Comments Posted By Kevin Kim
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I’m not even gonna try to guess what pun you were going for with your post title. If “nate” were a verb, that might be something, but according to Dictionary.com, nates (only plural) means “buttocks.” I’ve never heard the term before.
Your doctors look way younger than I thought they’d look.
Here in Korea, when you’re out in the farmlands, you’ll occasionally see this weird thing where soda bottles either hang from fences or are placed on top of fence posts, like in your photo of the Mountain Dews. I wonder what that’s all about.
Brownies look awesome.
So “Presto” = PI version of Oreos, eh?
I suspect she is a freelance prostitute, but her scheme seems much better than walking the street all night.
No built-in internal ho alarm? That explains much. Heh.
Well, it seems to have been a fun night. Keep working on your “ho-dar” (if “gaydar” is how you tell who’s gay, then “ho-dar” is, well, you can guess). Avoid drama.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 04/June/2023 @ 5:34 pm
I hope you’re feeling better than you were the previous day.
My alt-media guy Styx mentioned that Biden’s been involved in at least seven falling incidents that we know of. Most people who fall that much in this period of time would have walkers or a cane by now.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 03/June/2023 @ 2:05 pm
Uh…
You commented as well.
That sounds rude. How about this:
You were part of that conversation.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 02/June/2023 @ 10:21 pm
My fantasy of the afterlife is being given the chance for a do-over to find out. That would be heaven to me.
If the multiversal, many-worlds hypothesis is true, you’re living those paths out right now in alternate universes.
re: Frost’s poem
Years ago, there was a deep discussion on my blog in the comments to this post. You commented as well.
I wasn’t exactly rude to Mary, but I wasn’t my usual friendly self either. When she was done eating, I packed up her leftovers and sent her on her way unaccompanied.
Maybe try relating to people without there being a financial component. Sure, money inevitably enters any equation (you need money to, well, do stuff), but once it becomes central to a relationship, that’s it for the relationship. How many divorces are about money, after all? (Test: how do you know whether money is central to a relationship? Stop paying it out and see what happens. Are you valued for who you are or for what $$$ you provide?)
Grabbed a trike home, had some carrot cake with vanilla ice cream (fuck the diet), and watched some more Lucifer.
Ha! And thus, you are fully in the clutches of the Dark One!
re: Beethoven meme
The crowded greeted him with deafening applause, I’m sure.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 02/June/2023 @ 7:35 pm
This felt more like one of my walks, what with all that asphalt. Go longer, in that case! I wanna see 20K if you’re on flat ground! Hell, you and I did about 18K together the last time we met.
I decided not to live here because it was too much like home–I wanted to live in the Philippines, damn it!
Are you OK with that decision?
I think one of my major gripes living there would have to be the overly frequent power outages. That would bug the hell out of me after a while. In my ancient apartment building, we have planned outages a few times a year because the maintenance crew is always stripping out and replacing old wiring somewhere in the building. That’s already annoying. I can’t imagine the power dropping every time there’s serious weather. The frustration would come from the fact that repeated power outages mean people never learn their lesson and improve the power infrastructure. It’s like accidentally walking into the same huge pothole every single day.
The menu
So, given the menu’s nautical design, I’m guessing Vasco da Gama (amusingly, the email address on the menu mentions another navigator: Magellan). Was the fare seafood-themed? I could go for a pile of fried clams with hushpuppies on the side.
Anchors away!
Yes: anchors aweigh, indeed.
As you can see, pancit is a noodley dish. I don’t particularly care for it. Filipinas seem crazy about it, though.
Looks a bit like Korean-Chinese japchae.
A good day, all in all. No special drama, aside from the woman not selling fresh food. Did you make up for the bad food by buying better food?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 01/June/2023 @ 8:35 pm
You can’t always get what you want
Provolone (Italian) is a white cheese, and it’s the only other acceptable cheese on a cheesesteak, so maybe that’s what John used.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 01/June/2023 @ 6:30 am
I’d probably divide a 100-mile walk into five 20-mile segments. 32 km a day is doable depending on the terrain. Six 17-mile segments might be better; that’s around 25 km per day. I’ll give Twain points for trying, though.
