It's been one week since I gave up caffeine. People ask me why I did it and I'm not even entirely sure why. I think it was the anxiety that was did it; I was feeling kind of anxious all the time. It wasn't really what I wanted, so I decided to quit. Unfortunately, I didn't cut back like I should have and instead I just went cold turkey (not a good idea in hind sight). Here is a rough play by play of the withdrawal setting in:
Day 1, 10:30 am. I feel my first real craving for a cup of coffee. I decided to quit on a Sunday which might have been another bad idea since I typically blow away my afternoons drinking coffee and eating bagels. I didn't have either.
Day 1, 5:00 pm. The headache begins. I've gotten these before. A dull headache that is resident but not annoying. They're probably the most common withdrawal symptom I can think of. It's basically my body's way of reminding me that I haven't had any caffeine all day.
Day 2, 7:00 am. The headache is worse. It's so much worse. I am not really in the mood for coffee for some reason. It makes me feel kinda sick thinking about it. I feel awful. On my way to work, I actually felt nauseous, like I'm physically sick. I think it's mostly from the car ride plus the headache.
Day 3, 8:00 am. The headache is starting to go away. I think yesterday was the peak of the withdrawal symptoms. My legs ache. It reminds me of when you are recovering from a cold or the flu and your body begins to ache. It's only the legs though. I'm feeling anxious. It's like before I quit, only possibly worse.
Day 4, 7:00 am. Okay, now my legs feel like I just ran a marathon. I haven't ran in about 3 days so I don't know why my legs are hurting now. Usually I feel the post-run ache the next day, but not 3 days later. I'm also still anxious.
Day 5, 5:00 pm. The legs feel better, but I can still feel them ache. My theory on this: caffeine works by blocking adenosine receptors. Adenosine is a natural chemical your body produces to tell it to slow down and get some rest. After 1000+ mg of caffeine per day, my number of adenosine receptors has shot up just to keep pace with the caffeine intake. Now that the caffeine intake is 0 mg, there's a lot of leftover adenosine receptors and the adenosine is having a field day with all the extra receptors available.
Day 6, 7:00 am. The legs feel better. I still feel anxious. A little depressed. I think this might have something to do with serotonin levels. Caffeine probably kept those up high and now that I'm withdrawn, it's running low.
Day 7, 5:00 pm (today). My legs feel good enough to run again, which I might do. I've noticed that I've slept pretty well this week. I can stay awake past 11 anymore; I'm too tired by then so I just go to bed. Then I wake up at about 6:30 every day feeling pretty rested. It used to take about 45 minutes to fall asleep; now I think it's probably 20 minutes. The best side affect of caffeine withdrawal is that you can sleep really well. Still have anxiety thoughts and a little depression.
So I've read that most drug withdrawals take about 2 weeks to leave your body. I'm halfway there.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
I'm rounding up people to go to DEF CON 18. If you know me IRL and you want to go, shoot me an email and we'll be on our way. I've always wanted to attend one and I figured now is a good time since I have some spare time/money and not a lot holding me back at this point.
I've heard a lot of cool stories about DEF CON. I'm tempted to bring a re-imaged netbook, install last year's Ubuntu on it, and then leave it wide open on the WLAN and check back later to see what poor fate it succumbed to. It could be a good forensics exercise.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
Today is the day I declare war on the snow. It's been 2 weeks since the blizzard and my back porch is still covered by about 2 feet of snow. My trash can is on the porch and I can't get to it because the door to the outside is frozen shut. Now the trash has been piling up inside and I can't put it outside unless I do something. So I'm armed with a hair dryer and an electric tea kettle. I seriously hate this snow.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
Here's an interesting blog post about becoming a successful software developer: how to become rich even if nobody is following you on twitter. The writer says that you should try writing software that will make you a dollar a day. That's 30 bucks a month. That's not really much to live off of, but if you keep doing this, you'll eventually have a perspective shift into generating more with less time. I don't quite know what this means. Your ideas become better? You just write better code? You strike gold by making the next twitter/facebook/youtube? You stumble into a niche market that you write the de-facto killer app? I dunno, but I think I'll give it a shot. I've got about a half dozen ideas in my head for software projects. Some are trivial little things that probably won't be worth more than a second glance but some could potentially be fun and useful apps. I'm also getting into mobile java development and I think there's a lot of room for good apps to be developed.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
I found a reputable online retailer who will sell certified Kopi Luwak coffee for $100.00/half pound. This is expensive, but probably about the correct amount for true kopi luwak. I think I'd rather overpay than to get scammed into buying some cheaper mislabeled Summatran coffee. I've never had it before (and probably won't ever again because of the price), but I've got to try it at least once.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
My new year's resolution last year was to read 10 books in the year. It was one of my more successful resolutions. Here's a list of what I was reading:
I'm also currently reading Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstader. It's an 700+ page book that attempts to explain the significance of consciousness. Major themes include Godel's incompleteness theorem, math, DNA, artificial intelligence, music, art and a hefty amount of fables told in the style of Lewis Carol. It won a Pulitzer for general non-fiction in 1980.
