Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Gear and Pics

Pics First:

I had the small camera out today, and I never know if it will actually work or not. Imagine my surprise when it did! So I took a picture today (later).

When I plugged it into the laptop, I found some other pictures on there that I thought were gone forever! I mean long gone, never to be seen again. But there they were, so here they are:


My beautiful adoring wife. We were having lunch at a restaurant in Tybee Island GA back in April when we thought this camera was working again. I took this picture of her, then


she turned around and took this picture of me. Now aren't you glad I shared? Seriously, I've been trying to get these pics off of the camera since April, and today they just "showed up". wow.


And in case you were wondering, these came from a point-and-shoot older nikon. We normally shoot pics with the Nikon D40 Digital SLR, and looking at these pics you can really see the difference.

This one was from a fishing trip during the same trip to Tybee Island. If you remember the story of the beachhouse I told during that trip, everything has worked out for the best. The tax thing has been squared away and it's not an issue anymore.

In fact, we will be staying at said beachouse during the upcoming half marathon in February. In fact, the route for the half marathon goes directly past my pink beachouse. So I plan on planting my kids in the middle of the street to cheer me on and pull a rope to trip up the Georgia Snail. It seems the snail has issued a challenge for a duel at said Tybee half. So now, you see, I will have to kick his ass back off of the island in 100 days. Mark it down now; I, Carolina John, vow to break 2 hours in the half marathon and make Thomas the Snail look bad doing it. Loser buys the post-race beers? GAME ON. Any other takers? Tybee is a fantastic destination race if anyone else wants a challenge. actually the course is pancake flat and super fast. I meant challenge me and Thomas.

Today was a fantastic day. To get ready for my throwdown with the Snail I got in an open water swim. Actually, I had lunch today with the absolutely fabulous Calyx. Then after work, I met up with her and Donna and some others for the open water swim. Apparently, this is a regular thing for the group. I had no wetsuit, so I swam in the new SUGOi tri suit which was awesome. More on that later. It was cold, and I mean cold. So we only went about half a mile, maybe less. I did however snap a picture after we got back to the cars. I was glad the camera worked.


Covered in lake scum. Yummy. Still it was a good swim and it was truly fantastic to hang out with these girls! I've got so many friends up here, it really makes me feel blessed. Today was a very good day.

I got an unbelievable package from Outside PR over the weekend. These guys truly hooked me up. And they did not even ask me to say nice things about them or the products, so I am going to be honest in a review of what they sent me. And include pics of the gear. I don't have pics of the gel's, but they sent about 40 GU and Roctane packets in some new flavors. I can't wait to try some. Have you ever tried the pineapple flavored GU? Yum.


First up is the SUGOi Velocity Tri Suit. There's your shot from the front, not sure what happened with the light. I was just being goofy. I'm sure there will be clearer shots of this suit from the B2B.


And from the back. This is the suit I wore from the swim tonight, and it was great. No restrictions of arm movement, everything felt tight and it aired well and dried fast. I had just washed it between the OWS and taking this pic. The colors look great, but the white on the back of the suit gets see through when it's wet. Not really a problem for me, I've got a decently attractive back. If you have a hairy back, covered with sores like Glaven - wait, I'm supposed to make fun of the Snail now - then this might not be the color for you. But the suit color is called "gun metal" and I love it. Love the suit, love the color. It even makes my junk look nice.

The one piece suit is fantastic until you have to pee. I'm going to wear the Velocity tri suit at the Beach 2 Battleship (which is only 9 days away), but I also really like:


The SUGOi Velocity Tri Tank and Velocity Tri Shorts. I really like the shorts. You can see from the front pic that the tank is a little short for me. I'm 6'1", and these things are made for guys that are only about 5'10", like the average person. So the bottom of my belly shows below the bottom of the tank, and that would bother me while racing. During a training run or brick, maybe not so much. But I absolutely adore the shorts. I'm going to wear them on tomorrow's mountain bike ride with the office crew, so I'll let you know how they feel on the bike. And I could really see a summertime tri when I just wore the shorts like too hot for a wetsuit and I don't really need a shirt. I mean, if the 6-pack abs actually show up next summer like I'm hoping for.