Cheesesteak looks good despite the white cheese and the pickles on top. I’d eat that… as long as it had no onions.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 31/May/2023 @ 5:31 pm
All’s well that hikes well. So, your “sane” path was completely different from the Hare’s path except for the destination, eh?
That tree does indeed look as though it’s seen its last summer.
“Trailers for sale or rent…”
Or as Yogi Berra supposedly said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
Nice shot of that flower!
Almoranus is back to looking trim again. Or maybe it’s just that he’s so far away…?
Another cookie delivery
Earlier, you said “biscuits.” I sense confusion.
“Do Not Entry!” sounds like Konglish.
I remembered what it was like to have passion in my life. All the beer in the world won’t fill that void, but it doesn’t stop me from trying.
If this is the person I’m thinking it is, she flaked out on you, as I recall. Good riddance! You’re happier without her.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 30/May/2023 @ 7:03 pm
Nice, serene walk along a familiar trail.
Thanks, as always, for the pics—of the trail, of the food, of the local life.
A mindful Memorial Day to you. We’re all arrows, in a sense. May we fly far.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 29/May/2023 @ 2:30 pm
To clarify: by “do the SOB,” I mean “attend the SOB.”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 28/May/2023 @ 10:47 pm
Then I got a message from my ex there asking where I was.
Which one?
Niki is a dancer, which to me is the most challenging job of all—standing up on a stage like meat on display at the market.
So why do the SOB at all?
I wouldn’t worry about the blog content being pedestrian. You’re a slice-of-life blogger, after all, and your regulars know what to expect when they visit your place.
Have fun with Season 6 of “Lucifer.”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 28/May/2023 @ 6:32 pm
The view from here
I don’t know why, but I really like this shot. If I were on that trail, I could stop, stand there, and stare for a long time before moving on.
It’s been said that when you are lost in the wilds, follow the creek downstream
Yeah, it’s a good survival tip. Smaller streams lead down to larger watercourses, which in turn generally lead to civilization. People normally prefer to live in valleys rather than on mountainsides.
Food pics make me hungry. Chili, muffins, cheesesteak—all good.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 27/May/2023 @ 7:57 pm
Commenter Kevin noted that most people USE a fork to eat, not as a side dish.
To be clear, that’s just one of English’s happy ambiguities. I wasn’t pointing out a mistake, so I hope my comment was taken in that spirit.
It proves that failure to use proper punctuation can be a matter of life or death.
Well, adding a comma would make the sign a direct command to the crocs. Obviously, the sign is trying to say, “There are crocodiles, so do not swim here.” But how, on a sign with limited space, do you punctuate that?
“Crocodiles! Do not swim here.” = still sounds as if you’re addressing the crocs
An awkward-but-clearer solution might be:
“Do not swim here: crocodiles.” The colon basically means “because (there are).” But who writes a sign that way? Only a nerd like me.
Maybe the best solution is just to put up a picture of a crocodile, with the only text being, “Do not swim here.” But a croc that could read might still think the sign was addressing him directly, and he’d be offended.
Chili and muffins look good.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 26/May/2023 @ 4:55 pm
cookies (or biscuits, as they call them)
So they use the British designation.
“I’m takin’ what they’re givin’ ’cause I’m workin’ for a livin’”
I know that as a Huey Lewis song. This may be the first Huey Lewis reference I’ve seen on your blog. Or have there been others that I’ve forgotten?
Not sure I’d want to eat anything that came out of that water, though
Yeah, that’s pretty fuckin’ gross.
The main entrance to the Whiterock resort.
I noticed the sign says, “Welcome delegates.” There’s no vocative comma after “Welcome,” so the sign is commanding you to welcome the delegates. Ideally, the sign should say, “Welcome, delegates.” Remember the old meme:
Eat, Grandpa!
Eat Grandpa!
Commas save lives.I’m loving all the people shots. This makes the photo essay quite lively. Scott has a good eye.
Waterside living. Just don’t drink it!
Yikes. That’s when you need a Grayl filter or a LifeStraw.
We did our after-hike lunch at the newest eatery in Barretto
I’m only just now noticing that “Barretto” sounds like “burrito.” And just like that, I am now hungry.
Eating a taco with a fork
I’d normally use my fork to eat a taco, but hey, if she likes eating both forks and tacos, she should do whatever makes her happy.
