The Song of the Wild Geese

I managed to get a good nights sleep last night. That helped improve my mood greatly. This morning is kind of gray and cool and we got two more waves of rain moving through next week – but spring is coming! The wild geese have been flying overhead in the morning. It is always a beautiful sight.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do today. I'll meet Tyrone for breakfast here shortly, and then after that I'm inclined to take a chance on a movie of some sort. We are supposed to go see Logan tomorrow – by we I mean Bob and Tyrone and I - so that's off the list of potential's for today. But I'm sure there's quite a few other movies out there that I haven't even seen yet.

I've got ample small things around the house to do if I elect to just have a quiet day at home. On the other hand, after all the hours I've been working, I am half tempted to go out and just wonderful a while. I haven't done a museum walk for quite a while now. Specifically I was thinking about going up to the Triton in Santa Clara.

Well, we will see what the day has in store. Let me finish up this cup of coffee, and I'm gonna head out and put some gas in the car, and pick up Tyrone for breakfast. The rest of it I'll just take as it comes.

The Start of a Day

I slept well last night. I think I went to bed around eight thirty, read a bit, and then dropped right into a deep sleep.  Interestingly, I haven't had a dream in the last couple of days. I assume it is because I've been sleeping very deeply, just glad to be back in California and back in my old bed. I woke up at about five a.m. this morning, which is my normal time.  It felt very good.  I went outside and took a walk down to Maple Leaf Donuts and started the day with a cup of hot coffee and a piece of coffee cake.  I'm savoring those at this moment and contemplating how best to approach the day.  I've got a lot small errands that I want to take care of over the weekend, so I am just sort of plotting out the day, deciding what to do in what order.  I think if I keep moving smoothly through the day I should be able to get through most of them.  So, wish me luck for an ordinary day.

A Weekend of Napping

It has been a weekend of the napping. I napped for four hours on Friday and I followed it up with a two hour nap on Saturday. It remains to see what sort of napping I’m going to get out of Sunday. I think that a lack of solid sleep and intermittent work stress kept me from getting solid sleep through the week. Fortunately it was a quiet weekend, with nothing planned, and I was able to take advantage of that overwhelming desire to nap.

I slept well both nights, Friday and Saturday, deeply and peacefully. So I think I should be going into the new week well rested. This morning, Sunday morning, has been productive. I woke up early, with a desire to attend the first mass, so I did. After that it was breakfast with Tyrone at the Hickory pit, then a trip to the Laundromat in Campbell. Not a lot of laundry, three light loads, enough to make the trip worthwhile.

While I was watching the machines spin around I called my stepdad Bill and wished him a happy Father’s Day. From there I need to stop at big lots to look at patio furniture. So far, they are the ones who are the closest to having what I’m looking for. I’m looking for a couch at least 6 feet long the patio. I want something that I can comfortably lay down on. They have a nice one for about $400. It looks to me like the price on most of them, on most of the ones I’m looking for, is pretty consistent across the board. It just dawns on me, sitting here, that there may be something at one of the secondhand stores that meets my need. I may have to take a run to their.

After that I stopped at target to pick up some incidental things including a small birdbath for the patio. Nothing fancy, a ceramic vessel that looks like an oversized juice squeezer. It should work well. Right now there is a small coterie of birds on the patio chirping merrily away as they munch on the black oil sunflower. These birds are the larger brown sparrows and they are quite a talkative lot. There are a couple in the birdfeeder and a couple more on the patio floor. One of the interesting things about the brown sparrows is they definitely have their own internal pecking order. I think one of the fascinating things about watching the birds at the feeder is to watch their social order, is to watch how they are organized, how to go about the process of eating and socializing. With the brown sparrows there is always a bit of jostling as if no one is quite satisfied with the social order. The Red Capped Sparrows on the other hand seem content with their social order. The doves are the most fearless of the birds. If I come home and open the patio they will, at most, move from the feeder to the rail. Then they will sit there on the rail and look at me as if they are waiting for me to make the next move. If they ultimately decide to take flight it is grudgingly. The sparrows, in general, will eat and take off. The doves will eat, then find a comfortable perch, and linger for a while. Sometimes even go to sleep, which is very cool.

