I’m back from the St. Louis, MO area after a week full of gluttonous eating and driving around. I feel like a gained at least 5 pounds and definitely a new respect for the midwest. I’ve been to major cities out there, but I’m really starting to enjoy the little niché places that are the right amount of modern, yet still have the essence of comfort, as small towns tend to. I loved the quiet nights and calm streets in the day, people were friendly, commenting to me–a complete stranger–on my photography of the downtown architecture. Just as soon as you found yourself in a coffee shop drinking your common cup, you could find yourself in rolling hills of green on a two lane road to the next town. The greenery at this time of the year was great, new leaves that define the color, were everywhere on moist dark tree limbs. I managed to evade a tornado and some hail, although I would have liked to experienced them in a strange way. All and all my memories are fond, I can’t wait to get back.

I’m saddened to be back home as I left my girlfriend there as she travels for the semester. It seems as if now it’s setting in that my vacation is over and I have to go back to work and school. It’s time to get back to pacing the sushi bar and spending hours on programming, not wandering the back roads of Illinois with my girlfriend.

After stuffing myself with “roasted” chicken that turned out to be fried, Ashley and I took off for a show at The Creepy Crawl. The only band name I remember was The Hard Lessons. It was pretty interesting, they were a three piece band. Guitar, keys and drums. They seem to be getting a bit of hype. The thing I didn’t like was how the set seemed scripted and it was almost like going to a show at Seaworld. “Alright thanks for coming out tonight! I’d like to introduce our amazing dolphins… alright let’s go!” We left during their last song, it was a cover that was pretty forgetable since I can’t even recall it. I was getting annoyed with the middle aged woman who wouldn’t stop laughing at the fact that the drummer for the band was a “little person”, either way it made no impact on his performance, he ripped. After that we went to The Stagger Inn, a bar with a rich history in this town. It was open mic night, enough said. I feel like I smoked a pack last night because you can smoke in all the clubs/bars/restaurants out here. Ugh. Oh one more thing, I had this thing called a slusharoo a.k.a. hurricane. It consists of shaved ice or slushie blended with vanilla ice cream! Delicious.

Hey everyone I’ve made it to Edwardsville, a city just a bit away from St. Louis, MO.  I got here on Monday and have been eating everything in sight.  The food is fried and the people are friendly, and you can smoke everywhere.  As for me I’m doing fine on the quiting thing, I’ve even gone to bars and been able to refrain after a few drinks.  I’ve yet to spend a lot of time in St. Louis, although I hope to get out there tonight and see what it’s all about.  I’m in a public library posting this so I’m going to hit the road soon.  I plan on getting out side in the 30 degree weather and taking some photos of the scenery around here.  I’ve never seen so much brick!

Well I hope so. After making the horrible decision to smoke in the first place, I’ve decided to quit. I’m done, tired of smelling like crap and spending money on some sort of false comfort I found in them. It’s now the end of the 9th day and I can say I don’t really miss it at all. How did I achieve this great feat? I actually read a book, “The Easy Way to Stop Smoking” By the late Allen Carr. I know that sounds totally nuts and crazy but it worked for me. I actually saw Ashton Kutcher on some late night talk show, claiming the same thing about the book. I guess that makes me a sucker (I own a magic bullet too, but that’s another post all together). It wasn’t easy, at least the first few days were very, very hard. Suddenly after day 4 it was becoming more and more easy to ignore. Now I hardly think about it. I’m quite pleased with it to be honest, I can’t believe how easy it really was. The book lays out pretty well the stupidity of smoking, in a way that makes you realize you never really understood your addiction in the first place. I’d recommend buying this book to anyone who is ready or may be thinking about quiting. It’s only about 10 bucks online, that’s about the price of 2 packs of smokes, it’s worth the try. I hope to keep up my progress and I’ll keep posting any new news, but I hope that I never really will have to. I’d like to think that I’ve put that chapter behind me.

// enter start date below like this: "January 2, 2001 "
$start = "March 24, 2007 03:00:00";
// enter string of what this start date is.
$text = "since I quit smoking.";
//--------------------
$now = strtotime ("now");
$then = strtotime ("$start");
$difference = $now - $then ;
$num = $difference/86400;
$days = intval($num);
$num2 = ($num - $days)*24;
$hours = intval($num2);
$num3 = ($num2 - $hours)*60;
$mins = intval($num3);
$num4 = ($num3 - $mins)*60;
$secs = intval($num4);

echo '‘,$days,” days ” ,$hours, ” hours “, $mins, ” minutes and “, $secs, ” seconds “, $text,’‘;
?>