I need a shower.
Ain’t nuthin’ wrong with a cold sponge bath in hot weather.
Nice pics, nice walk, nice people met along the way. A hot but awesome day.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 25/May/2023 @ 4:56 pm
Congrats on the new computer! I’m sure you’ll get used to it soon enough.
re: moving
Any chance you might move into one of the recently constructed properties? Or are they all spoken for?
re: trip to Thighland
Not interested in traveling around inside the PI?
re: those stairs
I have a thing about heights, but if there’s a handhold, I’m usually OK. I could descend those stairs, but going up might be a problem.
re: AOC
I like how they reinforced their point by Photoshopping AOC’s teeth onto the donkey. Dumbass, indeed.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 24/May/2023 @ 6:26 pm
I should’ve looked more closely. I think my own hunger for the puppy blinded me to the cookies.
I notice that you cleverly avoided answering the fart question. Fine. Keep your secrets.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 23/May/2023 @ 7:17 pm
Glad you didn’t get rained on.
It was nice seeing my mountain friend, MJ, again.
She’s got a puppy in one hand and ramen in another. I hope she enjoys lunch.
For being stupid on trail today
What was the stupid action? Did you really fart while on the trail?
More of the same old, same old, no doubt
If it’s the circle of hell that you enjoy, that’s all that matters.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 23/May/2023 @ 4:10 pm
It it doesn’t
I’m just a mess, aren’t I.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 22/May/2023 @ 6:30 pm
I hope the new routine goes well. It it doesn’t… if you slip up or something, just forgive yourself and keep at it.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 22/May/2023 @ 5:12 pm
I’m surprised you didn’t end this post with a music video: “Alone Again, Naturally.”
Protect that liver at all costs! Because some say Love, it is a liver…
You’re almost done with “Lucifer,” which ran for six seasons. I expect a detailed review at the end! I’d heard good things about the show and could be persuaded to watch it.
That pic of you and the wife was taken in a restaurant, but the menu at the restaurant is bizarre. At the bottom, it says tangsuyuk, which is the sweet-and-sour pork sold at Korean-style Chinese restaurants. Above that, you’ve got makchang and gopchang, or what I like to call “pan-fried assholes,” essentially chopped-up bits of pig intestine (“chitlins,” as they’d say in the South), with makchang being the colon and gopchang being more like generic intestine. Makchang can also refer to the “abomasum,” or “true stomach,” of a cow, and gopchang can simply refer to tripe. (I had to look up “abomasum.”) It’s rare to see a fusion menu like that, with Chinese food being served on an otherwise Korean menu.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 21/May/2023 @ 6:48 pm
What works for me on the low carb diet is that you don’t have to feel hungry–it’s more about what you eat rather than how much.
This is an interesting point, and it’s true to some extent. But if you go low-carb or keto, you do still have to watch your caloric intake. CICO (calories in, calories out) is still a thing, as I’ve discussed over at my blog. I doubt you’ll be like me and eat yourself silly (I have the self-control of a hungry dog when it comes to food), but set your upper limit at around 2000 calories (which is where it’s probably at right now).
How many meals a day do you eat? If you incorporate intermittent fasting into your lifestyle, you can eat lunch and dinner within a 6- or 8-hour window—say noon and 6 p.m.—then fast the rest of the time. Any dessert you’d eat would be within that window as well (e.g., a dessert following hard on the heels of lunch). By eating only twice a day, your insulin spikes only twice a day. Minimizing insulin spikes is a major goal.
Of course, with your alcohol consumption (liquid bread!), intermittent fasting probably won’t be a thing for you. If, however, you really want to get serious about lowering blood sugar, you’ll need to reduce the frequency of nutritional intake (ingesting any food/drink = insulin spikes). Maybe instead of intermittent fasting, you work out how many times a night you’re in a bar consuming alcohol, then just do X – 1 of that. It’s difficult and annoying to change lifestyle habits, but mathematically speaking, something has to give.
Or, if that’s too painful a prospect for you, Dr. Vallicella (the philosopher whose blog I read) has an interesting suggestion that I think is medically justifiable: instead of cutting things out of your life, add new things into it, like the aforementioned extra walking. That might actually be a better strategy than fasting. You’ll burn more calories that way and partially solve the mathematical problem of CICO.
