Recently in Body and Health Category

Back when I was about 20 a bunch of my co-workers and myself decided that we wanted to go to Lake Lanier for an afternoon of hanging out on the lake. No problem right? We rented one of those big old pontoon boats and got out on the lake. We drank and swam and drank and drove the boat around.

Late in the afternoon we decided to head on back. We had all been drinking, some of us a bit more heavy than others and the driver was going a bit too fast. As I understand it you can't go too terribly fast on a pontoon boat and you have to be real careful about hitting wake and stuff. Apparently we WERE going too fast and hit a wave from where a previous boat had been going across our path. The boat went almost vertical and we were all thrown to the end, some of us in the water. A couple of folks had minor injuries but that was about it.

Of course the boat wouldn't run after that and we ended up getting a tow back to the marina. We were extremely lucky that nobody was hurt worse or even killed. I didn't think about it at the time but operating under the influence is a much bigger deal than you would think.

There are boating safety courses that you can take and a ton of Boating Education information is online as well. Take a look at some of the resources about Boating Operating Under the Influence if you have a couple of minutes.

Unless something comes up over at CNN that I want to post about I am getting ready to hit the sack. I just realized however that I had not taken the time to post about getting my blood drawn this morning.

Having my blood drawn seems to have turned into a full-blown goatfuck ordeal over the last few years.

The last few times I have gone they have had to stick me several times and after four or five times digging around in my arm with a needle they take it out of my hand. Shit, they can stick one right in a vein and no blood comes out.

Guess I am actually dead and just don't know it...

Anyway, I made sure to drink a big glass of water prior to going to bed last night and then drank two or three more when I got up this morning so that I wouldn't be dehydrated when they went to poke me.

Fuck all, it still took three times. Here's this woman digging around my fucking arm with a big old needle saying "tell me if it hurts". Shit, unless you rip something loose I'm not saying a damn thing, just get the blood.

She finally stuck one in the top of my hand and it came right out.

Either I need to go in and just slash away with my pocket knife to help them out or start drinking water like a week before hand. My arm is still sore where she jammed the gottdamned needle into my arm.

All to get my cholesterol checked so my Doc can renew my prescription next month. What a damned dog and pony show.

....

So I am still fighting the smoking. I cut down to almost nothing and finally quit for a couple of weeks and then started having one or two here and there. I have had a pretty hard month at work. Not an excuse but I guess working 17 days straight kicked my ass because I have purchased cigarettes twice.

Haven't had one in two days now and it sucks quitting again because I am going through the same damned withdrawals I went through last month. Doh!

I am starting to seriously consider getting hypnotized but I am afraid that I will come out of there barking like a chicken or whatnot...

Oh by the way...since Eric's out of town I stole the keys to his site and managed to cross-post this over there as well...

For some reason it has felt like Saturday since I got up this morning. I think that's due to the fact that the girls are on Spring Break. Since they've been out of town all week I haven't gotten used to them being here and now that they are it feels like a weekend.

I managed to sleep late for the first time this week. I don't think I have gotten to sleep in on my day off in quite some time. Crawled out of bed around nine and just bummed around the house for a while, which was nice. Pete made muffins for breakfast. Even though she forgot to grease the muffin cups I managed to get most of them out without mishap. It's been pretty quiet here today, much more quiet than usual when the girls are home, that's for sure.

I did get to work out this morning, spending quite a bit more time there than I have. I worked out on all the weight machines, then spent 35 minutes on the elliptical. Talk about sweating your ass off, but that's what it's designed for. All in all I spent a couple of hours at the gym today and once I got home the wife went to do the same thing. I believe she's out grocery shopping right now so once I get a couple of posts up I think I may just have to take a nap. Nap-time is a good thing :)

You know what I've noticed about not smoking. Today is day number six oh by the way. That's not what I've noticed though. My house smells like shit!

I don't know if it's eight years of smoking in it or if my dog is just making it smell but damn! I'm starting to smell all kinds of stuff that I couldn't a week ago and you know what? I may just have to get some nose plugs because most of what I have smelled so far sucks. It's enough to make me want to smoke again, although right now ANYTHING is enough to make me want to smoke.

