Status

Fasting Blood Sugar: 80 After Lunch has settled sugar: 93 Have I been controlling myself and eating and sleeping perfectly since last reports: Yes Has my sugar been this perfect all through it: No There was a day or two there after feeling like I had really settled in and become stable and feeling great where I did not feel so well and I had some after breakfast sugars of 245. It was for no apparent reason other than that I had just started working out again after a year or three hiatus and my body was a little out of kilter. But it didn't last long. Feeling great again, and anyway, I never lost enthusiasm because I was so happy just to be able to control myself so easily all through it. By the way, I have also been taking a Melaleuca Calcium Complete with every meal and a Melaleuca Multi with each breakfast and dinner. Oh, and over the last year, I have had a bad lot of coughing due to allergies in the air and a bad post nasal thing but since eating perfect the last bit here, that has all cleared up. Oh and the reason I mentioned the tablets are from Melaleuca is because it is more than a matter of different brand, they are not just better - they are not the same thing as what other folks produce.

The Classroom - How a Professor Should Lecture

I have a big statement on the college classroom, how it tends to be conducted and how it should be improved. Read on: NYTimes Critical Of Online College Courses. In an editorial, the New York Times (2/19, Page A22, Editorial, Subscription Publication) takes issue with the expansion of online college teaching. The NYTimes says that "student attrition rates - around 90 percent for some huge online courses - appear to be a problem even in small-scale online courses when compared with traditional face-to-face classes." In addition, "courses delivered solely online may be fine for highly skilled, highly motivated people, but they are inappropriate for struggling students who make up a significant portion of college enrollment and who need close contact with instructors to succeed." The NY Times concludes, "so far, the evidence shows that poorly designed courses can seriously shortchange the most vulnerable students." And here are my 2 bits: Many engineering and science college professors in my experience have plenty of technical training in their field but have no clue about spending classroom time effectively. At the bad extreme, but within the bound of my actual first-hand experience, more than a few professors start throwing chalk on the board when the start bell rings and finish almost in time for the closing bell, and expect the students in their class to madly copy the words from the board into their notebooks, and do nothing else in class. Great - they 'covered it.' They had a lot to cover and they had to cover it. Why, in this day and age of high-tech copiers, didn't they just make copies of the notes for the students and mail it to them?? They could then insert the notes into their notebooks and just look at the equivalent gain at the drastically reduced man-hours spent. Here is how it should be done, how it is supposed to work: You buy an expensive text book, not to contribute to the professor fund, but to read and struggle with before going to class. You then go to class and talk back and forth with the professor and the other students to perfectly understand the concepts you struggled with while reading the book. No time is wasted writing notes. No intense stress is inflicted. No panic induced by 'moving on to cover things' on a basis of understanding that is necessary to proceed and that you do not have. The student is to write his own notes borne out of his own understanding. Then he joyfully goes off to do the homework. Oh yes, I almost forgot, class time is also good for doing example problems and helping the students get past minor but practical snags on which they are stuck. However, this should really be done ONLY AFTER they have tried to do the problems themselves, never before, as is so common. Doing it before only breeds and produces monky-see, monkey-do engineers, who aren't so valuable to society. Going over problems in my opinion, is a secondary use of class time. It is better saved for office and tutor time as much as possible. Based on my own experience, having been tutored by top-notch tutors, in my father and brother, one hour of real class discussion is literally worth a week or more of full-time, intense self-study, and no amount of the status-quo "lecturing" can equal either one. C'mon, prof, your research work is stellar, but get some teachin' skills! I got precious little out of class in college. I was an on-line student before there was an on-line anything. Got it all out of the book and my dad and brother. And a few good professors, like Sanford Meek of the University of Utah, and Mark Miller of the University of Pittsburgh, to name two of the 5. Whoa, almost forgot the best one of all - had him for my first undergrad class, he was from India, and I forget his full name, but I knew him as Dr. Vyas. Oh and there were supreme grad student teaching assistants, such as Dave Funk, who taught chemistry - and I mean taught. (I should also mention the professor who taught me post-grad elasticity but I will have to look him up somehow because I forget his name. But he deserves it because he could never keep from confusing me with another student, who had black hair whereas mine is red, and when he passed out the final grades, he gave me the other kid's grade, to my detriment. He had said if we didn't like our final grade, just tell him what grade we wanted and he would change it. But I never took him up on it.) However, for whatever necessity, no one I know ever taught class at the university quite the way I describe it should be done - the way dad would have done it. Dr. Vyas came scorching close. Wait - I take that back. Dr. Vyas really pretty much did it now that I'm thinking about it. And professors too numerous to mention decently fell somewhere respectably shy of the bad extreme. But the standard needs to be replaced. Discuss. Do not cover ground.

