TYPE TWO DIABETES 

In 1984 when I was assigned to a project where radiation was in and around my location. I was required to undergo a physical, and a whole body screening. The doctor told me my sugar was high, so I ask him to tell me how high on a scale of 1 to 10. He laughed, and told me he wanted to do some more test. At the time I was riding my bicycle over 150 miles per week, so I did not pursue it. My age at the time was 47, and I continued to ride my bicycle.

We had several young men and women engineers who were bicyclist working  at our company, and I was considered a guru because of my age, and ability to hang in the bicycle pack as we hammered down the Oak Ridge turnpike. (hammering was slang for getting-er done, and in my case I was getting-er done with a 12 speed Tempo). That Tempo is gathering dust now.

Two of the young engineers were married to each other, and when we rode she always appeared to be struggling to keep up with us. One Saturday they came up to my house (approximately) 12 people male and female, and we rode to Jellico and back. The temperature was hovering around 90 degrees, and we ran off and left her on Peabody Mountain. I will add, "She looked like a fashion model, and definitely not a biker", She and her husband had recently transferred to Oak Ridge and we did not know much about them. A week or so after that ride we planned another, but her husband was on assignment, so she came to ride without him. She had been setting us up, as she cleaned our plow up the Mountain. She and we had a good laugh at how she set us up.

Any way all this bicycle riding was masking my diabetes. Now lets move ahead from 1984 to 2000. I continued to ride my bicycle, but I was hired on a consulting job at Arnold Air Force Base. For nine months I sat at a computer terminal doing absolutely no bicycle riding. I began to gain weight, and celebrated my 62nd birthday while doing that job. When I came home and signed up for SSI I went to the VA for a physical. The VA doctor said, "partner you are a diabetic". I told him I did not want to medicate, and ask what I could do. He told me to change my lifestyle, and I told him I did not have a lifestyle other than they had a good baker at Arnold AFB. He suggested I get back on my bicycle which I did. It was difficult to find people to bicycle with me in Campbell County, and I became disillusioned with all the harassment I was getting as I rode up the valley. So I stopped riding my bicycle, and started dancing in my computer room. I downloaded some old rock-n-role, and would get down several times a week. Then I went for another physical. The doctor told me I must begin to medicate to control my type 2 diabetics.  I think this was about 2 or 3 years ago. I am now 78.

When I was stationed in Turkey during the 1960's I was on separate rations. Not because I lived off base, but my job required me to travel around Turkey. I have always been particular about eating, and I would only eat at 3 places in Turkey. On my base, the Hilton Hotel in Istanbul, and a small USAF detachment in Istanbul. Most of the time I would go all day without eating waiting until I could get to one of my 3 eating places. When I told the doctor about this he said I was probably a diabetic in the 1960's but my lifestyle was keeping it in check. I did not consume alcohol, as my only vice was cigarettes.

This is probably more information than you care to read, but I am using this social internet stuff as a surrogate to more or less use it as an autobiography of myself until I can find that biography I am looking for who would be willing to do it for me. And I don't expect anyone to do it for free. LOL

SURELY YOU'RE JOKING MR. FEYNMAN

One day while working for Bechtel Oak Ridge I was having a conversation with one of the programmers about code breakers. He ask me if I had read the book "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman". He had just finished reading it so he offered me his copy. I can remember reading that book in our living room. This was before the internet, and some of us were reading tons of books. I was laughing so hard Pat made me go into the other room with this book.

Several years after that while I was working as a consultant at the Quality Assurance department Arnold Air Force Base I began to think about this book. Pat was not with me at Arnold, and I had some free time, but now the internet was my source of reading. I was surprised I could not find the book in any of the book stores, and most of the retailers listed it as out of print. It was one of those books I wanted to read again.

One weekend I drove from Arnold AFB to Smyrna, Tennessee to attend the Air Show. On the way I passed this huge book store, and after the Air Show I stopped at the store and ask the clerk if he had "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman". I expected the clerk to say NO, which he did. A guy working behind the counter heard me ask about Richard Feynman's" book, and walked over to me and ask, "Did you enjoy that book"? I could tell by the way he ask the question he was a fan of that book. He told me they had a copy under the counter, and he had read it. I departed the store with that copy.

To make a long story short I placed a review of that book on my YouTube account, and at last count it had over 100,000 unique views, and now the book is all over the internet, and our video put that book back into circulation. 

We cannot think on this level, but it's fun to hear Feynman make physics look and sound magical. An example of this is in this YouTube video.

SOME INSIGHT ON MY STYLE OF WRITING

I erased from one of my blog post about a search for someone who would be willing to take all my information, and ghost write my life as a biography. The reason I did this was because I awoke in the middle of the night thinking of someone who could do this. So someday if I feel like they would say yes, I may ask them to do it for me. Until then it is a mute request. :) 

Some insight on my style of writing... I usually use my own punctuation's be they correct or not. Sometimes I know they are correct, and at other times I don't care as long as it doesn't appear to me to take away from what I am trying to say.  I usually place my words on paper quickly the same as I would if I was having a conversation with you. I have problems with words that sound the same, but are spelled differently. I don't try to use fancy words that require thought. I use the word that instantly comes into my brain as I am conveying my thoughts.

