11 year Soberversary

  Music:

Summary:

• Another year, no booze
• Moved to North Carolina full-time
• Master's degree
• Learned how to snowboard at 52
• Yoga for snowboarding cured my chronic back pain
• Mountain biking, oh yeah
• We bought a tractor and a gigantic diesel pickup truck
• Still not drinking!

Another year, no booze

Welp, here we are.  Another revolution around the sun, and a moment of appreciation.  A moment to take stock of the prior year.  A moment to look at all the years since May 30th of 2012, and see how my life has unfolded.

Moved to North Carolina full-time

We ended up staying in North Carolina. Due to a little luck and a good boss I ended up covering North and South Carolina instead of Virginia.  I pretty much have a ridiculously awesome lifestyle, sometimes I have to pinch myself.  The Pisgah is a gigantic fractal; the deeper I look, the more I find.  It's a lot.  There are quite a few people here who feel the same way so I don't think I'm *completely* crazy.

Have a look:

Blue Ridge Photo Album

A master's degree in 5 1/2 months

Got my cybersecurity Masters's degree in December!  I was all set to enroll in a PhD program when Caroline pointed out that I'd been studying non-stop since 2014.  She wanted to know when it would be enough.  I'm not the brightest bulb in the box, but I got the hint.  I'll come back to it at a later time when I'm not working as much.

Learned how to snowboard at 52

I decided this was going to be the year.  If I was going to spend my first winter on the mountain, dammit I was going to learn to snowboard.  The grandkids and I, we all learned together.  In the beginning, quite frankly it seemed pretty hopeless.  I couldn't even strap in and get to my feet.  I took up yoga, purchased some back and chest protection, and kept going.  The kids were way ahead of me and doing pretty well.  Once things clicked for me though, my rate of progression went nuts, and soon I was well past the kids.  That sparked some competition, and were all pushing each other.  

I remember one morning we were on a blue run hauling ass, and it was incredible to me that just a couple of months earlier, we couldn't even get down easy street without falling.  Just pure magic.  I think all three of us will remember this for the rest of our lives.

Yoga for snowboarding cured my chronic back pain

After a few weeks of yoga'ing the F out of my body so I would have enough mobility to snowboard, the chronic back pain and hip pain I had for years started to go away.  I'm sitting here typing this in disbelief.  Anyone who sits in a chair for a living should be doing back and hip mobility work.  I used to get freaking back injections!  I was wearing a back brace 24x7 as recently as December, and now I can sleep in any position pain-free, and I don't even know where that brace is.

Mountain biking, oh yeah

When the snowboarding season ended, I started riding my bikes more, and due to wanting to be able to include the kids I spent more time mountain biking.  The same dynamic we had with snowboarding drove rapid progression with mountain biking.  Also, it's keeping me honest with the yoga routine and is excellent for overall fitness.  Really stoked and couldn't be happier.

We bought a tractor and a gigantic diesel pickup truck

Yes, you read that correctly.  We got a Ford 3/4 ton pickup and a John Deere compact tractor with a bunch of attachments.  Been an absolute game changer for renovation and repair work on the properties. 

Still not drinking

So here we are, 11 years no booze!

If I can do it, anyone can.  If you're sick of waking up with hangovers and having money problems,  If you're tired of your plans never working out, you can change it at any time. 

May you care for yourself with ease,

-s

 

10 year soberversary

 Music:

Summary:

• So busy I forgot
• Deeper into real estate investing
• New job, Same company.
• Pulling up stakes from South Florida
• A college degree at 51
• Got into the grandkid-raising business
• Still not drinking!

So busy I forgot!

I'm forcing myself to sit down and write this, as I would rather be working on one of my projects.  But this annual-ish touchpoint is important, so let's do it.

My Soberversary was actually 16 days ago.  At the time I was at an industry conference presenting a couple of my science projects and entertaining customers.  

  

It's weird to think on my 10-year soberversary I was in Las Vegas entertaining people on a company credit card.  Thoroughly enjoyed watching my dinner guests get buzzed, while I was drinking sparkling water and not feeling the least bit self-conscious or awkward.  Did not have that on my 2012 bingo card!

Deeper into real estate investing

In the last year, Caroline and I purchased two more Airbnb properties.

One of them was big money for us, which equals big stress.  Went over time and over budget on repairs, but we did get it up and running earlier this month and it's paying its own bills so I'm sleeping a lot better now.  It's a beautiful home, nicer than anything I've ever lived in by far.  It's weird; living on the property, I felt a little uncomfortable like I didn't belong.

