The Corner Booth

As regular readers may know, the Back to the Future trilogy is my favorite set of movies. Well, a couple times a year I get to step into the world of Marty McFly and fire up the Flux Capicitor when we embrace time changes. You're telling me, that you built a time machine, out of a DeLorean...?!?!?! No DeLorean needed here. No 1.21 jigawatts or bolts of lightenting to generate that kind of power. 1.21 JIGAWATTS!... What the H#* is a jigawatt?!?!?! Nope. Our annual time came this past weekend, with Daylight Savings Time kicking the clocks back an hour for the annual "fall back" - going from 2 a.m. Sunday to 1 a.m. and, among other things, offering an extra hour of sleep (so very needed). So, just like Doc Brown sent his dog Einstein "one minute into the future," we've now been catapulted one hour into the past. Einstein caught up to that minute within a few, while we'll finally catch up the hour we lost when we "spring forward" again on S...

You have the chance to safe a child's life and supply a boy or girl with life-sustaining insulin. All you have to do is simply click your mouse and take less than two minutes to watch a video. Then, just pass it on. Anytime between Nov. 1 and Nov. 14, the latter being World Diabetes Day. Whether you've got diabetes or not, or whether you know someone who does or you've been touched by this chronic condition. Just a clickity-click on the keyboard or mouse, tune in, then send it along. C'mon. The clock is ticking. Here's the video: The Big Blue Test , an initiative started by the Diabetes Hands Foundation (DHF) in 2009, takes place every November 14 during World Diabetes Day. Basically, People With Diabetes are asked to test their blood sugar at 2 p.m. YOUR TIME that day, then partake in 14 minutes of moderate exercise (like walking around the block or something), then test again and share the results online. More than 2,000 people played along last year on t...

I don't post about politics all too much, but surely I have my opinions and this is one of those times that it's not only timely and appropriate, but necessary to write about politics. That's because the Midterm Election is now complete, and the Road to 2012 is taking shape. As we move on in the coming months with a Lame Duck Session ( quack quack) and then into the latter half of this four-year presidential cycle with a new Congressional lineup, the political pundits say ( quack ) that the divided legislature means more ( quacking ) will be needed for bipartisanship and compromise. With that, I declare that we should focus specifically on the 2012 race and forget about those politicians who might be in the running already. Rather, we should focus on a unifier, who can unite no matter what way the fickle public and always-changing political winds are blowing. Our new presidential candidate for 2012: Riley, the D-Dog. Puppy for Presid...

Guns and Roses sang about November Rain. Well, they missed a beat in their tune. As November is American Diabetes Awareness Month, it's only appropriate to pick up where the rock band left off and highlight the D-activities this month that appear to be raining down, like cats and dogs with a diabetes touch. Brace yourselves. There's a lot of D-Raindrops falling in November. Which is totally awesome, but a little overwhelming at the same time. Seriously. I have a full hamper of a laundry list to spell out here just to keep track of everything so I don't forget. Hope the printer works, so that I can print out and post on my bulletin board as a reminder: The American Diabetes Association has this campaign called Stop Diabetes , and this 11th month of the year is a big deal for that initiative. You can make videos. Join this campaign. Sing and dance. Or whatever floats your boat of whatever size and model. Have fun. Today is SAE Day, meaning you should Support, Advocate a...

Happy Halloween 2010! Overall, it's been a relatively un-eventful but very relaxing and fun Halloween in the Hoskins' Hoosier Household. We didn't dress up this year, though that's almost not even something to consider nowadays since there's no question I can compete with the cool crayon costume that I sported as a 5-year-old back in 1984, marking my first post-diagnosis Halloween. But it was great seeing all the little kids come to the doors, and it's always fun to see some of the cute outfits and see some neighbors so excited about the fun for their families. We did pass out candy, and of course, I decided to test it and enjoy some myself - just to be safe! It didn't throw my sugars off ( too much ). That was the end of a fun weekend with a few D-related adventures and surprises. On Saturday, Mike Durbin from MyDiabeticHeart and his girlfriend were passing through the area and stopped by the house for a quick, impromptu D-Meetup! It was a great ...

 This here is kind of a re-run, or at least a largely recycled one from Halloween 2009 . Sorry for not being original, but we just ran out of time on this end and we don't yet have any D-Decorated Pumpkins or the Wilford Brimley getup ready. So, here's a theme that some others in the DOC have echoed for the Halloween holiday. Whatever dressup you may be doing or whether candy's on tap or not, make sure to be safe and have some fun! Oh, and if you haven't yet found the time, head over to the JDRF Walk Page for the Sparling's Six Until Me team page because they're walking on Oct. 31 in Rhode Island! Anyhow, Happy Halloween! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Every Halloween, it always strikes me as amusing how much you can find online discussing the perfect balancing act for Halloween candy-eating and diabetes management. Personally, I grew up not caring ...

No, I'm not talking about my rival college fraternity of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. ( Sigma Pi is the best, of course!) Actually, we're talking something else here. It's SAE (pronounced “say”) and it stands for Support, Advocate and Educate. This year, Sarah over at Sugabetic is announcing November 1st as SAE day. You may be thinking, “What’s going to be so different about this day than the rest of the month?”. Well, here’s the plan: November 1st is the first day of Diabetes Awareness Month. What better way to kick it off than to have the first day be the day we really push for awareness? The idea is to do something in relation to each letter on November 1st to “SAE” diabetes and raise awareness in a big way. So, here's the game plan: •Support• This month, lots of people are doing JDRF walks. If you can, support them by donating towards their walk. If you can’t, don’t feel bad! As a community, we can support each other by doing what we do everyday, just a...