Taking stock...six months into 2006. (evaluating goals and accomplishments)

Wow its been almost six months since I have last posted. Oh how time flies. I had actually almost forgotten about this until I met with some family friends recently in Detroit, MI. and how I hadnt updated anything in awhile. Well now I am sitting down, have some free time, and want to take a moment or two to reflect on the last six months. So Charlie and Sharon - this posting is for you guys. :)....

Six months ago in my New Year's blog posting (which I based my New Year's email that went out on this posting) I had several goals in mind when it came to 2006. This included going to visiting several places (San Diego, Las Vegas, NYC, Phoenix, and Rochester), being able to run 5 miles, losing 40 more pounds, and paying off more student loans.

So this posting will look back at the last six months to see where I have come and how far I need to go.

First probably one of my favorite topics to discuss is the running and weight loss situation. I had not been to my gym in awhile mainly because I have been running outdoors (more on that below) while I have been in Detroit for business and at home in Minneapolis on the weekends. The primary purpose of visiting my gym yesterday was to 1) See how much I weigh and 2) Get back into doing some form of light weight training. In my January post, I said I wanted to lose 40 more pounds by the end of the year. Currently I weigh in at 216. So since Jan 2006, I've lost an additional 27 pounds. Since May 2005, I have lost a total of 64 pounds. The challenge is not done yet, but I am near the end. Basically, I have 16 more to lose to get to my goal weight of 200. After I hit 200, I am going to evaluate whether or not I need to drop down any further. If not, I am going to switch to weight lifting and lower impact cardio activities such as swimming or the elliptical. I think weight lifting could significantly help me out especially in sport activities like basketball or soccer.

So after I weighed in yesterday (June 3), I went to work on some light weight lifting. I did find since I had not been doing it very regularly, I have lost some strength. However, I did expect this a little bit. Hopefully with the help of a personal trainer who can set me up on a semi-decent program/schedule, I'll be able to gain strength/muscle mass once I hit my target weight.

As I was discussing with several different people recently, I think the best part of this whole journey (weight loss journey) is not only the "hey you look great that I have received from people" but knowing in the fact that I did it the right way - through exercise and eating healthier.

As for the running part, this is where it gets interesting. Sometime in the April timeframe (I think it was April), I was able to run the 5 miles that I had set as a goal for myself. I was thinking great, now I can focus more on time and less on distance. In early May, I received a call from a friend asking if I want to run in a half-marathon. I told this friend to send me the training schedule, and I will consider doing it. Knowing that I probably wouldn't say no to this challenge and after looking at the schedule, I convinced myself that the half-marathon was do-able and I could at least try to prepare for it. So now I have the challenge of preparing for a half-marathon run at the end of July. That is the reason I have been running outdoors so much and havent been going into the gym very often.

As far as visiting places the last six months, I have been to Las Vegas, Chicago, Des Moines, San Diego, Detroit, and New York City. Chicago and Detroit I was there on business. It appears that I will be going to San Francisco for 3 weeks of training during June. (Pending a decision I have to make on that).

My trip to San Diego was in March. It was great because not only did I get to hang out with my friend, Adam, but I also got to hook up with my cousins and Aunt and Uncle out there. While I certainly enjoyed my time out there, I will probably split up my time better next time. I appreciated Adam getting me to see my family, but I think I may have inconvienced him a bit too much. It was definitely good to catch up with Adam and take life easy for a weekend. I'll be seeing Adam again in the summer - when we run the half-marathon in San Francisco and possibly in Phoenix.

My trip to Las Vegas was in April. This was my first real trip to Vegas. Last summer I did have about a six hour lay-over in Vegas - but that doesnt count as a real trip :). I took it with March, a very good friend of mine from back home and the one person out of all my friends who has known me the longest. We had a great time hanging out in Vegas - walking around the strip, doing some gambling, and doing the tourist attractions. After expenses, I came out roughly even for the trip. I am definitely glad to have been able to taken this trip with March. We had been talking about doing something like this for quite awhile now.

