The Six Pack Revolution

I signed up for the SPR Signature program, which starts today. My sister and her partner did the program in March and saw great results. The program is really intense as there is a specific set of food that you can eat, and you need to prepare meals and snacks yourself. Since my sister offered to help prep meals, I decided to try the program. After transplant, my weight dipped down to about 180 pounds but have since increased to 240 pounds. I have not increased my weight since the beginning of the year but have not been able to lose any either.

Since this is the first day, I do not have much to post yet. I have been getting several hypoglycemic events just today so maybe I need to adjust my insulin intake. The exercises have been difficult, and my quads are aching right now from some pre-course workouts. Today was also kind of easy with food since I am at home. I need to start packing for tomorrow’s full day in the office.

Now I need to go and walk/run 1 km to complete the first fitness challenge. I also need to go to the market to get some fruits and vegetables.

Ozempic Shortage

If you live in the United States, you probably have seen this commercial:

Ozempic is used to lower blood glucose levels for type II diabetic patients. Evidently, the active ingredient is also used in obesity medication. Not surprisingly, one of the side effects of Ozempic is weight loss.

As I mentioned in a previous post about my endocrinologist appointment, my A1C was high at 8.1. The doctor modified my insulin dosages and prescribed a “smart” insulin pen. She also said she wanted to start me on Ozempic, but there is a shortage because non-diabetic people are using it to lose weight. WTF? Even my neighbor talked about the drug saying it is great for losing a few pounds without any side-effects. I was being polite, but I call bullshit on the “totally safe” comment. Just pay attention to the ad above as the narrator lists out the side-effects.

What a fucked-up world. You got a bunch of narcissistic assholes using an anti-diabetic drug to lose a few pounds, while patients that need the medication cannot get it. My doctor said we should wait for Ozempic since she did not want to modify all my medications to include it, then have it be unavailable at the pharmacy. Unless you have a medical obesity problem, just watch your diet, and do regular exercise to lose weight.

Meeting Hell

Due to the July 4th holiday, I moved all my Tuesday meetings to today (Thursday). After resolving some last-minute conflicts, I realized I have eleven meetings today. Some are one-on-ones with staff and peers, and some are meetings with potential software vendors.

My neuropathy is acting up again. Left foot started hurting at 2:37 am so I did not sleep much last night/this morning. I wanted to stay home today, but with eleven meetings, I really should be in the office. Hope my foot stops hurting before all my face-to-face meetings.

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Well, I got through all my meetings today. One was postponed until a later date, and one was added so I still ended up with eleven meetings today. My foot did stop hurting sometime during the day so I was not grimacing through all my one-on-one meetings.

Endocrinologist and InPen

I had an appointment with my endocrinologist. I was a bit worried since she is fairly stern, and my A1C result sucked. I was supposed to see her last year but due to getting COVID and general procrastination, I did not see her until last week. Overall, the appointment went okay, partially because it was remote. However, she did adjust my insulin schedule, and prescribed an intelligent insulin pen called InPen. It is made by Medtronic and connects via Bluetooth to a mobile app. You are supposed to input your blood glucose reading and it will tell you how many units to inject. It does connect to a few continuous glucose monitors, but not the Libre 2 I am using.

I picked up the pen from my local pharmacy, but I am still waiting for the insulin cartridges to come. I still have several boxes of the old insulin pen so I will keep using those.

The pen casing feels like very light aluminum, and I like the deep blue color. Since Medicare paid 100%, I do not know how much the pen costs. I was able to connect it to the iOS app on my iPhone 12, and it is already notifying me to shoot up.

As for the endocrinologist, I have a follow-up meeting in one month and also in four months.

ICN to LAX

11 hours and 10 minutes. A friend from Beijing is visiting Los Angeles. She is flying on Asiana Airlines, and they transit through Inchon/Seoul. This second leg of the trip takes about eleven hours, and the plane is about to land in a few minutes.

I used to travel to Asia often about twelve years ago. The flights were long but did not seem onerous. I do not know if I can survive that long in an airplane anymore.

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I received a WeChat text that my friend has arrived at LAX but nothing for the past three hours. Hopefully she is not stuck in immigration or customs.

UCLA Appointment Postponed

I had a call schedule with UCLA Transplant Center about the Natera Prospera program. I was asked to join a study post-transplant, and this is the first time the sponsoring doctor has scheduled an appointment to talk about it. Here is a description from Natera’s website:

Covered by Medicare, Prospera is a transplant rejection assessment test that uses a simple blood draw to evaluate the risk of rejection of a transplanted kidney.

