News, October 2004
It never pours but it creates what I might call "hurry-canes". That's because I've been trying to rush things through in order to get them out of the way so I can devote more time to things that I've been given to do by others.
Case in point: I've recently begun working with a community choir called Harmonia, which my friends Tracy and Leona joined after leaving the Cumberland Community Singers. Because the music is largely unfamiliar to me, one of the things I need to do is put it into the computer part by part so I can get an idea of what the overall arrangement--and thus the accompaniment--should sound like. I got only part of one tune done by the time of my first Harmonia rehearsal on September 29. Then our choir director at St. Augustine's, for whom I sometimes do clerical work, warned me about an upcoming database job he would have me do, and so I decided to put the Harmonia material aside and try to get through three new DVD box sets--the latest phase in my quest to replace my old videotapes--as quickly as possible so they'd be out of the way by the time he got me started...which he ended up doing before I could finish the third set. Now that I've finished the third DVD set, I can devote full days to his project, which should take me about two days to finish. At that point I can resume the work on the Harmonia stuff, although I can't devote full days to that yet because even before all this I began doing some audio production for my brother, which involves manual time-compression of seventeen hours' worth of raw footage. Hence the "hurry-canes": it always seems as though the fastest I'm able to get these things done is still not fast enough to get them out of the way by the time the next thing comes along. I'm doing the best I can under the circumstances, and eventually I do clear each one out.
There have been some other changes in the last few months as well. Hotter than Ice has gone into something of a state of flux recently, for all intents and purposes losing two of its members partly due to sporadic attendance at rehearsals. Our last gig as a six-piece band was an August 14 two-parter: the first part saw us participate in a Caribbean parade, and the second part was our monthly gig at Groovy's Roti Hut, which because of our personnel problems ended up being our last, at least for the time being. As I understand it, our next gig is slated to be on November 20, probably at the Good Companions Centre, but whether we'll have new musicians to replace or fill in for the old ones, or perform as a four-piece ensemble, remains to be seen.
The Edsels have been working sporadically--our last gig was at the Rideau Carleton Raceway on September 10--and in the last little while I've been given nights off from band practices. The rest of the Edsels know that because of my involvement with other bands, scheduling conflicts can sometimes arise between the Edsels and any of those bands, and as a result they're training another keyboard player, Ted Kennedy, to act as my understudy in case such a conflict arises. So they want to see how well he does without me.
Now for a personal note. If you see me slimming down over the next few months, don't be surprised. I've recently started up again on a special health regimen that I did once before a few years ago. Back then I didn't have much reason to do that regimen, but now I do. I'm only disappointed that this new motivation has come in the form that it has. My doctor diagnosed me with Type 2 diabetes last month.
I've since been taking a three-week diabetes course, and as you might expect, one of the things the instructors mentioned was that newly-diagnosed diabetics tend to have initial-reaction emotions such as denial, fear, anger and so on. I believe that there are a few rare cases in which one emotion you wouldn't expect kicks in: excitement.
Scratching your head? Let me explain. The health regimen I try to consistently follow is Anthony Robbins' Living Health program, which is based on the idea that optimum health requires both getting our cells to be optimally healthy and providing a healthy environment for those cells. Most of us have lifestyles that pollute that inner environment, and as a result, the cells can't get the three things that they need, which are oxygen, the proper nutrients, and avenues to eliminate their own waste. Living Health provides a whole series of ways to clean up that inner environment, make the cells healthy and vibrant again and then keep them that way, and the more of these methods you do, the better off you'll be.
After Robbins first developed this program, he heard of work by an American microbiologist by the name of Dr. Robert O. Young that tied in with what he was already teaching. Young says that we pollute our inner environment through lifestyles that create excess acidity in our systems. You've doubtless heard of the pH scale, where 0 is total acidity, 14 is total alkalinity and 7 is neutral. The body struggles like crazy to maintain a slightly alkaline blood pH of 7.365, and so when we have acidity in the bloodstream, the acid becomes part of the polluted environment in which our cells try to live. With excess acidity comes all sorts of diseases, including diabetes, and so what we need to do is give our bodies plenty of alkalinity to neutralize those acids.