The builder of that home owns the home below it and he's quite a character.  A bit of a local legend having built or renovated a number of significant properties on that part of the mountain.  He shares his lifetime of knowledge about the land and building things freely and without pretense, what a delightful man.

The other home we purchased is the polar opposite. Bought it for pocket change.  The place was a complete mess, but I loved the parcel and it had good bones.  We call this property Black Bear and this is where we're living right now.  Caroline is in charge of the interior.  I plan the structural and outside work, performing science experiments to figure things out when expertise is lacking, which is actually a lot of fun.

I've got two men doing the work, one semi-retired, the other young and full of energy.  They complement each other and make a great team. After having chronic worker problems (a big part of the stress of the expensive property) they're an absolute delight.

Our excavation guy is an amazing person too, a complex and interesting man with deep ties to the community.  

These relationships have been an unexpected dividend in fixing up and renting properties on the mountain.  An enriching experience.  It's notable how much more comfortable I've become with other people over the years.

New job, same company

In April I accepted a new role doing Cybersecurity stuff.  The customers are based in Virginia.  It's a much more demanding job than my old one, but of course, it pays better and is more interesting.  I have a gentlemen's agreement with my boss that I'll move to Virginia sometime next year. So that will be an adventure.

Pulling up stakes from South Florida

Last December we sold our condo in Pompano Beach.  I thought I would miss it a lot but I really haven't.  We have a rental house in Jupiter that's been sitting empty for months as we've been in North Carolina fixing up the properties we purchased.  Probably sometime in July we'll have Black Bear finished and we'll be back for a few months.

Once the lease is up though, that's it.  Time to go.  We're thinking about buying an RV and living in that for 9-12 months while exploring Virginia, but we really don't know.  And oddly enough, I find that comforting.  Wanderlust has always been part of my makeup.

A college degree at 51

In March I graduated from Western Governors University with a Cybersecurity degree.  Took me just a hair over two years.  I'm already enrolled in a master's program which I hope to have finished by year-end.

It's been a good experience for me and I'm super glad I did it.  My ability to read/write/speak/reason have all improved.  It's nice to work for a company that pays for stuff like this.

The Grandkid raising business

I have two step-grandsons aged four and six from Caroline's daughter.  Their momma is someone who is living with a similar kind of demons that I used to battle, but to this point in her life at least, has decided she likes that world, which is unfortunately not compatible with child-rearing.  These kids have seen a lot of dark stuff, and it's left a mark.  Hard not to be angry about that.

Anyhow Caroline has custody for now so they've been living with us and it's been pretty great honestly.  They're good kids and it's fun and refreshing to see the world through their eyes.

Still not drinking

So here we are, 10 years no booze!

The quit. If I can do it anyone can.  If you're sick of waking up with hangovers and having money problems,  If you're tired of your plans never working out, you can change it at any time. 

May you care for yourself with ease,

-s

 

Nine year soberversary

 Theme Music:

Summary:

• Running to the light.  Can I/Should I stop running at some point?
• Purchased and renovated a cabin in western North Carolina
• Finally getting healthy after a two-year struggle with the chronic injury monster
• Got distracted from my college studies learning computer programming; 
• Narrowly avoided burnout, getting back to level stable flight (see above)
• Still not drinking!

Running to the light

I try not look too far back in these posts, but this year will be different. I was looking at my old journal last night, and I shared a poem I wrote on day one of my quit.  My friend Anthony commented on how dark it was.  To me it's a snapshot of my life at a moment in time.  I'm clearly no poet but I think I did a good job of capturing the unvarnished reality of my situation and the decision that I made to change it.

Here is that poem:

05-30-2012, 07:30 PM

Day 1.

Thought maybe I would write a poem that summarizes where I am on this day, and why I decided to give up alcohol.

now I'm getting older
bad habits growing bolder
a shell of the man people once looked up to

the bottle has become my lover
coffee and asprin my mother
the local bartenders my best friends

they all know me by name
my drink is always the same
poured and measured, no questions asked, when they see me walking through the door

I have a good woman
but not for much longer
she moved away for she could not bear what I had become

the damage is done
the special feelings we used to have
just wisps of nostalgia - the process of painful loss playing out for both of us.

I open the folder
turn on the slideshow
Pictures from better days

Fit, focused, driven, smiling
surfing, diving, music, laughter
racking up passport stamps

But now my lover is my master
and I drink up the money ever faster
as days become months become years

This ends now.

