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Photography

2012-12-25T00:49:00.001-08:00

t's Christmas Eve, I'm currently sitting comfortably on my couch, blogging with Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" on in the background and doing a fair amount of thinking. I recently had the opportunity to photograph a live nativity that my parents co-produced in Liberty Park called "Echoes of Christmas." It was a great experience for me and one that I greatly enjoyed. As you may know, I lost my camera to water damage this summer and have been without a camera for several months. I photographed the nativity using my parents' point-and-shoot fixed lens Sony camera. Having been used to shooting with a Canon SLR it was quite an adjustment for me and I spent a good thirty minutes fumbling with the controls and trying to find the functions that I knew I needed. As it was a live production I was limited to shooting without a flash and quickly felt the effect of this limitation. It wasn't until this evening while reading one of my photography books that I realized that the nature of the fixed lens camera was also holding me back. Aside from the limitations of the equipment at hand, I am by no stretch of the imagination a hugely experienced photographer and was also confined by the limitations of my own experience. Putting any doubts aside, I set to the task at hand determined to get some good shots. I was greeted by friendly cooperation from the actors involved and, I believe, managed to get some pretty decent shots. In fact, one of the photographs I took I feel is one of the best shots I have ever taken.
Since this experience I have found myself desperately missing my camera and the creative outlet it provided. I never really did anything spectacular with my photos in fact, any of them that were not posted to Facebook were lost when my laptop was stolen earlier this fall, but I miss it nonetheless. I am finding myself determined to get a new camera and continue developing my photography skills for whatever I may use them for. It will likely not amount to anything but a hobby that I love but I think that's an important thing to have. I have considered the possibility of trying to squeeze a few more photography classes into my schedule and exploring photography "professionally," shooting weddings, concerts, family parties, whatever I can get a chance to do. Here's hoping things pan out and I can continue to explore this passion. For now, here's an image from "Echoes of Christmas" that I'm particularly proud of. Merry Christmas everyone!!

The hardest thing...

2012-07-25T10:55:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure how many of you are aware because I never really said anything about it but I did end up deciding to stick to a vegetarian diet for the most part. That's not to say that I never eat meat because sometimes it is really just too much of a hassle for me and for others for me to find alternatives to meat. Also, regardless of what health benefits may or may not exist from not eating meat; it really is delicious. Anyways, as I have continued to expand my diet and my recipe book, the most difficult part of the adjustment has been a surprise to me. I thought initially when I started that it would be really tricky to transition to a new diet and eating new things. I expected to have trouble with refraining from meat, finding alternatives that I enjoyed, adjusting to cooking new things, and making new habits of my food choices. In all reality, these things have been really easy. I have very much enjoyed trying new foods and new recipes and making positive changes in my diet. The thing that has been really hard is finding all of the things that I need in the grocery store. It's a little ridiculous. Before I'd drive to Smith's or Fresh Market or whatever and hit the canned food aisle and the frozen section and be out in twenty minutes. Now, before I go grocery shopping, I sit down with my vegetarian cookbooks and plan out menus. I make a shopping list and go through my kitchen to find out what I already have and what I need to buy. Then things get tricky. I drive down to the grocery store and have to find all of these obscure foods (many of which I've never heard of previously.) I have spent ridiculous amounts of time walking up and down the aisles looking for all kinds of things. Even the stuff that I thought would be pretty easy and know is at most stores is a little tricky. Like tofu, for instance. No two stores keep it in the same place. Sometimes it's with the veggies, sometimes by the meat, some tofu is kept with the oriental foods un-refrigerated. It gets a little ridiculous to keep track. There should be an index available for grocery stores, maybe as an android/iPhone app? I think it's genius.

200 Around the Corner!

2012-06-26T06:49:00.000-07:00

Here I go, talking about food again. Sorry, it's kind of what's going on in my life right now. I'll be going on two weeks vegetarian tomorrow and I feel great. I've lost 10 pounds since I started trying this. That's ridiculous, 10 pounds in 13 days?! Plus I'm now just a stone's throw away from dropping below 200 lbs. I'm so excited. I'm pretty sure I'll get there by the end of the week, it's less than a pound and a half away. I'm super excited. It's been so encouraging lately to hear, even from people I wouldn't expect to notice, that I look like I'm losing weight and looking really good. It really feels great, and that's in addition to just feeling healthier overall. :D I'm loving it!!

So, last night I needed to get some grocery shopping and I did it smart, possibly for the first time in my life. I rode my bike to/from work yesterday so when I got home I was starving. Rather than first going to the grocery store and buying way more than I needed to I actually did it right. I sat down with my veggie cookbook and found something I could make with things that were already in the house. I ended up making "Andrea's Puttanesca," which is a spaghetti with marinara cooked with fresh garlic, spinach, tomatoes and topped with olive. Add to it a nice green salad and I was feeling full and almost ready to hit the grocery store.

Now this next bit I think is really incredible. Two weeks ago I spent some money and stocked my spice cupboard and pantry with a few of the basic ingredients needed for most of the vegetarian recipes I had. I went through what I had on hand and leftovers in the fridge and made a complete menu for every meal between now and my next payday. I then hit the grocery store and bought everything I need (excluding some fresh veggies that won't keep) to make those meals for less than $45!! Awesome right? I have meals planned for almost the next two weeks and the most I'll need to spend between now and then is maybe $10 on veggies here and there. Way friggin cool!

Veggie Catch-Up Blog

2012-06-18T19:54:00.001-07:00

Ok, I haven't been as good about writing as I wanted to be, but, things are going great! I have, however been rocking this vegetarian thing. It's been way awesome. I'm trying new things, cooking more and definitely eating healthier. Regardless of whether or not you think meat is healthy/unhealthy the simple fact that I have to supplement my diet with more vegetables drastically increases the amount of veggies that I'm eating (duh) and subsequently makes my diet healthier. Since I last wrote, I've made some delicious chick-pea enchiladas blancas, a whole variety of awesome veggie sandwiches and salads and tonight, vegetarian shepherd's pie with sweet mashed potatoes. For those of you who have never tried sweet mashed potatoes, do it. Seriously. They are crazy good. Anywho, short and sweet, this whole thing has been an awesome experience so far and I've got leftovers for a couple of days which means that finishing out my goal week is going to be a piece of cake. Now, I've got so many great recipes left to try, do I stick with vegetarian for a while, move to mostly vegetarian and eat meat only very occasionally or just screw it and go back to what I was eating before? Opinions?

Vegetarian Day #1

2012-06-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, so, strange announcement. I'm going vegetarian for a week, at least. Some of you may know that as of late, I have been working on improving my overall health. I've quit smoking, started to increase to a regular workout schedule and worked towards a healthy diet. I've already been on a diet that is (with rare exceptions) free of red meat. This particular change wasn't a huge deal. I don't eat beef a lot in any form so it was only cutting out the occasional hamburger (which was usually fast food and needed to go anyways) and maybe not ordering a steak every time I had the opportunity. There was nothing wrong with that particular diet, (that's diet as in eating pattern, not hokey weight loss strategy) in fact I was, and still am, losing weight but a vegetarian lifestyle has recently been rather intriguing to me. My interest was piqued this weekend when I watched a documentary called "Forks Over Knives". The documentary primarily interviews two doctors who have spent a large portion of their careers doing field/clinical research regarding the link between meat/dairy products and obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other killer diseases. While there is no concrete evidence of any definite link between any of these, the correlation data and limited clinical results were very convincing. At least enough so to convince me to try it.