Dummin' Down - NOT

I have no problem with automation and safety advances, as long as they are reliable, effective and make sense, which is more than I can say for some of the accepted safety practices and culture today. I have no problem with cars that drive themselves as long as skilled drivers are still allowed to use and hone their own skills, for reasons that should be obvious, reasons that have to do with superior sophistication ('you can't improve on God') and fulfillment of joy. We need these advances. They are important and they are of God. It is also important to preserve a culture that cultivates and encourages human physical strength, dexterity, endurance and thus, joy, within the work-a-day world as well as in the world of recreation and sports. Read on: UK Researchers Develop Self-Driving Vehicle That Uses Lasers To See. The Guardian (UK) (2/15, Arthur) reports, "Scientists at Oxford University have developed a self-driving car that can cope with snow, rain and other weather conditions." Developed by a team of researchers led by professor Paul Newman at Oxford University, the vehicle "will halt for pedestrians, and could take over the tedious parts of driving such as negotiating traffic jams or regular commutes." The Daily Telegraph (UK) (2/15) reports, "The system works by producing a 3D image of the route using lasers attached to the front and a camera mounted on the roof. The sensors map the route but also pick up unfamiliar objects such as pedestrians." The Daily Mail (UK) (2/15, Hull) reports, "It asks the driver via an iPad on the dashboard whether they want to engage the autopilot and, at a touch of the screen, the car takes over the controls. A laser under the front bumper scans the direction of travel around 13 times per second for obstacles, such as pedestrians, cyclists, or other cars, up to 164ft ahead and in an 85 degree field of view. If the car sees an obstacle, it slows and comes to a controlled stop. The driver can also tap the brake pedal, like in current cruise control systems, to regain control from the computer at any time." UK's The Engineer (2/15) reports, "The researchers decided to avoid using GPS because they felt it could not provide the coverage, precision, and reliability autonomous cars need to safely navigate and doesn't give enough information about the car's surroundings.'Our approach is made possible because of advances in 3D laser mapping that enable an affordable car-based robotic system to rapidly build up a detailed picture of its surroundings,' said Newman." The next part "of the research, led by Dr Ingmar Posner, will involve enabling the new robotic system to understand complex traffic flows and make decisions on its own about which routes to take." BBC News (2/15, Lee) reports, "At the moment, the complete system costs around £5,000 - but Prof Newman hopes that future models will bring the price of the technology down to as low as £100." The Scotsman (UK) (2/15, Woodman) and other media sources also cover the story.

By the way

Most of the last while, I thought this blog and what it does was dead. Much less, I was unaware that any soul was ever peeking at it until a few days ago. Anyway, I was too busy to care. So now I am finding out there might be actual comments and so I just want to let you know I will get to them but not right now. Got a meeting. But just want to let you know I thought I was writing this whole blog to myself all this time. If not, hope it helps.