Here's the back view. Nothing wrong with that. These are comfortable, the seams are totally hidden, so I get no chafing issues. And to be totally honest, I can't find a view that doesn't make my dick look huge. Sorry mom, but it's true. I was amazed. I'm almost scared to wear it on the mountain bike ride tomorrow for fear of intimidating my new co-workers. Now both guys reading this will go buy some of these shorts just to see for themselves. Sorry G, but they haven't made shorts tight enough to make that tiny pencil show up. Dang it, I'm supposed to be making fun of the Snail now! Of course, the snail just ran a marathon in Alaska, so he must be swinging a lead pipe down there. Should weigh him down in our half marathon duel.....

Speaking of head, they sent me two awesome products from HeadSweats. First up is a skull cap as seen here.


These go under the bike helmet, and actually wick sweat away while you're riding. I'm going to try it out during the mountain bike ride tomorrow too. I'm really excited about this, as I have tons of sweat problems while on the bike. and the helmet gets in the way while I try to just wipe the sweat off of my forehead, so I'm hoping this will really step up to the plate.

I think I'm supposed to run in this next hat, but it's so cool I've been wearing it everywhere anyway.


It's a HeadSweats Spin Cycle classic hat. It's just damn cute. It makes me look damn cute. Everyone I've showed it to has tried it on and it's cute on them too. Something about that tiny brim.... I'm going to throw it on for the run at B2B, and I'll be sure and try it out on a run before then too.


This shot I just had a funny look on my face, so I thought it would be goofy to share.

So feel free to ask me for more details about any of these products (wait, maybe I've shared enough) and don't hesitate to go buy some of them.

B2B is only 9 days and 9 hours from now. I'm starting to taper and get my final race plans down. Nutrition, gear, accomodations, it's comforting to see everything start to fall into place. Here's to the taper!

Monday, October 26, 2009

Meetups

Since moving to Raleigh I have found a greater involvement in www.meetup.com, and I was wondering if you guys have had any luck with it. I found some really cool groups, some with special interest basis like rock climbing and triathlon. But some are more generic like the "I've always wanted to try that" group. These guys will pitch an idea that they've always wanted to do, like serve food at a local homeless shelter - or skydiving - anything goes with these folks. And other people in the group would like to do the same thing. So some things (like watch a hockey game from a skybox) can be done at a reduced group rate. I found a few things on meetup in Greenville, but here in Raleigh there seems to be more (and more involved) groups. Have I mentioned lately how much nicer the people are here? So have you ever made new friends through meetup?

I think I have found my regular training schedule while I'm here, and I'm glad to have some consistency in place. It looks like this:

Day, Before work, Lunch, After work
Monday, Tri Power, Swim, Long Bike
Tuesday, Yoga, Mountain Bike, Tempo Run
Wednesday, Tri Power, Run speedwork, Long Swim
Thursday, Yoga, Mountain Bike, Long Run
Friday, Tri Power, Swim

So I'm getting 3 swims, 3 bikes, and 3 runs in each week, plus the morning yoga or strength training. Because I'm lazy in the mornings. Mountain biking is done with a group from the office that has always gone mtb'ing over lunch every tuesday and thursday. The group includes some senior managers and vp's, so I get to let them feel faster than me and get some ass-kiss points.

Good thing the B2B is in 11 days! I'll get to follow my new groovy workout plan for this whole week before I really taper down next week. oh boy. But at least I'll be ready for the next big race. It still makes me feel more organized and settled in here in Raleigh.

I had an awesome weekend in Greenville. It was so good to see the girls again, I really missed them being away for a whole week. We just played and had fun all weekend long. It was too short. One more weekend in Greenville, then they are coming up here for the half ironman.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

15 days

First, wth? Nobody commented that the movie quote in the first paragraph of the last post was from High Fidelity? I guess that post was so long by the end you had forgotten about the question. Still, one of my favorite movies.

The dang Phillies won against the Dodgers last night, so they are going to the world series. again. Pffffftt!! Dodgers/Yankees would have been sentimental. Dodgers/Angels would have been an all-LA series. But the phillies? poo poo. no thanks. ding dang. Thanks for ruining the world series again.