Know what else? I'm blogging nekked right now. Probably more than you needed to know but that's why you really come here anyway, I know it is. You guys are just waiting for a webcam shot of my ballsack hanging over my computer chair while I merrily type away. I can do that. The wife and girls are in Hilton Head right now. Actually they are in Bluffton but unless you are from the lowlands or visit there often most people don't have a fucking clue as to where Bluffton is, which is due west of Hilton Head Island, on the mainland. The only thing separating the two towns now is the water. If they could build shopping centers on the bridge you'd never notice the difference anymore except that Bluffton doesn't restrict builders quite as much in what they are tearing down. I don't know when they are coming home but since my paycheck won't be in the bank until Friday morning it's a pretty safe bet they will be there until at least Friday.

Hey! Only $1054 left to pay on my Disney trip. I'm taking care of that on Friday and there went a quick five big ones. That pays for just about everything though, except for my gas to get down there. Six nights and seven days. Sweet. I'm looking forward to the trip and judging from the way things have been at work lately I'll damn sure need the vacation. I have two of my managers going on back-to-back vacations in three week, which pretty much means me working 20 days straight. I may manage to get a day off during that time, it just depends on if I am staffed.

So the manager called me this afternoon from the store I was at the last two days. Apparently the waitress I sent home yesterday was upset and the manager wanted an explanation. I told her that when her employees call me five minutes after they should have already been there to tell me they are going to be late, chances are I will send them the fuck home if I can get it covered before they get there. If I can't get it covered, then they get to work. Kind of like the lottery for stupid fucking people that are consistently late.

I went and worked out this afternoon. I ended up skipping yesterday. I got out of work two hours later than I had planned, so I came home and wrote for awhile, planning on going back after I did shift change last night. I got to the gym and there were three or four buff dudes and their girlfriends there all working out and showing off. I didn't even get out of the fucking car. Fat old man syndrome kicked in and I beat a hasty retreat home. I like going early in the day when all of the old fat people are there. Makes me feel much better about myself :) I am much less self-conscious when nobody else is around, so when I can manage to shoot out of work by 2:15 that's the best time, although on my days off last week I went in the morning. That was cool because it's just the owner or his father-in-law working and all the milfs coming in to use the tanning beds. Speaking of tanning, I did that as well today. I sort of varied it though. I worked out on the weights, tanned and then used the elliptical for half an hour. I have been using it for shorter periods of time the couple of occasions that I have tried it and it hasn't really been a big deal but damn I got a workout on it today. I was sweating my ass off. That's a good thing because I need to burn this tire off the middle. I was fine until it told me to go backwards. Backwards? I can barely get on the fucking thing and move in a semi-forward direction and you want me to move backwards? Damn.

So here I sit. Nekked. Munching on microwave Burritos. Can it get any better than this? I suppose if I moved my chair to the front porch that would be better, but most likely short lived.

Getting ready to hit the sack but I wanted to make sure and post before I go to bed. Nothing particularly exciting happened today and I am in a foul mood which is one of the reasons I haven't posted since this morning.

Fortunately the audits came out OK at the one store I mentioned might have some issues today. That's a freaking miracle considering that the waitresses ran the store for 24 hours. Not that I think they are dishonest but too many hands in the pie tend to skew things.

I still haven't smoked and I want one more today than I have all week. I'm just ready to beat someone's ass. I didn't stop and buy a pack although I damn sure wanted to today. When the heck does it start getting easier. 100 hours now. Just over four days since my last cigarette. It's probably a good thing the girls are in another state right now. That worked out pretty well (for them anyway) since I don't have anyone here to pick a fight with.

I'll tell you one thing though, quitting smoking gives you some serious gas. Of course since I severely curtailed the smoking starting about eight weeks ago I have noticed it before but since Friday it's been getting worse. It's fucking rancid too. Smells like something crawled up my ass and died there. Even the dog is staying away from me. I have to keep moving at work so as to not be noticed. That's fine as long as it's silent but once you start getting those noisy walking farts there's just no hiding.

