SUMMARY: A semi-productive day, though apparently I was tired all day. I couldn’t identify the source of this tiredness, as I had been sleeping relatively OK. Maybe it was a sleep cycle backlash, oscillations in the pattern that were inevitable.

I woke up at 345AM, after sleeping for about 5 hours. After tossing and turning some more, I decided to get out of bed at 415AM and made breakfast. Since nothing is open right now, I have allowed myself to turn on the computer and start this log. I’m also breaking my “no working with my glasses on”, because they are old of prescription and give me eyestrain. To get by this, I’m typing with my eyes closed, which is something I an do on this old keyboard I have. That way, it’s pure thinking, and my eyes remain unstrained.

One reason I couldn’t go back to sleep was that I was imagining a music composition program that I imagined would allow me to express some ideas that I’m unable to excute now, since I can’t play the piano with any level of virtuosity. However, I can perceive the relationships in music that I want to explore. It’s kind of maddening.

So, what’s on my mind this morning? Some client work in the morning, maybe some bonus client work that I can speculative do. Some blog tweaking. A few more projects to get moving. Coming to a decision on how to do fulfillment of the gun safety posters.

At 0515 I got a headache, which happens when I use my glasses, and had to take a nap. Momentum killed! 0900. Maybe I shouldn’t have surfed the net either. It was hard to get out of bed, too. I had to make my way in stages to the stairs, where I sat down for a good 10 minutes (I think) and meditated. What was I feeling? I felt like going back to sleep. However, I was a little suspicious of this sudden sleepiness. The body was fueled with food, reasonably well-rested, and freshly showered. I just didn’t have any strong ideas of what I wanted to do, other than do some client work that needed to be put out of the way. That might not have been a strong-enough incentive. There’s also a lot of uncertainty floating in my head, as I noted earlier, about how to handle fulfillment and what it’ll cost. There are a lot of little projects, technically rewarding but mentally kind of dull and plodding work, that I could do. The very thought of this, even tucked in the back of my mind, is enough to demoralize me for the day.

So today I am promising myself to look at something completely different, some 3D programming stuff, to see if that makes a difference. I’ve been reading Drive, which has been a better book than I thought it would be, and there were mentions of companies that have “20% time”: this is 20% of the employee’s time can be spent doing what they want to do. Control and autonomy!

Anyway, it’s now 0930. Gonna limp over to Starbucks and see if I can get things moving on the client front. It already feels so late in the day.

0930 to 1100: farted around with iTunes and iPod Touch updates, replied to some emails at home. Got to Starbucks at 11:00A.

1100 to 1300: Spent a couple of hours tweaking my website templates, fixing a few color errors on hyperlinks on the main site, and integrating the process journal themes a little bit more. Mostly, I am adding more informative text, and being clearer about what I do. One side effect of this expansion of process writing is that I’m much more sure of what I’m doing being the right thing to do. It’s exhausting, but satisfying. And I am feeling much more in-tune with what I am doing, even when I end up doing something other than I’ve planned.

I should switch to some client work, though. The morning sleeping debacle kind of screwed up the order of the day. 15 MINUTES in ILLUSTRATOR.

1300 to 1315: Create variation and post it. Wow, that was fast. Next up, 15 minutes writing an outline of a template approach for a different client…

1315 to 1400: Put together a solid list of features for the ideal client website template, plus target workflow.

1400 to 1415: checked my social media networks, incoming referrers, and so forth. Nothing really going on right now. Going to do some grocery shopping, then head home and do a bit of development research.

1415 to 1715: I had a couple of packages! One of them was the second reprint, on heavier stock, of the Gun Safety Poster. It had been rolled up and stuffed in my tiny mailbox, but thankfully they were undamaged. While USPS was faster than UPS Ground, UPS Ground is more careful with my packages and they are cheaper. Noted for the future. Also, I should check the local print shops for their output quality as well, allowing that the shipping cost doubles my cost. If the output is as good, it makes sense to go local. The other package was the replacement camera, as my F30 has bitten the dust. I may send it in for repair, as used F30s still sell for $300.

1715 to 1945: I fell asleep! Crashed hard. I guess I really WAS very tired, though I’m not sure why. Maybe still vestiges of normalizing the schedule.

1945 to 2600: Stayed up to 2AM. Things done: played STO, met up with some RPers and learned how they worked. Fiddled with new camera. Tweaked blog settings. Didn’t even eat, now that I think about it. I found an animation rig from Cryptic, which slots neatly into my game development research AND interest in STO. Looked up their financials, too…before Atari sold ’em, they were losing about 5 million a year. Uh oh. Looked at Klout. Spent a lotta time looking at cell phones.