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One Drop | Experts Advisory Board
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One Drop | Experts Advisory Board

In April 2015 One Drop launched the One Drop | Mobile app for Apple iPhone, and later for Apple Watch and Android. It allows people with diabetes to log and analyze glucose, food, meds and activity all in one place, set diabetes management goals, track their progress, and integrates with other apps via Apple Health. The One Drop | Mobile app is available free worldwide for Apple iPhone and Watch from the Apple App Store via iTunes, and also for Android at the Google Play Store.

Earlier this month they announced FDA and CE mark approval and availability in US, UK, and EU of the One Drop | Chrome blood glucose meter with unlimited test strips for One Drop | Premium, the first-ever monthly subscription service to provide affordable, accessible diabetes care with One Drop | Experts that provides 24/7 live in-app support from diabetes experts.

One Drop | Chrome is available at Apple online (under iPhone Accessories > Health & Fitness > Health Monitors) and in retail stores, as well as the One Drop Store on their web site. My UPS shipment was scheduled today but was delayed getting on the plane in Louisville so now I have to wait until tomorrow for it to arrive!


One Drop | Premium includes the following:

  • One Drop | Chrome with Unlimited Test Strips: A sleek, compact blood glucose meter that use Bluetooth wireless technology to transmit data directly to One Drop | Mobile app for iOS and Android, as well as a chrome lancing device and vegan leather carry case. Unlimited blood glucose test strips are delivered on-demand directly to subscribers — no prescriptions, no insurance, no appointments, and no hassles.
  • One Drop | Mobile: Award-winning, cloud-based diabetes management solution delivered entirely via mobile app on iOS and Android, including fully-featured Apple WatchOS app for logging and analyzing diabetes data on the go. Provides the only diabetes management platform that offers comprehensive health data analytics, peer-support, and expert support all in one place.
  • One Drop | Experts: Diabetes education and coaching program delivered entirely via One Drop | Mobile app. Experts (Certified Diabetes Educators) have real-time access to subscriber data and are available 24/7 to provide guidance, support, and anytime care via in-app chat.

They also announced the One Drop | Experts Advisory Board and its six inaugural members with healthcare professionals and clinical researchers as well as people living with diabetes – including me! I am honored to be invited and thrilled to participate on the One Drop | Experts Advisory Board.

Click the image to see the One Drop announcement for more details.

onedropexperts-featureimage_600

See http://onedrop.today For more information.

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Diabetes Progress: Jun 2016

It’s been almost 10 years since I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes in October 2006. And over the past year I have made great progress in getting my blood glucose levels under control.

Every 3 months, I get a Hemoglobin-A1C blood test and visit my doctor for a Diabetes Follow-Up to review my results and discuss how I’ve been doing with my diabetes since the last checkup. The A1C test provides a measure of average blood glucose levels over the past 3 months based on the percentage of glucose attached to hemoglobin in the blood.  The American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends that your A1C should be less 7.0%, which is equivalent to a blood glucose level of 154 mg/dL

My A1C this week was only 6.9%, which is equivalent to about a 151 estimated average glucose level. Actually I was surprised since during that time I had a bilateral inguinal surgery, root canal and crown, and 56 chigger bites. My previous tests over the past year had been 7.0, 7.1, and 6.9 so it’s been fairly consistent and demonstrates that my current health focus matters.

Recently, I have increased my daily exercise and reduced my meal carbs significantly and it’s really starting to make a difference. In addition to my usual 30 minutes on a treadmill at the local gym after lunch, I had added a 15-minutes morning walk after breakfast as well as another 15-minutes evening walk after dinner. At the same time, I have tried to eat less carbs per meal and trying to target about 25-35 grams per meal, although I am aiming for less with a high-protein  breakfast.

For the past 7 days I have had an average blood glucose of 140 with a variance of 23%. My average total carbs per day has been 129 grams with average 68 minutes exercise a day. I have had 15% Highs (> 180) with 2% Lows (< 70), and I have only had to inject meal-time insulin on 3 of those days.

Although this requires constant attention and discipline, this is all very encouraging and shows that I am on the right track. I just need to keep it up, and my next test should be even better yet.

My Reel Tapes: #10
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My Reel Tapes: #10

This is post #10 in a series with playlists from my audio reel tapes that were recorded from FM radio broadcasts during the 60’s and 70’s that I liked.

I created Spotify playlists so I could listen to the music again and share with others. And it’s a lot cheaper than converting all the tapes to DVD and better quality. This brings back lots of memories for me, and I hope you enjoy them too.

