Don’t think the rage is gone… it’s still there and I have about a dozen topics saved up over the past two weeks.  From the NDAA and gay rights battles to the Boehner “taking his ball and going home” fiasco, there is no shortage of stupidity going on in DC right now.  Sadly, you probably won’t be hearing about it for awhile on this blog because I’m set for some much-anticipated vacation time.

At this time tomorrow, I’ll officially be on the ground in Ohio for a week.  I take off at a little after 5pm my time and land in Ohio at 9:32 Eastern.  It’s an exciting flight for me because the six days that I’m home will be pure vacation.  No work, no way, no how.  Upon my return the follow Thursday, I’ll still be on vacation until Tuesday morning.  I’m scared at what may become of my various inboxes while I’m gone, but that’s for when I am back on company time.  For now, once I’m on that plane tomorrow, work stress is out of my life.

I already got my upgrade for Business Class already.. so free cocktails to help out with the whole “forgetting work” thing, but then something really cool (for me) happened.. AirTran sent an e-mail related to MSP tomorrow saying to be there “NO LATER THAN 120 MINUTES PRIOR TO DEPARTURE” due to extensive holiday travel and heightened security.  The double whammy of flying from the Humphrey (smaller) terminal and getting to take the Business Class/Elite security line will save me a huge headache since I’m going to the airport on a tight schedule after work.

On that subject (flying is one of my favorite subjects this year), I was actually on two planes yesterday as well.  For those of you who’ve never heard of a points run or mileage run, the idea is that you find a decent fare and fly the route with the sole intention of gaining points and/or miles to be used to earn tier status.  For example, ten flights in ninety days nets you Elite status with AirTran.  Between my first flight home from MSP in October and my flight back to MSP coming up on 12/29, I had eight flights and needed only one more round trip to earn Elite, so when the most recent fare sale included MSP-MKE for 59 dollars each way, I booked it.  I left at 5:45 yesterday morning, had breakfast and returned before 9:30.  I was at work by ten.  Fun times.

Now I just hope that AirTran doesn’t rip those Business Class seats out too early due to the Southwest merger.

Last thing on flights… flying Kristin and Tiffany out here for NYE.  I’m taking them to Pizza Luce, 5-8 Club, MoA and then Bar Fly for NYE.  They’ll be here Thursday through Sunday afternoon, flying back home after some recovery from the party the night before.  Watch Facebook, I’m sure there will be a few pictures of the party as the night goes on.  There’s supposed to be a resolution booth… I bet the person in THAT booth has more fun as the drinks start to flow.

Ahh.. resolutions.  I resolve to be living in Ohio full time again no later than May.  I resolve to run a nine minute mile by the end of the year.  I resolve to make 2012 the best year of Kristin’s life so far, though I haven’t figured out exactly how to do that yet.  I’m going to make a financial resolution of some kind, though I haven’t figured that one out yet.  Part of me really wants to resolve to get an IOL (intra-ocular lens) implant in my right eye this year so I can stomp on these glasses and forget about them.

That’s it for me.. what are your resolutions for 2012?  Leave them in the comments!

“…he sacrifices his health in order to make money.  Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.  And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

– Dalai Lama on the most surprising thing about humanity

What am I doing here?

Why am I spending Saturday night in front of a monitor, next to a sliding door that shields me from bitter cold, writing a blog in this solitary confinement while the girl I love and the friends I rely on are playing cards and having drinks 700 miles away?

What kind of life am I living by giving up all the things that make me happy so I can collect a bigger paycheck?  Is this really the person I’ve become?

No, it’s not.  I told myself that I couldn’t start a family without financial security; that I wouldn’t make a promise to a woman, that I wouldn’t bring a child into the world that I wasn’t absolutely sure would always be provided for.  The food, shelter, and health of that future family depended on a stable and sufficient income and the math was undeniable.

Still, though… I live alone, four states away from everyone that makes me happy?

My plans have been to propose the change in May.  I’ve made it clear to my boss and his boss (not to intentionally quote a song) that my heart is in Ohio.  As I sit here tonight and look at the picture my girlfriend sent me and realize that captured moment in time is the only moment in this entire day that I’ll get to see her, I realize that May was a bit ambitious.  I know I have to prove myself and make a business case and help the team adjust to the transition and all that, but I can’t spend five more months like this.

