Lives of Polyphasic Bloggers

a year-long habits project – guests welcome!

puredoxyk — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 21:10:25 +0000

So, the fact that I'm posting about this project literally one day before I start it is…indicative. This has been a messy year. A good year, but one with almost every major ground-level change you can have, and barely room to keep any semblance of good habits going, never mind adding any robust new ones.

So after much research (you know me) that I didn't have any time to write about here (see above), I've formulated a PLN*. Since a new habit takes a month to sink in and start becoming automatic, I've plotted a list of 12 habits I'd like to accumulate in the coming year.

I'll post the list later, but first I wanted to make the offer — since everyone I've mentioned this to has asked about it — If you'd like to join me on my quest, come on in!

I've even managed to create a spreadsheet: You can access it here. There's a simple points system a la an extremely simplified Magic Spreadsheet; I find those useful, but again, this is totally "whatever works for you". Comments welcome, including from people who just want to drop me comments or send emails about their progress — it's all good for me, hearing about your struggles and victories! I'm also happy to share the research I did to come up with this idea, and to pick my 12 habit-goals.

Like I said, I'm starting this tomorrow, but you can join in anytime. My October goal is to MEDITATE EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Yell at me if I screw up! (I won't. ::GRIN::)

*If this reference went by you, read more Terry Pratchett. I mean, do that anyway, but if Rob Anybody Feegle isn't a minor deity in your head yet, you need to fix that!

Listen to the instrument, damn it

puredoxyk — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 10:49:40 +0000

Most of my life, I was a slave to my mind, and if you'd asked me I would have said straight-faced that the whole useful world was inside it; a straight-up victim of stockholm syndrome of the brain. Held and tortured and unable to even think of another reality.

Here's what I've learned: The body is a violin that responds exquisitely to everything that touches it — including the mind. Like a violin, you can listen to the sounds it makes and hear the results of what's touching it expressed in amazing detail. The mind can lie to you, intentionally (ego, fear, etc) or otherwise (bad training, illness); and it's so so hard to tell what's true and what isn't. But if you listen to the notes of your body, you'll know almost instantly — especially once you're used to just listening — whether something is good for you or not.

And your body is YOUR BODY; it's had YOUR precise experiences for all those years; don't be scared if it responds in ways that the magazines say are wrong. Eat steak: Does it feel good, over the next day or so? No? Then probably it's too heavy for your digestive system; or something else about it disagrees with you. (I love describing food etc as "agreeing or disagreeing" with my body.) Or yes? Then maybe you're shy on iron or protein. I tried to stop eating meat for years, because I thought it was making me fat (no, lack of exercise was), and later found out that I have really high blood-iron requirements, and would need supplements if it weren't for my meaty diet. LISTEN to your body. How much sleep FEELS good, and when? Whose energy makes you relax and smile? Try getting WAY more exercise than you're used to, and see how it feels. When I started lifting weights, I thought I must be insane and going to hurt myself — I was thirty, and not in that great of shape — but even while the muscle-soreness screamed, I felt like a fucking timpani at the climax of a symphony; and thereafter I learned that my body, MY body, for whatever reasons, needs a LOT more exercise than most people take as baseline. (And lo, my brain is *much* happier and easier when I get it, too.)

Listen, listen, listen, and TRUST. Breathe. Let it surprise you — and it will. Mine *loves* a shot of whisky sometimes. I no longer care in the slightest what anyone says about this, health-wise. I know it's healthy because I can feel it. I get a full check-up with blood-work and oh, my liver is perfect, as is my cholesterol etc.? My doctor is surprised — "at my age", she says, most people have *something* that needs adjusting — but I am not. If I told her about the beer-and-a-whiskey I have most days, she'd probably be even *more* surprised. But my body likes beer, especially after a workout. ESPECIALLY don't worry about anything your body wants that isn't too often — your system is strong (especially if you're usually kind to it, which means listening to it), and if you make a mistake (*three* whiskeys probably isn't the best idea), it'll recover. One mistake is no big deal. Every day mistakes, like getting no exercise, eating crap food or the wrong food, etc., ARE a big deal.

Last thing: Stress is SO BAD FOR YOU. Western culture has very specific habits built-in that encourage us to ignore this particular thing — and for reasons that are pretty obvious with a minute's thought — but it's vitally (!) important. LISTEN to your BODY and when it's making that horrible keening noise because your shoulders are tight and you've had no fresh air and no meditation and no naps, TAKE ACTION. It doesn't take much to reduce stress, and your body will tell you instantly what's working. Nice music. A rest with your feet up. A run. A scream. Don't ignore those things and let it build up. Stress is playing your violin with a saw, and over time it will destroy you.

I'm so grateful for my health, and so cognizant of how weird and lucky I am to have found so much of it in my adult years, when I had way way less through those typically-automatically-healthy childhood ones. I'm extra lucky to be able to share some of the really cool parts of it via teaching taiji sometimes, but for you guys, if I can give you one thing, it's this order: You are playing an instrument, right now, by living in and piloting your body. It is a crazy complex instrument, but you were born with the skills to work the bow, so don't stress that part. DO, however, PAY ATTENTION to it, and above all LISTEN, and trust what you hear.

Marie out. :)

So, as a trained philosopher I try not to…

puredoxyk — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 21:48:40 +0000

So, as a trained philosopher I try not to moralize, kinda for the same reason that, as a kungfu enthusiast, I try to stay out of bar-fights: it's neither fair, nor usually fun, nor often useful. But I've seen some disturbing actions by my peers lately, and my peers are generally smart people who deserve an opportunity to learn. So…into the bar-brawl we go. ::rolls up sleeves::

Also like a bar-brawl, declaring who's right and who's wrong in any situation can get all sorts of tangly — but that's morals for you. It's entirely possible to look like a jerk from one point of view, but, given more or different information, to be totally vindicated.

That doesn't make it unimportant whether you're an asshole or not, mind you. Being a jerk hurts people, real people with real feelings who really don't deserve to take your shit just because you didn't think to keep your mouth shut. Life is hard enough, and one of the few meaningful things we can do to make it easier is to not be jerks to each other.

And my peers are good people — but it's not being a good person that stops you from being a jerk; it's paying attention, and lately that's felt lacking. Specifically, it's seemed lacking in the words of the pro-social-justice people: The very ones who spend the most time looking for privilege, pointing out unfairnesses, and generally thinking their butts off. AND YET, I'm SO UNSURPRISED to find this particular group falling into the trap of being assholes to people….why? Because being good at social justice can lead you to feel that you have moral authority, and one of the core lessons of my Catholic-raised, Detroit-bred life has been that the people who get used to thinking of themselves as "right" are 1000% more likely to be the people who act like jerks. Getting it into your head that you're one of the good ones — be it because you're a priest or a cop or a respected member of your whatever etc. — is THE major qualification for eventually forgetting that a) other people are not bad, and b) even when they might be, you don't have the right to be a jerk at them, because you are probably lacking a LOT of information and on top of it, making things worse by being an asshole.

I'm going to be forced to give an example at some point, so I'm picking the easy one: Just this week, I've watched white-skinned people who never fail to point out and fight against racial privilege make fun of other people because of their chosen hairstyles. Their mistake is thinking that their racial consciousness is somehow relevant to their actions — that they are exempted from worrying about being an asshole because they're an ally, basically. But this is a huge error, on the order of assuming that because there is sugar in your kitchen, of course your cake will come out fine.

The ingredients in your cupboard do not affect your cake.
Your social-justice creds do not affect whether or not you're being an asshole to that human being right now.

Mocking someone's choice of self-expression is awful and pointless; it never helps, and it hurts like hell for zero gain. If you're privileged and you do it to someone who isn't, then yes, you've added "being racist" or whatever to that awful pie you're making; but if not, you've still just been a jerk. If you are unprivileged and the person you're mocking IS privileged, AND certain other conditions apply, then your assholeness may be tempered or even entirely forgivable — like I said, this stuff is tricky by definition. That's why philosophers will write 15,000 words about one sentence in one situation, trying to follow all the threads. But I'm not talking about that very particular situation: I'm talking about when normal strangers who've done nothing to you wear a hairstyle you feel you have some reason to disapprove of, and so you mock them because a) it feels safe among your peers and b) you've convinced yourself that your moral cred as a social-justice warrior means that you can go after people you're able to label as "dudebros" or whatever with impunity.

Good people do not mock others. They don't "only mock [these] others”, where [these] are the ones that your peers will probably side with you on.

Good people remember that others, even if you only encounter them as models in a photo-shoot, are still people. Maybe that guy wore braids because his parents are Norse and he thinks it's a cool throwback. Maybe that other one just really thinks it looks cool. Who the fuck are you to shoot them down? (I do have other examples, but this one is recent and easy, so I'm breaking my usual style and sticking with it. :)

I used to say, simply, "To be a good person, do not be a jerk to others." I think, after witnessing so many people recently that I find respectable — not the Nice Church Ladies or whatever, but the social-justice warriors, the masters of talking about consent, the uber-feminists, the eco-badasses — slipping into finding their own assholery acceptable because it's theirs, that I'll have to amend that. To be a good person, do not be a jerk to others, and do not forget that you CAN be a jerk. Do not fall into the trap of seeing sugar on your shelf and assuming that everything that comes out of your oven will be sweet.

Thanks for letting me vent, ya'll. Have a great weekend!

Forced Desynchrony Recovery

puredoxyk — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 11:05:25 +0000

I like how natural it feels to refer to the world forcing me to be monophasic as "forced desynchrony". Like, yes, forcing vegetarians to eat burgers is not ok, and neither is forcing me to sleep on your shitty 8-hour schedule. ::glare::

Anyway, I'm mostly back! The period of sleep-dep was a day longer than I expected, and nearly everything about coming back from it has been unideal. Instead of getting at least one nap on the last day of the summit and then being picked up from the airport and driven home to blissfully sleep off the sleep-dep, however long that took, I was kept from napping both at the hotel and the airport, had to endure a long commute home with my luggage, and then arrived to find my partner very ill and requiring pretty intense care through the night. I hit near-having-a-newborn-levels of sleep dep with that one, and I only got about 4h before I had to literally tear myself out of bed to go to work again. BUT, I was able to get an afternoon nap, and lay down for an evening one (I was too stressed to sleep, but smart enough to take the break and lay down anyway).

However, you can imagine my shock when I went to bed that night, setting my alarm for as late as I dared, figuring if I slept the whole 8.5-9h, forget it, I needed it (especially with a germ-infested person in my room!) … and woke up at precisely 4:15am, feeling great.

It took ONE day of Everyman 4.5 to, I'm guessing, recover about 80% from that hellish week of torture. WHAT.

I'm pretty sure that if I'd gotten that sleep-deprived and had to fix it with monophasic nights-of-sleep, just one 8h night wouldn't have done it.

But one 4h night with 2 naps did.

I usually try to be at least moderately scientific; or at a bare minimum show actual respect for the real scientific method, if for no other reason than to counteract the antiscience pull of my culture…but today, I give up.

THIS SHIT IS MAGIC

Thoughts on using 4am

puredoxyk — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 10:49:01 +0000

Some days, it seems, I do all the things that matter before about 7am.

I stretch. I put on a bouncy song and do silk-reeling, or just dancing, until my body feels fluid and warm. Since I haven't slept longer than 4-6h max, I'm not horribly stiff or sore anyway, but man it feels really good to move, to loosen up.

I make coffee and drink it while the sun comes up. Sometimes for half an hour, I just literally sit and stare outside, breathe the air, occasionally sip the coffee, and DO NOTHING.

That may sound dull, but it feels amazing. It puts this layer of breathing-room around everything else…the layer doesn't last long; the day uses it up; but no kidding, sitting and appreciating the negative space in your life, the verb-of-being of it, is how you fill up your reservior of chill. It may be the smartest productivity thing I do.

But you don't need to do nothing, or warm up your body, for very long. I take my tablet (because you know sometimes in this day and age you can't be bothered to unplug your 11" laptop >,>) and sit somewhere fairly random, and I…

…work on my precious stories. This isn't always my only time to do this, but it's one fo the few times I know I almost certainly will be able to…without this time, I start to feel like I can't call myself a writer.

