Vital Statistics

Graham got an extremely late birthday present today – I finally got around to wiring his bedroom for the internet. I did manage to get him a new computer on his birthday, but many weekends have passed since where I have promised him that I would get it installed but never found the time. He’s been understanding the whole time. Last night I told him that we could do it today if he would help and he was very excited to do it. His most important part involved traversing the crawl space from Thomas’ room (where the “hatch” is) to our room and back. There are several pipes and heating ducts in the way that make it very difficult for me to do it. When I wired Thomas’ room about five years ago, it probably took me an hour to make my way to our bedroom and back to Thomas’ room. This afternoon it took Graham about three minutes to do the same thing. Probably half of that time as me explaining to him where he needed to go. He was my Briar Rabbit today. Anyway, we got it all done and Graham is very excited to have iChat and his own computer for playing internet games.

After my first night with the CPAP, things have gone down hill. The chin restraint keeps my mouth from flying wide open, but my lips still open a tiny bit during REM sleep. This produces a hissing sound that makes Tina think that her ocean-sound alarm is going off. No, it’s just me so she rolls over and taps me on the lip so I close my mouth again. After the first morning of that (I usually go into REMs at around 4:00 am), I adjusted slightly and have since been getting the “chipmunk cheeks”. The valve (for lack of a better word) in my throat opens and air rushes into my mouth puffing up my cheeks. This wakes me enough to close the valve and go back to sleep. However, it’s not making for very good sleep and I’ve had a couple mornings where I slept past 10 hours. On Friday Tina and I saw my sleep doctor and he said to be patient with it. I go back to see him in 6 weeks and take my CPAP in for evaluation (it also records sleep data) in 4 weeks. If it’s not better by then, I’m going to insist on getting fitted for a nose-and-mouth mask.

I think I’ve noticed more motivation in myself on the weekends lately. It’s probably related to the weight loss I’ve had since Tina and I started South Beach about 6 weeks ago. But the whole sleep diagnostic experience has also made me more hopeful about my life in general, I think. I can’t tell you how great it feels to wake up after 8 hours of sleep and be completely rested. I’m looking forward to when every day is like that.

Bike odometer: n/a
Current reading: The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell by John Crawford, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Humpy’s Soul Show, The Jumpoff, Dave Allen’s Neighborhood (all available here)
Recent viewing: Pee Wee’s Playhouse, Ed vs. Spencer, Countdown
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: Installed network in Graham’s room, new music for Tina
Imperative To Do: Labels for my sister’s CDs, test drive new bike seats, bank
Cool Link: Spam: An excellent gift for a 40th birthday (the variety pack would be awesome!)

Vital Statistics

Tina, Graham and I went car shopping today. We decided that we really needed at least one reliable car, so rather than replace the truck with another used truck, we’re going to get a new family car. Today we looked and and drove a Kia Sorento, a Scion xB and a Chevy HHR. The Sorento was nice and Kia has a great warranty, but they couldn’t come down to our price range. The HHR might be nice, but after driving the xB, there was really no question which car we would get. We’re going to finalize our financing options and might have a new Scion next week!

Thomas didn’t go with us today because he’s been at Cub Scout Camp all week. Tina has missed him greatly and we’re going to pick him up there tomorrow. I suspect that he’s hardly noticed we’re not there.

I may have mentioned a couple of weeks ago about spending the night at the hospital as part of a sleep study. The study confirmed that I have positional sleep apnia which means that I have an abnormal number of apnia episodes when I sleep on my back. I also exhibit apnia symptoms while I am in R.E.M. sleep. During the sleep study, if I would have shown apnia by 2:00 AM, they would have awoken me in order to fit me with a CPAP device. I did not meet the criteria and did not exhibit severe enough apnia until after I went into R.E.M.’s sometime after 2:00 AM. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when I awoke at 5:30 and realized that they had not awoken me. Later, the technician explained my situation and assured me that I would probably still be fitted for a CPAP on another night. Thus, I am scheduled for another study next week and I’m pretty sure it will be to do that very thing. I’ll write more later when I know more.

Bike odometer: 59 miles
Current reading: The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Taking The Long Way by Dixie Chicks, KBOO Bike Show, Humpy’s Soul Show
Recent viewing: Pee Wee’s Playhouse, Nature, Monk, Countdown, The Colbert Report
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: Car shopping, recycling, garbage, paid bills, expense report, upgraded my DSL
Imperative To Do: Setup Airport Express, install network in Graham’s room, labels for my sister’s CDs
Cool link: Moving by bike