Building a home gym

I have decided that since I can not get out and excercise, I will instead build myself a home gym that I can use to work out in instead. I've talked it over with my mom and she agreed that the best option is to clean out the old quanset hut out back that has been used for storage until now and build the gym in there. I have various things accumulated over the years that can be used to get the place started and hope to eventually add in a treadmill as well since I really enjoy walking and want to walk a lot. The tradmill has the dual purpose of being something that I can use for at home rehabilitation for my dad so he can walk more too.

Raining now, but plan to get out there later tonight if it stops and get to work on sorting and reboxing things to make room for a gym area.

Smoking should be tax free for seinors

Okay, this post started because last night my dad got angry because me and my mom did not want to sit up at 3:30 in the morning while he smoked ciggaretts - and we were not going to leave him smoking while we went to bed. He was still mad at me this morning, starting into growling at me about ciggaretts at 8 am, then again at 9:30. I support that they smoke, I mean, hell, they've smoked for over 60 years. The US Army got dad hooked by dropping him in trenches in other countries in the winter with ciggarettes and a book of matches in his MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat for anyone that don't know).

One of the doctors that cared for dad after his stroke flat out told him, "I'm not going to tell you to quit because at this point it would be worse on you if you did, but try to cut back a little." Dad has, down from 4 packs a day to 1 pack a day -- sometimes only 1/2 a pack.

People are always screaming about the fact that we have to raise the price of ciggarettes to keep them out of the hands of minors. Minors that have since the dawn of time stole money from their mother's purse to buy stuff they can't afford. So how does it keep the ciggarettes out of their hands to raise the price? And if that's the reason, then why don't we have a program where seniors can get a senior discount that knocks the tax off the cigarettes?

Second hand smoke is said to kill, what they don't tell you, but that the doctors know (I saw it on a lung cancer poster in a doctor's office back in 2001) is that only 6% of the population of the US have the proper genetic makeup to make them susceptible to developing lung cancer from smoking. Thre are more people (1 in 10 I think I heard the other day?) that are deathly allergic to a bee sting than there are peopel bothered by second hand smoke - why ain't there laws preventing people that have honey bee hives from allowing their bees to fly into public places where they might sting someone? Instead those little death darts are allowed to fly anywhere they want completely unimpeeded.

Drinking and driving kills, why are there not massive taxes each year jacking up the price of booze? You can't tell me those little teenagers that are stealing ciggarette money are not also copping beer money. Right now we pay roughly $7 a pack for cigarettes, how much does the guy that killed the family of four pay for his six pack of beer on the way home from the bar?

How much can you safely say?

One of the most difficult things about being a family caregiver when you have a blog, is determining what you can say about your life. What do you bare to the world about what you go through? How much is too much? Are you saying too little? Where is the line between the two?

If it seems like this blog is hardly ever touched, that is why. There is just so much difficulty in deciding what to talk about and what to stay silent on.

Nighttime leg cramps

Dad has been having night time leg cramps that I have no idea what to do about. He can lay down for 10 min to an hour, then his leg cramps up and he needs to get up and sit in his chair to get it to stop hurting. This has been going on for several days now, need to find cure.

Catching up

I'm slowly but surely starting to play catchup on things - hopefully with the new system I am trying to put into place for organizing my workday I will get better at keeping track of where I have and have not yet dome things throughout the week so I can make sure I don't miss or forget any of the sites or journals I wanted to get updated.

Laptop down

I came home the other day and did not see that someone had spilled something on my laptop computer - turned the poor thing on and fried out the keyboard. I'm in the process now of letting it dry out some after having throughly cleaned it with some electronics cleaner - not holding out very much hope that it'll survive the experience however.

Fishing for King Salmon

Took my dad up to Rabideux Creek over the weekend of the 4th to fish for King Salmon. My youngest nephew caught a really nice king on the 2nd so dad wanted to try his hand at it on the 3rd. We stayed until fishing closed, that night at midnight, then headed back home. Didn't catch any fish, but had a great time nevertheless. And dad got a chance to take his remote control speed boat for a spin on the river, so that was fun. Very tiring trip, but well worth the drive.