As the sun clears the horizon
my heart pounding, the sand a blur beneath my feet
as I run towards life

For nine years, I have been running to the light with everything I've got.  That has not wavered one iota.  Even if it's just a blade of grass, for the last nine years my life has been defined by my desire to move relentlessly forward every single day.  

I'm reaching a point where I'm maybe 10-15 years from being able to retire comfortably, and I'm not in mortal danger of my life falling apart from picking up and starting to drink again if I don't keep myself busy.  Is there a point at which I can base my life on a somewhat more mellow and less intense organizing principle?  I don't know the answer yet but I'm starting to give some thought to it.

Purchased and renovated a cabin in Western North Carolina

Last March when the message was 'pandemic is coming, prepare yourselves.', my response was to slash expenses, get my financial hygiene as good as I could make it, and embark on a crash course on macroeconomics.  As a result, I came to the conclusion that real estate would be a really good investment on the front end of the pandemic.  So I gave myself a crash course on real estate investing and worked out a strategy that made sense for my personality and situation.

The end result is I got my hands on a sweet little cabin in the mountains of Western North Carolina, off of one of the main ridges of Grandfather mountain.

 The last owner had the place for less than two years and in that time the forest made great strides in reclaiming the property hahaha.  Things grow like crazy in that part of the forest and we wanted to create kind of a 'moat' around the cabin to keep the maintenance effort down.  It's pretty remote, and we had a heck of a time getting workers of any kind so everything took 3x as long as we thought it would. But we're pretty much done now and I think the place came out amazing.

Anyway now It's largely done and I've very proud of the results.  At end of the month we're closing on cabin #2, but the details on that will have to wait for next year's journal entry.

Finally getting healthy

Over the last six months, the chronic injuries I got from overtraining had receded enough that I've been able to build up some fitness.  It brings me so much joy to be able to go out and ride my bike the way I want.  I got a mountain bike in the early spring and have been checking out some of the trails around the cabin, that's been quite a lot of fun.  There's one trail in particular called 21 jumps that's sooooooo much fun holy crap!  Our handyman has been riding these trails on motorcycles and bicycles since he was a boy and he's schooling me up.  he is so fast wow.

Even though it would be totally irresponsible financially since I just got a mountain bike, I'm looking long and hard at a gravel bike.  I've been using a road bike with 32mm tires for mixed-surface riding, but it's not fun at all to descend on twisting gravel mountain roads on a stiff twitchy road bike.  The mountain bike kicks ass, but it's heavy and slow for climbing, like a lot.  A Gravel bike will open up many more route combinations so it's probably going to happen.  It''ll be an awkward conversation with my wife on account of all my whining about cabin renovation expenses :).

A close encounter with the burnout monster

One of the background things underpinning the drinking problem was I've had this combination of ambition and not knowing how and when to engage in self-care when things get to be too much.  Even though I've taken the drinking away and learned some self-care, that dynamic of taking on more than I can handle and driving myself into the ground is still there and I still have to contend with it.

Over the last nine months, I had the cabin renovation, a burgeoning interest in programming, my college studies, plus work and my marriage and all that, and it was simply too much.  It really hit me about mid-march.  so I've throttled back and I'm slowly returning to normal.  It was a close call though.  I was well and truly empty.  Those are the exact situations where I would have used alcohol in the past, which ironically just makes things worse.

Still not drinking

Welp, here we are.  Still not drinking, still building a good life, trying to be a decent human being.

The life I have today exceeds the wildest fantasies of what I thought was possible when I quit nine years ago.  If alcohol is fucking up your life, understand that you can have this too.  Resolve to hit the pillow sober at the end of every day, and get some help. 

May you care for yourself with ease, 

-s

8 Year Soberversary

Theme music:

Summary of the last two years:

• Career flourishing
• Struggled with injuries and chronic pain
• Health finally seems to be trending up

Years 7 & 8:  Moar Roller Coaster

Health

Over the last couple of years I've spent time on and off the bike.  The knee got better, then I started working with a coach.  I got really fit, but by the time I reinjured my knee and had to get back off the bike I had also given myself a case of Sciatica and lower back pain.  For months I couldn't sleep for more than 4 hours at a time, and I was sleeping on a yoga mat.  Having sleep dictated by pain and fatigue battle for top spot is. not. fun.  It wears you down.

Looking back, the knee (re)injury was probably a gift because it forced me to stop before I made things worse.   For years I had taken it as an article of faith that cycling was the cornerstone habit that drove my trajectory. I could easily write a book's worth of material laying out the case for this.