…journal-dump or poetry-dump any heavy emotional stuff going on; or read from spiritual books. Settle the panic, if there is any (there usually is).

…study one of the interesting things I haven't had time for lately, or alternately am super engrossed in lately

…pound out some life-administrative task I haven't been getting to, eliminating *that* stress for today (this sounds stupid, but only if you haven't experienced what getting that nagging question or task off your plate 3h before the workday begins is like!)

…answer messages I've been meaning to get to, or shoot messages at friends that need connecting-with (having friends out there who owe / will probably send you some message back is also known as "buying smiles later")

…jot down cool ideas, or look at the ones already jotted, maybe do some organizing to see if I can plan or fit something in soon…there's space here to think about making a cool idea reality, about "phase 2" instead of just dumping phase 1 — have the idea — somewhere and running off.

Spaaaace. Before 7 is my space.

I drink a few glasses of water, just to make sure they get in me today.

I do pull-ups, or a hard part of my taiji forms, or squats or kettlebell or some other conditioning, so that my body gets some real attention today even if there isn't time for class or similar.

I used to try and swim super-early, or have taiji class before 8 nearly every day…I still aim for those things once a week or so, but they involve too much running around; I don't want to spend this time packing bags and navigating traffic. I like those things, but I can do them later…what I can't do later is be quietly with myself like this.

For a long while there, I scheduled phone conversations and work-sessions at 5am, figuring it'd help me get moving (it does, especially if you're adapting to a new sleep-schedule — I still highly recommend it for that). But I've since moved away from that. If I need to wake up and am worried I might not, I'm fortunate to be able to arrange checking in with people by text; but I don't prefer to be actually social during this time, at least not lately. Maybe it depends on how much I'm alone during the day? There are a lot of people around anymore, and while it is a little annoying (for them, I imagine) to have been up and alone for hours when they wake up (OMG HIIIII HOW ARE YOOOOU LET ME TELL YOU THIS–oh. You've been awake five seconds and don't want to talk, you say?), I've just come to love this chunk of solitude. Even if I have a ton to do and realistically start working at 5 or 6, getting up early enough to sit with my coffee and type, or think, or slowly bring my body and brain online in some contemplative way…holy crap is that valuable.

I'm a manager, a student, a teacher, a mom, and a big fan of the Internet and the written word. My life is communication, and that's awesome. But from about 4-6am, I'm mostly silent; I mostly listen.

I need that.

Forced Desynchrony: not just for monophasers anymore

puredoxyk — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 19:43:12 +0000

"Forced desynchrony," I've been told many times, "is considered torture" by many authoritative organizations. Usually phrased as a warning against any mad-scientist tendencies I may have developed, any uncontrollable urge to inflict terrible sleep-dep on other people.

Most people who throw that shit around have no idea what desynchrony and serious sleep-dep are like, I'm sure. So they can't actually be blamed for not realizing how ridiculously averse to sleep-dep I've become as a result of exposure to them; how, yes, I've deliberately gutsed through terrible sleep-dep, because as someone who never felt rested, I felt I didn't have a choice, and how now that I'm normally not sleep-deprived — hardly if ever — I am a TOTAL WIMP about feeling tired.

Not even sleep-deprived: just "tired". On an average day I don't yawn, because before I ever get to the point of yawning, I've felt what to me is a very uncomfortable not-alertness that has prompted me to go nap. I get at least one nap every day, no matter what's going on; on busy days I get two; when life is good and easy, three or more.

Furthermore, after years of polyphasic sleep, I now hate sleeping longer than 4h at a time. Even if I don't nap, I'll often get up after 4h, because I wake up naturally then, and I know that if I sleep longer I'll feel stiff and groggy — sleepy! upon waking! the horror. My body knows now that waking up after 3-4 hours and getting a few naps during the day is much more comfortable.

If I yawn, most days, it's like a four-alarm fire in my head, and I will drop everything to go sleep.

No, man, I'm a wimp about sleep-dep. Because I've been there, both at low-medium levels for years, and then cranked to eleven for a few short bursts. Hell god fuck no, save me from that shit.

Sooooo, what happens when *I* get tortured with forced desynchrony? When the world forces me to stay awake for 12-14 hours, several days in a row, with no opportunity to have a nap no matter how tired I am?

I GO THROUGH GODSDAMNED HELL IS WHAT HAPPENS

KILL ME NOW

…This is day 3 with no naps. I couldn't sleep longer than 4h at night the first 2 days (see above), and last night I probably could have, but I could only actually get 5h of sleep due to the schedule, so that's what I got.

…Did I mention KILL ME NOW?

A work summit has me staying in a hotel and working all day in a tiny one-room office with a bunch of other people and zero place or chance to nap. The combination of travel and this flagrantly, non-optionally monophasic work-schedule has been — no kidding, I am not abusing the term here — torture.

Here's what it feels like.

I have a permanent headache. My entire skull feels wrapped in cotton pain.

My face is weird and tight. My jaw keeps clenching whenever I'm not concentrating on relaxing, as though it's taking herculean effort to hold up my own body.

I have to focus on not slurring my words — no-one else seems to have noticed it, but I can; it's like my lips are wearing lead coats.

Oh yeah, and my skin is so crawly; I'm squeaky clean but I want a shower and I keep thinking there are bugs on me or crumbs in my clothes. Augh augh augh.

Everything looks shiny, not in a good way. Like when you're hungover and the lights are too bright.

I'm perpetually hungry, but food isn't making me feel better.

My normally impressive balance is back to low-average levels. I banged my knee on a thing this morning, for the first time in geez, maybe a year? I don't do stuff like that anymore thanks to taiji.

I can't really tell from here exactly how, but I know my brain's not doing well either. I'm working, and nobody's fired me yet, but it's definitely difficult to concentrate. I like my job, but this reminds me of being stuck in boring classes at school, watching the clock, silently begging for it to be over. I know I wouldn't feel that way if I wasn't so ugggggh with sleep-dep.

My stomach is unhappy too.

My eyes are burny and gritty.

My fuse is about 1/8" long. I'm pretty sure that if something made me angry, I'd go right from zero to losing my shit. (Please lord do not let anything make me angry.)

This evening we might be off "early" (7 or 8 pm — I've been awake since 6am) and I may get an evening nap. Maybe I'll also pass out until morning; I'm sure I now feel sick enough to sleep more than 4h — but I'm also sure that if I do, I'll wake up feeling like a zombie, and probably be severely sleep-dep'd again by tomorrow afternoon. (That nighttime wad of sleep gets me through to about 12-1pm, and then it's nosedive time.)

Pray for me. And don't ever worry that I'd do this to anybody else…believe me, I know better. The only valid reason for suffering through this crap is (well, apparently for a paycheck? and) in order to eliminate it.

Remind me to tell everyone how many naps it took me to recover, too. I should start getting them again either tomorrow evening or Thursday morning, depending on how the airline gods are.

No seriously, do not judge yourself (Editorial license and then some)

puredoxyk — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 21:08:55 +0000

A few days ago I wrote this post, wherein I tried my hand at restating the classic Buddhist prescriptions for "right speech".

The shit I do with my free time. :D

One thing I was consciously doing was updating the language to make it as clear and relevant in a modern context as possible, knowing that part of the gift of the original is that it was clear and relevant in its time, and I don't think the barrier between that time and ours is so thick that translating the message in a meaningful way is impossible. On reread, I'm pretty happy with how this effort turned out (though it was a cool exercise, and would have been worth doing however it turned out).

But one thing I didn't do consciously was to change the emphasis of the first few precepts from *Am I* pure of speech to am I *acting* pure of speech here. But I did it, and did it uniformly, and it felt (and still feels) right — but maybe not because it's accurate. (Though this is old, much-translated shit; it may be that my translation *is* more accurate compared to the intent of the original…but I, at least, will probably never know for sure.)

Maybe it works for me because it's better, in a way. At least how we read it in English, the am I a person who is this thing formulation is a direct demand to judge yourself. I absolutely am against this, since in my own life I think I can honestly say that no one thing has done me more harm than self-judgment; but there are logical problems with it too. Some of them I've touched on before, but most recently (I realized just now) those practical reasons for avoiding self-judgment were the topic of my poem-thing one million one, which may not be much aesthetically, but for clarity and earnestness, I really like it.

How we word things can seem like such a small deal, but very often the way you word (frame) the question is such a key element of the response you get. (Ask any lawyer or therapist or writer; or just believe me, because it's true.) And that original phrasing was asking for an answer that was a judgment of oneself.

And I really have a tough time thinking of anything else quite as harmful as the habitual, small, automatic passing of judgements.

Obviously something so harmful doesn't belong in a beautiful passage about spiritual improvement, which is probably why I tossed it without even consciously deciding to, in spite of having otherwise worked very hard to preserve the meaning of the original. Go go gadget internal editor!

Polyphasic Cities: The Bedroom Exodus

puredoxyk — Sun, 02 Aug 2015 23:01:40 +0000

I have to say, I think my single favorite thing about polyphasic sleep…is the people I've met because of it. I won't try to list them all, becase I'd miss some that I talk to less frequently or recently and then feel bad; but man, there are quite a lot who are simply amazing, and of kinds and calibers I'd have a slim chance to ever run into otherwise. And a really surprising percentage of them have become really close friends of one sort of another, too; friends in many countries with wildly cool experiences, skills and interests.

I mean…YMMV of course. :) But in my case, it's been a pretty spectacular gain.

Anyway, this was a weird lead-in to talking about the Towards A Polyphasic City: Bedroom Exodus project I guess, but it's no lie to say that meeting and talking to these guys reminded me strongly of that point, of how stupidly grateful I am to my lifelong quest for better sleep, of all things, for putting me in touch with such fucking cool people.

So check it out: these guys, named Jerome, Florian, and Lukas [and BY THE WAY what is it with people I talk to having such ridiculously amazing names] started their architectural work on the effects of sleep on cities (and vice versa) two years ago. They've since been published, gotten a grant, and done a really impressive amount of thinking about these things from angles that legitimately surprised me at times. I guess we all knew that how we build our environments has a huge impact on how we live, but take a moment to really think about what would be different if things were nap-friendly — and contemplate the crazy degree to which they're not. It's a, well, eye-opener. >,>

One thing I've learned from extensive discussions with another great person I met doing this, an experienced neuro-anthro sleep researcher in Europe, is that although we take the way we sleep for granted, it really wasn't always this way, and therefore other options are possible. The Bedroom Exodus project is seriously exploring some details about "what options" and "how", and while I think we all agreed that their results are still just scratching the surface of the possible changes, they're incredibly interesting nonetheless.

You can check them out at http://cargocollective.com/bedroomexodus (yup, their project wins the Cool Name Award, too).

[ADDENDUM: I went on a trip this last weekend, and got a big fat reminder of how hard it can be to nap in middle America in the modern age — living in a rather bustling city, I think, shelters me from some of that. But out in Midgard, man, things close at five sharp and people frown hard at a person napping on a bench, especially indoors. (Did I miss something? Is sleeping filthy? I digress, but this is a point that bothers me a lot sometimes…people stick their noses up at me like I'm showering in their water-fountain.) I also had a hair-raising time trying to leave a campground at 6am (I'd been awake almost two hours!) to get started on the trip home: the staff were straight-up mad at me for violating their "obvious", unspoken rule that I would leave after they had arrived at 7am, so they could check me out. Their response to the idea that I'd want to be up and doing anything earlier was the kind of "but that's common sense, so you're just crazy" that I haven't come up face-first against in Boston in a while. Huh.]

Buddha teaches the Internet: How to correct someone and not be an asshole

puredoxyk — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 15:57:19 +0000

Questions I must answer before speaking up / correcting someone:
1. Do I thoroughly practice what I’m about to preach?
2. Do I even preach what I’m about to preach?
3. Am I speaking up because I really want to help, or is it because I’m angry, or because I want to be on record as being right?
4. Do I actually know what I’m talking about here, or is this a situation where I and others would both be better served if I listened and learned?
5. Am I skilled enough in the means and methods of conducting this particular type of discussion to correct someone without being misunderstood?

