Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Perpetual Sleepiness
(That's close to being a good band name, I think.)
I haven't been sleeping much lately, and it's been bothering me. But it's been more mental anguish than anything else. And I've finally come to accept that (a) I'm only going to get about 6 hours of sleep a night and (b) I'm fine with that.
There are numerous factors at play here that are conspiring to limit my sleep. The first is that I hate going to bed. HATE IT. I don't know why, exactly, but it's my least favorite part of the day. I feel like going to bed is admitting defeat. Maybe I think I'm going to miss out on a lot of fun. Often times, I'm just curious what's going to be on TV next. Either way, it's virtually impossible for me to get to bed before 10:00.
(By the way, I'm a little relieved that WFLD started a new 10:00 news show. Now The Simpsons are on at 10:35. Which means I won't turn them on at 10:00 to see which episode it is, then find out it's the Radioactive Man episode and stay up to 10:30 watching it. Stupid move by WFLD by the way. There's a set group of people who watch the news. In Chicago, let's call it 2 million people. Right now, those 2 million people are divided by 3 networks. People who don't want to watch the news watch The Simpsons or something like that. WFLD was getting decent ratings with The Simpsons. Not as high as the other 3 stations, but not bad. So WFLD starts its own 10:00 news. The ONLY way this can succeed is if they manage to poach some viewers from the other 3 stations. They're not going to suddenly create a whole new audience of people who want to watch the 10:00 news because it's now on Fox. So, basically, WFLD is hoping to divide those 2 million people by 4 stations. And they're failing. The Simpsons got ratings TWICE as high as their 10:00 news. Sex and the City and King of Queens are beating it. Bad idea jeans.)
As I've mentioned before, I've started training for a triathlon. So I'm waking up at 4:45 every morning to head to the gym. In theory, I could stop training for the triathlon. That'd let me sleep in another hour or so every morning. But I'm really starting to see the effects of all this training on my body. Me likey! My pants with the elastic waistband aren't totally stretched out now! (I love these pants. They're designed to be a little more comfortable. But really, they're an excuse to cram my fat ass into 34's a little longer than I should.)
Of course, even if I want to go to bed at 10:00, I usually don't get to bed until 10:15 or 10:30. I have to brush my teeth and let the dog out. (For some reason, she's unwilling to go outside right now. She'd rather piss and crap on our dining room carpet. I hate dogs.) Then I get into bed and my mere presence seems to waken Courtney, who's still sleeping in the bassonet next to our bed. She's quite annoying too. She doesn't really cry. It's more like a whimper. And "annoying" is the perfect way to describe it. It's not bothersome. But it's just enough to wake you up or keep you awake. Of course, I'll take this over colic any day. Anyway, so I'm lucky to fall asleep by 10:45 and get my 6 hours of sleep.
The good news is that I seem to be handling it well. And the key is that I've decided that coffee is a good thing. I used to try to shun coffee. I was ashamed that I was so dependent on it. Now I'm accepting it. I'm drinking 4-6 cups a day at work, plus some soda when I get home. Should I be drinking so much? Any good doctor (and half the bad ones) will tell you that I shouldn't. But then again, it's allowing me to function pretty well on 6 hours of sleep, so I'm not complaining.
The weird thing to me is that I'm getting used to 6 hours of sleep. This weekend was what really opened my eyes to how accustomed I am. On Saturday, I got about 7 hours of sleep and The Wife (god bless her heart) said she was sorry I got so little sleep. I told her it wasn't a big deal. And it wasn't. I made some coffee and I was fine all day. On Sunday, I got 9 hours of sleep and felt run-down all day. As it turns out, getting more sleep is NOT a good thing for me. I'm sure The Wife loves to hear this, by the way. She's already probably thinking of all the extra chores I can do with 36 waking hours every weekend.
I haven't been sleeping much lately, and it's been bothering me. But it's been more mental anguish than anything else. And I've finally come to accept that (a) I'm only going to get about 6 hours of sleep a night and (b) I'm fine with that.
There are numerous factors at play here that are conspiring to limit my sleep. The first is that I hate going to bed. HATE IT. I don't know why, exactly, but it's my least favorite part of the day. I feel like going to bed is admitting defeat. Maybe I think I'm going to miss out on a lot of fun. Often times, I'm just curious what's going to be on TV next. Either way, it's virtually impossible for me to get to bed before 10:00.
(By the way, I'm a little relieved that WFLD started a new 10:00 news show. Now The Simpsons are on at 10:35. Which means I won't turn them on at 10:00 to see which episode it is, then find out it's the Radioactive Man episode and stay up to 10:30 watching it. Stupid move by WFLD by the way. There's a set group of people who watch the news. In Chicago, let's call it 2 million people. Right now, those 2 million people are divided by 3 networks. People who don't want to watch the news watch The Simpsons or something like that. WFLD was getting decent ratings with The Simpsons. Not as high as the other 3 stations, but not bad. So WFLD starts its own 10:00 news. The ONLY way this can succeed is if they manage to poach some viewers from the other 3 stations. They're not going to suddenly create a whole new audience of people who want to watch the 10:00 news because it's now on Fox. So, basically, WFLD is hoping to divide those 2 million people by 4 stations. And they're failing. The Simpsons got ratings TWICE as high as their 10:00 news. Sex and the City and King of Queens are beating it. Bad idea jeans.)
