I haven't been sleeping lately.  It's not uncommon for me to stay up all the way through the night.  Over the past two or three weeks, I've seen the sun come up 4 or 5 times.  I've tried Ambien, reading, noisemakers, hypnotic sleep podcasts, a glass of wine (or three), everything…  Or nearly everything.

In perfect timing, this post on '5 Effective Ways to Improve Your Sleep' appeared in my RSS reader yesterday.  The two biggest takeaways for me are: ditch the computer an hour or so before bed and read fiction.

I've been reading nonfiction at night and it stimulates my brain.  I start thinking of ideas and I can't sleep because all I do think.  The solution is not to stop reading; but to stop reading nonfiction.  I go back and forth on the value of reading fiction.  On one side it helps creative thinking, exposes you to a different style of writing, and it provides some escape from reality.  On the other hand, reading is time consuming.  And if I'm using hours in my day to read, then I want to read something productive and applicable like nonfiction.

Months ago, I discovered that Nashville's library system is top notch.  Ever since I got my library card, I haven't purchased one book.  There is a downside though: the wait.  If a book is currently checked out, my request goes into a hold system queue.  Like Netflix in a way, though at the library you can check out up to 25 books at a time.  Today, and by that I mean early this morning at 3:38am, I started adding fiction books to my library reading list.  I was AMAZED at how long some of the waits are on these books.  286 holds?!  Insane.  And the library doesn't have just one copy, they have 30.  I postulate:

• lots of people in Nashville are trying to escape from reality (probably true)
• people in Nashville like fiction better than nonfiction
• people in Nashville can't sleep (like me)

In a roundtable discussion this morning with George Stephanopoulos, George Will, Steven Pearlstein, Robert Reich, and Newt Gingrich; the group started off talking about the proposed $700B bailout plan.  Later on in the program, the group gets to the heart of the matter:

"You are coming dangerously close to the truth.  The 'sainted' American people are the problem here.  They have 105 billion credit cards; that's 9 per cardholder.  Self-reporting, they have $12,000 credit card debt per household.  Household debt is 139% of household income.  They can't go on like this.  The refusal to defer gratification is a fundamental attribute of childishness," says George Will.

Gingrich comments, "we are overspending on immediate gratification and underspending on investment."

This video is definitely worth a watch.  View it (here)

The above picture is my current workspace.  I can hear the constant roar of 440 and West End.  There is a fire station less than a mile away and within a 2 mile radius of my apartment, there are 2 hospitals.  This is not a quiet place.  Amazingly, I'm pretty productive and I actually get stuff done.  Call me "Productivity Ninja."

Here is my normal "work" schedule:

1. Check Gmail.
2. Read all the tweets I missed in Twitterrific.
3. Browse through my RSS feeds in Google Reader.
4. Hit Drudge Report.
5. Peruse Hacker News.
6. Write emails, send resumes, research job opportunities. (Lots of time spent here)
7. Aggregate data for TotemPoll.
8. Repeat steps 1-5
9. Read whatever book is on my list.  Currently I'm reading Founders at Work.
10. Hit the hay.

The disaster of the sub-prime mortgage crisis has not seen the bottom.  Only one shoe is off the foot and it seems there is more room to fall.  Ever since IndyMac closed up shop, the industry dived into tailspin.  Here is a list of all the banks that have closed up shop since 2000.  So far 11 banks have failed, I expect this list to double over the next couple months.  

How did we get to this point?  Warren Buffett (the great Oracle of Omaha) foresaw this problem almost 5 years ago.

The past two months I have gone over my cellular calling plan by 200+ minutes.  Multiply those minutes by the $0.40 charge they nail you with and you're staring a $200 phone bill in the face.  Screw that…

I took matters into my own hands and registered an additional number with Voip.ms and got a new IP phone.  Calls through Voip.ms are less than 2 cents a minute; however, I opted to pay $7.95 for unlimited calling instead of the "pay-as-you-go" option.

When I'm outside of my apartment and traveling, I use a downloaded version of the phone that runs on my laptop.  Out of all the softphones I messed with, Voix Phone was the easiest to configure and use. 

Please add my new number to your address books: (615) 345-6610.

Tyler Ward sent me this video a couple months ago.  Cary Barlowe (of Luna Halo) shows his alter-ego Miss Evelyn and her dilemmas with her "show puppy" baby dachshunds.