My priorities are shifting but I have to put a plan into action… tonight, I begin drafting plans to leave Minnesota before the snow melts.  May is not an option.
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So this is one of my shorter blog entries.. I wasn’t doing it so much to share my thoughts with the world as much as I just needed to get it off my chest.  Some of the coolest people in the world are chilling in Elyria, Ohio tonight and it’s not easy for me to be missing from that scene.  I’ll be home soon, one way or another.

I’m thinking I may try to coin a new phrase tonight, so I’ll just get on with it.

It was seven degrees when I woke up this morning.  The wind chill was below zero.  I considered the potential for working from the condo today but reluctantly acknowledged that today’s slate was a bit too full for telecommuting.  During my conversations today at the office, I encountered a few others expressing their disdain for the cold and their intention of isolating themselves amongst the comforts of their warm homes.  Some even said that the office clears out on the coldest days as everyone holes up like it’s the end times.

From my time spent working at the home office in Ohio, I’m aware of what isolation can do to someone.  Sometimes, I literally sat in the front yard with my laptop in the hopes that neighbors would come distract me for a few minutes because I had been so lacking human contact.  I found ways around it in Ohio but single digit temperatures… give me the chills.  Horrible pun intended.

So we’re staying inside to avoid the cold.  Social frostbite?  Yes/No?

I like it.

We can, of course, stay connected through the cold weather the same way I stay connected with the goings on back in the Buckeye State (Go Blue!).  There’s Twitter, Facebook, SMS… even e-mail if you’re still a little old school.  That sort of social interaction, though, presents much the opposite problem.  Instead of too little communication, it’s easy for a social experience to turn into a jumbled, useless mess if you don’t have the time to keep things cleaned up and streamlined.

At one point, between my various projects, I was responsible for five Twitter feeds, six Facebook accounts and/or pages, several e-mail addresses and a multitude of other platforms.  When Google+ debuted, I was sure to inform my more tech-centric buddies that I was sitting this one out.  I had too much going on.  And so it has remained until today, even as I see those friends flocking to the new big thing and blowing their Facebook profile, yesterday’s hub of connectedness, to smithereens.  If I don’t convert, I’ll be left behind by at least some of them.

I’ve reduced the non-work e-mail addresses down to three, soon to be two… and one of them will remain a “junk” account.  Outside of work, I now manage one Facebook page and two Twitter feeds (soon to be one).  I’ve been suffering from social overload.  It’s not necessarily anyone’s fault, my own or otherwise… I just got a little overwhelmed with the different focal points of my life and things overlapped and criss-crossed a bit.  Now’s the time to fix it.

Don’t get me wrong… I won’t be participating less in social media.  If anything, I’ve been stepping it up lately.  Streamlining your participation makes it far easier to manage the various channels.  Case in point:  Late last week, I contacted a guy on Twitter and we took the problem to Direct Message.  That led to an e-mail that led to a Google Talk instant message.  In the end, we resolved the issue… which was the administration of a Facebook account.  You can’t make this stuff up.  This sort of multichannel experience gets exponentially more difficult when you factor in several accounts in each channel.

It comes down to this:  One primary e-mail (and one backup).  One Facebook, one Twitter, one Google+, one LinkedIn.  Put things where they go, cross-promote as necessary, but figure out how you’re going to use each one and stick with it.  Follow away on Twitter… but put everyone in a custom group so you can follow the right people at the right times.  Do the same on Facebook… it’s a little less intuitive than Google+ Circles, but it’s not that bad.  Get your game plan together and execute.

As for me, I’ll be transitioning out of several accounts this week that I’ve used for quite some time and making sure everyone knows to migrate to the remaining accounts.  I have some lists to build, but once I’m done, life will be far easier.

Then I’ll be able to get through this winter without falling victim to social frostbite.

Also, MySpace.  We’re bringing it back.  See you there.  🙂

I just returned from 16 days back in good old Elyria and I must say that I had a great time.  I was there so long that it really started to feel like everything was back to normal, so coming back out this time was almost as hard as the first time.  It’s strange how quickly I readjusted there and the same goes for the quick readjustment once I returned to cold, blustery Bloomington.  That said, I’ve realized there are some major differences in my Ohio self and my Minnesota self.