Through the use of advanced cell-free DNA technology, Prospera increases a provider’s ability to identify otherwise undetected rejection that might lead to kidney loss. Catching transplant rejection as soon as possible can help providers develop a treatment plan to best protect the donated kidney.

https://www.natera.com/organ-health/prospera-organ-transplantation-assessment/

I think it is informative that the first sentence tells patients that Medicare covers the cost of the test. Since Medicare coverage only lasts three years after the kidney transplant, maybe that is the topic of discussion today.

Anyway, I joined the call at 9:55 am for a 10:00 am call. I then waited for twenty minutes before another doctor called me on the phone saying the doctor I was supposed to speak with was delayed and we needed to postpone it to 11:45 am. Doctors are busy people so I totaly understand last minute schedule changes. I just wish they would have called me earlier, so I did not have to sit in front of my iPhone waiting for twenty-fine minutes.

Low Blood Sugar in Traffic

Today, as I was driving to a friend’s house in Laguna Beach, I had a low blood sugar event while stuck in traffic. Since there is only one road from Irvine to Laguna Beach (other than Pacific Coast Highway), there is often traffic backup on weekends. My Tesla’s GPS initially said 45 minutes of driving, but that stretched to one hour and twenty minutes while I was on my way.

Somewhere on route 133, between the 405 and the 73, I started feeling faint. It felt like low blood sugar, but I did not shoot my Humalog dose yet. Since I have a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), I scanned the sensor, and it said my blood sugar was down to sixty-eight.

Luckily, I had some glucose pills in my car. I am not sure what would of happened if my blood sugar dropped further. It took another 30 minutes to get to my friend’s house. It must suck to live in Laguna Beach if there is traffic like this each weekend.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Affirmative Action

Big news!

In a historic decision, the Supreme Court severely limited, if not effectively ended, the use of affirmative action in college admissions on Thursday. By a vote of 6-3, the justices ruled that the admissions programs used by the University of North Carolina and Harvard College violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause, which bars racial discrimination by government entities.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2023/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-affirmative-action-programs-in-college-admissions/

Ever since I moved to the US almost forty years ago, affirmative action has been a thing. At UCLA, I was a tutor for the Academic Advancement Program, which was just another name for affirmative action. The freshman class for engineering was diverse, but over time, it became mostly white and Asian males.

UCLA Electrical Engineering Class of 1990

During that time, I also applied to Harvard University. I never considered Harvard, but I received a letter from the Asian Alumni Association encouraging me to apply. I was not accepted. In hindsight, with the recent lawsuit, and the fact I ended up with three university degrees, I will always wonder if I was rejected admission because I was Asian.

Affirmative action is bad. The intention behind it may be commendable, but it is just identity politics and racial discrimination. From the photo above, there are a lot of Asians. However, that fact is not beneficial to me at the individual level. What if UCLA decided there were too many Asians, and I was next in line for acceptance? It is not like the Asians that were accepted are going to support me going forward. How is this not using racism to “fight” racism? During orientation at UCLA, I was told the graduation rate for electrical engineering students was about one-third. That means the admission process is totally broken. Why did I need to tutor basic math to students that were accepted into a internationally ranked engineering program? Did we just fuck over a bunch of qualified Asian and white applicants for a social experiment that mainly produces college dropouts?

That is why I am happy with this SCOTUS decision. If you want to increase the number of black and brown students in STEM, clearly define success standards and admissions criteria. Then help those students in need to acquire the skills and knowledge required to compete. In other words, provide every opportunity so there is an equal playing field. This pursuit of outcome equity by racial preference is stupid and evil.

Wasps!

Ugh. I hate insects. The second Indiana Jones movie with that irritating Asian kid was difficult watch, especially the part with all the bugs. Eww!

Anyway, in the past week, the motion sensor on my front door camera has been triggered often. It turns out there is a small wasp next right next to the camera.

Since it is still small, I feel I need to deal with it before it gets bigger. I had a fairly large wasp nest at my prior house and there were a lot of wasps flying around. I eventually got rid of it, but it was quite stressful. I did go and get a can of wasp spray so I will need to deal with the nest during the next few days.

Taylor Swift Tickets

No, I am not going to her concert. I barely know any of her songs. My Spotify playlists are either K-Pop, Christian worship, 80’s music, or jazz. I know she is super famous, but this seems ridiculous:

That is like $15k with fees for you and your date. For the average American, that is about five months of salary after taxes.

