Wellsphere + HealthCentral = Death of my blog

My BLOG, which has seen me through many dark days, and nights, is going away now.

I was one of many suckers who fell for the Wellsphere email where Dr. Geoffrey W. Rutledge and allowed him, through an RSS feed, to place my posts on his site.

Recently Wellsphere was sold, for what was probably a huge sum:

HealthCentral Acquires Wellsphere Creating the Largest Organically Driven

Online Health and Wellness Communities

Deal Adds Nearly Four Million Unique Visitors per Month to HealthCentral Reach
Arlington, VA / San Mateo, CA (January 28, 2009) – HealthCentral (www.HealthCentral.com), the leading collection of online condition-specific consumer health and wellness experiences, today announced the acquisition of Wellsphere, a leading health technology company, adding nearly 4 million monthly unique visitors to HealthCentral’s audience. The acquisition combines HealthCentral’s high-quality, condition-specific interactive experiences, content and audience with Wellsphere’s aggregation of over 1,500 health and wellness bloggers and unique Health Knowledge Engine™ technology that deciphers highly specific health information. HealthCentral also will leverage Wellsphere’s health community enterprise technology which powers Stanford University’s BeWell@Stanford site (http://stanford.wellsphere.com) to deliver valuable health information and wellness tools for Stanford employees. The deal raises HealthCentral’s audience of its owned properties to ten million unique visitors per month, and makes the company the largest organic aggregation of online health and wellness communities.

Needless to say all the money made from this site was made because of posts from Bloggers like me and you.

I have tried to get them to stop pulling posts from my blog, with no success. Rather than give away any more of my material, some of which probably suck to be honest, I am closing my blog.

I have met many people through my blog, and so many of you touched me in many ways when I was in my darkest periods. Thank you all for you kindness and friendship.

If anyone is interested in knowing when/if I decide to create another, let me know and I will in turn let you know where to find me.

A Wake up Call

Last week, one of our employees had a sister to shoot herself. This was her second time shooting herself. The first time she barely missed her heart.

Her husband said he thought everything was fine as he went out to the driveway to get the morning paper. When he walked back in the house, she was dead. She was 54 years old. She was a very beautiful lady.

The employees wife called me to let the office know what had happened. It was strange talking to her. I hope I said the right things.

Suicide "runs" in my family. My uncle hanged himself in his 40's. He drove a nail in the wall about head high, looped his belt around his nect and stuck one of the belt holes on the nail. Then he lifted his feet until he was dead. The coroner said at any time he could have just put his feet down and stood up. My grandmother tried to kill herself once that I know of as well.

It would never be admitted, because in my family we don't admit things that could be embarassing, but I am fairly sure my sister tried as a young teenager. I came home from first grade one day and both her wrists were bandaged up. I was told she cut her wrists when a milk bottle broke while she was washing dishes . But both wrists?!?

Last week, for the first time since my uncles death, I saw the effects of a suicide on family members, again, but at an older more mature age. It was a wake up call.

Photo borrowed from here

Pie Safe

Back in my former life, I almost got into antiques there for a while. After just a few pieces I came to the realization that this hobby was NOT for poor people.


One of the things I purchased before I came to my senses, was a pie safe.

I just saw one online exactly like mine. I cannot get over the price they are asking for it !! $895.00

Anyone looking for a pie safe ??