I skipped the gym yesterday so made sure that I went back today. I tried to take it a bit easy on myself today and worked out for a little over half an hour. I am increasing the weights I am lifting with my legs and thighs but haven't been able to do a lot with my upper body yet. It pisses me off because I used to have a lot of upper body strength. Guess that's what I get for 41 sedentary years. I may start doing pushups in the morning as well to help get a bit of strength back in my shoulders and arms.

Did the tanning bed thing again today too. I've only noticed a tiny difference thus far, maybe I need to get them to keep it on longer.

There are some nice benefits to going to the gym. There are quite a few hotties that go as well. Something to look at while I exercise. Just have to make sure to wear the pants with the tent attachment I guess :) Most of them are too damn young but they are nice to look at.

I don't have anything more to bitch about tonight. Now that I napped for two hours this afternoon I'm going to try and get a bit of shut-eye if I can.

So the girls are leaving in the morning for Hilton Head. Kind of sucks that I won't get to go because it means that I will never get to see our friends again as they are moving overseas. Some days my job sucks.

I've been pretty busy this weekend as my store in Temple has been hosting the local police department. They are raising money for Special Olympics (in case some of my employees need a second career as a retard) and they sit on the roof until tomorrow night or until they raise $5,000. It's a pretty cool thing to do and they all seem to be having a good time, at least when it's not raining.

I don't know how much fun I am having though. Two of my three stores have gotten a bit out of hand with some of their costs and employees just flat out stealing and in the case of the one in Bremen, the manager just doesn't seem to care less, at least not enough to change anything and fix the problem so I, along with one of the other district managers, have to go in for every single shift change now. That means being out of the house until 10pm every night but still getting back up by 5am, AND I have to work three doubles over the next seven days. I am not all that excited about it, as a matter of fact, combined with the fact that I'm not smoking I have pretty much been a bastard to several people that work for me and unless they fix the shit I don't plan on changing that anytime soon.

Speaking of the smoking it's been 48 hours since my last one. Actually it's more like 53 now. 3,180 minutes. 190,800 seconds. I started writing this post prior to going in for drawer change earlier this evening but I didn't get it finished in time. Even if I had, we had no Internet until a short while ago. Anytime it thunders within 150 miles Charter High Speed goes down and tonight was no exception.

I haven't slept since Wednesday night, even tried to nap today and was unsuccessful until about 15 minutes before the wife came in to wake me up. I guess it's because of the lack of nicotine. This sucks and I really want a smoke, even with the Chantix. It would be much worse without it though. The next few days are going to be the toughest though. With the wife and kids not being at home I won't have any reason to feel guilty if I smoke. Now that I've managed to go two days though I really don't want to screw that up.

I've been trying to keep busy so that I don't think about it but that only works for so long. The working out is part of that. I did make myself go to the gym this afternoon after I went ans spent a hundred bucks on a freaking new tire. I had apparently gotten a nail in it but it was so close to the inside edge that they wouldn't plug it. I made sure that they showed it to me first. The Wal-Mart folks are usually pretty cool about it anyway. They are more than happy to patch or plug a tire if that's all it needs.

I suppose that's about it for today. I am rambling, even more than normal and I thing maybe a hit of nyquil might just do the trick and let me sleep for a while. I have even been dreaming about smoking when I do manage to catch some sleep and I would like to avoid those if at all possible. Anyone have a couple of ludes available? That might just do the trick :) Maybe I just need a new hobby to take my mind off of it. Working out at the gym is only good for an hour a day or so. Perhaps I can take a couple of hours and go down to Fulton Industrial and sodomize winos or something. Any takers?

I worked out again for the fifth day in a row. Although it burned a bit I am starting to have a much easier time of it than I was the first day or two. In a few more days I am going to add the elliptical or treadmill to it as well, at least for 20 minutes or so.