Tape 10 (Playlist) – 18 songs, 1 hr 8 min

More music for albums featured in this playlist
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My Playlists

I have created over 100 Spotify music playlists for artists included in my blog since I started it in September 2014. However, I don’t think most of the over 5,000 visitors to my site are really aware of how much music is actually available.

Although there have been almost 10,000 views over that time, I’m not sure how much of the music is actually enjoyed with an average of only about 2 views per visit. I feel like much of the music is probably currently invisible, except maybe to my regular followers who automatically receive all my music posts. But I only have 240 followers via Email subscription, 186 on WordPress Reader, 40 via Twitter, 13 through Facebook, and some on Pinterest.

Recently I had a very productive dialog with Juan Maria Solare, who is an Argentine pianist and composer of contemporary music and tango living in Bremen, Germany. He had many very helpful suggestions in his feedback and recommendations that I should be offering more mixed playlists from my blog’s music.

After thinking about it some more, I agree that this really makes so much sense that I decided to try creating new playlists from my blog’s music. This will open up all the music that I have shared in the past in a new way, and enable many more to discover all this great music.

I know I also need to review and improve my menus and sidebar, and generally reorganize the music on my blog so it’s more accessible, and also deliver it in new ways to my readers. I’m also creating some software to help me manage my WordPress blog and Spotify playlists to make it easier to maintain and present.

Please let me know what you would like to see me do with my playlists. Do you like artist playlists with a variety of music across albums for a single artist? What about mixed playlists with many artists for a specific genre or style of music? Do you prefer shorter lists like an hour long, or longer ones? I would really appreciate additional feedback about what you like, especially as I try to focus on additional enhancements and refinements for my blog.

Mom Talk
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Mom Talk

I visited my mother several days ago. She is almost 96 years old and has had Alzheimer’s for more than 10 years. Her money ran out in January from the remainder of my father’s life insurance since he died 3 years ago. It was a busy time for me looking around at nursing homes, hiring a lawyer, establishing a Qualified Income Trust, and applying for Medicaid.

Medicaid

Fortunately, we got lucky and somebody passed away a fews earlier and there was an opening so we jumped at the opportunity and moved my Mom right away. So she has now been on Medicaid pending status effective February 1st while we’re waiting approval in several months. It’s a very nice facility with above average ratings, and she’s getting much better care now that she was in the memory care unit of the assisted living facility where she had been living for over 7 years.

Volleyball

In fact, the Activity (“Wellness and Life Enrichment”) Director is great since she had been at the nursing home where my father was during his last year. She was so good with my Dad and now she gets to know her too. She told me recently that she had my Mom playing “volleyball” (where they bounce balloons around each other from their wheelchairs) after she told her that she needed more people to help her and my Mom said “sure!”. Maybe she will get her more involved with some of their activities like she did with my Dad.

Care

Actually my Mom is doing quite well considering her age. She’s always in good spirits, smiling, and happy most of the time. She usually stills knows who I am, and also my wife and siblings. That day we woke her up and she was somewhat groggy for a bit and slightly confused. However, as she came to, she was responding to my wife, but I didn’t register with her at all. That was rather strange because she normally can’t keep her eyes off me, wants to hug and kiss me, and tells me that she loves me (constantly). Not this time. So my wife was getting her attention, and she pretty much ignored me.

Sayings

Since I wasn’t that busy, but just a spectator this time, I was observing the “conversation”. Actually she can’t really put more than a few words together at a time before she forgets what she wants to say. So everything is rather short, with many of the same expressions. So I thought it might be interesting to capture some of them on my iPhone. Here’s the intermittent dialogue.

I don’t know
Okay
Right
No, I don’t think so
You’re wonderful
I love you
Yeah
Thank you
That’s about it
Well …
That’s the way it goes

Background Sunset Photo Image
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Background Sunset Photo Image

In my Blogging 201 course on Intermediate Customization, we have been experimenting with various background colors, images, and fonts for our sites. Although I had selected a nice background color several days ago that seemed to look pretty good, I thought I would check out whether background images might be worthwhile.

Today I thought I might try using the same original sunset photo that was cropped for my custom header. I thought I would see how it works, and whether readers have any comments. Then I will probably explore some different font combinations to see whether I like them any better than the current ones (PT Sans and Arimo).

