Fun and Games Dept

I’m up for the second time tonight. It’s actually 4:51 in the morning, but it’s still “night” as far as my sleep patterns are concerned. Actually, my sleep patterns are concerning because they’re in a bit of disarray because I can’t sleep.

This is the second night in a row that I’ve been unable to sleep. As a change of pace from other episodes of insomnia, it’s not negative thoughts that are keeping me awake, but rather just a barrage of thoughts in my head that refuse to shut up. In the past six hours of sporadic slumber I have dreamed about going to Sears (courtesy of writing the previous blog entry before bed), my happiness for a family I shall call “The Danburys”, giving presentations on software that I haven’t written yet and eating at Chick-Fil-A (please spare me your stories of horror about Chick-Fil-A).

I think the truth of all of this is that I have this growly feeling in my throat and I’m concerned it’s going to turn into something else. I’m downing orange juice like the best of them. I enjoy a vitamin C drop from time to time. I’m consuming Airborne when I’d rather be airborne.

I feel tired. I look tired.

That’s is. I’m going to finish this blog entry, close my MacBook and go to bed. End of story.

Sweet dreams.

I am loving this weather for the first week of February. It’s hard to believe we are just approaching the halfway point of the official season of winter.
 
 I am without complaint.
 
 

  
For the past week or two I’ve taken to watching reruns of the ABC comedy series “Happy Endings” during my morning workouts. Back in 2012 I had purchased the entire second season of the show from iTunes so that we could watch it when we cut the cord, but then iTunes got all funky and I forgot that I had the show in my queue until I moved to my new iPhone 6S Plus at Christmas time and all of my bandwidth for the month was used downloading the series to my phone.

In case you’re not familiar with the series, which was on ABC for three seasons, it’s kind of like “Friends” for the 21st century. There’s six folks, two of them are sisters, two of them are married, one of them is gay and he used to date another one of the ladies in college and one of them is super good looking and drives a food truck. The show is packed with rapid fire witty repartee, there are few winks and nods towards the existence of an audience watching the show sprinkled here and there all the while not taking itself seriously.

ABC really did itself a disservice by bumping this show around on the schedule in the third season and ultimately cancelling the show.

I am enjoying watching this second season that I never caught up on back in 2012 and I will probably end up watching the third season as well (don’t tell Earl until the iTunes bill comes along). While I may have thought that the quality of the show as borderline-ish back when it was in first run, the truth of the matter is that it is better than anything that passes for a sitcom today (“Two Broke Girls”, anyone?). 

If you’ve never seen the show, I suggest watching an episode or two and giving it a whirl. I think you’ll find it to be a good time.

The morning sun. A beautiful thing to shine in your window as you awake for the day.
 

Earl and I were reminiscing about previous Disney vacations last night. It is moments like that where having a blog for nearly 15 years has been helpful; if I have forgotten something I can look it up on the blog. Living life out loud like this has been very helpful.
 
 Looking up the 2005 trip led me to reading entries from that era. I realized that I haven’t changed a whole lot in a decade, aside from some middle aged crotchety-ness that has set in since my mid 40s. I need to calm down on that front and smile more.
 
 Though personal blogs have long ago faded in lieu of quick belches of Twitter and Facebook entries, I still enjoying capturing moments of my life from time to time.
 
 My words keep me grounded. And that’s a wonderful feeling.

The civil engineer in me always appreciates the designs on Disney properties. 

The castle say Magic Kingdom is lit up with thousands of white lights, similar in design as the icicle lights found on residential buildings everywhere. 

  

I immediately noticed that the individual icicles weren’t swaying in the wind, even though it’s been fairly breezy the two nights we have been here. Swaying icicles would break the illusion and that is something that Disney Imagineers try to avoid at all costs. 

Upon closer inspection, the icicle lights are attached to a grid of metal netting. While the lights are irregular in shape and placement, the grids are not, they are large rectangular pieces that can be assembled off site, installed and removed quickly and most importantly, maintain an illusion of rigidity like a real icicle out in the wild. 

Simplicity is sometimes the best answer. 

  

  

Earl and I are aboard Delta flight 2003. We are on vacation and so far it is off to a wonderful start. We are on a Boeing 717-200 en route to Atlanta, seats 2C and 2D. I’ll let you do the math as to where we are located in the cabin. 

This is my first official vacation since starting my new job in June. I’m still loving the new gig but it will be nice to have a few days away. Earl has always had Christmas at Walt Disney World on his bucket list, so I’m happy that we can enjoy this this season.

I turn into such a kid when I’m aboard an airline flight these days. I have headphones and music loaded up on my iPad, but I can help but just gaze out the window, listen to the sounds of the airplane and love every moment of the flight. I smile big as I look out the window. 

The flight was bumpy as we made our way up through the clouds. I know several pilots that enjoy bumps.  They don’t bother me like they used to. I’m starting to enjoy the challenge of flying in bumpy air as a pilot. I guess it’s part of my personal growth. 

I’m really looking forward to kicking back and relaxing on this trip. For now I’m going to sit back, relax and enjoy the flight.

