Finally feel close to normal physically. Still have a bit of a cough, but things are going much better. I may have blown out some vessels in my eye by coughing. The positive thing (other than having a half-demonic looking eye for a day) is that as things are being reabsorbed, the little bump on my eye (the eye doc. said it was nothing to worry about) has disappeared as well.

We have started to make use of our Summit Center membership. We took the kids to open swim on Sat. and Sun. and I made use of the pool for laps today. I ended up getting in about 12 laps (6 shy of a half-mile). Luckily, I’m not too into myself and am realistic about my condition. After two laps, I realized that I was going to need to rest between laps, so with lap # 3, I started resting a minute between laps. Not the best, but it is a start. It also helps me to plan some goals. One is to increase my number of laps to 18 within the month. The other is to decrease the time between laps. I’m going to try cutting back to 45 seconds tomorrow. That should help me get in a couple more laps in my allotted time.

When I was a sophomore at SDSU, I ended up taking a swim conditioning class. The first day was hell. Only ten laps, but we only had 90 seconds to get each lap completed. If we got done early, we’d get to rest. If not, we were swimming continuously. Needless to say, I was swimming continuously. By the end, I was feeling like puking. We had 4-5 people drop the class because it was too hard. The workouts in the class got easier after that. The instructor was tough the first day to get rid of anyone not serious about the class. I ended up also going to lap swim a couple evenings a week and ended up losing about 30 lbs. before the semester was over. Didn’t change what I ate, just added the exercise. It is 12 years later. I have started to track what I’m taking in on a daily basis and will hopefully be able to make some better choices regarding food.

Work has been good. Still a few pain in the butt inmates, but nothing I can’t handle. The new therapist is working out great. If only we were allowed to do therapy. We’ve been told we need to do groups. We offered two and got a total of 3 people to sign up – not enough to have a group in a prison setting given that people are moved between facilities, paroled, and/or put in segregation. I was hoping for at least 10 to sign up. We’re going to offer 2 more groups then re-approach the powers that be about re-establishing individual therapy case loads. Exciting stuff, I know.

Watched "Open Water" and "Saved" over the weekend. Open Water was a bit depressing and more than a little freaky, more in the premise, as that HAS happened to people before. Amy didn’t like the end. "Saved" was very funny. Great look at the religious right and how intolerant they can be at times even though they are preaching tolerance to others. We started watching "The Manchurian Candidate" last night but didn’t get through it. We have started looking for implants, however.

Just saw on CNN that the Bush administration is considering attacking Iran. Yeah, great idea. Start ANOTHER war you have no fucking idea how to finish. Of course, never-ending wars are good for the economy. Soldiers use stuff and need stuff and a dead person can’t hold a job, so there will be some unprecedented job growth under President Howdy Doody.

To paraphrase the Guiness commercials, "Start another war when the other two aren’t finished yet? BRILLIANT!"