Change of season

I returned home this evening from a visit to my parents about 70 miles to the north of here.  My wife and I helped prepare them for winter since it is coming fast upon us in Minnesota. In fact we got SNOW over the weekend.  We also took the time to watch Game 3 of the Twins - Yankees playoff game.  Not a bad game except it fell apart at the end.  Oh well, I still remember when they won the World Series in '87 and what? - '89? (Not really a big baseball fan, but I like the home team) Back in '87, Wheaties put the Twins on the cereal box cover. My dad went out and bought a box and put it directly into a display box where it remains to this day, still intact.  I also found a six-pack of "St. Urho's Beer" a sort of novelty which was canned in Menagha, MN in 1975, also still intact.  It was bought on a camping trip to Menagha when I was 12, and I noticed it had the new rocker style tab rather than the pull off kind you would step on in the public swimming areas.  So apparrently 1975 was a critical year in beer can technology.  I wonder if it's any good after 34 years?  I'd rather eat glue.

Today is a Milestone

 Today marks the day I have been Smoke-Free for 1 month.  I even got a certificate from the Quit Plan that I can print out to prove it.  I have to say, after smoking for almost 30 years I didn't know if it would "take". I DID however use smoking cessation medication to help and I'm glad I did.  In the past I've tried the Cold Turkey and Taper Off methods and they just didn't do it for me.  I used lots of little things to help quit.  One month prior to quitting I changed my routine in a number of ways to break the smoking association.  I also started to only smoke outside.  This accomplished two things. I only smoked when I really wanted to and thereby cut down on the "mindless light one up" syndrome.  Secondly, it kept the house smelling better.
 The night before my quit day, instead of dreading it like other attempts, I welcomed it as a new day and a new start of sorts in life.  I hope that doesn't sound corny.
  I also read the Quit Plan forum to see how others were doing, what they went through, and to see what kind of withdrawal symptoms I could expect.  I found out that some quitters had smoked up to 3 packs of cigarettes a day.  Uff-da as my grandpa would say.  
  Another thing I did was give myself a hobby to occupy my mind.  So I started to learn ActionScript 3 and Koolmoves.  Fun AND useful at the same time.  About a day into the quit I was looking at someones Flash site and can you believe it - a smoking cigarette used as a pre-loader!  Not what I needed, but still kind of neat.  As the movie was loaded the cherry would burn down! 
  I've saved about $255 in one month not smoking.  Maybe I should say that's $255 that didn't get spent on smokes. 
  "So what?" you say? I know I'm not the first person to quit smoking, I just had to shout it from the rooftops a little.

Eye-gor's Place is up and Running

Just a first post to see how this blogger stuff works. Thought I might try my hand at putting some stuff together that some might find useful. Stay tuned!