Patrick’s Realm

Last night the baby got up around 3:30am. She was being fussy, so both Darlene and I were tending to her. She eventually fell back to sleep, but this left me wide awake. As it turns out, I went to be 2 hours earlier than I normally do, and my body said “Close enough,” to the amount of sleep I had. My brain starting churning with all of the things I wanted to do this weekend, I felt restless, I was too warm or too cold, I didn’t feel right laying on my side or my back…

I needed to find a way to get back to sleep quickly.  Luckily, I have two very useful tools for such an occasion:

1. Put something in your stomach: This is the easier of the 2 techniques.  If you drink about 8oz of milk or have a handful of potato chips (or something else with salt), your body will divert energy to processing the contents of your stomach now that you are awake, reducing your blood flow slightly to the rest of your body.
2. Center yourself: If you don’t recognize the term, it is usually used in meditation.  I’m not asking you to actually meditate at 3am, but I’m sure it makes sense that if you quite a busy brain and keep your eyes shut you’ll fall to sleep.  All centering yourself refers to is taking several deep breaths (as many as needed) and focus on nothing more than the breaths.  Forget about tomorrows appointment, the song “stuck” in your head, what activities you want to organize, etc., and focus on your breath.  Repeat this as needed when thoughts come rushing back. Eventually, your mind will stop racing and you’ll stop centering yourself naturally - because you will have become centered (for the most part).  Additionally, deep breaths are relaxing and have been shown to ease people into sleep.

Don’t forget about these the next time you want to get back to sleep!

Today was the last day Darlene and I got to use the old apartment.  I went there this evening to clean out the fridge and get the last of our junk.  I’m not feeling sad about leaving, but that’s not to say I didn’t make a lot of great memories in that place.

So my boss wants to learn how to play Magic: The Gathering.

Ryan is an interesting individual.  He is a director at my company, Direct Response Technologies.  Before then he oversaw development of software at the Pittsburgh Port Authority (God bless him for still having his senses about him).  He told me that he wanted to be a person who has experienced a lot in life, so he sought to make it true.  He could tell me a live story every day for a year and never repeat himself.

I’m not sure how it happened exactly, but between his do-it-all nature, him knowing I played Magic, and seeing his children collect Poke-moneysink-mon cards, he decided he wanted to give it a swing.  I hope he’s ready for a new addiction; Magic is also known as ‘cardboard crack.’

I won’t bore you with the whole story, but have you ever had one of those days where someone says something in less-than-adequate verbage that sets several other co-workers off on a crazed whirlwind of activity and confusion that does nothing more than wastes 4+ people’s time?  Yea, I was the lucky guy who had one of those today…  Made for something to rant about to people dumb enough to ask “How are you doing, Patrick?”

Well, either the night is still young, or the night is old.  Regardless, I have things to tend to.  Have a better than good day!

Yes, that’s right, I’m back! I just missed rambling to you…

A lot has changed for me:

• New Car
• New House
• New Baby (my first!)
• New Edition of Dungeons & Dragons

Yea, it’s been THAT crazy.

Those of you who are web savvy recognize this to be a WordPress blog. Good for you!

On a more serious note, I just realized that blogging without having to worry about the technology behidn it was very enjoyable for me. If you search teh Google for my name, I come up a lot. One thing that appears is my old Blogger blog, Dysfunctional Organization. After I perused that for about 10 minutes the other day, I realized that I really really missed getting to express myself and talk about the events of my life in an open and expressive setting. Not saying I don’t have friends to talk to - as a matter of fact, not too many random people will be reading this blog - but there is something liberating about just throwing your thoughts out there and letting them stick to the digital wall.

Well, you know enough about me for the moment. Back to customizing the blog!