Lake Batur © PJ Croft 1983, 2016

I wish I could make these images clickable full size, but since Word Press changed their software before Xmas, they’re not clickable any more. I’ll have to get onto their forum to find out why.

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I must be OK. I’ve been out to the shops from lunchtime until about 4pm. Still not much appetite, and feeling a bit queasy, but not too bad. The good thing is, weight loss is now 3.4Kg in four days. That’s not a sustainable rate of loss, but I hope I can avoid regaining it.

The thing is, I’m injecting Byetta, a diabetes drug, twice a day before food. Its effect is to prime the pancreas to produce insulin as soon as food is detected in the gut. That’s why it needs to be injected just before eating.

A side effect is appetite suppression. It’s a nauseated feeling, and food just don’t taste all that good. Beer in particular has become very bitter, and wonder of wonders, some nights I’m actually going without any alcohol at all. I just don’t want it. This is a very desirable state of affairs.

I’ve also switched to a new insulin type, Toujeo, which is a very slow release formula only needing one injection per day. Results are a bit hard to determine so far (after a week on it). Readings started out much the same as for Lantus, but the fevers and sickness of the past few days have bumped them up a bit, so I’ve temporarily increased the dose. I’ll go back to the recommended dose in a day or two.

I’m actually being provided with this drug (i.e. boxes of pens) by the GP rather than the chemist, as this is a trial by the makers, Sanofi, who are providing it free of charge. The trial runs for 6 months.

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What is it with Perth divers? I rounded the Hester Avenue roundabout today, going south. There’s a merging lane on the left and I wasn’t aware of any car there. Next thing I get a blast of a horn from my left rear quarter, i.e. my left rear tail lights, by a white car. What??!! This car was merging, I was in front, why do I get a horn blast?

Contrast this with Bali where everyone bips their horn just to say, “I’m here”, but meaning nothing more. They don’t blast horns!

I’m sick of this.

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Someone’s made a terrorism threat against Bali. A letter was posted in Buleleng making threats of bombs in Denpasar or Singaraja. Damn, this is going to make Bali tourism even worse.

Why Buleleng? That’s on the north coast. I’ve actually been there, although there was nothing much to see. The reason I went was to go to a nude resort, the only one in Bali. Unfortunately, there were only three of us there and the other two were a couple of gay guys. Oh well, we had some good talks. I spent three days there and apart from swimming, there’s nothing to do except be nude. ALL the time.

Included in the booking was that they send a minibus and driver over the mountain range to pick you up in Sanur or wherever and drive you up and over, via Kintamani, down the spectacular twisty road to the resort. Then when your booking is up, they drive you back again, via Kintamani. It’s worth it for this alone.

Nothing to see here, folks, except this glorious colour. This is the Pentax K-5, a beautiful 16Mp SLR camera which I’ve still got. Both shots © PJ Croft 2011,2016

I wish I could tell you of a very funny incident that took place while I was there, but it’s a bit personal and too much for this blog. Nothing to do with the gay guys.

Damn, I’ve got a head full of funny stories that I can’t tell.

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Masters is going out of business: bugger. There’s a store about 1Km north of me, and I virtually always go there if I need something, from tools to electrical to casual furniture to fertilisers to garden plants to … They’ve got some really good tools.

According to the professor interviewed on the radio today, Woolworths called the project, when they started it, Project Oxygen. Why? Because their prime motivation was to “suck the oxygen” out of Wesfarmers/Bunnings revenue. Not to build a good hardware chain that was sustainable, just to do damage to Wesfarmers and Bunnings.

Result: failure. Gigantic, humiliating failure. Australian big business gets it wrong again. Pathetic incompetent management, and it’s the employees who suffer. These managers should lose their jobs too. Why should they get away with this?