Whatever you do, good luck as always.
PS: “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” is a myth. Every expert I’ve watched on YouTube says this. If you can manage to skip breakfast, you’ll be doing yourself a favor. And there’s no need to skip it seven days a week. Skip it twice a week at first, just to build a habit. Expand from there as you get used to doing without.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 21/May/2023 @ 6:40 am
Food looks good! Eat nothing but meat, and suddenly, you’re on the carnivore diet! But you’d have to cut out the beer as well and switch to water or unsweetened coffee/tea.
Another nice walk. Maybe make all your walks a minimum of 8K (take a break on Sundays) to get that blood sugar down.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 20/May/2023 @ 6:18 pm
PS: I don’t know why they call it “fasting” blood sugar. That Indian website you linked to also uses the term “conventional blood-sugar test.” You can do this test after fasting (as the website also mentions), but you can do the test after eating, too. It’s the exact same test either way.
If quizzes make you quizzical, then tests make you…
(There’s your dad joke for the day.)
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 19/May/2023 @ 6:45 pm
I’m no doctor, but your numbers really didn’t sound that bad, and the ones that were bad weren’t radically bad. Your docs seem to have confirmed that. It won’t take much carb-reduction to get your A1c under 6.0, which is why I suggested eating your favorite desserts X – 1 days of the week instead of X days of the week. You have no need to cut back on anything radically. Slow and steady will work just fine. And maybe get a couple thousand extra steps in every few days. Walking for extended periods reduces blood sugar.
Note: fasting blood sugar is measured with high numbers. Yours was around 114 or something; the 6.3 number is your A1c (short for HbA1c, or glycated hemoglobin). A1c is a three-month average and therefore stable; the fasting BS number can fluctuate by the minute, making it much less stable. A1c is a more reliable indicator of your average blood-sugar levels. Fasting BS, because it fluctuates so much, is a better indicator of how you react before, during, and after eating. The docs didn’t recommend that you get a blood-sugar monitor?
John Kim (also the name of my Korean uncle in Texas: Mom’s younger brother) has had a really tough life. It’s sad to hear his wife and kids just up and left. I don’t know what the issue was with the wife, but you’d think he’d at least have some contact with his kids. At a guess, his time spent in hell—with all that heavy drinking and depression—probably did a number on his body. Too bad we don’t live in a future where you can casually slip into a magical booth and have your major organs replaced with genetically compatible parts. I guess it’s good that John has Lin to do all that heavy lifting. (Buy that man a washing machine! And hire him a caretaker who only does laundry and clothes-folding! There’s your charity right there.)
We’ve all got our crosses to bear. Some crosses are self-imposed, pieced together from the karmic flotsam of our unwise choices.
Good luck as you manage your numbers.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 19/May/2023 @ 6:40 pm
thick with mieke veins” text. and I assume
Damn. That was supposed to be a comma, not a period. Fookin’ stroke-y fingers.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 18/May/2023 @ 10:32 pm
re: mangrove
It appears a mangrove is a type of plant (tree or shrub), so you could say you were in a “mangrove forest” or something. If you’re “in a mangrove,” you’ve been magically forced inside a single plant. I’d hate to meet the wizard who can do that to people.
re: dildo box
I’m puzzling over the “straight and thick with mieke veins” text. and I assume the box is empty because that dildo simply could not be contained.
re: Mad Willie’s
I believe that’s UK English for “Crazy Dick’s.”
Joy had something called Chixsa
“Chixsa” makes me think of the Yiddish shiksa, the Jewish term/epithet for a goy (Gentile) girl. Or maybe the Korean 식사 (“sheeksah”), meaning “meal” or “food.”
re: appointment
I predict the docs will say some of your numbers are high, but it’s not tragic. Like me, they’ll recommend laying off some carbs. They might even suggest intensifying your exercise (which can lower blood sugar when done for an extended period). They might focus on your A1c number, which is a big indicator for diabetes. Depending on the source, your A1c is considered non-diabetic if you’re under anywhere from 5.7 to 5.5-ish, depending on the source and the strictness of the doctor. Ideally, a flat 5 is best because 5.5/5.7 is considered borderline. Good luck as always.