As of right now, I have no intention of going full and permanent vegetarian but I'd like to just give it a shot for a while at least. I've decided on a minimum of one week with no firm end date. It may be that I adopt a "mostly vegetarian" lifestyle after this experiment and only very occasionally eat any kind of meat. I thought a week sounded like a good starting goal to evaluate the idea. I'm probably going to be blogging on this a fair amount if nothing else than to get my thoughts on it written down. I'd like to keep an eye on my morale through this experiment and be able to look back at it and remember what I was thinking at the time. This isn't going to be a major change for the majority of my day. My typical diet currently consists of meatless meals for 2 of the 3 meals of the day. I typically have oatmeal for breakfast, followed by a banana or other fruit mid morning, PB&J for lunch and some veggies and maybe string cheese in the afternoon. It's dinner that's going to be the kicker. Almost every evening meal I have made over the past few months has included chicken in one form or another. That's what's going to be tough. In order to kick start my creativity and get me some ideas to get going, I purchased a book suggested by the makers of "Forks Over Knives" entitled "Everyday Happy Herbivore" by Lindsay S. Nixon. The cover boasts that the book contains meals that can be "on the table in 30 minutes or less." With my current lifestyle, this is exactly what I need. Something fast, cheap, and easy to make.

Now, on to the experience! Today was my first day as a temporary vegetarian. Not surprisingly, it wasn't much different from any other day. I had a typical breakfast and a mostly typical lunch. I went with some co-workers to The Tea Rose Diner. Tea Rose is a a Thai restaurant in Murray that we frequent, (seriously, some of us 3-5 times a week) and I usually order a massamun curry with chicken. Being a day one temporary vegetarian, I couldn't quite stick to that so I ordered the same dish but with tofu instead of chicken. While the meal was still satisfying and very enjoyable, most of the tofu didn't leave the table until the bus boy cleared our table. That was quite a shock. I'm not sure exactly what I expected but I sure didn't enjoy the stuff. It was rubbery on the outside and a nearly liquid gelatin on the inside. I think I'll explore other protein sources and meet substitutes. Dinner, on the other hand, was a roaring success. I tried my hand at making my first vegetarian meal out of my new cook book and ended up with a couple of delicious black bean burgers with a crisp spinach salad. I was very pleased with how the burgers turned out and very satisfied with the meal.

I don't expect to be noticing any huge life changes in a week of eating veggies but there is one thing I noticed right away; I wasn't full like I would have been with a meat meal. If I had eaten two similarly sized hamburgers, I would have felt bloated, lethargic, and uncomfortable for hours. After my first home-cooked veggie meal I felt great. I was full but not uncomfortable and after sitting for maybe 20 minutes to finish an episode of Breaking Bad, got up, cleaned the kitchen and my dishes and went for a three and a half mile run. Pretty impressive for after dinner eh?

Wow, sorry to anyone who read all of that. I just noticed how long that got. Thanks for hangin' with me through that. I'm going to try to keep this going once a day at least through my first experiment week of vegetarianism so I'll have lots more info on what I'm eating in the days to come. I know, that's just what everyone wants to read on the internet, right? Wish me luck! :)

Vomit Blog #2

2012-04-16T11:39:00.001-07:00

Well, this isn't happening nearly as often as I had kind of hoped. Oh well. Here it is, vomit blog the second. :-)

#1 A bad reputation can be incredibly difficult to move past. I've noticed that in a lot of the things that I've been trying to change in my life lately, a past reputation can be really damaging. As I've started to realize this, I've been thinking about how it applies to maybe a more severe situation. What about someone labeled as a sex offender? I know that's an extreme example but the same principle applies. You get labeled with something like that, how the hell do you move past it. I don't know how many sex offenders really change their ways and try to improve their lives but how on earth could you? The same idea really applies to everyday life for most people. Even your own friends' preconceived notions of you, based on past reputation, can be really damaging to trying to make any real change in your life. It's kind of frustrating.

#2. Sneezing while driving is pretty much the most terrifying thing in the entire world.

#3. Service Fees. I'm certain that I"m not the first person to complain about this online and I certainly won't be the last but seriously, knock it off. If you need to charge me an extra $8 for admission, that's fine. I can deal with that. But don't tell me that the ticket is going to be $20 and then when I get to the checkout, oops, SURPRISE!!! It's actually $28. Just tell me 28 to begin with. I don't want to know what kind of shenanigans you had to pull to get that number. Let's just start at the real price and everyone can go home happy.

#4 Welcome to my world. Everyone should stop saying this and every variation or it. It's annoying, insensitive and does nothing but let people know that your problems come before theirs. Show some damn sympathy.

SOPA Box

2012-04-10T07:15:00.001-07:00

So yesterday as I was killing some time, I came across a bit of information about SOPA. I realized that I really didn't know anything about it so I thought, hey, it might be a responsible thing to do to try and learn about this issue as it is definitely a topic that isn't going to go away. So like any normal, sane, electronically connected person, I posted on Facebook asking if any of my friends knew of any unbiased, factual information that I could read on the subject. I was shocked when only one person responded and it was not with any kind of information. How in the world is this possible? Four months ago, two thirds of my friends list had posted pictures, comments, wall posts or status updates protesting SOPA and PIPA. For almost an entire month, you couldn't get away from it. People were signing petitions, removing their profile picture and replacing it with a protest image, shouting all over the internet that SOPA was going to destroy us all. What happened?
I can really only think of two possibilities as to what went down.
1. People on my friends list don't care or read my posts. However, I really have a hard time believing this as if I were to post a picture of a cat sniffing a dog's butt it would get tons of comments and every person wasting time on Facebook would click "like." So I guess that isn't a reasonable conclusion after all.
2. 90% of the people protesting SOPA in January had NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT. This is ridiculous. I realize that, yes, even idiots online have their right to free speech but come on guys. We should be better than this. If we are going to take the time to scream about an issue, at least take five minutes to find some actual information and learn something before you start blinding protesting and agreeing with every internet powerhouse that tells you to sign a protest or petition. Up until now, I have not known much about what SOPA was or how it could affect me or the internet so I've kept my mouth shut about it. I spent a few hours reading up on it yesterday and while I'm no expert, I believe that I have a fairly good understanding of what it entails and can fairly confidently say that while I agree with the fact that this issue needs to be tackled, this is not the way to go about it.
Whew, okay, I think that pretty much covers my feelings on the issue. If you are one of the few that educated yourselves on the issue, congratulations and thank you. I appreciate that some people actually do know what their talking about when these issues come up but it is very hard to pick you out in the spew of "copy, paste, and post" that happens here on the internet. Those of you who didn't know what you were talking about, please, next time you go preaching about the next stupid thing the government is going to do to ruin your lives, find out what the hell you are talking about before you go spouting off about it.