I'm ready to taper. Beach2Battleship half iron is only 15 days away. Who else am I going to see down there? Just Missy, Ryan (dropped back to run the half iron after competing @kona - save me a beer at the finish line), Calyx, Donna, Carol, geez the list goes on. Be sure and say hi to me if you see me there. I can't believe how many people I know are running this race.

The 2 a day (or more) workouts are really letting me sleep well. typically it's yoga or my tri power workout in the morning, a swim over lunch, and run or bike after work. Today it was yoga, a hard 500 m swim over lunch, and 5 miles running after work. taper is going to be a welcome relief.

Tomorrow I (might) get to meet up with Calyx and Donna for an open water swim. It's at 7 am, and I still don't know if the wetsuit here will fit or if I can get the 1 mile swim done and still make it to work on time. It's a group swim, so they will be in good company if I don't make it out there. It's been getting hard to wake up in the mornings on time, so I don't know how much earlier I will have to get up to make it out there.

Then I'm headed back to Greenville tomorrow to see the wife and kids for the weekend. Man this is tough, I'm really ready for them all to be up here in our new house that we haven't found yet. We had a skype video call tonight, and Evil Genius actually got up on the desk and hugged the computer monitor at the house in Greenville. That's incredibly sweet, but I bet she broke something while she was up there. That's why she's the EG.

OK, catch you on the flip side. I'm thinking about going for a short trail run tomorrow lunch, and/or the OWS before work. Come on taper.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

The Ache

Why does life have to be so awesome when I have no time to blog about it? Or is life so awesome because I take no time to blog? Do we listen to pop music because we are miserable or are we miserable because we listen to pop music? (name that movie) is it better to burn out or to fade away? (Jack Black - same movie)

That means I have a lot more to post about that I have time (or maybe you have interest) to be posted. So here goes nothing and everything at the same time.

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The Ache

Last saturday 10/10 was the 5 mile Ache Around the Lake race. This is still my favorite race of the year. And my favorite distance. 5 miles (8k) is long enough to keep out the people who are scared of a 5k, but not so long that you have to train specifically for it. Plus the location is one loop around Lake Lanier in Tryon NC, about 30 minutes north of Greenville. Local and beautiful, and slightly mountainous without being really killer hills.

I stunk it up this year, but Kelley did great. Last year she took 3rd place ag with a 57+ min time, and I took last place ag (of 6) with a 47 minute time. I thought this year I could pr the distance, but it was not to be. The hip slowed me down some, and I had a real bad stomach cramp from not having enough liquid. I did not run with the Camelbak, only took in the aide station water and could have used a lot more. I finished in 50:24, and Kelley finished right behind me in 51:48. So she beat last year's time by over 6 minutes, and I was 3 minutes slower. It was still a beautiful course, and the people there were so friendly. Coach Katie is the race director for this one along with my friend Scarlette, and I helped them out with the web site last year.
That's me in the middle, blue shorts gray shirt. Stole this pic from facebook, Scarlette posted it.

One of the coolest things about this years race was that they added the 2 mile Ouch run. The first place overall oucher was a 10 year old girl who ran the 2 miles in 15+ minutes barefoot. Holy cow, a 10 year old clocking 7 minute miles? barefoot? You've got to be kidding me. Her dad ran the 5 mile barefoot and finished near the top too.

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Back to Atlanta

Monday I had to make my last trip to atlanta for the old job. Woke up in Greenville, drove 2.5 hours to atlanta. Had the meeting (4 hours), hit the road before 1:30 to head all the way back to raleigh. 7 hours later (over 9 hours total) in the car I arrived at kelley's dad's house (now called home) one tired little coder. Nothing like having to drive 9 hours total for a 4 hour meeting. But it's done and i'm done there. So life is normal again. It rained all day, the whole time, quite heavy at times. So it wasn't exactly the best travelling conditions, but I'm glad it's done.

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POM Wonderful

POM sent me some bottles of their magic juice. I've long recommended pommegranate juice to remedy everything from the common cold to just having a case of the monday's. I swear by the stuff. POM in particular has the most agreeable flavor of any other brand I have tried, and holds up well if you want to dilute it some. With all of this swine flu going around, I'm on a steady stream of 8 oz a day hooked in through an IV if I could get it. Seriously, protect yourself from this H1N1 flu and all of the other common colds people are floating around these days. I'll take my POM wonderful over a flu shot every year. In fact, I have for the last several years. Every year if I get the flu shot, I get sick. If I skip the flu shot and hit the pommegranate juice instead I am fine.

