275/365 Loyal Bedtime Companion

275/365 Loyal Bedtime Companion
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

74/365 Northern Ave Bridge

74/365 Northern Ave Bridge
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Another beautiful weekend day, and probably in the high 50s.

Kind of exhausted -- up early for two clients this morning, bal practice in Southie, and a lot of walking because we took the commuter rail into town and walked to and from the stations at both ends. And that after maybe 4 hours of broken sleep because of an attack of heartburn late last night.

The heartburn thing did not manifest in its usual way, but given the rather heavy and spicy (but delicious) Sichuan dinner we had, followed by what may have been a slightly sketchy pie (even though it was from whole foods), I'm not going to give my body a hard time for exacting punitive measures. The one constant* is the recovery, which always seems to kick in almost instantaneously sometime around the 5 or 6 o'clock hour.

Perhaps it's just a distorted time perception due to the fatigue, but it really feels like the body does a magical hard reset and suddenly systems are back to normal and I can finally get some sleep. (Except for the part when you have to get up less than 2 hours later.) The SOOTTAD has been reading The Mood Cure and thinks it may have something to do with a circadian rhythm of seratonin production. I'll have to check out the book when she's done with it.

* Excluding effective mitigation procedures (exercise, which can't be effectively utilized at 2 in the morning)

51/365 Pre-Noodlefest: Star Anise

51/365 Pre-Noodlefest: Star Anise
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

[2009Feb21/02:11]

Late start for Noodlefest this year.

Things have been kind of crazy the past few weeks, so we weren't really able to lay in supplies (this year, from the Kam Man Market in Quincy) until late this evening. (Friday) It didn't help that we made a wrong turn trying to get there.

We finished the first pass of the process sometime around 1AM. (yes, I back-dated this post. I think I've warned people.) We'll kill the burner in a few minutes and let the residual heat cook it down overnight and then give it another hour or two in the morning before we strain the broth and pull out the meat.

Oy. So much for getting my sleep cycles back in sync. I did pretty well last night and was on track today. Oh well. At this point, I'm willing to be skewed late so long I don't get sick. I seem to have fought off whatever was giving me that mini sore throat yesterday.

47/365 A New Day

47/365 A New Day
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

It gets a little fuzzy what counts as a "day," especially when you're flying across country through multiple timezones. My usual rule is to define it as a continuous period of being awake, up to the light of a new day. Naps are generally excluded. Nap versus true bedtime boundary conditions are generally established by a change of clothes and hygiene protocols (toothbrushing, showering).

This one squeaks in on a few tight rulings, being a photo of dawn breaking this morning, after a sleepless flight home from LA, after getting home from the airport and after showering, but before crashing in bed for a few hours.

Out West

It's 6AM local time and I'm kicking around at my parents' house until I have to head out to the airport to catch my flight back home. I've been in CA on business, and all told it's gone pretty well. My presentation seemed to go smoothly (there was no audible snoring), and I had some good interaction with the local peeps that will be implementing and verifying the design that I've been specifying for the last couple of months.

Given the problems I've had recovering from the time change the last couple of times I've travelled west, I've tried something new this trip: staying on east coast time. I actually went to bed "late" last night -- 10:30pm local and probably woke up late as a result. (5:45am) Other than that, I've been in bed around 9PM and up around 5AM all week -- a perfectly reasonable midnight/8am back home.

Anyway, a few thoughts from the week:

• A few minutes ago, I could hear the newspapers getting delivered -- it's actually the third time this week I've beaten the delivery peeps.

• I was pleased that I was able to run by the beach in the mornings before work. A 6 mile run on Tuesday and a 10 mile run on Wednesday.

  However, it should be noted that it's VERY dark at 5AM. The first night morning in combination with the fog, made the run on along the beach not much different from running through a foggy tunnel with an ocean soundtrack that you could barely make out if you tried to listen really hard. It wasn't light enough to see the surf until after I'd finished the run around 6:30. Worked out better the next day with the longer run when I could actually watch the surfers during the last few miles.

  Navigation is also challenging. It made driving and looking for parking more difficult than planned. I also stumbled a few times off street and driveway curbs and got poked in the eye by a tree branch because it was too dark to see.

• I was entertained by the sight of the throng of surfer kids who showed up at the beach at 6:30AM the first morning. I wondered if they were just following the surf reports, but it turns out that the parking lot didn't open until 6:15.

