News, news, news, and more news....

First off, some pics from the Dirty Martini's Pub Crawl back in January...

Lu Being Silly













Me and my girl!













Nan and the DM's. This is serious business, right Nan?













SO, it looks like I haven't written in a few weeks. A LOT has happened!

I started an interview process with a company in Philadelphia in early April. I went through two phone screenings and flew in for an interview on April 11. On April 13 I was offered a job! Hoorray! I am moving back to Philly.

These last few weeks have been a whirlwind. I gave my two weeks notice on Monday the 17th and have been busy wrapping things up here at work and cleaning up the house to get it ready to sell. Cleaned up and ready to sell translates to - laying 5,000 square feet of sod to fix an area that got torn up while the builder was putting in a french drain AND adding sod to the back of the property to keep it from washing away, pressure washing the front siding, windows, and deck, putting a new coat of white paint on the railings, and just generally finding homes for the random stuff that tends to collect places like on the countertops. It's a brand new house, yeah, but I feel like putting out a few hours work and a few hundred will help keep my sale price close to asking. That would be great.

Things I will miss about the south - ok, I admit it, I like the weather. I don't like being cold and have started getting used to 80 and 90 degree days in April. It feels like summer. I guess by mid-August I would be praying for the heat to break, but right now it's nice. I'll also miss the boiled peanuts. You'd never find them up north and they do take some getting used to, but I like them. Pretty tasty!

Things I could do without - contractors and laborers. It typically takes several phone calls to get someone to come out. And if the job isn't done or there is something that needs to be fixed it takes double the amount of calls to get them to come back! Egads!

Interesting things... The animals are cool. I have seen little green lizards hanging out on my porch and some more colorful lizards - blues and browns and greens - when hiking in the parks here.

Lu and I also saw a strange red and black furry bug doing laps on a picnic table. We found out later that the bug is called a red velvet ant. This is not an ant at all, but a stinging insect like a wasp! The females are wingless and prey on ground dwelling bumble bees. They burrow into a bumble bee nest and deposit eggs there and the immature velvet ant eat the bee's larva! Ick!













During our adventures Lucia and I also tripped across a large snake sunning himself on a path in the woods (Lu insists it was 30 feet long) and an owl!



















More animals include herrons, hawks, vultures, mocking birds, frogs, water turtles, and more snakes large and tiny. Here is a pic of a southern ring snake. These are harmless snakes that eat small earthworms, slugs, frogs, anoles, geckos, skinks, snakes, and salamanders. I found one while I working in the yard and it was a tiny baby snake! Maybe 4 inches long.











And, well, me and food.. One of the guidebooks I have for South Carolina suggests Lizard's Thicket for down home southern cooking. Well, imagine things like hamburger steak and grits and collards and fried okra served up fast-food style. Most Yankees can't relate, but it's a pretty popular chain in these parts.










Fun words - how about curb buggy? That's a garbage can with wheels. And you'll sometimes hear a shopping cart referred to as a buggy.

Just 3 short days and I am back in the northeast. The drive up will be ten hours and I am bringing my cat. I am sure she won't be happy with the drive, but I can't wait to get back! More soon..

Some notes on quitting smoking...

So, I have, by and large, stopped smoking completely. By and large means once in a while I still have a couple cigarettes, but do not smoke regularly anymore. Yes, my lungs are breathing a sigh of relief. BUT I do chew nicotine gum regularly and might be considered a chronic user. The thought occured to me that this might lead to trouble down the road because I haven't really kicked the nicotine habit. I might just keep relapsing forever... This all convinced me that I needed to do some quick research and reading and kick nicotine for good. Here are the results so far.

The bottom line - if you are planning to quit go cold turkey. Your irritability over not being able to smoke, or chew as the case may be, peaks at 72 hours. After that it's all down hill. The trick, or crux, is that you CAN NOT touch it again or the cycle starts all over again. Another 3 days of cravings..

One other note - nicotine DOES NOT give you anything. It takes away. A cigarette is a potent nicotine delivery vehicle. Within 10 seconds of your first hit on a cigarette your brain is swimming in nicotine. YES, the results are initially pleasurable, but the crash, which starts within minutes after smoking, is what makes you reach for another cigarette, and another cigarette, and another cigarette. (Just like a heroin addict or a cocaine addict or a crack addict.) Nicotine doesn't calm you or help you in any way. It's killing you. And if you toss the pack out the window and never look back within ONE WEEK you'll already be feeling better.

OK, here's that research...

It can take up to 72 hours for the blood-serum to become nicotine-free and 90% of nicotine's metabolites to exit the body via your urine. It's then that the anxieties associated with readjustment normally peak in intensity and begin to gradually decline. But just one powerful "hit" of nicotine and you'll again face another 72 hours of detox anxieties. It's why the one puff survival rate is almost zero. None of us are stronger than nicotine but then we don't need to be as it is simply a chemical with an I.Q. of zero. It does not plot, plan or conspire and is not some demon within us. Our most effective weapon against it is, and always has been, our vastly superior intelligence but only if put to work.

