I thought I would assess how I did on my goals from last year and see where life is going.

• Gain 23 pounds – Well I actually lost three pounds, but gaining the weight was not really my goal. I seriously feel I eat better and exercise regularly now. I have been eating out less and choosing what I actually eat much better. I still bike commute (even in the cold December rain), take longer rides on weekends, and started lifting weights. Progress.
• Net Worth – I tried to increase my net worth by 126% or something like that. It was a weird number because it actually represented a major milestone. Six months ago, I said this was going to be a challenge to actually meet. Well, some serious cost cutting and readjustments made it possible to get to 147%. I hit my goal in late October. I will call this a win.
• Do Not Buy a House – A win.

I guess I will call the year the goals basically achieved. That is enough looking back. Let us see where we are going. I think I will go into more detail than I have in the past too.

• Health
  • Run – After ten years of not running, I want to start again. This is actually a big deal since my running career in high school ended so poorly. I love running, but it has taken me this long to get over it. I do not have a plan for tacking this goal yet, but it will happen.
  • Gain 15 Pounds – Yes, much different than last year’s 23 pounds. The thought here is still eat better and exercise but I would like to take that to the next level to place something tangible behind the exercise part. Like running the ‘how’ will be determined over the next couple days. Mostly it will come down to running, biking, lifting weights, and eating better.
• Household
  • Buy a Car – This has been my desire for a couple years now. I think in June I will be ready to pull that trigger. On a plus side, I will probably get a bigger car to help haul peoples and gear to the various activities I want to do.
  • Buy a Home? – Yep still in the air. Last year, I wanted to wait to save for a down payment and get those prices down. I have been doing some casual research over the last couple months. There are a lot of options out there in the area I am looking. In the event I do not get a home, I will probably migrate the down payment into paying down student loans. Time will tell here.
• Activities
  • Climb Two Mountains – I am thinking Mt. St. Helens and South Sister. Both of these are basically day hikes to the summit. Good starter mountains.
  • Go XC Skiing – Never been. Sounds fun. I actually have a trip planned for a couple weeks. Checking off should come soon.
  • Build a Snow Cave – Alright, I plan to sleep in it too. I need some warmer clothes.
  • Race a Half Marathon – I have always wanted to run a marathon but am not in shape to do it. For this year, I plan to exercise enough that I could run a half marathon (13.1 miles). This will be my longest race ever, and for all those who know how I run, I will not be running just to finish.
  • Ride a Century – That means ride my bike 100 miles in a day. The most I have ever done was about 60. This does not need to be one of those organized 100 mile tours, but just a couple of peoples going on a really long ride.
  • Summer Backpacking – My snow cave adventure in a couple weeks will first real backpacking (and snowshoeing). I would like to do a longer (in distance and overnights) this summer.

I kept a couple things off the list (work, financial, etc) as this is not my official list, but it should keep me busy. Maybe if you are lucky, I will actually take the time to post updates throughout the year. Anybody want to join on any of the adventures?

As is my tradition, I thought I would review my progress at my 2010 goals.

• Gain Weight … Err, Eat Better and Exercise – As of this morning, I have lost four pounds. My progress to actually gain weight has been a roller coaster. I was up about ten pounds pretty quickly. When I started biking, I lost 15 pounds in three weeks. I have gained that back in my leg mostly. I probably wont fight to get to my, now, 27 pounds by the end of the year. I will keep trying though.

  My real goal of eating better and exercise is working though. I virtually bike everywhere. I lift weights. I could be better at this though. I eat like crazy. Without being anal, I have almost cut red meat, pop, and candy out of my diet.

  I feel great. I think there are two times in my life I have been in better shape. The first was late in my high school running career (about 16-7 years old) when I was running 60 miles a week. The second was my last summer working construction (20 years old). I was lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, jack hammering, etc 30-50 pounds for 60 hours a week.

• Updated Net Worth – I am a little behind the original 126.3158%. I have a 55% change thus far which puts me at 110% by the end of the year. I had a couple large purchases which impacted the progress – bike, rain gear, and Wisconsin trip. I might be able to cut some costs in the last half of the year to catch up.
• No House – I have not bought a house, but I did move to NE Portland. Double win. I do want to own a home but still do not know if Portland is where that will be.