Things I must do to properly speak up / correct someone:
1. Speak at the right time
2. Speak using facts, not opinions or assumptions, to support my point
3. Speak as gently as possible
4. Make sure that the words I’m speaking will actually help the situation
5. Make sure that my inward motivation for speaking is kind, never malicious.

[Courtesy of the Buddhist “Eightfold Path” of Being Awesome / Seeking Enlightenment, one -fold of which is “right speech”, contained in which are these lessons for when it is OK for someone attempting to not be a shithead to correct someone else (direct quote follows):

[1] “Am I one who practices purity in bodily action, flawless and untainted…?
[2] “Am I one who practices purity in speech, flawless and untainted…?
[3] “Is the heart of goodwill, free from malice, established in me towards fellow-farers in the holy life…?
[4] “Am I or am I not one who has heard much, who bears in mind what he has heard, who stores up what he has heard? Those teachings which are good alike in their beginning, middle, and ending, proclaiming perfectly the spirit and the letter of the utterly purified holy life — have such teachings been much heard by me, borne in mind, practiced in speech, pondered in the heart and rightly penetrated by insight…?
[5] “Are the Patimokkhas [rules of conduct for monks and nuns] in full thoroughly learned by heart, well-analyzed with thorough knowledge of their meanings, clearly divided sutta by sutta and known in minute detail by me…?
“These five conditions must be investigated in himself.”

“And what other five conditions must be established in himself?
[1] “Do I speak at the right time, or not?
[2] “Do I speak of facts, or not?
[3] “Do I speak gently or harshly?
[4] “Do I speak profitable words or not?
[5] “Do I speak with a kindly heart, or inwardly malicious?
“O bhikkhus, these five conditions are to be investigated in himself and the latter five established in himself by a bhikkhu who desires to admonish another.”]

Sometimes all you can do is draw a line around the blank space

puredoxyk — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 13:28:54 +0000

When I hit a block and find myself staring at a million things to do or think or figure out, sometimes it helps to just try and encapsulate the things I can't do in some meaningful category. Then, if they sit there a bit, often one or more of them will sheepishly present a useful next step or next piece to be done. It's like, they love being all huge and unbounded — writing-projects especially — and therefore don't want to let me actually write words, because that will limit them. But then I put them down in just the few words that they are — the title, the synopsis — and stick all of that in a sad little shoebox, and when they realize I'm serious, one or more of them will say "Wait! We're also these paragraphs! And this character! Seriously, you can write this bit down too now…"

I find things like XMind(.net) helpful for this. I can poke at and stare at things like this one when I need to, and think saucily to myself, SEE? YOU STAY IN THE BOX UNTIL THERE ARE WORDS.

Corrupted .git/config Files and Jenkins

The Nazg — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 16:27:00 +0000

When Every Other Connection Consistently Fails...

The Nazg — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 11:54:00 +0000

"Why Does E = mc²?" by Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw

The Nazg — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 11:55:00 +0000

"Neutrino" by Frank Close

The Nazg — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 11:33:00 +0000

"Antimatter" by Frank Close

The Nazg — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 12:02:00 +0000

Running in 2013

The Nazg — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 14:38:00 +0000

Using TKPROF? Don't Rename Your Trace Files!

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Turn Those IF Branches Around

The Nazg — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 12:23:00 +0000

Improving My Use of Database Lookup Tables in PHP

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Overcoming LDAP "Size Limit Exceeded" Query Limitations in PHP

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DocBlox Is Unmasked ... It Is Really phpDocumentor 2 !

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Ok, I fail

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:04:00 +0000

I didn't do a very good job of getting my life together yet. But now it is becoming more and more important that I do.

I've started a small business. I'm still working full time. As a result, I really need to get back on schedule to find time for all this work. This should be easier now that the weather has improved, and sleeping in my car is an option again. So starting Thursday, I'll be hitting a full transition attempt again. I figure the heavy effects of sleep dep won't hit until later Friday or Saturday then, and I should be functional by Monday. Note that that is a schedule I would NOT recommend any first adapter's strive for. I know how my body works, and I know I can hit that. I also have enough holidays banked that come Monday, if I'm not functional, I will just take a holiday. I also have a ton of work I can do for both my jobs right now, so finding things to do to keep me awake should not be an issue.

For the sake of accountability, I want people to hound me to update this over the next week. So if you are a reader, email me! chkurz is my username, and I use the great gmail.com for mail, so put those together.

Catch you on the flipside!

New Year's Resolution

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:26:00 +0000

Well, I've decided I need to resurrect this blog.

No post since July? That's horrible! I need to use this blog for it's original purpose again though.

Since I started my new job in October, I haven't been polyphasic. I was starting to fall off the wagon towards the end of my old job, but the change of environment and everything just worked as a catalyst to fully quit. And I hate it. I have so much less time, I'm more tired than I was while polyphasic, it just sucks.

Enter New Year's Resolutions.

1) Quit chewing my nails. Working on it. It's about time I kicked this nasty habit. So if you read this (which is no one) and you see me chewing my nails, slap me.

2) Get to the gym more. I've not been making it to the pool as often as I'd like. So I'm going to try to force myself into swimming twice a day during the week, before and after work. Step one is getting a pool pass... working on that this week.

3) Get back into Polyphasic sleep.
This will be hard. Winter here is cold (normally, it's only -20C today, which is quite nice) which makes it so I can not sleep in my car. This restricts my potential sleep locations quite a bit. Also, since I'm at a new job, I need to organize a nap location. I'll be discussing it with my bosses sometime this week. A nice side effect is my parents house isn't too far from work, but then I have to see my parents, which is an undesirable outcome. Also, an 8 hour stretch is just too long to go without a nap, if you are trying to be polyphasic.

This will mean setting up a schedule that works with my body, and work schedule, and pool swim times. This should be easier now that I'm not taking a class as well (one of the excuses I used in the fall for falling off the bandwagon. I had commitments on Tuesday from 8am-7pm, which made finding time to nap very difficult). I'll sit down and fiddle with the numbers sometime this week, shooting to start the transition next week. Hopefully it will go as smooth as my first transition.

I'll hopefully be keeping this blog more updated. It's a good item on my "TODO" list to keep me awake too.

Until next post!

Switching to Blogger

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:54:16 +0000

I am switching over to Blogger. Please visit me at http://dreamlarger.blogspot.com/

Weber

How to celebrate Day of the Dead in Mexico

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:55:15 +0000

http://www.ehow.com/how_5608890_celebrate-day-dead-mexico.html

I just came back from Oaxaca, Mexico after celebrating the Day of the Dead and had such a great time that I wanted to write an article on how to do it. Please recommend me or comment if you like my article. Thanks!

CodeWorks '09 - Atlanta

The Nazg — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:17:00 +0000

Holidays!

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:38:00 +0000

Holidays are over. This makes me sad. I did have a LOT of fun though.

For my vacation I drove to Maine, through various states to the South. I met a bunch of friends from online, and drank a lot of beer. So a very successful trip. I ended up traveling just under 9000 km in the span of a week and a half though, so I got pretty used to my car. Definitely worth it though.

I'll be posting more info on my trip later. I need to still go through all my pictures, and collect things together. Highlights include all the microbreweries I visited, the awesome lakes I hung out at in Maine, and the Creationist Museum.

One of the interesting side effects of my trip was essentially a huge upheaval to my sleep schedule. I think it was good though. While on the road I was getting bored fast, as driving is boring, so I was stopping for more breaks. This made my sleep schedule better for most of the driving legs. But I also traveled 2 time zones, so that messed with my sleep schedule... End result was a lot of craziness. It broke all my routines, which has opened me up to re-establish some better ones. Thus, over the next week or two, I'll be changing my sleep times. Plans are to wak3 up at 6am, swim, then head to work. Naps at Noon before eating lunch, and 5pm ish, before driving home. This will let me skip a lot of the traffic as well, which was something I liked back when my old routine was similar. I do have a family reunion this weekend, which may challenge my re-adjustment.

But I need to get back to work. I have quite a few things I need to finish up to catch up from my holiday. Hopefully I can make a post later this week, or early next with more trip details.

Excitement

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:31:00 +0000

I'm am getting very excited.
I am laying down more solid plans for my road trip to Maine. People are getting confirmed, and making orders for things from Canada. It will be a great time to actually meet some of these good friends. Plus, two weeks off work is always a good thing. At the rate things are going too, I'm going to need that holiday.

This week is hectic. My mothers birthday was Tuesday, and my father is having a big retirement party tonight. My sisters are all in town now, so I've been doing family stuff a lot this week, and have more planned. It should all be fun, but sheesh. I'll get to unwind and recover a little over the weekend, then rehearsals and Jazz festival starts picking up. I have to help plan / prepare for our annual Canada Day party (that anyone who is reading this is invited to). I think we're doing it Sunday afternoon / evening. Wait... hmm... I think I'm supposed to be playing on the free stage... I guess I'll miss a bit of my own party. Then it's Jazz festival week, which I think I'll be taking low key this year. Less concerts, save money for my trip to Maine. But as Jazz festival wraps up, I'll be hitting the road. So for the next about 4 weeks, I guess I don't really have much free time in evenings.

And all that may be made more difficult if I hear back from any of the places I sent my resume to. Now that I finished school, I applied to a couple companies I'd like to work for. Some farther places, like LA, and Vancouver. We'll see if I hear anything back. There is a local place or two I applied to that I think would help me learn more than my current job, and have better potential for promotions and such. It's all in the waiting stages now though, as I have to see if any of these companies are interested in me. I don't like the waiting stage. I talked to some people at the local places though, and I should have a good shot at getting in. It's a bit longer of a wait right now though, as the main hiring person is on holidays...

I somehow always manage to keep my life very busy.

Well

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:46:00 +0000

Summer apparently isn't here yet. What the heck. It's cold, miserable, and snowing in places. This is stupid. However, it has the nice side effect of my allergies being very minimal this year. It's been too cold for the pollens to spread. That is a nice thing.

So this weekend, my house had a big D&D session. It was quite a bit of fun. They finished up the Keep, and the last fight was very entertaining. We had people falling unconscious, some big hits, and it was very close. They did win though. On the way home, they got attacked by some Bandits though, and as I was setting it up, a friend stopped in unexpectedly. It worked out extremely well. The character builder had a example character that was about the right level, so I just printed him off a sheet, and setup the encounter as he was being attacked by the bandits, as the party came up to him. I think he had fun. But as the fight was wrapping up, something quite unexpected happened. The Rogue in the party decided to try to kill the newcomer, to steal his stuff. Everyone else in the party was against this. The rogue surprised him, and tried to use his daily power. He missed. He quickly started apologizing, and back pedaling. The Dwarf counterattacked, using his daily. He also missed, so it looked like it would be a stand still. Then I explained Action Points, and what the word "reliable" meant on his daily power. He got very excited, and used his action point to try to hit the rogue again with his daily. Critical Hit.

The attack had a max damage of a lot. The rogue is not known for his hit point pool. The rogue had also taken a couple hits in the fight, and wasn't full. He dropped to -20 or so, putting him fully dead, not just unconscious. It was awesome. They hauled his body back to town, and were very shocked to see how much it would cost to bring him back from the dead. There was a lot of negotiations going on at the table about if it was worth it. They hunted for black market temples that could put a curse on him as they brought him back too, so they could override his actions to try to prevent him from screwing up that big again. I thought it was a good idea, but didn't want to take that control away form the rogue, so didn't let it happen. He is in a fair bit of debt to everyone though, and it seems like they will be making him work if off for awhile. Very entertaining round. I have to prep some stuff tonight and tomorrow for the game this week though, as now that they finished that module, I don't know where I'll send them next. I have some ideas.

I said I'd let them adjust characters after the dungeon, as now they have some D&D experience in fourth edition, and can fix some of the things they didn't understand fully. They are jumping in deep though. One guy switched every single power and feat. One guy is debating just rolling a brand new character, of a different race and class. Next session will be pretty interesting.

So I might be having some big life changes happening soon. We'll see how quickly I hear back from some of my early week work here. I'll keep you updated.

It's been one week!

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:00:00 +0000

Since I last posted. There goes my good record.

