what cha got there is a major malfunction...
I'm not sure what's broken, but sleep has been alluding me for the past few days... Yesterday, I got 4 hours of sleep before going into a full 9 hour work day. I spent a lot of time trying not to be confused at work. At one point, I nearly walked into our fountain-pop machine, I spun around four or five times at the register (I think I was looking for something, and the spinning was me trying to decide which side of our U shaped register area to start looking on) and I kept starting things and forgetting about them (bad thing to do in the service industry). Supplementing my day with caffeine didn't help matters much either: I had two cups of coffee this morning and a cup of tea before going into work. I managed to avoid the fountain machine during the work day however... Figuring that I didn't need to end up even more jumpy and scatter-brained than I already was.
By the end of the work day, I was exhausted. But, I was so confused, that doing even the simplest things took longer than I expected. I even stayed an hour over at work too, just trying to get things done! I worked on a few computers and then closed the store about half an hour late... After all that, I was finally all set to go home, when it felt like my batteries just died. I was even a little nervous to be driving the 1.6 miles home because I was afraid I would fall asleep! My biggest "rational" concern was that because of my fatigue, my reaction time would be piss poor if some kid ran out infront of me or something (needless to say, nothing severe happened). I was even too tired to do my usual 1 mile walk after work, I instead headed straight home, craving the comfort of my bed.
Upon arriving home, at 8pm, I decided that it would be prudent to make a small dinner and then attempt to stay awake for an hour or two before scheduling 10 hours of sleep time in or so. A lite dinner for me was soup and sandwich with a glass of raspberry ice tea. Simple and quick, but with my mind in such disarray, it took me a good twenty minutes or so to figure out how to cook everything >.< Once I finally got around to eating, I felt stuffed right away, I chatted with Steve for a bit and watched an episode of Stargate Atlantis to allow my stomach to settle a bit. I would have preferred to stay up until midnight, but once again, I felt totally drained. I was quickly off to sleep by 10pm.
And up again by 12:30am. I tossed and turned for nearly an hour before rolling out of bed, remembering a book I read while I was a freshman in high school: "Insomnia" by Stephen King, about a man who couldn't stay asleep, and slowly began to hallucinate (or was it a hallucination? the for the answer, read the book! ^___^) anyway, as much as I would love to only require 3 hours of sleep a night without more than a standard ration of caffeine per day, this is getting a bit annoying already... I'm never tired when I get up, just mildly annoyed that I didn't get my 8 hours in.
夢 Journal!
My Royal Blue Trek 800: Summer, 2005.
If there's one thing in life that's healthy that I absolutely adore, it's cycling. As some of you may recall my "Trek Restoration Project" from the summer of 2005, ending with The Bike Trip - Adrian to Tecumseh [Camera Phone Photo Journalism contained: 40+ Images]... God, I can't believe I posted photos of myself with my hair looking like that! And the "while riding" photos were just a bad idea to put on the internet. Ahh well. There were a few photos of deer crossing the trail that I wish I could have got that day, but the stupid phone kept freaking out. Damn phone. BUT! I digress. I love cycling, and I don't get an opportunity to do it enough, especially since I've been at college, and even more so now that I'm working and not going home for the summer.
Anyway, on Thursday, John a co-worker of mine, and I had a little chat about cycling and how he would love to go on a state-wide cycling trip for a week or two, especially now that he's semi-retired, and I was telling him about my Trek Restoration and the Kiwanis park and "Rails to Trails" project in Adrian. That night, I had a dream... I was back in Adrian, and I revamped my Trek, which is over 10 years old now -- technically, my Trek is older than my car! Hahaha. Anyway, in the dream, I fixed it up and rode the good ol' trek all over Adrian.
I ended up riding the trek in the middle of the night the 5 miles from my parents house to Meijer (think "Wal-Mart" but just regional), which is on the out skirts of town. I ended up waking up when I put the trek into the bike rack to go inside to buy a chain for it, when a group of kids surrounded me and my trek trying to bike-jack me! A frightening thought!
Tonight, my dream was more pleasant, but once again involved cycling on that ol' Trek! This time, I had once again fixed the Trek, but instead of a "do it yourself" job, I actually took it down to Smith's Cycles for repairs. I ended up getting the works and everything fixed on the bike, including a thorough cleaning! Then, I took the bike out for a joy ride... It was a beautiful early spring day, with cool winds and sunny skies. It was early morning, and quiet on the streets of Adrian... And I was just riding all over town basking in it all. Just enjoying the scenery and the ride. Nowhere to go really, just out there for the ride.
And then I woke up. ~sigh. I really miss my Trek.
The House of Wheels!
Seeing as how I've been going insane-oid about my Trek recently (and with sleep being less and less of a "thing I do"), I decided to do some research about local cycle shops. I found one in Owosso --that I apparently have driven by countless times but never noticed before. I was really hoping for something like Smith's in Adrian. I was disappointed.
At Smith's, there is a huge selection of bikes, and they focus on Trek. At HoW, they do not. The selection was quite a bit smaller than Smith's, and they focused more on Giant and a few others that I can't remember. The salesman was a little rude, ignoring John and I when we went down there until John walked over to him and started talking. I told the salesman what I was interested in, and he showed me one bike, in three different sizes. He bashed Trek, "They require us to to do a lot of work with their bikes. We don't like being told what we have to do." (Ya, like support it? DUR!) He also started telling me how Giant is the manufacturer of Trek bikes... I had never heard of that before, but I haven't exactly studied up on Trek Corp, so I just trusted the expert. I even gave some serious thought about buying that $230 "comfort mountain bike" by Giant... Since Trek is just a different model name, it's all the same thing, right? WRONG! This morning, in all my boredom, I decided to do some checking at Wikipedia. Both Trek's and Giant's page say they are competition for one another. That's quite a bit different than ~"Giant is Trek's manufacturer. DURR!!!"~
And then the sales guy started talking about bike's he is interested in, including some distance oriented styles and how he would love for a manufacturer to give him a loaner for a few months to try out. I would hope so, most of the bikes he was talking about were $500 or more. One he talked about was nearly a grand! The cheapest bike they had in there was $180, and the style I was interested in started off at $230. I was none-too-happy about that, especially since my Trek was under $100 back in the day. It was annoying to see that even House of Wheel's used bikes were around $100 for something basic.
Eventually, the sales guy, after telling me how much he wanted to get a free bike to ride around on, --no wonder, with prices double what I usually see, I'd want a discount too! But, to my annoyance yet relief, he saw another customer walk in and darted over to him, leaving me with a confused look on my face and wondering where all the bikes with a decent price were at. I walked out discouraged, determined to head over to another cycle shop (in Flint or Lansing) or maybe even a trip to Smith's when I go home in a few weeks. But, I want a budget bike that would be okay to leave outside, which means I'll probably be left to getting something cheap from Wal-Mart or something... A bike that if it was rained on or stolen wouldn't be a huge deal. I'm leaning toward a Wal-Mart bike, just for that reason. Although, I do have a storage shed or I could make some room in the living room for it... Decisions, decisions.
[update]
OMG! I can't find any evidence of Smith Cyclery in Adrian! Noooo!! There's "Adrian Locksmith and Cyclery" though... They carry Trek... Maybe I'll just take my ol' 800 in for repairs there... We'll have to see. For now, I've sent out an email to my parents, asking them to look into Smith Cyclery so see if they are still around. ~sigh, just when I find a business I like, they go out of business. Grrr.