Polyphasic Sleep (aka Craziness)

Full Disclosure: This is Stephen.  He is weird.  Jeana would never consider trying anything like this.  And, quite frankly, neither should you.  At least not at home.

4:55 a.m. – Why, why, why am I doing this?  (That sentence probably needs a few more “why’s”, actually.)  It’s nearly 5:00 a.m. and I’ve been out of bed for nearly half an hour, after having been in it for fewer than six.

You know that sentence above that started with so many “why’s”?  That was the voice of every nerve, joint, organ, and phalanx of my body crying out in sleep-deprived agony.  I think you know the feeling.

9:30 p.m. – Ever since I was very young, I have often felt that sleep was a waste of time.  That may be putting it a little too strongly, but still, don’t you think it would be cool to be doing stuff (even simply reading a book) while everyone else is sleeping?  I do.  Which is why a series of blog posts I found yesterday really got my juices flowing.  Here’s the link:

Steve Pavlina on Polyphasic Sleep

Now, since you may not have bothered to follow the link, let me tell you, in Steve Pavlina’s words, what polyphasic sleep is:

Polyphasic sleep involves taking multiple short sleep periods throughout the day instead of getting all your sleep in one long chunk. A popular form of polyphasic sleep, the Uberman sleep schedule, suggests that you sleep 20-30 minutes six times per day, with equally spaced naps every 4 hours around the clock.

Sounds pretty righteous, no?  We’re talking a grand total of 3 hours of sleep a day.  To be awake for 21 hours a day!  Think of it!  Let me spell the word that is surely coming to your mind: W-O-W-S-E-R-S-!-!-!

As you may have gathered in the “4:55 a.m.” section above, I started this regimen today.  My planned schedule is to nap at 4, 8, and 12, o’clock (a.m. and p.m.).  It wasn’t long before everyone in the office knew what I was up to (word travels fast in small towns companies).  After all, anyone who went wandering to and/or from the break room between 8:00 and 8:30, 12:00 and 12:30, or 4:00 and 4:30 would have quite plainly seen me dozing.  Most unusual behavior for the company’s greatest programmer.

I must say, and I hope this doesn’t turn out to be anomalistic, today was actually a pretty good day.  4:30 was definitely rough.  And right now is decidedly not a walk in the park (still two hours to go before my next nap—ugh!).  But I found that immediately following my naps today (especially the 12 and the 4), I was actually quite alert, refreshed, rejuvenated, completely combobulated.  I was even … cheerful!

My two primary concerns right now as pertaining to this polyphasic dealio are 1) tonight is probably going to be rougher than scruff, as is tomorrow, and probably the next week at least; and 2) my dearly beloved wife Jeana.  If this turns out to be either a) physically impossible to maintain, or b) inconvenient for Jeana, I will stop it at once.  But we’ll never know until we try.  I’m always up for a good scientific experiment!

Scrap and Share

Opposite Day

It's 3:33 p.m. and I just noticed I have been wearing my shirt backwards all day. I am pretty cool. Thursday is opposite day, right? At least it was at my elementary. I guess I am one of the cool kids today.

Playgroup

For the past two years we have been doing a neighborhood play group. They are cute kids and I have really enjoyed having them over at our house.

Living in the Past

This summer the girls and I are volunteering at This is the Place Heritage Park. Why, you ask, would a mother with two small kids choose to live without modern conveniences each week? The answer is in my past. In college I worked there and loved transporting myself each day to the past. Then I was called to serve a mission in Nauvoo and got to experience the pioneer history and lifestyle again. I truly love meeting new people and sharing our pioneer heritage with them. I also want to share our heritage with my daughters. I think it will be good for them to spend a few hours a week away from the TV and DVDs and closer to their imaginations and each other.
We went for our first time this week and my hope came true. We had a wonderful day. Don't let the girls' faces in the picture above fool you; they loved it. They played together at the park better than they do at home. They loved seeing the animals, riding the train, and teaching other kids to play pioneer games. I am really looking forward to our next time going.

I recommend volunteering to anyone, unless you are pregnant. Some things in life, like pregnancy, are best experienced with modern conveniences like air conditioning. I also recommend coming to visit us this summer. If you are planning on going to This is the Place Heritage Park send me an email and I will tell you if we will be up there at that time. I hope you come and visit us.

Knock, knock...

I can only tell two jokes correctly without messing them up. One is about a duck, grapes and some nails and sometime, if you catch me in the right mood I will tell it to you. The other I learned from my best friend growing up, Becky. I have taught it to Mally. Have a listen and see if you think it's as funny as she does.

Financial Services Anyone?

Stephen came home one day from work telling me he wanted us to meet with the financial adviser who had come to talk to the employees at his work. My first reaction was a sarcastic "Oh great," and then I rolled my eyes. I hate bringing "salesmen" into our house and having to sit through their sales pitch about why we need to buy this and that. But, I agreed to have him come because I wasn't happy with our life insurance policies and I wanted to know if this guy could help us find better ones.

We have since met and worked with our financial adviser Jay Wells and have been very pleased with how he has helped us not only get new life insurance policies, with more coverage and at a better rate, but has helped us save with our home and car insurance as well. He told us about simple changes we could make on our insurance policies, which saves us in our premiums. He also introduced us to different kinds of savings accounts and has gotten us in touch with others to help us lower our health insurance costs. We feel really good about these financial changes we have made with his help.

We have been very happy working with Jay, up until he asked us for referrals. I HATE giving names of my friends for others to call and pester. For this very reason I am morally against forwarding chain emails and letters. I HATE to think I am turning in my friends for someone to bother.

But, I have been happy working with this guy and would feel guilty if I didn't produce names for him to contact. So, if you would like to talk with a financial adviser and have him give you good suggestions on how to manage your money, please email me and I will give him your name.


Now, if anyone reading this has a family and does not have life insurance then I INSIST you contact Jay Wells at Cambridge Financial Center. If you are responsible for others, then I think life insurance is TOO important to go without. I would now like to bear my testimony of life insurance:

Life has unexpected changes, and death is one of them. People do die. My father died when I was three leaving my mom a widow with five children, ages nine years to one month old. Though my father left us, thankfully he did not leave us financially troubled. Still in death my father provided for our family. Twenty-seven years later, my mother is still living off of the money from my father's life insurance policy. Of course she invested the money along the way, hence why she is still living off of it. Which is another plug for why having a financial planner is a good (and free) idea.

Again, if you are interested in seeing how this guy can help you let me know. Thanks, Jeana