• Speaking of parking, it was strange to get turned away from a lot because it was too early. I wouldn't have wanted to pay $7 to park at that lot anyway (different from the surfer lot). Conveniently, the no parking zones generally didn't take effect until 8 or 9AM, well after I had left.

• 63 degrees at the beach at 5:30AM. 78 near the airport where we were staying and working. 98 in the valley -- whoa.

• Even though we were working near LAX, I flew into Burbank. A much easier airport to deal with, easier to get a rental car, and one of the two L.A. area options for JetBlue, which doesn't fly into LAX. And, the parental homestead is closer, so I was able to visit on the way in, and could stay here the night before my flight out. And I only had to navigate the traffic hell once.

• The traffic from the airport to my parents' house was surprisingly light when I arrived around 5PM on Monday. And no problems at 8PM when I headed down to the hotel. The return drive at 4PM yesterday was a different story. It took about an hour and a half to travel the 21 miles from the LAX area to here. And the majority of that time, maybe 70 minutes was spent on the first 13 miles from LAX to Sunset. There were miles that I could have run faster than I was going. I can't imagine making that kind of commute daily. And the round trip would probably eat a quarter tank of gas.

Ok, gotta head to the airport, maybe a few more updates later.

Ok, followup from JFK:

• coming through the Sepulveda pass into the valley, I couldn't help but think that it looked a lot more.... green, than I remember it. Hard to say whether it's because all the street side trees have just finally gotten visibly bigger over the years or it's the first time I've made the drive in daylight.

• Saw some surfer couples at the beach, complete with his and her surfboards attached to the roof or stuffed in the backs of their cars.

• Saw a prius with a HOV sticker. That really seems like a dumb idea. Sure, it's a motivation to get people to switch to hybrid cars, but taking up spots in the HOV lane? Isn't it possible for that to lead to an increase in the number of cars on the road, further increasing congestion, leading to longer commute times and more air pollution? I suppose I'm just being a whiner since the problem should be limited because they only issued a limited number of stickers.

Setback

Feeling Old & Crusty
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

So, I'm bagging the half-marathon tomorrow.

I've spent the last two weeks going back and forth over it.

Should I run?
I should run.
No, I shouldn't run.
Well, maybe I should run.
Should I run?
I should run.
No, I shouldn't run.

Ah, the circles. I grow dizzy. (Probably shouldn't run.)

At this point, it may be more my brain than my body, but either way, it's probably the right thing to do. Or rather, the decision to run it would probably be for all the wrong reasons.

Two weeks ago, I did the last scheduled long run before the race. The longest I've run since the last time I trained for this race 3 years ago. 15 miles. It wasn't too bad through the first 10*, but I got clobbered by a particularly nasty patch of annoyingly steep paths in Weston (alongside a more tamely graded road). I managed to recover a bit during some flatter sections, but I was pretty spent, and the last 2 miles were a real struggle. I probably should have stopped at that point and walked the rest of the way, but I was working on my "mental toughness." (This is also know as "being stupid.")

End of run. Spent. Crusty. (the photo doesn't do it justice -- there were lines of salts all down my face, around my eyes and in my hair.) Feeling old.

...and feeling broken.

My lower back on the left side, which actually turned out to be my upper butt once palpated (gluteus maximus attachment into the iliac crest) didn't feel so awesome after that. I skipped Sunday (although we did some work in the garden), and when it still bothered me during my frisbee game Monday night, I got a little concerned. The right hamstring thing that's been bothering me all year wasn't feeling so great either, so I put myself on the DL, hoping some time off would take care of things.

Things felt a bit better that Thursday -- I ran 3 miles and then went to practice. But the weekend "long run" (8 miles, which turned out to be only 7.5) didn't show much sign of improvement. The soreness persisted (started to notice it as early as mile 2), even with a new hydration pack.

Anyway, all this week, it was evaluation. How's it feeling today? Better? Worse? Hamstring? Ok. Gluts -- better... no, still the same. And on and on and on.

And then I looked into the start time of the race: 9am, registration at 7. No problem. And a quick check of the directions... and somehow I had forgotten that it was a 2 hour drive to the race.

Um, whoops?

I forgot that we stayed with a friend in Portsmouth, so we only had to drive half the distance. So now I had to get up even more wicked early, drive 2 hours, pick up my registration stuff, then run the race that I wasn't sure I was ready to run. That, or get a hotel room and deal with registrations, and check-ins and check-outs...

