Insomnia has set in... at nearly 3:00am I find myself settled into the couch watching "Contact" and revisiting the events of the past week - what a week!
Insomnia is a condition I suffer when I my brain simply cannot shut down for longer than three hours at a time. I drift off to sleep easily at 11pm only to fully wake a few hours later ready to go. Numerous times I have dragged myself out of bed, hopped in the shower, sung my children awake (I am a horrible singer - it's a matter of 'wake up or suffer an encore') and started cooking up a nice bacon and eggs breakfast - ready to start the day. As my kids stumbled out of their rooms and settled in at the breakfast table, I noticed how sloth-like they were... hmmm.... maybe they need to get to be a little earlier at night... no more 'extra 15 minutes' of reading for them!
My first indication that it is what I call "Pre-3" (before 3am) is the noticeable empty driveway - no newspaper. The fact that I had to use a flashlight to even see the driveway seemingly passed me by. Grumbling about the newspaper delivery man (oh, times have changed... my newspaper man hurls the paper up my driveway out of his Honda Civic passenger window at a rate that caused me to employ evasive tactics to avoid the inevitable 'tag' that he has played with me as I have waited in my driveway with crossed arms and tapping feet at 6:30am), I return empty-handed to start making breakfast.
Suddenly, it is apparent that something is not right -- you don't need to hit me over the head with a brick (or a newspaper)! It can't be 6:30am yet.... oh no... I sheepishly slink back into my house - my Spongebobs (slippers) weighing heavily on my feet. Please, please let it be at least 5am. I can think of a plethora of reasons as to why I woke them at that hour... Ok... do I fess up or pull the old I'm-the-best-Mom-in-the-world (BMITW) cover-up? "You guys look so tired... I'll tell you what... why don't you two go back to bed for a few minutes - get some extra sleep. I'll wake you up in a bit." Off they go with hugs and kisses for the BMITW!
This morning I woke with the vivid image of Ross Stonecipher, President of ExecuTrain, ordering his steak Monday night at The Tavern in Alpharetta, Georgia. When the waiter rounded the table to ask how Ross would like his steak cooked, he piped up with the indelible phrase, "Just cut off its horns, wipe its butt and throw it on the grill!" What a hoot!
I'll write further about the Monday-Tuesday meetings in Alpharetta - meetings that will alter the image and offerings that I am involved in within the IT industry. The coming weeks will be filled with research and planning to make the new vision a reality. My insomnia was likely triggered by these upcoming changes and my excitement at moving in a new, more diverse direction. Insomnia sets in when I want more hours of work than sleep (rather than when I need more hours of work than sleep).
With the formal release of Pilot (http://www.cacetech.com/) last Thursday, the fascinating onsite that has dropped into my lap and the future direction plotted out with ExecuTrain this week - how can I sleep!? This is where I dust off the 'stuff I've got to read' pile to search out a sedative...
Ahh... there it is - my tried and true solution!
It rests nonchalantly about halfway down the pile - its ragged edges a testiment to the number of times it has been ripped from the stack in the pre-3 hours in desperate hopes of kick-starting the five-phase process of slumber.
"High Speed Backup Without Stopping Business Applications" - a 5-1/2 page sleep-therapy expose written back in 2005 to explain Fujitsu's ETERNUS disk array series and the importance of live data backup. For over two years now, I have trusted my restorative hours to this document with total confidence that it will immediately cause an encephalic check-out. Never fails! Come on - is there anything more boring than storage solutions?
Just writing about the storage solutions document is lulling me to sleep... so I'd best give in - tomorrow will be a long day of recording the new Pilot self-paced course and charting the path toward some new and exciting opportunities.
Good night - sweet storage dreams!
Laura
