today marked the official end of my predict 2 study. first thing i did when i went to the bathroom this morning was to take off the fitness tracker then remove the blood glucose sensor. the sensor was on tight, even after i peeled off the fabric bandaid, it was still stuck on my arm. i ended up having to pry off the poker chip sized device. there was a red spot where the filament probe went under my skin. i had a chance to see the actual filament, which was a soft needle about the thickness of a chunky animal hair. closer inspection revealed a tiny sensor on the probe where it must've been reading the blood sugar level. as for the tiny puck itself, there was a round circuit board inside with some kind of RFID transmitter and a small watch battery to power it.

it was a little weird getting used to not having to log everything i ate. you mean i can eat whatever i want whenever, and not have to weigh every single ingredient? it's funny how briefly taking away something you've always taken for granted makes you better appreciate it when you have it back. it was also a little weird not having the freestyle libre sensor attached to my arm that i can scan whenever i want to check my blood sugar level. i was commenting to one of the study nutritionists that it was kind of like a fuel gauge for the body, though it only measured blood glucose. it'd be great if in the near future they had a similar continuous monitoring system for a whole host of other blood test results like metabolic and lipid panels.

since i was returning the sensors, i downloaded as much data as possible. the freestyle libre sensor has a macos app that can interface with the reader, but when i downloaded it last week, i wasn't able to access the data unless i created an account, so i didn't bother. instead, i just took screenshots of each of the days. when i plugged in the axivity fitness to my computer, it mounted a partition that had a single CWA-DATA.CWA. i made a copy, but i doubt i can use it. axivity does have a downloaded application to read CWA files but it's for PC only.

the first lunch i ate post-study was just a simple ham and egg english muffin sandwich with some pesto along with a cup of fruit juice and a banana. today was a grey and rainy day, a good day to be inside. i forgot what day it was, kept thinking it was monday. the highlight of the afternoon was fox network's broadcast of super bowl LI, the greatest patriots comeback of all times, down by 28-3 late in the 3rd quarter, new england ends up coming back to tie the game then win it in overtime. they should have a channel where 24/7 they just broadcast time game, i would have it on all the time. it reminds me another great comeback, the 2004 american league championship series between the red sox and yankees. boston down 0-3 in the series, would come back to tie it and then win the 7th game to go to the world series and win it after an 86 years drought. it's hard to decide which one is the greatest comeback. probably the sox victory, since they broke the curse, and against our division rival. anyway, around 4:30pm the local broadcast was threatening to cut away in order to show trump's coronavirus briefing at 5pm. don't you dare cut away fox! i think all of new england would've collectively rebelled had that happened. fortunately whoever was in charge of programming did the right thing and let the game play to the end. sports is a religious around here, it is sacred, and you can not prematurely stop a rebroadcast of a classic.

kevin was a little crazy today. first, the bathroom floor was all wet this morning, fortunately it was just water from the sink, but i warned kevin about trying to keep the splashing to a minimum. then he was vacuuming his room again, this time extending his reach to the kitchen and bathroom, followed by going around the house polishing all the doorknobs with alcohol. i yelled at him when i saw he had his window open again (40's today), and told him in the future to not put the container from the rice cooker in the fridge since dried rice is harder to clean and when he does that it means other people (me) can't use the rice cooker. then in the evening he thought about making a supermarket run, he only seems to go when the weather is bad thinking that there will be less people. in the end he decided against it.

the massachusetts coronavirus count for today is 4,955 cases and 48 deaths. the US cases is up to 141K, nearly double that of china though death count still less (but not for long). from the confines of home it's hard to get a sense of these numbers, but if you're a hospital emergency care worker, it must feel like the end of the world. trump backed away from his insane insistence that the pandemic will be over by easter, now extending the social distancing guidelines to the end of april.

for dinner i made some more pita bread pizzas, using up the rest of my anchovies.