My plan for the immediate future is that I’m going to meet Rick and Tony for lunch over at the Sonoma chicken coop in Campbell California. I may change my mind upon arrival but right now I’m looking forward to their chicken Cobb salad. It is very good. After that I want to go out and catch a movie. I am in the mood for light fare so I want to see either 22 Jump Street or Angelina Jolie in Maleficent. Either of them looks like they would be very entertaining. After that, maybe a light dinner, then home for the evening. I have a spot of work that I may do this evening. A couple of email I want to get out. So I’m going to wrap this up and publish it online. I’ve been very negligent in my writing over the last couple of months it feels. No real reason, just the way it has failed to flow. It’s not that I’m not writing it’s just that I have been not inclined to share it.

Stay Simple, Stay Focused

Well, I woke up last night at 3:41 a.m. and was basically finished sleeping.  I'd fallen asleep at about 8:30 p.m. last evening, so all in all I did get a solid seven hours of uninterrupted sleep.  I started the day by reading a bit in a new biography of the famous gunfighter Doc Holliday, then splashed through the shower.  Breakfast with Special K and black coffee while I watched an episode of Brooklyn Ninety Nine which had me laughing.  Laughter is always a good way to start the day.  Now, I'm starting the process of getting ready for work and I'm watching the news and the weather channel and I am very glad that I am not on the east coast! I joke that whenever I think about leaving California all I have to do is spend a little bit of time watching the weather channel.

I am getting myself psyched up for a day at work.  I have the day pretty much cut out for me. I've got a mostly open morning schedule with my first meeting at 10:00 a.m.. From there, it is pretty much a solid meeting through the rest of the day, with an exception for lunch (an hour). I'll have to keep lunch in close and simple. I've got plenty of work that I need to do, so I am hoping I can get in and get focused right out of the chute today.  That doesn't always happen.

It is nice to be sliding into the end of the week, but I still have quite a few meetings and quite a bit of work ahead of me. I think I will just try my best to keep it simple and focused.  That is a challenge that I seem to find as a theme running through my life lately.  Stay simple, stay focused.

Sleep Beckons

Well, we've reached the end of another Comic Con. A good time was had by all - or at least by me.  Today, I spent the day walking the floor, picking up pieces for my collection, trying my luck on some of the independents, and in short - walking, standing, walking, standing, walking and standing and finally, walking.  The end result is I am dog tired here at the end of the day.  So, I am going to write more tomorrow - tonight, I just wanted to give you a quick example of how tired I am.  We stopped at the cafe near the hotel. I ordered a bowl of clam chowder and an ice tea. I went to put the Equal into my iced tea and....poured it straight into my chowder.  Then, sat there and stared at it.  I fixed the sweetener out, ate the chowder, came back to the hotel, had a quick call with TR (who is also just home) and now, sleep beckons.

Finding My Way To Sleep

I was in bed early last night and I am tempted to head there again tonight.  Last night I curled up a little after 7:00 PM with "Leviathan Wakes", intending to read myself to sleep and I was very successful/  I managed to read a paragraph or two before I curled up and called it a night.  I've been blaming allergies mostly, but I have been feeling the need to sleep a little more than usual and when I have followed that lead it has been a deep and successful sleep.  So, that is, once again, my half-way plan for the evening.  I might tinker around the house a bit more, but then it is curling up with a book and finding my way to sleep.