As I've mentioned before, I've started training for a triathlon. So I'm waking up at 4:45 every morning to head to the gym. In theory, I could stop training for the triathlon. That'd let me sleep in another hour or so every morning. But I'm really starting to see the effects of all this training on my body. Me likey! My pants with the elastic waistband aren't totally stretched out now! (I love these pants. They're designed to be a little more comfortable. But really, they're an excuse to cram my fat ass into 34's a little longer than I should.)
Of course, even if I want to go to bed at 10:00, I usually don't get to bed until 10:15 or 10:30. I have to brush my teeth and let the dog out. (For some reason, she's unwilling to go outside right now. She'd rather piss and crap on our dining room carpet. I hate dogs.) Then I get into bed and my mere presence seems to waken Courtney, who's still sleeping in the bassonet next to our bed. She's quite annoying too. She doesn't really cry. It's more like a whimper. And "annoying" is the perfect way to describe it. It's not bothersome. But it's just enough to wake you up or keep you awake. Of course, I'll take this over colic any day. Anyway, so I'm lucky to fall asleep by 10:45 and get my 6 hours of sleep.
The good news is that I seem to be handling it well. And the key is that I've decided that coffee is a good thing. I used to try to shun coffee. I was ashamed that I was so dependent on it. Now I'm accepting it. I'm drinking 4-6 cups a day at work, plus some soda when I get home. Should I be drinking so much? Any good doctor (and half the bad ones) will tell you that I shouldn't. But then again, it's allowing me to function pretty well on 6 hours of sleep, so I'm not complaining.
The weird thing to me is that I'm getting used to 6 hours of sleep. This weekend was what really opened my eyes to how accustomed I am. On Saturday, I got about 7 hours of sleep and The Wife (god bless her heart) said she was sorry I got so little sleep. I told her it wasn't a big deal. And it wasn't. I made some coffee and I was fine all day. On Sunday, I got 9 hours of sleep and felt run-down all day. As it turns out, getting more sleep is NOT a good thing for me. I'm sure The Wife loves to hear this, by the way. She's already probably thinking of all the extra chores I can do with 36 waking hours every weekend.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Searching for Terrorists
For some reason, I started thinking about elementary school the other day. One person that popped into my mind was Mohab Wagdy. He was a nice enough guy, but a little odd. He was Egyptian, lived in the townhomes near us and never learned to ride a bike. (This really amused me when we had our bike safety training in 5th grade and he had to use training wheels.) I used to hang out with him a little during recess and such. In 5th grade, he moved away.
One of the coolest things in the entire world is the internet. With it, you can look up anyone in the world. So I decided to hop on Google and see if I could find Mohab. I wondered what had happened to him. Like maybe he was a long-distance runner at Carthage College in the late 1990's. Perhaps he'd been indicted in an insider-trading scandal on Wall Street. Maybe he'd caught the biggest catfish in Louisiana. You never know.
I was pretty confident in my search on Mohab since he had such an odd name. Nobody in the world could possibly have such a weird name. Well, that would be true if by "world," I meant my own tiny little suburban, Illinois world. If I meant the larger arab-speaking world, I'd find out that it's actually a VERY common name. Who'd a thunk it.
So my google search returned a lot of arabic words with either "Mohab" or "Wagdy" bolded. No sign of Carthage College. No Wall Street. No catfish. On the bright side, it's quite possible that I'm now on the CIA watch list because "Mohab Wagdy" looses translates into "The President has loose bowels." Thank you, Google.
One of the coolest things in the entire world is the internet. With it, you can look up anyone in the world. So I decided to hop on Google and see if I could find Mohab. I wondered what had happened to him. Like maybe he was a long-distance runner at Carthage College in the late 1990's. Perhaps he'd been indicted in an insider-trading scandal on Wall Street. Maybe he'd caught the biggest catfish in Louisiana. You never know.
I was pretty confident in my search on Mohab since he had such an odd name. Nobody in the world could possibly have such a weird name. Well, that would be true if by "world," I meant my own tiny little suburban, Illinois world. If I meant the larger arab-speaking world, I'd find out that it's actually a VERY common name. Who'd a thunk it.
So my google search returned a lot of arabic words with either "Mohab" or "Wagdy" bolded. No sign of Carthage College. No Wall Street. No catfish. On the bright side, it's quite possible that I'm now on the CIA watch list because "Mohab Wagdy" looses translates into "The President has loose bowels." Thank you, Google.
