i thunk so

My family and I are looking forward to living the good life with no more commute. I have never been fortunate enough to live and work in the same community since I had a tiny, albeit expensive upper in Fort Lee, New Jersey. There, I was only a 5-minute drive to work. At that time, though, my wife was commuting to NYC every day.

Now I can happily say that we both now live and work in the same community. Now my commute is between 15 and 20 minutes, and my wife’s commute is even shorter than that (unless she’s dropping the kid off at Grandma’s).

I have gone from spending over $500/month on gas — and over 65K miles on my car in the past 18 months — to now only filling up the tank once every 10 days or so.

Needless to say that the new work situation is a welcome twist of fate, and I am excited to see where this goes. I now work for a dot com that has been around for awhile, but still has the dot com feel that I used to love so much — no dress codes, casual atmosphere, fast-moving, and little bureaucracy.

I’m sure I’ll keep you posted, but I’m losing some of the ire for middle management that I so commonly used to project; simply due to the fact that I’m no longer dealing with middle managers. This is another welcome change.

Filed by JP at 4:45 pm under Personal Drama, Work
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I’ve been a bit of an addict. I drink way too much Coke. I’m also one of the first people to judge others with compulsive tendencies — chain smokers, alcoholics, crackheads. I’ve pointed the finger and expressed disbelief at how someone could be such a slave to a paper tube with plants inside. Now I’m calling myself out.

I’ve gained weight steadily since graduating from college back in the 90’s. I’ve become lazy and complacent, often opting for fast food since it’s easy, accessible, and well…fast. I’ve been drinking Coke steadily since becoming dependent on it in college as a means to stay awake typing papers for money during the nights.

Today my eyes have been opened to the utter excesses of our society, and it is not a pretty picture. Regardless of the fact that it happened in Texas, it is a shameful and telling occasion when you can now find deep-fried Coke at the Texas State Fair.

I think this is symptomatic of just where we’re at in this country when you can take one of the most unhealthy beverages in the world and turn it into a deep-fried blob of fatty goo. One word: “GROSS.” If this is evolution, then I want out.

The sad part is that a family history of heart failure and high cholesterol, having a baby girl and a beautiful wife, and just wanting to live on this earth for awhile longer apparently weren’t enough motivation for me. That was then. This is the new me.

If you haven’t yet discovered it, check out Traineo — a free weight-loss tracking website with a community component that allows you to enlist friends to keep you accountable and motivated. I would encourage you to try it out.

It’s going to be a hard road to recovery — and that’s really what this is. I don’t mean recovery in the sense that I am copping out and calling my gluttony a disease. Rather, I am referring to the recovery of my health and youthful vigor. I’ve tried quitting Coke before and have dealt with the typical headache and withdrawal symptoms. I tell you now, though, that I will not be one of those people that I used to be so judgemental of. I won’t be the 300-pound, out-of-breath guy who calls in sick when he finds out the elevator is out of order. I won’t leave orphans and a widow because I was too lazy to care about my well-being.

I feel better already.

Filed by JP at 9:17 am under Personal Drama, Worthwhile Websites
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I was recently awakened from the slumber of a pleasant spring afternoon nap by the clamour of hammering and nailing. The sound was coming from the backyard of one of my neighbors. Imagine, if you can, my excitement when I peeked through the blinds to see this:

You can see the care and quality time put into both the planning and construction of this masterpiece. I really need to thank him for pushing up my property value. Btw, is that a gate?

This clown has two of the most annoying dogs in the world. They make it their business to bark every morning from 4am onward. It’s like an alarm clock — but a really bad one that goes off when you least want it to…oh, and did I mention there’s no snooze button?

Not only do they wake me up every morning, but they have to get the neighbors dogs involved too. They run up and down the fence getting 3 more dogs (all directly bordering my property as well) worked up into a frenzy.

I know he has an HOA, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a building permit. I wonder what I should do? Maybe it’s time for an anonymous tip?

Filed by JP at 10:59 am under Personal Drama, Idiots
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I have a permanent scowl. It’s not on purpose. I don’t smile very often (I didn’t get braces until I was in college, and I think I just got used to not smiling), and I have big, bushy, scowly-looking eyebrows. Maybe I should pluck, I don’t know.

I also have a worldview that is thickly frosted with skepticism and what I perceive as a keen judgement of character. In short, I don’t trust people. It’s not that I’m overly suspicious of people, I just see their dark side before I see their bright side.

Basically, it’s not you…it’s me.

Filed by JP at 2:30 pm under Personal Drama
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I have a compulsive urge to move on. It applies to almost every area of my professional life. At a project level, I literally need to have three or more things going on at once so that I can choose what I want to work on at any given time. When I get bored of one project, I push it off to the side and move on to the next boring thing. Rare are the moments when I dive headlong into a task only to find that it’s addictive. When those moments do come along, the feeling is euphoric; and the by-product is usually something I am very proud of. Almost always, these projects are related to side work, and not my bread-amd-butter work.

At a career level, I seem unable to stay in one job for more then a few years. I haven’t decided whether this is attributable more to the career path I’ve chosen which lands me at dot-coms or small Internet firms. The company I’m consulting at now is the first big-time Internet retailer job I’ve worked for as of yet. I’ve been there for about six months, and tones of repetition are starting to set in.

I don’t feel like this is symptomatic of my personality because I am someone who prefers consistency on many levels. For example, the married life definitely suits me. I enjoy eating the same types of foods — most say I’m a picky eater, so I’m definitely not a “grass is greener” kind of guy when it comes to cuisine.