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And back to Raleigh

Have I mentioned lately how much I love this new job? It totally kicks ass. I'm working with some really smart fantastic other coders. It's really nice being back in an office again and being able to make new friends and socialize with other people. I've been regularly getting to go swimming over lunch when something more awesome than swimming doesn't get in the way. I'm loving the new schedule and all the swimming and the new gym. Heading back to the gym for run/bike workouts after work is really working out well too. I'm getting in some serious miles and having some serious fun. Still, I'm living in the land of @Calyx and @Donna and @Carol now and haven't met up with any of those racing chica's yet. Soon enough though. Even @Ryan comes up to raleigh for his kids to race and only lives a couple of hours towards the coast from here. I'm going to setup some time to head out his way and ride some if he ever chooses to come back from Hawaii.

Soon enough? The Beach 2 Battleship half iron is only 19 days away!!!1! Talk about soon enough. I feel like my training is ready for the race, so I'm not really intimidated by the distance anymore. Still, endurance. You have to have a healthy respect for the endurance. No training runs have yet taken me 7 hours to complete, so you never really know what it's like to race for 7 hours until you do one. and I only have 19 days until I figure that out. So I'm nervous (and a little anxious at this point), but not intimidated.

I've been invited to join two open water swim groups, one at Lake Jordan with @carol and one at a different lake in North Raleigh with a guy from the office (who is a multiple ironman finisher). The people are so much nicer here than in SC! I mean it's really night and day. amazing!

What could be more awesome than swimming over lunch? One day the company bought lunch for everyone and we got in some team building. Free lunch? I'm there. Then the next day I took off with a new friend from the office, and there's a group that goes mountain biking every tuesday and thursday. So I strapped on the mountain bike and hit the trails. It was my first time mountain biking since college (wow almost 15 years ago) and Kyle and I took on about 13 miles at a reasonable speed. We hit Umstead State Park which is less than 2 miles from the office, and gave us a helluva good ride. We even hit something called "man up" hill, because you have to really nut up to make it to the top. It was around a 14% grade, and by far the steepest climb in the route. My comparrison was Paris Mountain in Greenville that has an 18% grade, and Man Up hill was not nearly as tough. Kyle, however, still made me look slow. But I'm OK with that. I'll get him on the road bike soon enough to see if he can keep up.

Mountain biking is a totally different ride from road biking, and I had forgotten just how different it was. Kyle is going to train for an XTerra triathlon in may of next year, and he's got me thinking about doing that one with him. But the big, fat, soft tires felt really loose compared to the road bike. It also puts you in a more upright position, and your weight/center of gravity shifts much more than on a road bike. I am going to take some time to get used to the feel before trying more technical single track or something besides these wide hard packed trails. There was a few times on man-up hill and some of the other climbs where my back tire would spin in the dirt, or my front tire came up in the air when my weight was shifted wrong. But overall, my 15 year old mountain bike held up great, the gearing was smooth, and the brakes worked (Thank God). I think I need to replace the front brake pads, they squealed some and kind of "felt" slick. Still, I'm going to really enjoy getting to ride out with Kyle and the other guys on mountain bikes. We did have to ride across a creek once, and around some smallish obstacles. It was a blast and I can't wait for more!

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Family

Tuesday Kelley and the girls came up here to Raleigh and stayed through the weekend. They are all heading back to Greenville tomorrow so Bigun can hit school on tuesday without missing a beat. It's been wonderful having everyone here.

We have the house listed for sale now! So if anyone wants an incredibly reasonable 4/3 2600 sq ft house in Greenville let me know. It takes a little time for the discovery sites to pick up the listing, but slowly it is starting to show up. Kelley chose to vacate the house for this week so that it would be clean and free for the showing, but the listing didn't come in until friday. So it's not going to show while she's out after all.