Last Night, I Slept, And Slept, And Slept

I would say that work and allergies caught up with me last night.  I got home about 4:00 P.M., tinkered around the apartment for a half hour, and then laid down for a nap.  I set my timer for thirty minutes.  It sounded on schedule and I woke up long enough to turn it off.  Then, without hesitation, I simply rolled over and went back to sleep.  I woke up about 7:30 P.M,, got up long enough to have a bowl of chicken and rice soup, watched “Modern Family”, and then slipped back into bed.  I slept another solid eight hours, woke up, tossed a bit, went back to sleep for another hour.   All in all I slept eleven hours or so. I am going to blame most of it on allergies and I think tonight when I get home I am going to take a Benadryl and see if that helps me through the evening a little crisper. Today, I am trying to move deliberately and smoothly through the day.  If it goes smoothly I might stop off at the pool hall on the way home tonight to shoot a practice hour or so.  My game has suffered a bit due to the lack of practice that is a result of the many hours the project required.  All those hours have to come out of somewhere.

An Unspecified Morning

I woke crisply this morning, which is the primary sign of a good nights sleep.  If I dreamed, I don't remember the substance of the dream. All in all though, it was a nice sleep and I've kind of segued into an easy day.  It is raining outside, here in San Jose, but that is nice in its own way.  I don't have anything planned for the day.  The usual breakfast with friends at the Hickory Pit, then I might slip out and see a movie or shoot some pool.  My intention is to ease through the day as simply as I can.

My nephew was moved out of critical care last night, into a regular room, so we will see how that goes. Always keeping him centered in my thoughts and prayers.My family, otherwise, is doing well. I decided to cancel my Christmas trip back to South Dakota due to work obligations and a need to keep the stress levels down and under control.  I could feel the waves threatening to crash over me and decided to take a few proactive steps to lower that stress level.

I seem to be in an introspective and unspecified mood today.  We will see what that translates to in the course of the day.  For now, I am going to start the process of getting ready to head over to the Hickory Pit for breakfast.

A Chopped Up Day

It's been a pretty chopped up day. Because of the situation with my nephew, I didn't sleep well last night.  I fell asleep at about 10:00 PM and managed to sleep until 1:00 AM or so, then woke up and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning.

I managed to squeeze out another hour of sleep in the 5:00 AM to 6:00 AM window, then headed off to work. It was blessedly quiet at the office and I managed to knock off a pair of objectives.  Dinner was pizza with Tony at Mama Mia's (the very excellent Mama's Masterpiece and a piece of Tiramisu), then home to watch a bit of Ghost Hunters.

Next, a hot shower and then the struggle to stay awake until I can fall asleep at a reasonable hour - meaning an hour when I won't wake up in the middle of the night.  I am close to exhaustion, physically, due to the lack of sleep last night. So, hopefully, tonight will be a night of rich and deep sleep, with my nephew in my prayers.

Deep and Peaceful

Thirteen hours of work today. Hosted a pair of UAT kick-off meetings, bounced through a couple of technical meetings, coordinated some test case construction, and then came home to spend most of the evening reading and responding to 109 email.  What a day.  Tomorrow however looks relatively sane.

I am planning to go to bed early tonight, spend a little bit of time writing, and fall asleep.  I wish I had more exciting things to tell you about - but work seems to be the order of the day for the immediate future. The project I am working on has three functional parts - and now two of them are delayed.  The only part of the project that is still moving forward is mine - but there is now a very good chance that we are going to slip the whole project again (which is actually a good thing, as it will give my team more time to polish their applications and systems). We should find out in the next couple of days I hope.

So, here is hoping that the dreams tonight are good and the sleep is deep and peaceful.

A Semi-Rambling Morning

Friday turned out to be an efficient day.  I started the day lazy, made it a point to linger in bed and then linger around the apartment watching a few programs on the DVR.  As I watched the TV, I started a running list of all the things I needed and wanted to do for the day, then simply worked my way down the list.

It turned into a good day, including a visit to optometrist for my yearly exam and a new supply of contacts. The appointment was originally scheduled for later in the week, but since I was in a productive mood, well, I did my best to be productive. The exam went smoothly, no problems, no changes in my prescription.  They did dilate my eyes for a check, which meant I spent the rest of the afternoon wondering around wearing my dark sunglasses and with no close in vision, which made it tough to read labels when I was trying to differentiate among products.