A Fond Farewell

2012-03-06T05:19:00.001-08:00

I am really terrible about keeping up with this thing. At least I'm only a week behind on this one.
Last Saturday, I announced my resignation as director of the Mystery Theatre. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself working on the show and helping to make it into what it is today. I am very proud of the work I have done and excited that it is doing so well. Leaving the show was not an easy decision to make by any means and I will miss it immensely but I came to the realization that my schooling and my career need to take priority right now.
Anyway the point of this story is that when I announced it to the cast, all of them stood up and applauded me. I was blown away. Working with such a fantastic group of people has been a rare privilege for me. The gratitude I received from them in that moment was humbling. I could not have asked for a better send off or a better thank you. To those members of my cast, thank you. You have all been a huge part of my life for a very long time and I will deeply miss working with you all.

Giving

2012-02-28T09:30:00.003-08:00

I am way behind on posting this story.
This happened probably about a month or so ago and I've been meaning to post about it since then. At work, we were working on a project that had one of our guys in China working with a manufacturer and as such, on a completely different time schedule from the rest of us. I found out when I was on my way out the door to go to class that there were some files that he needed sent to him right away. The files had to be converted to a different file format as they don't have the same software in China as we do. All in all it was only about an hour's worth of work but I had to get to class and couldn't stay to finish it. Unfortunately, no one else was able to do it so my boss asked if I could come back later that evening and complete the task. I agreed before I even realized that I would be in class until 8:00 PM that night and probably not back to work until almost 8:30. Upon leaving the crumminess of the whole situation hit me and frustration set in by the time I had gotten out of class. I was grouchy and tired and just grumpy with the whole situation.On the way back to work, I stopped at a 7-Eleven for a drink. When I walked in there were two little girls in front of the counter who must have been eight or nine years old. The two of them were talking about a bag of Cheetos that they were wanting to buy, hoping that they had enough money to get it. When they asked the cashier how much it was both of their little heads sunk in disappointment and I, being the super-rich guy that I am offered to buy the snack for the girls. Both of them lit up and they excitedly talked while I payed for my things and theirs. As I was paying I heard one girl say to the other, "He's nice!" This comment alone would have been more than a sufficient thank you for the whole $1.69 I was spending on them but that wasn't the end of it. When I finished paying, I handed the bag of Cheetos to the girls and told them to have a good night. As I turned to leave I was asked to wait, they had something for me. One of the girls held out her hand making a bowl and told me to do as she had done. I held out my hand and she pulled a small felt bag out of her pocket, emptying the contents into my hand, "We wanted to give you this." The girls ran out of the convenience store and I was left with 79 cents in pennies and a feeling of really having accomplished something. It was such a tiny little thing for me but it clearly made a huge impact on the girls' night and their gratitude made a huge impact on mine.

Mystery, Good Friends, and a few drinks

2012-02-12T13:16:00.000-08:00

This weekend has been one of the best I've had, ever. It started out with a birthday dinner on Friday night for my little sister. As per usual the family met at Village Inn. Not perhaps the greatest meal in the world but definitely a good time. Afterwords my sister and her husband came over for a bit to see my new place since they haven't been here since I moved. It was probably going to be a fairly short visit but we ended up watching several episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" together and had a great time. Sure, I should have been doing homework but family is more important right? We also agreed on monthly game nights starting in April with dinner at Bonsai followed by games at my house. I'm really excited for that.

Last night was a truly incredible night. Both showings of the Mystery Theatre were reserved either at or very close to capacity with people that truly had a great time. The second show included some very good friends of mine. Watching them go through the show and enjoying themselves was more gratifying than I could possibly explain. Even the more shy members of the group really got into it and had a lot of fun. Seeing that made an already awesome show that much more enjoyable for me. Both shows had people that, although they were confused at the story line, took the suggestion to use me for help in solving the mystery. They came to me with their questions and I was able to help everyone to get the most out of the show and find the information they needed.

Following the show, I went out to Maggie's with the group of friends that came to the show. We had a few drinks there and then came back to my place to have a few more, listen to music, and make plans for training for a marathon. Shane and I start training runs next weekend. :)

The weekend isn't even over yet. Brian and Brie are coming over today for a Dexter season 6 marathon and dinner.

Best. Weekend. Ever.

Understanding Exposure

2011-12-28T00:13:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, (it's funny how I say many regarding the 5 people that read this) I have lately been fumbling my way around a Canon Rebel XSi. Now, granted, I have been able to snap some pretty neat looking photos considering my knowledge base, but I have felt that I'm missing a great deal of what my camera can do. I have been aimlessly snapping photos and messing with settings. Typically I will shoot for an hour or two, take hundreds of photos and end up with 5-10 that actually look good. NO MORE! For Christmas, my sister gave me a book called "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson. This book is awesome. I'm maybe two chapters into it and already I feel so much more confident with my camera. I've read several articles on the interwebs and parts of a couple of books but this one blows them all away. Most of what I have read up to this point deals in lots of numbers and tries to make things overly complicated while overlooking some of the really basic functions of the camera. This book really breaks it down from a very basic standpoint and basically takes you by the hand and says, "Look, this is how it works." It is fantastic. I'm so excited to take my new-found knowledge into the real world and start taking some awesome pictures. I need the sun to come up already!!

Vomit Blog #1

2011-12-14T12:51:00.000-08:00

This could be kind of interesting. I've found since I started blogging that I've had lots of ideas that I wanted to write down that I didn't feel necessarily warranted their own blog post. So, I'm creating what I have decided to call the vomit blog. I'm just going to list all of these random thoughts. I think starting now I'll keep a running vomit blog and post it occasionally as it fills up. So here we go with vomit blog #1.

1. The reason there are very few pictures of drummers is because it's extremely difficult to do. They're moving fast, the lights on the stage are not placed optimally to get light on the drummer and it's very hard to get enough light on them to get a good picture and have an exposure time fast enough not to be a blurry mess. A lot of that could have to do with my crappy lens. :P I'll keep trying.

2. Every time I see someone speeding and driving like a jack ass I wish that they would run into a concrete barrier. It pisses me off that people feel like where ever they have to be is far more important than the safety of everyone on the road. Also, I am constantly amazed at how pissed off people get at other drivers who are actually going the speed limit.

3. In order to avoid all of the stupid warnings we have to put on everything to keep the idiots of the world safe, every product package should have the following statement; "By opening this product you assume responsibility for any and all risks of use/misuse of this product by you and any others using/misusing the product. Manufacturer makes no guarantee of the product's safety."
Seriously, put it on everything. Let the idiots of the world strangle themselves with lamp cords. We'll be better off in the end.