I hope it sells fast, because she's found tons of houses she wants to buy here in Raleigh. If you're not from the southeast, Raleigh, NC and Greenville, SC are about 4 hours away, 5 hours if you're driving with kids. So it's not a small move. Bigun is already homesick. She calls Greenville "Taco City", and I don't know why. But today all she's talked about is going back to Taco City to see our house and visit Grandma's house (my folks). I'm sure once we make the move and she gets to see her bed and all of her toys in her new house she will feel more at home here. Still, I know the move is going to be tough on them.

We're trying to show off the new city. So yesterday morning we took them to the same Umstead state park that I was biking at for a little hike. They loved it! They loved it so much they didn't want to turn around and hike back to the car. In fact they couldn't keep walking at all and had to be carried back in. I reckon we hiked a couple of miles out and back, and the kids got lunch and crashed like they hadn't napped in days. it was awesome. Kelley and I escaped for some house hunting and shopping.

I picked up a new pair of Mizzuno's finally. I've been alternating between 2 pairs that I got for Christmas last year. They each had less than 200 miles on them. But when you're running on as much weight as I am, I know I won't get 500 miles before a pair of running shoes just feels "flat" and I pick up a new pain. I'm surprised these made it this long. So the new mizzu's are great.

Kelley and I both were shocked at how many trail runners passed us and the kids on our hike. It was in the low 80's in Greenville when I packed up for this trip, so I didn't pack anything with long sleeves. Of course, it's only been hitting the mid 50's now all week long, so I was looking for a light jacket. Instead, we found these:


Trail running shoes!! I got the La Sportiva Crosslite, a Runner's World magazine best buy winner. It was a serious sale, we hadn't seen trail shoes for under about $130 anywhere we had looked, and these were only $60 each! So we jumped and each got a pair. Kelley's all kinds of excited about trail running anyway. These are cool shoes, with huge knobby cleats for gripping a trail. They look great, and have a shield over the laces to keep debris from rubbing inside the shoe. I haven't figured out what to do if I have to replace the laces, that could become tricky. And I felt like a good ol' girl going out shopping and coming home with 3 pairs of shoes and without the jacket that I was originally shopping for. But I am excited to hit the trails. XTerra next year anyone? Anyone? This could get fun.

The only unfortunate (but not really) thing about having Kelley and the girls up here is that I had to miss the Seizures Head Slog Fest again. I missed it once already this year for some other scheduling conflict, and they had it rescheduled for yesterday. 60 miles, including climbing Ceasar's Head, the tallest mountian in SC. 3300 feet of climbing. It was also in the high 30's and sometimes raining, so I might be better off staying here in Raleigh. I heard it was a great ride though. But with all of the flu, and the way I have to travel anyway, and the b2b in 19 days I don't need to risk riding in the rain.

Did I mention that I'm back in Greenville for the next 2 weekends, then it's off to Wilmington for the Beach2Battleship? Wilmington is only about 2 hours away now, and I've got a bunch of friends there. 3 saturday's from now I'm running a half ironman. Time is almost here.

Have a great week! I'm catching up on everyone else's progress, believe me. Between hitting the pool like a madman and settling into this new role or lifestyle, everything seems up in the air. Still, life is great here.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

First Day

Wow, it's been almost a week since I've been able to post. HECTIC! I've been everywhere, all over the place. The weekend flew by. Friday I was supposed to finish the old job work projects and be done with it. That got hectic and I didn't finish. Saturday and Sunday we were slamming out home repairs. Kelley has been working her tail off (bless her heart) to get the house ready to list. Cleaning, decluttering, we got a storage unit and moved a bunch of crap into it. Then clean and declutter some more. Then clean some more. Then declutter some more. So now half of the house is clean and ready to go. I had to skip the saturday long run and sunday bike ride to work on the house. It was exhausting!!!

Monday I almost finished the old job stuff. I think I'm abandoning the rest of it, but I might try to finish something when I can. Still, I worked. and cleaned some. and decluttered. and had no training.

Tuesday I packed up for the week and drove to Raleigh. Got all the paperwork filled out so I was actually an employee again. Went and checked out a house that looks promising. Planned my commute from Mickey's house (kelley's dad - staying with him until the fam can move up), and rode around town some just to get myself oriented. I don't know all of the back roads yet, heck I don't even know where most things are. But I know where the major roads are now, and how to get back to Mickey's from there.