And then there was the threat of rain. It actually looks like it'll be pretty good racing conditions tomorrow, but looking at it earlier this week, it looked like a pretty good chance of rain along with the wind in the mid-40s at race time. And I remember being so cold from the rain and wind the last time I ran this race, that at the finish I couldn't untie my shoelace to get the timing chip off my shoe.

Yes, I'm psyching myself out.

I actually felt alright yesterday. People were asking about the race. I got some encouragement. I felt pretty good after my run and during the subsequent frisbee game last night.

I was still on the fence.

Until around 1:30am, when I still hadn't fallen asleep.

So no race tomorrow.

I'm still going to run tomorrow morning. But I'll do it around here, after a good night's sleep. Or after more sleep, at least. And we'll have some time to do some more work in the garden. I'll get a massage. Watch the Celtics game. Get ready for the Tri on Sunday. (I'm volunteering, giving post-race massages.)

And I'll heal up, and hopefully still be on track to run one of those marathons in October.

* part of that distance is sketchy, since there seems to be some sort of Lincoln Mystery Spot where the GPS gets all wonky. The GPS tells me one thing, but GoogleMaps and, more importantly, my feets tell me different. I'm not a great judge of pace, but I'm pretty confident that I can tell when I'm running sub 6-minute-miles and over 15-minute-miles, and I didn't hit either of those paces, irregardless of what that little piece of technology strapped to my wrist was telling me.

You do the best you can

Nu Shooz

In the last week, I've only gotten up once before 8AM, and that was yesterday (6:30, blargh) to take my car in for an oil change. You could almost count this morning because I did wake up for the alarm that was set for 4AM so the SOOTTAD could catch her rescheduled flight to Chicago after the one she was supposed to be on yesterday was canceled. But I didn't actually get up and I went back to sleep, mostly... took a while, and there was a little too much almost-awake-almost-asleep time.

On the plus side, I've still been getting my runs in, and have managed to either run or play disc (or both) every day since Friday. I just haven't been doing them at 7AM. In fact, the last AM run was Sunday. That may just be the way it's going to be. At least for now, before we start hitting the hot and humid summer days.

I'm on to the next training book, Run Less, Run Faster, which came highly recommended by a Tri friend of ours. The program is centered around what they call the "3plus2" plan which focuses on 3 key training runs with 2 days of cross-training. I like that the runs are focused and have specific goals (which they explain), and I thought the cross-training thing would be great, until I read the relevant chapter and discovered that ultimate pretty much didn't count because it continues to work (and stress) the same muscles I'm training for running. Worse, their suggested activities -- swimming and cycling (and deep water running?) -- really aren't part of my repertoire.

Nevertheless, I like their approach to the running workouts which stress quality over quantity (although yesterday's interval workout ended up being over 7 miles and took over an hour), so I'm trying to integrate their ideas into my training plan. I'll probably just take actual rest days or do easy recovery runs ("junk miles") which they do allow for (but do not recommend) in lieu of the proposed recovery activities.

Of course, it is spring, so I'm playing ultimate, hopefully within hamstring tolerances. I actually played yesterday after the track workout and it felt surprisingly, well, not bad. We'll see how it goes. I may end up adjusting the key training runs depending on how things are feeling.

So I'm going to try to crank up the intensity, focusing on the pace at specific distances. (Yesterday was 800m repeats around a 6:35 mile pace.) And today, after trying my best to sleep in a bit and catch a few extra Z's after the early wake-up call (I think I got up around 8:30), I did, in fact, suck it up and go to the gym after work and sat on a recumbent bike for 45 minutes.

For the record, it sucked. A little knee stress, my calves feel overworked, and my ass -- ow (geez, I gotta at least try a normal bike if I do it again) -- but I'm not sure how inclined I'm going to be to repeat that experience.

But, well, you know...

Listening to your body

I was exhausted last night.

Miraculously woke at 7AM yesterday morning, even after a late night (wine pairing dinner at Ten Tables -- dericious!) Went for a 7+ mile run (marginal -- right ankle has been feeling a bit wonky and it flared up around mile 4, and legs were feeling pretty heavy on the last mile), then to work. Client in the evening. A little work at the computer after dinner. And then I just hit the wall. Didn't even want to go downstairs for a snack.

