"The journey of a 1,000 miles begins with one step" Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu
Good luck!   

I hope it works for you!  You'll feel much better after you finally succeed.

  Your lungs will love you for it. Good luck!

Hello Everyone, Beautiful Day in Michigan should have taken the 57 out of storage (insurance wise), Good news Rich ,We all have enjoyed the good and Bad choices in Life , one of the Best for me was stopping something I started in the Military (1972) and Stopped in 2010 when my brother died from them !! Enough Preaching , Look for a replacement , You will feel better for it ...

Thanks guys.

The wife and I came down with the Covid on Dec 22, not a very good Xmas or New Years. She recovered after a few weeks but it took me longer. Bottom line is I haven't had a smoke since Dec 22...

Sorry about the Covid, and very happy you both recovered, and for you, I guess it had a silver lining. That's a biggie for us with COPD.
 Day 2 begins for me.
Well, I guess most of you guys have heard about our local wildfires. It was crazy windy here for those 2 days the fires began. Almost all of them in areas I frequent on my roadtrips, and have been in most of the cities and towns mentioned in the past two weeks. The nuclear facility they closed last night is , aside from the military, where my wife retired from. I'm actually having my morning coffee in a Pantex coffee mug as we speak. The air here in Amarillo is very smoky, not going to be good for me to get out. This morning news said the fire is within 25 miles of Amarillo now, have to keep an eye on that, and maybe pack a few bags

Remember, you can eat an elephant, just have to do it one small bite at a time!  Good luck.  We need you around for inspiration and motivation.

Keeping an eye on the fires. Today I'll make sure we have a plan that doesn't include moving furniture. Lots of property being lost, and the horror of burning cattle. I saw a stat this morning I was not aware of...85% of Texas-grown cattle is in the "Panhandle"
One person has lost their life so far, so that could be a lot worse. Unlike many of the small towns involved in the fire, Amarillo is a hub of intersecting major highways, so lots of ways to go if needed. My wife talked to a friend from her Pantex days yesterday, and her family is sheltering in a church in Fritch, one of the hardest hit towns.
Day 3.

Rich, I have been "out of pocket" for a while, (we went to a three day wedding in New Orleans) so I am just catching up. The weather here has been gorgeous, the wind has been out of the west. Yesterday while working in my yard I noticed the very pervasive smell of something burning... I had no idea about the fires. Hope this works out okay for y'all. Best of luck on the smoking issue, I know you can do it.

we've got about 3" of heavy wet snow on the ground..hope the snowfall keeps going towards the fires.....N/E.

SHOP UPGRADES:
  -- I know this is NOT cutting edge stuff but sometimes small accomplishments are worth celebrating.  I am typing this post out this morning on my laptop connected to brand new, high speed, fiber optics WIFI in the shop!
  -- I've shelved the old TOSHIBA with Windows 7 and no WIFI option.
  -- Last week I installed a point-of-use (POU), tankless, on-demand water heater under the shop sink.  No more washing my hands in ice cold water!
  -- The wife got a fireplace upgrade with a remote control gas log insert.  Not a shop upgrade you say?  I no longer have to cut wood, load wood, unload wood, split wood, stack wood, load the wood box, load the fireplace, light the damn fire, unload the ashes...you get the idea.  The shop benefitted from freed space to store more parts.  Two chainsaws, gas cans, oil cans, splitting maul, stacking racks just went over the fence to the neighbor.  If I need a tree limb cut up, I know a guy that owes me.
  -- More new tech for the shop to go with the disco ball and pin lights...I'm loading up software to connect my laptop to my '70s component sound system.  My goal is to convert my old LPs, cassettes, reel-to-reel, and 8-tracks to MP3s which will be added to my USB thumb drives along with my old music CDs.  Why?  All my vehicles have USB slots.  I can cruise all summer long in my old cars listening to the Beach Boys or Bob Seger and NOT ONE damn note of RAP!  Two years ago, we cruised for two weeks through canyon country, down the Colorado from Denver, around Utah, through John Wayne movie country and down to Arizona.  The whole trip, we never listed to the same song twice.  What a gorgeous trip.  We would like to go again but for a month if not the whole summer.  I still wouldn't see it all!

Take care,
gasman826 AKA Gary   

Converting to a gas fireplace was a huge improvement in convenience! Now here we don't really need fireplaces but we like the ambience. Half the time we light it up if the temperature is in the 50's, there have been times when we ran the AC and the fireplace too! Now that is ridiculous! I actually put a gas fireplace in the bedroom but we can't use it, it gets too hot!

My first on location shoot.  Maybe next time it will be the wagon. This for a True Classic brand commercial.
About 1 hour north in Santa Clarita, Ca

Nice, now you need to get them to put it on one of their Tee's