Modern Vespa

There was one more post to go before the original thread tripped the mysterious bad juju of over 100 pages. Hopefully this new one will keep us happy.

I am happy that I am three days into quitting smoking (again) and with the help of IU medical and nicotine gum and have not had a cigarette. I have given up drinking temporarily to get rid of one of the triggers. So far the smoking impulses have been managable.

It also pisses me off [NSR] What's Pissing you off Today? III (Post 2663061)

I'm 15 years into quitting and only found it possible when I combined cigs with gum (when the indoor public smoking ban came in), so that when I decided to quit (after one of my kids had shamed me by saying that I'd had them all fooled that I'd quit years ago) I was able to carry on chewing gum, and barely noticed the lack of smoke. Eventually I had to drop the gum, which wasn't hard at all really.

Anyway, best of luck

Thanks and that is encouraging.

Good for you! The only thing that worked for me was vaping, then gradually reducing the nicotine content to zero over many months - I mixed my own liquids. In the end I just forgot to use the vape...

I tried vaping on an earlier attempt but for some reason it made me sneeze alot.

Hopefully my advantage this time will be the fact I had greatly reduced the number of cigarettes recently because we all got covid the day after Christmas. My IU med coach is great also. She is very responsive.

The trick with the vaping is to have zero flavour added (which is the bit that probably causes sneezing) - you're just after gradually reducing the nicotine. Rooting for you! You'll feel tons better all round. Plus there's no longer that financial drain.

fleece & stickyfrog

I have never smoked cigarettes, but many in my family have. All of them have quit, but we've never really talked about how they did it.

My step-mom never smoked, but she told me about how she and my dad would go jogging on the multi-use trail, and he'd spot a partially smoked cigarette on the ground. He'd point it out and tell her that, if it was still there when they were on their way back, he'd pick it up and smoke it. She was horrified and asked why, since he hadn't smoked in 20+ years at that point. He said that the urge is still there.

I can't imagine that urge, but I feel for you, and wish y'all the best when it comes to quitting.

Today was 'Take A guitar To Work Day'.

Good on all you who have quite smoking. When I was young, everyone smoked (age 75). For some reason, it did not appeal to me and I never got started smoking. So how dum is this. I started smoking cigars about 12 years ago.

I do one a day at night and actually enjoy it. I have the dailey smoker's hack cough. I routinely sip on a brandy with the cigar.

Despite my fall from grace, it cheers me up that many of you have quite smoking.

Bob Copeland
Stoogies in Lake Wodegon

Yep. I once quit for 6 years after smoking for about 15. The urge is always there waiting for the right set of circumstances to catch you off guard. In my case that time was when my son was in the ICU for 14 days after a motorcycle crash. But I did quit long enough to experience that one really has to work to get the physical reaction to smoke to pass and allow you to enjoy it again. Sort of how hard we have to work to start this miserable habit in the first place.

I never have an urge nowadays, ruddy things stink! In fact I have smoked in dreams and the thought has horrified me! Proper stuff of nightmares!

I quit smoking cigarettes in 1991 after twenty years of it.

I stopped on a Friday, gave my last partial pack of cigarettes to my (now) wife, 'Trixie', to hold for me, asked her for one cigarette from the pack on Saturday, smoked it, and never lit another one since.

So it's been thirty-three years since last lighting one up. It was a bit rough for the first couple weeks after quitting, Trixie says that I was a crabby bastard during that period, and I knew that while in my muddle-headed state of tobacco withdrawal that I unconsciously 'ran' at least two red lights with my motorcycle, not to be taken lightly when you live in North Minneapolis.

After that first several weeks had passed, I never had the urge to light another cigarette and don't miss them at all.

Kicking that habit was bad enough one time, and I never wanted to quit smoking a second, or third, or.....

I started working at Apple in 1991, and had a 30 year career. So this caught my attention: I believe you mean 33 years. You left a decade off of your accomplishment.

Also,

Usually I measure my time here in cat lives rather than trips around the Sun, so sometimes my intended time measurements get skewed in the translation.

I did a re-calculation of the time passage since that last puff and correctly edited it.

Thank you!

Lessee here!.....

Two packs of cigarettes per day (40 cigarettes in total), 365 days per year, for 33 years.

40 x 365=14,600 cigarettes per year.

14,600 x 33 years= 481,800 cigarettes that I didn't smoke over that 33 year period since I quit.