For those who aren’t already familiar with the backstory, I learned really quickly that Minnesotans walk.  I mean they walk a lot.  I’ve been trying to join the craze and I’ve also been hitting up Planet Fitness several times a week while here (more on them later) and the results have been spectacular.  Along with my excellent diet out here (lettuce wraps, spaced out meals, less pasta and Jager, etc.), the workouts have helped me lose around twelve pounds since relocating.

Sadly, in my sixteen days in Ohio, I ate out probably a dozen times (including pizza, burgers, pasta and everything else I shouldn’t be eating) and I worked out a grand total of twice.  I also drank a bit more Jager, which is far worse than the whiskey I tend to gravitate toward when I’m working to make better decisions out here.  Those wonderful discrepancies took away half of the gains I made since the big move.  Yuck.

Another interesting bad habit that resurfaced was drinking and getting obnoxious about it.  See, out here I have a drink or two at home and then hit the sack… or I dive into the occasional Jager-fueled radio show (follow me on Twitter for the next one!) until I pass out.  Back around the girlfriend, I drank and wanted to party with her, sometimes quite a bit more than she wanted to party back.  I might spend every day shufflin’, but she has college, work, internship, etc. and needs that rest to get by.  I take it a little personally when I’m the only one who wants to party all night… so I bitch and moan about it, drunkenly thinking that’ll inspire her to get up and party when in reality it probably just makes her want to take a frying pan to my head (sexism not intended).

Now work, that was my shining star… I was very productive when it came time to do my job.  I’m fully confident that I’m ready to handle that aspect, armed with the knowledge that I need to escape the office and work somewhere else at least a day or two a week to keep myself from falling victim to cabin fever.  At least I know I’m ready for that.

The other stuff, though… all I know for sure is that living on my own and working in an office around other human beings makes me take care of business in a way that I haven’t completely applied to Ohio life yet.  Of course, it’s not for a lack of trying, but in my two nights back in Bloomington I’ve worked out, grocery shopped, cleaned the place, prepped meals, unpacked, ate healthy and wrote this blog.  And had half a glass of Jack and Coke without slipping into party mode.

And I’ll be going to bed around ten to get up early and do it all over again tomorrow.

The next big task in my life is to figure out how to do what I do here – when I get back there.

I’m not too worried, though… I tend to notice learning opportunities when they arise and I’m also fortunate to have a significant other who cares about me enough to tell me when I’m broken and need to fix myself.  Everyone should be so lucky.

Only 22 days to the next trip home where I get to test all the theories I’ve created around this.   You can be sure I’ll blog about it.

Man, I want to say those words and mean them.

So I pretty much had my first complete mental breakdown this weekend. Yay.. everyone got to see my neurotic side! As I closed in on my fifth X on my whiteboard’s weekly countdown until the end of this lease, I was counting down the minutes until I got my daily dose of the girl I miss more than I can explain. In an ironic twist, her social life has picked up quite a bit since I’ve relocated, so I had to do without, and my brain didn’t take too kindly to the sudden withdrawal.

So I did what any rational 32 year old would do. I posted a bunch of generic emo-sounding updates on Facebook, downed half a bottle of Jager and hit bottom. OK, so perhaps it’s the _opposite_ of what a rational 32 year old would do, but it’s not exceptionally shocking behavior for me. I mean, really, I should have seen it coming with the daily mini-breakdowns I had been keeping to myself.

The great thing is it only lasted two days this time. Some amazing people reached out via Facebook and text message and really helped pull me through, then I had my “spill my guts, cry, and then get over it” routine with the girl that really put my mind back in the right place. I smiled for the first time since Friday. It felt great, the proverbial “weight lifted from the shoulders” feeling.

It’s not over, though. I’m not as adaptable as most people. Every single day is a struggle, not when I’m at work or when I’m running errands or when I’m working out, but when I lay down to sleep. Melatonin slows my overactive and pessimistic brain but it doesn’t stop it. The way I feel right now is this: I definitely do not have 47 more weeks in me. I strongly doubt that I would be able to manage half that. It’s likely that I would find a way below rock bottom if I was still out here in late spring.

As it stands today, I’m going to put this week in, go develop a social life (thanks Erik Hess for helping me get started with this tomorrow), and head home to the center of my universe this weekend to put some color and taste back into my drab grey life. I seriously booked the flight back at 6am on Monday so I could sleep there one more (partial) night. It was good foresight on my part… I need all the help I can get.

