Forgot to mention...

I forgot to mention in the last post... I'm smoke free for 9 days now.

- ND

Addendum...

I took a few of the most recent posts off line. I realized that I was being a huge retard, and that the only person who could improve my mood was me. Attitude adjustment accomplished!

Fantasy football correction...

I must correct a comment on one of the previous posts. It would seem that I was confused or misinformed about the structure of the fantasy football league playoffs. Although I conceded defeat last week, it now looks like I am still in the fight. All four of the teams that make the playoffs play two weeks, and the record establishes first through fourth place. My loss last weekend ensures that I will not be taking first or second place, but third is still an option.

As it turns out the payouts look something like this...

1st = $350 2nd = $250 3rd = $125 4th = $100

Highest team score for the week is $10. ( I won 4 weeks)
Cost to play the season is $125

Any way you look at it I'm a winner already. In the worst case I'm up $15. If I win this week I'm up $40. If I have the high score for the week and win then I'm up $50. So however it works out I'm still making something.

For those of you concerned that gambling is illegal... I'm referring to "doll hairs". Kudos to those that get that reference...

- ND

One week smoke free...

First, let me start by wishing everyone a belated merry Christmas and happy holidays if I didn't get the chance to do it in person over the last several days. I hope you all were able to spend time with family and friends, and that Santa got you everything you wanted.

Now on to the news...

I have officially reached the one week mark. My first week as a non-smoker. I'm excited to have reached the one week milestone. Overall, it hasn't been that difficult.

One of my missions in quitting was to enter my 38th year being a non-smoker. Yes, for those that don't already know, I'm going to be 38 in a couple of days. I think that part of the motivation to get the "kicking the habit" process started was to quit before my birthday. I haven't spent a lot of time analyzing why the two things aligned, but I'm sure as I age the thoughts of my future came to mind. Being a smoker just doesn't have a lot of up-sides. Getting older and being a smoker has none.

When your young, you tend to delude yourself about what your future holds. You are immortal and invincible. Age grants some perspective. You see that life isn't forever, and that making the best of what you are given is always the best path. Smoking doesn't fit well into that logic. Even though you never think that bad things will happen to you, you get the sense as you age, that they can. Taking risks is part of life. Taking stupid risks is just that... stupid.

So as I age, I guess that I've become more self actualized. I think that's what's supposed to happen. I've become better at putting things into the proper perspective. Right now, smoking seems like one of those stupid risks. Who knows, perhaps one day I'll look at binge drinking and overeating in the same way. Not today though, I've gotta climb one mountain at a time.

Happy Holidays!

- ND

Day 5...

Spent the day today watching football and cleaning house. I believe that I am officially beaten in my fantasy football league. My only remaining chance is LT scoring 80 points. While possible, it would be completely improbable. I assume that he would have to score about 8 touchdowns and have most of them as a receiver. So I think I'll officially concede.

For those who are keeping track, I have made it 5 days on the non-smoking program. I ran out of Nicoderm patches today, so I am in the process of figuring out how many to buy with some of my remaining FSA dollars. They come in a variety of strengths to help wean you off of the nicotine. They call them stages. I'm currently in stage one. There are a total of three stages. Each stage drops your nicotine down by about half.

I think that I will probably need the full strength for about 8 weeks. Then about 8 weeks of stage 2 and 3 as well. That puts me on the patch for about 6 months. The cost for the first 8 weeks is about $200. The next two stages are about the same cost. So the whole program should cost about $600. A little less if I get the Walgreens "knock off" variety. I'm sure it has a cute name like Wall-oderm or something.

I'm thinking about throwing in a pack of commit lozenges as well. They are the low dose nicotine lozenge for those "I gotta have a smoke NOW!" moments. Although I haven't had any of those moments yet, I suspect that there will be one, and I would like to have something at my disposal to fend off any stray cravings. They run about $50 for 100ish lozenges.

