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Keeping Myself Honest…

April 1st, 2012 | by | in the news

Apr
01

In order to make sure I keep track on all my goals, I’m going to check in every quarter and see where I’m at. So seeing as it is the first day of April, time for the 1st quarter review.

Goal #1: Sleep More! With the help of mercuryapp.com, I’ve been able to track my sleep time and so far for 3 months I’m averaging 6.86 hours of sleep a night. I’m shooting for 7+ so I’m not too far off.

Goal #2: Time for family – Check and check. Work hasn’t gotten in the way too much so that’s all good there.

Goal #3: Ship Code. Have a small idea that I’m working on. Need to find the time. Hopefully this summer.

Goal #4: 5×5. One down, 3 more on my radar. Need one in the fallish timeframe which I think I have 1 or 2 that I’m looking at. I’ve been putting the miles on as I have logged over 70+ miles so far this year.

Goal #5: Top Secret. Still top secret.

 

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App Boom

March 11th, 2012 | by | in the news, iphone app reviews, rants

Mar
11

We’re doomed to repeat history. Wait…what? Isn’t that the point of history to study it so we DON’T make the same boneheaded mistakes. Yes, that’s exactly why you read history books.

Yet, we are in another round of the IT glory days. Read TechCrunch for 5 minutes and you’ll just be shaking your head. What was the .com boom of the late 90s has become the new app explosion of today. Money is flying at companies that have a cool new app with a bunch of users but NO REVENUE!!!

The latest example is an app that I really like. Its being reported that Instagram is raising 40 million dollars with a 500M company valuation. While its great that they can keep the lights on and servers running, but how are they going to make money? Maybe giving away the app wasn’t your best plan. I would have paid $0.99 for the full version with maybe a free version with only a few filters. 27 millions users you say, It would have been rough having 18.9 million (27M * 70% after Apple’s cut) coming in the door if you charged for the app.

I’ve bitched before about FlipBoard doing some of the same shit.

Ladies and Gentlemen…if you want to run a successful company, you need to have money coming in the door. And I’m not talking about VC money. It may help you out in the short term, but guess what, those VC guys and gals expect to get paid at some point. Stop bullshitting us with the “oh we’ll figure out a way to make money in the future, we have X million users now”. If you haven’t figured it out by now, you’re not going to asshole. And the VC that invest in you deserve every bit of loss that they get. Just don’t got public with it, screw up my 401K, and the rest of the stock market in the process.

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Red Flannel Run 2012

February 11th, 2012 | by | in the news

Feb
11

Today marked the official start to the race season for me. I’m not competitive in these things by any means but calling it a race season makes it seem like I know what I’m doing. Signup, run, don’t die. Pretty much in that order. In the end, its all about knocking out one of my goals for 2012.

There were a lot of things different about the Red Flannel Run in 2012 compared to last year. First and foremost, the temps. Last year we were in the mid-30s and I was warm as could be in my gear. This year, I wore pretty much the same thing except the temps were 7 degrees with a -6 windchill. It was cold out there. But with the gear I had on and the running, I warmed up pretty quickly. I just wish I would have had some sort of neck gator on. That would have made a pretty big difference for me. I kept having some breathing issues after the first 1.5 miles and I’m pretty sure it was due to things (mouth, lungs etc) freezing up a bit.

Second big difference, I ran a heck of a lot faster than in 2011. Too fast for the first mile but over all, I shaved off 4+ minutes from the previous year and beat my fastest time from 2011.

The official stats come in as this:
Time: 23:51
Age Group rank: 12
Overall: 70

Not bad for the first time out. I’m hoping for some stronger finishes later in the year when I can get some better training in. Running on the dreadmill is boring and I never want to go more than 2 miles. I’m hoping that once we get over the snow, ice and cold temps I can put some longer runs in and build up the endurance for a faster time.

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Goal Tracking

January 3rd, 2012 | by | in the news, tips & tricks

Jan
03

On the 1st of the year, I put our my usual public goals for 2012. I have some typical goals in there of some fitness goals, career type goals and general health goals. Some of these are pretty cut and dry to track progress. I want to run 5 5K races, pretty straight forward.

But how do you track something like getting more sleep?

Here is where Mercury App comes in. I’ve been using this product for over a year now and have mainly been tracking things like my weight and job satisfaction. Adding to it Sleep time, not only how I feel about the sleep I got but actually tracking the number of hours should give me a good overall graph at the end of the year of how well I did in getting that 7+ average that I’m looking for.

So if you have a goal that you are working on the for the new year, start tracking your progress. You’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it. Because the only one stopping you is YOU!

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2012 Goals

January 1st, 2012 | by | in the news

Jan
01

If you’re going to go to the time to make goals, you might as well make them public. So in the keeping with my tradition of past years, here are my 2012 Goals:

  • I’ve been burning the candle at both ends for a while now. Late nights programming or just messing around on the internet have been the norm for years for me. My average time to bed is 12-12:30. Not an issue if you can sleep until 8. But I get up at 6-6:30 if not earlier based on the little bosses schedule. My goal, move the bed time up an hour and get 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Goal #1: Sleep More!
  • This goal has been around for a couple of years in various forms. But even as I work more to make my goals happen, I need to make sure that the time spent with my wife and child are still 100% committed. That time between 5-8 right now is worth more than any paycheck you can give me. Goal #2: Time for family is a huge one.
  • A goal that I’m pretty disappointed that I didn’t complete last year is my code shipping goal. With the amount of work that was put in, I should have been able to get this one done. But other things kept coming up and many many delays happened. This year will be different, action plans are in place! Goal #3: Ship Code.
  • Fitness of coarse had to make the list. Last year, I set out to run 3 5K races in the year. I accomplished this goal on July 4th and didn’t run another race after that. I still ran, but it wasn’t with the same drive. I could do a simple mile instead of 2-3 and that was ok. But I’d like to keep more drive there to keep me going. On each of my races, I dropped my time. I’m hoping to do the same with this years goal but it will be tough. This years goal is to keep up the running and racing and do 5 5K races in 2012. Goal #4: 5×5.
  • Yes, I’m a huge believer in goals being public. But this last one is going to be kept under wraps for a while. National security is involved and I don’t want it to get messy for you my dear readers. Goal #5: Top Secret

So there you have it. My 2012 goals. Obviously, a lot of work needs to happen to make these become a reality. Some goals I’m sure will be tough to do, but that’s the point of these right.

Let’s get to work!

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