4. People need to either be more careful or more thorough when putting qualifiers on multiple choice questions. What if my answer is somewhere between "A. Yes, I fucking LOVE chocodiles" and "B. No, I am really damn sure I asked for pecan sandies." Either stick with just yes/no or make sure you include "C. Yes, I would enjoy a chocodile, but in truth I did ask for pecan sandies."

A step in the wrong direction

2011-12-06T08:36:00.001-08:00

Under normal circumstances I’m am fairly strongly against focusing on negativity. In this particular case, I feel like it is very important to me to dedicate one post to this. I need to make sure I highlight the problem so I make sure that I see it. I also worry that if I included this in a typical post it would seem like I was trying to cover up the problem, both to the reader and to myself.
I smoked this weekend; more than a couple. As you may have read in a previous blog, I have struggled primarily with not smoking while at social functions, especially when alcohol is involved. Rather than thinking of a way to deal with this problem and take care of it, I chose, instead, to embrace the problem and let it grow. I decided that there was no way I was going to not smoke while drinking and that in an effort not to be mooching cigarettes all night that I would just buy a pack so I only had to deal with the guilt of smoking and not the guilt of taking cigarettes from people. The plan was to smoke until the end of the night at which time I would give the remainder of the pack to someone else. This worked relatively well on Friday night. I smoked maybe half of a pack and, at the end of the evening, gave it away to another friend that smoked. This seemed all well and good to me. I had my cigarettes for the night of drinking and at the end of the night, they were gone and I could pretend that I was still a happy non-smoker.
Then Saturday night came around and to my surprise, I found myself out drinking with some friends again. I hadn’t planned on this and of course, I had to have another partial pack. So I went and bought one. I did it last night, and truthfully, a prior evening a few weeks ago. Why wouldn’t it be equally successful this night? Unfortunately for me, at the end of the night, I did not give this pack away. Why didn’t I? That’s a great question and in truth I could give you several very valid reasons that I did not. But each one reeks of being a lame excuse and I will not burden you with them. There were several people I could have given them to. I could have just left them at the house I was at. Even better, I could have thrown them away. But I didn’t, I kept them. At the exact moment I chose to keep them, it was too late to do anything about it. I had cigarettes and I was going to smoke them. I had several Sunday morning and even through the evening and into Monday morning. Of course this whole time I kept telling myself, “I just have to finish this pack and then I’ll be done again.”
The first thing I realized is that I had been lying to myself. Obviously it hadn’t been a conscious decision. And in this case I think it was one of the more convincing lies I had ever told myself. I think most times that I have told a lie to me, somewhere, I knew it was a lie. In this case, I did not. I told myself I was in control, I had beaten this thing and now I was going to taunt it. I was going to use the occasional cigarette to remind myself how terrible they were and how much I didn’t need it. The moment I caught myself in the lie was one of the strangest and worst feelings I have ever encountered. I was driving home from somewhere, I don’t even remember where and I was angry about some little thing, I don’t even remember what. I remember sitting in my car on the freeway and just fuming over this little tiny thing. I was so unreasonably angry about it. It took a while but at some point I realized this. There was absolutely no reason for me to be so mad about this insignificant little thing. Then the thought entered my head that maybe just one cigarette would be good to calm me down, but no, I’m not a smoker, why in the world would I need a cigarette? That’s when it it me. Yes, I was unreasonably mad about something, that was being caused by the nicotine withdrawals and yes, I thought a cigarette would help, that was also being caused by the nicotine withdrawals and I was addicted again.
The realization knocked me on my ass. I’m sure most of us know how it feels to be caught in a lie. The guilt, the embarrassment, the frustration at being caught. Being the one catching the lie isn’t pleasant either, betrayal, anger, feeling foolish for having believed the lie. When you really truly catch yourself in a lie, you experience all of the emotions of the catcher and the caught at the exact same moment with no one to direct them towards but yourself.
The other thing that I thought was really off about this whole situation is that I was more comfortable with giving a poison to my friends than I was with taking it from them. Seems rather backwards to me.
Anyways, the good news buried in all of this is that I am back on track. It was a rough weekend but I’m back on the wagon again and feeling great. I do have some residual sore-throateyness and congestion from a weekend of smoking but I expect that will dissipate within a day or two at the most. While this was definitely a set back, it was not a failure. Merely a small stumbling block on my road to victory. I have no doubts that I have beat this thing. I may not be perfect, and I may not have done it all at once but my eyes are on victory. I am consciously aware of my struggling and I am fighting it. I will beat this.
See ya later.
-Paul

Windows Live Writer

2011-12-02T08:20:00.001-08:00

Ok, I know I already posted today but I just read a post about Windows Live writer and I decided I need to give it a try. Partially because I have nothing better to do. It seems pretty cool thus far. It actually allows you to write things IN your blog. As I’m typing this, I am seeing exactly how it will look when it is published which is pretty cool. Just to explore some of the functionality here I’m going to be posting some random videos, links, pictures, etc. Please bear with me.

Fun little side note: I was a little unsure about the correct word usage above (bear with me) so I looked it up. I did actually use the correct form of bear in that circumstance. The website I used to verify this also gave the tip that using the phrase “bare with me” would be an invitation to undress together. I seriously doubt I will every have a hard time remembering that one again.

Fun little video Chris and I shot making fun of Mulligans golf course in South Jordan

Ok, adding videos is pretty sweet. Windows writer will link to your YouTube account and you can simply choose videos that you have saved to your account. Also, if you load a video file from your computer it automatically uploads the video to your YouTube account, allowing input of tags and descriptions for YouTube. That’s pretty sweet.

Awesome music video

Ok fantastic, I was a little concerned there for a minute. You can’t directly add videos that you have “liked” from your YouTube account but you can add any that you have added to your favorites list. You can also just find a video on YouTube, copy/paste the link into Windows Writer and you’re good to go.

The photo functionality is a little disappointing. I was hoping you might be able to link to a Picasa account similarly to how YouTube links. This is not the case. You can either upload directly from your computer (which works great) or you need to have the direct link to the photo on the web. There isn’t even a way to browse to a photo online to use. I would have thought that it would be fairly easy to integrate some of IE’s functionality into this program and allow you to browse to photos on the web. There are, however, some nice formatting options for photos. It’s fairly easy to change the size, background, border options as well as crop the photo and add some limited photo effect. You can also fairly easily add an external link to a photo, which is pretty cool.

Ooh there’s an option to upload a map to the post as well. I’d better find a way to try that… hold on…. oh, lame. It links to Bing maps. I guess that’s not altogether surprising, being a Microsoft product. That’s rather disappointing though. That could be a really cool feature but I don’t use Bing. I use Google. Like the rest of the world. The rest of the cool world anyways. Maybe I’ll have to play with that and see if you can upload a map from Google to Bing so I can blog about sweet cycling routes in the summer or all of those awesome trips I go on (hey, I should go on some sweet trips.)

This is odd. I’ve noticed that while scrolling through the post if you hit a video or picture, it stops scrolling using the mouse scroll wheel and you have to actually mouse over to the sidebar and scroll from there. Not really a damning glitch but it’s a little annoying. YES!!! Old school messenger emoticons FOR THE WIN. That is a definite plus for this program.

