Resetting Sleep Parameters, Please Hold

I’m slowly getting into a schedule with my sleep/work routine. I’ve been lucky, the past few weeks anyways, that the folks at our local Wal-Mart have been very kind in working with me concerning my scheduled hours. My immediate assistant manager said he didn’t want to kill me and planned on letting me work a schedule of 5 days per week, 8AM to 2PM. That’s nice, a firm 30 hours per week since there is no lunch break to deduct until you go over the 6 hour mark. I can be out of there before then, I’m sure. Meanwhile, I’m also balancing in a few controlled hours of over time at my main job, with 30 minutes to an hour over each night. As long as I can get home and be in bed by 1AM, I can get in a good night’s sleep before being back up and at Wal-Mart by 8 the next morning.

The hardest part has been the schedule adjustment. Anything under 6 hours of sleep and I’m as good as useless on any given day. Used to be I could at least work off of 5 hours sleep, but I seem to be getting old and require a bit more rest. I’m also enjoying my job in retail. It’s actually sort of relaxing, stocking grocery shelves and helping customers. The customers are the best part, I enjoy interacting with the different personalities each day. While I initially took on this job until my wife could deliver our baby and get back on her feet, I’m thinking I may try to stick around at Wal-Mart for awhile just to stash back the cash afterwards. It’ll be a nice little emergency fund (or rainy day fund, depending on the mood.)

Meanwhile, The Wife is about ready to strangle her doctor. She’s miserable right now, as with our first son, he was born 2 1/2 months early. She’s going into the last month with this one and is in constant pain. She begged the doctor to put her in and deliver the baby last Friday but he’s telling her he wants to push her as far as he can up to her original due date, which is May 17th. For all our sanity, we may have to hold him hostage and force the delivery ourselves. The Wife is getting a bit grumpy.

Other than those personal tidbits, I’ve had most of my online life on hold while I adjust and figure out how to manage my time. My gaming is down to nearly nothing (except for Marvel Puzzle Quest on my phone). Blog updates are far and few between (as always). A podcast my friend Paul/Ares has been wanting to work on is currently on hold while I rest and try to get to sleep at a decent hour. And my own podcast/audio blog is out there in the void, floating around aimlessly. Hopefully things are coming together, though, and all will be well soon.

Till then, Friends, have a great week!

Creepypasta

Do you like creepy tales? Stories that touch on the unexplained? Modern urban legends? Maybe the names Slender Man, The Smiling Man, or Mold mean something to you. Well, there’s a name for those things on the internet: Creepypasta. In fact, there’s a website/wiki for them, all compiled for your restless, late night perusal. If for some reason you haven’t visited yet, or maybe even have an experience you can’t explain (or want to share!) then click on the following link. Just be prepared for some sleepless nights should you stumble across just the right tale.

Creepypasta – Scary Paranormal Stories & Short Horror Microfiction

There Comes A Time …

While I’m still not at 100% health, I do feel better then I did a few days ago. Still watching what I eat but also still coughing my head off. It seems worse at night, but also more productive at night (that’s the nice way of saying I’m coughing !@#$ up while hacking my head off). Despite still being under the weather, I have a job interview tomorrow. Well, Tuesday – so, today for those of you that live a regular scheduled life. At 9:30 AM Central Time, I’ll be at our local Wal-Mart Super Center for a job interview. Now before you get all panicked and such, it isn’t for full time placement. I’m simply applying for a part time seasonal position to help bring in a bit more money. See, with The Wife being down and out for 7 months now – starting with all of the kids she babysat going into Kindergarden, to being “high-risk” in her pregnancy and unable to bend, lift and pull on new kids, we’ve been flying by the thin seat of our bank account. Well, that seat’s starting to wear even thinner, so it’s time for James to whip out his I’m The Man card and get to providing for his family. Not saying this is what I’m wanting, but it’s what I’m doing because it’s required of me. I’m a little attached to the idea of having a roof over my head, electricity and running water, so it’s not like I have a lot of other options here. No one is offering to pay my bills for me, ya know? :) So, Wal-Mart is the first of the applications I dropped off to call me back. Fairly quickly, too, I might add.

The thing is, it’s been about 13 years since I worked at Wal-Mart. If I should get hired on, I’ll then be the creepy/weird old guy. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that. I use to be the cool young guy with a chip on his shoulder. Someone else use to be the creepy/weird old guy. But, I guess someone has to do it, right? Creepy/weird old guys eventually turn into crazy old guys so somebody has to take the promotion and fill their shoes. I just hope I’m up for that challenge.