Fast forward to the recent past - May. Over memorial day weekend, I was able to fly out to New York City and stay with my friend Abhi. This was my 2nd trip to NYC. Since he had moved home for the summer, I stayed at his parents home in Long Island. It was really nice to meet his parents. I had heard alot about them before. Their home is extremely nice and one of the best parts was that they had a ping pong table :). I hadnt played ping pong in quite a long time. I wasnt even sure if I was going to be as good as I used to be. Sure enough, I played a few games and still wasnt beat by anyone I played. In fairness, I will say that Abhi probably had not played in almost 2 years so he was alot more rusty than me. Also I think if Abhi's dad played me long enough, he would have been able to beat me. We actually got a lot done in a rather short amount of time plus it didnt help that I arrived late coming into NYC/LGA, but at least I got there! :). Friday, I spent some time working over email and some documentation that I had to finish up, but that took no more than 1 or 2 hours. We saw the movie X-men 3, went to Dave and Busters to play some video games, went bowling, and got ready for a poker game friday night. Before the poker game started, we decided to play some basketball. We played 2 vs 3 and won all three games we played. That was a good time. I hadnt played basketball that much recently and basketball is one of my favorite sports. (Plus i think its a good way to stay active). The best part of the poker game was that I got to drink some of my favorite beer, yeungling. This beer can only be bought in 3 states - NY, NJ, and PA. I ended up taking back 18 bottles of yeungling with me. It was really neat meeting some of my friend's friends and getting to see some of them I met the first time around. On Saturday, we headed into Manhatten/NYC and spent the day in the city. We spent the majority of the day at the Museum of Natural History. I was really impressed by not only how big the museum was but by how much I learned as well. The special exhibit for museum was one discussing Charles Darwin. It was very well done. I would definitely go back again. During the evening in the city, we ate near our final destination for the night - a pub called McSorley's. This is the oldest bar in NYC. It had a great atomosphere and cheap $2 beer. We didnt arrive back at my friend's place until 2am on Sunday. Sunday and Monday of memorial day weekend were both spent relaxing. Although we managed to play more basketball on Sunday. As I told my friend Abhi, I really just enjoyed doing stuff like play video games, ping pong, poker, basketball. Not only because I enjoy doing those activities, but because I was doing those activities with friends.

These three trips have helped me to understand something that has taken me 2+ years to do: that is to be more appreciative, thankful, and grateful of the people that are important to me and help make me successful. It is only recently that I have told any of my friends this as well. In those 2+ years of learning, I have experienced many different things, but the things that have kept me going is the support I have received from my friends and family.

In the coming 12-14 months, I will be making a decision about whether or not I should move to a different city. I don't anticipate this to be a very easy decision to make. Hopefully, when it is all said and done, I will be in a place where I will be able to invite my friends to come and stay with me to repay them for those visits that I have already made.

Since this post is extremely long, I will just give a quick update on student loans. Right now I have only 2 more loans to pay back to Iowa Student Loan. Then I will focus my efforts on Wells Fargo. I anticipate that ISL loans will be paid off in September or October of this years. Wells Fargo loans progress will be made by the end of the year on a majority of those loans as well. The goals behind the quick repayment of these loans is to allow for greater flexibility in choosing a place to move to.

I am going to make a few phone calls today to my friends to see how they are doing after I complete my 7 mile run for the day. Because the only way I can maintain my friendships is to visit and communicate with the people I call friend.

Sincerely,
Tim

New year's, New York, New Jersey, New goals.

First off, Happy New Year!...I hope your new year started as fun and as successful as mine did. Also, thanks in advance for reading this long post.

As you can see from the title, the word new is written quite a bit. I have just returned from a wonderful trip from the east coast. What can I say, I guess I like the east coast. This time around I was in New York City for new year's. It was absolutely fantastic finally being able to see the city, some of the sights (fortunately when I go back, I won't have to see them again!), and seeing friends. I saw times square, rockafeller center, central park, museum of modern art, grand central station, tom's diner (from seinfeld tv show), Columbia university campus, battery park, wallstreet, ground zero, and china town.