That was at at a quarter of ten.

I guess I should have just gone to bed, but I ended up reading until 10:30 before killing the lights.

At midnight, I finally gave up and got up, had a drink, had a snack, did a little more reading and looked at some pictures (in an actual photo album, looking at my phases of long hair) and then finally back in bed around a quarter of one.

I really thought I was past this not falling asleep business. Oh well. It continues to be rough since getting back from Chicago.

Anyway, no surprise when I woke up "late" around 7:40am, still tired.

Options:

1. run the same 7+ mile route as the previous day for comparison purposes. Was I just having an off day? Was I running too fast? Would my foot start hurting at the same point? Would it hurt at all?
2. run something around 5 miles, maybe at a tempo pace. Y'know, try and work on that VO2max thing by training at my lactate threshold. And stuff.
3. run less than 4 miles (distance of onset of foot pain) as a recovery run, or simply training at a level where I was fairly confident I wouldn't exacerbate any existing injuries.
4. Skip the workout. Turn it into a rest day and get to the office relatively early.

The earliest I could probably start a run would be a bit after 8am. Then cooldown, stretching, a shower, and then the drive up to the office.

I still didn't get into the office much before 9. I'm not sure how that happens.

Still pretty beat today. I'm rationalizing that I only got about 6 hours of sleep last night, after probably getting less than 6 hours the night before. I know there are plenty of folks out there who are completely functional with that much sleep, but I've always needed closer to 9 hours for peak operating conditions.

And there's the stuff that I had gleaned from what little I'd already read in the book. Basically, train "opportunistically" and to your own body. It makes it ok for me to adjust for other activities and commitments. And most importantly, to adjust the training based on how my body is feeling. So I took the hint about the ankle not feeling so good, and probably not getting enough sleep and I ran (or rather, didn't run) with it.

And I think it was the right decision. More rest for the hamstring. (which I tweaked again playing pickup on Sunday.) The ankle is feeling a little better, or rather, I'm not feeling my ankle so much today. I think you're not supposed to notice the bones in you leg and foot when you're doing your everyday stuff, right?

So the plan is now to just do a short run tomorrow, maybe 3-4 miles and then do a long run Saturday, more than the 8.6 I ran last week, but almost certainly less than the 12 that's currently in the plan. I'm thinking 10, but we'll see how it feels.

On the down side, it was in the 30s this morning, although above freezing and sunny. Whereas tomorrow it's supposed to rain, possibly snow (?!) in the morning so it looks like I'll be hitting the gym tomorrow. (And as much as I hate the gym, it's probably good for me to do some hamstring strengthening exercises anyway.) Saturday, light rain all morning, and I just hope they're wrong. Or at least if it rains, it really is light rain.

Resync

So, I did manage to eventually drag myself out of bed at 7:30 this morning and go for my run. It actually felt pretty good, all things considered. I felt... fast-ish. (running fartleks today) And I wasn't falling asleep at the office, although I must admit that I wasn't particularly productive -- a lot of trouble staying on message. I feel like I'm going to crash at any moment and my hope is that today was enough to get me back on track after the weekend debacle.

In today's low productivity zone, I did stumble across a good read: Seth Roberts blog, the Berkeley professor known for doing research through self-experimentation and who came up with the Shangri-La diet.

An interesting serendipity is that one of the examples in his paper describes the relationship between eating breakfast (breakfast being defined as eating before 10am) and early waking and the quality of sleep. The paper also cites relationships with exposure to morning light and standing.

So maybe it's not the cardiovascular activity that was syncing me up after all. (In case it wasn't clear from that comment, I generally eat after I run, which means that on morning when I run, I typically eat several hours after I get up. In today's case, around 10:30am.)

We'll need to do more research, but I'll leave that to others for now...

'cause I'm going to bed.

Almost Back...

...to square one, it seems.

I finally gave up trying to fall back asleep after tossing about restlessly for a little over an hour and a half. Residue from the weekend shake-up? I do have a few things on my mind tonight, so that isn't helping.

Just had some hot ovaltine and a few cookies; it remains to be seen whether I'll be able to get up at 7AM to run as previously planned given that I've only gotten about 90 minutes of sleep* so far, with the max limit at 5.5 hours and counting. Down.

Even if I manage it, I'm not expecting to be particularly functional at work tomorrow.