I also joined up with Gold's Gym here. They have 5 locations including one that's really close to the office. And that one has a pool! So the plan is to cut over there for lunch and swim (Thank God), then head back after work for the run/bike workouts as normal. And the membership is good with all 5 locations, so wherever we end up buying a house at there is one near there. Going to have to get all of the workouts in while I'm here; when I'm back in Greenville I want to spend that time with Kelley and the kids. It's only been one night and I already miss my girls something fierce!

I never really thought Greenville was lacking in anything. It's not really a small town, there's over 1 million people there. You can get anything you want, get anywhere you want to go. Raleigh has 1.1 million people. But there are 3 major universities here (NC State, Duke, UNC) within a 12 mile radius, and Raleigh is the state capital. The ultra-conservatives in SC - which is 90% of the genpop - hates paying taxes. Now I can see why. They don't see any real benefit. Greenville county has one public access indoor pool. It's open from 9 am to 11 am 5 days a week. I've been paying taxes to support a pool that's only open for 2 hours a day while I'm at work? Gimme a break. The city of Raleigh has four public access pools open from 5 am to 10 pm 7 days a week. Pools might be just one example, but the NC government actually does something! Something that people can see and use! It's amazing. It really is a night and day difference that I am quickly developing a real appreciation for.

So last night I got in my first workout at Gold's after checking out a house and getting some dinner. Did 3 miles on the treadmill at a decent pace. Hip is still kind of tight. This pain has been going on long enough to make me concerned. But whatever, I'll just deal with it.

Today was my first day on the new job, stiff hip and all. First, I sat in on a meeting which was a great introduction to the product I was going to be working on. Felt great about the environment and the people. Then I got to look at the code behind the project, and it looked like spaghetti. And it was primarily built on two pieces of technology that I have never used before. Immediately I felt overwhelmed with the learning curve I was currently at the bottom of. But I remembered that they hired me out of hundreds of other applicants because I am capable of learning this technique, not because I already knew it. This new stuff is only about 10% of the total job, so I have to keep that in perspective. They only hire the best, I only get to work with the best. As long as I can keep my confidence up the gaps will all be filled in soon enough. Still, today started out great and ended up giving me a bad stress headache. Hey if it was easy then anyone could do it. At least my co-workers are really fantastic people.

Then I went back to Gold's for another workout after work. Wanted to get some time on the bike, and I walked in right as a spin class was starting so I jumped in. Turned out to be a fun class. Maybe not as many miles as I would have clocked by myself, but it was at least more fun.

So tomorrow I'm going to try the lunchtime swim, followed by some elliptical time after work. Might have to skip the gym after work to pick up supplies for the new living/work situation. Need some web cams for the fam, a new pillow for the bed here, and to meet with a realtor about the house I drove past yesterday.

But to summarize, Raleigh is awesome, the new job is killer but really tough, and I'm loving the new gym. Y'all have a great day!

Friday, October 2, 2009

Brick!

With actual running! The hip has been feeling good lately. Thought I would give her a spin. I missed wednesday night's bike ride thanks to work so I bricked it last night. 10 miles on the bike in 29 minutes, then 3 miles on the treadmill in 29 minutes.

I started the run slow to really check my form, then added speed as it felt comfortable. It's been almost a month since I've felt ok running, so I was pretty cautious going in. Got the speed up to 6.2 and held it there. Now a month ago, I did 10 miles at 6.8 speed (1 min/mile faster), so this was pretty conservative. About 2.8 miles in I felt the hip starting to tighten up a bit, and I didn't want to push it. Today I can feel the inflamation in my hip flexor, but I iced it and it's fine. So I still have to do more PT movements, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's good to get some confidence back in my running.

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Work

Today is my last day working full time at this old job. I'm going to stay on board for a while contracting at night going forward as needed. And I still have one trip left to Atlanta to hand over control of my projects to the boss. But overall I am not sad to leave this one behind.