I think my favorite thing while I was out there was being able to hang out with my friends. I want to thank my friend Abhi for showing me around NYC to sights he's probably seen 20 times or more and for letting me stay at his place in the city. I must say I didnt know Abhi as well as I knew Adam (friend from jersey) before this trip, but I was glad to be able to get to know Abhi a little bit better because of the time I was able to spend hanging out. Abhi - you might want to learn how to actually play the guitar :). All in all, I think I pretty much experienced NYC. I want to thank my friend Adam for letting me come hang out in jersey after NYC. I certainly enjoyed playing the many games of poker, joking around with your brothers and cousins, going bowling and to the movies, and getting very little sleep. (Adam and Abhi - you have always made sure I've had a great time when I've come to visit and made me feel at home, for that I am thankful, and hope that our friendships are ones that last for a very long time.)

So what does 2006 bring for me - well I guess it brings new goals and new hopes. I want to lose 40 more pounds by the end of 2006. The good news is I went to the gym tonite and weighed only 3 more pounds than what I did 20 or so days ago. I think this is really good considering I have n't been to the gym in the last 20 days and I actually survived christmas and the holidays pretty well. I havent been very vocal about this but since May 2005, I have lost a total of 40 pounds. I've always told myself that I would never let myself get to the point where my physical movement was impaired or that I could not perform physical activities like basketball, soccer, or racquetball. For some time I had begun to feel uncomfortable on airplanes and at some theme park rides, I felt that my weight was becoming an issue and it needed to be addressed. After that I joined a gym and started running and lifting weights. I started running about a mile every other day, as of today, I am up to over 3 miles and continue to lift. My goal for 2006 is to be able to run up to 5 miles. I also watch how much I eat and try to eat a little bit healthier than what I was doing before. (cutting out ordering pizza and cutting out drinking pop at home, trying to eat greens a little bit more, switching to diet pop at the office, etc) I have been motivated by this msnbc article dealing with something called: intuitive eating. ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10297653/ ). Constant exercise has helped as well.

Finally, I have a few trips planned for 2006 already. It will be a matter of setting dates and confirming with people that they are available. It will also depend what part of the country I am in for alot of 2006. Here is the list of locations I am planning on visiting in 2006 (and potential timeframes):

Las Vegas - April 2006
San Diego - March 2006
Phoenix - Summer 2006
NYC - Summer 2006 (either May or July) and Dec 2006 (New Year's eve for sure)
Rochester,MN - Sometime in Summer 2006

One of my other goals is to stay in contact with friends and family. I hope to do this through phone calls, emails, IMs, and visits. As you can see there is a lot to accomplish for 2006. I hope that if you have any goals that you are successful at accomplishing your goals.

If you'd like me to visit, specific invitations are greatly appreciated as well as reminders of open invitations.

Lastly, I just found out I'll be in chicago for the next six weeks. Who knows after that is over. Hopefully San Francisco is in order.

Until the next time where-ever our paths may cross,

Tim Morrison

Its been a long time....

Well its been a long time since I have posted to the blog. (not like many people read this, but hey, you never know). Let me start with a number of updates:

1)I am finally done with my travels to San Francisco. I really have mixed feelings on this. I liked traveling out there and working with the people that were on the PwC team. I also liked being on the west coast. I practically spent my whole summer on the west coast including time in Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, and San Francisco. At the same time, I think its good to have a break from being out of town. It's just too bad the break has to come during the winter! :-). Basically from now, until the end of the year, I will be working in Minneapolis. I don't know where I'll be after December yet as far as work goes (maybe Chicago, Dallas or San Francisco again?) It was pretty cool spending 3 months out there (25% of the year)...not many people in firm can say they spent 25% of their year in San Francisco.

2) I am still getting my New Years plans together. The current plan is that I will be gone from Dec 29 - Jan 5 spending Dec 29 - Jan 1 or 2 in NYC and the rest of the time in NJ. I have confirmed the the NYC plans but haven't confirmed the NJ plans quite yet. Either way, I plan on being out of the midwest around New Years.