*sigh*

* On a small nerdy positive note, I suppose this reconfirms my understanding that people generally sleep in 90 minute increments; something I just mentioned to the SOOTTAD not 4 hours ago. (Actually, almost exactly 4 hours ago.) Did I mention *sigh*?

The System is Down

Not all systems, but the waking up and exercising one, certainly.

The adjustments made for the weather* and stupid daylight savings time pretty much wrecked havoc on the new waking and training schedule. And it was a pretty fragile ecosystem to begin with. Work stress hasn't helped -- I slept fitfully this morning worrying over the current problem I'm dealing with, trying to hold onto possible solutions gleaned in the dream-state. Blargh.

I did manage to go for a run in the wind and sun yesterday (yet still barely above freezing, unless you counted the windchill) when nobody showed up for the frisbee game. (which was just as well -- the wind would have made the game... unpleasant.) But that was late morning, so it wasn't helping the cause for the early morning run pattern.

Getting up at 8 this morning was painful. And really, I've been feeling like ass in the mornings all weekend.

Speaking of stupid daylight savings time, I've seen a little buzz about how there was a study showing that daylight savings time actually wastes energy, due in part because people turned on lights and heaters in the morning (presumably during the early spring, and late fall) and air-conditioning in the afternooon (the summer). I'm certainly bitter about it right now, but I'm also thinking that maybe people are just spending too much time sitting at home running the A/C and watching TV. Daylight savings time may not have had a measurable savings in the 70's, but it doesn't seem like it was more expensive -- technology creating too much of a good thing? 'Course, I've been in Chicago in the summer, not to mention Houston -- thems places is no fun in the summer.

A few other articles:

• Wall Street Journal A commonly linked article
• San Francisco Chronicle DST good for retailers, golf industry and OIL COMPANIES, bad for cows.
• Huffington Post Also, toothpaste.
• Yahoo!'s tech blog which has my favorite quote which addresses some of the stupider comments I've seen from the masses:
  

  "In related news, it was also revealed that Daylight Saving Time actually creates no additional daylight."

*sigh*

* Expected and non-materializing

The Potential for Irony

So, sometime last year, I decided that it'd be a good idea to run a marathon.

Actually, let me rephrase that: sometime last year, I somehow got it into my head that I should run a marathon.

In 1998, I was planning on running the Bay State Marathon with a bunch of people from work. Ah, the halcyon days of my early career in computer engineering, working at a company that had its own staffed fitness center. We'd take two-hour lunches and play some hoops or go for a run, maybe do some lifting, grab a shower, and then eat at our (respective) desks.

Anyway, that year a bunch of people decided to train together for the marathon, myself included. It was maybe a month out from the actual race, when somebody asked me how many miles I was doing. I can no longer recall my answer, but I do recall that the person who had asked the question didn't think that I was running nearly enough miles to be ready for the race.

That weekend I did a 7 mile run and a 13 mile run, and by the end of the second run I had a sharp pain in one of my knees that forced me into a slow, awkward stride. I had a hard time walking the following week. Shortly thereafter, I managed to put myself out of my misery by spraining one of my ankles playing ultimate frisbee.

I quit. And vowed to never be so stupid as to try to run another marathon. The experience taught me that my body just wasn't designed for that kind of abuse.

Fast-forward 6 years to the fall of 2004. I'm at another company, post-dot-com bubble. We don't have a staffed gym, but we still have a weight room and a shower, which is all I ever needed, really. Long lunches playing disc and going running, maybe a little lifting followed by a shower and lunch at my desk. (Nevertheless, slightly less halcyon, FWIW.) And there's a small group of runners that are talking about running a half-marathon in the spring.

I'm reluctant. It does have the word "marathon" in it, after all.

Then, a confluence of events. Well, event. I get laid off from my job. Meaning, lots of free time. And a friend willing to be a running partner.

We sign up for two races, and this time, older and wiser, I actually set up a training plan. (And there are far worse things to do with your time between jobs than having a set training schedule.) And sticking with the plan, both races go pretty well, all things considered.

Which I must admit was somewhat unexpected.

A little less than two years later and about a year ago, perhaps a few weeks before finishing the massage therapy program, we were asked in class to do a goal-setting exercise. And I thought to myself:

Y'know, I'm getting old...
gonna hit one of those big milestones next year...
maybe I could... RUN A MARATHON to prove that I'm not "old" ...
yeah! there's an idea...

