Now I park anywhere. Now I offer to double back in the grocery store to pick up nurse’s hoo-hoo products. Now I… walk a mile and a half on my lunch break? And it’s not even like I argued in my head. Saw park, pulled over, took walk. Pretty neat!

As I walked, I felt my inadequacies cavorting, trying to talk me out of it.

“You’re wearing jeans – Fatboy gonna chafe!”

“Your shoe tongue keeps popping forward of your pant leg – People will stare!”

“There’s a school – Bet the teachers are calling the police on you right now!”

“Your poor knees – You must hate them so to do this!”

…and on and on and on. If you have ever been fat, you know how loud and somehow persuasive the “voices” get.

But I was in no mood for the negativity, and just kept walking. It was a good day to live!

My eyes were still good today, but around nightfall I started to notice some slight blurring around the edges. Much of this blog is fuzzy, and I have been up since 4:30, so I am going to take a break.

SomaCow Media is proud to present SomaCow, brought to you by …  uh … wait………….. what?

Even with some alleged short term memory loss, it was pretty easy to remember the first topic from this hour. Elross put it very plainly, in bold, WEED!

Geoff believes that he is now for legalization of marijuana. California is looking into it, as tax revenue. Just think of how much money would be made! I talk to people all the time, of all ages, who say “oh, yeah, we smoke pot”. They are professionals, all ages, all races. Pot smokers are not just college students or drop-outs being lazy and getting high while watching Up In Smoke or Dazed and Confused anymore. It is recognized by many for its medicinal properties and for just relaxation. So why is it still illegal? Mickey thinks it makes you lazy. Maybe the people for the legalization just don’t have the drive to get out there and make changes?

So besides this, the man thing of the week was discussed. Geoff turned the wheel, Mickey forgot to minimize his porn surfing, Ross is thinking, and J snored? I guess that’s manly. Women snore, I know I have and my mom does but I guess we just don’t admit it often? Or maybe the men just don’t complain. Probably the latter.

Mickey’s life coaching centered around the current schools in our system and how worthless they are. Did you get a good education? Was it public? private? How about your kids?

Many men say to look at your girl’s mom and you’ll see your future. But what about guys? Are you like your dad? Do you look like him or act like him? I know that the things I was immediately attracted to in Geoff absolutely resembled my dad.

Are you in the Central Florida area? If so, we’re trying to plan an ice skating meetup/tweetup on June 13th. You can check out the details (or add suggestions) here!

And we are still working out the details on the Cure for the Run on August 22nd. We’re trying to nail down the charity. Have you had experience with charity functions? Maybe you can assist us! We’d love to get your input. You can discuss it with us here. You can donate via paypal to somacow@gmail.com and just put “cure for the run” or some other designation for it!