I think that's single longest blogging break for me

Monday since I last blogged. That's a long time for me. On average, over 1489 days, I've blogged every 1.4 days. Well, 1.41271347 days, if you want to get picky. Don't make me go to hours, minutes, and seconds. I've got a calculator and know how to use it.

Tuesday was a wipe out. I came home. I ate. I went to bed. I snored, or so I'm told. I am dubious.

Wednesday was yoga, and I was looking forward to it. Often we are dragging our tails before class, but we go because we've paid in advance, and we know we'll feel better after. And we usually do. About half way through class I totally lost focus. It was right in the middle of this long asana. Not hard, but it just went on forever. Personally, I think our teacher put an extra loop in there. I went from doing yoga, and working the poses, to just looking like I was doing the poses. If you've done yoga for a while you know what I mean.

Thursday I did a bit of stretching and got on my bike.
30 minutes warmup with some fast spin, and focus pedaling drill.
30 minutes at 1.9 w @88 rpm, quite steady, focussing on smooth and steady pedaling, trying to keep my upper body still, and my breathing quiet. It mostly worked, though towards the end I was starting to breath harder. It was never out of control although I was sweating like mad. There was a steady drip off my face.
10 minutes easy and some fast spin
5 minutes at 2.1 w @85 rpm, and that was starting to get out of hand right at the very end, so I picked it up for the last 15 seconds.
15 minutes cool down and easy spin. Stretched after.

I'm really happy with that. Since I got the power meter I've been a lot more focussed about the effort I'm putting in, and I think I've made some improvement even in the short time I've had it.

Not that I talk about work much, but holy cow. It's really hitting the fan. The end of the year is coming fast. Many people that have been head down shoveling for all they are worth for a while now are beginning to surface. (I'm one of them. I actually had time today to tidy my desk, in anticipation of another flurry of stuff.) Others have made some terrible discoveries, and I hope it all works out ok.

And speaking of terrible discoveries, I found out today there are still people so rude and ignorant as to smoke a cigar on a public street. I got a lung full and nearly spewed right then and there. Cigarette smoke and smokers are bad, but this was horrible.

I didn't hear all of it, but CBC sent a 17 year old girl into various convenience stores to buy cigarettes. At 5 out of 10 places they didn't even checked her ID, and at another 2 places checked her ID (her real ID), and then sold her the cigarettes anyways. Grrrr!!!!!!

The only way we are going to stop this scourge is to prevent kids from starting. I'd like to see it made uneconomic to sell tobacco products in anything but a specialty store. This should be easy with business tax regulation. Want to sell tobacco? Pay the current tax. Want to sell any of the other many other products and services on the market? Pay the current business taxes. Want to sell tobacco AND any of the other non-tobacco related stuff? Pay double, or more. Make the specialty store check the ages of purchasers. Register purchasers with the government and tie our health care benefits to smoking or the lack thereof.

I see no reason why it shouldn't be made a restricted product, and made considerably harder to get. In fact, the same rules about selling booze should apply to selling cigarettes. After an educational period to publicize the rules, whacking huge fines should go into effect, for both the clerk and the store owner.

I worked in a Mac's Milk store when I was in high school, and remember a pack of cigarettes costing much less than a dollar. People used to say they'd quit if they got to a dollar, then 2 dollars. I've no real idea what they cost now, but there are still lots of people smoking. I suspect the price has already weeded out everyone that it's going to weed out.

I'm not sure why people start smoking. Maybe it's the cool, or rebellious thing to do. Or they do it because their parents do it. There needs to be a campaign to tell kids not just that it's stupid to smoke, but THEY are stupid to be smoking. People need to point and laugh at smokers. Just like they sometimes put a smashed up bloody car in front of the high school to warn about the dangers of drunk driving, they ought to be plopping a cancer ridden lung on the desk for the kids to look at. Show them video of medical operations dealing with cancerous growths. If the kids aren't throwing up, we need to find more graphic videos. I'd like to see the little camera in the fiber optic cable going down the airway of these kids, and showing them the difference between the kid that doesn't smoke, and the one that has just started.

Land that will grow tobacco can probably grow other crops. I wonder what incentives would be required to encourage land owners to plant those other crops? That has to be cheaper than medical care for all the smokers.