Adam's Interweb

JUMP!

Today I resigned from my job at the small software startup.  I’m not going to go into the details as to why I left, but I’ll just say that I don’t regret joining the company, but I feel I may have regretted it if I stayed any longer due to various things (including some opportunities outside of the company).

I’ll be posting more about my future plans over at my company blog – http://www.cogitu.com/blog/ – so if you’re interested, be sure to check that out for more details (a post will be up by Monday at the latest).

Over the last year, I’ve been making a list of things I want to accomplish (or at least think about accomplishing) in 2010. Now that 2010 is finally here, it’s time to define my final list of goals. I ended up with 24 goals. It’s unreasonable to think that I could focus on all 24 goals (plus any new ones that come up during the year), so I’m only going to focus on three main goals. I’m not going to ignore my other goals by any means, but these three items are the places I’m going to focus 95% of my energy this year:

Get healthy

I’ve learned a lot about healthier eating and exercise over the last year, but I’ve failed at putting it into practice for an extended period of time. I want to be healthier for quite a few good reasons and it’s time I step up and do it. For this goal, my criteria are that I must be able to sustain the lifestyle changes and my target weight is 175 (with a stretch goal of 150) by the end of the year. (I know weight isn’t the only thing that makes one “healthy”, but I’m going to use it as the measurable part of this goal anyway.)

Side income to livable levels

I already make money on the side of my day job, but it’s not much…certainly nowhere close to anything I can live off. For 2010, my goal is to find a sustainable way to bring in $2500/mo after taxes. This goal isn’t to make that much on the side *each* month this year, it’s to *start* doing it so I could support myself fully in 2011…a proof of concept essentially. If I can hit this amount, that works out to around $30K/yr which is all I need to live very comfortably at this point in my life.

See a Space Shuttle launch (in person)

I went to space camp and I love NASA (and space exploration in general), but I have yet to see a shuttle launch. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but I’ve never made the time. There are only 5 shuttle launches left (as of right now) and they all happen in 2010. I don’t care which launch I see, but I’m going to see one in person (hopefully from the VIP area so I can get a good view).

I ran across an article the other day that I thought would be worth sharing – it’s called “88 Important Truths I’ve Learned About Life”. I don’t necessarily think 100% of these items are “truths” in my life, but I’d say I can certainly agree with the vast majority of them. You should read the whole article – but here were my top favorites (with my thoughts in italics):

1. You can’t change other people, and it’s rude to try.

I learned this one pretty early on – it has proven very true in my experience. The key is that *you* can’t change other people, but they *can* change…they just have to do the changing themselves.

11. Every problem you have is your responsibility, regardless of who caused it.

I like this one a lot because too many people have a victim mentality. In the end though, your problems are just that…*your* problems. You don’t have to solve them if you don’t want to, but don’t forget that they are yours to solve and yours alone.

26. Credit card debt devours souls.

Ok – this one is a little over the top for me, but I agree in general. Credit card debt (or any kind of debt for that matter) will almost always detract from you achieving your goals. If you manage it correctly, it may only have a negligible impact on your life, but if you don’t, it can easily destroy it. So while I wouldn’t go so far as credit card debt “devours souls”, I do believe that having it will, at some point, have a net negative impact on your life.

28. Most of what we see is only what we think about what we see.

Out of all 88 items in the article, this is my favorite. Essentially, everything you see is based around perception which means you’ll color everything you see with your own beliefs, assumptions, and knowledge. Sometimes things will actually be what you perceived, but most than likely, you only have a portion of the total picture.

48. Even if it costs no money, nothing is free if it takes time.

I don’t have anything special to add to this one – but I totally agree…*nothing* is truly free.

So I thought it would be good to post an update on the ol’ blog here and since it’s the middle of the year, it seems fitting that the post should be an update on my 2009 goals….so here goes…

Financial

• Fully fund 2008 & 2009 Roth IRAs
  [2008 fully funded; 2009 money saved, but not in Roth account yet]
  
• Pay off second mortgage OR refinance into single mortgage (with much lower rate and no PMI)
  [I've been thinking about this and I'm not sure I want to go ahead with this right now. The total cost to ReFi was higher than I expected for the great rates and the reality is that my second mortgage isn't hurting that much.  Given certain things going on in my career right now, holding on to the money seems like a wise thing to do for the moment. At present, about 1/2 of this is already in savings.]
  
• Get my side income up to the point I could live off of it if the need arose (NOT trying to get this to replace my actual income level…although that would be fantastic if it did)
  [This is about the same or lower than it was at the start of the year - I'm still trying to hit this goal though.]
  
• Maintain at least a 3 month emergency fund (currently at 12 months, but expect some of this to use used for other financial goals)
  [I've got around 6-8 months still hanging around at the moment, so even if I reallocate some of this for the mortgage payoff or towards investments, I'll still be able to reach this goal just fine.]

