Same old song, Second verse

I'm past the 60-hour mark. Lunchtime Friday will be 72 hours.

And yeah, quitting smoking still sucks. I WANT A CIGARETTE!!!

But, the want is manageable... and I'm gonna beat this fucker until it's dead and buried.

And I still haven't commited any murders that I'll admit to.

Love dogs?

Do you have a dog? Or more than one dog?

Do you love your dogs so much that, in an emergency, you wouldn't evacuate without them?

I do, on both counts. The scenes from New Orleans after Katrina wrecked the city, where dog owners couldn't evac with their dogs, were very disturbing to me.

However, I'm not really of the "wait for the gummint to come save me" mentality either... I like the Boy Scout motto, "Be Prepared". And I'll add my own postscript to that, "And take care of your own".

One problem I've had though, is the possibility of a neccesary "quick evac" - basically a grab-n-go scenario. Loading down mine and Lisa's backpacks with extra food and water for the dogs didn't seem like too great an idea, but necessary to take care of the pooches.

But... somebody solved that problem!

I'm leaning toward the cheaper ones, simply because they'll never see use until they're needed. Loaded with 3 days worth of dog food and water per pup, that takes quite a load off of Lisa and I - and considering we have a baby due in 3 months, our loads will be getting heavier all on their own, thankyouverymuch.

Let yer dogs carry their own weight... and you can do a better job keeping them with you and taking care of them.

Quitting Smoking Still Sucks

But, I'm now up to 36 hours without a cigarette.

I DO NOT FEEL GOOD. I've felt like crap since about last night.

But... I'm not going insane. This is the least-bad I've ever felt when trying to quit.

Chantix is a good product. It ain't cheap, but it's less than half the cost of a 2 1/2 pack-a-day habit, and the Chantix is temporary.

My doc says it has about a 40% success rate. That's phenomenal for a quit-smoking drug/program.

So far, I'm in the 40% group. Gonna try to stay there, so I never have to feel this crappy again. At least not for this reason.

Not trying to sound like a cheesy teevee commercial, but if you're wanting to quit smoking, go to your doc, and ask about Chantix. Not many insurance plans cover it yet, and it's about $100/month, average person is on it for 3 months. But it works. And if you smoke a pack a day or more, it's cheaper than your smokes :) Took me about 3 weeks to get ramped up enough to quit altogether (so far!), so there's some cost overlap, but this is effective - far more so than what was "the best available" about 18 months ago, the last time I tried to quit.

So wish me luck (please?) and if you're a smoker and want to quit, and want to pick my brains about how Chantix works, just email me.

If you're NOT a smoker, and are looking into Chantix to "help someone else quit", give it up. There ain't no Magic Bullet to quit smoking - the #1 ingredient has to be "I DON'T WANT TO SMOKE ANYMORE". As effective as Chantix is, if I wasn't COMMITTED to quitting, I'd have said "screw it" sometime last night and gone and bought a pack, and be happily smoking now. But I WANT TO QUIT, and that's what's gonna make it happen. Chantix is just a tool to keep the quit-smoking-crazies away while my body does the painful job of cleaning itself out.

Grrrrrr

Maybe I'm just Grumpy.

Maybe it's just because I'm trying to quit smoking.

Maybe I'm just not reading articles thorouly (sp? I don't care tonight).

I vote for shooting everyone mentioned on Kim's site today. Perps, cops, all of them except the 79-year-old homeowner.

Yeah, I pretty much hate everybody today. Make that this week.

They say it's easier to kick a heroin habit than it is to quit smoking... never used heroin before, so I can't compare/contrast, but I'm not going to argue.

Trying to quit smoking SUCKS!!!!!!

ARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!