I also checked out the tanning bed as well. That was just weird. I've never used a tanning bed and for the most part have considered it pretty stupid. If you want a tan go hang in the sun. I tan very easily but the problem is that I get the one-armed tan from driving so much, or the farmer's tan when I am working in the yard. It's not as if I am going to cut the yard in my speedos, although I wouldn't mind checking out some of my neighbors cutting grass in their lingerie. SOME of them, mind you. The others just need to keep their pants on. Anyhow, I lay in the tanning bed for seven minutes. The dude didn't want me to stay in any longer since I had never used one. I felt like I was getting in an oven and except for the loud buzzing I probably could have taken a nap. I guess you get used to the sound because at least once or twice a year one of my waitresses comes in burned to a crisp because they fell asleep. The ones at the gym I go to are on a timer, I guess that maybe all of them aren't or something.

Anyhow, a couple of the guys up there use the tanning bed after they work out, so I didn't feel so self-conscious about it anymore. Besides, with quitting smoking and working out I have to have something to kill me. Skin cancer is as good as anything :)

Speaking of smoking, I've now gone about 26 hours without one. I know I have been working on it for a couple of months now, but this is the first time I have gone over an entire day without a cigarette. Darn hard too. I an a bit snappy tonight, so am just keeping to myself. I have a bunch of stuff to write about anyway and if I finish that I need to work on taxes.

I am not looking forward to filing this year. I don't know how much but I will end up owing probably several thousand. I though about filing an extension, but the only people that are going to be receiving the rebates are the ones that file. If anything I can file and then work out a payment plan with the IRS. I took about a $20k increase in pay myself this year, not counting the $10k I made online, and none of it taxed. Hopefully with working out of the house more some of my office expenses will cover a bit of it. I think maybe I should move my office back down into the basement. The back room is a MUCH larger area than I have set up right now, and thus the percentage that I can claim of the utilities and mortgage is more. I hate taxes. The IRS is going to own my last month's pay for this year on top of what they already keep. I wish that our politicians would take things seriously and fix the darned tax system.

I feel as if someone beat me all over with a padded stick. No bruises or anything, just a dull ache.

I was already sore before I ever made it to the gym this afternoon, but I did go for my second trip there. I used several of the weight machines and ended up on the elliptical for awhile to stretch out the leg muscles a bit. I managed to get there at 2:30 today and it was much less crowded than yesterday evening, so that was nice. I am going to try and start going daily, at least three or four times a week. It really just depends on what is going on.

Yesterday I felt like I was going to blow chunks when I got finished. I guess there is all sorts of nasty crap stored up in my fat and muscles that doesn't belong there that's moving around now. Next thing you know I'm going to have to start eating healthy. Fuck that. Maybe later.

Of course as soon as I drove out of the parking lot of the gym I lit up. Last smoke. I had a couple in my car from the other day and what the hell do you need more after a good workout than a hot cup of coffee and a Winston? I've been home for a while now and don't have the slightest urge to go smoke though. That last one as I was driving home wasn't too good. Tasted like dogshit actually.

I have a bit of web surfing to do and then I have to go pick the girls up. I would have gotten them on the way home but today is chorus and I don't think it finishes until 4:30 anyway. Besides, Pete and RePete get angry when I pick them up too early from late stay. The really enjoy hanging out there with their friends.

So I went to the gym finally. Spent about an hour yesterday evening, maybe forty minutes. I'm only slightly sore and I didn't even feel it until I started typing. It was not very crowded which is a good thing. I spoke with the owner for a few minutes and he took me through a walk-through of the place and started me on a regimen of about 10 machines I need to use daily. Fuck.

It's not that I am just lazy, I am the epitome of sloth. Up until this last decade or so I have never been in bad shape. Other than running from police and other sundry authority figures I have never worried about exercise. I've even had people ask if I work out. I was insanely blessed with a fine metabolism and my upper body strength was just fine. Except that now my weight has migrated and now that I am 41 my shoulders are hanging out about my waist. It's hard to diddle myself when I have to reach around my gut...

Anyhow, I enjoyed my workout and plan to go back today just as long as I can get out of work at a decent time. It should be less crowded at 2 p.m. as well. I don't particularly want the fucking audience, although that's just me being self-conscious. Everyone else is there for the same thing too aren't they? You know, to look at the hotties. Anyway, it's time to head off to work.

...smoking that is.