Health

• Get weight to 190 or lower and keep it there (~25 lbs to lose)
  [Yeah...still um, working on this one.  Good news is I didn't gain much weight...but I also didn't exactly lose any either.  This one is still doable though...]
• Decrease caffeine intake – and keep it down (target is around 1 12oz can of soda per day or less)
  [I did this one for a couple of months and now I'm back to drinking more soda than I should be.  I've done a decent job of keeping it out of the fridge at home, but at work, that's a different story.  Going to refocus on this one.]
• Drink more water (no particular amount – just when I’m thirsty, grab a water instead of a soda)
  [I've been drinking a moderate amount of water, but I'm still prone to grab a soda...so I need to focus more on this one as well.  It's perfectly doable, but still on the ToDo list.]
• Cook (healthly-ish) meals at home more than I eat out (including lunch)
  [Um, yeah....gotta get the ball rolling on this one too.  The biggest problem here is going to lunch with the guys at work.  I have to stop that - it'll help save a bit of money and be a bit healthier.]

Personal & Professional Development / Other

• Read at least 1 non-fiction (but not computer related) book a month
  [I'm going to miss this goal - with everything else going on, I just can't do this.  I do have a couple of new books to read - but not 12.]
• Read at least 1 fiction book a month
  [Same as the non-fiction goal...I'd like to read a couple, but I don't think I'll get more than that in this year.]
  
• Attend WWDC 2009 (contingent on other financial goals being met/on track in May)
  [This one is completed.  I went to WWDC a few weeks ago...that reminds me, I need to blog about that...]
• Get my passport
  [Still need to do this one...I'm not in a rush for it though, I'd just like to get it done so I have it for the future.]
  
• Write at least one blog post per week on this blog – just to start writing more
  [If you've checked this blog much you know I haven't been anywhere close to successful on this one.  I need to make time for this, just for my own sake, but I'm not sure if I can do that.  I'll probably put a preference to posting on my business blog over this one and still only post on this one when I have something in general that I want to share.]

So how do I feel about my progress?  Financially, I feel really good.  While all of the goals aren’t completed just yet, I’m nearly there number wise…and that’s after taking into account the WWDC trip and a trip to Las Vegas.  Health wise, I really dropped the ball.  I got distracted with too many other things and this set of goals really suffered.  I’m slightly disappointed with my progress on the personal/professional goals, but at the same time, I’ve had a heck of a lot happen and learned a lot over the last 6 months. While I may not have accomplished the specific goals I outlined at the beginning of the year, I think I’ve still grown quite a lot in this area so at least progress is being made.

Since I moved to Tennessee, I’ve wanted to go try out skiing – mainly because it’s relatively close to where I live, so it alwayed seemed like a good thing to try while I’m in the area.  Well, yesterday, I tried skiing for the first time…

I went to Ober Gatlinburg with a couple of co-workers.  I haven’t heard great things about Ober, but it took less than an hour to get there and we all had free passes for the ski lift because of a Hardee’s promotion earlier in the week.  My friends let me borrow the basic items that I’d need (other than the skis themselves) so the whole trip really only cost $13 for skis…although I did buy a pair of goggles while I was there, but I could have done without them.

The overall ski experience was interesting.  I’ve never waterskied, so this was my first time on skis period.  After falling down the “ski school” slope a couple of times, my friends decided it was time we all take the ski lift up to a long, but easy run.  I didn’t think I was ready for that, but eventually I went anyway.  Those ski lifts are harder to exit than I would have thought – in fact, I never was able to successfully exit the thing without falling (I could slide away, but never got very far).

As far as skiing down the mountain, well, when the snow was fresh (it was snowing a lot while we were there), I could control my speed pretty well in general.  I still fell a lot, but it was usually because I hit a steeper area and I’d lose my balance when I sped up too much.  I never really figured out how to turn with the skis, I did figure out how to wobble a bit so I could shift my weight slightly to turn just a little, but never got the hang of doing a regular turn.

As the night went on, I think the slopes got more icy.  It certainly got pretty chilly, but by the last run I made, I could barely control the ski speed even though I was doing the same thing I did before.  So my last run was relatively fast, but a bit more painful since I kept falling faster and pretty repeatedly.

Today, I’m totally sore.  I kept falling in the same position, so I banged up one side pretty good (but I was never going very fast so no lasting injuries or anything)…some good bruises though.  I wish I got the hang of skiing and I’m sure it’s just like a friend was telling me – I just had to let go when I started going faster and just go with it.  The problem is that I’m not a big adrenaline junkie – so I don’t want to go fast or feel that out of control, so I never could quite let go and I’m pretty positive that is what made me fall so much once I started going at a good pace (because I know I kept leaning back too far and my skis came out from under me).  Overall, I’m glad I went since I’ve wanted to try skiing, but I don’t think I’ll be going back.  Skiing just isn’t for me, but it was certainly an interesting experience.