Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Anyone out there wanna' buy a bike? It's on Craig's List as Marin 'Highway One.'

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Sleep deprivation is a funny thing. It’s after 8 in the morning on a Saturday as I write this. Big deal, right? Well, I’ve been awake since 4:20 this morning after going to bed at 12:30.
In the past couple of years I have been having trouble sleeping. Sometimes I sleep off-and-on for 8 to 10 hours a night but in reality I’m awake for a couple of those hours, in during those rare nights.
The rest (most) of the time I’m averaging about 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night.
This really sucks.
I’m always tired yet I can’t seem to sleep.
You figure the average person sleeps about 56 hours a week. These days I’m lucky if I sleep 24 hours a week.
I take ‘power naps’ every-so-often at my studio, which average about 10 minutes. They actually work (for me anyway) and after one I’m ready to go for hours.
Coffee fuels the rest of my day. And don’t get started with the, “Well, maybe you should quit drinking coffee and then you’ll sleep.”
I already did that and it didn’t work… besides I tend to have coffee in the mornings and maybe a small one after lunch. After about 1 in the afternoon I rarely, if EVER have more coffee.
I drink more water than anything during the day (I average 1 to 2, 1.5 liter bottles daily).
Anyway, I’d rather sleep soundly for 8 hours straight a night like a regular person than take a power nap a couple of times a week.
I’ve always heard that the older you get the less sleep you need. However, that’s usually for people over 60 and I’m not even to 50 yet.
Ah, sleep… perchance to dream.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Was just up in Sacramento for a wonderful reunion with some childhood buddies from East Sacramento (and I mean the original East Sac). We all congregated at the Espanol restaurant (Folsom Blvd.), which is an Italian restaurant and I have never understood the name connection.
I was the first to arrive and was freaking out the whole way there as I was stuck in traffic on I80 from the bay area and thought I would be late. Well, I wasn’t and everyone else was a little late.

It was great to see the guys; Doug, Mark, Tony, Herb, Paul, Jeff and John. There were a few more missing but we had such a great time that we’re going to do it again next year and try to get EVERYONE to go. We’ll see.

After the food and a few drinks we went down the road a little ways to the local, East Sac watering hole, Club 2-Me (J street @ 48Th). What a blast! We grew up with the owners sons (Craig, Brian and Richard) and we were easily the oldest group in the joint that night and to my surprise, one of the bar tenders (Chris, aka Mickey) was another guy we grew up with in the neighborhood and he and I were totally stoked to see each other again. He wants to join in next year! Oh, yeah Mickey…you’re in, bro!
Oh, and the drinks were incredibly cheap (by bay area standards anyway) as I bought a round of 3 pints of Fat Tire Ale, two tequilas (NOT Cuervo!) and a grey hound and the bill came out to $16.50!!!!!! Whoa!
Man, I’m glad I don’t live around there anymore or I’d be in big trouble.

I had a great time and a lot of laughs. I’ve known all of these guys since we were all little kids and it is always great to remember where you came from. Sure, there were a few sad spots too as some guys folks have passed away as well as news of other kids we grew up with are no longer alive but all-in-all it was a wonderful time.

Wait ‘til next year! Whoooo!