The formatting options are nice. It has all the typical windows functionality for text which makes it easy to emphasize things. I can also use all the cool custom fonts I’ve downloaded for Mystery theatre posters and such. Having a spell check built in is nice also because I’m lazy and I sometimes can’t spell. There’s also a word count feature which is essentially useless but kind of cool anyways. I actually checked the word count when I noticed that tool and it was at 666 so if you’re superstitious, you’re going to want to make sure to read past the beginning of this sentence. Good job.

This is kind of interesting. Apparently you can group a whole section to make it a block quote. It seems that it has to be seperated from the rest of the post by a page break though. That’s a little odd but I guess it’s cool. I was thinking that it might be annoying if you wanted to only quote one line but I guess you can just quote one line and make it a separate paragraph.

-Paul

The preview feature is great as well. It’s not really necessary I don’t think since I’m writing on the blog background as we speak but when you go to the preview it puts in all the little sidebars and things so you can see it all. Not hugely important but nice to be able to see. Also it’s nice that it won’t add views to my blog stats which drives me nuts.

Well, I think that about covers it. I think I’m going to go ahead and continue to use this program for now for all my blogging purposes. By the way, this post was really fun. I don’t think I’ve really ever reviewed anything before except short little Yelp reviews. I feel like this was a really good objective review. Plus being able to write the review in the program I’m reviewing was kind of cool and unique. I think I see more reviews in my future. I know, you’re super excited.

See ya later,

-Paul

There's just really not much to say...

2011-12-02T05:55:00.001-08:00

I find myself really wanting to write this morning but with a complete lack of things I feel are exciting enough to write about. I suppose I could make things up but that just seems to kind of defeat the purpose of a blog that I'm writing about my life. Although I suppose it would give some insight into my imagination. I have been thinking lately that I might want to attempt to move my blogging time into the evening. I find that in the evening as I'm wrapping up my day I have all kinds of thoughts swirling through my head and I could get some really interesting (at least to me) things written down and have something meaningful to say. By the following morning, all of these cool thoughts are pretty much gone. I could solve world hunger one night and if I didn't write it down by the next morning I think it would be gone. I guess a general update couldn't hurt anything right?

I have never been more excited for a semester to be over than I am right now. This semester has been a busy one for sure. I am looking forward to my upcoming time off of work and school with great anticipation. My engineering class project has been a pretty major source of frustration for me lately. We don't seem to be making a whole lot of progress lately and we cannot, as a group, make a decision as to which way we're going to move forward. From talking to some of the guys at work it seems that this is likely to be a recurring theme throughout the rest of my schooling. Wow, that is just exciting as hell right? My math class hasn't been much better although that is more to the fault of the teacher than anyone else in the class. I will be so glad to be done with this guy. I really hope that my Calculus teacher next semester is better than him. Having a crappy teacher really makes it hard to learn. I don't think I've ever really needed to make that distinction before. I've always had really good teachers. This is a new experience for me and I have to say I think I could have done without it.

Work has been ok I suppose. Nothing terribly exciting going on. I'm working on a few projects at the moment but it seems like most of them end up giving me a couple of hours worth of work for a day and then several days of waiting for something else. There's been some drama over updating working drawings of our new ceramic brackets. I guess people are expecting me to do them but I don't know what needs to be done. Our chief technologist has a whole bunch of things he wants changed in the prints but he won't tell anyone what needs to be changed and he's getting frustrated that it isn't done yet. Makes sense right? I was supposed to meet with my boss yesterday and find out what the situation on that is but he was a little late yesterday and missed the meeting. I guess I'll find out about it sooner or later. Probably I'll get a list one day and they'll expect all 240 individual drawings to be updated the next day. Sweet!

Ok so I might be in a bit of a pessimistic mood this morning. Ah well, this too shall pass. I'm gunna go listen to some Chili Peppers and see if I can't find some work to do since I've been at work since 6.

Thanksgiving weekend: twenty-eleven

2011-11-28T10:09:00.001-08:00

Wow. What a weekend it was. I believe one of my favorite ever. Of course Thursday was filled with all of the usual family stuff. Early dinner with my dad's family and pie with my mom's later in the evening. I also actually managed to make it over to my parents early this year and watch some of the parade with them. At pie with the Broshinsky's I had some time to look at photos with Karen. We both took some time to show off some of the shots we had taken, that was a lot of fun. After looking at some of her work I'm getting really excited about taking my photography class next semester and learning more about how to use my camera. That really just about covers Thursday, nothing really out of the ordinary but great nonetheless.

Friday I actually took part in some Black Friday shopping for the first time as a customer. Well, sort of. I went to Target in the afternoon after things were done being really nasty and bought a vacuum. Exciting right? I also got Blu-rays of all the old Christmas classics, which is slightly more exciting. After that my day really began. I went geocaching with Tiffany Conger. We had a great time. We found 4 total caches including a revisit to my first attempted cache that I never found. It was nice to be able to finally cross that one off the list. We also found one that was up the side of Mt. Olympus on some crazy metal contraption. I'm really not sure what it was. Neither was the guy that placed the cache actually. If anyone can tell what this thing is from the picture it would really be awesome to know. It has an enormous engine attached to an even bigger winch all attached to a small tower. It was the craziest thing. It was really cool though. Although we ended up having to drive up part of the mountain on a pretty sketchy looking dirt road. I was a little worried for the safety of my car to be honest. Even after the sketch drive there was a little bit of a hike up to this thing which Tiffany was really not happy about but I bought her tea after. Hopefully she forgave me for that. :/

Post geocaching, we decided to grab some pizza at some new pizzeria Tiffany's cousin works at. I think it was called Limon something or other. Anyways, really weird pizza. The one we got had olive oil, mozzarella, spinach, prosciutto and blackberries. Weird right? It was really good actually. A little sweeter than I'm accustomed to for pizza but I enjoyed it anyways. We ended up taking our pizza back to my house and chatted about our Nooks for a while. She ended up loaning me Percy Jackson Lightning Thief. I was fairly surprised to get this particular recommendation from her as we saw this movie together. It is arguably one of the worst films I have ever seen; however, several chapters in now, the book is not too terrible.

Next up: Black Metal Friday. Woo, what a night. I headed out to the Donahue's for some drinking and black metal. It was a grand time. Haley set up a black metal shrine on their table that was really cool. I tried to get some photos of it. I haven't edited them yet but I think I got a few good ones. We had mead and butter beer and other beverages. The butter beer was particularly interesting. It was served warm and I believe Haley said it had beer, butter, and eggs in it. It ends up being almost sweet and very rich. It's an interesting concoction but I think I enjoyed it. So, drinks were consumed, conversations were had and as the most metal of us left, the night gave way to pop music, dubstep and dancing, kind of an interesting transition I must say. Overall; a very fun night. Unfortunately it didn't lead to the greatest morning come Saturday.