Sometimes people beat the odds, but what are the chances that I could be sitting here in 2024, Vespa in the garage just waiting for some nice weather, inflicting my inane nonsense on MV, if I had not stopped, and had consumed that 481,800 cigarettes?

Let's not even get into the insane amount of money that 481,000 cigarettes would cost.

481,000.

Big, big, number. Scary big number.

Amazing how things add up over time.

Ten years of keeping things in a rental storage unit at $100 per month = $12,000.

Is anything in there actually worth $12,000?

Asking for a friend.

Nope.

I wonder how many billions of dollars Americans waste every year storing "stuff" of limited value. My wife's mother had a storage unit for well over 10 years. When she passed in 2015 virtually everything was donated to Goodwill.

This is probably the typical demise of the contents of a storage unit.

And then there's this:

This is, nearly.

I have a friend who is around 60, drinks and smokes quite a bit and is a Diabetic.

She refuses to quit because she doesn't want to be the exception to the rule.

The one who eventually gives up and then dies the next day.

Fair.

When Mrs Syd and I were considering quitting, I asked my Dr about nicotine gum. She told me the gum just replaces cigs, and suggested the patch, which delivers nicotine regularly, removing the urge. It worked for us.

It costs that much, sure.

After some discussions with friends and acquaintances I applied to the DGR hierarchy to organise a ride in Kirikiriroa Hamilton NZ. We didn't have one here last year and a few of us took the trek across the Kaimai Ranges to Tauranga where about 120 bikes and 130 people took part.
The guys I have spoken to so far to help me have all come back positive and I spoke to a potential (likely) finish venue and they absolute sparked up at the idea. It's my local, admittedly 12km (7.5 US miles) from home, and their tag line is "Where Strangers become Friends and Friends become Family".
I mapped out a tentative route today, took me almost exactly 30 minutes to a regroup point, then a further 30 minutes to the end. 37km (23 US miles) total distance which is plenty with a big to large group. Last time it ran here there were about 70 bikes, that would be a great start.
NB: I'm sure US miles are the same as most others except the Nautical sort.

Spectacular fog this morning. Maybe 15m visibility.

It's just like a Movie or a Philip Marlow novel.

Maybe a 1963 Ferrari.

I started smoking in my late teens. My father smoked like a steam engine, so I guess the urge was always there. But for many years, I did a lot of free diving (Mask, snorkel, swim fins, no air tanks). The ability to fill your lungs as much as possible with air before the dive determines how long you can stay down. Before smoking, diving to a depth of 50 and staying down maybe a minute or so was my limit, although deeper to 75 feet was also possible - with less down time of course. After smoking, at 35 feet, I hit a wall and had to resurface. No more grabbing Spiny Lobsters for dinner at 35 - 50 feet. I decided I like lobster dinners more than cigarettes. I crushed my last pack up and never looked back.

It's interesting isn't it. I tried so hard to enjoy drinking. smoking and street pharmacy, because there must be something to it surely ?

Na, It's not for me. Not touched it since I was in my mid 20's.

If thou knowest thou knowest.

I don't knowest, but I know you're in Amantea. Working to figure out the memorial now.

And no, I didn't look at your IP address, either.

Definitely not in Amantea.

Ah. I was following a red herring, then. Doh.

I was chasing down a lead based on this:

It's a countach frame and flywheel/crankshaft in honor of Bob Wallace and his ridiculous test driver antics developing the car.

Reading about him now. Thanks for an interesting tip!

This ^

Children of educated immigrants don't smoke. We got hit until we learned, so we learned quick, and the numbers don't work. I was too poor to even try smoking (or paintballing, which I really wanted to try too).

Instead I put all the money I could put together and bought a condo at 23 years old. Flipped it for a 20% profit to get into 3 bdrm detached at 25 y/o. Flipped that at a 50-60% profit (after lots of renos) for a stupid big place at 30 y/o, and by that point, smoking was out of Vogue.

I could afford the time and gear to take up paintballing now, but, I used to swim 16 hours a week and run track and field on my off days. Now the only time I run is for a bathroom. The guys who I used to be 10-15 years ago would absolutely destroy me lol

So, I missed out on some fun back then, but now I get to ride my motorcycle across Italy for 25 days a year from my mid-30s for the rest of my life. Moral of the story: listen to your parents when they hit you