How to Quit Smoking Overnight

I just drove past the company smoking lounge on the way back from lunch and realized, for the first time, how stupid people look standing out there on the side of the building in an almost perfect circle, like there are some imaginary lines drawn on the parking lot in 103 degree weather (or 9 degree in the middle of Winter) puffing away on those expensive little suckers (do you realize one cigarette costs over 20 cents now?) like it is the last one they will ever be able to smoke.

I can say this, only because as little as nine months ago, I was one of those people standing under that large plume of smoke, out there, getting my nicotine fix thinking mainly about when I was going to get to sneak out for another one. That was until 258 days ago when I found a way to quit smoking overnight!

I had tried just about everything there is to help an individual quit: the gum, the patch, the ear thing, hypnosis, pills and cold turkey. Each had different levels of success (or failure) but the final results were the same. I was still out in the smoking lounge a day or week or month later.

It's not as if I didn't have any motivation to quit. I tried when I met my wife (she hated it but was very understanding) and before our Son was born because I didn't want him growing up in that type of environment. Each time, though, I started up again and blamed it on the stress and pressure of everyday life...

Until the early morning hours of November 28, 2007. I woke a little after midnight to go to the bathroom. I felt as if my leg was asleep, did my business and went back to bed. Again, at 3:30 I got up to pee, but this time my right leg wouldn't hold me up and I fell to the ground waking my wife. I knew that this was serious as it wasn't just my leg, but my arm and the right side of my face as well. As my wife got the herself and the baby ready to get me to the hospital, I went out to the garage to have, what I somehow knew, was my last smoke.

In the emergency room, just before they told me that I had suffered a stroke, I relinquished my two-thirds full pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights to my wife to be disposed of. That was it. I quit just like that. It took a major brain injury, but I will never pick up another cigarette again.

And it was really, kind of simple. The doctors offered me all kinds of aids to help with the withdrawal but, because I was putting so much effort into my recovery, which was not at all simple, I hardly noticed any. If I did, it certainly wasn't as painful or hard as the physical rehabilitation.

I feel very blessed that I have made it back close to a 100% in the last eight months. It took a lot of time and hard work, not to mention a whole team of doctors and therapists, but we made it through with, what we can only call, a remarkable recovery.

Besides me kicking the habit, there was some other good results that came from my brain attack. I have a new outlook on life and am trying to spread the word about how precious each moment is and how to keep your priorities straight; some of my fat friends have gone on diets and are exercising; and maybe the biggest impact has been that several people at work and my "I'll smoke 'til I can't breath on my own" sister have also quit the nasty habit (although she got her nose pierced as "a reward" for herself... but that's another story).

You know, my brother smoked for many years until a doctor told him there was a spot on a routine chest X-ray. He quit overnight, before they had a chance to tell him that it was nothing to worry about. Thank God.

It seems like there is something to say about being "scared to death" or "scared of dying" to clean up a person's act. It's a shame that doctors can't say, "You will die if you don't change" and have people believe them, but I guess that wouldn't go along with their ethics and stuff.

Too bad... it may be the best smoking cessation ever!

Oh– buy T-shirts at: http://www.cafepress.com/skeetzteez

Smart Religion

I take offense to the stereotype that bible belt Christians are, somehow, not as bright as your average American. 

I was raised Catholic in a city that, when you meet someone new, you don't ask where they live, you ask what parish they are from. I converted to a non-denominational Christian church when I met my wife– not only because I met my wife, but I did my research and I agreed with the belief structure: It's not about Religion– Its about Relationship. And besides, the Christian services were a lot more interesting than the old Catholic mass. I am not arguing a point (here and now) that one religion is any better than another or the right or wrong of any beliefs. I am, merely, stating my preference.

To get back to my original point, though, I don't like the way traditional Christians are thought of as unintelligent. I guess there is a certain amount of blind faith that is involved with believing everything the Bible teaches us, but really not more than any other religion.

I consider myself pretty darn smart, even though I (usually) don't go around bragging about it (or necessarily act like it). Most people that know me well, I think, would tell you the same. I can hold my own in a conversation on just about any topic because, for one, I have learned that "if you don't know what you are talking about, don't say anything" and I just try be well informed on things. This policy works well for me most of the time... except for when the topic turns to religion.

Most of my personal, religious principles that have been questioned in the past can be explained with two basic theories:

1) I find it easier to believe that a loving God created this world and put man (and woman) on it to inhabit the world and love him back than the idea that a great accident caused non-living moleculer material became living matter and evolved into what we have become, over any period of time, or some alien race put us here and left us as an experiment or pet project or something.

2) For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

I guess the second one takes a little more of that "blind faith" than some people are willing to let themselves believe, but if you can't bring yourself to do that your not going to get the rest of it anyway. 