The rest of my life is going well. I am still working at Conducive Technology and our FlightStats project is growing like crazy. I still have the life goal to start my own company and Conducive is teaching me some powerful knowledge which will pay off one day. Unless a business opportunity comes a knocking, I plan to stay where I am.

This past weekend, that all changed. I am now (half) living in Portland again. Thus far, it rocks. My commute this morning as a three mile bike ride down hill into the city. Not a bad way to start summer.

My goal for the weekend was to move my day-to-day things, making sure I could begin living at the new place by the end of the weekend. Strong friends were busy this weekend, so, at times, that seemed like a challenge. After seven car loads and no truck, we got it. I am now living at the new place minus my bed, couch, dining table, and desk.

Planning a move around a holiday is less than ideal. Tomorrow I leave for Wisconsin.

Now I have mooched off a couple people from time-to-time to avoid riding home at 4:00 a.m. or the monsoon that was May in PDX. I, like most people, am far from perfect.

The car took a couple cranks today, but mostly had no issues starting. For a 14 years old, this car is lasting quite nicely. GM might take note of how it used to make cars.

How did I celebrate my re-entry into the car world? Apartment hunting, purchasing bike parts (ironical), sitting in traffic (woohoo), and grocery shopping. (For all those would be no-car-peoples out there, grocery shopping is a pain without a car.)

No, I am not going to now stop biking. I will be riding to work tomorrow – rain or shine. Pattern continues. I will probably only drive to errands.

I actually have not felt this great, physically, in years. About seven years. Exercise rocks. With exercise comes, eating to keep up. For those of you who thought I ate a ton before, now I eat double that, making grocery shopping even that much harder.

Hopefully, I will be moving to PDX at the end of this month.

I had just a moment a couple weeks back. This time a song caused it. When it came on my Pandora station, I literally stopped working and could not focus again for about a half hour. Since this day, I have had the song on repeat.

The song: Where have I been all my Life from George Strait.

You can listen below:

God bless.

If you are uneducated in this realm of spirituallity, they sell Dutch Tacos. Imagine all your breakfast rolled up in a waffle taco.

Today, I had the ham & cheese. Ham, cheese, and, well, waffle.

If that is not Heavenly, there is no hope for you.

Summary: Malcolm answers the questions of how truly successful become that way. Ben Franklin rose from virtually nothing, for instance, to sit with kings. Outliers explains how people in Franklin’s position do work hard but also get very lucky, come from the right family, and in some cases born in to ‘correct’ month.

What I thought: After reading The Tipping Point, I was a bit reluctant to grab another Gladwell book but I tried anyway. I found this text quite interesting though. The examples used clearly construed how a person not only truly needs to work their butt off to get ahead but also needs to get really really lucky.

Perusing the Internets, I found a couple opinions of its definition. Generally, they fall into one of two categories:

• Of or relating to the software created for an enterprise. Otherwise known as, an organization’s software.
• Bloated, excessive, unnecessary – in all meaning of the words.

The former is basically saying enterprise software is just software. The latter is just annoying.

Unless you are lazy, you would probably not find these definitions representative of your career.

Without getting into too much flowery marketing mumbo jumbo, there needs to be another answer. Here is mine:

Software architected to support the breath and depth of its users needs while producing a minimalistic footprint on its own and neighboring systems. This system should not only be easily created but, more importantly, well maintained.

Well that is the definition I have come up with today. This might change over time but will a good start.

I am curious what you all think.

I have not found a good way to copy and paste on this phone, so you will need to do your own searching today.

WebSockets are a new-ish way for web clients and servers to communicate. This is bi-directional though. Unlike the typical AJAX (client to server) method used today.

PJUG was your typical nerd-alert affair but free pizza and knowledge of new techologies for people more smarter than I was worth it.

This phone warms the hands nicely!

Although I find finance fascinating, I am no expert. I do know there is some ambiguity between how GAAP applies to derivatives. This miscommunication causes investors and the public to be unaware of the true state of a company’s assets and debts. AIG is a good example of this. At its peak, it was 11 times leverages. That means $11 of debt for every $1 of assets. I personally do not feel all debt is bad. There becomes a point where my investment becomes hindered.

Chris Dodd thinks would we should publicly trade derivatives. Rather I would vote we get them completely on balance sheets. This get the numbers in the hands of investors quarterly. Public traded assets get forgot; quarterly reminders puts pressure of executives.