I'm also about half way through the Bible. I wonder how many people actually sit down and read it. I've currently read 33 books in both the Old and New Testament. So far, I can probably already declare my favorite books. In the OT, it's 2 Samuel. The book of 1 Samuel ends with the death of King Saul, who in the later years of life fell out of God's favor. With Saul dead, King David can assume the the throne that was promised to him. David's political career as King of Israel is filled with crisis and victories. There's war, deception, love, punishment and redemption. His own son mounts a rebellion against him and there's a scandal involving the murder of a woman's husband whom David lusted after. It's a crazy ride that's not pretty at times, but it eventually leads to the peaceful golden age of Israel under David's son, King Solomon. For the New Testament, my favorite book is Romans. Paul's letter to the church at Rome is the most intense and theologically deep. There's a lot of stuff in there that most people wouldn't expect, like Paul's exhortations that we all look past divisions in spiritual rituals. It's difficult reading, even for the Bible, but together with the 4 gospels, it forms the backbone of core Christian beliefs.
Also next year, I'm planning on knocking out Pychon's new novel Inherent Vice, the late David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest, and Bolano's earlier breakout novel The Savage Detectives.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
I bought a copy of Borderlands yesterday because I need a first person RPG fix since Fallout 3 has pretty much run its course. It's a fun game, but my graphics card is outdated and so the game only runs at the minimum settings so everything looks like crap. Instead of ruining a potentially fun experience, I decided to hold off playing until I can get a new graphics card. I found one for a good price, but then I noticed that it's a little over 9 inches long and I'm not sure if it will fit inside my case. While looking for the motherboard manual, I found a copy of Deus Ex, so I'm installing that instead. Borderlands will have to wait for another rainy Sunday afternoon.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
The man child inside of Matt wants a Christmas tree really bad so I agreed to go get one (since I figured that if I didn't, he would get an 14 foot monster tree). Being the logical minded person I am, I suggested we get the Christmas tree stand before getting the tree so that we can stick it in something before letting it die a slow death in my living room. So we went to WalMart and they were either completely sold out or didn't understand English; I'm not sure which, but either way we weren't getting a tree stand there. I suggested we go to BJ's and maybe they would have one there because you gotta be a member and they don't just let any person in there to buy a Christmas tree stand. We go in and there's a lot of security detail working. I ask an employee where the Christmas tree stands are and he says he doesn't know if they carry them in stock, but Sarah Palin was there. This was an even less comprehensible response than the woman at WalMart, but sure enough, there was Sarah Palin, all going rogue in the paper towel aisle, signing books and such. So I say to Matt, Matt I got an idea, let's get in line and get and get a signed copy. So the line actually went out the door and it's snowing in Fairfax, but I promised Matt's inner man child that we would get a Christmas tree if he stood in line with me to get a book for my mom because she has a huge Sarah Palin shrine.
So we're in line and the woman in front of us is freaking out because she's so damn excited that Sarah Palin is there and she won't shut the hell up. I'm carrying a big bag of bagels because we went out to get some bagels and lox earlier and I have to hand it to the security guard. What's in here, he says. And I say Bagels. And then the bag breaks because it's so wet from the snow. But the BJs employees get me a new bag because I'm a member and they are required to treat me with the utmost exclusive privileges. Oh, and Todd Palin was there which kinda made me laugh because no one wanted to see him even though I peed myself laughing at him in the Sarah Palin SNL rap. So I got the signature (made out to my Mom) and Sarah Palin seemed to be pretty energetic despite being stuck in the paper towel aisle of a BJ's Club Warehouse for the past 6 hours surrounded by sweaty gross people who came in from the snow. I gotta thank Sarah for automatically making me the favorite child of the holiday season once I drop this sucker under the tree. I guarantee my Mom is going to cry. It's going to be awesome. They wouldn't let me get a picture on my crappy Blackberry camera phone, but there was a professional photographer there taking pictures of everyone getting a book signed so I'm probably going to wind up in a Palin/Beck 2012 campaign ad. One of those ads where they try to appeal to the middle class people who are neither good looking nor have asymmetrical looking faces or scars from prison knife fights; good hard working folks who have good tastes but still get excited about going to Applebees for supper.
And BJ's didn't have Christmas Tree stands either.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
other things i like.
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