We worked on our engineering project pretty early Saturday morning. As you can imagine I was a little grumpy about this situation but with the due date closing in and our machine still not climbing stairs we have some work to do. We made attempts to attache some spikes to the tires in hopes that they would catch the stairs and pull it up. It seemed to work pretty well but unfortunately We were impatient and tested it before the glue dried. It managed to pull itself up one step before everything tore apart. It has been re-assembled and testing will commence this evening. Fingers crossed.

Wow I didn't really realize how packed this weekend really was. I'm looking back at what I've written and realizing it's really a lot of stuff. That doesn't even cover it though. I spent a significant amount of time on homework, a great guitar hero hunt, put lights on the house, deep cleaned the kitchen, and more!Wow, what a weekend. Hope you all had a great one as well. :)

It was a dark and stormy night

2011-11-23T10:07:00.001-08:00

Ok, this is freaking exciting. Five Iron Frenzy is back! The band officially announced their return last night at 7 PM. With it came the release of this brand new FIF song. Here's the thing that's really amazing. Since they are releasing this new song without the help of a record label, the band has asked for the help of their fans to raise the money necessary to record, produce, mix, master, market this new album. Kinda risky right? Wrong. The goal of the fundraiser was to raise $30,000 by Jan 21 2012. In less than 24 hours after the announcement of the upcoming album, FIF fans have donate over $80,000 towards the production of the new album/touring/marketing/etc. HOLY CRAP. The band has promised that any money past what they need to produce the album will go toward putting the band back on tour and I'm certain that donations will continue to flow in hopes that after an eight year hiatus, FIF might make appearances.

So I was thinking about this in terms of other fundraising efforts that I have seen. It seems that people were much more willing to donate to a bunch of middle class American rockers than to the tons of relief efforts that have been happening over the last few years. It's kind of an interesting priority. Most of us are a lot more willing to donate money for the promise of a new CD of our favorite band than to send money to disaster stricken countries to aid people that really need it. That being said, I plan to donate next payday to the FIF cause. I try to donate to more worthy causes when opportunities arise but I think I could definitely do better. End minimally fact based social rant.

Ok now, that is out of the way. I am waaaay beyond excited for this new album. I was a little concerned when I first heard about it, fearing that it would be a half-assed attempt at a comeback from a bunch of guys that have long since lost their touch on their various instruments. This new song they released really boosted my confidence in the band and in fact, made me feel bad for doubting them. These guys still have it and I am stoked to be part of the backing they need to get the gears rolling on the next chapter in FIF history.

In all fairness, I did say bring it on.

2011-11-18T05:38:00.001-08:00

Holy crap. This week has been absolutely insane. I have been working my butt off trying to get the new Mystery Theatre show open. The Agents of Chaos (including my assistant director) were busy most of the beginning of the week tearing out everything from the old 3300 South haunt building. It's really kind of sad to see it go. A lot of my life happened at that building and as cliche as it sounds, I did a lot of growing up there. During the move I took a couple opportunities to head over there and take a few pictures. I think I got some kind of cool shots of the old building but I really haven't had time to look through all of them. I'll hopefully get them posted in the next little while. Anyways, I took Mon-Wed off of work this week and worked 12 hour days Sat-Wed at the show. From 3D haunt space to the Cromwell Bed and Breakfast took a ton of work and a lot of hours. Fortunately I occasionally had some help from the cast, my mother, and now that the move is over I have Allegra and company to give me a hand.

During all of this craziness I still have school going full speed to finals. It's coming up really quickly and getting pretty stressful. It seems like we're behind in every one of my classes. My engineering class is behind because it is a Friday only class so the Fridays that we have had off put us a week behind schedule each. My trig class is behind because our teacher is an idiot. He consistently shows up late, leaves early, and a couple times has just not shown up for class. All of us in the class are concerned about learning everything we are going to need for the final and being up to speed for calculus next semester. My chemistry class is behind for unknown reasons and we are tearing through material at break neck speed trying to get caught up.

On the bright side, my engineering project seems to be going fairly well. We started welding together the remainder of the components over the last few days and it's really starting to come together. We hit a couple snags yesterday and had to take things apart but we came up with a new solution for our gearing so we have a plan to get it all welded back together this weekend. It should be pretty exciting to get the thing going.

It's been a rather exhilarating few days and I have managed to get a lot done. I can't wait for life to get back to normal though. I'm way behind on sleep and nodding off at really terrible times. :P Oh well, show opens Saturday and then hopefully I can get things back to normal. I don't think I've ever been this excited for Christmas time. I get the whole week off between Christmas and New Years and it is going to be a very well earned break. I think I'll start my countdown now. :)

As an afterthought; for a while I was doing fairly regular updates on my non-smoking progress. I haven't updated on that in a while and I don't want anyone to think that it's because I've slipped up. Things are going exceptionally well. Since my small slip up while drinking that I posted about I haven't had any problems at all. The only time I even think about smoking anymore is occasionally when I take a deep breath and notice that my lungs don't hurt. It's pretty fantastic. :)

Bring it on....unless there's another option.

2011-11-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

Holy crap. Things are about to get a little crazy. Haunt season just ended and that means I have like 15 days to get the next mystery open. I met with James and Brian yesterday to start planning out the space for the new set and I started to realize how much work I have to do. It's a little scary. I'm a touch behind on homework and I have TONS of work to do to get this show ready. I'm a little nervous. Finals are coming up, work is getting kind of busy, things are just piling up. Game on.

Speaking of work, there are some kind of cool things going on. My first real mechanical project is taking shape. It was a project to add a belt drive motor to a mechanical mixer to add an additional rotational axis (kind of). Anyways, we fired the thing up yesterday and it appears to work just fine. We need to modify the cover to make it fit over the new components and I think it's ready to go. I'm pretty excited about that. My next new project I've been working on is for freeze drying. I can't actually say what it's for (which makes it seem a lot cooler than it is) but I need to basically make a freeze dryer. We want to experiment with the process without spending $10 grand on a dryer. It should be pretty cool. :) I've been doing a lot of research on the process and different configurations and should be ready to start buying parts and piecing the thing together here in the next couple of days. Exciting right?

Week 1 and Other Things

2011-10-31T08:19:00.000-07:00

Well here we are, 1 week after my decision to quit smoking and I have done damn well if I do say so myself. My health is improving at an incredible rate and nicotine cravings are near non-existent. It is really a great feeling. My success aside, I did slip up on Friday night and had one cigarette at a party. For some reason this is absolutely the hardest time for me to stick to my goals. I imagine it has something to do with impaired judgement but at the same time, if I realize how bad it is for me sober, why after a few drinks does it sound like such a good idea. Smoking does nothing positive for me when I'm not drinking. Why should a few beers make smoking a good idea? It's a problem. If anyone has any suggestions about how to better deal with this problem, I'd love to hear them. Unless it's don't drink. I should not have to avoid situations in which I smoked in the past to beat this thing.