Text Scams

I have been getting a lot of text messages from strangers. Some are in English, and some are in Chinese. Here are the last two:

The first one is a bit rude; English is probably not the scammers’ first language. I have been clicking the “Report Junk” link at the bottom, but the volume of these scam texts has not decreased.

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This one is likely a scam account as well. It came as a friend request in Facebook. There were a few mutual friends so maybe the profile is legit, but unlikely.

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A lot of these scam texts lead to fake cryptocurrency trading. I think it is a combination of ignorance about crypto, and about personal finance. At the very least, there are no investments that double your money in a short period of time. As soon as you hear “guaranteed profit” or “100% return each month” you should run away quickly.

Buying New Car

No, I did not buy a new car.

I posted awhile ag0 about my “dream” car, and I did go and test drive a Tesla Model Y Performance. For the moment, I am not buying a new car and still driving my seven-year-old Tesla Model S.

At one point several months ago, I was tempted to buy a new Model X Plaid. There were several in local inventory that matched my criteria, but I could not pull the trigger. Even if the money was no object, there are no issues with my current car, and I really do not need two cars.

On Tuesday, one of my coworkers was looking at the Tesla website. I was not paying attention, so I was surprised when she told me Thursday that she and her husband just picked up their new Model X Plaid. I knew they had several other cars and the coworker said they will need to sell their Model 3.

Of course, I do not know how long they have thought about buying this new car, but it sounded like it was an impulsive buy. I am not opposed to spending that much on a car, but it would take me forever to make the decision. I did not grow up poor, but having emigrated to two different countries and knowing we lived paycheck-to-paycheck, I and still frugal on large ticket items. I still think I spent way too much on my 2016 Model S and should have waited for the Model 3.

Sigh. I started browsing Model X Plaid inventory again but will likely do nothing.

Band-in-a-Box Upgrade

I have been getting a lot of Band-in-a-Box emails about their latest 2023 version. A new license costs $129 for the base software.

As you can see from their website, there are significant discounts if you upgrade from a previous version. I am on their email list because I purchased BIAB a long time ago. It was so long ago that I do not even remember the year, just that it was suggested for a worship band I joined. I searched through my emails and found that I purchased version 12 Pro way back in November of 2006. Yes, almost 17 years ago.

Just to be sure, I did a text chat with a customer service rep at PG Music. There was a long pause after I told him what I had previously purchased, but he said I would get the upgrade price. Yay! I paid $88 for the software back in 2006. Accounting for cumulative inflation of ~50% since 2006, that come to $132.75 in today’s dollars. It must have felt more expensive since I was making a lot less back in 2006.

I think I will purchase the new 2023 version with my upgrade pricing of $79.

Broken Mini Fridge (updated)

I purchased a mini fridge from Amazon last July because I was too lazy to go downstairs and get my insulin from the fridge every morning. I believe the fridge was only $50 (AstroAI 6L) and it worked well since I bought it. Usually, all I have in there are two insulin pens, but have occasionally put either protein shakes or cans of soda as well.

Today, someone from Edison came to replace my electric meter. They said it was not communicating with them anymore. It was replaced free-of-charge, but the power went off for about two minutes. When the power was switched on, everything was okay but the mini fridge. It started making a clicking sound, the display was flashing, and the fridge was no longer cooling the interior. There is a three-year warranty on the mini fridge. I just sent in a webform reporting the issue. I hope they just send me a replacement and I will not need to send back the fridge.

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This March, as part of the FSA buying binge, I bought a portable insulin cooler. It can plug in to a USB power source and keep a few insulin pens cool indefinitely. I used it once to test it out, and it has been sitting on a shelf. Since my mini fridge broke, I thought it was a good time to use the portable cooler. However, there was no response when I plugged in the USB-C plug. I know there is power since the plug can charge my iPad. It is connected to a 65W power plug so it can probably power my MacBook too. Anyway, now I have to deal with another busted cooler, and this one cost me $200.

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Updated: June 19, 2023 1:09 pm

Both my issues were resolved. The mini fridge was broken. AstroAI sent me a replacement fridge. The video I sent shows the old fridge clicking and flashing the temperature display. However, the company has since upgraded the mini fridge, so I got v2 instead. The fridge works fine but they removed the temperature display/controls, and the new door latch is crap. I cannot open nor shut the door one handed since the latch is super tight. Most reviews on Amazon complained about the new door design. As for the insulin cooler, it did not like any of my USB-C power adapters and the USB port on my power strip. The company asked me to try the included cable and adapter. With a different power source, the cooler lid works fine. It turned out that the included adapter was also broken, but other adapters and power banks worked fine. The cooler company send me a few replacement adapters and everything is all good.