And this isn't just Young talking--there were a couple of 19th-century French scientists, Antoine Bechamp and Claude Bernard, whose combined work established much the same thing. Unfortunately, Bechamp's theory of pleomorphism--the view that microorganisms can go through different stages of development and can evolve into various growth forms within their life cycle, and that these microbes change shape as individuals become diseased--was largely eclipsed by Pasteur's germ theory, which went on to become a significant part of the foundation of mainstream medicine. Ironically, on his deathbed Pasteur admitted the correctness of Bechamp's work, but by then it was too late--the germ theory had already taken far too much hold.
Anyway, Robbins was so impressed with Young's work and its results that he worked with him to simplify it for an updated version of the Living Health program, which is what I'm working from. (A more in-depth discussion of Young's approach can be found here.) The first time I did it, I lost something like twenty pounds in three months, and my energy levels started perking up. This is not an approach that works overnight, but rather over a period of time.
I was dating my ex-girlfriend around the tail end of my doing this program the first time, and during our time together she actually beat her own diabetes. Some people she knew called it a miracle, but I believe it was something she did. When it comes to diseases, even ones that are supposedly incurable, there are a few cases in which people have had them and beat them. It's not commonly known, but it's a fact. And now that I was diagnosed, her experience said to me that I could beat my own too. So I started doing Living Health again.
Within days of my starting the regimen anew, I was looking on the net for information on one of Young's alkalinity products when I discovered a book he has recently written called The pH Miracle for Diabetes. Needless to say, I was excited--so much so that I bought a copy of the book the next day.
As you might expect, my mom, who is a retired RN, was skeptical. She's never bought into this idea of optimum health requiring an optimized inner environment and optimally healthy cells. But then again, she's never taken the time to do her own research. So my excitement at learning I have diabetes stems from the opportunity to show her that beating diabetes can be done.
Case in point: I've recently begun working with a community choir called Harmonia, which my friends Tracy and Leona joined after leaving the Cumberland Community Singers. Because the music is largely unfamiliar to me, one of the things I need to do is put it into the computer part by part so I can get an idea of what the overall arrangement--and thus the accompaniment--should sound like. I got only part of one tune done by the time of my first Harmonia rehearsal on September 29. Then our choir director at St. Augustine's, for whom I sometimes do clerical work, warned me about an upcoming database job he would have me do, and so I decided to put the Harmonia material aside and try to get through three new DVD box sets--the latest phase in my quest to replace my old videotapes--as quickly as possible so they'd be out of the way by the time he got me started...which he ended up doing before I could finish the third set. Now that I've finished the third DVD set, I can devote full days to his project, which should take me about two days to finish. At that point I can resume the work on the Harmonia stuff, although I can't devote full days to that yet because even before all this I began doing some audio production for my brother, which involves manual time-compression of seventeen hours' worth of raw footage. Hence the "hurry-canes": it always seems as though the fastest I'm able to get these things done is still not fast enough to get them out of the way by the time the next thing comes along. I'm doing the best I can under the circumstances, and eventually I do clear each one out.
There have been some other changes in the last few months as well. Hotter than Ice has gone into something of a state of flux recently, for all intents and purposes losing two of its members partly due to sporadic attendance at rehearsals. Our last gig as a six-piece band was an August 14 two-parter: the first part saw us participate in a Caribbean parade, and the second part was our monthly gig at Groovy's Roti Hut, which because of our personnel problems ended up being our last, at least for the time being. As I understand it, our next gig is slated to be on November 20, probably at the Good Companions Centre, but whether we'll have new musicians to replace or fill in for the old ones, or perform as a four-piece ensemble, remains to be seen.