Working from home has been great. You get to somewhat set your schedule, control your hours, and work at your own pace uninterrupted. I typically stay in pajamas until at least noon, then I do actually shower and get dressed every day. No office attire, no shoes needed, and other people can come by if they want to interrupt you. Kelley can leave the baby monitors with me while she does errands during naptime without having to haul the kids with her (that may be the biggest benefit of work-from-home - a happy wife). I get to see the kids whenever I can walk back upstairs. With no daily commute, I don't need a car or cell phone. I never have to go anywhere. Walk downstairs to work, walk upstairs for dinner at the end of the day. Blog and bill my hours back, everything gets tracked and paid up. I keep a tv in my office, and watch soaps and movies and talk shows and sports every day. It is background noise. In an office you hear the phone ring sometimes, and other people talking to each other. I have to reproduce that through tv.

Working from home can suck too. I only have one phone number here, so any client or office person can call me at any time day or night and I'm always here. One client called at 8 pm one saturday, when I had the girls in the bathtub. They were screaming loud and he was trying to talk about an access database project. I told him I was tied up with two naked wet chicks at the moment, and he kept talking. Sometimes work keeps you going well into the night. If I could have left the office and gone home at 5:30 on wednesday I would have, but this web site had to go live so I worked clear through until after 8 pm (started working at 6 that morning) and ate a cold dinner. So when you work from home and you never leave you are always at the office! Some weeks it gets really bad. I will literally go from sunday night until thursday night without stepping through the outside doors of the house. I work until kelley puts dinner on the table (God bless her), then it's time to get the kids in the bath and in bed for the night around 8:30 pm, then I can go to the gym. If I don't have to go back downstairs and finish something before xx comes back into the office the next morning. That's one reason I hit the stationary bike and treadmill/elliptical so often, I have to wait until late at night before I can leave the house. If I am able to get away then and feel up to a workout that late at night. There is no "swing by the gym after work" if there is no commute home from work.

So now I have to buy or borrow a car. I think I can borrow for at least the first few weeks. Monday at the latest I'm going to the verizon store to get a cell phone with a Raleigh (919) phone number. Yesterday I got estimates to replace the broken down furnace ($2500) and hire the movers ($4500) to get all of our stuff up to the new house in Raleigh. We haven't found the new house yet. This weekend will be final prep for listings like landscaping, interior paint touch ups, and start packing up boxes. Monday I might have to do some work for the old job still, but tuesday is travel & paperwork day, and wednesday I start the new job. This is incredibly exciting for me.

My current boss says that he wants to hire someone to replace me. I have my doubts if he actually will, he did my job himself. So if you want to work from home (or in atlanta) as a programmer and write vb.net, classic asp, transact-sql, css, html, javascript, and can work on access and sql server databases, call or email me and i'll put you in touch with the guy.

My new job is just building vb.net web sites over sql server databases in a closed envorinment. It's a software company, they build software and sell it to agriculture businesses like farmers and grocery stores. Management loved that I keep the organic garden every summer. About 2/3 of the employees are developers like me. They also need to hire one more developer just like me. They are only considering people who already have a place to live in Raleigh, and they only hire the best developers in the area. My job was open for over a month. There are so many people out of work in Raleigh that most jobs are filled within an hour and they don't have to hire people from out of state. I only got in the door by putting kelley's dad's address on my resume. But since I am going to live with her dad until we buy a house up there, it's a legal move. Still, they interviewed dozens of people, and only offered the job to me. Robert Half technology got me in there, so let me know if you're interested in that and I can put you in touch with my guy at RHI. This is an awesome gig, an incredibly desirable company to work for. They only hire the best, so I will only be working with the best.

Before I had this work from home job, I was self employed. All of my friends went away then, I only socialized with clients and employees, and I worked 14 hours a day, 6 days a week. AAI was a client then, they subcontracted their software development to me. Then 2 years ago I wanted to sell the busienss and become an employee again, and they had a standing offer on the table. We had to negotiate pay and that was it. This was just over 2 years ago. I took a 60% pay cut to work from home. It hasn't been easy only earning 40% of what I used to, but we still got by. And it was worth it. I was able to stop smoking, start running triathlons, and spend time with my kids. But the social depravation has taken its toll. I'm ready to make new friends, set regular hours, learn a new city, and reconnect with all of my old college friends that live there now. The new gig has a significant pay raise to about 75% of my self-employed pay. Leaving my own business went so badly that I have been paralyzed by the thought of change for the last few years. Now that the plan is being executed I am feeling confident that I am making the right change for my family. Of course, nobody else wants to admit that and they are still trying to talk me into staying in Greenville. I hate to upset the balance of my extended family, my mother says to ignore her if she starts crying. But I have to do what's best for my family and my kids.