So I'm participating in a triathlon team. I'm doing the swimming leg. I have to swim 500m as fast as possible. It's currently not very fast... But as a result, I've bee hitting the pool quite regularly. I've been enjoying it. I feel like I'm getting in better shape, and there is a cute lifeguard there in the mornings. =) It's quite refreshing to wake up and swim though. Hopefully I can make it through the triathlon swim. An interesting side effect is I'm sleeping better now. Maybe it's just the addition of another routine thing, maybe it's just the physical activity. I'm getting back to a good core sleep. I'm currently exhausted by my afternoon nap, I think I need to move it a little earlier, as it's pretty late currently. So I'll be making those tweaks in the next week. It's nice to have my polyphasic sleep back on a good track again.

So due to weather, I still haven't gotten any of my garden in the dirt yet. I did till the ground, but we are still getting frost warnings every night... Maybe I can actually plant this weekend. It's supposed to be nicer. I want my plants to get going! Quicker they start the quicker I can eat them.

So on the weekend, I was vacuuming the lawn. Yes, you heard me correctly. I had to borrow a shop-vac, and vacuumed the lawn. It's the first I've ever heard of anyone doing it. The story is an interesting one. Friday after work, I turned a bunch of dirt, and did a bit of weeding, and found a hole in our hose. The key thing from Friday was the backyard was great. Then, Saturday morning, I look out the back window, and see our patio table overturned. It had a glass top. Our backyard now had a section that was just covered with broken glass. Awesome. I was planning to mow the lawn that morning. Alas, I had to clean the glass up first. So I tried to pick up some of the biggest chunks, but pretty much all of it was crumbling further when I went to pick it up. It was a mess. So I tried sweeping it up, and raking it up, and collecting it in a dustpan. Those techniques did ok, but there was still a lot of glass it was missing. Only thing I could think of to try was vacuuming. Which, for the record, worked great! I am intending to spread some dirt in the area too, after mowing, just to make sure no small sharp edges are left.

So we were trying to figure out how our patio table decided to smash itself on our lawn. All I could figure was a) The Wind, and b) Young Hooligans. I thought the wind was pretty unlikely, as nothing else in the backyard looked moved, and the neighbours stuff was all fine, so I was forced to blame young hooligans. Around supper time, I answered the door, and it was our neighbour. He apologized for breaking our table, and I was confused. Did he jump the fence and smash it? He continued to explain. Apparently his dogs, in the morning, decided to break through the fence, and run around our yard. They ran into our table, knocking it over, and making a huge mess. (The dogs were fine). It did however leave me with a bit of an uneasy feeling. If those dogs can trash a patio table, they could easily take out roomies. (As the heaviest of the roomies, I suspect I'd have the best chance at survival). Our neighbour explained that he has now lined the fence with chicken wire, so they will have to break more than just weak boards to do it again, and he is intending to buy us a new table, which is nice. I'm glad he was honest, but at the same time, frustrated at those dogs. They bark all the time, and now they are damaging our property too? Sheesh.

I'll let you know my thoughts on the patio table our neighbour picks to replace it. I might just ask him to pick us up like a home depot gift card or something for the value of it, then we can pick it ourselves.

D&D Adventure Update!

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:22:00 +0000

So, my crew is having a blast.

They all took to D&D better than I even expected. Soeric started as the only one with a big backstory, and that hasn't changed, but Pamp, the rogue, has sure started to go crazy. As a rogue, he doesn't really get anything great on his minor action yet, so he constantly is trying to surprise people, scare people, and try crazy things. I've decided that I'll let him try to do pretty much anything he wants on his minor, as long as he can explain it to me. Then I'll determine what skill he has to check, and what the effect will be. I also don't let him do the same thing twice. So we have a little halfling rogue, running around trying to pants people, juggle, attempting comedic one lines, all sorts of interesting things to try to confuse the enemy. It's very entertaining.

The players just can't seem to have enough either. We were scheduled to play tonight (Thursday) after playing last Thursday, but on Sunday, Soeric suggested we play on Tuesday in addition too, and everyone was really into it. They also just got level 2 on Tuesday, and I caught my roomies spending easily a couple hours last night reading books, discussing feats, and strategies they want to try. They seem to be really enjoying it.

I started them in the dungeon delve book, just doing the first dungeon to see how they took to D&D. It quickly became apparent that they wanted a bigger story to go on. So I took the Keep of the Shadowfell adventure (which is free from Wizard's as a pdf) and basically replaced the first stretch of the adventure with the first dungeon delve. I swapped the young dragon at the end of the delve with Irontooth, and it worked out perfectly. So now I have them about to enter the keep, which I'm pretty excited for.

Should be a fun evening.

New Toy!

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:04:00 +0000

SO I picked up an Asus Eee PC 1000HE yesterday. I haven't been able to play with it as much as I want to. So far though, I'm reasonably impressed. The battery life does seem to be pretty good on it. I'm trying to condition the battery today, with full charge to full discharge usage, so I'll actually get some more real world-ish numbers. I do like seeing 30% battery left, 2:40 minutes. I'm just finishing my Ubuntu Netbook remix download, so tonight I'll likely be setting it up to dual boot, assuming I can find time somewhere between the Carbon Dating Service show, and 1 vs 100 Beta on Xbox live.

I came with some useful apps I wasn't expecting. Largely Skype. I've been working to install a couple other important apps, like Firefox, Media Player Classic, and so forth. I think I'll end up using this little thing more than I was planning. I still need to try watching some higher def content on it, to see how it handles it. I'm going to install and try some older 3d games on it too. Might run not too bad. I'm pretty excited to use this on a big road trip, like my Maine one I'm planning. Then on rest stops I can watch TV, play games, do whatever.

I need a good wifi coverage map for the North Eastern States... or to find a decent WEP cracker for a netbook...

Holy Spring Cleaning!

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:40:00 +0000

So I went on a cleaning binge. It was pretty satisfactory. I rearranged all the furniture in my room, and now have space to keep some of my music stuff up there. I'm hoping that will motivate me to practice more, as I really should. It also is now laid out to force me to keep it cleaner as well. Assuming I can keep up the habits I'm trying to form. I've decided I want to change some aspects of my life, and the organization / cleanliness of my room is one of them. It ties into others as well, as now I have enough floor space to do sit ups, and push ups, and potentially get somewhat back into shape.

My next goal, after the completion of my room cleaning, is to clean and reorganize our basement. It's not very great right now, and organizing it would open up a fair bit of space. We are planning to build a bigger gaming table too, for board games, and D&D, and it would likely go in the basement. It's too warm in the summer to not hang out in the basement. I essentially need to get permission from my roomies to junk a lot of stuff, then just have at 'er. I also had to wait until after today, as our garbage container was pretty full from my room cleaning.

All that said, I'm open to suggestions on a design for a good gaming table. We want shelves or drawers, somewhat light-weight, maybe modular? It would be great if we could put a cover on it too, to "pause" board games/D&D sessions. It might be quite the undertaking...

Adventure Begins!

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:13:00 +0000

So we had a ton of fun yesterday. At least I did. I hope everyone else did too. I forgot to snap pictures as it was going on though. Opps.

First fight my newbie friends got into was a bit rough. They didn't know how to work well as a team, or what their most effective moves were when. They ended up spread out all over the map, with no one in range of the heals that were available. Soeric the Avenger was knocked out, and a couple others were quite beat up at the end. I think it was a pretty good trial by fire start.

Second encounter was way too easy. They decimated the crew of 8 or 9 minions, and the 3 Kobold Slingers were getting horrible rolls to hit. It was a ton of fun for the encounter though, as the Sorcerer climbed a 8 foot wall, perched at the top of it, threw 2 aoe's to kill almost all the minions single-handedly, then promptly fell backwards off the wall. It was very entertaining.

Third encounter was about right for the difficulty. Maybe a touch too hard. They ended up pretty battered, but no one collapsed. A couple daily's were used, but not all, and very few action points. It is definitely seeming like the group needs more healing. I'm going to try to push some people to multiclass into something that gives a heal. There is only so much that Ghost Bear can do.

Timewise, things moved a bit slower than I expected. The first encounter was very long. I expected it to be long, but it was 3 hours or so, which was a bit longer than I planned for. The other 2 encounters were closer to the 1.5 hour mark. They had figured out how a lot of their moves worked, and some better planned strategies.

Overall, it was a good time. They didn't finish the little story I wanted to get done, they have 1 encounter left. But I might attach another encounter on, so that next session, we will get 2 encounters. Then head to town and do some shopping and such. Keeps the next session maybe a touch shorter. Hopefully they can level too, and we'll do the leveling process as well.

Beginning of an Adventure

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:20:00 +0000

So I'm pretty excited for Sunday. If you aren't geeky, you may want to stop reading now.

Sunday I'm starting as DM (Dungeon Master) for a D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) 4e (Fourth Edition) game. Man, geeks like Acronyms. I'm leading a group of D&D newbies. I think collectively as a group of players, they will have at most 20 hours of D&D play combined. I am a bit relieved because they are all video game RPG players, so some of the concepts they are familiar with. I should be pretty interesting.

It's also a wide mix of player styles. One guy has already submitted a character history, bio, and all sort of extra details that compete as one of the best back stories I've heard in D&D. One of the other players didn't even pick a close to appropriate name. Should make the group rather interesting as a group. I think a lot of crazy things will go down. It should be fun. I hope everyone has a good time.

I decided, since it's many of their first times playing, to not go too heavy into the story or role playing or anything. I'm intending the first session to be very combat heavy. I think they will connect to that quicker. After seeing how the first session goes, I'll decided if I want to hook them in to a bigger narrative, or just keep going with simple more one-shot style adventures.

I'll likely take pictures, and chronicle the adventure somewhat, as much for my own interest as any of my readers. So expect a summary next week sometime.

Progress!

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:01:00 +0000

So I deployed my first deployable build to the Xbox. I have the first 720p test map displayed, and the grid structure behind it loading correctly. I have the playable characters represented with some placeholders. Tonight I'll be attaching some basic controls to move the placeholders, and adding collisions, for locations you aren't allowed to move (and maybe some places that just slow you down, like hills?)

I got some pretty good progress yesterday, but need to make a lot of progress this week too. We have about 2 weeks until the deadline for submissions for the PAX 10. Hopefully by the end of next weekend, it's a a demo-able state. I might be hitting up a couple friends to start playtesting sometime this week, so be forewarned!

Hopefully I get the first 3d model sometime today, so I can retrofit my classes to support it. I'm a bit nervous about that. Hopefully it's as easy as I've tried to set it up to be. That is definitely my focus for this week though. Trying to free up some evenings to work on it, and I'll have to enforce a strict "Butt in Chair, Hands on Keyboard" policy. Hopefully I'll have a successful week!

Frustrated

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:30:00 +0000

So I write my final for my course in 2 days. I still do not know if they will be giving me my degree. I have been receiving invites to grad, and all that stuff, but no one has concretely told me if it's possible or not. So I'm studying, and hoping I'll be done school potentially forever come Friday.

And then, oh boy, do I get even more busy. I have a game project, Project Instant Ramen, that we are hoping to have in reasonable shape to submit to some competitions. The deadline for most of the competitions is the end of the month. We have quite a bit of work to do to make that deadline. The good thing is almost all our art assets, including 3d models and everything, sound like they are almost finished. Our script is past first draft, but by no means finished. A lot of the libraries I intend to use are somewhat built up. I have a lot of the pieces done / ready to go. It's just waiting on me to finish my course, so I can sink a lot of time into it, and get it going. My plan is to sink quite a few hours into it this weekend.

My other goal for the weekend is to get my sleep schedule adjusted for the summer. I get "trapped" in various requirements during the school year to allow me to attend class and work, and my body doesn't like all of them. It works still, but I know I could do better. I'll have to work it all out, and likely re-adapt somewhat. Done it before, and it'll be good to get back to a better schedule. My plan is as follows:
Up at 4am. Yoga, Breakfast, Shower, and so forth. Drive to work around 6:30-6:45. Nap at work, before starting anything, around 7am. Work, breaking for a nap around 2pm. More work, Drive home. Eat supper. Nap around 8pm. Up till 1am. I'm hoping I can lock in the 9pm to 1am range as time to work on Project Instant Ramen. My biggest concern with it, is for the next 2 or 3 weeks, I'll be logging roughly 13 hours of programming a day. I need to, as I have a lot I need to get finished, but that might be a bit stressful. That does leave my weekends code free. I may say like Tuesday Thursday, evening work on PIR, and Saturday Sunday, and take the other evenings as entertainment time to keep my sanity.