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Music by Artist: Updated

I have now updated the Music by Artist page under the Music menu tab to show all Music posts by artist in alphabetical order by post title, which would usually be their first name. All 131 additional music posts since July have now been incorporated into this alphabetical index for a total of 605 (80% of my total blog posts of 761) .

These have been grouped and separated by a letter index to make it easier to find an artist, so clicking on one of the letters will jump directly to that section. However, you can also use your browser Find search function to locate them on the page more quickly or by last name. Since there were so many Christmas and SXSW music posts, they were moved out of sequence to the end.

The initial version only included the 100 most recent music posts, and then this new format was introduced; also it was rather limited since there were so many Christmas Music posts, which resulted in no artists beyond the letters A and B being displayed.

You can also use the Search field in the sidebar to find music for a specific artist or genre, which will retrieve all posts that match your search. Another option is available with the Music Calendar which shows all music posts by month and quarter.

I have also included the publish date after the post title. This might be formatted better, but at least it offers a complete list of all artists for now until I can improve the presentation. For example, it might be helpful to have a link for each post, but I need to figure out a way to do this automatically so this list can be maintained easily.

Any ideas or suggestions are always appreciated. Specifically, comments related to these questions would help me determine what improvement might be desirable.

  • Do you think this format is useful?
  • Is sorting by alphabetical post title appropriate?
  • Would it be better to organize by artist last name instead?
  • Should links be enabled for each entry to provide easier access (without have to search)?
  • Let me know what other music menus might be helpful?
  • Are the videos worthwhile in my music posts and do you actually watch any of them?
  • Do you find it easy to access the music on my web site?
  • What would be a good way to remind you of music in my archives?

Thanks for helping with your feedback. Keep on listening.

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Music Calendar – Oct/Nov Updates

I have updated the Music Calendar pages as an index of all my music posts organized in a calendar format. Recently I fell a little behind, but now I have completed the October calendar as well as provided one for this month (November) with the first week.

Since there are 605 music posts published since September 2014 when I started this blog, a single calendar page is no longer practical. So several months ago I reorganized the calendar and there is now a single Music Calendar index along with sub-menus for months in the current quarter (like OCT and NOV) as well as previous quarters (Jul-Sep 2015, etc.). Hopefully this approach provides easy access to all the music posts using calendar access.

Just select any link to view all the music posts for that specific month (or quarter). I would be interested in any feedback about these changes and any other suggestions for improvement.

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Color Palette & Font Changes

I’m currently participating in the Blogging University course Blogging 201: Intermediate Customization. Our Day 1 assignment was to explore themes and experiment with various options on how we might improve our blog.

I looked at quite a few and previewed them with the WordPress Customizer to see how they affected everything. Although I got a better appreciation of different options, including some that might have some potential. However, many of them just didn’t have the combination of features that I currently have in the Misty Lake theme that I have been using since I started my blog last year. Many of the themes that I previewed caused problems with some of my pages, and would probably require substantial adjustments.

So I decided to explore what options I might have within my existing Misty Lake them, and I settled on making some color palette and font changes.  So I now have a different background for my site and the colors for colors, links, etc. have been changed. Also I chose a Google font called Arimo for my text, and complemented that with PT Sans for headings; I made them both large size so that my site might be more readable since I thought the normal size might possibly be too small for some readers. Also I made the headings bold so they stand out more.

Blog_Misty_Lake_Background_anda_Colors          Blog_Misty_Lake_Fonts

I thought I would try this for a while, and see if I like it. Also, I would certainly appreciate any feedback from my readers. Do you like the changes? What do you like about it? Is this a good choice for color palette and fonts? Is this an improvement over the previous default theme? I will also be making other adjustments over the next several weeks, so bear with me during this experimentation. I’m trying to make it better, but please let me know if I have gone off the track.

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One Year

Recently I passed my one year anniversary since I created this blog on September 17, 2014 during the Blogging 101 “Zero to Hero” workshop. I’ve just been very busy the past few weeks, and didn’t get around to announcing this milestone until now.

Here’s a summary of my blog statistics. I have created almost 700 posts and 100 pages, including nearly 600 music posts. There have been almost 7,000 views by about 4,000 visitors with around 400 comments. Also, I have 194 followers via Email subscriptions, 155 on WordPress Reader, 31 from Twitter, and 8 through Facebook.

I’m quite amazed that I am actually still doing this. It’s been fun and I’m enjoying it very much, and plan to continue. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading so many great blogs, meeting interesting people, and sharing my life and music that I like with others.

Thanks for reading, listening, and following.