I had lunch at Sushi Boat in Westgate, then spent part of the afternoon looking for a small table or desk to fit in one corner of my living room, so I can use it for my work laptop. I want something that is highly stable - one of the problems with a lot of the smaller desks in they are not the most stable platforms and any sort of wobble can be irritating when you are trying to work.  We have some small desks at work, which are heavy L frame computer desks, that would be perfect in size and stability, so I may take the opportunity today and stop at a used office furniture place up on Kifer, in order to see if they have that particular type of desk.  There were some near misses at OfficeMax - most of their small desks and incidental tables were just a little too wide or not quite stable enough.

Last night was a quiet evening at home, which I split between watching the Finder and Fringe (both among my favorites), and then writing well into the evening. I wrote a little over 4,000 words, which was a pretty good output for a single evening.  I think, for me at least, it proves the importance of having the imagination and creativity engaged and having a plot. Because I knew fairly well where I was going with the writing, what all the necessary elements were, it was smooth writing.

I had trouble falling asleep last night, for no real reason that I could think of. This morning I wondered if it might have been a side effect of the drug used to dilate my eyes, because that is about the only thing different that I can think of from yesterday. A hot shower and a cup of coffee and I feel pretty good today, but we'll see if I suddenly run out of energy midway through the day.

Daily Life: I Sleep Great

I had an amusing experience last night. I woke up about 2:00 a.m.,
fully awake, laying in the darkness of the bedroom. I had one very
clear conscious thought. I thought "Man, I am sleeping great!" Then I
promptly fell back asleep.

Sent from my iPhone

Daily Life: The Remainder of the Day

Once I managed the reset process I was able to salvage a large portion
of the afternoon. I managed to knock a couple of medium sized items
from my "to do" list and get some productive closure at the end of the
day.

I drove home and celebrated with a nap. Dinner was a simple cream of
mushroom soup. I spent a quiet evening watching television and idly
playing my guitar and writing. I am planning on going up to Chinatown
tomorrow for lunch, so I am going to curl up with my Repairman Jack
novel and drift into the sweet embrace of sleep.

Sent from my iPhone

Daily Life: The Tyranny of Sleep

Sleep.

Two nights with short and choppy sleep. One night with what was
probably too much sleep. I'm moving through the day mostly on autopilot.

I went out to lunch today. I walked over to the cafe. I walked around
and looked at everything. Nothing appealed to me. I gave up and
started walking back to the office. About halfway back it dawned on me
that I was...really hungry. Appealing or not I had to eat something.

So, that something turned out to be a turkey tarragon soup. And that
turned out to be more of a celery and onion tarragon soup that may or
may not have actually had anything to do with turkey. It was edible.

After lunch I came back to the office and I am now sitting here on a
training teleconference that is drawing to a close. It was relatively
boring. Once it ends, I am going to go out and take a short fast walk
and hope a little bit of bloodflow helps. If it doesn't I am
definitely destined for a nap a the end of the working day.

Sent from my iPhone

Daily Life: Sleep Cycles

Well, I've staggered into the office, but I am not entirely sure I'm
awake. I am here. I am blinking. I am typing. I am drinking coffee, so
I must be pretty close to being awake. Getting up for work yesterday
knocked my sleep pattern around pretty hard. I slept through the night
last night in an hour and a half cycle. Sleep, wake, sleep, wake,
sleep, wake and then get up and go to work. Actually, considering the
lack of sleep I feel pretty bright eyed and bushy tailed. I am sure
there is a wall waiting for me out there somewhere, but I think as
long as I stay focused and on task, I should make it!

Sent from my iPhone

A Strange Start To The Day

Okay - let me start with two different things that bookmarked the beginning of the day.

First, I did not sleep well - I woke up on three different occassion through the night - once to the sound of something metallic being dropped, then to the sound of a slamming door and feet stomping down a stairway, then to the sound of a slamming shower door. And all I wanted was a good night's sleep, so that instantly made me start the day with a high level of crankiness. It is an "I want to bark at the first thing that crosses my path" sort of feeling. It has dropped down a notch or two, but that dial is touchy and it could spin back up pretty quickly.