After that, I have a week off during Christmas and I’m hoping to add at least two more weekends in Ohio during between now and then. I’m flying Kristin and Tiffany out for New Year’s Eve. That’s where the current plans end and where I’m formulating my next steps. My thoughts are to suggest allowing me to work from home for a few weeks in late January/early February to accomplish a number of important things:

– Avoid as much of Minnesnowta’s harsh winter as possible
– Take care of any issues around the house that need to be resolves
– Keep myself from going insane spending the cold winter alone
– Prove that I’m as productive, efficient, and participatory working from home

I was initially planning to use this as a stepping stone to begin a long-term discussion to transition into a May start date for working from Ohio. After the past two days, I feel like my situation is more serious and I’m planning to solicit feedback and foster an immediate conversation on whether this time was well spent and how we can speed along a transition that allows me to return to Ohio, flying out to Minneapolis as needed, and to make that happen in the shortest possible timeframe.

Credit where it’s due.. Kristin told me immediately. She said it was going to be hard for me. She knows me better than I know myself. She said to consider how I’ll be able to go on with the distance and I said I’d pull through. I can’t think of a time where her advice was off the mark, but this was her most accurate bulls-eye ever.

Sigh. I should listen to her more often.

And I shouldn’t come back to Minneapolis next Monday without her…

Today’s page of my Classic Dave Barry Page-A-Day calendar (yes, I’m old and he’s funny) included this excerpt:

The truth is that – and I speak here as a trained humor professional – women are definitely more interested in muscles than a sense of humor.  You will never hear a woman say: “I wish Brad Pitt would put his shirt back on and tell some jokes!”

Decades ago in 2002, when I met my girlfriend, I was a spry 140 pound young man.  I also had never used the word spry, but that’s not the point.  I was going through a point in my life where, because of some missing blocks of time from my teens, I was living a straight edge lifestyle.  I was pretty committed to the mantra that if you put bad things into your body, the outcome will be bad as well.  Of course, I also benefited from the metabolism of a 22 year old guy as well.

As years went on, I slowly (and by slowly I mean quickly) picked back up on social drinking with Kristin and her friends.  Each year required, of course, progressively more alcohol to achieve the same effect and while my metabolism was slowing, my intake of the carb-filled German herbal liquer that I love so much was accelerating.

That’s the part that pretty much everyone already knows.  If you’ve seen me since turning 30, I look like a dude who used to be in his 20s but then suddenly wasn’t.

Since moving from Cleveland (ranked 15th fattest city in America by Men’s Fitness) to Minneapolis (ranked #1 fittest city in America by ACSM), walking down the street has become an eye-opening experience.  Also, people walk down the street here.  Or bike.  Or jog.  It becomes apparent very quick that an overweight Clevelander is from out of town when a meeting is three floors up and he’s the only one that passes the stairs on his way to the elevator.  They called out, “the steps over here!”  They hadn’t even considered that I was going for the elevator… they just thought I was lost.

I’m happy to say that I’m walking and taking the stairs more… not quite up to my 7th floor cubicle, but maybe someday.  I’ve been in Bloomington for eleven days and have only drank once compared to the typical three or four nights a week.  I’ll never have that metabolism back (*sniffle*) but I’ve managed to drop six pounds already.  One good habit leads to another… I jumped on the elliptical tonight at the local gym for a ten minute workout.  It feels good to be on the right track.

I guess the moral of today’s post is that anyone can do this.  Alcohol has long been an outright addiction for me and I’ve been sober for a week.  Fast food was my go-to option and I’ve ate out once in the past week at a gathering of friends that took place at a bar and grill.  Sitting on my ass was my forte but those stairs become awfully appealing when you can squeeze into your old pants with the 34 inch waist.  Seriously, I had every bad habit at once and I’m doing it… no excuses, people!

I’m treating myself to a tasty meal of my choice every time I hit another 5 pounds lost and keep it off for a week.  I just hit 190 and I’m calling that burger last night my treat.  At 185, it’s gonna be some fettucine alfredo.  I’m hoping to be there in about three weeks.  Gotta make the goals realistic if you want to feel like you’re moving in the right direction.

Best of luck to everyone who decides today, tomorrow, next month or next year that the time has come to mold yourself back into the rock star you used to be, back when you could tear apart a large pizza and a 2 liter in one meal without gaining a pound.

Or was that just me?