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I’ve known about Meetup.com for a while, but just recently signed up. I’m not always first in line to adopt things. I feel like I’m “Web 1.9″ sometimes.

Last week, I went to 3 events I found through Meetup.com:

• South Florida Graphic Design/Creative Meetup
• South Florida Web Design Meetup
• Babies, Toddlers, and Little People Meetup

So far, meetup.com is 3 for 3. I met some great folks in my industry at the design meetups. I was especially looking forward to the Babies, Toddlers and Little People meetup. Renee was at one of their meetups earlier this year.

The organizer of this particular meetup is Jordanna Egan. She runs a licensed home day care center here in South Florida. She uses the group to promote her business and foster a sense of community. Renee and I felt an immediate kinship with her. Her two children are named Austin and Erianna.

Renee and I continue to get better networked locally. One segment of our circle of friends is an older bunch without children. That was the group we spent most of our social time with until the baby was born. They are a wonderful bunch, but we were hungry for circumstantial peers - other local folks our age with children. Meetup.com is proving to be a great way to fill that need.

If you haven’t checked out meetup.com, it’s worth a look. This concludes my wholehearted, sincere, unpaid, and unsolicited endorsement of meetup.com.

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Photo: dbking

We have a 3 day weekend courtesy of the United States government. There’s nothing wrong with barbecues, picnics, or a trip to the beach. Just don’t forget why we have this occasion on our calendars. Regardless of your feelings about the current conflict in Iraq, the US military has done many great things.

I’ve been covering some heavy topics lately, so it’s time to take a little break.

Twilli Pie

It started as my daughter’s online moniker. Now we call her Twilli, Twill, or Twilli Pie all the time. Somehow, it stuck and it just fits.

When it was time to start thinking of names, we came up with Ariana pretty quickly. I didn’t want to feel like a slacker, so I made a sizable list. The trendy names and more pedestrian names were conspicuously absent. Renee and I both liked Ariana just fine. Sometimes the first choice is the best.

Here she is, sportin’ a faux-hawk.

The Accidental Freelancer

“Let’s start you off on a 1099 for now.” really means, “I don’t think we’ll need you for more than a month or two.”

I don’t get enough visitors and clicks to live off AdSense (yet). Employment from outside the home is definitely a high priority right now. However, a number of factors are influencing me to explore free agency.

The thought of living contract to contract is scary. Just like any endeavor with high risk, the potential reward is much greater.

Oh wait, I said we were taking a break from heavy topics. Oops!

Spending Less Time With Stanley This Year

Watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs is much less of a priority these days. Maybe it would jump the queue if the Panthers could get their butts in gear next season. I kept up with the scores online, but I haven’t watched a game until this past Saturday. I love hockey, but being a dad is priority #1. With my jam-packed schedule, something’s gotta give.

What The Blogosphere Looks Like From Here

I promised more lighthearted fare here today. I already tripped up. I’m outsourcing to Jim for the laughs today.

I’ve recently become a fan of The Baglady. I used to think there were only FOB’s (Fresh off the Boat) Asians and me, as the lone twinkie pariah. Xin’s personal accounts tell me that you can be socially well-adjusted as an Asian-American.

Ron at The Wisdom Journal just plain rocks. You can find insightful articles on personal finance, career advice, and killer guacamole. If that doesn’t entice you to visit, he can tell you how to get out of a speeding ticket.

Boogiemum has done the legwork on finding free or cheap activities for your children this summer.

This one is long overdue, but the topic is timeless. Laurel at Parenting Diva presents us with 20 Things to Consider Before Having Children.

This one is even more overdue. GTA4 is flying off the shelves. I promised to share. Tom Hanson from Open Education gives us a Q&A with Lawrence Kutner, author of Grand Theft Childhood.

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“Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.” - Brooke Shields (1982)

My Own Battle With Smoking

Photo: Porcelaingirl

A few bloggers I read regularly have talked about their struggle with smoking. It’s a habit I’ve struggled with for most of my life, but I think this time, I’ve quit for good. I knew that when my daughter was born, I had to quit smoking.

When I was single and perusing the dating sites, it really limited my choices. Very few non-smokers would tolerate a smoker. It is often a deal-breaker. The limited pool from which I could choose from also translated into limited success. My self-esteem took a double hit. This nasty habit left me dateless on many nights. When I quit (for whatever length of time it was), I had more dates.

Renee has been wonderful to me since day one. I was on the slippery slope of smoking relapse when I met her, and was back on the puff-wagon within a couple months after we started dating. I refrained from smoking when we were together, but there were times when I indulged. Then we started spending even more time together. It wasn’t actively discouraged, so I continued to smoke.

The Effects of Smoking

Other media channels have done a better job of describing the basics. Here are some of my observations:

• You’re lighting something on fire and breathing in the fumes
• One guy told me that he smoked 3 packs a day for over 40 years. That’s almost 1 million cigarettes!
• A pack-a-day habit is a $150 hole in your budget. A fellow dad blogger tells me that he and his wife both smoke a pack a day. That’s a car payment.

“Please Don’t Smoke, Daddy.”

I always knew I had to quit. Then Twilli was born. I REALLY had to quit. She won’t have conscious memories from this time, but neural pathways are being forged. I didn’t want to imprint the cigarette smell along with things like warm, safe, daddy, love, hugs, and snuggle time.

