My wife has told me on numerous occasions that I stop breathing while I'm asleep and that I snore like a buzz saw.  I finally gave in to her (women have a way of getting what they want, if you know what I mean), and I went to the doctor.  Of course the doctor I went do basically did nothing except refer me to a pulmonary doctor.  That was back in July, and my appointment with the pulmonary doctor was this past Thursday.

I get to the doctor's office a little bit before my appointment since I knew there would be a butt load of paperwork to complete.  I never knew there would be this much.  If I remember, I filled out about 17 different forms and questionaires, not to mention the ones I had to take home with me.  The doctor comes in, and he really doesn't do very much.  He listens to my heart and breathing.  Then he says he wants me to do the sleep study.  He goes into how after I get my problem treated how much better everything will be.  He says that my legs cramps will go away, blood sugar and blood pressure will go down, and I'll lose weight.  These are all great things, but I knew then that he hadn't even looked at my chart.  My blood pressure has always been really good as well as my blood sugar levels.  When I questioned him about it, he then looked at my chart and said that it would help me down the road as I got older. 

So, what I'm wondering is exactly what to expect from this sleep study.  No one in my family has ever had one, and the only one that has had one where I work is a complete whack job that thinks he has everything in the world wrong with him.  So that is why I turn to this community.  I know that they'll have to hook me up to some kind of device or machine, but exactly what kind?  Will there be cameras in the room?  I know that these people have seen everything, but God only knows what I do in my sleep.  How in the world am I supposed to go to sleep when I'm hooked up to something or not sleeping in my own bed? 

Then there's the name:  sleep study.  I thought my days of studying were over since I got out of college.  Hopefully, I can at least pass this lol.

Thanks in advance for any information.

Why do I hunt?  That question has been asked to me many times over the years.  I've never really put any thought into it before, but one day last week someone asked me the question, and I thought to myself, why do I really hunt.  Is it out of necessity?  No.  Is it the thrill of the kill?  No.  I think the real reason is that it gives me a greater appreciation for what I have and what those that came before me had to do to survive. 

I started hunting when I was about 8 years old.  Before we ever went out in the woods, my dad took me down in the pasture and taught me how to handle a gun correctly.  Unknown to me, he had been watching me even before this when I would be outside with my bb gun to see if I was handling it in a safe way.  So we go down to the pasture with his 16 guage shotgun.  He showed me how to load the shells into the magazine tube and how to get one in the chamber.  Then he showed me the way to click the safety off.  The main thing, he said, was not to put my finger on the trigger unless I was ready to shoot whatever that gun was pointing at.  I can still remember how much that old Remington kicked when I squeezed the trigger the first time.  After I had regained my composure, he told me to look at the target to see if I had hit it.  I was shooting at an apple core that was sitting on top of an old fence post.  The apple core was gone.  You would've had to sandblast the smile off my face when I realized that I had hit the target.  After this, my shoulder didn't hurt at all.  We scrapped up some more targets like old buckets and cans to shoot at. 

Little did I know but this was a test.  He had told me that if I had a good report card, that something good would come of it.  I did my best at school and came home with straight As.  When my dad got home from work, he told me to come out to the truck with him.  There on the seat was my prize, a brand new 410 double barrel shotgun.  The next weekend squirrel season opened, and I got to go hunting with my dad for the first time.  He got a few that day, but I struck out.  He told me that the only way to get better was to practice.  So practice I did.  By the end of the season, I was able to get my first squirrel and rabbit (the seasons run at the same time in the part of the state I live in). 

To be honest, I had mixed feelings when I took my first animal.  I was so glad to get it in my bag, but at the same time, I had just ended it's life.  My dad explained to me that it would keep living in spirit since it would be eaten by us.  I had just learned that food did not always come from the grocery stores. 

Since then, I've been hunting more times than I can count but not as many times as I wanted to.  My dad has slowed down since the days when I was an eight year old kid.  No longer do we go squirrel or rabbit hunting all day, but we still go deer hunting together whenever we can.  I still count the days until we get to go out in the woods together which is a few times every winter.  Now my middle one is my squirrel hunting buddy.  Last fall, I took him down to the bottom of the same pasture and gave him the same safe gun handling training my own dad had given me over 25 years ago.  My boy was able to take his first squirrel last year with the same old double barrel that I used on so many great hunts that I had with my dad.  He had the same mixed emotions that I had all those years ago.  He received the same story I got when I got my first one. 

It gives me great pleasure in being able to hand down what was given to me by my own dad to my kids.  My oldest son still doesn't want to go, but my daughter is showing interest.  I've taken all three with me at various times although the middle one has gone the most.  Hunting has made me appreciate what it takes to put food on the table.  It makes me appreciate what those that came before me had to do just to survive.  Most importantly, it makes me appreciate the bond between a father and his child.

First of all, thanks go out to everyone for the replies in my first attempt at a blog.  I may have found a reason for the way some people act.

This past Monday, I was off work.  My wife asked me to go with her to get school supplies for the kids.  In the past I've financed the back to school purchases, but I have never gone with them.  So we head out to the Chinese Military Industries Mega Super Store, excuse me, Wal-Mart to purchase school supplies.  Suprisingly enough, there were no problems in the parking lot.  We make our way over to the rack that has the lists for each school and grade.  My wife gets the lists, and we head to the area in the store that has the school supplies.  My wife has the lists, so I have no idea what is on there. 

The first thing on the list is pencils.  I tell her that she doesn't have to get any for the girl because I had already got some that were real girly looking and had her name on them because I knew she would like them.  My wife tells me that they can't use those.  Everyone has to have the same kind of pencils, and when they get to school the first day, the teachers get all the pencils, sharpen all of them, and put them in a bucket at the front of the class for everyone to use.  My jaw hit the floor.  Not only was I buying pencils for my own kids, but I'm footing the bill for others' kids also.  It gets better.