This is really a no-brainer but the article entitled "Smokers encouraged to give up for financial health" really struck a chord with me. It's all about how much money you can save by quitting smoking. It shows how much money you save if you smoke twenty cigarettes a day and quit smoking. Well, I smoke two (or did) two to three packs a day minimum. If you figure it that way, based on forty cigarettes a day at $3.50 a pack that's seven dollars a day, $49 a week, or $2,548 a year. That's a chunk of change. If I were to turn around and put that into, say my mortgage that's like making two extra house payments a year.

I did some reading a few years ago on paying off mortgages early. The example given was to pay half your mortgage every two weeks and by doing so you would end up making ONE extra payment a year and pay it off seven years early. How much earlier would I pay it off by making TWO extra payments a year. Not a bad deal at all, particularly considering that the cost of smokes is just going to keep going up and up until they are taxed out of existence by the Federal government.

I hate it when there is something I want to post about but it takes me a few minutes to finish what I am currently working on and by then I forget what little tidbit of information I want to share.

fuck.

Ah, yes. Finally it comes to me.

I went to the gym today.

For those of you not in the know, I am the king of sloth. I am lucky in that I have an extremely fast metabolism and until my mid-thirties (and a desk job) I stayed at an average weight of 140 pounds. Hell, when the wife and I met I weight 128 and wore a size 28. I couldn't get a 28 past my fucking knees now. For 28 years I've smoked two to three packs a day and until i married I survived off of Dr Pepper and Ding Dongs. I'm still pretty partial to Dr Pepper. I eat all kinds of nasty bad for you crap that is oh so good, one of the reasons I have to take Vytorin for my cholesterol now. I can sit and work on my computer for 20 hours straight.

So I am trying to quit smoking. I am down to anywhere from 1 to 15 smokes a day. Some days are better than others. I do want to quit but I can't seem to get over the hump where I can just say 'goddammit I am a non-smoker' and just not pick one up. As alcoholics will tell you, one is too many and a thousand never enough. How fucking true.

The problem with quitting smoking is that I am currently 175 pounds and I am going to look like the fucking Goodyear blimp and I am already out of shape enough to where my fat little self has to wobble around the fucking restaurant. Nobody likes to have a fat guy cooking for them, all sweating bullets into their food. yum. How appetizing.

So I'm going to try working out at the gym.

The wife's been doing it quite successfully, but she's much more hard-headed than i am and once she's decided on something not a fucking thing in the world is going to stop it from happening, right or wrong. I am much less decisive about stuff.

There's a gym right behind one of my stores that's open 24/7 and is only $30 a month. Not too bad. I would check out the one the wife uses, as it would be cheaper to do the family deal, but I am only in that area once or twice a week and it's not terribly convenient for me. The plain old facts are that if it's too fucking hard I'm not going to do it. The one behind my store (100 yards away) is also in the town we live in and one the way home from ALL of my stores. I stand a much better chance of actually stopping there. Not to mention the chick with the really nice ass that walked in right before I did...

Normally I'm the only one up on a Saturday morning this early. I have to start getting ready for work shortly myself, but the wife and girls are driving back to Hilton Head for the weekend to see our friend Niqui. This may be the last chance they have to go visit before she moves. Of course if there is time at the end of the school year I'm sure they will go visit then but I think she plans on moving as soon as the year is up.

It's some pretty cruddy weather out to drive in, that's for sure. I grilled out last night and it was in the mid to high sixties. Now it's raining and in the mid thirties. I love the spring time but the part I don't like is when you are still at that stage where it's too cold out in the morning. I still haven't put my plants outside. I pulled them out of the basement too early last year and almost killed several of them due to a late freeze and I don't want that to happen this year.

Speaking of grilling out, we had a couple of dinner guests last night. Supergurl stopped in on her way to Atlanta and a friend of the wife's from work came over. I managed to get out of working last night when my boss and all of the other district managers were working 5-9p. Unfortunately I will have to make up the time and work this evening.

