Saturday, 01 April 2006

I'm a little surprised it's nearly 3 months to the day, since I first wrote about trying to become a morning person again.

So it seems like a good time to record the results of the little experiment.

In essence, the trick to it is to go to bed when you're tired (staying up as late as you like) and getting up as soon as your alarm goes off, at the same time every day.

Within about a week of this, I found I was automatically waking up at around 7am, with or without an alarm, unless I was completely shagged for some reason, or had a particularly bad night's sleep. I did find that I was getting less sleep, as I'd continue not going to bed until late (around 11pm or midnight), but sometimes I'd be tired and crash earlier.

The added bonus is on the weekends, I still wake up earlyish, and get to enjoy the feeling of a lie in. Sometimes I'll doze off again for a bit, other times we just get up at a reasonable hour. The upside is we don't burn half the weekend lying in bed.

Sarah's been helping someone at Google organise the Google Tour de Cure team, and so I've been roped in to ride.

I don't know that I'm going to be able to raise a lot of money, as I don't really like asking people for money, and I don't know that many people here well enough to be soliciting donations anyway. I got this generic email to spam people with after registering:

Dear Friends and Family,

I recently accepted the challenge of cycling in the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure fund-raising event. I am taking part in this event because I believe in and support the Association's mission: to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes.

You, too, can help by supporting my fund-raising efforts with a generous contribution. Your tax-deductible gift will make a difference to more than 20 million Americans who are affected by diabetes and another 40 million who are at risk for developing diabetes. It is faster and easier than ever to support this great cause - you can make your donation online by simply clicking the link at the bottom of this message. If you would prefer, you can also send your tax-deductible contribution to me at the address listed below.

More information on the American Diabetes Association, its programs, and diabetes in general can be found at the Association's Web site, www.diabetes.org. To find out more information on our Tour de Cure, please visit http://tour.diabetes.org.

Whatever you can give will help! I greatly appreciate your support and will keep you posted on my progress.

Sincerely,

Andrew Pollock

To donate online, click http://tour.diabetes.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=3323&px=2791919.

If this link does not send you directly to my personal fund-raising page, please cut and paste the entire link, from beginning to end, into your Web browser and hit return.

To send a donation:

Make all checks payable to: American Diabetes Association
Mail to: Andrew Pollock
Google, Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway,
Mountain View, CA 94043-4933

A mother and her litter of five kittens (four boys and a girl) were dumped at the animal shelter that Sarah volunteers at, and they needed a temporary home for about 5 weeks until they're old enough to be weaned, de-sexed, and put up for adoption, so they have taken up temporary residence in the spare room.

They're about three weeks old at the moment, and very uncoordinated. The mother is only about 8 months old herself, and very affectionate. It's interesting watching her reaction to her kittens mewing. It'll be fun watching them grow up. They're a bit too small to be playful yet, but they're starting to develop their own personalities.

Sarah named them:

• Frodo (male with hairy toes)
• Byron (black male that reminds us of our old cat)
• Bella (female tortoise-shell, slightly longer hair)
• Shadow (male, slightly more greyish coat)
• Mojo (male tabby with a bit of an "M" on his forehead)