This is HUGE

More huge than any previous development. I am enjoying unprecedented blessings in regard to my diabetic condition. I am certain it is because of strength I have received from the Lord. Since first being healed of my condition that needed correction, but not in an immediate and complete way because as I heard echoed in sacrament meeting today the concept I recently learned more fully and explained to my children, when you live worthily, every challenge in your life is there to be grateful for and to take on patiently and to learn and grow from, not to complain about, I have many times slipped and sunk from walking on the water to meet my Savior. It has been 17 years and I have done very well as a diabetic patient for most of that time. I have no indications in my eyes, heart or kidneys, only a bit of tooth trouble and foot warnings, and I have kept much better control over my sugar than nearly all other patients for which my doctors have cared. But the healing, the miracle and the progress of this latest step up are unmatched by any previous. I have learned a new key concept and have received the strength to live it with relish. My feet are loving it. Here is the concept, to add to all my other key concepts, and like those, has value of great worth for any whole person; therefore, to have simply been healed without a struggle and backsliding into the water would have been unfortunate for me: The human body needs 3 (at least) perfectly separate phases in its cycle: Eating, Sleeping, Fasting. I learned that I need to do as my dad always tried to train us: Never eat in between eat time. Let the body fast. At night, go to bed and sleep and do nothing else while you do it. Fasting is as important as eating and is just as enjoyable. Especially for your feet who will really love you for it. And the eating phases need to be short, the fasting longer. For at least a week, if not 3, I have been in an unbroken, ecstatic pattern of eating until I sense or even wonder if I have now had enough, and then stopping cold - knowing that there will be other meals. I have not had any meals late - after about 6 pm. Even when I am working hard till just past midnight, and I get a little snacky or hungry (in my mind, at least), I only feel it a little, not a lot, all of a sudden. So I decide I would rather be fasting until I go to sleep, and see you, food, in the morning. And wow, do I feel content! And my feet feel super de dooper! And with each day, my feet are feeling better and my neuropathy diminishes more. And I am reminded of the Lord telling Joseph Smith his lot was to live a life of discipline, and I relish that this is all good for me, not unfortunate. And of course, I am full of energy and activity. I continue to take no more than 4 or 5 units per meal. I should note that during this time, I have also been TV-free, movie-free and except where necessary in my business, Internet-free, and have been striving at work to focus continuously through my work day and not allow myself diversions or diverted thoughts from the Bergen Power business at hand. This in itself is terribly invigorating. Really makes life at work and life after work much more zesty. So, fasting between eating is as necessary and as enjoyable as eating, no matter who you are, and an eating phase does not belong between fasting and the beginning of the sleep phase, and all you have to do to overcome the prevalent idea that it's great to eat late is to realize it's nothing more than a simple lie, and ask God for the power to overcome that simple lie. I think I will post here soon, a special post to review and summarize all my key points such that a reader would not need to go back and read all my posts. I think I want to do it purely from the top of my head - without looking at anything I have written previously - and to write it all in one fell post. Now, can you see that for real, this is could be no more ideal or miraculous? I am being healed of diabetes truly. And because it hasn't been overnight, I have become someone more. Even if I am not ultimately made insulin-shot-independent or whatever, I will be 100% healthy and healed and satisfied, because any condition that remains will be for my continued good and growth. Meanwhile, I'm not sick, not hungry, not starved, not pensive, not burning, not fainting, not stumbling because of hashed out feet, and not spending most of my time "doing my sugar" and recovering from sugar blunders. See you at the wrestling tournaments. Don't look for me in the stands.

Ain't Just About Sugar

Everyone should understand that there is much more to diabetes than preventing tissue damage due to high sugar levels in the bloodstream and preventing low levels that make one weak. Without insulin, the human body cannot digest; it will eat like a pig and starve. Just as importantly, even with enough insulin, too much food and sugar means too much insulin as well. That is, even if I perfectly control my sugar all through a party and continue a perfect level all through the ensuing night and next day, if I eat too much, I, Scott Scoville, feel almost just as crappy as if my sugar was high. And that's plenty crappy. You don't want to just control your sugar so that you are alert and feeling okay but still feel a little tender or numb or both in the feet, a little burny here and there, and a little neuropathic here and there. No sir, ma'am. You want to feel great. Feel great in the feet and in the legs and in the skin. You want that really good feeling you had when you were young and everything was just right and you didn't just feel okay or neutral, you actually had a slightly orgasmic feeling that perpetually lingered throughout your body. Way back before all the burning started. Eat right. It ain't about the sugar, it ain't about the weight. It's about feeling great. Through and through. Got a little extra food? Got extra insulin? Keep it outside your body. Throw it away if it goes bad. Starving children in India? What reason is that to waste food and body by putting excess food into the body? Less of a waste to put it into the trash.

Running Shoes

Man, I used to run 4 mi. every day before they invented running shoes. I wore Converse All Star basketball shoes. I ran the Deseret News marathon in them. Well, 85% of it till my legs would no longer bend and the poop-out truck had to haul me like a pine board to the finish line. I never even got winded. It's just that I had never tried to run more than 4 miles before, and my legs got stiff as boards. A few years later, running was invented and along with it, the running shoe. Now everyone was doing road work, not just athletes. My brother helped me buy my first pair. A gray set of Nikes. Wow, what a difference for running it made! I also liked 2 other things about those early running shoes: 1 - You could wear them a solid week without changing your socks and your feet never began to stink. They were made of nylon, not polyester. 2 - They never wore out. They lasted lots longer than a pair of canvas basketball shoes if you kicked around in them like you do the all stars. They were nylon, not plastic and polyester. Running shoes these days make an immediate stench and they feel clammy from the minute I put them on, and they make toe mold grow on me. Another thing I loved about the old ones, looking back, they didn't have anything in them that you had no use for. Stuff like 'support' and all that jazz. Sure, the Nikes had great high arch support, which is why I bought Nike instead of Adidas, but they did not have some bertha wall around your heel that would wear itself through the cushion and fabric and dig into your skin after you only had them less than a year. Or even less. Man they were comfortable and trouble-free - right up to the day you threw them into the trash because finally, all your toes were sticking through and the sole was no longer making any difference from running barefoot. Which is what I am back to doing again these days.

