The good and bad

Ubuntu 9.04 is out, and I am enjoying it muchly right now. There are cool desktop screenlets for weather and news, and I have a secondary desktop that monitors my motherboard and logs my network usage. It's very cool. Computer boots up in about 30 seconds as well, as opposed to several minutes with Vista. I'm impressed with the improvements that have been made in the last year.

But then there's the sleep issues and the money issues. I'm just about off the Ritalin, though it's pretty much the only thing that will keep me awake these days. I just woke up from a three hour nap I took while I was reading a book. Probably fell asleep between midnight and 1 AM, and then woke up at 3:18. I went, "Aw... fu--" and blinked. When I opened my eyes, it was 4:30 AM, which was the time I planned to go to bed for the night anyway. That's enormously frustrating, though I took it pretty well. I know I've been sleep deprived lately, so I saw it coming, but losing 4 hours unintentionally doesn't help much.

The state budget is under scrutiny right now. Apparently the state is ten million over budget in the Corrections department, so they are trying to figure out how to save the money. One proposal was a 5% pay cut for state employees, which was luckily shot down. However, the route that they will probably take is likely just as bad. They may end up closing down more facilities and removing inmate programs, leading to overcrowding and unrest, which could in turn make my job more dangerous. I don't really need that, though, it may keep me awake if that's the case.

But besides a little frustration, life is really good. The weather is getting unpredictable and crazy. There's lots of rain and we've already had some tornado activity. I love the excitement.

Also, I ran a mile in 9:37, then matched that record again a couple days later. I hope to beat it tomorrow when I run again.