Yet Another Busted Libre 2 Sensor

This is the third one that has failed before their end-of-life. The previous one just stopped working for no apparent reason and I just received the replacement yesterday. Last night, the sensor I just put on a few hours earlier became unstuck and stopped working. These are $100 sensors, and they only last a few hours to a few days.

I am going to contact customer support again. I hope they don’t reject my request for another replacement.

Twitter Account Hacked?

I got a few strange emails this morning from Twitter. I signed up for an account in May 2008, but I hardly ever use it. The first email said someone logged into my account using a new device. It was not me. That was quickly followed by an email that said my password was changed.

You recently changed the password associated with your account @xxxxxx. Based on this change, please be aware that additional changes to your account may be restricted temporarily.

I definitely did not change my password. I used to be able to go into my account via the iOS app, but now I was locked out. How? I did not receive an email on the linked email account. I clicked the “forgot my password” link and was able to change my password again. This time, I did get an email. Very strange. Was my account hacked? Since my account is very old, it was still using an old and likely compromised password. Once in, the person that broke into my account changed the password.

Why? I do not use the account and there are no followers. They will not be able to scam anyone with the account. Since I was logged in, I checked the list of accounts I was following and there were lots of old K-Pop groups and soloists. Most of the groups have disbanded so I ended up unfollowing about two-thirds of the list.

Rose Hills Funeral

I went to a funeral this past Saturday for my uncle. He suffered a serious stroke eight years ago, and his situation deteriorated quickly over the past year. My uncle’s family decided on a viewing instead of a full service, so we were at the Rose Hills Visitation Center for about an hour and a half. Everyone in the family showed up except a few cousin-in-laws that were not local. Along with some friends and coworkers, there were about 30-40 people at the viewing. My dad got up to speak first, and was followed by a handful of other people, including my cousins.

It was a sad occasion, but since my uncle’s condition was getting worse, I think he is in a much better place. I am not sure what he believed in with respect to religion, but he did visit a church a few times. He will be cremated and placed in a wall cubby at Rose Hills. Both my grandparents on my dad’s side are buried there, and my parents purchased two additional spots next to them when it is their time to go.

Ukraine

I have not posted anything about Ukraine since it is a terribly sad topic. The situation is almost identical to what the CCP is doing to Taiwan, where a large country ruled by a dictator is threatening a smaller country. Many political analysts have pointed out the similarities and predict that Emperor Xi is taking notes on what not to do when and if he decides to invade Taiwan.

Sitting behind a computer with zero military experience, I really cannot do all that much. I did do a few things:

  • Volunteered to teach English to a Ukrainian student (ENGin)

I hope the Ukrainians kick the Russians all the way back to Moscow.

Fuck Putin.

Neuropathy 20230529

So, after having the pain point move around all weekend and losing two nights of sleep, I took a nap in the late morning and got up at 1:00 pm. As soon as I woke up, the pain started up again in yet another location. This time the pain is happening on my right foot insole, and it is very painful. Each attack also leaves the entire foot numb as well. I messed up my ugly feet diagram so I will need to find another one to mark the pain attack locations.

This sucks. It seems like each time there is a holiday, I end up at home and exhausted due to an intense neuropathy attack. This current one has been happening for about four hours and is getting worse.

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Th make matters worse, I have not really eaten anyt5hing since lunch yesterday. It was an AYCE shabu place, but I really did not eat that much. With the CGM readings spiking after every minor bite of food, I have been trying to not eat anything to see if I can get the readings lower, but now I am feeling really hungry.

This is from the Libre 2 app. The only thing I have had today was a small protein shake at 8:00 am.

Tau Beta Pi

I received a letter from Tau Beta Pi (TBP) this weekend. It turned out to be a fundraising letter. TBP is the engineering honor society. I am unsure what the criteria is to join, but I must have qualified during one quarter while at UCLA. I graduated with a 3.35 GPA, so I was not really an honor student.

The only interesting thing is that I have not heard from them since graduation in 1990. I believe I have moved six times since graduation so TBP must have purchased an updated spam marketing list and matched my name to their membership roster.

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Each chapter sets their own membership requirements. UCLA’s chapter site says top one-fifth of senior class or top one-eighth of junior class. I am quite sure I joined as a junior. Hmm… they probably changed the standards since a B+ GPA should not be in the top 12.5%.