Ok, so, smoking update, check. Now, on to the rest of my life. Friday afternoon in my design class, we had to present our progress on our group projects. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before but we're building a stair climbing machine. My group has done fairly well. We have solid drawings of the whole project, most of our materials on hand and we actually got our frame welded this week. Our teacher was really impressed with the progress we have made and I'm excited to continue on with the project. We are expecting to have it running the week before Thanksgiving.

I had an interesting experience Saturday night. I had borrowed my grandpa's truck to finish up some yard work, when I dropped the truck back off to him I stopped to chat for a while. It ended up being a rather lengthy conversation that was much more pleasant than some conversations with my grandparents have been. We just chatted about life, it was nice. I got the latest health updates from both of them which, while not great, was also not terrible. My grandma has found another incompetent, rude doctor that she will not be visiting again, and my grandpa's vision has been slowly improving. For the benefit of those who don't know, my grandfather has macular degeneration, which is a hereditary condition that destroys your eyes as you get older. He was diagnosed when I was about 8 and we were told that he would likely be blind within 10 years. The fact that his eyesight is actually improving is incredible. Granted, it's definitely not 20/20, he was telling me how exciting it was that for the last few weeks he had been able to see well enough to put his heart pill into a pill cutter and cut it himself. We spent some time talking about that and what I should be doing to give myself a leg up in case I get it as well. He also spent some time telling me about his father which was pretty cool. As I was leaving, my grandpa stood by the door and waited until I drove off so he could wave me off. It made me think of when I was younger. This was the norm any time we were leaving their house after a party. My dad would be driving off and he would turn the dome lights of the van on so that my grandparents could see us waving back. After I left my grandparents house I had to run to my parents house to return some tools I had borrowed. We chatted for probably around 30 minutes before I decided to head out. The thing that really struck me as odd then is that as I pulled out of my parents driveway they stood in the doorway, waving as I left. Holy full circle Batman! It hit me then that I actually am an adult. It's weird that this was the thing that really drove it home. The whole moving out, paying bills, taking care of myself thing didn't do it. It was a wave from my parents. Weird right?

Last night I made curry again. This was my second time and I think that I'm improving. The recipe I used is really great. It's one of the simplest Indian recipes I've been able to find. I found the recipe on allrecipes.com. It's called Spicy Chicken Curry, if you're interested, go check it out. I found that it turns out much better to use coconut milk instead of the two cups of water that it calls for. Anyways, the problem I'm having with this recipe is the peppers. The first time I made this I used two jalapenos instead of the chiles it calls for because I couldn't find chiles at the store I went to. I think this turned out pretty good. It was just the right amount of hot but I thought that the jalapenos added a little bit of a Mexican flavor. This time, I did a little advanced planning and went to El Rancho Market thinking that would be my best chance to find the right peppers. I ended up with four yellow chiles. This turned out pretty good but it wasn't nearly as hot as the jalapenos and the flavor of the peppers was a little overwhelming which might be okay if I liked peppers. Long story short, I'm now on a mission to find the right peppers for this recipe. If anyone knows of a Thai or Indian food market here in SLC where I could find some Indian chiles I would be eternally grateful. :)

Verified Sources

2011-10-28T08:41:00.000-07:00

Check it out. I found the list I posted about yesterday with LEGIT sources! Cool right? Here it is.

20 minutes after quitting: Your heart rate and blood pressure drops.(Mahmud A, Feely J. Effect of Smoking on Arterial Stiffness and Pulse Pressure Amplification. Hypertension. 2003;41:183.)
12 hours after quitting: The carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal.(U.S. Surgeon General’s Report, 1988, p. 202)
2 weeks to 3 months after quitting: Your circulation improves and your lung function increases.(U.S. Surgeon General’s Report, 1990, pp. 193, 194, 196, 285, 323)
1 to 9 months after quitting: Coughing and shortness of breath decrease; cilia (tiny hair-like structures that move mucus out of the lungs) regain normal function in the lungs, increasing the ability to handle mucus, clean the lungs, and reduce the risk of infection.(U.S. Surgeon General’s Report, 1990, pp. 285-287, 304)
1 year after quitting: The excess risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker’s.(U.S. Surgeon General’s Report, 1990, p. vi)
5 years after quitting: Your stroke risk is reduced to that of a non-smoker 5 to 15 years after quitting.(U.S. Surgeon General’s Report, 1990, p. vi)
10 years after quitting: The lung cancer death rate is about half that of a person who continues smoking. The risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, cervix, and pancreas decrease, too.(U.S. Surgeon General’s Report, 1990, pp. vi, 131, 148, 152, 155, 164, 166)
15 years after quitting: The risk of coronary heart disease is the same as a non-smoker’s.(U.S. Surgeon General’s Report, 1990, p. vi)

Immediate rewards of quitting

Kicking the tobacco habit offers some benefits that you’ll notice right away and some that will develop over time. These rewards can improve your day-to-day life a great deal:
your breath smells better
stained teeth get whiter
bad smelling clothes and hair go away
your yellow fingers and fingernails disappear
food tastes better
your sense of smell returns to normal
everyday activities no longer leave you out of breath (such as climbing stairs or light housework)

This excerpt was taken from an article provided by American Cancer Society, you may read the full article following this link Guide to Quitting Smoking

Benefits of Quitting

2011-10-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

So my little sister sent me this link from Stumbleupon (awesome service by the way).It explains what happens to your body right away when you quit smoking. I found a few things about this interesting. First of all, I'm curious about his sources. This guy does not site a single thing. Not one! Come on, you could at least say, "I heard this from a buddy of mine at the bar. He was 12 drinks into the night and nearing comatose." At least then I'd have some kind of gauge as to it's accuracy. Ok, moving on. Let's pick this list apart.

* In 20 minutes your blood pressure will drop back down to normal.

As you might expect, I really don't have any way to verify this as I don't regularly check my blood pressure. However, I did notice while working out yesterday that my heart rate was noticeably lower than it had been in the preceding few months. That is definitely encouraging. This also brings up a rather interesting point about the state of your body while you are still smoking. Most people I know go at least 20 minutes between cigarettes while they are smoking, at least during weekdays anyways. Smokers are a little bit more likely to be chain smokers on the weekend but for most working people there are 2 hours between smoke breaks during the day. That means that if this point is true, a smoker’s blood pressure is on a roller coaster ride all day long. That can't be good for your heart (not like smoking was particularly nice for it in the first place.)

* In 48 hours your chance of having a heart attack will have decreased. All nicotine will have left your body. Your sense of taste and smell will return to a normal level.

I thought this was an interesting claim. 48 hours seems like a very short amount of time to be able to determine if a risk of heart attack has decreased. How in the world could anybody possibly study that. You would have to have an insanely large study group, filled with smokers, non smokers, and people who had just quit that day. Of course after that it's easy. Just monitor them all for 2 days and count how many of them have heart attacks. Say what?! Come on. No way. As far as nicotine leaving your body; I'm very curious to know what the actual facts behind that are. I've heard claims about that anywhere from a day and a half to a month after you quit. It seems like that could be dependent on how much you smoke. If anyone has any verified facts on that one, I would be very interested in seeing them. The taste thing is really hard to gauge as well. The night I quit I ate KFC, not exactly a flavor explosion, and the night after I made spicy Indian curry. I can definitely say that I tasted more of the curry than I did the KFC. That's probably not a very good comparison though...

