Growing Bolder Community

In February of 2005, I was diagnosed with GERD, which is Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. I think it’s just a fancier term for acid reflux. My doctor put me on Prilosec OTC, but after a few months, I started taking Prevacid and continued to do so until now. He was a good doctor and ran periodic blood work on me. The testing became more routine - meaning every 3 months - after I was diagnosed...

Around the end of October of 2006, I bought 2 bags of candy to hand out to trick or treaters. I live on a street where no children reside and we seldom get Halloween visitors. Few came and someone had to eat all that leftover chocolate. It was gone in days. Little did I know that, two weeks later, I would test my blood glucose on a dare and within a month, be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I...

Whenever I make a marinade, I take many things into consideration. Quality and freshness come first – the quality and freshness of the product I am about to marinate and the ingredients I use to create my marinade. The recipe ingredients and the type and size of meat, poultry, seafood and vegetables also affect the amount of time you marinate your product. Marinades are meant to enhance, or...

I don't know if it's Murphy's Law or just my luck, but whenever I cut into a lemon, some of the juice will squirt into one of my eyes and cause excruciating pain. Big time. What synergy causes that liquid to always find a path leading directly to one of my eyes? What did I do wrong in life to be stung by a lemon? It's almost the same as when, on that one crucial day of a very important...

Because I have type 2 diabetes, I carry a blood glucose test kit with me, usually in the front left pocket of my pants. It has an outside pouch with a zipper that I can put a few things in, like lancets. That way, I can easily replace dull ones with new ones that don't sting as much when I pierce my fingers. I used to carry other things, too, but not anymore. Once in a while, the zipper has...

Before I sat down to write this, I had to remember where I left my reading glasses… When I was 23, a 33 year old woman had the hots for me. She was a cutie. A friend of mine played bass in a band and her brother was the drummer. He kept telling me she wanted to go out and I ignored her hits for a while. My previous girlfriends up to that point had been younger and I was a little...

I once met with an Orlando FBI special agent with information regarding an unsolved murder case. I had been playing around with local authorities on another matter and something pertaining to that case crossed my path. Unfortunately, I didn't tell him anything he didn't already know, but because of this, he proffered a small amount of tidbits the FBI was aware of. A young woman was...

This is a picture of my best friend, Stewart Bacheler. He's the one on the left. We've known each other since we were kids. A while back, he and his wife, An, were in California visiting her brother and his family. Her brother is the head chef at Universal Studios. While there, Stew connected with an old friend, Harry. Harry is an actor and he and Stew had their picture taken together for the...

I've always gotten along with kids. Years ago, before I became qualified to be considered of grandfather age, many of my girlfriends had children. I used to tell them things while driving along, like, "Do you see that apartment complex over there, called Hidden Pines? Do you know why they call it that?" "Nope." "Because they had to tear out all the pine trees when they built it. The...

Recently, I was telling my mother about my scariest Halloween moment. She questioned whether she would have let me venture out on my own at the tender age of 6. I was with a friend from the neighborhood and we were in the same class at school, so I wasn't really alone. I told her, sure, why not? You left your windows open at night. During hot summer months, the only thing that separated you...