Actually, I haven't smoked in a few days since my throat's been sore. Not unusual after smoking for a few months... and, I started smoking again a few months ago, so, I guess this is about due...

Of course, it's probably not just the smoke per se. It's probably also increased stress since I started working again a bit over a month ago, drinking more carbonated beverages... all of these things combined with the smoking is probably upsetting my stomach, and the stomach acid is probably jumping up my throat. Or, it could be bacteria,... I'm really not sure, but I'm not smoking, and I'm avoiding carbonated beverages.

In any case, my sprain knee continues to improve. I still have to be careful about rotations... that is, twisting it. In general, I'm just doing everything a bit slower, just to take care not to twist it the wrong way.

I did do some r-unning,(unnecessarily dashed words are ones the message board doesn't like)... well, on the treadmill... the other night at the gym. Actually, I go to two gyms... the one in my apartment complex, which is more convenient, and is also open 24/7, and the YMCA, which has more weight machines, including the hip abductor and adductor machines, which are real important for me, and is, in general, better equipped. Anyway, I did the r-unning on the treadmill one night after work in the gym in my apartment complex. I did try to r-un another time at the YMCA since then, but the knee didn't seem to think that'd be a good idea, so...

Walking's good, though. My stretching's going very well. You really have to "attack it" though, if you really want to loosen, and lengthen the muscles up, well, the tendons largely, however... that means allot of stretches.

However, I haven't been doing any dr-umming at all. I think the last time I played was about a week ago, and it just upset my knee so much, I decided not to try that again real soon. It's probably just that my feet are so flat, and that causes my knees to doing so much twisting...

I did have a couple sightings today. Usually at work I cashier, or am the greeter at the front door. But, sometimes they need me to go out and do the carts, which in some ways I kinda like because certain-ly compared to the registers, you can't get into much trouble. I am still a bit slow because I have to be careful not to twist the knee too much the wrong way. It's actually good therapy for it because my knees do need to do allot of rotation, so doing the rotations,... twisting... is part of what it has to re-learn to do. It's just that I have to be careful not to twist it too far too soon.

One thing that's really different compared to when I'd do carts at Toys "R" Us, the many times I worked there in the past, is that the volume at the store where I work now is just so much greater. Doing the carts where I work now is pretty much a full-time job for whoever is doing the carts... because the volume of customers is just so great. It's often the same on the registers, as well... I often feel as though I'm working on the assembly line at one of the factories I've worked at in the past. In fact, there's often two, or more, people doing the carts at the store I work at now. They do have a special machine that pushes columns of carts to make it easier, although I haven't developed the comfort level with it that some of the others have... I guess I just need to get more used to it.

Another thing that's nice is that I often see women smoking out in the parking lot. Today, in fact, I saw a couple attractive women smoking. Unfortunately, there isn't really a particularly appropriate cigarette ad for either one because things have changed so much culturally in regards to cigarettes, and we haven't had many cigarette ads in a long time.

The first sighting was of a blonde-haired woman smoking outside of her car. I believe her young daughter was in the car, and this mother smoked a whole cigarette just standing outside the car as her young daughter, I believe, sat in the air-conditioned car waiting for her. This, of course, is a real change from when I was a child. My mother would just smoke in the car. If it was really hot, she'd just turn the air-conditioner on, and crack her window a bit... however, she never seemed to make a concerted effort to blow her smoke out the window through the crack.

This, of course, would have been during the 60s, or early 70s, when largely, and, of course, the whole dynamic between smokers and nonsmokers was completely different than it is today. Even smoking in cars around young children... basically, no one thought very much of it back then. But, of course, part of it is just that during that period the percentage of Americans who smoked ranged from a high of about 50% to around 35%, I believe. And, of course, this compares to about 20% of Americans smoking today... and it's certain-ly not difficult to see how this massive percentage drop in smokers would likely translate into substantially reduced political, economic, and social power.

If you just look at an indoor shopping mall, for instance... Obviously, it's allot easier to ban smoking at your mall if on-ly 25% of your mall patrons smoke, as opposed to 50% of your mall patrons. So, I don't think there's much doubt that this vast drop in smoking rates explains much of why smokers have lost so much political, economic, and social power.

In any case, the other sighting was when I noticed a br-unette-haired woman sitting in her car. I kept an eye on her for a couple minutes, then looked away for awhile. When I looked back, she had a cigarette in her mouth. Actually, I'm not really sure I saw her smoking per se. One thing that was unusual today is that she had a very long cigarette, it may have been a 120, which are increasingly uncommon today.

Caesar's been having trouble, but now he's on an anti-biotic, and hopefully his urinary tract infection will go away. Apparently I was wrong to think that when he took an anti-biotic for a urinary tract infection a couple months ago, that his urinating outside the box was probably just a behavioral "hangover" issue, if you will, which is not unusual after he's had a urinary tract infection. It appears that the first anti-biotic he was given would not have been expected to have killed the bacteria that is causing his urinary tract infection. In any case, he's going to be getting a series of anti-biotic injections for a couple weeks, and hopefully that'll clear the problem up.

Anyway, that's about what's up here.

Take care,