And now, here I am, one month into a new training schedule.

The crazy part is that I've been running in the mornings before work. There's no longer a shower at the office, so I could only run in the afternoon on weekends or days that I was working from home. And running after work is suboptimal because, being winter, it's dark outside (not to mention cold and often icy), the gym is usually packed, and when things run late, I'm also wicked hungry. So any number of things can tank a workout.

So I switched to mornings. It forces me to do the workout. And because I know I have to start working at a reasonable hour (say 10am, worst case), it forces me to start early. And for the most part, it's worked pretty well: I haven't missed any planned workouts, the regular workouts have helped improve my mood (it's always been a form of self-medication for me), and on average, I'm actually getting to the office earlier than I used to. The primary downside is that it's often colder in the mornings (say 10°F instead of 28°F) in which case I'm stuck going to the gym. (But it isn't any worse than going to the gym after work, and it's less crowded in the morning.)

I've also found that my sleeping habits have finally settled down. For the most part, I've been falling asleep pretty easily and on the occasions where I do wake-up in the middle of the night, I haven't had any trouble falling back asleep. Of course, the down side to that is that a lot of nights, I'll be wanting to go to bed at 9pm, which is just sad. It really messes with the social calendar, although I'm hoping to eventually adjust. Actually stayed up past 11 last night! Woo, uh, hoo...

So, I've opened myself up to the potential for some serious irony. The obvious one:

Things seem to be going pretty well so far, but I have had a nagging hamstring problem since last fall which may well be due to an adductor injury last summer. It seems to be holding out alright, but of course, I'm only a month into the training plan so far. It may be that when I get to the 16 mile or 18 mile runs, my body will just give up and stop working. So it may be that this exercise to prove that I'm NOT old may just prove that I am. Subjunctive oops.

The other potential irony?

Well, what do I mean when I say "old?" What do I think of?

I've already mentioned the part about the body breaking down, unable to handle the rigors of youthful exuberance. Or running several hundred miles (possibly over a thousand) over the course of the next several months. There's also a "responsible adult" component... I'm already guilty of some of that -- got a mortgage, saving for retirement, think about the consequences to your actions (look before you leap... and we won't talk about exactly how I got that adductor injury last year). But there's also the teetotaling, conservative, restrained old guy -- too old to be silly, too old to have any fun, too old to stay out late at night...

um, OOPS.

Baby, You're a Star

Poop Star
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Well, we're back.

And while it's been a great start to the new year (it's hard to imagine how a month off from work wouldn't be), I can't get too rah-rah about it at the moment because I've managed to get sick after returning to the same sleep difficulties that I was experiencing before I left for California and points west.

Eh, let me try anyway.

First off -- no sleeping troubles at all while I was away. (Going to have to let that one sink in -- I hope it doesn't have to do with the mojo of the new house. "New" being relative since we bought the house over a year ago and have lived in it for almost a year now.)

Anyway, a good visit with family and some friends (unfortunately, never enough time to see everyone), a good couple of hikes in the Mojave. And then about 2-1/2 weeks in Hawaii: 7 days on Kauai, 9 days on the big island and a little over 24 hours on Oahu.

Hawaii was awesome.

The picture at top is of this crazy plant/fungus that we found along the side of the trail on the hike we did on Kauai. (If you're interested, another view of it can be found here.) It was supposed to be one of at least two hikes, but it seems that our trip to the Islands was very much about learning how to not worry about making plans or figuring out what to do and just relaxing and having a good time. So we never did get around to hiking the Kalalau trail on the Napali coast (we ended up spending the day surfing and hitting the beaches on the eastern coast... FWIW, prioritizing the second day of surfing over the hike was the SOOTTAD's idea, not that I had any objections), but that just means that we need to figure out when we can plan our next trip back. We did do the one hike in Koke'e state Park (which was fantastic), and take the planned helicopter tour and get our spam musubi, saimin at Hamura's Saimin and burgers at Duane's Ono Charburger. Plus, lots of snorkeling, a luau and a few massages. (Oh, and surfing both days we were on Oahu -- so much for that trip to the north shore.) But a lot more chilling-on-the-beach time than I've done in innumerable years. The SOOTTAD is even sporting a savage tan, relatively speaking.

