• That girl who I accused of having the chain DID steal it. Even though I suspected her, I was shocked. What a bitch. Anyway, she is giving it back. But… I wanted to wear the chain for Krunkeoke last night, so I bought a new one.
• Jonah and I are going to get on the Amazing Race. The only problem is that we just got the idea yesterday and our videos and applications need to be in by tomorrow. Based on what we’ve worked out so far, and our stellar personalities, I don’t see how it could even be possible that we WOULDN’T get on the show.

  Also, I can’t imagine how we wouldn’t win. I plan on running every day, lifting weights every other day, and learning 1-2 more languages by the time the show films in June.

• I’ve got some killer stories coming up soon here, so Bookmark this bad boy now. Included are :
  • What it’s Like Living With Courtney Love
  • Road Tripping in a 40 foot School Bus
  • Accidentally Exploring the Longest Cave in America
  • Why Many People Should Drop Out of School
  • The Secret Tunnels under UT
• Oh, and for people interested in the polynapping - it’s going great. I’ve had two days where I’ve basically had 19-20 hours of productive time that I’ve worked.

Me at Krunkeoke Last Night

Before I went to Massachusetts, things were peachy. I did 4 days with only one hour of oversleeping. Then during Massachusetts I did rather poorly, but still not too bad. When I got back I was settling back into my polyphasic/gangsta lifestyle, but that got interrupted for my trip to Vegas. And Vegas, surprisingly, wasn’t kind to the schedule.

Since then I’ve been trying to get back on the boat, so to speak. Last night I only overslept by 90 minutes, but I just woke up from a 4 hour (!!!!) oversleep. So now, I confess that I’ve been keeping something from you, dear reader.

It’s true.

I never duct taped my laptop up after getting back from Mass. It’s a pain to do, and I felt like I could handle the responsibility. I couldn’t. Also, when I went to Vegas the air compressor got left on for a few days and burnt out. I’ve been going without most of the safeguards I’ve come to rely on.

So… tonight I ask for your forgiveness. As an offering, I have duct taped the laptop up once again, AND made a bit of an improvement on the compressor. I’m now using a vacuum, which isn’t quite as loud, BUT I have duct taped its power switch such that it can not be turned off. The module that controls whether it’s on or off has been stuck behind the couch in the living room. So now it is absolutely impossible to turn off the alarm or vacuum without leaving the bedroom.

The alarm is impossible to turn off even if you do leave. The vacuum can be turned off if I make it to my computer, but it will automatically turn on again if I sleep by another 35 minutes.

Anyway… despite my somnarific indescretions, I’m feeling good. To be honest I felt like a complete idiot when I overslept in Vegas. What a waste! It was only out of shame that I didn’t update.

I’m wearing an offensively soft egyptian terry cotton robe right now. I just got out of the solid marble steam room that’s in my bathroom. Before that I was soaking with some lavender sea salts in the raised jacuzzi tub, also off my bedroom. Before that I was having my ass kissed by a variety of casino employees.

That’s right, I’m in the penthouse suite of the Luxor hotel.

Yesterday a friend of mine called me to ask how to play Blackjack. He was at the luxor playing rather large hands of blackjack. So large, in fact, that they offered him the penthouse suite, which must be at least 4000 sq. ft. He offered to fly me up to occupy the second bedroom of the suite. At first I declined - I don’t like to accept favors I can’t repay.

After a while he convinced me, though. He argued that he would probably save much more than the airfare if I sat with him and showed him what to do. After a twice delayed flight (took my polynaps in the plane and presidents’ club in the airport) I arrived at McCarran airport, greeted by a private limo sent courtesy of the Luxor.

I’d heard about casino hosts, so I did some research and got in touch with one of the top hosts in the world. Immediately he offered my friend a free trip to Vegas, highlighted by a trip via private jet to Houston to watch the Heat vs. the Rockets.

Not wanting to leave me out, my friend split his bankroll with me so that we could both play in the high limit blackjack area. Of course I return all winnings to him (although he has generously offered some of them to me), and wouldn’t be liable for losses. But the real benefit is that now the casino sees ME as a high roller, so I can go on trips like the basketball one.

So, until Tuesday I will be living life like a high roller.

The point of this post is mostly to brag about how great my life is. I mean… the point of this post is that this experience so far has been incredibly motivating. THIS is how life should be lived. I love Vegas and have had some awesome trips here, but none quite like this.

Also, I’m going to post tons of pictures of the suite. I always wanted to see what they looked like on the inside, but could never find pictures.

I had my first lucid dream since beginning this thing.

I had woken up naturally after about 15 minutes of sleep, and as I was drifting back into dreamland, I realized that I was sleeping right as I started to dream. I thought “wow… let’s try out this lucid dream stuff” and leapt off some stairs. I hit the pavement and it felt like real pain, although it didn’t last. Then I figured that I needed to think about flying, and as soon as I did, I could feel myself being yanked way into the air.

It was a strange experience. I could barely see what was happening in the dream… everything was really fuzzy. But I could feel it as if it was actually happening. I woke up after just a minute or so.

In other news, I’ve made two improvements to my alarm. The first is that I’ve made the brown noise quieter. Sometimes it would bother me when I was trying to get to sleep. I also extended the nap portion of it by 7 minutes, bringing it to 32 minutes total before the alarm goes off. I did that because it takes me about 7 minutes to fall asleep usually. Sometimes I’ll want to go blow my nose or put on a robe before sleeping, but don’t want to infringe on my precious sleep time.

This should give me more pleasant naps, but also 42 more minutes of sleep per day. This should help quite a bit.

