Resolutions

This post is a little late in part due to recent illness. Never the less its time to tackle resolutions. Last years resolutions actually didn't turn out too bad. This year I decided to focus on some core issues.

1. Drastically reduce / stop cussing. I have come to realize that I cuss a lot more often than I should.

2. Stop being passive-aggressive or change the manner in which it manifests itself. One definition for insanity is repeating the same process and expecting different results. At my core I am people pleaser. I say what people want to hear and not necessarily what I think. I let things "slide" that I shouldn't, and I don't stand up for myself as often as I should. All in the name of avoiding confrontation or because I'm worried about how someone might "feel". Well, what about how I "feel"? That never seems to make it into the equation, until now. Maybe some people will think I'm a jerk, maybe they will be right. Regardless, for my own sanity I'm going to make my real opinion known and let the cards fall where they may.

3. Stop procrastinating. For the record, the irony in the fact that this blog entry is late did not escape me. Everything in my life has seemed to center around waiting and patience. Patience is abused virtue for putting off what you don't want to do. What I need is a task list. It will help me remember what I need to do an allow me to judge how well I am staying on task.

4. Try and take one day a week for myself / us. Last year there were times where it seemed we never had a free moment. This year I am going to try and set aside one day week in which I will not have any scheduled commitments that are not leisurely and of my own choosing. This may not be possible as I am sure that things will come up from time to time. Even at the most hectic of times I hope to be able to set aside at least 1 day every two weeks.

5. Try to keep up with correspondence. I have the best of intentions but I have a bad habit of not following up with people when I say I will. I need to change that. I need to make the time to follow through.

6. Try to get back in shape. I don't really need to loose anymore weight but I'm sure I could stand to tone up a little bit. For a while last year I was working out pretty regular but then somewhere things sort of fell apart.

That's all for now.

I didn't sleep again last night, but this time at least I think its due to being sick. I was extremely hot all night, which is very odd for me as I am almost always cold. I'm still sick but I went into to work today. I'm going to try and get some work done and then head home and crash.

Sleep

Yesterday marked the beginning of another sleep reset for me.  As the evening wore on I found that I really didn't feel all that tired but when the time came we got ready for bed and I found I had no trouble at all.  My wife tells me that I slept very soundly.  Apparently I slept so deeply that I have no recollection of anything that happened this morning. 

Normally the cat pesters me awake between 4 am and 5 am, but this morning I apparently slept through all of his attempts.  I have no memory of the alarm or the my wifes attempts at waking me.  The only thing I remember was her last attempt before leaving for work. 

Even though I know I've had more than 8 hours of sleep it took everything I had to drag myself out of bed this morning, and after I was up I continued to be tired and groggy.  This in paticular is unusual for me.  As my wife will tell you once I wake up I am normally full energy and full of pep (which often drives her crazy).  The drive to work was hard, I felt as though I were falling asleep and even now a nap sounds like a great idea.

I can't imagine that I actually need MORE sleep!  Maybe my body / mind is just confused.

