Who Needs Sleep?

Well, I do, but /scripts/easyapache is taking about, oh, five times longer to do its thing than it ever has before. This should have run in 10-15 minutes, worst-case. My body is telling me to go to sleep, but my brain doesn’t want this Apache script to hork and take the server down until morning. Oh well, it gives me time to work on laundry, right? Right.

The final Blogathon tally was $1,914. Thanks to all who sponsored, who peppered me with comments, and who otherwise supported me. It was beyond my wildest dreams, and when I told Derek about it on Monday night, he did a double-take. “That was totally worth wrecking your whole weekend!” I just laughed. I really enjoyed this year, and it’s disturbing how I felt normal the next day and how I’ve really felt fine the rest of the week. [I mean, I'm tired tonight, but there are many, mostly stress-related, reasons for that.]

Still working on my email setup; had time tonight to sit down with FM’s FAQ and figure out what I needed to do first. They’re crunching on my DNS resolution request, and then I’ll do the DNS switch on my end. My only concern at this point is going to be on-server incoming mail, because I doubt that it goes all the way out to the DNS box at my hosting provider only to then come back onto the box [although I could probably read full headers and know that]. By the time I get FM up and running, I’ll be terribly behind on getting to my email backlog—I come home to 30 or more new messages every day, and after I file and delete the stuff I don’t need to respond to, I still have enough to get back to on a week where I’m already very time-limited at night that I just don’t have the energy for it all. That’s a dynamically unstable place to be, but there I am, at least until the weekend. Of course, I’m going out of town for the weekend, but at least my folks are on DSL and have the wireless router I installed last time, so I can do some late-night email-fu, assuming that I can stay awake.

Yes, I’m quite rambly, but come on … this is me. When is this ever new? :)

I Think My Body Just Kernel Panicked

Church wasn’t too bad. Okay, so I nodded off once or twice during the first service sermon. I heard the whole thing, but my eyes kept closing and my head kept falling off its perch and towards my right shoulder. Sunday school hour was fine, as we were singing during all of it and I could lean against the altar rail. Second service was actually easier, because I had someone watching me to keep from nodding off.

I proceeded to go to lunch with our choir director and her family, something that I’d been wanting to do for some time. So no, no naps, because we had to wait for a table at a very busy (and understandably slow) Macaroni Grill.

The Blue Notes from the Huntsville Police Department? What they lack in polish, they make up for in flair. Those guys are great. We had to follow them, no easy task, and during the last song—the one with the lowest register for the bass—is where my body just started giving out. I was too tired to keep good posture, which collapsed my breath support. I went to sit on a pew, gathered some resolve, and drove home. I’ve now recycled entry … damn, laundry … and I have clean sheets ready to go on my bed. I need a shower before I can do that, though.

The perverse thing is that I’m sure that I’ll have to take this 3mg tablet of melatonin in front of me to get to sleep. My body is ready to just … flop … but my brain is just going and going.

33 hours of wakefulness. All in all, I feel pretty good. I should be fine in the morning…

Eighty-five and done.

Fittingly, I posted 109 entries last year; this year, I did one less per hour, finishing at 85. It wasn’t out of fatigue, but rather the reverse; I posted last year largely in a desire to stay awake. The Diet Mountain Dew that I bought around midnight on my drive home from the Granades’ still has a little bit in it; I never did open the large bag of sunflower seeds that I bought to chew to help me stay awake. [That's my secret to the midnight drives.]

I want to thank everyone who pledged to sponsor me in the 2006 Blogathon; over $1850 was pledged to support Blood:Water Mission. That is awesome. It is an honor to be a bit player in being a conduit to helping fund B:WM. If you still want to sponsor me, you may continue to do so, at least for the next 24-36 hours. [I looked to see when the cut-off point was, but I couldn't find it.]

Now, if you will excuse me, I must go run to get some food and to head off to choir. If you’re of the praying type, prayers would be appreciated that I remain coherent for the next eight to nine hours. :D

[If you're curious, this is a three-fold increase in sponsorship from last year. Whoa.]