Discombobulated

One of the bad things about taking vacation time is I mess my schedule up big time. Normally I rise at 4am ish and am out the door for work for 5am. Depending on what time I get back fro the radio station, I try to sneak in an afternoon nap, if I don't work my part time job, the evening is mine to do with what I wish, if I do work, then I get up around 4:30pm from my nap so I can be at the part time gig at 5:30pm. The thing is, once I break from that schedule, as I did over vacation, it is hard to get back into, even three weeks later.

It doesn't help that the part time job extended their hours, we used to close the kitchen at midnight, now we close it at 1am. Even if I get out right at one, till I make it home it is 1:15 and if I fall right asleep, which almost never happens because it takes me at least an hour to wind down, it is really not all that much time before I have to get up again. The only bright side to the extra hour is that most of the buses have quit running so the vast majority of the gauntlet of bums that loiter on my route have packed up and went home for the night. I have only been accosted once since the time change, last night, when a vagrant was standing outside MCDonald's bumming change (the Mickey D's in Oakland is open 24hours). As I was walking by I heard the refrain "Can I get a little help?" to which I replied, sure, you can turn around and walk through that door behind you and fill out a fucking application. The BFT is in effect.

Anyway, I am getting off point. Over vacation I got really accustomed to sleeping in, now my entire pattern is all messed up. I am up when I should be sleeping/napping, and wanting to take a nap when I should be wide awake. I can't even keep my schedule straight these days, I misjudged pay day at the part time job by a full week, I thought it would be this coming Monday, when it was this past Monday. It makes sense, I didn't work for two weeks, I shouldn't have gotten paid this last payday, yet I couldn't put that fact together in my cranium when figuring out when the checks would start rolling in. I will be happy when I get my "sea legs" back on my normal schedule. I think I can manage the extended hour at the part time gig, they are just giving me two nights a week right now, and usually I am off on weekends there, so my week can end at 12:30pm on Friday if I play my cards right, at least until 11am Sunday morning, when I go to the radio station to do production work in the comfort of non crowded office space. It is a nice respite most weeks to recharge the batteries, I just need to get readjusted to it.

While the Steelers did lose in their first playoff game, thus ending their season, sports have actually been much cooler than expected around these parts. I think the last time I mentioned the Penguins was back at the Winter Classic, where I posted the NHL highlight video. While that game was memorable for the novelty that it was, the way the Penguins have been playing of late is nothing short of amazing. The lost their starting goaltender, Marc Andre Fluery to a high ankle sprain, which led one to wonder just what the team would do. Up steps Ty Conklin, a NHL journeyman of sorts, and prior to the injury, minding the net for the Penguins farm team. All he has done since coming up is record at least one point in his first twelve starts for the Pens, going 10-0-2 and posting a ridiculous .949 save percentage and a goals against average of less than 2 at 1.72. The thing is, the team hasn't been playing spectacular defense in front of him, he has just been playing that well. In their last game, a 4-1 win against the NY Rangers, Conklin turned away 44 of 45 shots he faced. The team has went from a team that sort of muddled around .500 at the beginning of the season to first place in the Atlantic Division, and they have lost a game in regulation since Dec 21st, going 9-0-1 since then.

The Pitt basketball team is another good news story. I had written that I was worried about them after they lost their starting backcourt to injury, with Mike Cook gone for the season with a torn ACL and Levance Fields out 8-12 weeks with a broken bone in his foot. At the time, I was just hoping the team could play .500 ball in Big East Conference play, that and their non conference record seemed like it would be good enough to get them to the NCAA tournament in March. Instead, they are 3-1 in the Big East after beating Georgetown the other night, and remain ranked in the Associated Press top 20 at #15, with an overall record of 15-2. Included in their wins are victories against Duke (#7), and Georgetown (#5) while their only two losses came in road games, also against ranked teams, Dayton (#14) and Villanova (#25).

I did finish the Stephen Colbert book, I am on book #3 this year, though I really haven't gotten all that far into it yet to make major blog mention. I just haven't found all that much time, between getting readjusted to the schedule, working on some puzzles in my New York Times crossword book, breaking my baseball game out of mothballs and keeping caught up on my Pogo badges, I just haven't had the reading time I would like.

I have just started the challenges for the week in Pogo. I picked High Stakes Poker as my personal challenge this week (win 8 hands with a flush or better) and I have it half done, I have 20 of the 25 ?s in Super Dominoes and I haven't even started the World Class Solitaire badge yet. While I haven't completed any of the challenges, I did win a badge to add again to the album, the Super Dominoes 100 Special Award Badge. I believe they issue this to you if you make a play in Super Dominoes that scores 100 points, I hit for 20 pts on a 5X tile when the new badge popped up, so I assume that is why I got it. Needless to say, since it is a geek badge (only a Pogo geek would be impressed with it), I am using it as my favorite in there. I do that with challenges that I get that I didn't know existed, like the 36 Badge in Poppa Zoppa, which was my favorite for quite a while.

Well, I would stay and chat, but I have some stuff I want to do this evening, including watching The Simpsons movie, which Lynn lent me and I want to get it back to her in relative short order, which means this has ended, almost before it began.