The key to nicotine dependency recovery is not in dragging out the 72 hours of detox by toying for weeks or months with gradual nicotine weaning or other creative means for delivering nicotine. The nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) industry want smokers to believe that a natural poison is medicine, that its use is therapy, and that it is somehow different from the tobacco plant's nicotine molecule. The truth is that the pharmaceutical industry buys its nicotiana from the exact same growers as the tobacco industry. They want you to believe that double-blind placebo controlled studies proved that NRT doubles a cold turkey quitters odds of quitting and that only superheros can quit without it. The truth is that their studies were not blind as claimed, and that all but a tiny sliver of earth's successful quitters are quitting entirely on their own. Here are a few facts that those selling creative nicotine delivery devices would rather you not know:

Nicotine is a psychoactive drug whose "high" provides a dopamine "aaahhh" sensation and an adrenaline rush. Would you have been able to tell, within 5 minutes, whether the gum or lozenge you'd been given contained the nicotine equilivent of smoking two cigarettes or was instead a nicotine-free placebo? So could they. A 2004 study found that NRT studies suffered from massive wide-spread blinding failures (May 2004)

A nicotine smoker's natural odds of quitting for six months, entirely on their own, without any products, procedures, education programs, counseling or formal support is roughly 10% (June 2000)

Those using the over-the-counter (OTC) nicotine patch or gum as a stand-alone quitting tool have only a 7% chance of quitting smoking for six months (March 2003)

Up to 7% of OTC nicotine gum quitters are still chronic users of nicotine gum at six months (May 2004). Question: isn't 7 minus 7 still zero? (May 2004)

36.6% of all current nicotine gum users are chronic long-term users (May 2004)

You truly would have to be a superhero to quit while using the nicotine patch if you've already attempted using it once and relapsed. The only two patch user "recycling" studies ever conducted have both shown that nearly 100% of second-time nicotine patch users relapse to smoking nicotine within six months (April 1993 and August 1995)

91.2% of all successful long-term ex-smokers quit entirely on their own without resort to any product, procedure or program of any kind including hypnosis, Zyban, Wellbutrin, acupuncture, magic herbs, laser therapy, or the nicotine patch, gum, lozenge, spray, or inhaler (ACS 2003)

Education, understanding, new skills and serious support can more than triple your natural six-month odds of 10% (April 2003)

Those who refuse to allow any nicotine back into their bloodstream have 100% odds of remaining nicotine free today! (Today, Tomorrow & Always!)















The ONLY way to truly quit is to go cold turkey and never look back!

Uh-oh, a jinxed J-Roll

Sigh. Well, the story I hoped to follow all baseball season quickly came to a close last night. The Cards held Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins hitless in a 4-2 defeat. Rollins was left standing in 9th place with hits in 38 games in a row.

Well, Jimmy, we'll just have to start the count again! Great job!

Jimmy Rollins Record Watch

I love baseball and my team is the Philadelphia Phillies - that is, when I am not rooting for the Yankees and the Red Sox during the playoff race. (Can you really root for both the Yankees and the Red Sox?) Ahem. Anyway, Jimmy Rollins, the Phillies shortstop, is chasing history by having hit in 38 straight games. His most recent hit came in the bottom of the 1st inning last night versus the Cardinals. Unfortunately the Phils went on to lose the game 4-3. Rollins is currently 9th on the all-time list, just behind Paul Moliter with 39.

Go Jimmy! Go Phils!

What Do You Say?

Writer's Digest publishes a new writing prompt each week to help spark creativity. These can be found at www.writersdigest.com. Here is the exercse for this week..

Rewrite a cliché as 10 different headlines. Then burn the paper, vowing to never use them again.

The grass is always greener on the other side.

Greener Grass Sighted on the Other Side!
Experts Find Greener Grass on the Other Side.
Study Concludes Grass on the Other Side is Greener.
Other Side Grass Is Found to Be Greener Than the Rest!
When You Are Looking for Greener Grass Try the Other Side.
Other Side Celebrates Greener Grass Bonanza!
The Other Side Holds the Secret to Greener Grass.
Sources Say Greener Grass Found on the Other Side.
Other Side Holds a Commanding Position on Greener Grass.
Economists Determine Unlimited Supply of Greener Grass Found on the Other Side.

Well, I can't exactly burn the paper, but that was fun!

Testing..

I am emailing this to my blog from my email account just to check it out and see if it works. It would be pretty cool just to write up an email and post it.

Today was an exasperating day. I spent most of it trying to find leading indicator data for our strategy presentation. By the end of the day (now) I was whiney and cranky. I am still sitting under a pile of reports and charts and need to work on this some more tomorrow.

I think it's nice out, but I can't tell. I haven't really moved much from my office all day. Maybe I should take up a career as a landscaper so I can get more vitamin D.

Miracle Grow

Ok, just a quick post tonight... My mom and I were re-potting some large ferns today and in the middle of re-potting the second fern was a picture I couldn't pass up. My mom is a big fan of plants and loves Miracle Grow.

The results were great...