I'll keep you updated with how well it pans out.

A Successful Year of Polyphasic Sleep

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:24:36 +0000

I would first take a moment to thank the StumbleUpon community. Collectively over 23,000 of you have stopped by my little blog in the past year. I am flattered and overwhelmed by the interest and hope I have provided some useful advice to everyone, and to those kind enough to leave a comment or some feedback.

Now on with the story.

Exactly one year has passed since beginning my first polyphasic sleep schedule. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on my experiences and share with you some of the results.

The other day, I was thinking about how much time one could reasonably expect to gain using a polyphasic schedule. That lead me to wonder:

What is Reasonably Possible?

I personally have fallen in love with the Everyman sleep schedule of 4.5 hrs core, and one or two 20 minute naps throughout the day. It has by far been the easiest to maintain and most cohesive with my body and lifestyle. I wondered how much time this could add to a person’s waking life if it was strictly followed for a full year. The results shocked and amazed me.

The calculations are simple, but here they are if you haven’t done the math yourself already. With a 1.5 nap average at 20 minutes per nap, that comes out to exactly 5 hours of sleep per day. Assuming a normal person needs 8 hrs of sleep to feel rested without napping, the resulting amount of additional time comes to:

1095 waking hours per year.

You read that correctly – 1095 hours.

That amounts to 45.6 full days, or a full MONTH AND A HALF of extra waking time!

My Personal Results

Now the above results are of course only theoretical. Life happens: naps are skipped, alarms are missed, and business trips, vacations, projects and drunken nights will take place. However, after being on a polyphasic sleep schedule for the majority of the past year, I feel I can provide some living proof and shed some light on what is realistically possible.

Looking back on the past twelve months, I spent at least 70% of it on some form of polyphasic sleep schedule. Because my exact sleep scheduled varied over the course of the year (ranging between 3 hr core + 3 naps, 4.5 core + 1-2 naps, and 6 hr core +1 nap) I have approximated my average amount of sleep to be 5.5 hours per polyphasic day. Using these estimates and the same calculations as before, my resulting totals are:

639 additional waking hours, or 26.6 days.

And That’s Not All

If I’m not adjusted and in a regular schedule, 3 hours sleep is still difficult, but when deadlines or other reasons force me to take less sleep it becomes quite easy. But 4.5 hours is just cake. I can hardly remember the time when 4.5 hours seemed like a horrific and unfathomably miniscule amount of sleep to be had. Now, 6 hours literally feels like a luxury. It is the same feeling I would get when I slept in 10 hours on a weekend in high school or college – feeling guiltily over-rested.

Other less obvious benefits include: the ability to nap nearly anywhere, being able to fall asleep quickly (no more laying in bed wasting time waiting to fall asleep), and no jet lag (the schedule is easily shifted – even if I’m not polyphasic at the time).

The downsides: finding a time and place for a nap(s) every day, if naps are missed, more likely to get tired throughout the day (if the mind is left not being stimulated), seeming strange to the general population.

Fortunately the first two downsides are easily remedied – if there isn’t a time and place to nap, I go back to monophasic. If I get tired throughout the day, a nap or a little caffeine will do the trick (but I could see it being difficult to stay awake in a particularly boring class for those still in school).

I don’t have a solution for the last one - but fortunately I don’t really mind.

Making it Work for You

The real secret behind successfully becoming polyphasic is having a reason to need more time.

For me it was my goals in my work and play. I love my work, and want to do as much as possible to become successful. I also loved my free time. Throughout the past 365 days, my pastimes and personal goals have kept me busy to the wee hours of the morning, and then I am lucky enough to have my job to look forward to when I wake up.

However, at times when work was slow, or I was less interested in the things I was doing in my spare time, I found I would sleep more for lack of better things to do.

Sleeping is easy. Sleep fills empty time. It is the path of least resistance.

Know what your passions and goals are and work your ass off towards what makes you happy. It will be the path of more resistance, but that is what makes life worth living. If having more time in the day will help you towards those goals, you will have no problem adjusting to a polyphasic sleep schedule.

Are there things you would like to know I haven’t touched upon? Would you consider a polyphasic schedule? Post a comment and let me know!

Happy Broken Internet Day

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:50:00 +0000

April Fool's Day is one of my least favourite days in the world. You get exposed to pranks, that typically aren't funny, and are just annoying. Main annoying factor, the broken internet. Normally you should be thinking when you read anything on the internet, as nothing is guaranteed to be true, but on April Fool's Day that problem is magnified tenfold. You have to filter through so much crap to get to any nuggets of truth today, that it's easier to just give up and disconnect for the day. Now for a tech junkie like myself, fully disconnecting for a day is pretty hard.

But too much work to do, so this post is very short. I will update more after finals!

These are the days of my life

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:55:00 +0000

Oh boy. I was SICK.
So I missed 3 days of work, lost some weight, and had a very crummy start to the week. Feeling much better now, actually ate a normally sized meal last night. Things seem to be on the up and up. However, now I am behind on everything important. I have a big assignment due on Tuesday I've barely started. I have to make a Demolition Derby game. Currently it loads and displays the background... Obviously I have a little ways to go. So that will likely take most (if not all) of my time this weekend. Also, I need to get more work done on Project Instant Ramen (one of which tasks should be actually finding a name...). We are setting some targets for full demo versions. To enter for the PAX 10, we need to have a full working demo submittable by May 9th, which gives us just under 2 months to essentially finish. That means a lot more work. We have another one we're shooting for too, IndieCade, with a deadline of April 30th. Once we're closer to that date, we'll see if there is a Beta or something we can make publicly available. Don't hold your breath.

I'm still very very excited for this project. I would love nothing more than to have it play like we want it to. Getting it on XBox Live Arcade, or Greenhouse, or something would be nice, making money with it would be even nicer, but just for the experience and practice it is definitely worth the effort. I'm hoping that I can sink some time into it this weekend, but assignment has to take priority.

But I should get to work here, I'll be keeping you updated.

Summer Plans

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:58:00 +0000

So I have been trying to decide what to do with my holidays this year. I've put some aside for the Penny Arcade Expo, as I always go, and it's a great time. This year I may be taking resumes too. But last year I took two full weeks off, and spent 1/2 a month on that coast (and loved it). This year, I don't think I'll be spending near that much time, which gives me a few holiday days to use up elsewhere.

As that was sitting in my mind for a couple weeks, I was contacted by a friend in FFXI, the MMO I play. There is a crew of folks, all of whom I know in game, who all live (somewhat) on the East Coast. They get together every summer for a BBQ to hang out and have fun. I was invited this year. They haven't locked a date in yet, but with some rough estimates I determined that it would be a decently cheap flight ($400 round trip? nice) and I would have no hotel or anything to worry about, as I can crash at friend's places. I think it would be a lot of fun, and a good chance to meet these people for real. So I'm pretty excited for it.

That sort of event always brings up debates. Some people, like my sisters, and parents, think it's crazy that I would have friends that I consider really good friends, that I have never met face to face. They thought it was very weird last time I had some online friends share a hotel room with me for PAX (which was 3 years ago now? And Ruben still owes me money for!). I think many people in our society think along the same lines. Sure, I have never met these people face to face, or even seen pictures of some of them, and constantly forget their real names (I don't even know how many of them know I'm a Cody), but friendship isn't based off that. I DEFINITELY talk to these online friends more than my Parents, and my sisters (likely combined). I know what they do for a living, I know of some of their interests. I know about the good and the bad things that happen in their life. I trust them with things like my account numbers for my game characters, which gives them access to years of effort on my part, and virtual goods worth thousands of dollars. That's more than I trust some of my local friends with.

I just find it an interesting generational divide. Making solid connections over the internet is just a foreign concept to many people. To those of us who have done it though, it just seems natural.

Allergy Season!

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:38:00 +0000

Its not here yet. We've been getting quite a bit of snow lately. But I have started my pre-season treatments. They have created an interesting dilemma. They put me to sleep. Something about injecting with pollens makes me sleep. Maybe I just need to time this better. They sure knock me out. Worth it though. I can't imagine doing through a spring without my shots. It's bad enough with my shots. My allergies are definitely one of my biggest concerns about moving to the coast. In more temperate climates, I suspect I will have allergic reactions much more frequently. I'll be constantly on meds. I think it'll be worth it though, for the nicer weather.

Due to demand, I'll look into posting a version of my assignment here for people to try out. It's definitely not perfect. I should have started working on it earlier than I did. I think over the summer, or maybe after Project Instant Ramen (the code name for Monoclesoft's current project) is done, I'll come back to it, and improve it. I'd love to get it more so to a quality product I am willing to use to supplement my resume for job apps to the industry. Although with the economy the way it is, the Games industry seems to be laying people off left and right, so that may hinder my chances there. You never know until you try though.

So I'm in the process of correcting my sleep schedule still. I really need to just buckle down, and re-adapt the the changes I want to make. I'm been getting to work between 7:30 and 9 ish, which takes a lot of the pressure off in the morning, which has turned into me sleeping in more regularly. I really need to be very rigid with my schedule for a bit to correct this. Hopefully as weather warms up, I can go outsied more, which will help provide more tasks I can work on. I'll keep you updated with how that all pans out.

Holy assignment Batman

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:57:00 +0000

So I'm taking one class this term. It's a Computer Game Development course. I'm really enjoying it. It's a very informative. But it is a very heavy class. I just recently finished the first assignment, which was create a version of SpyHunter. It was a touch harder than I expected. As a result, I ended up not getting much sleep (even by my standards) the couple of days before the assignment was due. This was the first time I'd really cut my sleep down further. It was rough. I don't recommend it. I will definitely start the next assignment within a day or two of it being assigned. That said, I think I'll get a decent mark on it. I hit 19 of the 20 main requirements, which I think was the most anyone in the class did. I paid dearly in my sleeping though.

Due to lack of sleep, I slept a lot the day following (like 6 hours at night). It has damaged my schedule pretty good. So I am going to have to work at it this weekend to get everything back in order. I think I'll take this chance to move back up to 3 naps a day, instead of the two I've fallen into. It'll help that the weather is starting to warm up again, so I can start napping in my car if I'm trapped somewhere. I think I'm going to try moving my core. I'm thinking of changing it to 1-4am, nap around 10am, 3pm, 7:30, or 8pm. This means I'll have to find some new good tasks for early AM, as I won't be going into work at 5am, so I have an extra hour to kill. Maybe I'll actually try to get in the habit of a morning workout or Yoga session.

That's my goal for this weekend, and next week. I don't have classes next week, and it is a long weekend, so hopefully it'll work out well as a transition time.

Configuring Builds for PEAR Packages in phpUnderControl

The Nazg — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Dreams

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 19:39:00 +0000

Been awhile since I've posted about many of my dreams, and lately they have been very messed up. If you don't enjoy hearing about my oddities, feel free to skip this one.

So a couple nights ago. The dream involved me grocery shopping with my Dad. For some reason, I had to help restock a cooler, because I complained about there not being any bacon. So I got in the cooler and helped this little midget restock the cooler, which ended up taking hours. The store closed while I was restocking the cooler. So when I got out of the cooler, it was all dark. But there was still a ton of people there, just all employees of the grocery store. It was like they all lived there. I got them to let me out, and my Dad was gone. So I started walking home. This was where I realized the grocery store was by itself, miles away from the city. I walked for a bit down the highway, and my Dad eventually picked me up (not sure how he found me). After he picked me up, we drove off the highway and went off roading. And that was the end of the dream.
OH! I should mention the great products that were the main point of the grocery store trip. Apparently aside from the bacon that wasn't there, the main thing I wanted from the grocery store was Ramen (ichiban noodles). But the flavours I was looking for were Fruit Punch Ramen, and Castle Crashers flavoured Ramen. I have no idea what a video game flavour of ramen would taste like. The Fruit Punch Ramen also came with like gooey gel things you were supposed to add that were supposed to simulate soggy fruit rinds.
So yeah. That one was pretty weird.