So anyone who has told me that quitting smoking will save me money is clearly wrong. By the end of the day I will have spent nearly a thousand dollars on quit smoking related products and treatments. At this point I haven't even filled the Zyban prescription from my doctor, so I assume that the cost will continue to rise. Thankfully I have a huge unspent FSA account of all 2007 dollars that is carrying the weight. I couldn't afford to quit if this was all out of pocket expense.

Just kidding... this is not about the money.

- ND

Bend but don't break...

Day three... Last night presented the first opportunity for me to test my hypnosis in a situation that involved the consumption of adult beverages. I'm happy to report that, although there was a great deal of temptation on the drive home, I am still smoke free.

Without stating the totally obvious, I understand that drinking can have an impact on decision making. I'm happy to have successfully rolled over the first speed bump with no damage. Doing so however, was not easy. I'm glad to have made the choice not to stop and grab a pack of smokes, but the battle of the rational mind versus the desire to feed the addiction was a heated one.

Other observations from the journey include:

• My sense of smell is returning.
• My hands are now nearly free of nicotine stains.
• I traversed the stairs this morning with less effort than normal.

- ND

Almost 24hrs smoke free...

After my hypnosis session last night and the application of a NicodermCQ patch, I have made it almost 24 hours smoke free. I will go into the details of the session later. I am a little busy and I don't think I could do it justice right now.

I am headed out tonight to the Rams - Steelers game, and this will be my first encounter with alcohol and being smoke free. Interestingly enough, I really haven't had a major struggle yet. Last night after eating dinner and watching a movie I got a craving. I was on the phone with a friend when it happened, and that's when I remembered the NicodermCQ patches that I had left from my previous attempt at quitting. Honestly, I'm glad that they were still around. I'm sure that I could have done without one, but anything that makes the process a little easier is fine with me.

On a side note... taking a nicotine patch before bed has it's problems. As a smoker, you obviously don't get nicotine as you sleep. The steady flow of nicotine through the sleeping hours makes for some interesting dreams and interrupted sleep. I did a lot of dreaming about smoking last night. I woke up every few hours. After getting to bed at 1:30 I woke up at 3:30 and though it was much later.

I suspect that over the next few weeks I'll be blogging about all of the changes in my life that are happening due to my quitting. Please bear with me as I recount experiences that are normal to you, but are new to me as a non-smoker.

And for those that are still wondering... I'm not clucking like a chicken or barking and chasing cars... at least not any more then usual. Thanks for asking!

- ND

Pre-hypnosis post...

I'm headed out in a about an hour to get hypnotized, and I'm looking forward to it. I haven't quit smoking yet. I ran out of smokes earlier today, but have bummed a few from my smoking friends here at the office. With any luck, I've purchased my last pack.

There is so much of me that wants this to work. So much of me that thinks logically and knows that smoking is a silly waste of money and life. Yet I've been doing it so long that I have a hard time remembering what it is to be a non-smoker. It's like trying to remember what it was like being a child. You get glimpses, but it's not like you have a movie in your head that you can look back on. So I see myself as this, and can't remember not being this, and that's one of the hard parts mentally. I need to see myself as a non-smoker.

I'll either post something tonight, or tomorrow to tell you about the experience.

To all of the people that have offered their support... thanks. To everyone who suggested the Dr. get rid of all of my other bad habits while he's in my head... piss off.

Just kidding.

- ND

Dr. reaffirms quitting smoking is good idea...

I visited my doctor today to get some additional help with my quit smoking plan. As was the case last year, I have a huge amount of FSA (Flexible Spending Account) dollars to use or donate to the federal government. What could be better than a large pharmaceutical purchase to kill some FSA bucks quick.

Thanks to the advertising by the pharmacutical companies, I'm very aware of all of the magic elixers available to the quitting smoking demographic. Chantix the newest product sounded like something I'd be interested in to assist with my programme. A drug designed to "turn off" the nicotine receptors in my brain. That's what I need! Anything that shuts off those pesky little nicotine receptors has got to be good. Turns out that's not quite the way it wound up.