The long and short of it is that I would like to get to the point where I can work on something without hearing a ticking mental time bomb.

Filed by JP at 6:41 pm under Personal Drama, Business
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I guess I’ve been pretty lazy over the past month or so. I’m in the doldrums when it comes to getting work done at home. I’ve been drowning in a sea of ideas and obligations. This is ironic given the nature of my previous post about getting “back to business.”

Part of it, I suppose, is that I’m far from being a grinch during the Christmas season. Maybe I’m not as into it as this guy, but I feel a little spring in my step when I’m online at Amazon shopping for my 4-year-old. I get chastised quite a bit by my wife during the Christmas season for not being able to walk through any store without buying something to put in my kid’s stocking.

Then there are parties and concerts and things like that which seem to take up the evenings. Weekends, lately, have been spent decorating, wrapping stocking stuffers, having extended family to the house; and somewhere in the middle of it all, hopefully, a little family time with my wife and daughter.

I guess I’m just trying to say that I realize my ambition has taken a back seat during this busy time; but I really think I’m okay with that. I’m just hoping my business partners aren’t reading this post.

Filed by JP at 11:00 am under Personal Drama
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I’ve been discussing business a lot lately with one of my close friends and business partners. We have some lofty goals but no time to execute them.

The internal wrestling has begun. Do we start turning down work to make time for us to reach our long-term business goals, or do we continue to worry about paying the bills and making what has become a nice, steady supplemental income?

We’ve been in business for five years now. There are three of us in the core management team who also do most of the design and development. Like most small business that are still young, we all still rely on our day jobs for the bulk of our financial sustenance. This leaves little time for paid work, let alone internal housekeeping and in-house projects.

Last night on Skype, my friend and I began to hash out a plan for the upcoming new year. We are beginning to believe that it is important for us — as a company and as a team — to finish an internal project and see it through to launch. Over the years, our path has been littered with great ideas (some of which are still viable, but others have long since been launched by others who weren’t so aloof) that never saw the light of day.

I feel very strongly that to have a successfully launched project to point to, we will be establishing ourselves as a legitimate and competitive firm. In addition, with the potential for long-term sustainable income we can begin to fund other, more robust projects.

Business, like life, is ringed with delicate complexities. I suppose that’s why it’s not a total bore to get out of bed each morning, even when I’ve only had a couple hours of sleep.

Filed by JP at 11:37 am under Opinions, Personal Drama
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Monday night, on my homeward commute through Nowhere, Virginia, my car got rocked by a blowout. No problem, you say? Just throw on the spare and get on your way? Problem is, three weeks ago I had a flat from a random little triangular piece of sheet metal that I picked up somehow. The spare was already flat, too….that’s the point.

So I dropped $600 on a new set of 4 tires since 2 were flat and 2 were questionable already. Pirellis. Got new Michelins on Tuesday morning, but I missed a couple hours of work. No big deal, really, but it cost me a lot of cash.

Then last night — just three days later — I was on the same commute home when I ran over a deer that had just been hit by the car in front of me. So now the front end of my Audi is mangled.

I am supposed to visit friends in New Jersey this weekend, but I’m feeling a little shell-shocked about driving anywhere. I think I’ve had just about enough of my 1.5-hour-each-way commute every day. I’m looking forward to getting my new position negotiated and settled so I can just move closer to work already.

If there is a silver lining to all of this, it’s that my insurance company actually seems to give a crap — at least my local agent does. Nobody at the national call center is ever even available to answer the phone. I found out this morning that the damage will be covered under comprehensive coverage instead of collision. This means I will only have to pay $50 out-of-pocket instead of the $500 I would have had to pay under collision coverage.

Filed by JP at 12:12 pm under Personal Drama
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Apparently, the campaign for governor in Virginia is so important that the President has begun calling each household individually. I guess those trips on AF1 get a little dull. I’m honored that I’m high enough on his list to have been one of the lucky ones he had time to call. I also found it fascinating that his number is — and this could only be the President’s number — 000-000-0000. I wonder how much the taxpayers are paying for a hot phone number like that. I bet all the biggest corporations are clamoring for it. If you dial that number, do you get to talk to 10 operators at once? I was gonna return his call, but I was busy at my own job.

The President is also making a stop in Richmond, VA, tonight to stump for Republican candidate Jerry Kilgore. Tomorrow I’ll vote. As a conservative, I would normally be inclined to vote for Kilgore (the Republican), but since he kept Russ Potts — the independent candidate — out of the debates, I don’t think I will. I definitely can’t vote for Tim Kain’s brand of socialism (it’s working so well for the French right now). I guess I will probably vote for the guy who has no chance of winning.

So Mr. Kilgore, if you’re reading this: you lost me when you bought into the two-party monopoly. Nothing annoys me more than politicians who think they own the system.

Filed by JP at 9:15 pm under Rants, Government, Personal Drama, Democracy
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In early September, my sister and her kids came to visit from Colorado. They love the backyard pool, so I was trying to impress them with “uncle hijinx.” I did the cannonball one too many times. I guess I must have landed just sideways enough to send a killer rush of air into my left ear canal. I spent the next 3-4 days with a swollen face and loads of pain. After awhile, though, the inflammation went down, but the hearing never came back.

Well, I just went to the ENT doc this morning, and he let me know my left eardrum is at about 75%. I punched a major hole in it. The doctor says that it is a simple surgery to fix, though. He’s giving it 3 more months to heal itself; and if it doesn’t, they will do a sort of plastic surgery on the eardrum to patch it up.

Filed by JP at 9:39 pm under Personal Drama
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