I wish there was a more scientific way to explain all of this. As an intelligent person who wants to find the reasons behind things, that would make being a good Christian and spreading the good word much easier for me. However, just because I am going to believe these things without proof doesn't make me an idiot. I would rather be right about this and wrong about everything else in the world than be the smartest man in the world and not be remembered as a believer on Judgement Day.

Spread the Word... Text the Word.

http://www.cafepress.com/skeetzteez/5800722

Audition tonight!

I'm not exactly sure why but I am very nervous about my audition tonight. Its not that I haven't been through auditions before and, as far as auditions go, this one should be a breeze as they have no male vocalist currently and I am the only one trying out! It is church, though, and I have not really sang in public, or out loud for that matter since the stroke.

I really didn't want this blog to be about the stroke so I have avoided the subject completely but recent events have made me felt I have to get some things off my chest. Since no one is reading this thing, this seems like as good a place as any...

No one understands how hard it is!

Maybe I was super-gifted before and now this is just how the general population struggles with ordinary things on a day-to-day basis. Maybe I recovered too quickly and so well that friends and family don't remember that only 9 months ago I couldn't speak or move anything on the right side of my body. Maybe I should not have tried to be so tough, listened to the doctors that told me I probably wouldn't be close to normal even a year after the event and not try to get back to a normal life as soon as possible.

I have always been a person that believed you get what you deserve. Other peoples' sense of entitlement really made me enraged. No one was holding me down or threatening my family when I made the conscious decision that I was going to work as hard as I possible could to recover as close to 100% as I was before the stroke. I didn't sue my chiropractor for (hypothetically) breaking off the piece of plaque from inside the vein in my neck causing a blood clot in my brain. I didn't suck as much as I could out of my disability insurance even though I have paid into it for over 18 years and they were still a major pain in the butt to squeeze a penny out of. (I had a bloody stroke, for God's sake! How much more disabled do you want me to be?) That's the kind of person I had always been and I didn't seem any reason to change because of this unexpected misfortune.

At the time, my wife and I didn't think we need and didn't want any special help from anyone (but we were very grateful for what we were offered and the help that was given). We felt blessed that I survived without too many complications and the struggles we had were few because the recovery went so well.

However, now I have a simple request to ask of anyone who knows me or anyone else who has survived a similar brain attack... Please understand.

Understand that I am not the same person that I was before- besides the more obvious physical challenges, my brain is still healing so mentally, although I still am as smart as I was before, it may take me a little longer to get it together, and emotionally I have different priorities than I once did and a new outlook. This was, after all, a near death experience. (At least near enough for me.)

Understand that everything (and I mean everything) is harder than it was. Staying awake is harder–sleeping is harder (which I don't understand at all). Speaking is harder. Eating, walking, reading, typing, not to mention anything physical– all harder. There are some things that I cannot or am afraid or embarrassed to do and there are some things that it just physically hurts too much.

I'm not saying this will always be the case but, as it was form the time when I started the recovery process, we can't tell when or how much we will get back. The doctors can give you information like, "your brain will heal the most in the first 3-6 months and most of the recovery process will be done in a year to a year and a half," but honestly, they are guessing too and they don't really have a clue.

I do get stronger and more coordinated every day. I just don't see the improvements like I did in the beginning because they were so drastic then. I still have faith that I am going to make a full recovery... and faith is what got me this far.

In the mean time, though, please remember to understand that everything is much harder to do than it was and, because I don't want this to be a blog about strokes, buy some T-shirts at: http://www.cafepress.com/skeetzteez 

cafepress update

Just added a coupon feed to skeetzteez: http://www.cafepress.com/skeetzteez

I hope this will increase conversion of visits to sales. I have been getting plenty of hits– more and more by the day, but sales have dropped off dramatically. I even lowered my prices!

A sure sign that the economy is in the crapper... people can't even afford to wear T-shirts!

How to make a Suck for a Buck T-shirt

By far, the most search engine inquiries that I have hit has been, "How to make a Suck for a Buck T-shirt". So much so that I have dedicated a Squidoo lens to the subject at: http://www.squidoo.com/suckforabuck

It amazes me, to some degree, but then again–it doesn't. Being involved with bands and bars for many of my vast single years, I have paid more than my fair share of bucks for the "so-called" sucks. It was all in good fun, at the time, however looking back now, I feel that it was a rather silly ritual.

The public beckons, though, and needs to find out the answer (simple as it may be) to the oft-asked question, "How to make a Suck for a Buck Shirt". Who am I to deny this generation of attention-seeking Maid of Honors and Bachelorettes from the privilege of having every inebriated young man in the club drooling (literally) on them and their friends for a night– no matter how silly they one day will think it was.