My doctor and I had a discussion about the merits of Chantix and Zyban and decided that Zyban was probably a better choice. Honestly, I think he swayed me based on the way he sold Zyban. He said that Chantix is basically the components of Zyban that helped smokers quit without all of the anti-depressant stuff you didn't need if you were just trying to quit smoking. Frankly, the more he talked about the other issues, the better the Zyban sounded.

So apparently the Zyban has all of these other cool "side effects". It can help you with ADD, give you energy, improve sexual performance and a host of other things that all sounded really great. Not that I had any of those problems, or a least I didn't think I did, but why not take the shotgun approach.

So for those of you that will no doubt be monitoring my progress over the next months... If you notice me smiling more and being more focused... it's the Zyban. If I'm smoking when you notice these things... then I guess that I've just officially joined the ranks of the overly medicated.

- ND

Time to quit...

I've been talking about quitting smoking since the first time I realized that I was really "a smoker". Unlike many smokers, I started when I was in my mid-twenties, and should have know better. I've always had a battle between my desire to quit based on the intellectual grounds that it was a stupid thing to do, and the addiction that makes quitting nearly impossible. So I've decided to try something different. On the 19th I've scheduled a visit with a hypnotist.

I really don't know what to expect from this experience. I have a friend who has been hypnotized, and he described the process as relaxing, and almost as if he was unaware that it was even happening. On the other hand I have, like many of you I'm sure, seen people dancing around like chickens when hypnotized, and that concerns me a little. Don't get me wrong, I've been known to dance around like a chicken myself so I don't sit in a position to judge, but the perceived power of persuasion exhibited can be unnerving.

I'm looking forward to the opportunity to try something new and hopefully cure myself of this nasty addiction. I just hope I don't become the Manchurian Candidate in the process.

- ND

Tribute to Dave...

About a month ago I received an e-mail asking me to share any memories or stories of Dave Scheidecker on his memorial Facebook group. I struggled with the project for a number of reasons, but finally put together something I was happy with. I'm posting a copy of my tribute below.


I have been reading the posts in this group for some time and want to thank everyone for their thoughts and memories of Dave. I never posted, because I didn’t think that I could muster the words to describe what Dave meant to me. How he influenced my life, and how much I miss him every day. How whatever tribute I might be able to create would fall short of what he would deserve. How is it possible to take the experiences of the time I knew Dave and condense them into several paragraphs? How do you take measure of such a great man? It’s not something that you describe; it’s something that you feel.

To say that I was never his student would only be true in the academic sense. I’m sure that everyone who knew him outside of his career in teaching would feel the same way. He had many ways of sharing his wisdom. The things he taught me were simple lessons of life. He did it through his stories. His casual telling of his experiences in a way that made you connect them to your life and your experiences. He was a teacher of life.

Here are a couple of memories I’d like to share.

Dave the fisherman

Several years ago Dave and I went on a trip to Canada to do some fishing. We drove from Chicago to Northwest Ontario and then took a small plane to a remote cabin. There were six of us on the trip, and we paired up in two’s to go fishing every day. Most days Dave and I spent 8 to 10 hours a day together fishing. It was a great opportunity to share stories and enjoy each others company.

The lake where our cabin was situated had several surrounding lakes that you could portage to from our lake. The trails taking you from lake to lake were anything but well traveled. The only thing that made them trails was the occasional marker tied to a tree to indicate you were headed in the right direction. Based on the change in elevation, and the map indicating that our portage would be a quarter mile or so, we decided to travel as light as possible. We were both wearing rain suits, and we needed at the minimum our rods and tackle. We packed the tackle into a backpack that Damian loaned us for the trip, and packed the pockets of our rain suits with everything they would hold. I put on the back pack and grabbed the rods and we headed into the wilderness.