Anyway, good times. We'll hopefully have a chance to go back in the not too distant future to get that hike in and get some more surfing time. I'll try to dwell on that while I recover from this cold.

sick thoughts

I've been pretty much out of commission since Friday with some kind of bug. I thought I was mostly back yesterday, but I guess I got a little cocky (I saw a client in the afternoon), and ended up almost back to square one last night. Anyway, not really feeling up to doing much else, so just a few thoughts and observations:

• It's probably been the longest that I've been sick since I started having regular acupuncture treatments almost two years ago. I'm pleased that I've only had a moderate cold maybe once in the last year, but I guess I'm kind of bummed that I've been laid up for over 3 days now. It makes me wonder whether the new assistant who works at the clinic doesn't have the same skills as the previous one or if maybe I need to reiterate that one of my original treatment goals was to keep my immune system up to snuff.
• Does anyone else find that they can't remember what it's like to feel healthy when they're sick? Over the weekend, I kept noticing myself doing little check-ins: Am I better now? How 'bout now? Is this better? Is this how normal feels? It's like a bunch of kids on a road trip asking "are we there yet?" Answer: no. (Also interesting that the opposite is true.)
• It figures that the nicest weather we had in the last week was yesterday and the day before when it got into the 40s. I was finally starting to ramp up the miles and was looking forward to a longer run on Saturday and I ended up not leaving the house. I barely left the bedroom.
• It also figures that I'm sick over the weekend. Of course, it was probably the stress from preparing for a meeting on Thursday that pushed me over the edge in the first place.
• Started reading the Golden Compass series. I'm enjoying it so far, but it's kind of a bummer when reading makes me tired. Geez, when am I supposed to find time to read if not when I'm home sick? Sucking it up and reading anyway. Probably part of why I'm still sick today.
• Being able to sleep on and off all day -- good.
• Not being able to fall asleep at night after sleeping on and off all day -- not good.

Also, less computing -- good... So I'm signing off now.

Later folks.

late to bed, early to rise

Woke up around 4am this morning, dreaming about some crazy Nerds animal launcher to capture some accumulated in-game collectable item (small nautilus-shaped radio/TV sets?) and thinking about user interfaces and gameplay and then recognizing an underlying rate-matching problem that mapped into a problem I've been trying to solve at work. After lying in bed for an hour trying to figure out a workable algorithm (I hate it when the solution only makes sense in the dream state), I finally realized I wasn't falling back asleep. I think I was also hungry.

All that, after lying in bed awake for at least an hour after going to bed a bit after midnight last night a few hours ago.

So I got up a little after 5, and tried to capture some of what I was trying to work out in my head. (Sadly, not much progress.) And installed some new anti-virus software* while I was at it. And had a cookie and some warm Ovaltine.

I did have this crazy idea that I might try going for a morning run, seeing as I was up and all -- I'm still trying to figure out how to fit the workouts into my schedule these days -- but a quick check of the weather seems to indicate that it went from unpleasant to inhospitable in the hour since I was up, dropping from a balmy 16°F to 10°F between 5 and 6.

*sigh*

Productive, and yet, not so much.

Ok, I think that's it for my gripe this morning.

*And, hey Norton Anti-virus? Since when does "dismiss pop-up window" mean "accept the query as to whether to restart my machine right now?" God I hate it when installation programs to that.

except without the part about your mom

*sigh*

I think this is the fourth night in the last six where I haven't been able to fall asleep. Tired. Sleepy even. But I just can't seem to drop off to sleep.

Almost makes me want to try this, although the waking hours certainly aren't particularly useful if you're trying to participate with most of the world around you.

Have I mentioned BAH*?

UPDATE: to answer Leah's question in the comments, and for full disclosure, here's the list of things that I can think of that I've tried over the past few weeks:

• reiki
• meditation (which really is kind of like reiki. Or vice versa.)
• hot shower (I'm a life-long night showerer. I don't sleep well when gritty or sticky.)
• warm milk (with Ovaltine)
• staying up later
• visualizing the comfy feeling I have in bed in the morning when I don't want to get up
• being mindful of the images that play behind my closed eyelids
• visualize constantly dropping into deeper layers of consciousness/reality.
• avoiding computer stuff right before bed

I'd be happy to hear other suggestions.

* not to be confused with "baa." Seriously, does counting sheep actually work for anyone?

Ugh.

Stupid not being able to fall asleep until after 3AM. It's probably the third night out of the last four. And now I'm waking up wicked late.

Or maybe it's the other way around.

*sigh*