* In 72 hours your bronchial tubes will relax, and your energy levels will increase.

I'm going to disagree with this one as well. My energy levels have already increased. Granted, I am now at the 72 hour mark but, I was feeling more energetic before now. I suppose that could have been in my head but does it really matter? If I feel like I have more energy, it amounts to the same thing as having more energy so who cares? I'm not entirely certain what is entailed by "your bronchial tubes will relax" but my throat is, again, feeling better this morning. I've also been coughing a lot of garbage out of my lungs. That's not really a new thing but it's nice to know that I'm no longer filling them up and once it all gets expelled they're going to STAY clean.

* In 2 weeks your circulation will increase, and it will continue to improve for the next 10 weeks.

I don't really have anything clever on this one. I wouldn't mind finding out about that one. Is there a way I can monitor my circulation?

* In three to nine months coughs, wheezing and breathing problems will dissipate as your lung capacity improves by 10%.

Well, the wheezing is gone already. The wheeze was only an occasional thing for me though; usually right after a cigarette or maybe the day after a particularly heavy night of smoking. In terms of coughing and other breathing problems I think that this is also a fairly conservative estimate. It may take that long if you've been a chain smoker for several years but I think most people in my situation who have been at a pack a day for maybe only a few years, you'll start to see these changes a lot sooner.

The remainder of these I'm not even going to touch. The ten years for normal cancer odds thing I've heard before. That's one of the really common ones that they tend to throw at smokers to scare them into quitting. My nit-picking aside, I think this is a really encouraging little list. A lot of these numbers may be based off of something closer to a "worst case scenario" and for most people they are going to be a pretty generous estimate. That's kind of a cool thought though. Take a look at the list, "Hey, this is as long as it's going to take for me to notice this benefit." I think it's pretty cool. And you have it from an ex-smoker that while the numbers may not be 100% accurate, you WILL notice these benefits and more.

24 Hours

2011-10-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

In an effort to keep me pumped about this whole not smoking thing, I'm going to post about my progress. Once again, this is really more for me but if anyone else may benefit from reading it, awesome.
In a mere 24 hours I am once again amazed at how quickly things are changing for me. Each time I have attempted to quit I have been astounded at how quickly my body can bounce back from the punishment I've been forcing on it. I woke up this morning feeling incredible. Sure, I was tired but it wasn't the usual pathetic, groggy, hour long waking process that I've become accustomed to. I woke up quickly and easily and soon was going about my day. The feeling was incredible. Also, a huge plus, my throat didn't hurt. That's the first time in several months that has happened. I didn't wake up immediately needing something to drink to soothe my burnt, scared, broken throat. THAT is a wonderful feeling. I can't wait for things to continue to improve as my body works out all the poisons I have put in to it.

Freeeedom!!

2011-10-24T06:39:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, April marked a great success in my life; I quit smoking. I chose to use Allen Carr’s EASYWAY method and my success was incredible. The feeling of courage and power over my life was unmatched. I was healthier, happier and far better equipped to deal with everyday stress in my life. Unfortunately and to my own shame, over the last few months I have once again been struggling with the nicotine trap. Many of you knew this, many more did not, and I’m certain that many of you knew but, with the best intentions, kindly kept your mouth shut. Worst of all I worked very hard to keep the truth of my shortcomings from many of the people who mean the most to me. It seems strange to me now and through the entire time I had fallen back into the subtle trap of the cigarette how, after several months of pure elation at being an ex-smoker, I was able to fall so easily back into my old destructive habits. I would like to stress that it was not the fault of the method. Reading “The Easy Way to Quit Smoking” is easily one of the best decisions I have made in my life. Reading it a second time as I once again struggled with cigarettes was again a great choice and my best shot at overcoming this particular demon. The downfall of my attempt in April was my blatant disregard for some of the instructions of the method. I made the mistake of loaning the book to somebody who also needed the instruction it contains. This meant that when I needed it most, I did not have it available to turn to as a reference and a reminder of the filth I had left behind. The second instruction I failed to follow is that I kept cigarettes in my house. I tricked myself into thinking that this would not be a problem as I knew that I had escaped the trap and I would not need another cigarette. On the evening I smoked my last cigarette, I decided that I would seal the pack, mark it with the date of my last filthy cigarette, and keep it as a reminder of what I had overcome. Unfortunately, what I truly had done was ensure that in my weakest moment, I had cigarettes available to make my failure easily accessible.

I have moved past these mistakes and others that lead me back down the path of nicotine addiction. Having gone for months at a time as a non-smoker, nobody is more aware than myself of the incredible benefits of not smoking and the hideous drawbacks of the filth. I have re-read the book and am once again committed to a successful escape from the nicotine trap. This morning, I proudly smoked and extinguished my last cigarette. It has been less than an hour since that moment and I am beyond excited to already feel the filth of smoking leaving my body. In a few short weeks I will be completely recovered from my recent struggles and ready to move on with the remainder of my long, healthy, non-smoking life. I am beyond excited to be free of the control of nicotine. Each day as more and more of the drug leaves my body I will battle each craving with the glorious realization that I no longer need to poison myself.

Please do not mistake this post as a cry for attention. It is more for my benefit then that of anyone else. I am posting this so that I have a record of my thoughts and feelings somewhere easily accessible to me. I am not looking for attention, pity, or congratulations from anyone. If you choose to comment on this post, please make it positive. Do not belittle me for my mistakes. They are mine and no one could possibly realize fully the negative impact they have had on my life. I realize that no one is as sarcastic as I am and many of my good friends share a love of teasing each other. I beg you to not take that attitude now. I do not need negative reinforcement. In the coming weeks and months, please feel free to ask me about my success. I will be excited to tell you how wonderful it feels to again escape slavery from cigarettes and how elated I am to know that I have quit for the last time. To my smoking friends, if you are interested in quitting. I would highly recommend the EASYWAY method. As I mentioned before, my struggle of again falling into the nicotine trap was not any fault of the method. The fault is my own. If you are interested in reading it, I would strongly encourage you to do so. Although I feel it would be dangerous for me to once again loan my copy of the book out, I will gladly buy a copy for you.

Thank you to everyone for your support through my struggles and my shortcomings in this effort. Please realize with me that every failure is one step closer to success. I am excited to be tackling this beast with every expectation to defeat it; this time for the last time.

Blog Change

2011-10-23T06:41:00.000-07:00

So this is pretty cool that you can back date blogs.....
Anywho.... I'm moving. Any of you who may have read my short lived blog on Tumblr know that my posts are pretty few and far between but, I'm hoping to blog a little bit more and I thought that moving somewhere that I can integrate with my Google+ profile might make it a little easier. So, as of this week, my blog is now here. :)