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
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
posted by Tim Morrison at 12:06 PM
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