Circadian rhythm sleep disorder

Interestingly enough I was about to blog about how I feel like my body was born in one time zone and my brain in another. While titling this particular entry I used google to spell check the word Circadian and I came across a rather intriguing article by accident. Circadian rhythm sleep disorder As I scanned through the article the entry on Delayed sleep phase syndrome in particular caught my eye. "People with DSPS, more common than Non-24, do entrain to nature's 24 hours, but are unable to sleep and awaken at socially preferred times, sleeping instead, for example, from 4 a.m. to noon." 4a.m to noon was exactly the times in which I had planned on mentioning! Coincidence? Am I just seeing what I want to see?!? I have had problems sleeping ever since I was a baby. Supposedly the doctor instructed my parents to align my sleep schedule with theirs which at the time was 3rd shift. As I got older however I am told they were unable to "shake" the sleep pattern they imprinted originally. Whether there is any truth or science to the explanation is a matter of conjecture but the consequence still remains. I have often lamented my disdain for the way the world treats time. Why can it not be the same time everywhere? 5am here should be 5am everywhere. I think people are unable to deal with time so abstractly. People want 3pm to mean the afternoon. If its 3pm everywhere then these concepts would not hold true. In any case my sleep pattern as of late is a matter of some frustration. I have tried laying down and closing my eyes and simply keeping them closed. I have laid in bed sometimes for hours without falling asleep. I will say I have noticed that I have an uncanny knack for somehow always looking at the clock at 12:34am. The minutes tick away into hours and still no rest comes. Lately I just get up and work or watch TV or play a game. Sometime around 4a.m I find that I am tired and I slip into bed and every fiber of my being wants to stay there until around 11am or noon. Once I am up, I am up for good and I have no desire to nap. Sometimes when the cycle gets bad or goes on for a while I try to do what I call a hard reset. During this period I just don't give into my desire to sleep in the morning and instead I push on through the day. The hope being that by the time a normal sleeping times comes around I will be tired. Interesting enough I am not absolutely miserable or exhausted during these sleepless periods. There are little times throughout the day when I "feel it" but they are few and far between. Anymore these "hard resets" don't seem to be as effective as they have in the past. I am loath to take a sleep aid but perhaps it will help me re-establish a work friendly sleep schedule. Either that or I could try and change the worlds viewpoint on "working hours". I'm not sure which would be easier.

Re-realization

I am pretty sure I have realized this before and it has probably just slipped my mind.  I talk.  Alot.  It's ok though because the realization is no one listens.  I would say on average during any conversation if someone actually listens 60% of what I am saying then I'm doing good.  In honesty I'm not even sure why I find it surprising.  I shouldn't since it's been constant theme throughout the whole of my life.  Somehow though every so often I forget this lesson and carry on like someone gives a damn.  Silly me.

A new week

I had feeling before I even woke up this morning that I was going to forget something. Although I tried to counter this feeling with a little extra diligence this morning it seems to have been in vain. I must admit however that out of the things I could have forgotten my Ipod cable has far less impact. I have an 83% charge and no plans to watch video. We will see how the battery holds up. Additionally I turn my brightness down quite a bit to make the best use of the battery.

Overall I am still really dissappointed that the new Ipod Touch for the holiday has no camera. So many of the apps are built around this feature that it's absense is quite noticable. I understand that the new Ipod Nano's only do video. From the explanations I have read it seems that size of the camera / sensor for shooting stills is thicker than required for shooting video. This is supposively why the Iphone has one and the Touch does not. My personal feeling on the matter is to simply increase the thickness of the Touch.
I looked very hard at the new Droid phone from Verizon. Hardware and capability wise it is a better product with a lot more possibilities. That said, it isn't an Iphone. Apple has a good headstart in this market and their product has set a standard of what people expect. The problem with Apple is that it's faithful zealots are both a boon and a bane. Believers support the company and cling to Apples direction with unquestioning tenacity. Blind followers however are just that, blind. The willingness of Apples dedicated customer base accept anything given to them as "the way it should be, so sayeth the Apple" will ultimately hold the company back and rob them of their headstart. Surrounding yourself with "yes men" will only tell you what you want to hear. Peel back the layer of the surrounding fanatics listen for a moment at the things you NEED to hear before it's to late.
I am looking forward trying out the Droid and with Google Android behind it I have high but cautious hopes. I believe Google sometimes suffers from the same malladies as Apple but only time will tell.

[iBlogger'd from my iPod!]

4:11am

On more than one occasion this year my mind has wandered as it has tonight. It seems more often than not that the roads it travels lead back to a dream I had some time ago. (http://igetdistracted.blogspot.com/2009/01/dream.html) Much of the intense feeling of the experience has since faded but the memory has not. I can not recall another dream of its likeness despite my efforts. So many seemingly random things seem to point towards something that the rational part of me simply does not want to acknowledge let alone accept. Sometimes it seems too frequent to be mere coincidence, and other times I am forced to remind myself that sometimes we see things that aren't there simply because some part of us wishes them to be.