3) Speaking of the upcoming holidays - thanksgiving, christmas, and new years...potential schedule is:
Nov 23-27 (evening of the 23rd) - home in Iowa
Dec 23 - Dec 28/29 - home in Iowa
Dec 29 - Jan 5 (could change depending on NJ timeframe) - east coast trip - NYC/NJ
Jan 5 - Jan 8 - home in Iowa
Jan 9 - Begin work again ... location to be determined

On a side note, I've found its becoming more difficult to use all my vacation days effectively. I never thought it would be this hard to use vacation days. I would like to plan for something in the summer but I havent decided what that would be. I don't think a trip abroad is in the cards yet, so I will begin to look at other options.

4) Loan update front....based on my projections...ISL loans should be paid off by Sept 2006 at the latest. Progress is being made. After ISL loans are paid off, the plan is to transfer the remaining balance of Wellsfargo loans to a 0% Credit card and pay those off quickly.

5) Based on conversations I've had recently, I've also began to do a year-by-year evaluation of when it makes senses for me to move. I do know that I won't be moving before my first promotion in the firm, but its hard to say if I should wait an additional year after my first promotion to move.

That is all for now. The next 20 or months are going to hard at times in terms of not being able to have alot of fun which is why I need to have alot of fun when I am out east. I think also there will be moments of extreme happiness as well. We will just have to see how this all plays out and how predictions and projections I get right.

Getting down to business.

I have been in Phoenix, Orlando, Des Moines (yes that's home :) ), and San Francisco since I last made a post. All four cities have been excellent. I just wanted to give a short update on the student loans. I titled this post "getting down to business" because I have recently paid in full 2 of 6 student loans that I have with Iowa Student Loan. I plan on making large monthly payments for the rest of the year and hopefully the bonus and raise will help me pay off the loans quicker. I am doing this because I ran some numbers, and I am better off paying the loans off as soon as possible instead of trying to save up and pay off the loans with one time payments. I am definitely serious about paying off these loans as soon as possible. I am off to SFO in about 3 hours and need to look at this place I am potentially thinking about moving into. So I will sign off for now.

What a 4th of July weekend....

Wow...The extended weekend in Detroit was great! It was most relaxing not having to think about work, email, or the internet. I arrived in Detroit on June 30 and started relaxing. I even got to visit the gym that day. On Friday, the rest of my family arrived in Detroit and they were pretty happy to be there. During the day on Friday, I made it to the driving range. (Thanks Charlie for taking me there and letting me use your clubs) I stayed with some family friends who very graciously let myself, my brother and his wife, and my sister stay at their place while we were in town. They made sure we had a great time and that we never went hungry! I must thank Sharon and Charlie profusely for letting us stay at their house, taking us to the tigers/yankees game (too bad the tigers didnt win), and making sure we always had something to eat. It was really nice to see their remodeled house. On Sunday, we did the Henry Ford museum. That was pretty cool, got to see a bunch of different cars, trains, and historical items. The mysimon was pretty sweet. I need to look for one of those on ebay. Overall, I would say it was great to see everyone (yes, even my family :) ) and that we all had a good time. I am glad I convinced my parents to do something other than stay home for the 4th of July.

I am in St. Louis right now as I write this entry. I'll be here until July 8th. The summer is basically half over and it'll be interesting to see how the rest shapes up. I keep hearing possible locations of where I could be on projects, but am not holding my breath until it actually happens. For the week of July 11, I will be in Minneapolis working. I don't know for July 18 or July 25 where I will be. What I do know is that July 28-August 1, I am going down to Phoenix for the weekend. It'll be nice to hang out down there with a friend. Also, looking forward to Aug 8-15. The 8th-12th, I'll be in Florida attending a conference. The 12-15th, I'll be home for the weekend.

One last thing, I will be working on posting pictures from the Detroit trip on this site called flickr.com. More to come soon.

slowly but surely....