Yet, somehow my obsession with progression and improving my fitness led me to a dark place of pain and chronic injury, so clearly something went wrong.  Was it the same psychology that led me to the depths of chronic drinking so many years ago?  I believe the answer is yes.  

So what went wrong? 

 Man, I get tunnel vision *really bad* when I want something.  That's mostly an asset, but in this case, it became a liability.  There wasn't enough rest, recovery, self-care.  I beat myself down into a state of nervous exhaustion and that's when my body started breaking.  Damn it, I should have known better.  I did know better!  But I was chasing a number, and it was so close.  300 watts for an hour.  300 watts and I would stop.

My body gave me the finger at 292 watts.

I had knee surgery in August of 2019.  The surgeon repaired the meniscus and cleaned out some loose tissue, and found that I had arthritis.   It's taken a lot longer to heal from knee surgery than I expected but it's definitely a lot better.  Obviously, there's no fix for the arthritis, only management.

Re: sciatica.  I still can't sit on a chair without literal pain in my ass after a couple of hours.  I wrap a towel around a 2" piece of PVC pipe and sit on that which takes pressure away from the nerve.  I do rehab it daily and it's slowly improving.

Re: lower back.  This is the scariest one.  Back injections have been ineffective.  I was told spinal fusion would probably not help.  What does help mobility and strengthening exercises.  It has gotten better but the experts tell me the overall trend on these is always downward.  That's going to be a yikes from me.  For now, it's manageable and I'm thankful for that.  

Now that my health is a limiter, the days of chasing numbers on a bicycle are done.  That means refactoring my relationship with the bicycle, and perhaps my approach to life in general.  I'm feeling my way through it.

Travel

In 2019 I went to Mallorca, Spain for a week, and then northern Italy for nearly a month.  The Italy trip in particular was incredible.  Venice blew my mind and I've developed a mild obsession with it.  Riding in the Alps on the Swiss border was amazing and I want to experience a whole lot more of that!

 

Venice Canal shot

Caroline and I

first climb in the Alps (This is Canaco)

High Altitude Sufferface

The iconic Passo Dello Stelvio

Lake Garda from the top of Monte Baldo

Climbing Monte Baldo

Career

In August of 2019 I accepted a job working for literally the best company in the world.  After having seen my fair share of corporate malfeasance up close and from a distance over the years, I had little to no trust that large businesses would look out for the well-being of the workers.  However, there are industries where attracting the best talent is a key ingredient, and these companies are incentivized to treat the workforce well.

So yeah. It's been amazing.  I've never worked somewhere that gives its employees practically unlimited resources for professional development.  I'm definitely a small fish in a big pond now and I've got a few years of open space to grow.  Exciting times.  Sometimes I want to pinch myself and make sure it's real.

Education

At the beginning of the year, I enrolled in a Cybersecurity Bachelor's program at Western Governor's University and I just completed term 1.  I put all the math courses in the first term and took the pain :). 

Covid - the elephant in the room

Yup, it's pretty much sucked.  I was extremely upset at first because I did the math when the initial modeling came out, and it was obvious that there's going to be a lot of death and suffering.  People have been overly optimistic and treating like it's some kind of political thing and not an existential threat for millions of people.  It's weird and confusing and it makes me angry sometimes.

I've found my feet and try not to get too distracted.

Status of the quit:

I think it says something that I forgot to celebrate my soberversary two years in a row.

In summary:

• I don't think about drinking
• I don't think about the quit
• I don't care about other people's drinking unless it's hurting the people around them
•  I fully trust myself to take on hard shit and not give up.

Best wishes, and may you care for yourself with ease.

Relentlessly moving forward, 

-s

6 Year Soberversary

6 Year Soberversary

Tunes:

Summary of the last year:

• Got in the best shape of my life
• Rode in a bunch of crazy awesome places on my bike
• Got a knee injury and lost all my fitness
• Passed the CCIE security lab
• Got Married
• Approaching a career crossroads
• Kicked in the balls a little financially, but able to absorb the blows

It's been a roller coaster year.  Started out unbelievably awesome.  I actually started getting kind of fast on my bicycle.  Stayed in the mountains in North Georgia for a month and it was so great.  Riding on lightly trafficked mountain roads every day, working on my laptop at the kitchen table.  Then I got to ride in Colorado, Oregon, and South Carolina and it was just ridiculous.   Started making plans for Spain and Italy for the following year.  So many good memories. I can close my eyes and flip through them at will and it's amazing.

