I do post, occaisionally

So I decided to write another post here. I might just take some advice, and post boring normal day to day stuff. The Grateful Dead song pack for Rock Band IS fun! It also exposed Roomie R as a musical Fraud, as he apparently didn't know any Grateful Dead. Like come on! Truckin'? Not ringing any bells? He is a disgrace to the house.

Tyler IS THE BEST! No idea why yet. But according to my comments, that is the case. Maybe he should get a prize for being the only person who still checks this blog occaisionally? At least the only one who hounds me about not updating it. Although I'm sure Ash would, if I saw her more. So Ash IS ALSO THE BEST!

Let's see. Other cool things in my life lately.

-I haven't mentioned it in the blog yet, I bought a new car. It's a '08 Matrix. I quite like it. New cars are nice.

-I got a raise last performance review. Raises are nice. I'm not allowed to talk about it though, due to confidentiality in those matters.

-I'm on day like lots of my sleep schedule. 315ish I think? Last couple days I've been sleeping a fair bit extra. Tuesday I napped from my normal 8:30ish until about midnight, which was unexpected. I did miss my afternoon nap due to a meeting at work, and had a couple beers after work, which I think combined to make me sleep. When I got up midnightish though, I stayed up until 3:30 or 4ish, so it was reasonably close to just moving my core earlier. Lastnight I sleep similar though, which is bad, I'll have to crack down this weekend and adjust back to schedule.

-Work is busy, as per usual. My "department" is severly understaffed. I don't enjoy it immensely. At least it's keeping me busy.

-We started planning our annual trip to Seattle for PAX. Anyone who is interested in coming down this year should get more info at www.pennyarcadeexpo.com and contact me. I've got space in the hotel for 2 people Thursday night, through Sunday Night. Looks like Pax pass is about $45, and airfare is shaping up to be about $250. Lots of Fun!

-I've started doing Yoga. I find it pretty relaxing, and good for my body. My back is bad, and it's somewhat humourous how flexible I am, as long as my back isn't involved, but as soon as my back needs to bend or spin, I can't do shit. Hopefully that improves with time.

-School is going well. I was very concerned when I saw I got a 64% on my midterm, but then I learned the class average was like 42% or something, and I felt better. I was still in the top 25% of the class. That confidence was boosted when I got the lab exam back, and saw a nice 100% on it. I haven't found any histograms or anything on it, so no idea how well the class did. Typical of my performance in a lot of comp sci stuff though. The programming / practical parts I do very well on, and the stupid memorization of definitions or whatever, not so hot.

-BOONDOCK SAINTS 2 IS GOING TO EXIST!!!!! I loved the first one, so I'm reasonably excited about a sequel. Not sure how it will work out, hopefully they don't screw it all up.

-I'm going to have to cut my work hours back in the fall. If I keep my schedule as it is, I will bank an estimated 200 extra hours... That's a lot of overtime (5 weeks vacation?). Maybe I can do a 6am to 3pm work day. That would be nice. For stick with 6am to 5pm, and take every friday off? I'll have to talk to my boss about it. That said, with the lowered hours, I'll have to find some projects to work on this summer. Maybe I can get around to starting a game to put in a portfolio. Between me an dother friends who are also interested, we've fleshed out some decent game designs I'd like to make, maybe I'll actually start one this summer. Or right away...

-I bought a cow. I'm pretty excited to have a lot of meat just in time for the BBQ season to start. Might have to have a end of term BBQ early April. We'll see if I get the meat by then...

That's a reasonable update... I should get back to work... And I am getting close to nap time.
Feel free to comment / email me. Hopefully (like I always say) I'll start checking / updating this blog more often.

Ok, Ok

Fine, I'm write an update.

I never update this blog anymore, as my life is just too boring. Wake up, eat go to work, sleep, continue working, eat, sometimes go to school, sleep, continue working, go home, eat, sleep, play video games or watch tv / movies, sleep, repeat.

Sure sounds like I sleep a lot when it's phrased like that.

My schedule is not really any sort of static schedule anymore. I just go to sleep when I'm tired. I wake up at 5 everyday, usually go to bed between 12:30 and 2. I always have 2 naps a day (usually my 9am, and 2:30 pm ones) and sometimes 3 or 4 naps. I'd say my average sleep per day is at about 4.5 hours.