Ah another short update...slowly but surely, I am saving up to pay off a significant portion of my student loans. I have 43.92% saved up (that's aprox 13.1K) toward my goal of paying off 30K in loans by Dec. Like I've said before, I don't know if I will actually make this goal, but I'll come close.

secondly, really looking forward to being in Detroit June 30 - July 4. I will not be taking a computer with me. Will have no access to email and don't plan on being on the internet at all. It will be pure relaxation with a Tigers/Yankees game mixed in between.

third, I've been in Milwauke for 2 weeks in june and got to see Louis (friend,roommate when I was in Rochester,MN) both times. That was cool. He is doing well and has many of the same battles I have with being in a new city and all. We also discussed planning a trip out to San Diego next year which I think would be sweet.

fourth, looking into planning a weekend trip down to phoenix, AZ this summer. Everything should work out. Can already feel a desire to get out of the midwest for a few days again (although Detroit will be a very nice break from the norm!)... :)

fifth, looking forward to Advisory University (AU) in Orlando, FL on Aug 8-12.

sixth, current schedule (as current as I know it to be) --> June 21 - 24 in Detroit on business, June 27 - 29 (Detroit on business), June 30 - July 4 ( Detroit on vacation), July 5 - 8 in Minneapolis, July 28 - Aug 1 (tenative weekend in Phoenix), August 8-12 in Orlando, FL for Advisory University, Aug 12-15 home in Iowa to visit friends and family.


EDIT --> Almost forgot two things...1) I am going to try and get down to Ames this summer for a weekend, just to say hi to a few people down there. 2) Will go down to Rochester,MN for a weekend in July once everyone is settled into their new jobs at IBM would shoot for July 23 or may switch that weekend with tenative phoenix weekend depending on schedules.

Dumping the games.....or (the continued story of what happened)

This post will be a little jumbled and not make much sense (or be very connected)....so I guess I'll seperate it by items.

Item 1) Well I have done it now. I have uninstalled all the PC games I had on my computer. I would like to sell the games I do have (aprox 22 PC games). I don't enjoy PC gaming like I used to and I don't want to play PC games anymore. I will still have my xbox in case I get that gaming urge. Odd as this may seem, its just all part of roller coaster I have been on the past 6 weeks. In fact, I may sell my desktop and go back to laptops (for space reasons, and other considerations). While I can't afford to do this right away, it is something I will be considering.

Item 2) As I think more and more about moving out of the midwest, I do get more excited. (The prospect of having 2-3 more winters to survive is a good one to think about) I have decided that when/if I get to move, I want to drive myself out instead having movers ship my car to whereever I might move.(Plus I would hope to be in a new car...before I moved out of Minneapolis) I do alot of flying as it is, I think if I drive, I would see a whole new experience. It would be my first major road trip on my own (hopefully I wouldnt do this by myself....would be nice to be able to find someone to drive out with me). To give a little background --> when I was younger, my family drove out to California in 1984 and out to Maine and the NE U.S. in 1985. Not that I remember much about the drive, but it was fun, and you really got to see the country from a different prospective.

Item 3) Looking forward to traveling again for work and vacation. I will be in Milwaukee on Monday-Thurs. the week of June 13. The week of June 20, I will be in Detroit. I might even stay the weekend to go visit a friend down in Columbus, OH...---aprox 3.5 hour drive from Detroit. Then from June 27-29, I will be in detroit on business, and from June 30 - July 4, I will be in Detroit visiting family friends. My parents and older brother and his wife will be there as well. We will go see a Tiger's game and just relax.

Item 4) Well I guess there's not an item 4 today. Pretty much all my random thoughts have been put down on "paper" today. Its off to shower, work out, shower again, get my haircut, then to clean my room and do laundery. This is another reason why I can not have my own place, is because I can barely keep my own room clean! Hopefully this will change for the better.

Loan savings update --> 12.6K out of 30K saved. Still a long ways to go... Should be up to 13.2K soon. Once I get those nasty credit card balances paid off , I 'll be able to save more....and really I shouldnt say nasty, because its all 0% right now and its 1 card. Nonetheless, I don't like carrying balances. Also I am in the process of consolidating my federal loans to lock in a low interest rate. (3.125%). This should be completed by the end of June.