 

Day 8 of Being Sick

That’s right. Day eight. It started last Saturday afternoon. Monday morning I called out of work. I’ve only missed work one other time from being sick, and that was when I had the flu. Tuesday I was still ill so I visited the Kroger Little Clinic and then called in to work again. Here it is going into a new Saturday, and while I was actually able to hold a meal down yesterday, I still haven’t eaten much in the last 8 days. In fact, due to water loss and no nourishment, I’ve dropped 16 pounds. Not bad, maybe I should stay sick for a few more weeks, eh?

Right now I’m down to an irritating cough that is starting to loosen up and feeling weak and queasy (from not having eaten, possibly.) I’m thinking I may be better come Monday. Then I get ready to leave work tonight and my wife texts me. Seems our son is sick now. He’s one-uped me and is vomiting. Nice! So, recalculating my odds, I may be sick again with something else come Monday morning.

I blame it all on the weather and accept responsibility for nothing!

5 Things About Me

To motivate myself into blogging, I looked up blogging prompts. I know, it’s a pitiful move, but since I’m not particularly dedicated to one topic on this blog, I figure I can spread the love around. I stumbled upon a series of NaBloPoMo March 2014 Prompts, on a site called BlogHer. So sit back and relax as I try to come up with todays topic, which I have modified to be: five things about myself you may not know.

#5 – I’ve always wanted to be a writer, perhaps even create a fantastic sci-fi television series and maintain tight control over it. In a draw or folder somewhere, wrinkled and faded, are three complete series. Each series is stand alone, but all linked through the same Universe and timeline. Each of the three series has a story arc that, upon completion, links all three into a “trilogy” or sorts that bring all the characters together in a huge cosmic event to protect life as we know it. All cooked up in this little twisted mind. It’s there, waiting to be expanded upon, improved, cast and thrown out into the airwaves.

#4 – I am a huge, huge, huge, HUGE fan of Stephen King’s The Stand. In particular, I’m very fond of The Stand: Complete & Uncut Edition that I stumbled across many moons ago as a young man. It was in the Readmore Book n’ Card in Murfreesboro, TN. I used to love to go there every Friday after I got paid and just walk around the little shop, check out all the books 10-times over every Friday and just relax in the laid back atmosphere. That little shop didn’t stay open very long, from what I remember, and I was devastated when I found out it was closed without warning. But that particular version of King’s epic masterpiece is my prize purchase from Readmore Book n’ Card. I have honestly read through then entire 1200+ pages of pure bliss 4 times. And you know what? I think I’m going to have to crack it open again just sitting here typing about it.

#3 – I always believed I was born too soon. Too early for my imagination. My mind was always in the future. Starships, alien planets, life out there in the stars that we visited to explore and learn from. The closest I could get to any of this was by watching television, reading and following NASA missions. Shuttle launches, space telescope images, etc, were my connection to where I should have been in the far flung future. Of course, that’s just the imaginings of a child, I suppose, but to this day, when I see those high-def images of distant galaxies or see the latest images from the rovers on Mars, I still get a little tingly feeling in my gut.

#2 – I use to hate kids. When I say I use to hate kids, I mean I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with them. Maybe it was the case of being an only child, (and, this didn’t really apply to school because that was just something I had to do) but you put me in a room with other kids outside of a school yard setting, and I was miserable. As I got older, it got worse and they just annoyed the living crap out of me. I suppose the first time I started to soften up was when my cousins Matt and Katie took a liking to me for some reason. They followed me around and wanted to climb all over me when we would go visit the family. Next thing you know, I’m a big softie and bringing toys to play with. Now, I have my own son (and one on the way) and would probably go to jail for violently murdering anyone who dared touch a hair on their heads. Same goes for any child or animal – both defenseless to protect themselves from the buttheads in this world.

And finally, the number one thing you may not know about me, drum roll please …

#1 – I have an especially strong empathy to other people. Maybe empathy isn’t the right word, perhaps you can find a better one. But, I have what one could call a gift of sorts for reading people and situations with little to no information. Upon meeting someone, I can tell you within seconds what type of person they are, if they are being honest and if there’s trouble in the near future. I’ve even gone as far as to call actions before they occur, or warn my wife/family/friends of people and/or events before they happen. I’m not saying I’m some psychic or something, I’m sure it’s something many people have. But for me and the company I keep, I never cease to amaze my wife and a few other folks with my “predictions” or warnings about certain individuals. My wife hates it, but when she ignores my advise, it comes back around 99% of the time with a, “You were right.” Call it luck, call it a gift, call it what you will, but I do believe it could have changed the direction of my life if I’d applied it a bit differently in my earlier years.

And there you have it. Five uninteresting things you didn’t want to know about little old me! Now, off with you. I need to tidy up around here before cranking out my next prompt :)