I am still having a hard time not smoking. I'm down to anywhere from one to five cigarettes a day and just cannot seem to get over that hump. I need to call our friend Michelle up. She was taking Chantix and didn't like it, so I need to buy hers. I only have five days left. Man, time flies when you're having fun. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this has got to be the hardest thing I have ever done. If I could only go through addiction treatment for it or something and get the initial few weeks over with without being exposed I am sure I could get past it. Unfortunately although my health insurance company frowns upon my smoking and jacks up my rates because of it, they wouldn't dream of actually paying for any type of smoking cessation program even if it would save them millions of dollars a year. They aren't in the market to save money, they are in the market to charge exorbitant rates to unhealthy people.

That's about it for this morning. I'm just sitting here sipping my morning cup of coffee and balancing the checkbook before I go to work. That's something that seems to have lessened as well. I don't seem to be drinking quite as much coffee since I have cut my nicotine intake either.

The wife was telling me a story last night before I went back to work about one of the guys at the gym where she's been working out. Yep, that's right. She's been working out. I think she's gotten tired of my mouth and wants to be able to really kick my tail if she needs to...

Anyway, apparently one of the guys that works there, or maybe he just works out there, likes energy drinks. The one that he prefers is packed full of sugar and doesn't have a lot of the things that make good energy drinks good. I can't mention the name, but it's NOT the one I linked to. So she told him, 'hey, that stuff isn't good for you, you shouldn't be drinking it'.

So she goes back in the next day and apparently he is trying to quit drinking that particular brand now. She apologized to him and told him it was none of her business but he said 'no, I needed to hear it'. The guys has one kidney and has had a heart attack or two, which is one of the reasons he's trying to stay healthy by working out.

I don't know about all of that working out stuff yet. I am still struggling with trying to quit smoking. Yesterday was not a particularly good day. Early on it went OK. I bummed a smoke from one of my employees around 11am and that was it until I finished the day. Around three I had to drive to another town and open a safe for one of the district managers. For some reason I was stressed out and angry the entire drive there. I bummed another smoke from one of her waitresses. That makes two for the day, which is what I have been smoking for the last three or four days. While not QUIT completely, two cigarettes is a grand improvement for me.

Anyhow, I had to go back to work last night and do shift change as well as some paperwork. I stopped and bought a pack of smokes. I don't even have an explanation for it, I just did. I smoked two on the way to work, two after I left at eleven last night, and then I tucked one lone cigarette away in my dashboard 'just in case'. I threw the pack of smokes in the dumpster though (at work) knowing I had screwed up.

It's like that old saying about alcoholics. One drink is too many and a thousand never enough. Too true.

I smoked that lone 'just in case' cigarette right after I woke up about two and a half hours ago. I am a bit uncomfortable right now but I am not going to go buy any more. I want to be a non-smoker, if only so that I can be a jerk and give smokers a hard time. You know, throw them out of my car and stuff, preferably while moving :)

Anyway, I do want to quit and maybe start being healthy. I am starting to think about retirement now as I am closer to it than the other end and there are so many different things I want to do, I would like to be able to enjoy them.

I don't know how the heck I got from energy drinks and gyms to smoking but it all sort of goes together I suppose.

I have been doing pretty well with the smoking this week. I've gone from two to three packs a day down to a pack every three days. I am going to try and quit again come Tuesday. That's when I start the new week of Chantix, which is why I picked Tuesday. I am actually starting to feel a bit better, but I seem to be sleeping a lot.

The wife quit smoking a couple of years ago and she's done great. She also walks a lot. Two to four miles a day. Man. That's a bunch. I don't particularly think I would mind the exercise part but I walk from six a.m. until well after lunch at work every day. I think I need to get some exercise equipment, ellipticals or something. There are a couple of local gyms I am thinking about using as well. The hard part is actually getting motivated and using them.

I woke up this morning seriously hurting. At the time I wasn't sure if it was my chest or if I had pulled something. It was actually closer to my back but every time I coughed (or moved for that matter) I had a seriously sharp pain. Ends up I have pulled a muscle or something. I don't know if it's something I did at work or if I just slept wrong but it's been a pretty rough day at work. I picked up some Alieve, which helped to dull the pain somewhat, but it's still pretty sore.

This has just been one of those months I suppose. I was somewhat sick a couple of weeks ago, the wife had a cold for a while, both girls have had the flu and Pete's turned into pneumonia, and even the Marine had a cold or the flu his first week at Twentynine Palms. Good thing we have insurance. A couple of folks I work with have individual health insurance but it looks to be as expensive as the group health policy we are covered under through the state (the wife is a teacher).

