Living life on the bottom line

Lately I've been noticing more and more instances where the bottom line is everything. Including bottoms, of course. A good bottom line, in business or in person, seems to be what everyone is interested in'

Businesses are all about profit these days and their employees and their welfare seem to have been, in large part, forgotten. And in the process, some of those parts that are enlarging are bottoms.

A multi-billion dollar industry has sprung up over the last decade to deal with the problem, which, incidentally, has been good for the bottom line of thousands of businesses.

It's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more time you spend in a chair on business, the bigger each bottom line becomes.

Alas, my own bottom line has proved to be no exception.

Susan is still helping me by encouraging a better diet with smaller servings, and it's helping. She also bought me this kind of excercycle thing for my Christmas present. It's small and can tuck right into the desk my computer sits on, to be hauled out and put in front of the couch for pedaling.

It's an interesting twist on the whole couch potato thing. I can sit on the couch, watch TV, have a drink if I want, and exercise at the same time. Out of respect for the whole process I haven't been smoking while exercising, but I could.

True, I've yet to work myself into a sweat while using it, but the weather has been pretty cool, even inside. I'm up to about thirty minutes on my sometimes-almost-daily spin around the living room rug and it has to be helping, since I've doubled the time of my first outing.

And you can't beat the scenery. There's Magnum PI, Matlock, Rockford, and all the scenes around the world, including the debris-strewn streets and in and around Baghdad, that are constantly on Headline News.

I suppose at some point I'll have to take my personal exercise show on the road with a real bicycle, walking, and maybe even running some day. It will be a lot better as far as the exercise goes, but I'll miss the couch and TV. Perhaps I can invent something that you can run on while sitting on the couch. Now that's an idea that's worth exploring -- Especially for those folks who'd like to smoke and drink while getting healthy.

That would definitely improve both of my bottom lines, though I doubt seriously either one of them will ever be so good as to attract the eyes of investors, or anyone else for that matter.