Running is therapy

It’s been a little over 4 hours since I had a smoke. Not bad at all so far. I did pop one lozenge and it has a LOT of nicotine in it from what I can tell.

The real fun I imagine will start in a few hours :)

I am going to quit smoking. I just tossed out my last smoke. I am going to grab the Commit Lozenges and give it a go. No better time than the present.

I am mostly putting this here to “out” my attempt. I have quit in the past and once for 4 years, only to light up again. Most of the time I try, I don’t say anything to anyone in case I fail, I don’t want to look like a dumb ass. But that just makes it too easy to start up again.

I expect to be in the worst mood of all time, so if I bite your head off, call me on it (but later after this passes :) and I will take you to lunch with my new found money :)

I am going to mark the official quit time as 10 am Saturday February 10, 2007. I expect (as it was in the past) that the first 24 hours will be the worst, and only slightly better for following week. Tough times ahead, hopefully the running and the lozenges can ease some of this.

My official weight the last time I was at the doctors (like a week ago) was 219, on my crappy home scale it came in at 210. I dread the possibility of weight gain, however the running should mitigate that.

I might blog about it if I feel up to it.

/me holds nose

Here goes nothing.

I completed that yesterday in the driving wind. Man that was not all that fun. However I am glad to be moving forward in the program. Next run is Saturday. Looking forward to nicer weather.

The Webdeveloper Toolbar Firefox extension was recently updated. One thing I always hated about it, was that the only default resize option was for 800×600. You could of course select a menu item and type out the dimensions you wanted, but that was a drag. I usually test for 800X600, then I like to take a peek at 1024. The new release allows you to add your own selectable dimensions. w00t!

In our hyper-connected environment these days, one really can’t assert anything, without citation. It’s not uncommon for a post in a forum or on a blog to be littered with hyperlinks that back up what the person is saying. You may be saying to yourself, yes, and that’s the way it ought to be. And on a day when I wasn’t feeling especially temperamental I might agree. However I have noticed one place this is especially troubling, reading a book.

I am currently reading The Tipping Point. I don’t always agree with authors, and I am usually pretty skeptical about their assertions, but I think the “cite first, make points later” mentality might be damaging my ability to enjoy a book.

Early in the book, he talks about Paul Revere’s ride. He mentions a town called Waltham. The other rider that night, William Dawes, riding in another direction, goes through Waltham. However, the author goes on to state, hardly anyone showed up to help fight the British from Waltham and some historians think that Waltham was a town with British sympathies. Then, out of no where, the author does the unthinkable. He states “It wasn’t”.

Heh, that’s it. No citation, no reasonable explanation. Just “It wasn’t”.

Of course that sends me off on a three hour tour of the internet and wikipedia to determine weather or not Waltham was or was not in league with those Limey bastards…

It’s enough to ruin an interesting book.