But all the riding in the mountains on a bike that wasn't geared correctly for it took a toll on my left knee.  I ignored the soreness because it always went away after a couple of days.  Then one day instead of going away it got much worse.  I had to stop riding for the first time since I quit drinking.  It's been my one major anchor habit so that was weird.

I took advantage of the downtime to fully focus myself on my studies and after two attempts I passed the CCIE security exam.

Result of passing the lab has been a bit bittersweet thus far.  It's not going to make a difference in my salary at work, and the expense both in terms of paying for travel and the exams, as well as lost income from working fewer hours, really took a financial toll.

Reality is the place I'm working at has shifted gears to  cutting costs as much as possible without outright breaking shit (or even breaking things and watching to see how badly they break).  This is a new thing, and I don't think that's going away.  These "spend to fix the broken things, then cut costs until things fall apart again" cycles are common in businesses.  So, yeah.  It's the right of the owners to manage their assets as they see fit and I have no hard feelings about it whatsoever.

Bottom line is I'll have to make some changes to get a return on my investment, and doing that may mean my cozy life of sitting in my home office and looking out at the Lighthouse and the Ocean could be winding down.

Somewhere in there I got married.  We've been together for a long time; both of us were married once before where things ended badly, so this was weird and we kept it low key.

I'm back on the bike but my knee is still not right.  Rehabbing it and building fitness within the limits that I have.  I don't know how that's going to turn out either.  I might have to get it scoped, simply don't know at this point.  But I am grateful for being able to ride

And for the kicker the spring has brought an avalanche of unplanned expenses.  Between that, paying for CCIE, and the injury, we pretty much have zero plans for vacation this year now.  I'll find some way to take some time to unplug this fall, but I'm knee deep getting shit done right now and don't even want to think about it.

Weird year.  Ebb and flow of life.

Status of the quit

I had to use this blog to look up my quit date.  That's how often I think about drinking now.  One thing that's changed is I no longer pay attention to other people's drinking unless it's pretty clear it's affecting them or others adversely.

In summary:

• I don't think about drinking
• I don't think about the quit
• I don't care about other people's drinking unless it's hurting the people around them
•  I fully trust myself to take on hard shit and not give up.

And that's it for year 6 I guess.

 2x CCIE.  Deal with it.

Best wishes, and may you care for yourself with ease.

Relentlessly moving forward,

-s

5 year Soberversary

Tunes:

Summary of the last year:

• Saved money
• Stayed in shape
• Worked my ass off
• Started studying for the CCIE security lab
• Bought a super bitchen totally awesome road bike :) 

This has been a pretty calm year.  It's not that my overall effort level or amount of striving towards my goals has lessened.  I think it's just an in-between year.  Some things got done, new things got started and I'm just going about my business.  Settled into a routine that works for me, and I'm living my life.

I don't feel nagged by self doubt or anxiety as much as I used to be.  There's a lot to be said for developing trust in yourself.  It has to be organic though; it's not something that comes from positive affirmations that aren't backed by anything..  It has to come from making commitments and following through on them.  Every time you say you're going to do something and then you don't it weakens you internally.  On the other hand following through (no matter what) strengthens you.

Significant outgrowth of that:  As I've gained trust in myself, I've found that I'm able to at least somewhat discern trustworthiness in others.  Even more interesting is when you kinda clump together to work on a project or something like that.  When you are part of a group where everyone is striving towards a common end and they trust each other it's immensely powerful.  I feel like I've been able to tap into that, and it's something I want to explore more.  It's such a tremendously powerful thing, can't be understated.

To put this in some context, trusting people is scary as fuck for someone with lifelong trust issues.  When you have them, there's typically a reason, and you can't wave those reasons aside and pretend they don't exist.  I guess that seems to be the ground now, the growth area.

Ok, about drinking and the quit.

I cannot recall what it feels like to have a strong compulsion to drink.  It's just gone.  I have drinking thoughts, but they're like if you see a bunch of ads for shrimp, then you think 'gosh I sure would like a plate of shrimp'.  It's just a result of being around messaging and advertisements and stuff.  Kinda funny.

What's interesting though, I very much note when people say they're gonna do things, then I see them posting pictures of themselves partying on social media, and surprise surprise, 'something came up' or 'came down with a cold', and they end up not doing what they said they were gonna do.

Seems like a small thing right?  It's not.  I use it as a reminder that even if the fantasy of controlled drinking was somehow magically possible for me, would I want the baggage that comes with it?  Are the struggles that are part and parcel of life not enough as is?