Other than some other essentials like notebooks, folders, paper, and scissors that were for my own kids the next few items on the lists got me even worse.  We had to buy toilet paper, soap, and paper towels.  That's right, toilet paper, soap, and paper towels.  Now the veins are popping out in my head and neck.  Normally, I'm a pretty quiet person, and it takes alot to get me rattled.  But this sure did it.  I ask my wife if these items were for our kids or the school (she works for the school by the way).  She says they are for the school.  So I ask her why is it that we have to supply toilet paper et al for the school.  That should've been one of the first things to be budgeted.  She says it's so they can spend more money for "furthering education for at risk students".  I asked her to explain that in English to me.  Come to find out, it's for those who cannot speak English and the welfare kids. 

So I ask her where are all the tax dollars going that the schools get.  When I was in school, which was 18 years ago, we did not have to furnish paper towels, or soap, or toilet paper, or anything else except for our own personal school supplies.  That was a given.  We didn't have all the touchy - feely feel good about yourself, it's ok if you can't pass we'll lower the standards until you do pass, go ahead and act like a fool you won't get punished programs at the school where I went.  We knew that if we screwed up at school, not only would the football coach get the "Board Of Education" out, but we'd get another one when we got home.  We didn't even have air conditioning at my school.  Imagine the lawsuits that would be brought about today for having to go to school in the south in August without air.  There we were, though, sitting in class in the Mississippi heat.  With school supplied toilet paper.

She never could tell me exactly where my tax dollars go.  When the state of Mississippi legallized the sale of hard liquor in 1966, the tax charged on each bottle was supposed to be set aside for education.  When gambling was legallized in about 1989, that tax money was supposed to be set aside for education.  A part of my property taxes is supposed to go toward education.  Some of the tax when you buy a tag for your vehicle (which is very expensive in this state) goes toward education.  And the state taxes that come out of my paycheck every 2 weeks goes towards education and is dispersed to the ones on welfare.  Lest I forget, the state is also sitting on billions of dollars that was part of the tobacco lawsuits that were settled a few years ago.  I know the money isn't going to the teachers.  The teachers in this state are paid the least of any in the country.  If all this money is going towards education, then why is this state at the bottom of the list for test scores?

To sum things up, I have found out what is wrong with people.  They start school in kindergarten being taught that everyone is supposed to hand out everything they need for the rest of their lives.  They have no reason to try to better themselves.  If they can't afford something, they think someone ought to give it to them.  If they can't pass a test, lower the standards.  If you don't want to exercise in PE class, get a note from home.  If you don't want to be punished, get a note from home saying not to punish you.  All these cradle to grave entitlements can work in a country like Sweden or Denmark where the population is maybe 3-5 million, but it cannot work in the United States that has a population of 300 million.  We as a country need to wake up and remember how we got to be this great country, or else we're going to wake up one day to being a communist country.

This is my first attempt at a blog, so y'all bear with me.

Yesterday I went to Walmart to get some batteries for my trail camera.  Normally, I wouldn't go there on the first of the month, but I got off work late, and that was the only place I could get any.  This town rolls the sidewalks up at 5:00.  So, I get to the parking lot and of course everyone and their brother is there.  After all, it was the 1st.  There were people driving up and down the rows going the wrong way.  I guess the directional arrows and the way the parked cars were slanted weren't enough of a clue as to which way you are supposed to go.  Then there's the stoner high school student who works there trying to push in about 100 shopping carts at once blocking a whole row in the process.

I finally find a parking space since most everyone parked is in their space crooked, or they're taking up 2 or 3 spaces with their vehicles.  As I am walking towards the store, I see kids probably around the 3-7 year old range running around in the parking lot playing.  Where were their parents? 

I get in the store after dodging everyone else's kids and all the punks out cruising the parking lot at breakneck speeds with their subs thumping so loud that it jars your insides.  I think to myself, I've only got to get 1 thing.  I'll be in and out in just a couple of minutes.  How wrong could I have been. 

I walk over to the battery display at the front of the store.  Of course there are no C batteries there.  So I make the trek to the back of the store to the rack beside the electronic department dodging the old ladies and the fat people on the scooters, the running wild kids, and the mothers trying to swat their kids the whole way.  I get my batteries and make my way back to the front once again dodging the afore mentioned groups again.

I get to the front, and of course there are only 3 checkout lines open.  Twenty different lines, and only 3 are open.  On the 1st of the month.  Anyway, I decide to use one of the self checkouts.  This store has 4 of those, but only 1 was working.  There is a large sign above said checkout that says 20 items or less.  Well, low and behold, the woman in front of me has her cart filled up.  I'm not talking about just a couple more items than 20; I mean filled to the top almost overflowing filled up, and let's not forget her 7, yes 7, kids running around hitting each other, crying, screaming, and just acting like hooligans.  I look over at the manager standing not 10 feet away, and I point at the sign that clearly says 20 items or less, and all she can do is give me a look like she couldn't give a crap.

Now I'm not one of these people that count everything that the person in front of me has in their cart, but come on.  This woman's receipt could've been used as a roll of toilet paper it was so long.  And to top it all off, she was using one of those food stamp cards.  Here was someone that was around my age with 7 kids who seemed able bodied enough to work using a food stamp card. 

After a 40 minute ordeal, I get back out in the zoo of a parking lot.  I see the woman with the kids getting in a brand new Cadillac with the 20" wheels.  This woman apparently doesn't work, has a food stamp card, 7 kids, and a brand new Caddy with 20s on it.  What is wrong with this picture?  I see my tax dollars are hard at work in this county.  What is wrong with people?