donger need food.

High Maintenance

I can't sleep... I hate when my body gets into these bad sleeping patterns...it's been like this since the Pomona event a few weeks ago, where I got oh, about three hours of sleep riddled by my brother's snoring and a blaring train horn that hit every thirty minutes or so.

In my previous life as a software developer and a QA engineer, one of the things that I stressed in my designs (and in reviewing others) was low-maintenance code. You accomplished this through well documented code and prudent designs that allowed for easy expansion and accounted for a large number of "what ifs"... What if we were to add a new feature later? What if we were to convert this into a multi-threaded application? What if someone new had to modify the code? etc. etc. Why do this? Because every single line of code that you write will never die. Someone, somewhere is going to look at it again (usually it's you) months, years after it was written. Whether it be to fix bugs, extend features, or simply just plain maintain it. Well, it didn't really hit me until recently that there are so many other things in life that require so much intense maintenance.

The car is one of the worst offenders, sitting near the very top of the list with such niggling (and costly) chores such as: alignments, myriad fluid changes, occassional catastrophic part failures, gas, air, washing, customized parts, vacuuming (vacumming?), yearly registration fees, smog tests, insurance, general wear and tear...the list goes on and on. But one thing's for sure about cars -- stop doing the maintenance, and those warning signs start raising their ugly head rather quickly, loud messages to you that you'd better do something or else.

Then there's physical maintenance... I embarked on a training program a few months ago after years of neglecting this poor old body. The benefits are great (better state of mind, improved health, etc.) but the work is just so difficult -- and it is so easy to fall off the wagon (actually, I'm supposed to say get back on the wagon). Miss a workout day, then two...then three...next thing you know you've skipped a month. And then tell yourself just eat one bad meal this one time...then it becomes three...then you're back to your old habits again. Constant maintenance. I definitely couldn't have done this alone.

And clothes. Don't maintain your wardrobe, you'll easily find yourself out of touch, out of style. Sure, there's the obvious -- keep your clothes washed and ironed. But that's the strict bare minimum of upkeep work. What does it take to really maintain? Lots of reading, lots of watching TV, and lots of "keeping up with the Jones'es" to make sure that you're up to date and fashionable. Looking back over the last month I realized just how much I've neglected that whole aspect of my life; I'm grateful for the helpful advice of those around me (you know who you are) and just hope I don't fall to the lazy path of neglect.

Relationships, although an entirely different and overly complex beast, still follow under the same basic principles... Whether it be a friend or a lover, those same concepts still apply. Stop maintaining the relationship, stop doing those things that keep that relationship strong, and the next thing you know, it's fallen beyond repair. And it's so easy to fall into that rut if you're not careful. But like everything else good in life, it just takes work, attention, and just basically: care.

And so it is with my sleeping patterns...decide to relax on the discipline and maintenance of going to bed on time because you just have to watch that next episode of Lost (a great show, by the way) and next thing you know, a week later you're falling asleep four hours later than you should be. And then you're just screwed. I really should just shock myself back into my regular times. Force this lazy bastard to get out of bed at 7.

Why can't there just be an easy button like in that silly TV commercial?

posted by VirtualErn @ 2:19 AM

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