Taking Charge...Literally

I enjoy jewelry when I remember to put some on, but I've rarely bothered to actually bring jewelry along when traveling. I finally found a way to repurpose the travel jewelry case my grandmother gave me years ago.


The contents?
1. cellphone wall charging cord
2. cellphone earpiece wall charging cord
3. camera battery recharger & cord
4. camera download cord
5. iPod download cord

Which doesn't include what's already in the car:
6. cellphone car charging cord
7. iPod car/wall charging cord (the only two-in-one on the list!)
8. portable 1 GB USB flashdrive

Can I live for 5 days without all of these cords? Sure. If I don't expect to use any of the items that they support.

The phone is for safety and coordinating with friends, the camera for recording the fun moments we'll have together, and the iPod for sanity during the 14 hours of driving I'll do. And I know I could pare them down, but every time I do that, I regret not bringing a certain one.

I know, I know. Our parents pulled over and used a payphone if they needed to and listened to the radio or sang songs. They survived without taking hundreds of digital pictures each year. Even I remember rationing my shots/rolls of film on childhood vacations.

But life has changed, and I don't mind all that much. I like the convenience of my digital tools and toys. And I have gadgety, techie proclivities.

What I want is for someone to invent a truly universal charging system. A surface that I simply lay any of my portable electronic devices on that will charge them up while they sit there without proprietary batteries and cords cluttering up my life.

Aside: As I write this, I'm half watching NOVA's Ape Genius while I tape it for possible classroom use. Recently chimps in the wild have been witnessed fashioning spears and hunting smaller mammals, our DNA is over 99% identical, blah blah, the narrator reminds us that "in a very short time humans have gone from" living a chimp-like lifestyle to industrialization "so it is only a matter of time before" chimps are complaining about the number of charging cords they have to drag around the forest. Oh, sorry, that last thought was mine.

Riddle of the Day: (Scene from Ape Genius.) A peanut is placed at the bottom of a foot long clear plastic tube strapped vertically to the inside of the bars of a chimp's enclosure. There are no stick-like tools at all available for getting the peanut in the bare bones enclosure and the tube cannot be unstrapped or flipped over. How do you get the peanut?

Answer to be posted when I return from the road trip.

Hypnogogic & Hypnopompic

I was listening to a podcast of James Lipton playing "Not My Job" on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me (12/2/07). He said some of his best writing inspirations come during the hypnogogic and hypnopompic states.  The huh? I'm a physiological psych major and amateur neuro-geek and had never heard these terms, which he said referred to the zones between waking and falling asleep and sleeping and waking up, respectively.  But, I immediately related to what he said.  I often get my best creative ideas and experience a vivid feeling of mental clarity regarding problems I am trying to solve during these times.  Being a congenital Type A, my mind also tends to spontaneously create well-ordered to do lists and new project self-assignments.  I often am jumping out of bed just as I got in or before I'd really like to get up in order to run into the office and write these fleeting thoughts on a post-it before I lose them.  (Yes, I know I could keep post-its by the bed.) 

This morning I jumped out of bed to write a reminder to look up these two words and learn more about them and write this post.  But upon researching the terms in depth (Okay, upon a quick glance at Wikipedia and a few other sites), I found that the terms are specifically used to describe a series of physiological and psychological phenomena that certain individuals experience during this transitional time between sleep and wakefulness, such as temporary paralysis and sensory hallucinations.  (Lipton wasn't describing any such phenomena, so I'm not sure if his use of the terms is strictly correct, but it would take research I don't have time for right now to answer that.)  This led me to websites devoted to "sleep inertia" -the technical term for morning grogginess, which is scientifically verified to possibly last up to 4 hrs, which explains some people I know.  And to lucid dreaming, a concept I first learned about from the movie Waking Life.  Which, by the way, is a beautifully uniquely animated film that is great eye- and mind-candy.  I loved it so much I had to buy it, and I own less than 10 DVDs.  I also loved enough to own Spirited Away.  Check them out next time you're renting.  

So, here's to the transitions between sleeping and waking and to hoping that I've benefitted even more from hypnogogic and hypnopompic creativity than normal in the past 21 months as I've had to wake up and fall back asleep with a much higher frequency since becoming a mom!  

What kinds of hynogogic/hypnopompic weirdness have you experienced?  When and how does inspiration strike you?  Have you seen these movies and what did you think of them?  Do you podcast?  Podcasting NPR shows is awesome, because otherwise I would never hear them!