My other weird dream lately was shorter. Much shorter. It involved my whole family moving into some large castle. It was this huge mansion, but was laid out on the inside much like a high school would have been. We were just moving in, so we were doing some large scale renovations to make it more like a house. This involved converting a lot of the space into bedrooms. Not that weird yet? So the space I end up getting as my room was originally a Men's washroom. BAM! Weird! So I the rest of the dream was about the changes I was making to this Men's room to make it a livable bedroom, and people's reactions to me living in a bathroom. Let's just say non of the changes I made involved moving anything connected to plumbing. So I ended up with this decent bedroom that just happened to have toilets and urinal's somewhat all over the place. The main area the bed was contained shower heads. No idea why I was in the bathroom.
As I remember, we all got our own wings too, so I had a bunch of other rooms in my wing. Not sure if using the bathroom as the bedroom was an order, or my idea. It was definitely the weirdest / creepiest bedroom I had ever been in though. Although there was a bit of convenience in not having to leave bed to have a shower.

And those are my creepy dream updates. Hopefully you found them enjoyable / haven't decided I am a lunatic yet.

I have Returned!

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:24:00 +0000

So due to various complaints, I figure it's about time to write something here.

First of all, my blog is seeing less activity. If you didn't notice, then you need help. One of the reasons for this is I'm on twitter. I can use twitter from my phone, so I update it MUCH more regularly. Then I find when I get to sit down to write on this, I've already talked about a fair bit of it. I'll find something to talk about though.

So December was hectic. I only had one final (which went well. I ended up with a 90% in the class) but I had a fair bit of work I needed to accomplish as well. For the most part I'm caught up now. Started my new class (Video Game development) which is awesome. At work I'm shifting into testing mode, so I'm writing lots of test apps, and just using the stuff I made last month. Things are starting to settle down.

I had a good Christmas holiday. The whole family thing was a bit weird. My oldest niece was at her father's house all day, and the next oldest (only one old enough to know what was happening) is very resistant to change. She was definitely NOT excited to open presents or anything. So we ended up drinking, Hot Tubbing, and playing Boom Blox on the Wii pretty much all day. My mom was so excited she could beat me at a video game. My parents caught on to Boom Blox quickly, and I''m not very good, especially when I'm drinking.

New Year's Eve was a lot of fun. We ended up having people over. It was good times. Got a loaner projector, as mine was in for repairs (sigh). Played some Rock Band, lots of drinking, and general just hanging out. Had a pretty decent turnout. We even got to count the leap second. We went with counting zero. Then there was a fair bit of drunk dialing a friend in Vancouver. We were calling from the future. It was quite humourous, but I imagine you a) had to be there, and b) needed to know the guy. So I'll save stories about it for others to tell. There might be a video floating around the internets somewhere...

After New Year's (New Year's Day, in fact) I took off to Jasper with 2 friends. Got 3 days of skiing in. Had a ton of fun. Spent maybe a touch more cash than I should have. It was totally worth it though. I had a blast. I realized how much I actually love the mountains though. Now that I have a sibling living closer to them, I might have to start making more trips. Probably not this winter, as I have some debt to clear off now, but next year!

So that's essentially the update for my December, and first 1/2 of January. Eventful, Fun, and great. I'll make another post in a week's time or so to talk about how that month has hurt my sleep program (which I'm slowly getting back on track for) and maybe leak some details on my latest (video game related) project.

Looking Ahead... 2009

The Nazg — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:03:00 +0000

Looking Back... 2008

The Nazg — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:02:00 +0000

Seven Things - Tagged By Jeff Jones

The Nazg — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:50:00 +0000

School is Done!

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:37:00 +0000

At least for the term. I have another class next term, then it's still unknown if I'm done or not. I'm quite excited though. My class next term is Game Mechanics. I think it should be very interesting. It also lines up with my Nintendo DS memory cart coming in, which allows me to finally start playing with development for the DS. Also, my 3d Artist friend apparently is just leaving his job, to a more part time position, to focus more on getting a portfolio together. Which means I can likely suck an artist into some projects.

My class next term is a good time as well (4-5:30 Tuesday, Thursday) which means if I keep my current work hours, I can bank a lot of flex time. I'm intending to flip that flex time into working on some video game related development. I might talk to my boss to see if I can take a Thursday afternoon off, and just head to the University and do some work on game related code before class. That would give me like 4 hours a week, minimum. That would be nice. I'll have to get a laptop to develop on in that case, but I'm intending to pick up a MacBook after Christmas anyway. (At least after Christmas shopping... So I may end up with one in the next couple weeks)

So video game season is almost done. Tomorrow I can pick up my last pre-order. I've done better than I was expecting at completing a few of them before getting new ones. Not that I'm done them all, but at least a few. I'll likely be slowing down now though, as I want to focus more on programming. I'm hitting the time in my life where I need to start my move to the career I want.

Look at me, all growing up and stuff. Weird.

Remote CLI Debugging via Eclipse PDT

The Nazg — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 07:34:00 +0000

Hey, I have one of these

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:23:00 +0000

I should make a post. Time for lots of updates!

So I went for academic advising. It was a bit frustrating. They couldn't really tell me for sure if I need 1 more class that what I'm currently registered for, or not. So I'll maybe finish in spring? I was talking to the Dean of the Department as well, so I don't really know how I can escalate it to get any better answers. I might just take the class over the summer or something, if I have to. The longer I take, the less I'd have to pay work back if I leave. Not that big of a deal. Just very frustrating that they couldn't give me the answers I wanted.

I also finished my Bass project. Got all the electronics done, and have it strung and everything. I need to do some setup tweaking, like raising the action a bit, lowering the pick ups a bit, real minor things. I've been playing with it a bit though. The low B string is LOW. and with the drop trigger, it sounds pretty awesome. Definitely pushing the edge of audible tone. I have to retrain my hands though. I have some neat 3 octave things I can do now that my hands just can't find comfortable. I just have to start practicing with it more. Hopefully I can find a group to play it with. Nolto, get a live band together. We need to jam more.

Attached to that, it's still been crazy video game month. I hate that everything gets released to try and get in on the Christmas rush. As a result I have about 10 new games I've bought, and not finished. I have a lot of work to do, but I'll enjoy every bit of it. The one I want Nolto to rock with is Lips. It's a karaoke game, bu tyou can import songs from IPods, or network shares or whatever. I think it'll be a fun way fo rhim to learn his lyrics before a show. I have to start a binder of lyrics though for my basement, as it's not very good at finding them. Yet anyway. It doesn't help that some of the songs I'm doing are a bit obscure. (First song imported: Rain, from Cowboy Bebop)

I've been pretty busy at work too. Our biggest customer does this tech blackout thing all December, where they don't change anything for the month, so we've been rushing to try and get things done before that. Makes for hectic times.

On the sleep front (Don't know how many of you come here for that anymore) things are still good. I've moved my sleep setup inside to the server room, as it's colder here now. My morning nap has also slide a hair later, to closer to 9:15. Not a big deal. Due to time though, I'm running more of a 2 naps throughout the day, 23 minutes each, and about 4 hours at night. I have my afternoon nap around 3 or 3:30. I sometimes take an evening nap, if I'm getting worn out. It's still working well. I'd like to tighten it back up to 3 regular naps, and 3 hours, but I just seemed to miss my evening nap too much.

And that is all I can post. I have to head out to get lunch, and head to class right away here. I'll post some pictures of my bass later.

php|works 2008

The Nazg — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:02:00 +0000

Entertaining Videos

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:59:00 +0000

I'm too lazy to embed these, and you know it's good to give credit where it should go. So I'm just going to paste a link.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/e062d7b4d5/take-on-me-literal-video-version-from-dustfilms

It's music videos, with the words replaced with what is actually happening in the music video. The first one has been around for a bit so you may have seen it. And maybe I'm just behind the curve... But I just saw the other two. I'm excited for the series to continue. Hopefully you enjoy them.

School

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:52:00 +0000

I am trying so hard to make it work.

Once I finish the class I'm currently taking, I am 2 comp sci classes away from finishing my 3 year Comp Sci degree. I am already registered for one next term (A class on Video Game Design, sweet). So I'm going through my work schedule plans to see how many extra hours a week I'm spending at work. Currently, if I work 6:30-5 everyday, except Tuesday Thursday, when I'd leave at 3 (for nap, and travel time to class) I'll log about 46 hours a week. Which means I have 6 hours to work with. If I make a better effort to always get to work by 6, that bumps me up over 8 hours to squeeze one more class in. Then I can get my degree in the spring. Which would be awesome.

The hard part is finding a good time of day to fit a class. Monday Wednesday Friday classes suck, because I have to allot for travel time 3 times instead of 2, which is an extra hour a week.

Wait. Looking into it, I see that I may be able to change one of my EP classes to a CMPT equilvalent. Which means I may not need another class... That would be awesome.

So I have now booked advising next week. We'll see what the prof says I need to do to finish my degree. Maybe I can already apply to graduate.

I'm excited.

Interesting

noreply@blogger.com (Toad008) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:19:00 +0000

First off, a new post! Celebrate!

I've noticed, as I monitor my traffic, that I seem to get more hits when I don't update, than when I do. I guess it's more exciting to not hear my thoughts? Maybe just as it's longer since my last post, people check more often, hoping for a new post. Maybe I'm just making it all up. Who is to say!

Ok, so today, I want to share a meme. I was quite surprised at how mine turned out. It works like this. First, you go here. It's a random wikipedia page. The first article title, mentioned in the page you end up, is your band name. (I got "Passenger Train"). Make a note of it. Then, head to here. It's a random quote page. The last 4 words of the last quote listed becomes your album name. Here I got "cannot be reasoned out". Finally head to here. It's just some interesting flicker images, somewhat random. The third image is your album cover. Now for the fun part. Take all that information, and make your album cover.

Mine all strangely worked out. I didn't load any random page twice or anything. This was the result.

I didn't alter the photo pretty much at all. I felt that to connect Passenger Train to the image, it pretty much needed the full image. I suggest all you folks with blogs do the same, have a bit of fun, and see what you come up with. I may do another one...

Eating healthy for cheap

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 01:59:52 +0000

Since I am in college, I don’t have too much money so I’ve gotten into a habit of making several things that are good for me and aren’t too expensive. I shop at a grocery store that carries fresh local produce as well as many organic foods. My favorite things to eat are homemade hummus, bean soup, baked sweet potato, hot bread with olive oil dip, oatmeal, yogurt, fruit, salads, egg sandwich, and much more. (Let me know if you want to know how I make my favorite things to eat.) I already have many things at home like peanut butter, olive oil, seasonings, whole wheat noodles, and cans of tuna fish so I don’t need to include it in my weekly grocery list below. Much of what I buy is on sale so it makes it easier to save. I probably end up spending only about $25 a week on groceries.

My Grocery List

1 lb. bag of beans
Cantaloupe
2 lb bag of carrots
Celery
potatoes
bag of onions
eggs (dozen)
sweet potatoes
oatmeal (1 qt)
loaf of whole wheat bread

Webershealinghands.com is up and running!

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 02:46:55 +0000

This summer after work at night, I learned a bit of html and created a website on Notepad . For a while though, I kept putting off getting my website online since I had no idea how to get started. Thankfully, a few friends started helping me out with referrals so I HAD to get it up. It’s actually much easier than I thought and this is coming from someone who knows close to nothing about this kind of stuff. Anyways, after an hour and a half of clicking buttons, I got it online here. In case others have this same problem, I will outline what I did.

Bringing website online for first time on GoDaddy.com

Go to GoDaddy.com.
Type in what you want your domain name to be where it says, “Start your domain search.”
Once you have one that you can use, click shop on more products.
Click on the “Hosting” tab and choose what you want. (I chose the website hosting.)
Click on your plan and your operating system. (I chose the economy plan for 1 year since I only wanted to start a small business. In addition, the Linux operating system is on default so if you have Windows, change it to Windows.)
Click on Check out.
Follow the check out instructions. I created a new GoDaddy.com account and I didn’t get any extras (since I don’t need anything fancy.)
Pay for it.
Once the confirmation shows, go to “My Account.”
Click on “Hosting” and add your domain to it.
Click on “Manage Account.”
Sign up for GoDaddy’s FTP Client through the Hosting Control Center.
You should be sent an email within 24 hours.
Go back on GoDaddy’s Hosting Control Center and upload your file. (I created mine on Notepad.)
Rename your first file you uploaded as “default” or “index.”
It should show up. Mine did. :-)

**This information is just for informational purposes only and if you have any problems, talk to someone who really knows what they’re talking about. For example, GoDaddy.com customer service representative or a professional website designer**

Graduation?!

