October 7, 2005

• My how time flies.  I didn’t realize how long it had been until I
  got a sweet e-mail from Ruth yesterday.  I thought to
  myself,  “it hasn’t been that long”.   This morning when
  I logged in I realized it’s been close to 3 weeks.  Honestly
  I  have a couple of legitimate reasons.   The first is
  our laptop took a nosedive and it took Bear about 2 weeks to fix
  it.   I nearly died when I came in and there was the
  laptop  in about 10 different pieces.  After I got over the
  shock  I thought well what difference does it make, it’s not
  working now so  if he can’t get it fixed we haven’t changed the
  situation and if he can how cool is that?  Well he got it fixed
  but for some reason when he put the keyboard back in the letter I
  doesn’t always work.  I try to go back and make sure all the i i i
  I I I’s are there but sometimes I miss one or two.  Bear said he
  would take it apart again and fix it but now I don’t want him
  too.  I have more to lose.  Stupid huh! 

  The second reason is a bit different.  I’m quitting smoking and so
  I’m also trying to avoid the things that I associate with
  cigarettes.  As odd as it sounds I associate the computer. 
  Why you ask….I’ll tell you.  Almost all of my smoking was done
  out of boredom and there is nothing more boring than waiting for a page
  to load on the computer.  We have the slowest internet connection
  known to man, right now I’m connected at 45kbps. and buddy let me
  tell you that’s slow.  Xanga has a really bad habit of eating
  posts and taking forever to load anyway, so I think on some level I was
  avoiding it on purpose even after we got the computer running
  again.   The good news is I have been smoke free since
  September 9th.  Since I’m here on xanga today maybe Ruth’s email
  brought back to me that I have friends here and you can never have
  enough help from your friends when your trying to give up bad
  habits. 
  Mike gave me some great encouragement the second day I
  quit.  We were on our way to Wuerzburg and I said I was afraid it
  wouldn’t last and I’d start again and he says that’s too bad you’ll be
  smoking and you won’t be able to sit anywhere.  Of course I fell
  for it and asked him why I wouldn’t be able to sit and he said because
  I will kick your ass!  How’s that for encouragement.  Now
  it’s been almost a month and I really would feel like I failed so I try
  to avoid stress and boredom. 
  
  Shout to you Darri.  The one day I did sign in and try to catch up
  on reading was the day Darri posted about her heartattack. 
  Nothing like a face to face encounter with death to strengthen my
  resolve.    My dad says “your always to young to start
  smoking and your never to old to quit”. 

  I haven’t forgotten that I owe you all some more pictures of Prague, I
  will freely admit I am putting that off.  Since I went there I’ve
  been to Heidelberg and tomorrow were taking our 3 day weekend and
  heading to Berchtesgaden which is almost to Salzburg, Austria.  So
  being like a child I’m on to the new toy before the old one wore out.
  I
  will put this one in because it doesn’t fit elsewhere.  This is
  left over from the communist era.  Our friendly guide told us they
  could get a lot of Western things if they had the money.  She also
  told us that there are many things that people miss about
  communism.  When pressed to name one she pointed to a couple of
  young guys panhandling on the bridge and said that before the velvet
  revolution you never saw beggars of any kind because the gov’t made
  sure you had a job whether you wanted it or not.  Hmm!

  
  Later
  when it was almost sunset we were walking back across the same bridge
  when we saw this guy.  He was having a heckuva good time. 
  All his songs were American and sung in English.  The one that
  sticks out in my mind is “Hey there that’s my baby, no sir I don’t mean
  maybe.”  (I know that’s not the title but it was before my
  time.)  Anyway, I was thinking about all the money this guy was
  making doing something he obviously enjoyed and I wondered where he
  would work under communist rule and if he would make as much money or
  laugh as much.  Nothing is ever completely black or white. 
  You can find the good or you can find the bad, it’s all in what your
  lookng for.  Our guide earlier in the day told us about a lot of
  good the communist government did for the people then she was equally
  honest about the bad.  Now that communism is over she has just as
  clear a picture of the cost of freedom.  I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.
  

  • 4:22 am
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