Not so much up early...

...as never having properly gone to sleep.

I again lay awake in bed, unable to fall asleep, from 10:30 last night to somewhere approaching 3 am (I last looked at the clock around 2:40). I slept fitfully, dreaming I was translating an endless text that was maddeningly similar - lines that are variations on "you are passing through a maze of twisty little passages," but having tediously and repetitively to do with some engineering process.

At 3:45 am, the cat - as if enlisted in a conspiracy to keep me awake - started meowing and scratching the door for all she was worth.

Resisting the urge to strangle the cat, I let the animal out and went back to bed. At the current moment, I am fully alert. The back of my eyeballs feel scratchy. I am tired, I yawn from time to time, but sleep eludes me.

Farblegarg.

Cheers...

de[.lir|l.ic]io.us report...

As a supporter of FOSS, I have a soft spot in my heart for the de.lirio.us site, as it is an open source clone providing largely the same functionality (if not a superset) as the del.icio.us site. I've got to say, however, that after playing with both sites, so far my preference is for del.icio.us.

I'd be lying if I didn't mention that a large part of this has to do with the fact that de.lirio.us currently appears to be "hung" in the sense that no new posts have appeared since late yesterday (at 19:32 in what I am assuming is EDT). In and of itself, this wouldn't be bad, except that attempts to add bookmarklets appear to succeed, but are not reflected either in the site's root feed or in one's personal list of links, which promotes the use of bad language when you go to check your list of links after having added - or tried to add - a half dozen new links before going back to refresh one's personal list.

Besides this, though, I've found it easier to navigate del.icio.us and to control searches using keywords.

I've not come to any definitive conclusion or preference, though I'm not sure those concepts really means much in this context. (What would really be significant around now, however, would be a desire to fall asleep, but I'm probably obsessing at this point.)

Cheers...

My plate, as of a few minutes ago:

Due tomorrow:

0 / 2,500 (0.0%)

Due Friday, April 15:

0 / 5,816 (0.0%)

Due Monday, April 18:

0 / 7,840 (0.0%)

Due Wednesday, April 20:

0 / 4,100 (0.0%)

It occurs to me that a nice, even strain of about 2500-3000 source words per day will do the trick.

Cheers...

Winding down...

Due tomorrow:

2,570 / 2,500 (102.0%)

The graph does not take account of additional time and effort required to format the job and check it over.

It is a little after 10:15 pm and I am not tired in the conventional meaning of the word. Though I have spent the last 7 hours largely in sitzfleisch mode struggling with about the most cantankerous geological text I've seen in some time (hey, when my translation speed gets whittled down to less than 400 words per hour, you know that's serious!), I'm not sitting here yawning and yearning to slip between the covers.

Then again, after finally falling asleep this morning, at around 5:30 am, I slept pretty soundly until shortly before 11 am, so I really shouldn't be sleepy right now.

Talking about what I'm not, to tell the truth, I'm also not too hot about tackling the next job, which is more of the same geological razzmatazz (a little over twice more), but seeing as how everyone around here has gotten used to eating and stuff, I may as well acquire a workmanlike attitude toward it in quick time (while avoiding stepping in the razzmatazz, natch).

Which reminds me... I am going to sleep on the bed in the spare bedroom tonight, to see if my sleep experience improves. And if I am to do that in comfort, I really should turn the thermostat up... about now.

Cheers...

Happy 44th!

Облетев Землю в корабле-спутнике, я увидел, как прекрасна наша планета. Люди, будем хранить и приумножать эту красоту, а не разрушать ее!
       -- [Yuri] Gagarin

Circumnavigating the Earth in my orbiting spacecraft, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let's protect and enhance this beauty, and not destroy it!

My translation, so it may not conform to "official" ones.

It is, perhaps, fitting to here mention some lines written by Robert A. Heinlein, who expressed thoughts along a similar theme in his short story The Green Hills of Earth, which were mentioned and partially quoted in an exchange between Earth and the Moon during the Apollo 15 mission. The final lines are:

We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool green hills of Earth.
       -- Robert A. Heinlein

Here's to the future!

Cheers...