He had the ability to sleep anywhere!

This post doesn't really have much depth other than to just remember something silly about Jamin: he had the ability to sleep anywhere! (something I think many of us wish we had).

Jamin saw sleeping as "a waste of time" (in his own words). To him there were so many other great things to do and experience in life that time sleeping really cut into. So, as a result Jamin required less and less sleep as the years went on. It was not uncommon for him to get four or less hours of sleep in a night which is why it is so ironic that the night before his death he supposedly got a full and healthy eight hours of rest.

That being said, Jamin was not necessarily wide awake all of the time. He had so much energy that it is a wonder he didn't fall asleep every two hours from over exertion of his mind, body, or enthusiastic spirit.

Many of his friends will tell you though that they would often find Jamin asleep at the strangest times, most uncomfortable positions, or in the funniest locations. It was like when his body did require him to sleep there was no turning back. Wherever he was, was the perfect location for a cat nap in his mind.

I remember on one occasion having a lengthy conversation and demonstration from him on the perfect sleeping position on an airplane (what I think most people consider to be the epitome of discomfort). At 6'1" he had more trouble than many people fitting into that small space but I was always amazed when traveling with him at how he could sit down and be asleep within minutes without even waiting for the plane to take off and the seat in its "full, upright, and locked position." He said the secret was to remove all carry on luggage from the space beneath your feet and stretch them out as far as the could go, cross your arms at your chest, tuck your chin down, close your eyes and that was it. Well I tried this position a few times and it did no such magic for me but I'm glad it worked for him because it was probably some of the only good rest he got sometimes.

A second story to recount is the time that we as a family spent time in Europe following Jamin's graduation from High School. We traveled around the continent as a family in a mini-van and whenever we were on a stretch of road for longer than 30 minutes we would turn around and see Jamin asleep in the back seat. We joked that he was probably just catching up from 4 years of not sleeping all through High School (with everything he volunteered for and was involved in). But I felt so bad for him that he missed out on half of Europe because of that. I'm thankful that he had the opportunity to go back and enjoy it for himself later. On our last day in Europe we all boarded the train to go to the airport. It couldn't have been more than a 30 minute ride this time but when we arrived there, five of us piled out with all of our luggage and were turning around to walk into the airport when I realized that we were down a man. I rushed back onto the train to find Jamin sound asleep in his plastic seat, woke him up and with the speed of a cheetah he was to his feet and in two giant bounds off the train just as the doors shut. Ha, ha . . . just one of those moments that will always stick out in my mind. Who knows where in France he would have ended up if we hadn't woken him up in time. The only positive is that he was the only one in our family who could have communicated well enough to find his way back.

Anyway . . . like I said - not much depth, but just something I will always remember about my brother.

Does anyone else have a funny memory of catching him asleep when he shouldn't have been?