It's not too bad... actually.

Yesterday, I had the kids take off their shoes and run back & forth across the new mattress.

Between that and putting a pillow under my knees, I managed to sleep pretty darn well without hurting my back.

Granted, I am still pretty darn tired right now.

I know what part of it is.

It's that I wake up around midnight every night, and am not sure what to do.

I often still feel wide awake, so I pull out my headphones and listen to a radio show on my phone.

Unfortunately, I fall asleep during the show.

I'm a stubborn bugger, so I will restart the show or queue up to where I last remember hearing, and try to finish the show.

This process might go on for an hour or so, till I either give up, or I finish the show.

Today though, I'm tired as I noted, but I am finally starting to feel invigorated.

During one of my many, mini-breaks, I stood outside on the porch after getting the mail from the box, and enjoyed the sun on my face.

A few minutes later, I grabbed my hat, and sat out there playing several Pinochle on my phone.

Then, I walked over to the church parking lot and looked at their gravel and remembered how many stones I pulled out of there that are semiprecious.

This lead me to getting a small amount of stones a buddy wanted me to polish out, and put them into the tumbler.

So, I checked one tumbler and it was still "charged" and needed to be run for a bit to loosen up the materials inside.

I took another tumbler I have and got it cleaned up and charged it's barrel with my friend's stones, and a bunch of larger ones, because it's very inefficient to tumble less than a pound of stones at a time.

It actually takes longer to polish a small amount of stones compared to a larger amount.

For a 3 pound tumbler, a large amount is over 1 pound to the full 3 pound capacity.

I also noted that I had several other tumblers and equipment that needed to be fixed, put together, merged, etc. For example, one of the tumblers has a good motor but a frozen bearing that needs to be replaced, and another one has a bad motor, but good bearings.  So those will be merged together.

Well, Ellie just got home right in the middle of the day.  Seems that one of the kids in her classroom crapped in the pool, and Ellie was in the midst of it at the pool.

Ellie's in the shower now, getting the crap off.

Lucky for her...

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson:

"It's so funny, because it's not me..."

Well... We're damned for a bit...

So I called the place we bought the mattress from.

What I was reminded of, was that we had to "sleep" on the mattress for about 30 days before we could attempt to exchange it.

After chatting with the manager for a while...

He was right, that we had signed and agreed that we would sleep on the mattress for at least "30" days before it could be exchanged.

The same manager said if we still had trouble after a week, then he could see if he could bump the time down from 30 days to 20 or less.

We continued chatting and he suggested walking all over the mattress without shoes to really mush/break-in the mattress faster.

I figured out that I could let the Misses go to town on the bed without shoes.

They're just not allowed to jump all over the bed, because it's not a spring mattress, and there's no box spring.

With their jumping, they could actually break the boards under the mattress.

She agrees that it sucks!

Ellie got out of bed just a few minutes ago.

She told me to call the place we bought the mattress from and tell them we need to replace it ASAP.

Her back hurts really badly just like mine does.

I told her this time when we go in to test out mattresses, I'm going to bring a book and my headphones.

I'm going to lie down for 30+ minutes on each the "chosen one" mattresses until I find one that won't hurt my back after the 30+ minute mark.

Memory foam mattresses really suck ass.

Actually, I should've known.

About 10 years ago, when I was staying at a friend's place, I slept on his futon with a memory foam mattress.

My freakin' back really HURT the next morning.

Ellie handed me the paperwork from the store we bought the mattress from.

I called, leaving a message that I really, really want to get this resolved ASAP, and that I would find a way to get this mattress there and a new mattress home the same day if at all possible.

Now granted, this store will not be open for business for 2-3 hours from now, but dammit, I really need to get this started!

If needed I will call around until I can borrow a truck to transport this mattress back to their store tonight, if I can get one to replace it tonight!

I doubt I can get it swapped out that quickly, but I REALLY want to get this resolved ASAP!

I'm really tired of not sleeping good because of pain in my back.

That and Ellie's whale calling / snoring is getting to me too!

Snore a little, back ache a lot?

Sleeping on the new mattress wasn't fun the first night.

My back ached pretty damn good by 2-3 AM in the morning. (5+ hours of sleep)

Last night Ellie and the Misses got home, and when Ellie and I went to bed, I wasn't sure how I was going to sleep.

At first, I started off pretty well... but then kept getting woken up by Ellie's freaking snoring / whale calls!

The whale reference has nothing to do with her weight.

It has to do with the fact that she often sounds like she's calling in whales when she's sleeping...

Actually, it's one of the  noises she makes when she snores.

Perhaps I'm in a bit of a manic state... I feel agitated.

My anger levels are pretty high right now.

It might be from not being able to sleep well the past few days.

Part of it gets compounded when Ellie responds that I'm "attacking" her when I make my off handed comments about what's driving me nuts.

I'm trying to control my commenting....  Just to avoid the tension between Ellie and I.

Currently, I want to trade the fucking mattress back in for something that doesn't sink about 30+ minutes of laying on it.

The 3-5 minutes of laying on it at the show room wasn't enough.

I told Ellie if we trade it in... I'm taking a book and my headphones and I'm going to lay on the mattress for 10+ minutes... hell maybe even half an hour!

At any rate...

I've been practicing for my Extra Class HAM radio license...

I have only missed passing one practice test since I pulled a boner and got a few things wrong that I knew.

Probably from not reading the questions/answers very well.

That and it was freakin' 4:00 AM when I was doing them this morning.

Well, I'm trying to start working.

Lots of stuff to do as I'm now the primary lead Linux developer on our team.

"Gonna make it, Gonna make it, Gonna make it, Gonna make it.... " -Lucky Day

For the past few weeks I've been studying for the Element 3, Extra Class HAM radio license exam.

It's the highest license in Amateur radio that you can earn.

The last week, instead of playing games during my QA & building process, I've been studying for the test.

Today, every time I took a practice test, I passed.

I'm now off to keep studying and watch movies, waste time, wait for my friends to come over and help me move the bed frame into the bedroom!

w00t!