Here are my New Year’s Resolution / goals for 2006. Keep me accountable and see if I reach them all (I bet I will)

1. Become FULLY polyphasic - I’m working hard on this one and am almost there
2. Gain 15 lb of lean muscle - This will leave me at 160lb and around 8% body fat. To achieve this one I’m going to sign up for SwoleCat’s program. He comes highly recommended and doesn’t advise eating processed foods. As before I will have a strict diet and exercise plan.
3. Make a million dollars by my birthday this year - I don’t have a lot of time to do this (just a few months), but it has been my goal for many years to make $1mil before I turn 25. This applies to my net worth so if I can create some valuable business by then, it will count. I have started this blog, which I hope will start generating some revenue. I have also started selling ebooks. My first is called The Skinny Snob and is a very high quality diet book. For future books I am working with some very talented friends in California. I have a few other business ideas that I will write about as I begin doing them.
4. Become a relatively well known rapper - This might surprise some readers, but I am a rapper. Several years ago I got into rap and resolved to practice it every day. At first I couldn’t rhyme two lines together, but now I can freestyle and write decent songs. DZK is quite possibly the best rapper I’ve ever heard, and he has helped me hone my skills as well. I also go to Krunkeoke, which is rap karaoke, every Wednesday to practice my delivery and stage presence.
5. Find and date one incredible girl OR date several great girls - For this one I’m going to have to stop working all the time and find some social activities I enjoy besides going out at night. I’d like to do yoga again, so I think that will be a good start. Also Tyler from Real Social Dynamics is going to be workshopping me later this year.
6. Enlarge my social circle - Over the past couple years a lot of friends have moved away, and I have moved away from my friends in Los Angeles. This leaves me with few but very high quality friends. I’d like to have more high quality friends. I don’t really have a plan of attack for this one - I think that if I take care of the others, this will fall into place.
7. Do something REALLY nice for someone or a group of people- I don’t really do a lot of GREAT things for people, just an occasional good thing. This will probably come in the form of me finally starting Nice Day. More details on that in the future

I think these are pretty challenging yet realistic goals. It’s important to remember that I have much more time than the average person, thanks to my polyphasic sleep schedule.

I apologize for the lack of updates over the past week. I went to Boston and Vermont and brought only my tiny laptop (Libretto U105) with me. Besides being busy spending time with my family, the keyboard of the Libretto doesn’t lend itself to lengthy updates.

I did a pretty good job sticking to polyphasic sleeping over the vacation, but not perfect. I had a total of 5 nights in Boston, 4 of which I overslept an average of 3 hours per night, and two nights in Vermont. I don’t know if you’ve ever been out in the farming country in Vermont, but there is literally nothing to do. Compound that with the fact that I was staying in a 1000 sqft. house with 10 other people who were very fond of quiet and darkness throughout the night, and it made polyphasic sleeping a serious challenge.

The first night I slept 3 hours extra (seems like the magic number, doesn’t it?), and the second night I didn’t try - I overslept by almost 6 hours.

Steve Pavlina suggested that I spend less time focusing on the negative and more on the positive. Reward myself rather than punish myself. I agree that this is one of the most important attitudes to have. In fact, one of the more significant events in my life was making the conscious choice to be happy by always focusing on the positive. I don’t really get down on myself for the oversleeps - I just see them as “pauses” in my progress, which will inevitably lead to perfect polyphasic scheduling. I also never know how to reward myself - I basically give myself everything I want and do whatever I want anyway. My punishments are usually just temporary holds on those luxuries that end up making me appreciate them more when I have them back.

Anyway, I threw in a couple naps today just to keep up the rhythm, and now I’m waiting until I’m tired to take my first nap. I think this week is going to be great - I’m REALLY motivated to stick to the schedule and I have a ton of stuff to do. A friend of mine sent me a cool Getting Things Done workbook, so that will be my first action.

So the bad news is that I did oversleep by 75 minutes last night. I somehow slept through the compressor going off, which is mind boggling.

However, I’m looking forward to starting the Polynappers of the Future Fund. If any of you have good ideas for how we can spend the money, post it in the comments. We have $1000, and I think the first purchase will be buying two copies of the Claudio Stampi book. I read it last time I attempted this schedule and found it interesting.

The good news is that today has been rock solid, for me at least. I had three sketchy naps, two in cars and one in the plane, but I still felt refreshed each time. Right now I feel great, and I have only an hour and a half until my next nap. I’m extremely psyched about the schedule and I’m really looking forward to using it now that I’m here in Massachusetts with my family.

A couple weeks ago I wrote a letter to Claudio Stampi asking if he wanted to do any tests on me and asking if he’d be interested in meeting up for a quick chat about polyphasic sleep schedule. No response, unfortunately.

With only one more night to get through before the end of Bet #2, we’re both still in it. There have been a few scary times, but mostly we both feel like we’ve been doing better than ever. When we get back from our holidays, maybe we’ll start a new bet.

Steve Pavlina wrote about us in his latest blog entry because we bought him a flat panel monitor to thank him for inspiring us. If you read my old blog, then you probably saw that this is my third attempt to get on the sleep schedule. However, each time I gave up because I felt like it was impossible. Seeing Steve do it gave me the determination to press through the hard part, and now here I am on day 45+.

I’ll be going to my grandparents house for Christmas, which will pose a unique set of challenges. Mainly, the others in my family aren’t particularly supportive of this decision, so they certainly won’t help me wake up. My solution is to pay my little cousins to wake me up. I’ll post some updates from there to let you guys know how it goes. As it stands, it’s 11:30pm the night before I have a morning flight, and I haven’t even started packing. So much time to do everything I need to do… it’s fantastic.