The Aerie
How can it be? A blog entry? Why that can only mean one thing!
Yep, I've got insomnia again.
Actually it's not insomnia, it's carelessness. I had a cuppa joe at Professor Barker's tonight/last night, and it never dawned on me that I hadn't brewed the pot. See, I keep a can of decaf hidden on the Professor's shelves, and as I'm usually the one who makes coffee, I start off with a pot of decaf, and switch to caffeinated for later pots. I drink the first and last cups of decaf out of the pot, and stop for the evening, everyone else gets their jolt of caffeine around 10:00 p.m., and I get to sleep at night.
But tonight I got stuck at work til 10:30. When I took this job, they didn't tell me I was going to have to spend night after night doing graveyard-shift firewall changes. Well, actually they didn't tell me anything except "Hurry up and start Monday" and "Bring your own laptop." For the next month I did absolutely nothing, and found out that no external laptops were supposed to be plugged into the corporate network after just such a device brought down the whole company last year.
Anyway my big idea was to bring in another fellow to do my Thursday night firewall changes so I could continue going to the Professor's place for Tekumel. Unfortunately, several circumstances conspired to make this, the first pass at the idea, rather less than successful: at 10:30 I finally finished helping the guy set up for the changes, having spent so much time getting him configure (no fault of his, just how it worked out) that I could have done the change myself.
After the Professor's game I called home and found out the configuration failed because I got one data element wrong. Sigh.
Due to my big idea, I ended up getting to the Professor's very late, and that's when I absentmindedly quaffed the lethal cup of caffeinated java.
Hence this blog entry.
My birthmother has been oh-so-amusingly sending me pictures of Superman, a sarcastic commentary on my tendency to overwork. Let me warn all adoptees that if you're a smartass, and you search for your birthparents, they just may be smartasses. You've been warned. So just for her benefit, here's what my day was like today:
7:45 overslept
8:15 take out garbage that the kids missed
8:40 sort recycling that the kids overlooked
9:00 Find DVDs and return to Blockbuster. Andy Rooney voice, "D'ya ever take a DVD out of the player, put it in the case, and then think 'Woops, before I return it to Blockbuster I better rewind it'? I hate it when I do that."
9:30 stop at post office, mail check, empty PO Box.
9:45 - 4:45 work, most of which is spent trying to get my own firewall access fixed so that I can get my colleague's firewall access fixed. (Take a break from 11:30-12:30, walk over to downtown Barnes and Noble to see if Lileks recognizes me in dorky hat and long coat. He does, damn him.)
5:00-7:00 Home, make dinner, get kids to do homework, get kids to clear table, get kids to do dishes, get kids to play piano, pass out on couch for 10 minutes
7:30-10:30 back to work, finish firewall access fixes with minutes to spare, set up colleague with access software.
10:45=12:30 a.m. Visit Professor's for game, drink caffeine, seal doom
1:00-2:00 a.m. return home, find out firewall changes failed.
2:00 a.m.-3;00 a.m. lie in bed thinking "It was caffeinated."
3:30-4:00 write this blog. Stare at screen in stupor. Realize birthmother is wrong - I'm not Superman, I'm Stuporman! Ha! Oh man, it must be 4:00 a.m.
Now since the firewall changes failed, I don't get to telecommute tomorrow: no, I have to go in and explain why the firewall changes failed, and prepare for what will likely be a second attempt at the changes tomorrow night. Tonight. Whatever.
So it's 4:00 a.m., I've been up for 21 hours, and I don't feel tired, but I'll go upstairs and lie down for a while and see if I can't fall asleep. If I'm lucky, I'll get just that small amount of sleep necessary to make me wish I had never laid down at all...
Posted by Albatross at December 3, 2004 4:00 AMWell, well, if I'd known Superman-Stuporman was having a case of caffine-induced insomnia, I would have chatted with you. I, too, had caffeine induced insomnia last night. I knew i was drinking strong coffee at 9:00 at night and said to myself, "To hell with it - so I'll be up half the night. At 4:00 a.m. I forced myself to turn off the light and put down the book - so that partner Frank, who arises at that ungodly hour every day, wouldn't know I was still up. The cat awoke me at 8:00 a.m. licking my nose wanting to be fed. I did stumble into the kitchen and threw some tasty morsels onto the floor in front of her water dish, but did that satisfy her? No! She was back at 9:00 wanting to go out. Back to bed. At 10:00 a.m. the phone rang. I leaped from my bed and raced to the kitchen to answer it, nearly killing my left knee on the table, and got a dial tone. O' hell - I might as well get up. So, now here I am reading that we could have been up together chatting all night.
Tonight, I think will try drinking Gatorade and see what happens?