The answer is self evident at 5:30am when I pedal down the road on my bike, look out at the lighthouse and crescent moon, and the ocean glowing in the pre-dawn light.  I feel my heart coming to life as I feed power into the pedals, looking forward to the day's adventures ahead.

May you care for yourself with ease.

-s

4 year Soberversary

Some music:

Another eventful and interesting year in the books.

The TL;DR version:

1. Quitting drinking was the best decision I've ever made and it's not even close.
2. I've met a lot of great folks through simply getting out and riding my bike.
3. Caroline and I bought the condo on the Hillsboro inlet.  Mind pretty much blown
4. I passed the CCIE route/switch lab (woohoo!)
5. Professional life has been great.
6. I'm really a very fortunate person and have so much to be grateful for

Let's unpack a couple of things and make a proper journal entry.

Quitting drinking and what it's meant - pretty much everything good in my life has come from the quit. 

There was an incident I was thinking about recently.  Caroline had left me, and I was happy that I was going to be able to go out and party without someone harassing me and asking me where I was.  On the night in question I did some pre-gaming and drove the golf cart down to the corner. Walked up to the beach bar to meet up with my friends, and the off-duty cop working the door took one look at me and told me to beat it, and he better not see me getting behind the wheel.  I thought I was mildly buzzed and couldn't understand his reaction.  Having recently gone though a DUI (in which I wrecked Caroline's car BTW), I at least had the sense to keep my mouth shut and walk home, leaving the golf cart for later.

My sense of reality was so warped that pleasantly buzzed for me was piss drunk to someone else.  At that point it had dawned on me that I was on borrowed time and that being able to go out and party was not something I could safely do any more.  It was turning in to a game of I need to quit, but I want just one more.  one more day, one more drink, one more cigarette.

I did quit obviously.  A few months after the above incident I was at a house party and I put my red solo cup down and walked out, and that was it.  Since then life has been on a steady upward trajectory.  I don't take it for granted for a minute though.

I had my mind blown and expanded by the courage of others.

Last spring I had purchased a training package from a cycling studio.  I would show up twice a week at 6am and get my ass kicked on a computrainer.  Very effective!  So much so I bought my own smart trainer.  Anyway, those drives took a little bit time and I had some talks from Thanissaro Bhikkhu on a usb stick that I would listen to.

There was one talk in particular about dealing with pain and suffering that really resonated with me.  Basically what it amounts to is everyone suffers deeply, everyone experiences pain and loss.  One way to cope with it is to generalize.  In other words, don't personalize it.  "my pain", "my suffering".  When they become possessions like that, when we make them touchstones of our identity and personal narrative, it leaves us prone be becoming isolated emotionally, and easily offended.  "doesn't that person know what I've been through!", that sort of thing.

It was about this time that through riding my bike, I came in contact with people who've been through some very serious shit in their lives.  I saw how great their suffering was, and yet they were these amazing and open and caring people.  To see people suffer so deeply and to respond like that - it's as though this weight is lifted off of your shoulders.  It's inspiring and amazing and it makes me yearn to be a better person.   I could write page after page about these people.  I'm so lucky to have met them.

The Condo - It's been a hell of a thing.

We did close on the Condo.  We're still remodeling it.  Is't turned into a much larger project than we had imagined.  The building is 42 years old and the condo had never been updated.  Also getting good help is tough (understatement of the year).  He had to let the general contractor go, and getting a new one was not easy.  No one wants to come in and sort out someone eles's mess. We're finally closing in though.  :-)

Here's a panorama shot that shows why we fell in love with it.




Work has been good.
I work with some really great people who appreciate what I have to offer.  Hard to believe sometimes.  I was in a dysfunctional work situation for several years and that can make it hard to trust.  It's nice to not feel like I've got to watch my back at all times.  It's not an easy job and I wish I had some backup, but on the balance I don't have any serious complaints.

I passed the CCIE lab exam, now I'm going to go for an actual degree

Studying for the lab was a sacrifice.  It was tough at times.  But I did it, and I passed the exam.  I'm going to do another one!  Datacenter next.  I'm also planning on enrolling in WGU, an online school, and getting a proper degree.  Making study and learning part of my daily life seems to have been very good for me so it seems logical that I should continue.

The path forward in the coming year:

• Work hard
• Stay in shape mentally and physically
• Always be learning
• Be grateful for all the blessings in my life.

May you be happy and at ease.

-s