I've pretty much sworn off drinking. It makes me sleep too much. I have a single beer, maybe two, every now and then. I still binge drink on the occaisionaly weekend, but only maybe once a month, and I usually end up sleeping most of the next day away. Still Caffeine free though. I have maybe 1 can of coke or something every 2 weeks? If that. And boy that can of coke can hit hard now. Not sure if it's the sugar, or the caffeine (I think caffiene, because Slurpees don't keep me awake) but I end up bouncing off the walls.

Other life news. I bought a car yesterday. I'm now the owner of a 2008 Toyota Matrix. It's currently just getting it's final inspection before the lot will let it go. I should have it to start cruising around by mid week. It's pretty exciting. My first brand new car. I's coming to me with 12 km on it... As long as those bastards at the dealership haven't been cruising around on it much. It also has a ton of space, and tinted rear windows, which will make it a pretty nice sleep area for me. Hopefully will save me some money on gas too. I'm going to have to plan a road trip to Edmonton to visit friends there, and get some highway km's on it to try it out.

What other big things happened.. hmm... We lost out media server at home, due to a faulty power supply. We lost I estimate 600-700 gigs of data. Which sucks. Also means I haven't been watching TV at all. So I am far behind on the Daily Show, and the Colbert Report. Might have to invest in cable after all. Or at least get a new raid controller, and build a new array... It's going to suck to rip all my cd's again. Sigh.

That's about all that comes to mind for now. Plus, I need to get to work. I have a huge project that was somewhat dropped on my lap, and needs to be done by a couple months ago. The contract guy who was supposed to be working on it spent 3 months on it, and has nothing to show for it. We brought him in to reduce my workload a little, and all it did was delay it, and then increase my workload. Sheesh. When's performance review time again? Might be due for another raise.

Christmas

Well, Christmas is ending. I don't want to be back at work.

I had an issue with my sleep schedule over Christmas. It was holidays, and I wasn't as motivated to actually get out of bed. I just wanted to lounge around and do next to nothing. As a result, I slept more than usual, which made me suffer from Sleep Gorge (a phrase coined by PureDoxyk, that I'll willing to steal). She talked about it here. I think her opinions on the matter are very true.

I will definitely confirm that the same has happened to me. It is a tough cycle to break too. You are more tired, thus think you should get more sleep. Sleeping Polyphasically is never an easy task. You have to work to keep your schedule. It is not something to be attempted by the less than motivated. Keeping that motivation can also be a challenge.

Another thing that post from PureDoxyk did was made me excited for her book. I have no idea when it will come out, or how to get it, but be sure I'll pass that information on once it's confirmed. I suppose she needs to finish the book first.

Other brief holiday notes:
- I am the favourite uncle. I gave my eldest neice a Nintendo DS for Christmas. She wouldn't put it down. Take that sisters!
- Rock Band is awesome. Took it long enough to come to Canada. I'm almost glad it did. The download content makes the game way better, for all the random song sets, and options when making your own. I have now downloaded the soundtrack, and am trying to learn all the songs, as I'm the band vocalist, and somewhat pinch guitar player.
- Rock Band on the Projector is super awesome. Cranked surround sound, so the crowd starts singing along behind you. Soo cool!
- Christmas is great! I've already seen a couple friends I haven't seen in months. So nice to be able to catch up with all of them. I have high hopes for the new years season as well.
- Did I mention Rock Band is fun?

But alas, I should probally get something done.

lack of updates

I haven't updated in quite some time. I've been busy.

I had end of term projects, and finals. Those took up some time. everything went reasonably well though. I was a little less happy at my CMPT 260 exam. 214 went well.

Other big things that kept me a little busy was my latest project. I, with the help of the roomies, redid a lot of the basement. Largely so it would fit my new projector! YAY!
SO I now have a 120" screen in my basement, with a new surround sound system, and a 1080p projector shooting at it. It looks amazing. I was really happy with how everything turned out. We built the screen from scratch, with fir 1x2's and some blackout cloth, and some black random stretchy fabric. It looks great. But now I'm pretty broke, so I need to save some money to afford CHristmas presents... Should have maybe set my priorities a little different. No regrets though, you have to see this screen. I'll post pictures when I finally get around to taking some. If you're in town this Christmas, you will have to call / stop by and check it out.

Sleep has been going well. I'm a little under the weather currently, so I'm sleeping a bit more than usual, but not too much. I need to adjust my schedule a bit again now that classes are changing for term 2. Make sure I have all the times lines up right. Shouldn't be too bad. I've done that shift before.