So... as simple as it may be– here is the four-step process for making a Suck for a Buck T-shirt:

1) Determine what shirt you will use- This is actually one of the more difficult parts. Traditionally, a white T-shirt is fine, but in recent years, Bridesmaids have gotten more elaborate with colors and styles including tanks (which focuses the sucks in the more vital areas. You may purchase high-quality, professionally imprinted (which takes care of step-two) Suck for a Buck T-shirts at: http://www.cafepress.com/skeeteez/5842826 or use your own source.

T-shirt Tip: make sure you bring another shirt for the bachelorette in case the Suck for a Buck shirt tears or the bride-to-be wants to change later in the night.

2) Imprint the Shirt- This may be done professionally (see step-one) or at home. Iron-on sheets can be purchased and run through your computer printer or, if it comes down to it, you can use fabric paint or permanent marker.

3) Determine what kind of candy to use- Lifesavers are, traditionally, the candy of choice but, in all reality, the sky's the limit here. Any hard candy is good– mints or butterscotch candies, Blow-pops or Tootsie-pops, or any cheap candy that you have to suck. I have even seen those candy necklaces used. They left the candy on the string, wrapped it around the young lady and attached them with safety pins around the whole shirt. Pretty original and it worked well!

4) How to attach the candy- Honestly, this is the only part of the process that I can really see anyone would have questions about. Here again, if you are talking about tradition, you are using Lifesavers and you just take a needle and thread and sew them, with a couple of stitches through the hole, right to the shirt. This really works best because they are fastened securely but most grown men can snap the stitches with their teeth.

If you are using individually wrapped candy of some kind, you can fasten them with safety pins. This also works with lollypops or anything you can stick a pin through. Another option with the lollypop type candy is to poke the sticks through the shirt, but this doesn't seem very stable to me.

The last method seems a little (or a lot) gross to me but, then again, who's going to know. Lick and stick the candy to the shirt. I don't know... besides being gross for the guy, I don't know if the bride wants to wear around something that her friends' saliva is all over.

One last tip: I have seen candy for Suck for a Buck T-shirts applied with glue. I don't, in any way, recommend this method. Besides being messy, you don't want to poison any of the poor guys with toxic adhesives.

All you need is love... bum ba da da dum.

It is just amazing how things in your life can be so important to you and then something else comes along and you hardly even care about the other thing.

Music was like that for me. One of my earliest childhood memories is music. I vividly remember at the age of 3-4 riding in the car while my mother was taking my dad and grandma to work. The Beatles, Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds, was playing. (I know I was that age not because of when the song was released, but because this was the only time my father and grandmother worked in the same place.)

I also remember, starting a little after that, my mother cleaning on Saturdays. I recall she had a very specific routine, but what is most vivid is the music– and the harmony. My mom would never sing the lead to any song. It was always the harmony and it was loud so it could be heard over the vacuum cleaner. Her favorites were soundtracks to musicals like The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof and Godspell and artists like John Denver, Anne Murray, Kenny Rodgers, Bette Midler and Barry Manilow. They were all considered lame by most pre-teens but I kind of liked them and I could sing most every track on the albums, word for word, front and back– and in harmony.

I am going to have to write about some more of my music memories. They really are powerful as they can stir up such emotion– bringing you back to places and times that otherwise seem insignificant.

I need to do some more music based designs for the shop on cafepress too. I only have one available right now: http://www.cafepress.com/skeetzteez/5792803 but it is one of the most prolific lines in rock 'n roll– if not the entire history of music...

All you need is love.

The Alliance of Shopkeepers on CP

I'm sure many cafepress shopkeepers have heard of Squidoo. I have mentioned it, myself, on this blog (not that anyone is reading this blog). Squidoo is an excellent resource for the CPSK. There is quite a large CP community and a ton of valuable information to the new or experienced SK.

As I have spent an considerable amount of time in that community in the past week or so, I realized that many of the group members were not using this tool to it's full potential. Too many SKs and lensmasters are trying to (here's that word again) exploit the technology for their own benefit when it would be so easy for them to partner up so everyone benefits equally. I am not trying to say that everyone is just trying to make a buck and just looking out for themselves but, in all honesty, I think most people are. 

Now... even though I am talking like this, who's to say that I'm not full of carp and just looking out for myself myself? There's not, but that's not where I'm coming from.

As someone that has been in the professional creative field for over 20 years, I think that is the way of most artists. Most designers welcome a good critique. They are driven by the competition. And when it all comes down to it, they are over confident enough to think that it really is no contest anyway because their stuff is the best by far.

So what I have proposed with the creation of this new group is an alliance– a partnership between all members of the group to collectively gain more exposure– to network and promote all of the shops so everyone benefits equally.

Its a really simple idea that could really take the members of the group to new levels... all on the simple concept of: You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

If you would like to explore the opportunities of partnership go to: http://www/squidoo.com/groups/askcp