OK, now this has become a long, honest, emotional post and I'm just rambling. But you probably didn't read this far down, did you Glaven? [he posted the same question earlier in the week] Good luck to Nic, he's trying to break 3 hours in the Twin Cities marathon after missing it by only 7 seconds a few weeks ago! Also sunday is the Milwaukee Marathon that Gazelle and Havs are both running. Good luck to you guys! The SC Half Ironman is also on sunday, but I'm not sure I know anyone running it this year. Coach Katie will be there with her athletes though. Have a great weekend!

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Wowza

September

is over. It went out with a cannon blast. Actually, my furnace blew out like someone shot it with a cannon. The gas man said it is going to have to be replaced, so I called my HVAC guy for an estimate and he thinks he can repair it. Repair man is coming today, if he can't fix it we're in trouble. It finally got cold enough here yesterday for me to turn on the heat. Hopefully next week we will be listing this house for sale, so of course the furnace now needs to be replaced. At least we'll be able to advertise the house with a new roof, new paint job, and new furnace. This is the way it goes I guess.

The bike shop called too many times yesterday. Turns out the broken spoke from Saturday's tour ride meant I will have to replace the entire wheelset. It seems strange to me to put $250 wheels on a $500 bike, the frame is supposed to be the most expensive element. But that was the cheapest wheelset they had, a Mavic set sized for that bike. The plan is to sell that bike sometime in December/January and actually buy a nice bike. You see the pattern here? I want to sell something and it breaks.

This continued in everything yesterday. I had several big work things to knock out yesterday, including publishing a major software upgrade and new design for www.cookswarehouse.com. So I ended up working about 14 hours yesterday. But tomorrow (Friday) is my last day on this job, so it had to be done. So the end of September also brought several meat punches from the job.

In training, I hit the elliptical tuesday night (5 miles in 36 minutes - fast!), and missed last night's bike ride. Here's how the monthly totals ended up:

Swim: 0 crap
Bike: 273 miles (1 tour) sweet!
Run: 50.1 miles - not bad, most of those are elliptical miles
Strength: 7.6 hours right on target
Yoga: 4.5 hours right on target

So no swimming blows. And dealing with a hip injury sucks. But I'm loving 273 miles on the bike, that rocks!

October

is my favorite month of the year. This is documented from last year. NHL hockey starts today with regular season games. ROCK ON! Tomorrow is my last day at this old job. This weekend we're lining up some babysitting help to get the house ready to list for sale. Tuesday I head to Raleigh, and Wendesday I start the new job. With the move to Raleigh, there are more gym options, so I will actually be able to join a gym with a pool. I plan to find this gym before going up there. The search is on.

Baseball is in it's final week. Chances are good that I am going to win my fantasy league. My beloved Mets ended up with the second highest payroll and the seventh worst record in the league. But I love the baseball playoffs. I hope the Rockies and Twins can pull out playoff spots. And football is getting into full swing. Conference matchups and rivalries really heat up in October. For a sports fan like me, this is gold.

My hip is feeling ok just walking around. Still doing PT work and tons of biking, but October should bring a return to running. I'm going to spring for some new shoes, and meet up with Coach Katie over the weekend for some form help. I think that will put the final stamp on this stupid thing.

October also has two races for me, the Ache Around the Lake 8k running race a week from saturday. Kelley took 3rd place in her age group in this one last year. This is one of my favorite races, as Coach Katie is the race director. and it's a beautiful course around Lake Lanier. Then the following Saturday 10/17 is the 60 mile bike ride up Ceasar's Head. It will be my first time climbing that mountain, which some think is the toughest in SC. I also have one other 60 mile ride on the schedule before B2B which is only in 36 days!!

October rules!! Fall is here!! Consider yourself warned.