Category: Sleep

Server Moves, Birthday Parties, Exhaustion, and Hava Nagilla

Birthday, Judaism, Sleep, TechyDad.com, Videos, Web Development

On Saturday night, after the kids were in bed, I began moving TechyDad.com and TheAngelForever.com from our old host to our new host.  This meant first backing up all of the files from the old host’s servers.  (I usually keep backups locally, but they had gotten out of date.)  This alone took some time.  Then, I backed up the databases.  Finally, I restored the whole thing onto the new hosts’ server.  A connection string change (to point to the new database) and name server update later, and our websites were up and running.

If I make it sound like a quick job, however, it wasn’t.  I began work at around 9pm and went to bed at 1:30 am.  At this point, I had about 4 hours worth of file transfers to go.  Luckily, these weren’t essential files.  Had you been able to see TechyDad.com at this point, you might have noticed photos missing in blog posts or images missing from the sidebars.  Still, the blog posts would have been readable and WordPress would have functioned just fine.

Since I didn’t need to be present for this file transfer to run, I left my computer on and went to bed, falling asleep at about 2am.  At about 5am, I was woken up by B.  She wasn’t feeling good (horrible headache) and needed my help.  I got her some medicine and she went back to sleep.  Despite my exhaustion, however, I just couldn’t fall asleep.

I finally fell back to sleep around 6am only to be woken back up at 7am.  I laid in bed for as long as I could, but sleeping in was not an option.  We needed to get ready for NHL’s birthday party.

There were several moments during the party where I found myself unable to focus and/or dizzy.  Many times when I’d have liked to have snuck away for a “short” nap.  (Short meaning telling yourself only 5 minutes and then waking up 3 hours later.)  After the party was over, I felt the crash come hard.  Still, I pushed off exhaustion.

As I sit typing this, B is sitting with the boys, trying to get them to go to sleep.  I’m thinking that I really should process some of the photos from the party for a blog post.  I just can’t think straight enough, though.  Instead, here’s B’s post about the party.  (Mine will come later.)

I won’t leave you empty handed, though.  Thanks to a recent gift from Mimi to JSL, I think the Hava Nagilla will be sung quite a bit in our household:

 

Hopefully, by the time you read this, I’ll be well rested and coherent.  If I am, then hava nagilla (let us rejoice)!

Distracted TechyDad

Sleep, Twitter, Vacation

Lately, I feel like I’m being pulled in a dozen different directions at once.  In addition to the usual stuff (work, family, blog, etc), I’m also working on My Upcoming Twitter Application (getting closer to launch), a freelance project or two, and helping B plan our 10th anniversary trip.  Yes, we’re actually taking a trip together without the kids.  I feel such a weird mixture of happiness and guilt.

Anyway, with all of this happening, I’ve been staying up late trying to do it all.  This means I don’t sleep well which means I’m not feeling 100% the next day.  Right now I’m hungry (why is it I get hungry when I’m tired) and headachy.  I just want to take a nap, but I’ve got so much to do.

Luckily, the weekend is almost here.  I’m going to try to get at least one night of decent sleep.  Then, perhaps, I’ll be better able to focus and get stuff done and be less distracted.  Until then, please bear with me if I seem a bit… oh, I really should work on this project now.  *shuffles off*

Lack of Sleep

Life, Sleep, Twitter

If I ramble a bit today, it’s because I’ve been burning the midnight oil lately.  I came up with an idea for a Twitter application (more on that later) and, after a few false programming starts, suddenly found myself in a coding zone.  I would come up with new ideas and then implement them quickly.  As midnight approached each night, I would suddenly get a burst of energy.  My mind would race with ideas and bug-solving solutions.  I wouldn’t be able to go to sleep because I needed to “just code this one last thing… or maybe this one then I’ll go to sleep…”

Of course, I’m not 22 anymore.  I can’t code all night, sleep for four hours and then take on the new day full of energy.  Well, I can to a small degree.  Being a parent has shown me just how little sleep I can survive on.  When your baby wakes up every hour or two and stays awake for hours on end completely oblivious to the fact that it is 2:30 am, you find out just what sleep deprivation is like.  Luckily, our boys aren’t like that anymore (usually).  They go to sleep (albeit with various degrees of cooperation) by 8:30pm and sleep until 6am (when NHL, weekday or weekend, wakes me up to ask if it’s ok for him to go to the couch).

Still, I’m turning 36 in a couple of months.  Thirty-Six.  I’ve got to start realizing that I’m not a young man anymore.  After three late nights, I was really tired.  I probably should have gone to sleep early last night.  Still, I stayed up until midnight.  I might have even been fine with that, but other events conspired against me.

First, it was a call from work with an issue.  I helped as much as I could and then went to bed.  At 3 am, I got a second call from work.  At the same time, NHL woke up and asked to come into our bed.  After a half an hour, my call was done and I tried to get back into bed.

I got less than a half hour’s worth of sleep before JSL woke up crying.  He asked to come into our bed, but that just couldn’t happen.  One kid in our bed is a tight fit.  Two kids and there would be no room for us grown-ups.  So I asked him if he’d want to sleep with me in NHL’s bed.

I grabbed my pillow and cuddled with JSL in NHL’s bed but couldn’t fall asleep.  Right outside our window, some birds apparently decided that 4am was the perfect time to tweet and squawk incessantly.  This went on for about another half hour.  I finally fell asleep and slept fitfully for an hour and a half when B woke me up so I could go to work.

I think I’ll go to sleep at 9pm tonight… Unless I get some coding ideas for my new Twitter application.  Then maybe I’ll go to sleep an hour later. Or two hours.  Or… wait, how’d it get to be 1am so quickly?!!!

Ok, I know I said “more on that later” about my Twitter application, so here’s a teaser.  It’s an application designed to make it easier to manage your friends and followers.  I’m quite proud of the work I’ve done and can’t wait to release it.  My biggest obstacle right now is that I need to figure out a good name for it.  I’m hoping to find something catchy with an available dot com and Twitter handle.  I’m open to ideas if anyone thinks of anything catchy.  I’ll even credit you in the application when it launches.

Sleep Eludes Me

Life, Sleep

Last night was a rough night.  I was already tired from staying up too late.  So I vowed to get to sleep early.  Yeah, right.  I wound up watching TV and reading articles online until midnight.  Finally, I shut down and tucked myself in for a nice, long, uninterrupted sleep.  What was that about uninterrupted sleep?

JSL woke us up once with a coughing fit.  He and I have been having these for weeks now.  No fevers or any other symptoms.  Just really heavy, congested-sounding coughs.  And, of course, he refuses to take any medicine.  (And, of course, I keep forgetting mine.)

After the second JSL-cough-wakeup-call, I pulled JSL into our bed.  Then we had a restless sleep until around 5am when NHL woke up.  He had had a nightmare.  I encouraged him to go to the bathroom and then go back to sleep.  He woke back up (or, more accurately, shouted questions at us since we don’t think he really went back to sleep) at 5:30am, 5:45am, 6am, and 6:10am before we finally dragged our tired selves out of bed, set him up on the couch and I pulled myself into the shower to get ready for work.

Now I sit here exhausted and thinking, “I really need to get to sleep early tonight.”

Yeah, right.

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