Wastin' Away in Diet Pepsiville

School got out on Friday morning and by noon I was well on my way out of town for a mini vacation to kick off the off season. This is my first day of summer vacation back here at the house and I'm bored already. I went out for a while on the scooter this morning to run a few errands, but the forecast of stray showers and thunderstorms seems likely to come true with how the sky looks, so here I sit at the computer basically vegetating and thinking about what I might write here.

Summer vacation felt great this morning, for
a few minutes before the boredom set in.

I suppose it's time to reveal what I did one week ago today. I went back to the psychologist who used hypnotherapy when I wanted to quit smoking five summers ago. I had my last cigarette ever on the porch of his office before my appointment, and about an hour later I emerged as a total non-smoker. I had no withdrawal. No cravings. I've not touched nor thought about having a cigarette since. Unfortunately, I gained WAY too much weight, apparently substituting food for the smokes. So, last week I went back to him and asked for another touch of the old black magic to help with losing weight.

My main problem was twofold when it came to eating. I overate at every meal. Somewhere along the line I came to believe that I wasn't full nor satisfied unless I ate much more than I needed to eat. The second part was that I snacked almost constantly in the evenings. I'd be finishing a bowl of ice cream and thinking about what kind of sandwich I was going to make afterward, and so it went all evening, every evening till I went to bed, and even then I looked for a last snack before hitting the sack.

Once again, just as with the cigarettes, I had an instant conversion! (Amen!) I've not been snacking at all, and I'm eating portions even smaller than average at meals. I'm a little afraid of what I might do now to feed my oral fixation. If I start chewing on logs or something I'll need to worry. Until then, I'll just enjoy watching the pounds melting away.

I was in Westmont, Pennsylvania for part of the weekend. It overlooks Johnstown, site of the world famous Johnstown Flood, and Westmont was built by former citizens of Johnstown who wanted to remain in the area, but to live above the flood plane. This photo looks down from Westmont onto Johnstown and I shot it for one reason in particular. To appeal to you to solve a huge mystery to me - one of those things that drives me crazy with wanting an answer but not knowing how to find one. (There are some things you just can't Google!) To the right of center in this shot, the mountain is scathed with the strip on which towers carry electric wires over the peak. I want to know how they build those towers on the sides of mountains with no obvious way of getting machinery into place to drill into the bedrock and then to assemble the towers. I've seen them on mountains much steeper and much taller than this one. If you know how they do that (And, please don't guess. I can do that on my own.) please let me know!

Speaking vaguely of heights, here's a job I saw being done on the Somerset County courthouse that I wouldn't do for any amount of love nor money. I'm cool with ascending ladders. It's getting back onto them at the top that freaks me out. I have no idea what these guys were doing up there, but I can guarantee that if I were to attempt to duplicate their task some changes of underwear would be in order.

There was a new bike to pose on at the bike shop I visited when I was out in Somerset a month or so ago. This was a bit more my size than the other had been, but not by much.

Finally, the scooter tie-in. One of the errands I ran this morning was to the supermarket around the corner. I was good and hungry when I went to get a steak to marinate for dinner and in the old days food shopping for me on an empty stomach would have been a budget disaster. I walked through the aisles as if I'd been wearing blinders. I got the steak, spuds, onions, and lettuce that were on the list and nothing more! I really should thank that shrink of mine. Maybe I'll have a nice big dinner and a good cigar in his honor!