I grew increasingly self-conscious of my habit. I washed a lot of dishes by hand to further scrub the smell from my hands. After a cigarette, I would wash some dishes, brush my teeth, and sometimes change my shirt. A crying baby with a dirty diaper isn’t going to wait for daddy to go through that whole routine.

Slaying the Smoke Monster

A few months ago, I was taken down with a nasty flu. I could barely breathe. How could I smoke through that? I spent 4 days in bed. I didn’t want to smoke. After the 3 day hump, I didn’t want another cigarette. I also lost 10 pounds, which I’m happy to report remain lost. I’ve lost another 10 pounds since. Maybe it’s all that bike riding I’ve been doing lately.

I quit smoking, but I wasn’t ready to quit nicotine. I tried a product called Ariva. It’s a pressed tablet of tobacco that dissolves in your mouth. It’s actual tobacco rather than pharmaceutical nicotine. That’s what was missing from the gum, the lozenges, the patch, and other nicotine replacement therapies. Ariva is also the same price as a pack of cigarettes while the replacement therapies cost more. I used joesgoals.com to track my progress of weaning myself off the tablets.

The Effects of Smoking on Babies and Children

One of the select bits of conventional wisdom I subscribe to is for pregnant women to abstain from smoking. It really does have the deleterious effects claimed by the most fervent doomsayers.

Our friend Steve is a smoker who is trying to quit. His wife said that it was going to be even more difficult for him than most. Steve’s mother smoked during pregnancy, so Steve has been addicted to nicotine since before birth! I had not considered that as one of the negative effects of smoking during pregnancy.

“Crack babies” and “heroin babies” get all the coverage in the media. What about the Marlboro Baby?

Before this revelation, I thought that children of smokers became smokers simply due to modeling of behaviors. Smoking during pregnancy imprints this nicotine dependency upon a malleable brain. I know my mother had smoked during at least one pregnancy. Both of my sisters smoke. The last time I visited my mother, I was standing out on the porch with my mother and my sisters. We all had cigarettes in one hand and beers in the other. My sister quipped, “This is an activity the whole family can enjoy!”

Kicking the Habit

If you’re a smoker, you can quit. I will be your cheerleader, not a self-righteous finger pointer. I support you in your decision. It won’t be easy, but you can do it. I’ve tried several methods including cold turkey, weaning, smokeless tobacco, Zyban™, the gum, the patch, and the lozenges. The key for me is persistence. If I fall off the horse, I’m getting back on right away.

The one thing that helps me the most is a focus on all the positives. I think about the money I save, the health benefits, the self-esteem boost, the sense of accomplishment, and a host of other things. My focus is on what I achieved or gained rather than what I’m avoiding, running away from, or lost. BTW, this works on other areas of your life too.

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What my family eats is on my radar. I’m fighting years of sloppy code, poorly written nutrition updates and buggy performance in general. In my attempts to live a healthier lifestyle, I still get the blue screen of high fructose corn syrup all the time. Au-Teen gives me a Fatal Exception Error when it comes to drinking more water and easing off the sugar beverages

Making The Shift To Vegetarianism

Growing up in the United States means you were told that meat is an essential source of protein and other nutrients. The livestock industry is subsidized by our government. Vegetarians are seen as weirdos. It’s all about the beef here in the land that brought you the golden arches and hardened arteries.

Eating meat has become less appealing. I still enjoy the taste and texture of many meats, but it takes a toll on my conscience. Stories about factory-farm raised chickens and the treatment at cattle feedlots are almost enough to make me want to swear off meat. I’ve already stopped eating veal. These calves are kept in the worst conditions and slaughtered within days of being born.

Being a better steward of our Earth and vegetarianism go hand-in-hand. There are environmental reasons for going vegetarian. Did you know that:

• Eating a vegan diet reduces more carbon emissions than replacing your conventional car with a hybrid.
• Approximately 55 square feet of forest is destroyed for each hamburger that originated from animals raised on rainforest land.
• One pound of beef requires an input of approximately 2500 gallons of water.
• One pound of soy requires 250 gallons.
• One pound of wheat requires only 25 gallons.
• With the water used to produce a single hamburger, you could take a luxurious shower every day for two and a half weeks.

Activism isn’t going to turn us all vegetarian overnight. However, we can all do a little to reduce the demand for meat. A decrease in demand will not go unnoticed by the livestock and poultry industries. Fish farms do their share of damage to mother Earth too. There’s wild-caught fish, but are we fishing faster than the supply replenishes? One has to wonder.

Quitting Cold Turkey Cold Turkey

I’m not prepared to go full-time vegetarian, despite the benefits. Special dietary needs and travel don’t mix well. It really puts a damper on “souvenir dining.” I still know people in Philadelphia. There’s nothing quite like a steak from Rick’s in Reading Terminal. Mmm mmm. And what about sushi? Butter makes everything taste better. As of today, going 100% vegan is out of the question. There’s a little thing called feta cheese that’s near and dear to me.

I continue to unsubscribe from long-held beliefs on my personal development journey. Everything is on the table. What I decide to eat is also under the scrutiny of this audit and subject to change. I truly believe there is a better way.

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