Quick postscript – shout out to Shanice, our flight attendant on this flight. They entire crew is very friendly.  People should make an effort to smile back. I know I do. 

The media and associated merchandising outlets have been going crazy over the release of the latest installment of “Star Wars”. I believe this chapter is called “The Force Awakens” or something like that. Even though I love science fiction, I’ve never been a huge fan of the Star Wars universe. I’ve seen all the movies but I’ve never waited in line to see them on opening day nor have I ever been one to see all the recuts and re-edits and such. I’m just not that much of a Star Wars fan. Though, quick side note, my first date ever as with a girl named Karen Black. We saw “The Empire Strikes Back” together. I think I was 12.

Just in time for Star Wars, a teaser-trailer has been released for the next Star Trek movie, “Star Trek Beyond”. I’m a big fan of the Star Trek universe so I was quite excited to see the trailer of this next movie.

I hated it. I watched it several times and confirmed that I hated the trailer.  Directed by “The Fast and The Furious” director Justin Lin, I saw motorcycles, over the top stunts and a lot of kickboxing/martial arts. Not really the Star Trek I fell in love with as a young kid.

Uninspired by the upcoming movie, I decided to go back to watching fan-made movies and episodes of Star Trek. For those not familiar, there are several series and movies taking place in the Star Trek universe made by fans of the show. Some of these productions include actors from commercial Star Trek ventures. Some are adaptations of scripts that were never made into full blown productions. These productions take place in many different eras of Star Trek, some boast a foundation of The Original Series, others are set in a future we haven’t seen yet. All of these are funded, created and produced by fans of Star Trek. And many of them are quite impressive.

Earlier this year, a movie entitled “Star Trek: Renegades” was released. It’s available on YouTube. A slick production, the visual quality of this movie is impressive, there are many cast members from other Star Trek and sci-if shows and, while the story is a little different than what one is used to from Star Trek, it still feels like it belongs in the Star Trek universe. Sure, there was some wooden acting (remember many of the actors are fans of the show) and a plot hole here and there, but for the most part I was very impressed with the production of “Star Trek: Renegades”. I look forward to watching it again on a bigger screen (I watched it on my iPad for my first viewing) and I’m really hoping to see further episodes along this series’ timeline.  

Here’s the trailer for “Star Trek: Renegades”. Astute observers will note that the lead female role is played by the same actress that played Xena’s daughter Livia/Eve in the latter part of that series. I am looking forward to being a supporter and backer of this and other Star Trek fan derived adventures.

And I have a goal of wearing a red shirt on screen someday. I might yet see the realization of my imaging of what I think a transporter beam should look like ¹.

¹ In 1987 I sent a storyboard, letter and documentation to Paramount in hopes of suggesting what the transporter should look like in “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier”. I received a favorable response from the company, however, my suggestion never made it to the movie. A version of it, though most likely pure coincidence and not quite identical to what I suggested, made it to “Star Trek: Voyager”.

In my never ending quest to basically Supe Myself Up and to live my life as best and productively as I can, I have been reading about the importance of a consistent morning routine. Now, there are some that say you have to wake up long before the crack of dawn to be productive, working your schedule so that lunch is in the latter half of your day, while others have a little more respect for one’s natural rhythms and give tips to work with that approach. Almost all of the articles that I have read (asianefficiency.com is one of them) have suggested that a consistent morning routine with certain key elements will give you that extra boost to make every day a great day.

I decided to start this approach this morning.

I started with a new approach to my alarm clock.  Using an app called Sleep Cycle, I told my phone that I wanted to wake somewhere between 6:00 and 6:30 this morning. The app monitored my sleep all night and figured out at what time I would be the furthest away from deep sleep between 6:00 and 6:30 and sounded the alarm at the appropriate time. Humans tend to sleep in 90 minute cycles, and waking up when we’re in the midst of deep sleep is why we are sometimes groggy, so waking when you are in a lighter sleep is a key step in start the day right.

Upon awaking I immediately went the bathroom and then drank a glass of water. I never knew this, but drinking a glass of water upon waking helps wake your body up and gets things moving again. I felt better after the glass of water so I can see the logic in this.

Before going for my 45 minute morning walk (since the weather is a little wonky for bike rides at this time of year), I used an app called Headspace to do a 10 minute meditation. This helped me feel more grounded than I expected it to. During a recent physical my doctor suggested that I meditate more to help lower my blood pressure. I’m hoping that meditating will help calm my mind a little bit. I have a lot of stuff going on in my head at any given time.

I then proceeded with my morning walk and my usual morning routine of making the bed, showering, shaving, etc. Overall I felt like the day is off to a great start and I’m feeling pretty good for a Monday.

I was going to hold off on trying these changes in my routine and start a fresh with the New Year, but as they say, there’s no time like the present, so I’m going to try this approach and see how it works out in the long run. I know that these changes can’t hurt (even though some folks think that meditation lets the demons in, whatever that means) so it’s all for the best.

I can never stop learning.