New Record

Well, I broke my longest time awake record yesterday. As I said in my last post, I didn't sleep Saturday night--and had to run lyrics two weeks in a row on no sleep. Shortly after writing the last post, I hit the wall. I could have fallen asleep then. Unfortunately, my alarm was going to go off in about an hour, so going to sleep wouldn't have helped much. So instead, I walked to Hy-Vee and bought some caffeinated beverages. All the way there and all the way back, there was a terrific light show all around me. Lightning in all directions, but no rain where I was. Five minutes after I got back, the downpour started.

My dad showed up for church, and afterwards we went back to my place to get ready to go to the storage unit. My roommate had the key, or else we would have gone sooner. I nearly fell asleep waiting for him to get back. We hauled most of the rest of our collective stuff to the storage unit, rearranged some things, and closed it up. Then my dad and I went to Godfather's for some pizza. After that, we drove past my new place, and then back to the current apartment. We talked for a while, then he went to his hotel room.

Unfortunately, all the seating in our apartment is gone now. The only large piece of furniture left is my futon. My roommate fell asleep on the living room floor at around 10:30, so I had to sneak past him to get to my room at 11. I fell asleep quickly, but I had been up for 40 hours at that point, so it's not surprising.

I woke up at 12:30 this morning because some people had decided to shoot of fireworks in the parking lot. Of course, when I actually sat up and looked out, they were done and gone. Another reason on the list for why I'm glad I won't be living in this building much longer.

Well, I should wrap this up. I've still got to take apart my futon and pack some small items. Peace out, Iowa City. I shall return on the 4th.

Not This Again

Well, it's Saturday night (or should I say Sunday morning) again, and again, I can't sleep. This time, I AM on the schedule for church in the morning. I'm on lyrics. This will make 2 weeks in a row running lyrics on zero sleep.

Why couldn't I sleep this time? Once again, my mind wouldn't shut down. It was mostly thinking about the move--though instead of big things, this week it was where and when to pack each and every item and how to pack everything into the storage unit. However, underneath it all was a little song. This song got stuck in my head after seeing the movie almost first thing Saturday morning. Which movie, you ask? Why, it was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, of course--the one with Gene Wilder, not Johnny Depp. Which song was stuck in my head? I Want It Now, sung by Veruca Salt. This is the song she sings just before she's judged to be a bad egg and sent down to the (possibly lit) furnace. Just in case you've never seen it, don't remember it, or simply refuse to search Youtube for it, here it is:

(the "with lyrics" part in the video title refers to the lyrics being in the description, sorry. Here's a link to the video if you want to read the lyrics along with the video)

Anyway, I'm starting to get hungry. I should eat soon.

Addendum

I forgot one thing in my last post. (Yes, I know I only posted it about 90 minutes ago) While setting up yesterday, I was in that ultra-hyper state that sometimes comes out of exhaustion, and I was running around, trying to get things done quickly. At one point, I got to where I was going (at a decent pace) and decided to slide to a stop. I made this decision because I had forgotten that I was wearing shorts. And as those of you who have been there know, the conference room we have church in (as with all hotel conference rooms, I'm sure) is carpeted. This combination of factors would later be described by my roommate as "the perfect circumstances if you wanted to give yourself a rug burn". So now my right leg hurts when I (or anything else, really) touch it.

And a side note on the internet situation. It turns out that sometime between when I got frustrated and left and the time I returned, the internet started working again. So I walked for an hour (totaling there and back again) in the ~85 degree sun when all I had to do was wait--a couple hours more at most.

No New Record

I fell asleep with less than an hour to go before breaking my personal record for longest without sleep. Oh well. I'll tell you about the rest of my attempt--and the post-failure activities--here.

I went to church to help with the setup. As I said yesterday, I wasn't on the schedule, but the guy that was supposed to do lyrics called in sick, so I got the opportunity to run lyrics on zero sleep. I hit a wall with an hour before church, not sure if I could even stay awake for the next hour, let alone throughout the service. Luckily, I got my second--or by that time, probably my third--wind, and was feeling awake just in time. After the opening worship, as the band was walking off the stage, I got hit with a wave of nausea. I considered calling someone over, but it wasn't too bad, so I stayed at my post. The nausea passed, and during announcements, the other techies back at the main booth were trying to contact me. Unfortunately, my phone was living up to the $15 price tag, and not getting a signal. I hoped it wasn't important and continued on.

After getting home, I sat down to watch the US women play, and got my laptop out. Our internet was down--and as far as I know, it still is (I snuck onto campus because going a day without internet while needing to be in semi-regular contact with my mom is bad news). I fell asleep sometime during the first half of the game--between 2:15 and 3 in the afternoon. The record would have been at least tied if I had stayed awake until 3. After the game, I flipped through all the channels to find out what was on--the TVGuide channel doesn't actually show listings on Mediacom (making it pointless) and the internet was still down. At 9, I went to bed, and took my computer with me to use it as a portable DVD player. After the movie--the one about the old guy reading a book to his sick grandson--I went to sleep. When I woke up this morning, I checked to see if the internet was back up, and when it wasn't, I decided to sneak onto campus so I could get online--and get the bonus of setting up my laptop to recognize the UI's wireless system. That brings you up-to-date on how things are going, so I'll end here and continue getting my internet fix.

Can't sleep. Clown'll eat me.