I have about five more days of work until my vacation. It would be six but I'm taking Monday off if I can get away with it. I will have worked six days and I'm only taking three or four days off in the month of February not including my vacation so hopefully nobody will mess with me for being off. Starting to count the days until I fly to Nassau.

Wouldn't you know it? One day off and all kinds of stuff to do when all I really want to do is lie around on the couch eating bon bons. Fucking real life.

I have to drive to Carrollton today and pick up tags for the new cars. I'll just transfer the old tag from the Oldsmobile. The guy I am selling it too has paid most of it off so I went ahead and dropped it at his house yesterday along with the keys and title. No big deal. He needs to get brakes and then can finish paying me. Since I get his paycheck first I'm not particularly worried about not getting paid. We are keeping the other one. Although the Plymouth has 200k+ miles on it it is still in great shape so we will garage it and keep it here so that the Marine has something to drive when he's at home. Besides, it's a good idea to keep an extra just in case.

RePete has finally returned to school today but Pete has a dentist's appointment at 11 a.m. and I have a doctor's appointment at 2:30. It's pretty much pointless to take her to school today since she has a mid-day visit with the doctor. She's still got a lot of that crap from the Pneumonia in her lungs anyway. One more day won't kill her although I'm sure the school will think so. What the fuck do they know anyway? Not a damned thing about proper parenting, that's for sure.

I haven't been doing as well with the non-smoking the last couple of days, although I am still smoking way less than I was. I am working on that today. Even with the Chantix this has been pretty darned hard. One day I want to quit and the next I don't.

Once I get home this afternoon and get some bills taken care of there is quite a bit of writing I intend to do. We'll see if I get it accomplished or not...

I ended up having to go in to work this morning for a few hours to make sure that everyone was staffed. I managed to get out of there shortly before 9 and stopped to shoot a few pictures prior to going to the doctor for a flu shot. I know it's late in the season for it but better late than never.

After the flu shot I had to go get chest X-Rays. I am on my fourth day of the Chantix and the urge to smoke seems as if it's lessening. I have smoked for 28 years now, most of it around three packs a day and my doctor wanted to see what my chest looked like I guess. Four more days and then I quit.

 

           

Usually if I am going to do something stupid or clumsy to hurt myself it will happen within that first twenty or thirty minute period after I wake up.

Not that I am limited to doing clumsy stupid things to the first part of the day or anything. I've been seen in the emergency room countless times to get sheet metal pulled out of my eye, get my forehead seen up where I cut it open on my car door (no, really), jammed spikey things through the bottom of my shoe into my foot, jammed spikey things into the palm of my hand etc...The list goes on.

This morning  I woke up as usual and stumbled into the kitchen to make coffee and greet the day, fixed a cup and went to have a seat at my desk and try to think up something wonderful to write before I went to work. My hand must have been pretty close to my desk as I sat down because I ended up with a 1/4 inch long splinter in my finger, right at the edge of my nail. Of course their was much gnashing of teeth but since everyone was still asleep we skipped the wailing and cursing.

Once I located the tweezers (woke the wife up and asked her where the hell they were) I managed to dig them up under the nail and pulled the damned thing out.

Damn, that was more fun than a barrel full of monkeys...

Time to go to work

Like anything else having to do with health care providers have really made the leap into the information age over the last decade and now software is one of the biggest growing areas in the health care market. Assisted living software is no different, offering packages that make documentation and assessments as well as billing much easier than it used to be.

With a large portion of our country aging quickly I don't think that the growth in assisted living providers is going to slow down any time soon.

I mentioned however briefly last night something about fitness equipment. One of the cool things that a company I write occasionally for did recently was to give away three elliptical bikes for a review. I am not one of the folks that got that one but I just though it was the coolest thing.

Those things aren't cheap in the least and it's awful hard to write a review on something that you haven't tried or at least seen. It's one thing to write one on a web site or piece of software that you can download but it's quite another altogether to do it for something like that.