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 04:36:01 +0000

After talking to an undergraduate advisor at my university, I found out I have two options – drop a class for a “W” on my transcript (which could be bad for grad school) OR graduate. GRADUATE?! Though it’s true that I should’ve thought about my options before since it was coming up in May, I was hoping that I could use one more semester to really figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Massage therapy is definitely one of the things I want to do but I also wanted to attend a grad school. My problem is that I don’t know in what. I have until September to figure it out since that is when I have to submit my paperwork for graduation. This changes everything.

Some choices I will have to make are: staying here or moving to Miami with my parents, what I want to study for grad school, and whether graduation is the best option. I will meditate on this.

Interior Design? Hmmm…

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:01:43 +0000

So on a whim, after I got home from judo practice, I decided to google my teacher for my class Introduction to Architectural Interiors. I find out that she does research in color theory and its application as well as creativity within design. Hmmm…

Today we learned about the elements of design, which are space, line, shape & mass, texture, light, color, and pattern. Though it doesn’t seem as exciting once I write it down, when our class was discussing it, it seemed oddly so especially when she gave examples of how each space came together. I am looking forward to reading the book I ordered and hopefully, I will get a better grasp on understanding interior design as the course progresses. It’s still too early to tell but this is something that possibly may develop into a passion for me.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what to do with your life…

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:54:22 +0000

I can’t believe that Wednesday is almost over. This week so far has been rough because of the lack of sleep I’ve been getting (4-5 hours per night) but I am starting to get everything together – I have received most of the textbooks I’ve ordered, organized my papers as the treasurer of SSF Hartman House (a nonprofit business), and am slowly getting into a rhythm of working out, napping, going to class, studying, and judo practice. Homework has been piling up but I enjoy my classes this semester so it shouldn’t be too bad. It’s just hard getting started.

My parents wanted me to look into a few things for them, namely, finding a probate lawyer and writing a will for them. I looked into writing a will and getting a lawyer to do it would be best but with the gas station being sold, my parents should wait until all their assets have settled and all the money has finished transferring hands. Besides, they might move to California so things would change and the will would too. I will look back into this in a few months. On the other hand, I don’t even know where to start looking for a probate lawyer especially since I don’t feel comfortable with being able to discern a good probate lawyer from a bad one. I will keep looking but I need direction.

I received a call from one of my best friends, Jibu, who I haven’t talked to in a couple weeks. He has been busy with wedding errands but he has also started a forex trading system that I may want to look into. Anyways, I don’t have time this semester so I’m not going to worry about it until next semester. However, some things I do need to look into right away are talking to an advisor about whether I will be forced to graduate as I have fulfilled all my requirements to do so even though I haven’t completed all four years. Maybe I can take on an interior design minor so I won’t need to graduate? Anyways, I’ll have to see if that’s allowed. In addition, should I choose to go to graduate school, what should I study? I have no clue.

To do:

Make appt with advisor concerning graduation.
Prepare for career fair.
Make detailed plan for Job Shadowing Project (JSP) that I thought of over the summer.

Because I liked this video so much and it has personal significance to me, I’m posting it again below.

Lyrics by Baz Lurhman:

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of 99…Wear sunscreen

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years youll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you cant grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked…Youre not as fat as you imagine.

Dont worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you

Sing

Dont be reckless with other peoples hearts, dont put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss

Dont waste your time on jealousy; sometimes youre ahead, sometimes youre behind…the race is long, and in the end its only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch

Dont feel guilty if you dont know what to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didnt know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still dont.

Get plenty of calcium

Be kind to your knees, youll miss them when theyre gone.

Maybe youll marry, maybe you wont, maybe youll have children, maybe you wont, maybe youll divorce at 40, maybe youll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, dont congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody elses.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…dont be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, its the greatest instrument youll ever own.

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you dont follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

49 second break in speech — Quindon singing

Get to know your parents, youll never know when theyll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, price will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do youll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Dont expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Dont mess too much with your hair, or by the time its 40, it will look 85.

Be careful who advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than its worth.

Beginning of College’s End

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:18:37 +0000

Evolution of my Blog

I have not posted anything for the last few weeks because I’ve been getting ready for school and thinking about things. I have decided to change a few things about this blog and give an update on my life. Before, I was trying to hard to blog about something that would have some form of value to others. In my opinion, this was actually taking away value because even though I always believed in what I wrote, I didn’t always write what I believed. As a result, this blog will become more of a journal about my personal life with my experiences of self-improvement and wealth creation woven in – not the other way around.

Life

It is sad that I feel this way now that I am in my last year of college but I am making an effort to live in the moment and enjoy what the people and opportunities around me have to offer. As a matter of fact, I have started setting aside a day on the weekend and an hour each day for myself to relax, have fun, or even do nothing. As a matter of fact, today I floated down the peaceful Itchetucknee River with some Hartman boys (Steven F, Kyle M, Jon H, Paul T, and Zach H though Zach left at the Midway Point to go to the library to study). We left at 8am, floated some, ate our packed lunch at the midway point, and got back in to float until 4 pm or so. When we got home, we had our first dinner (spaghetti) made by our cook crews at Hartman and then some of the upstairs guys (who also went on the river) chatted until 1 am about relationships and exciting things that we wanted to do in the future.

Scheduling & Organization

With school in session, having “me” time will become difficult at times but I have made a semi-flexible schedule centered around my workouts, judo, and school to more easily visualize what I have to work with concerning free time.* Unfortunately, it is not much. In addition, on my ancient Blackberry 7290, I have made 2 tasks “Study” and “Errands” to keep me on top of my studies and what I need to do. In “Study,” I have included all my classes in the notes section and I enter my homework next to each class. In “Errands,” I have included all the little things I need to do such as grocery shopping, treasurer duties for SSF, writing a monthly email, and so on. Also, though I had high hopes for polyphasic sleep, I decided not to do it because of my rigorous workout schedule. This is especially important since sleep is needed for injury and muscle recovery so I will try to sleep about 7-8 hours of sleep per night.

*If you click on the picture of my weekly schedule on the left, you can see what my week looks like more clearly.

Massage

Yesterday I gave a hour massage to Paul T – my first fully paid massage. I hope to put up my massage website up by the end of this week.

School

Since I put myself down as pre-med in my freshman year, the advisors for my business administration major decided without asking me that my specialization would be Chemistry. This means that I need to take Analytical Chemistry with lab to graduate. Oh fun. It’s funny since now that I’ve finished all my pre-med requirements, I’ve decided that I probably will not go on to medical school. I am hoping that maybe it won’t be as tough or boring as it sounds. We’ll see.

On the other hand, the other classes I am taking I am extremely stoked about. One of them is Anatomy, which will be a great review of what I know as well as provide more depth and detail in my understanding of the human body. Another class is 19th century Intellectual and Cultural Movements in Europe, which will go into detail of many of the thinkers of the time – something I find very interesting. My last class is Introduction to the Design of Architectural Interiors, which is an interior design class. Our teacher Dr. P has already assigned us a project in which we pick a place to analyze. I am turning in what I wrote on Wednesday. We will see what she has to say.

Next Bug Triage Days for PEAR

The Nazg — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:05:00 +0000

Judo, “The Gentle Way”

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 03:36:02 +0000

Before I post how I did today at the Dragon’s Challenge Judo tournament in Delray Beach, I’d like to explain a bit about Judo, a martial art called the “gentle way.” It is a beautiful way to train your body in balance, timing, and power. Some principles of Judo are:

Seiryoku zenryo: strive for maximum effect with minimum effort
Jitta kyoe: strive for mutual welfare and benefit
Jika no kansei: strive for perfection as a whole person

These principles are a testament to why I love practicing Judo – not only to kick butt, but for the philosophy of self-improvement.

To start off my day, I went up to the tournament with Phillipe and the rest of the Baragua Judo Kai, one of the best Judo clubs in Miami. Not only do they have solid Judo and many high-ranking belts, they love helping you improve. I will be sad to leave from such a welcoming yet competitive atmosphere that has been so stimulating to my growth in Judo.

[Warning: Boring Judo Competition Excerpt below if you don’t know Judo]

Anyways, today I weighed in at 60 kg and actually didn’t eat anything except a small pear and a pack of 6 Captain’s Wafers until after the tournament. I had seven fights – two against a 55 kg judoka and four against three different 66 kg judokas. My first three fights ended without too much effort for a win so I was able to conserve my energy. My next fight I was ahead by a wazari and yuko but after the tournament was put on hold for a few minutes, my opponent was able to capitalize on the distraction with a morote-gari for ippon. He played smart and since he was down, the morote-gari was one of the best choices he could’ve made. I fought against another guy for second place and I beat him. Then I fought the guy who beat me again for first place. I was ahead like last time and then got thrown with the same move. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

Conclusion: 60 kg Gold medal, 66 kg Silver medal. My personal success of the night is when I threw ippon seoinage on one of the guys since it was a favorite throw that I was never able to really make effective until recently.

I love Judo.

My Learning Process: Waves

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:43:27 +0000

Learning is very important to me and I enjoy doing it. Though I tend to learn better by doing, learning from books are a large part of my life especially during my college years. Now I have a confession. For the majority of college students including myself, book learning has often boiled down to waiting a few days before the test to study the information and forgetting it as we leave the testing site. I used to beat myself over forgetting information that I only used a few times but I now believe it’s a process that makes learning more efficient. We were meant to learn, forget, and relearn again as the next time is always easier. Besides, if we really need the information, our exposure to it will result in being able to remember it longer.

Since I have come to terms with that, a problem I’ve had is when I try to fit the large variety of my diverse interests (from Judo to cooking to photography) all into my schedule at the same time. This method mirrors time periods in high school where we had a subject an hour. While this structured type of learning gets more done, I find that I personally learn better in waves as once I’m on a roll learning about a subject, I don’t like to stop. Each wave puts me in a zone where I just soak up everything I read or watch about that subject for about a week or so. This depends on how many other interests I’m looking into at that time. I limit what I study to only a few per week to prevent myself from being bored and to keep the rate at which I absorb, understand, and process information high. Like everyone else, my efficiency drops as my motivation cools. In a few weeks, I will usually be as excited to learn about that particular subject as ever. For example, a couple weeks past, I had a home improvement obsession which I satisfied by taking notes on marathon viewings of HGTV every night. After a week, I didn’t have the same curious drive to learn about home improvement. Now I’m on my real estate phase with an occasional viewing of HGTV sprinkled in.

Though the possibilities are endless with so much to learn, my point is that instead of trying to change how I learn, I believe that it’s better to take advantage of how I learn best. In my case, I’m good at digesting a lot of information on the same subject for about a week until I burn out. Then I come back to the topic when I’m feel excited about that topic again, which usually takes a few weeks at most. This ongoing process is what works for me. What works for you?

Weber’s Partial List of Interesting Subjects

traveling
home improvement (landscaping, interior design, etc.)
personal finance
stock market
real estate
cooking & nutrition
productivity
judo
relationships
massage

Napping notes

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 04:00:16 +0000

Here are my notes from the past week and a half or so. Apologies for the sloppiness.

7/28 - Monday

4.5 hrs
nap: 10 am (20 min)

Total: 4.8 hrs

7/29 - Tuesday

4.5 hrs (6:30 am wake)
nap: 9:30 am (40 min)

Total: 5.2 hrs

7/30 - Wednesday

6 hrs (7:30 am)
no naps

Total: 6 hrs

7/31 - Thursday

4.5 hrs (6:30 am)
nap: 7:40 (20 min)
nap: 4:00 (20 min)

Total: 5.2 hrs

8/1 - Friday

8 hrs (9:00 am)

Total: 8 hrs

8/2 - Saturday

6 hrs
no nap

Total: 6 hrs

8/3 - Sunday

7.5 hrs
no nap

Total: 7.5 hrs

8/4 - Monday

6 hr core
nap: 4:00 pm (20 min)

Total 6.3 hrs

8/5 - Tuesday

6 hr core
no nap

Total: 6 hrs

8/6 - Wednesday

6 hrs core
no naps

Total: 6 hrs

Next Bug Triage Days for PEAR

The Nazg — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:59:00 +0000

Finally a polyphasic update:

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:03:29 +0000

Its been really great being able to switch between 4.5 hrs and a couple naps to 6 hrs- no naps, t0 8 hrs monophasic. Here are the past couple days with my nap schedule. Additionally, regardless of which combo I choose, I usually never feel tired throughout the day.