This may drive academics nuts, but I don't care. I am always saying what I feel, and think.... the way I want to say it with my computer, keyboard, and spell checker. My way of doing this was used by me during many hours of scrutinizing programs submitted by computer programmers and developers. My discrepancy reports were never questioned for a lack of understanding. I also drove the developers and programmers nuts too. I once submitted over 400 written discrepancy reports on the implementation of a database. Not one of them was rejected by the Quality Assurance Department. In a meeting of supervisors one of them was joking when he told me, "I needed a body guard while walking around the base because the programmers and developers were gunning for me". That was a complement.

All of this is because of self education. I taught myself the art of programming Relational Database Management Systems. When doing an RDMS using Microsoft Access which is rich in Macros I never used the Macro, but created Visual Basic to make it do what I wanted it to do. A company once hired me to make a program of theirs talk to a program of mine. They thinking my application was loaded with Macros hit a brick wall when they tried to figure out what I did. They could have found a programmer to do this for them, but getting me to do it saved a ton of money.

I only mention all of this because at my age now these social internet sites are my hobby sites. That's why the thought of writing my autobiography drives me nuts. :)  

TIM'S KITFOX 1

Six years ago I was down at the Campbell County Airport, and this young guy entered the parking lot with a beautiful home built airplane loaded on a home built trailer. This was a YouTube moment, and I could hardly wait to ask him if I could record a video. As you can see by the video accompanying this post he said, "Sure"

He did not build the Kitfox. He had traded an airplane for it. He did build the trailer, and the uniqueness of this combination was impressive.

He identified himself as "Tim", and that's about all the information I have about him other than he said he was a jet mechanic.

Although you may find this hard to believe I haven't had any contact with, Tim other than this video. I have attempted to make contact with him without any success.

So goes the life of a YouTub-er :)

MY CIVIL WAR POLITICS SERIES  

When I opened an account on YouTube in 2006 I never planned to get as evolved as I did. At that time you could find all kinds of public domain literature on the internet, so I decided to present a Civil War document. This document and the information it contained caught my attention because it was more about the politics of that time rather than the battles, and skirmishes.

YouTube was in the process of catching up on  the technology of streaming videos. The quality in those days was nothing compared with today, and the ability to upload HD, and 4K video. My camera was a web cam from Walley World that cost me less than twenty dollars.

After completing a series of Civil War videos to go along with the public domain document, I placed those videos into PRIVATE. Over the years I more or less forgot about them until the other day. After reviewing some of them I decided to place them into a play-list which I will place in this blog.

These videos will give you a good prospective of Civil War Politics. And a lot of politics surrounded the civil war. The thing that makes the work to complete this series worth while is when a student sends you a message telling you it was a tremendous help in school.

The YouTube link below will take you to the first video in this series. Go to my account (ockteby) and you will find a play-list for all these videos.

This is not a professional reading of the information. My intent was to try and communicate the information so you could get the full meaning of this document.

   

500 YEAR FLOOD

Winter in East Tennessee is a mishmash of temperatures and falling stuff. One of the largest of that stuff was more than two feet of snow in one day, and believe it or not "The Month Of March". If you put it all together, this East in the State is pretty good weather all in all. Then we are always looking for the extreme to arrive ever now an then like 24 degrees below zero. Those temperatures this far south is a shocking event, and is a fact of our history.

We have a beautiful creek running through our town that has gone through several evolution's, and one of those was a pretty good flood event. I have always thought the creek became a monster some time in the past. Probably 500 years ago when the only inhabitants were native Americans. I did a video about predicting another 500 year flood that I will post with this blog.

Norris Lake became a part of the landscape back in the 1930's, and I have always wondered if that began to affect our weather. I have friends who believe it did. I haven't researched the pro's and con's of this so I don't know.

I have lived in the area all my life other than my Military service, so I have seen several events. Years ago when the mountains had forest fires, people would just look at them especially at night. The area was so sparsely populated they usually did not pose a threat. The forest would continue to burn until the weather produced rain and high humidity. I cannot remember anyone trying to control those fires. Then comes a 300 or 500 year forest fire like 2016, and the tragic events in the Smoky Mountains. Anyway the Mountains, and Norris Lake has made this part of East Tennessee a retirement paradise.

   

LOOKING BACK AT LAFOLLETTE

Looking back over the years I wish, and I wish I had maintained a journal.  So many memories that are now not complete. Names, and dates are gone forever as I struggle to remember what when and where. This probably relegates this blog to the ramblings of an old man, and will probably resemble story telling more than anything else.

Hanging around the pool room on Tennessee, Avenue would give you a flavor of story telling. In that  venue you could hear some good ones, but that was in the dry years, so none of it was captured for you people. It was the exclusive property of the story teller, and the ones sitting around drinking coffee listening. An example would be the story about a civil war cannon with the barrel stuffed with gold coins buried somewhere around the big rock near LaFollette.

We could talk about a polluted creek that was the repository of crap, Young people would not believe that creek we had back then if you look at it through today's eyes. And some people were foolish enough to eat fish out of that thing.

Parking meters were down all the streets where you could park for a maximum of  2 hours. I think those things took 1₵ - 5₵ - 10₵ with the maximum amount giving you 2 hours. On Saturday people would stake out a parking place staying there all day people watching, and feeding the parking meter. One guy, and I cannot remember his name, would sit in the same spot each Saturday. People watching in downtown LaFollette was major entertainment because you would probably see ever citizen of the county if you sat there all day.