Oh, yeah: if your blood work contained numbers for your insulin levels, be sure to talk with your docs about that. Many docs only focus on A1c and fasting glucose, but as Dr. Sten Ekberg says on YouTube, your blood sugar can be low while your insulin creeps up to scary heights. That’s a dangerous combination. Insulin tamps down your blood sugar, but it’s also a fat-storing hormone, so it brings the bad with the good. Too much insulin in your blood could be a sign of insulin resistance.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 18/May/2023 @ 4:04 pm
It will be interesting to discover what lifestyle changes may await me.
Just cut down on carbs. If you refuse to do that with beer, then do it with food. More leafy salads, fewer bready sandwiches and breaded fried foods. You almost never seem to eat pasta, so I guess that’s not a huge concern for you. Watch out about desserts like pie, brownies, and ice cream. If you eat those things X days per week, try eating them X – 1 days per week. Avoid snacking between meals. Every time you snack, you spike your insulin, and insulin is a fat-storing hormone. The object of the game is to minimize insulin spikes by minimizing frequency of eating (which is why intermittent fasting is so popular).
The paper is using terminology I don’t normally see, but yeah, your fasting blood sugar is a bit high at 114.43 (it should be under 99). If that 6.35 number is your A1c (glycated hemoglobin, a 3-month average), then yeah, that’s actually in the diabetic range, and it’s a better marker to go by than your FBS because your FBS can vary from hour to hour. Cholesterol looks a bit high, but not alarmingly so. Triglycerides (good indicator for stroke) are looking great.
All in all, you seem to have some slightly high numbers in some areas, but nothing to have nightmares about. Do work on your carb consumption to get your A1c down. If you want to cheat a little with your fasting blood sugar, don’t eat for 24-48 hours before your doctor’s appointment. Water only. That will temporarily depress your FBS. Of course, it is cheating to do that.
Because FBS varies so much, it is useful for one thing: figuring out your level of insulin resistance. The goal is to be insulin-sensitive, i.e., your body reacts quickly to an infusion of insulin, which lowers blood sugar. If your body doesn’t react quickly to the presence of insulin, you’re insulin-resistant (as I am), which isn’t a good thing (it means you need more insulin than normal to push down your blood sugar, which in turn means you end up storing more fat). Focusing on your FBS and testing yourself over the course of about two hours, test yourself once right before eating, then 30 minutes after eating, then 1 hour later, then 2 hours later. For most normal folks, your blood sugar should be more or less back to normal after 2 hours. For insulin-resistant folks, the blood sugar remains a bit high after two hours. You’ll need a home-testing kit to figure this out, of course, which involves the annoying but relatively painless act of finger-pricking and using a blood-glucose monitor to measure your blood sugar. Up to you whether you choose to invest in that. I pretty much had no choice.
Good luck with your docs. I’ll be curious to read about their interpretation of your results. (I’d be happy to have some of your numbers, frankly.)
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 17/May/2023 @ 6:56 pm
We used to go there about once a year when I was a kid.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 17/May/2023 @ 7:38 am
It’s nice on ice!
She won the grand prize, obviously.
A bit of a roller coaster ride emotionally but live and learn.
Quite a story. I guess you won’t be inviting either of those ladies back to your place. It’s a shame, but as we get older, we have to guard against people who think they can take advantage of us.
When my great aunt died, and we were going through her mortal possessions, we stumbled upon examples of unsent correspondence that Aunt Gertrude had written to parties who don’t normally write back—lottery organizations and the like. Aunt Gertrude was obviously lonely, especially after the death of her brother (they’d lived together for years, with neither marrying… I think I inherited their genes), and she was at that age where you no longer discriminate between real correspondents and not-so-real ones. She was also the sole remaining curator of a Revolutionary War-era museum called The Spy House (see here; the article mentions Aunt Gertrude by her full name), and I’d heard stories of vultures trying to take advantage of her in her capacity as curator. Scavengers are always circling, so beware.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 16/May/2023 @ 5:35 pm
«« Back To Stats PageJollibee’s kind of a fetish there, isn’t it. Not that I have room to talk: Amurricans have McDonald’s.
A belated Happy Mother’s Day to your mom and to all the others.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 15/May/2023 @ 3:52 pm