Second, I had a strange dream last night. I dreamt about a woman (no one I knew) who had an untreated STD. Her father was trying to get her to go in for treatment and in order to persuade her he had one of his waiters (obviously, they must have owned a restaurant) who was in a late stage STD. It worked, as he went through the graphic details of untreated STD's and convinced the woman to seek medical assistance. He (the waiter) however also took her through a transformative experience - and she ended up dedicating her life to being a live in companion (free) for individuals in the later stages of AID's. Then, the dream got weird. MTV was giving her some sort of appreciation award on a telecast. Except, in a vote of their peers, she was the award - she was being given to the music star who was most deserving as they battled AIDS. The decision of who received her was being made by public voting, like on American Idol. It was a very strange dream.

I think I am going to blame that one having been woken up multiple times through the night as well. The day is off to a strange start.

Sleeping & Fun and Games with Parasomnia

Sleeping

I am an early morning person. Furthermore, with rare exceptions, I never use an alarm clock. I just decide what time I want to get up in the morning and I wake up. In those rare exceptions, I use the alarm clock if the consequences of being late (such as a missed flight or a missed teleconference) are high.

I have parasomnia disorder (sleep walking, sleep talking, loud noise syndrome) so for a while when I was younger I went to a sleep specialist. They could not do anything about the parasomnia (it is just is), but they did help teach me how to go to sleep and how to wake up. It seems strange, but they taught me a couple of things that really made a huge difference. I will share them with you.

First, when you are going to sleep, lie down, close your eyes. Breathe deeply and count backward from ten with each breath. As you do this, tense and release the muscles in your body, starting with your extremities (feet, calves, thighs, hands, fore arms, upper arms). Just tense them, hold for a few seconds, and release them. For whatever reason, it makes me fall asleep and sleep deeper.

Then, when you awake (regardless of how you wake), just lay there in bed, and count upward from ten with each breath. Then, get up and lightly stretch your entire body - and then start the day.

The really big thing I learned was to respect your own natural rhythms. Go to bed when you are tired. Get up when you wake up. Nap when you want to. We live in a hugely complex and demanding society that presents us with all sorts of unnatural tempos, many of which are subtle and complex. Part of re-learning to sleep well is simple learning that it is okay to ignore those unnatural rhythms.

We humans invented time, so anything that has to do with a clock is an unnatural rhythm. Now, of course, we have to concede to some of the demands of modern society - but, we can structure our lives in such a way that we can minimize those distractions.

Fun and Games with Parasomnia

Of all the assorted symptoms of parasomnia, the strangest (to me) is loud noise syndrome. Basically, what it means is when you are just about to drop off to sleep you hear a loud noise. In my case, it sometimes sounds like someone shouts right in my ear, other times it sounds like a fast gaggle of voices, and still other times it sounds like the roar of a jet or the cascade of a crash. The first couple of times it happened (probably in my twenties) it scared the heck out of me, especially when it took the form of someone shouting or the gaggle of voices. For me, it generally happens when I am over tired.

The other thing that I frequently do is sleep talk - sometimes one side of what is apparently an entire conversation, other times just random phrases. The sleep talking may or may not coordinate with any dreaming events.

Noon On A Slow Friday

I woke up this morning and I peeked around and then I rolled over and went back to sleep. It just seemed to be the right action in the right moment. Of course, when I woke up an hour later and was groggy from to much sleep, LOL, well, I doubted the wisdom of the original decision.

A lot of things in life are like that I think. They make perfect sense in the moment that we do them and then further downstream when we are dealing with the consequences of those decisions, we wonder at the rightness of them. But, I think that the rightness of a particular decision belongs entirely in the moment and many of the threads of causation are imagination filling in the blanks between events. Our minds can easily connect dots where no lines exist.

It is shortly past noon now and I am slowing falling into the day. I am not sure I am going to do anything of any significance, but I am going to do something - maybe. It might just be a perfect day for doing nothing (as I ignore the dishes in the sink from breakfast). Sometimes ignoring things is an art as well.