The Edsels have been working sporadically--our last gig was at the Rideau Carleton Raceway on September 10--and in the last little while I've been given nights off from band practices. The rest of the Edsels know that because of my involvement with other bands, scheduling conflicts can sometimes arise between the Edsels and any of those bands, and as a result they're training another keyboard player, Ted Kennedy, to act as my understudy in case such a conflict arises. So they want to see how well he does without me.
Now for a personal note. If you see me slimming down over the next few months, don't be surprised. I've recently started up again on a special health regimen that I did once before a few years ago. Back then I didn't have much reason to do that regimen, but now I do. I'm only disappointed that this new motivation has come in the form that it has. My doctor diagnosed me with Type 2 diabetes last month.
I've since been taking a three-week diabetes course, and as you might expect, one of the things the instructors mentioned was that newly-diagnosed diabetics tend to have initial-reaction emotions such as denial, fear, anger and so on. I believe that there are a few rare cases in which one emotion you wouldn't expect kicks in: excitement.
Scratching your head? Let me explain. The health regimen I try to consistently follow is Anthony Robbins' Living Health program, which is based on the idea that optimum health requires both getting our cells to be optimally healthy and providing a healthy environment for those cells. Most of us have lifestyles that pollute that inner environment, and as a result, the cells can't get the three things that they need, which are oxygen, the proper nutrients, and avenues to eliminate their own waste. Living Health provides a whole series of ways to clean up that inner environment, make the cells healthy and vibrant again and then keep them that way, and the more of these methods you do, the better off you'll be.
After Robbins first developed this program, he heard of work by an American microbiologist by the name of Dr. Robert O. Young that tied in with what he was already teaching. Young says that we pollute our inner environment through lifestyles that create excess acidity in our systems. You've doubtless heard of the pH scale, where 0 is total acidity, 14 is total alkalinity and 7 is neutral. The body struggles like crazy to maintain a slightly alkaline blood pH of 7.365, and so when we have acidity in the bloodstream, the acid becomes part of the polluted environment in which our cells try to live. With excess acidity comes all sorts of diseases, including diabetes, and so what we need to do is give our bodies plenty of alkalinity to neutralize those acids.
And this isn't just Young talking--there were a couple of 19th-century French scientists, Antoine Bechamp and Claude Bernard, whose combined work established much the same thing. Unfortunately, Bechamp's theory of pleomorphism--the view that microorganisms can go through different stages of development and can evolve into various growth forms within their life cycle, and that these microbes change shape as individuals become diseased--was largely eclipsed by Pasteur's germ theory, which went on to become a significant part of the foundation of mainstream medicine. Ironically, on his deathbed Pasteur admitted the correctness of Bechamp's work, but by then it was too late--the germ theory had already taken far too much hold.
Anyway, Robbins was so impressed with Young's work and its results that he worked with him to simplify it for an updated version of the Living Health program, which is what I'm working from. (A more in-depth discussion of Young's approach can be found here.) The first time I did it, I lost something like twenty pounds in three months, and my energy levels started perking up. This is not an approach that works overnight, but rather over a period of time.
I was dating my ex-girlfriend around the tail end of my doing this program the first time, and during our time together she actually beat her own diabetes. Some people she knew called it a miracle, but I believe it was something she did. When it comes to diseases, even ones that are supposedly incurable, there are a few cases in which people have had them and beat them. It's not commonly known, but it's a fact. And now that I was diagnosed, her experience said to me that I could beat my own too. So I started doing Living Health again.
Within days of my starting the regimen anew, I was looking on the net for information on one of Young's alkalinity products when I discovered a book he has recently written called The pH Miracle for Diabetes. Needless to say, I was excited--so much so that I bought a copy of the book the next day.
As you might expect, my mom, who is a retired RN, was skeptical. She's never bought into this idea of optimum health requiring an optimized inner environment and optimally healthy cells. But then again, she's never taken the time to do her own research. So my excitement at learning I have diabetes stems from the opportunity to show her that beating diabetes can be done.
posted by Jamie at 11:44 p.m.
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