The rigor of the portage took its toll on Dave, and I carried everything on the way out. By the time we got back to the cabin that evening Dave was very tired and sore. As we were sitting around talking after everyone else went to bed, Dave said something to me that I’ll never forget. He said, this is probably the last time I’ll be able to do a fly-in trip to Canada. Of course I disagreed with him, and told him that I’m sure that in a couple of years we would do it again. He said perhaps, and let the conversation go in other directions, but I can’t help looking back to see he was right. He didn’t get the chance to do it again. I’m glad that I was able to spend his last trip to Canada with him.

Dave was an excellent fisherman, and being the teacher he was, taught me a number of techniques that made me a better fisherman. Like so many of the experiences that I shared with Dave, I came away much richer from having been with him.

Dave the builder

Dave and I shared a love of building things. It seemed that he always had some kind of construction or wood working project going on. When I would visit, I would usually find him working on some sort of project, or being shown a project that he had completed since my last visit. Some of the projects were of a grand scale, and others simple, but he always seemed to take joy in the process of creating something with his hands.

When the time came for me to work on a big construction project, Dave was there to lend a hand. I had a rather large deck to build, and Dave made the trip to St. Louis on several weekends to help get the main structure built. Working with Dave was always a pleasure because he brought such a range of construction experience to the project. Equally important, he always brought his sense of humor with him. As my project progressed he created the mantra “good enough for Dan” which was used whenever something wasn’t quite perfect. We continued saying that as a joke whenever we saw each other and something didn’t quite work out for me as expected.

There are so many stories to tell and so many wonderful memories that I have of my time with Dave. I admired him as a man, and held him dear to my heart as a friend. I wish I had the skills to write something that really conveyed who he was, but if you’re reading this you probably already know. He probably touched you in some way that left you with the same indelible marks he left on me. I’ll never forget him. I think If God would only have granted Dave one more day for each of us who loved him he would have lived forever.

I miss my friend.

To Dave’s family:

Kelly… thank you for bringing your father into my life. Kathy and Damian thank you for sharing him with me. My life will never be quite the same without him.

- ND

Dog plasma...

Finally, after years of making references to this and having people think I'm insane, I have found the original source... Enjoy!

Crazy Mixed Up Pup

Sorry, but YouTube won't let me embed the video...

- ND

Kansas City weekend...

10:47 am and I'm the only one awake. Hardly your typical Saturday morning. Especially true if I was at home. Normally I'm the one sleeping till noon. Any doubt, see the previous post.

I'm sure that there are a number of factors for my early morning. The air mattress and sleeping bag are surely contributing factors. A twin air mattress is just not big enough for me. I have become accustomed to a full mattress or larger, and a twin just doesn't have the space for me to thrash around like I'm used to.

The sleeping bag really doesn't help either. Being forced into the decision of zipping it up and being confined to a thin little cocoon, or opening it up to be exposed on one side to the cold, is really not a good set of options. Perhaps I need to invest in a second, or two new sleeping bags, that I can zip together into a single large bag. I'm sure that the two bag solution would make for a more comfy sleep. Of course, I'd need a larger air mattress as well.

Really, I'm not sure that the air mattress or sleeping bags are the issue. I had another night of restless sleep because of my dreams. If you are a regular reader here then you will remember the dreams entry I posted a while back. They were back with a vengeance last night. I woke up several times, and each time I was haunted by the same type of dream. I'm sure that all of the updates about what has been going on with my life that started once I arrived in Kansas City are to blame. They say that your brain deals with the things you can't handle in the waking hours by bringing them into your dreams. I hope that's true, because I really don't want to think about this stuff when I'm awake anymore.

I've mentioned before that I don't remember my dreams. As today goes from morning, to afternoon to evening, I hope that the memories of my haunting dreams fade away. If not, I guess that having my friends here to distract me from them will at least make the forgetting easier.

-ND