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Monday, November 06, 2006

Halloween and other scary things

I doubt there's really any point to apologizing for not posting for a long time, since by now, if you read my blog, you should realize that I post with about the same regularity with which I floss: I get up a spat of energy/inspiration, do a bunch of posts, then don't again for a long time. Except I don't get people complaining they have to catch up on my flossings, so I guess it's not a very good comparison.

I spent like an hour the other day reading the Red Meat strips containing Bug-Eyed Earl, so perhaps that sets some tone for my thoughts.

Yes, I have been occupied. I am normally a pretty high-stress person, so some is normal, but I think this really has been particularly much. At the risk of jinxing things, I'm going to publicly post that I bought a townhouse. That alone has been quite absorbing.

I also had the foolishness to assume it would close early just because everybody that I knew was involved (you know, the real-estate agents, the lender) said that wouldn't be a problem. So I found somebody to take over my lease a few days before closing, only to find that I could in fact not get in early, and spent a few days creatively resolving my temporary homelessness. I had it all worked out to where I would stay with a friend who lives nearby (that I feel comfortable asking to put me up for a few days) and asking both my lease-inheritor and my neighbor (with whom I share a garage) if I could leave my stuff piled there for a few days, when, lo and behold, the guy taking over the lease said that he could, in fact, come in a few days later. Whew.

Then, there's that whole work thing. I was going to write up something about the "punch-yourself-in-the-face stupid" IE bug a coworker and I spent 4 hours discovering, but he already did:

Stchur's Javascript Blog

Eh, I'm not going to complain. Even on bad days I can say, well, at least I get paid a lot, and mostly I do like my job.

So, to top it all off... Thursday night, on the way over to the train station to pick up Stefan, just after I had gotten off the I-5, I was sitting at a stop light, not more than a mile from the station... and got rear-ended. Just so none of you freak out, I'm fine. My neck was a little bit sore/stiff, but that's it. My car's fancy German Engineering absorbed most of the impact; I just have to make it up to her now with several grand's worth of body work... which I don't have to pay for, so I'm okay with that. But I did stand in the rain for over an hour waiting for the cops (whom we eventually gave up on, after seeing 3 police cars drive by without stopping), and my poor boy was waiting at the train station all that time.

Yes, we carved pumpkins for Halloween. Mine looked just evil.

I was thinking I should keep a log of my status messages on gmail. That's the best and most current record of my state. But I don't remember any now... oh well.

Actually, I may have had the last part of this up as an away message: somewhere on the Simpsons, there was some mental hospital sign that said "[Institute name]: Because There Might Not Be Bugs On You." Mine: "Coder's Mental Institute: Because There Might Not Be Bugs On You, Or Assigned To You."

I have a theory that everyone whose name is a word (or homonym of a word) is a punster. I have yet to find a counter example. But I guess most names are words in some language. So I guess it's a bad theory since it's not well enough defined.

Funny, I think of so many things I want to write, but whenever I actually get near a keyboard, all those nice ideas flit away. I think that means I'm out of practice writing. Tsk tsk.

Winter here might not actually be so bad. I'm remembering that I like the dark. I like sunshine more, but if the days are going to be rainy and gray, I'd rather they be short so I get more dark instead of gray, because darkness is nice. I also actually feel like I have more time when it gets dark earlier, since I keep thinking it's later than it is, and it's easier to go to bed earlier. But not right now, I guess, since it's 1:23am and I'm still up. I really wish I weren't such a night owl. It really doesn't work very well with the rest of the world. But after a certain hour, usually about 9:00pm, I get a second wind and just wake right up, even if I haven't slept enough. It's really annoying... makes it really hard to get to sleep early. Sometimes I try and just wind up getting annoyed my brain won't shut up and then get back up.

I think this goes back to that really contrary side I have... I've heard from several good sources that getting up early is essential to succeeding. Problem is, the reasons they give don't seem to work for me, therefore, I want to prove them wrong. For instance, David Bach said that all he lost when he got up earlier and went to bed earlier was a few hours of watching TV at night. I don't watch TV. I'm more prone to wasting time in the morning because I feel like there's a lot of time left in the day. Or that it's nice and quiet and you can think in the morning... it's nice and quiet late at night too, and not so cold. I'm not left with much reason to try to become a morning person, except that it works better with other people. That's a very frustrating sole reason to have to change a very deeply ingrained habit.

Anyway, on that note, maybe I'll go to bed... and if I don't, I'd better work, which I think is why I was originally staying up tonight.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Nikki said...

Indeed. I don't watch TV, either. But I do also enjoy staying up late, most often for one of two conflicting reasons: 1) it's the only self-time I get in my typically crowded days (even here across the atlantic! how does this happen??); or 2) I'm having fun hanging out with people and want to stay up and play. :) Problem is, I like getting up early, too. Not the alarm-goes-off-waking-after-not-enough-sleep part. The sun-rising, fresh-day, I have hours and hours before I even *have* to do anything, being-out-on-the-street-when-the-bakeries-are-just-opening part. So I'm pretty much screwed. Especially because I like nothing more than a good, solid sleep.

So how about we do what other mammals do, which is just -- gasp, imagine this!! -- sleep when we're tired?? Stay up if you're energetic; get up if the sun wakes you; take a nap in the middle of the day if you need to; etc. Well, but then we wouldn't have "normal business hours," and I guess wouldn't be such community beings. Sigh. No real solution... except coffee. ;)

11/06/2006 10:14 AM  

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