As I start this post, it's 2:30am Sunday. I've been awake since 7am Saturday. That's 19.5 hours of awakeness, with probably another 15 ahead--or more. Why, you ask? Well, I'll tell you.

I've gotten into that mood again. The mood where I want to be in a relationship. When I put down my book at around 9:30 to try to sleep, I started thinking about which one of the awesome women at Veritas I would want to ask out. Why my mind seemed to want to make this decision when I'm trying to sleep, I don't know. Anyway, I'm no closer to an answer on that than I was when I started. I ended that thinking at around 12:30 with "It doesn't really matter anyway. I'm not at a very good point in my life to be thinking about a relationship."

Well, my mind didn't want to let me sleep, so it simply changed the problem it would focus on. At that point, I started worrying about the upcoming move. Mostly because I have about 30 hours less than I had thought when I made plans. I had thought I only had to be out by noon on the 27th. Nope. 7am on the 26th. And I hadn't heard back from my mom about her helping out--and her boyfriend is the one with the truck, so the big stuff would not be easy without them. So I was running through my list of friends (and their vehicles) trying to figure out who would have a truck and might have spare time. At 2, I got up with my only intention being to complain about not being able to sleep on Facebook. It was then that I got the response from my mom. She couldn't make it on the days I had asked her about--the 25th and 26th. She would have to come two days before that. I told her that would be great, then completed my task of complaining about being awake at 2am, and decided to get off the computer.

However, as I've mentioned before, I wake up easily. Even though I hadn't really slept, just coming out to get on my computer was enough to get my "second wind" of wakefulness. So I gave up on sleep and hopped in the shower, before coming back out here.

So why would I be awake for the next 15 hours? Well, church setup starts in about 3 hours. Even though I'm not on the schedule, my roommate is, so I'll go to avoid having to ask someone for a ride--it's just easier to me that way. Then there's the band practice, where I'll probably just mess around on my iPod or read the bible. After that is church, then teardown. And of course, at 1:45 this afternoon--which will be shortly after teardown ends--the USA Women's soccer team plays in the World Cup Final.

Anyway, it's now 3am, and being awake for 20 hours really makes a guy hungry. But before I go, one last note: my longest awake streak stands at about 32 hours. I'll probably beat that today, but we'll see.

Good Wednesday

I know, it's Saturday now, but I kept putting this off. Wednesday was a good day. It was the coolest day in a couple weeks (in both the "good things happened" sense and the temperature sense--it wasn't even supposed to hit 80 here), so I decided to do some things I had been putting off for a while. I needed to figure out storage for the move--since I have to be moved out by the morning of the 26th, and can't move in until the 1st--and visit my bank to sign up for e-statements. I had mapped out where two storage companies were, and planned to visit them first. The first one had a sign about redirecting mail, and didn't seem like it was open--or would ever be again. The second had a sign stating that their office had moved. So I went to my bank. Everything there went fairly smoothly--even though the person helping me wasn't 100% sure on the procedure.

When I left the bank, I decided to visit the Veritas offices--since they're only about a block away--to use their internet to regroup and plan my next move. When I arrived, the only person there was the newest staff member--who also happens to be the coolest bass-player's wife I know. As I was figuring out where to go next, the drummer/creative arts director/head of the tech team and his wife arrived. He asked what I was up to, and I explained the storage problem, and he offered me the church storage unit--since all the church stuff stays in the trailer. Not being someone who often turns down free stuff, I accepted. Shortly after, his wife was going to head downtown, and offered me a ride home. This saved me a 2.5 mile walk, and allowed me to get home with plenty of time before the US Women's World Cup team took on France in the semis. I watched both of the semi-final games, then got ready to head out to welcome the East Asia team home.

When the time came, there were around two dozen people there to welcome the East Asia team back. They all seemed somewhat out of it, but they had been traveling for about 24 hours so you had to cut them a bit of a break. It was good to see them all back safely--and they seemed happy about the crowd that had come to say hello for the first time in 2 months.

Well, I'm going to end this post now. I'm having a hard time keeping up with the movie I'm watching--Iron Man 2--the pitch-by-pitch updates on my baseball team (I usually can't get interested in actually watching baseball, so I just "watch" it on the MLB's website) and typing out only what's pertinent to this post all at the same time.

Practice Runs

In my last post, I mentioned that I would be doing practice runs to make sure I could get from class to class in 10 minutes. Today was the first day I actually got out to try them. I spent an hour and a half going from my place to campus, finding all my classrooms, doing two of the three practice runs (and the one I didn't do is simply one of the others done in reverse) and coming home. The short run--chemistry lab to spanish--takes about 5 minutes, and the long run--english to chemistry--takes about 7 minutes, so even if you factor in other foot traffic and/or potential bad weather, 10 minutes should be a breeze.

While in the Chemistry Building--and yes, that's the actual name for it--I found this:

(okay, this is actually in the main lobby, directly across from the door, so finding it wasn't that hard)

Yes, that's a periodic table, complete with samples of most of the elements--very few of the high-numbered elements are stable enough for a display like this. Also, that screen just to the left of Boron (or to the right of the plaque with "Periodic Table of the Elements" on it) is a touch screen interactive table. Fancy, huh? Below are some of the individual elements. I'll let you figure out why I picked these ones.

If you're wondering, yes those circles in the tungsten picture are holes that you can reach your fingers through. There's at least one other element with holes in the glass like that.