I posed a question to the Polyphasic google groups about subliminal learning during sleeping. I'm curious as to if it works, but I haven't been able to find any good scientific articles on it. I keep getting people who want to sell me cd's. Anyone who reads this know anywhere I can get information on it? I figure since I listen to my ipod for my naps anyway to drown out ambient noise, I could probally set up some sort of sibliminal messages to maybe help me learn Japanese or something. I may experiment a bit with it.

Crazy!

I had my first odd encounter over this blog the other day at school. There's a friend in one of my comp sci courses whom I see very seldom, and haven't really talked to in quite some time. We're working together on a project now. Anyway, we were trying to determine when would be a good time to work on it, and I brought up that I usually have lots of time, because I sleep weird, and he said oh yeah, I've read about that on your blog. Yay! People are stumbling here somehow. His brother apparently found it, and asked if he knew me, since I'm a jazz guy in Saskatoon, and the community here isn't too huge, and somewhat close knit. Started me wondering though. I've seen all my traffic numbers, and they definitely aren't anything special, so I've always just assumed it was largely my family, and a couple close friends, who are trying to keep tabs on me, since I never talk to my family.

Now I'm starting to wonder how many people from Saskatoon who don't know me have read this, or heard about it via some other people. Am I going to start having a reputation as the crazy guy who sleeps weird that some people don't know what I look like? Can I work up to Urban myth status? That has quickly become one of my goals. To become an urban myth. Not sure how I'm going to accomplish it though... Suggestions are welcome.

party

Wow, due to just sheer coincidence, my 200th day of polyphasic sleeping (Which is November 29th) also is the last day of classes for me! So I might have to have a bit of fun that day. It's also (I think) the day after a code release, so I may have a lot of good things to celebrate.

My sleep schedule is getting almost back on schedule now. I do have a sinus infection, from a complication from my wisdom teeth extraction. All these medical related things make me feel more tired, which means I sleep more. However, more is still only about 5 or 6 hours. Immediately after the surgery I had a couple days of a long 8 hour sleep. That was odd. I felt like there was just no time during the day to get anything done.

I also need to move all my sleeping things inside. It's starting to get cooler outside. Below freezing, and it's sure hard to jump out of my bed when after jumping out of bed I can suddenly cut bread with my nipples. I just want to stay huddled in my warm sleeping bag. I'll likely get to that tommorrow, or the day after. I need a good system to move things around. Maybe some good habits about packing up my sleeping bag, and so forth.

Maybe I'll have to fire an email to PureDoxyk to ask her what she does in the winter. I think she lives somewhere where the climate gets a little chilly. With the gas prices too, it's just not economically feasible to run my car to warm it up. I'll let you know what I find out / try.

Ok

Time to get in some better habits over this blog. I still think it's valuable to me, to get some of my notes down somewhere, and just to vent a little. Time for another big update.

PureDoxyk, one of the longest Everyman sleepers I know of, had a good post on her blog today. Talking about essentially don't give advice if you aren't qualified to do so. I think it is a very true complaint, and one I think really plagues Polyphasic sleeping. I'll leave the rest of the discussion to her arguements.

I have now been polyphasic for about 185 days? I still don't like giving out a ton of advice, as I don't think my experience is really going to be a representation of everyones experience. We all sleep differently, we all live differently, and just because something works for me, doesn't mean it works for everyman (what a bad pun).

So lately my schedule has been a mess. I got my wisdom teeth pulled on Thursday, after writting my last midterm. Not a good day, although I did get 100% on that midterm, so I can't complain too much. I think that was my widsom teeth's last shot, trying to prove that they actual did something. Back to crappy 50%'s from here on out, without those teeth. I've been really weak on my schedule enforcement, knowing that I should be a little messed up due to the drugs, and so on and so forth, but I think I'm going to have to crack down right away here. Yesterday for instance, I woke up at 5, like normal, after a 4.5 hour core, which is a little long, had a 30 min nap around 9, like normal, was exhausted at my class, so I had a 1.5 hour nap from 1-2:30, got back to work, and went to bed around 9:30, and slept until 5. I woke up once or twice, but I didn't have any painkillers nearby, so I went back to sleep to try and get rid of the pain.

I'll likely let this crappy schedule keep up for the rest of the week, and try to push everything back to my normal come the weekend. Hopefully by then I'm more healed up, and in less pain. I might have to resort to a bit of caffiene to help with that too.

SO back to my plans for this blog. One of the reasons I don't post very often is I feel like there's nothing interesting to post about. By now, I have enough logs of my sleeping stuff to amuse some people. There's a 100 day summary too for people who don't want to read too far back. Now's it's just part of a normal routine. I'll have to figure something out.