Just When I Thought This Was Winding Down..

No matter what I happen to think sometimes, I am always forced back to the reality that what I write in this blog, at least for my own survival, is absolutely necessary and correct and I cannot escape from it or find another way to go. Let me interject here that I really hate this blogspot thing of not letting me put spaces where I want or separate paragraphs. Is there a setting I don't know about? To continue, I have been doing really well the last several days and I need to post a couple of key 'secrets' (my wife can't stand 'secrets') that aren't really new but of which I have a very new understanding. They are definitely key and have been a couple of the last thresholds for me breaking through to becoming a superstar patient from a pretty good patient. Notice I am not even trying to paragraph here. Or maybe it looks the same if I do. The basic big monster for me has been unlearning overeating from a lifetime of 1-2 hour dinners at home and see who's the biggest man by see who can stuff the most pizza parties. In spite of all I have written, my performance has been that of a chronic or an addict; even when i am doing good, I still have a tendency to approach dinner time as I would a party. When my women people make something tasty in the evening, I seldom seem to even try to resist at least a taste of it. Usually, I eat more than I need to eat, having a mindset against waste and a mindset that it's time to relax and enjoy and that I need to make sure i do not miss out on anything as long as it tastes terribly delicious (and don't stop till it doesn't) and make sure I get enough so I am not hungry later, heaven forbid. So it's really all about making dinner no different from breakfast and lunch. Therefore, I have been focusing on my two key action points, making each and every meal require no more than 4 (actually 5 sometimes)units of humalog, even if I have an extra meal later on, and on not eating after the six o' clock meal, no matter how hungry or late I am going to bed. I have been approaching it with a couple of things in mind, to learn to eat dinner the way every single other member of my current family does (they all take about 10 minutes, +/- 7), and that it's okay to stop at any point at which I suspect I have had sufficient because hey - this isn't my last meal! Then I go about the rest of my evening with energy and I end up not using another 15 units of insulin in addition to the 4. Zero additional, in fact. Just think, had I been able to always do this since I was diagnosed - no, let's just count from 2003 when I started shooting insulin: I would have had the 10 years x 365 days x 5 hours = 18,250 hours I lost to languishing in a sluggish supping stupor most of those evenings. I'll just add a note about my doctor, she expressed some concern and said make sure you eat because last visit I had dropped a little weight since I was back to normal whereas the first time or two I had seen her, I was just coming off a sustained time of poor performance. Since doctors have book-learned that Scott Scoville is thin, I hear about it when I am at my normal weight. My normal weight has gone up since having adequate insulin. Prior, it was 140, having dropped from my youthful maximum of 165, but more often, 150. Between having not quite enough insulin and riding my bike everywhere I went, I dropped to 140 when I was in my 30s and 40s. Upon taking my first insulin, I went up to 185 or so within 3 weeks and then over the years since, tapered down to I don't know maybe 150 or so, depending on whether I have my belly. I was never able to acquire a belly before insulin. So when I lose the belly and drop a few pounds, the doctors always get concerned because their book says at 6 feet tall I should weigh closer to 200 lb or whatever. Especially in this day and age of GNC sucking musclemen running everywhere. When I was a kid, there were precious few of them, now they're a dime a 3 dozen; most men back then looked about like me. Hmm..just like diabetes and seliac, etc. By the way, when I first got told I was diabetic, I refused to believe it, then I went into shock, my next thought was I should be able to get over it the same way I got over everything else (which I still do not know to be untrue). In this blog, I think, I stated that having diabetes really sucked. But man, how would I like to have celiac? Or cancer? Or something besides a perfect heart and blood pressure? Et cetera. How would I like to have Type I diabetes and celiac both, like my little girlfriend Haley has? Or how about some brain illness? I stopped crying for myself some time ago. Now I am going to attempt a new paragraph: Never overeat.