One thing to note - when I have alot of things to do the next day, I am very motivated to get up after little sleep, while on days when there aren’t things extremely pressing to get done, I’m more likely to convince myself to sleep in instead.

Wed 7/23/08

Wake 8:00 am (6 hrs)
Naps none

Total: 6 hrs

Thurs 7/24/08

Wake 6:30 (4.5 hrs)
Nap 1 7:40 am (20 min)
Nap 2 4:00 pm (20 min)

Total: 5.2 hrs

Fri 7/25/08

Wake 9:00 am (8 hrs)
Naps none

Total: 8 hrs

Sat 7/26/08

Wake 9:00 am (6 hrs)
Naps none

Total: 6 hrs

Sun 7/27/08

wake 8:00 am (6 hrs)
Nap 7:00 pm (20 min)

Total: 6.3 hrs

(nap taken to try and make it easier to get up after 4.5 hrs sleep - not taken because of tiredness)

Just a Sleep Update

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:45:07 +0000

Recap Sun (7/20/08)

Woke up: 8:30 (6 hrs)
Naps: None

Total 6 hrs

Recap Mon (7/21/08)

Woke up: 6:00 (4.5 hrs)
Nap 1: 1:00 pm
Nap 2: 10:30 pm

Total: 5.2 hrs

Switched right back into the 4.5 hr schedule with 2 naps. Felt great all day and quickly fell asleep for both naps (didn’t even really want to take the last one, but did it to negate tiredness for the following day).

Nap Update

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:46:52 +0000

Recap Thurs (7/17/08)

Woke up: 6:00 am (4.5 hrs sleep)
Nap 1: 1:40 (20 min)
Nap 2: 8:00 (20 min)

Total: 5.2 hrs

Felt great all day, however couldn’t get tired at my regular bed time - I aimed for 12:00 midnight, didn’t get to sleep ’till 1:45 am.

Recap Fri (7/18/08)

Woke up: 6:45 am (5.25 hrs sleep) - forgot to set alarm and overslept 45 min
Nap 1: 4:00 pm
Nap 2: skipped

Total: ~5.5 hrs

Finally took a break from work relaxed for a night. Drank some beer and had my g/f start her first character in World of Warcraft *evil grin*. I skipped my nap, and plan to sleep a full night and not take naps on Sat (unless needed). Adding a “break day” give me a morning where I can relax and not stress about getting up at a certain time. It also allows me time to recover from any drinking or other excitement from the night before. (I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who hasn’t finished their adaptation period yet however).

Recap Sat (7/19/08)

Woke up: 9:00 (8 hrs )
Naps : none

Total: 8 hrs

Free and Clear

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:48:04 +0000

7:15 am - This schedule has worked out amazingly well so far. Not only am I easilly getting up after 4.5 hours right as my alarm goes, but with two naps, I feel as if I’ve had a full night’s sleep. I remember my initial adaptation phase took over a week and I was lethargic and tired the whole time. I am happy and relieved that I’m not experiencing that again.

It appears that after a relatively short break (4 weeks) from strict polyphasic, a once polyphasic sleeper can quickly re-adapt to a new schedule with minimal negative effects. Yay!

Recap of yesterday (7/16/08):

Woke up: 5:00 am (4.5 hrs sleep)
Nap 1: 10:40 am (20 min)
Nap 2: 5:20 pm (2o min)

Total 5.2 hrs

Quick first day update

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:20:27 +0000

It was so much easier to get back into the schedule than I expected. Yesterday, even after 4.5 hours of sleep, I didn’t get tired and had to make myself take naps. We’ll see if it catches up to me today.

Yesterday notes (7/15/08):

Woke up: 5:00 am (4.5 hrs sleep)
Nap 1: 10:30 am (20 min)
Nap 2: 8:30 pm (20 min)

Total: 5.17 hrs

The first nap was at the office in the new room. I just used a backpacking sleeping pad which works well, but I can’t wait to get a cot!

Polyphasic Sleep Success and A New Beginning

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 03:44:49 +0000

I’m back!

After a month of being off my regularly scheduled polyphasic program, I’m finally back to blogging and getting ready to start up my sleep schedule anew. I’ve missed my sleep schedule sooo much.

First, quickly what went down: June 16th, moved out to Atlanta for business and proceeded to work two 100 hour work weeks (by choice; more work = more reward in this job). My sleep discipline was a lifesaver; as I was well prepared to function with very little core sleep. Sadly, the new environment and lack of sleeping areas made naps hard to come by.

Fortuitously, our operation just moved into a new, much larger office space. Since there happens to be a couple of us who are more productive on a polyphasic schedule, the overlords offered to reserve a room specifically for napping (i guess they like getting as much work out of us as possible).

Anyway, today it begins.

Got up at 5:00 am after four-and-a-half glorious hours of sleep. My new plan will be 4.5 hr core sleep, with 2 naps plus an optional one. This will wind up netting between 5 and 6 hrs of sleep per day. I found this distribution of sleep to be the least resistant and the easiest one to maintain.

As for my previous expereinces, I will (at some point) put up the rest of my data. I made it well over 10 weeks, averaging under 6 hrs of sleep a night. I believe my goal of 3 hr core w/ 3 x 20 min naps was a bit lofty with such a variable work/life schedule (as will be seen in the data; even with sleep-ins and mistakes, I still averaged around 5.7 hrs of sleep a day though ).

Well here goes, good luck me and everyone else working to be polyphasic!

Polyphasic: FAIL

The Nazg — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:29:00 +0000

Everyman Sleep Schedule - Week 5 in Review

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:25:23 +0000

Data from week 5, just for you:

Day - Core Sleep - Nap Total

Day 29 (5/6/08) - 3.75 hrs - 1.67 hrs

Day 30 (5/7/08) - 3.0 hrs - 1.0 hrs

Day 31 (5/8/08) - 5.5 hrs - 1.0 hrs

Day 32 (5/9/08) - 3.5 hrs - 1.0 hrs

Day 33 (5/10/08)* - 3.5 hrs - 2.08 hrs

Day 34 (5/11/08) * - 6.0 hrs - 0.33 hrs

Day 35 (5/12/08) * - 7.0 hrs - 0 hrs

Average core = 4.61 hrs / day

Average nap total = 1.01 hr / day

4.61 hrs + 1.01 hrs = 5.62 hrs sleep / day

Skipped naps = 6 / 21

*DC Business Trip

The DC trip was the first major test for my sleep discipline. First, since I had become a proficient napper, I was able to take advantage the plane flight and managed to get four 20 minute naps on the way there. During the stay, however, Martin and I were so busy that I only managed to sneak in one nap the entire time. Fortunately, I was able to adapt nicely; I got more core sleep (6 then 7 hrs) and felt fine the whole time. Additionally, being able to fall asleep nearly at-will negated any adverse effects from jet-lag.

On the flight to DC, I decided to use the placebo sleep track to cover the background noise of the flight - and it was great. It not only blocked out the sound, but it would lull me to sleep and gently wake me up with chicken clucking and other minimally intrusive sounds.

5.62 hrs sleep / day seems like a very reasonable average, especially when a business trip is included into the mix. I am extremely pleased with the results of my polyphasic sleep experiment thus far.

Day 10,

noreply@blogger.com (Skipo) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:03:00 +0000

12am: slept for 20, then 20 more!

4am: got right to sleep
8am: again went to sleep quickly

12pm: a little late getting into the sack but all goes well
4pm: didn’t think I would fall out but went right to sleep

8pm: struggled to get up – going to sleep very quickly now – my goal is to fall asleep in less than 1 minute – struggling to stay up until midnight – don’t want to screw it up again – my workout is at 2am -

Day 9: Back at it

noreply@blogger.com (Skipo) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:00:00 +0000

so I took a few days off of blogging and, well that ain't right.
Generally I am sticking to it but there was a 12 hour and an 8 hour nap in there - yeah, in three days that could almost be mistaken for regular sleep! But I have been training my brain to get to sleep more quickly and I am getting some REM in the short naps. Thought I really had it goin' on there and then negotiated just a little more sleep. Wham!

12am: just grabbin’ a few extra winks
4am: slept straight thru
8am: woke up groggy
12pm: actually got some REM
4pm: same, still not falling asleep quick enough
8pm: couldn’t fall asleep in first 20, so reset for another 20 – went well

Everyman Sleep Schedule - Week 4 in Review

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:44:28 +0000

I have made it to the 4 week checkpoint. The data from week 4 is as follows:

Day - Core Sleep - Nap Total

Day 22 (4/29/08) - 3 hrs - 1 hrs

Day 23 (4/30/08) - 3.5 hrs - 1.33 hrs

Day 24 (5/1/08) - 3.25 hrs - 1.33 hrs

Day 25 (5/2/08) - 3 hrs - 0.33 hrs

Day 26 (5/3/08) - 7.5 hrs - 0.67 hrs

Day 27 (5/4/08) - 7.5 hrs - 0.67 hrs

Day 28 (5/5/08) - 3.25 hrs - 1 hrs

Average core = 4.43 hrs / day

Average nap total = 0.9 hr / day

4.43 hrs + 0.9 hrs = 5.33 hrs sleep / day

Skipped naps = 4 / 21

I successfully brought my daily average down for this week. If it weren’t for the two days where I accidentally slept in, my daily average would have been much closer to 4 or 4.5 hrs / per day.

Faltered: Polyphasic, the Events of Week #3

The Nazg — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:31:00 +0000

In the beginning

noreply@blogger.com (Skipo) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 06:26:00 +0000

Day 5, June 6, 2008
I have been inexorably drifting towards this new schedule and it looks like it is in place now –

12am: 20 mins

4am: 20 mins
8am: 55 mins

12pm: 20 mins – excused myself while Glenn was here –at office – thought I would be too anxious to fall asleep but it worked out
4pm: 20 mins – excused myself while at Bruce’s house – everyone was supportive
8pm: 20 mins

Day 4, June 5, 2008
Had two 1-hour phone calls – last one very upsetting – wheels came off and I slept all afternoon -

Day 3, June 4, 2008
12am: slept for an hour

2am: went to the gym
5:17am: slept until 8am – too long!
12am: nice 20 minute meditation
4pm: restless meditation and then dropped off – bonus – woke up at half hour without alarm!

8pm: skipped
12pm: wow – I was going to allow myself an hour’s sleep and I woke myself up after 22 mins of sleep!

Day 2, June 3, 2008
2am: stretched first, meditated, just starting to drift off when alarm went off! Cognitive a little off – bad typos – couldn’t figure out how to spell cognitive!
6am: decided to allow myself an hour and ended up sleeping until 8:23! Damn, I am such a bed-lover! I am sticking with this, though
10am: skipped
2pm: laid down for 20 – no sleep
7:30pm: laid down for 90 minutes – might have slept for 20
10pm: skipped
feel very good, cognition is good and excellent energy – maybe I am bi-phasic – still all good

Day 1, June 2, 2008
2am: NA
6am: NA
11:30am: Nice little bit of meditation, no sleep
2pm: missed
5pm: trying to play catch-up, agitated, no real meditation, rose 5 mins early
10pm: meditated, no sleep – had candle in room – not a good idea

Update: Polyphasic, Night #12

The Nazg — Tue, 27 May 2008 23:36:00 +0000

Update: Polyphasic, Night #5

The Nazg — Tue, 20 May 2008 23:07:00 +0000

20 Hour Days, Here I Come !!!

The Nazg — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:17:00 +0000

Écrire c'est...

vurlix — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:25:00 +0000

Écrire c'est une orgie de mots dont les premiers venus sont précoces.