With a New Year…

January is typically a time where everyone makes goals and plans for the upcoming year. I am not immune from this, and most Januarys find me doing the same thing. Last year, I wrote about the four things I wanted to do, which I mostly failed at, though I was mostly happy this year until my father passed away two weeks ago. Two years ago, I highlighted a lot of the previous years’ goals, which tend to repeat from year to year.

This year is no different. I have a lot of the same goals that have followed me from year to year, primarily because I fail at accomplishing goals. Things are a little different this year, because my success means a bit more with a new wife and being back in Utah for the entire year. For the most part, I’ll be sticking with the same goals as last year, though they are changing a little bit. Without further adieu, here are my goals for 2015: Continue reading “With a New Year…” →

Unfinished Business – Chapter One

In the first post in this series, I talked about my reasons why I am considering rejoining the Army Reserves, and since it is a month later, I figured it would be a good time to update what is going on…which isn’t really a whole lot at this point.

Shortly after my previous post, I found an e-mail attached to the Army Reserve Career Counselor’s responsible for Direct Commissions. After some e-mails back and forth clarifying what I was actually asking about, I was passed on to the Career Counselor responsible for my geographic region… who I didn’t hear from for about three weeks. After finally getting around to responding to my initial query, it turns out that the person that I will eventually need to talk to is yet another career counselor. I guess it is my fault for trying to be so proactive, and seeing as how I can’t really start the process for a little while (more on that in a minute), I don’t blame them for pushing me off until later, especially when I’m sure that they have other work to do. It was just a nice reminder of how things work in the Reserves sometime.

The only other thing that really occurred in the past month is a visit I had with a former Army colleague while I was in California on spring break. When the fiance and I arrived in Anaheim, my good friend Alberto reached out and wanted to get lunch. I had forgotten that he was in Anaheim, literally a few minutes from where we were staying, so we delayed a day in Disneyland to meet him for lunch. It was really good to see him, and I was reminded that he was one of the many good people that I met during my time in the Reserves. Continue reading “Unfinished Business – Chapter One” →

Unfinished Business – Prologue

I’ve been really bad about writing as frequently as I set out to at the beginning of the year. Part of this can be attributed to interference from school as I come down the home stretch in my MSF program, as well as my general frustration with looking for a job for the past few months. As the title to this post implies, however, this should be a series of posts, probably pretty infrequent initially, about some direction that I think I am going to take in my life, if only for the next 12-18 months or so. You’ve been forewarned that it is a long post. On with the show…

The general malaise in my life recently has not been all school/job search related. For the most part, I am able to do both those things almost on autopilot now, which can be both a good and bad thing. As I reach the middle of what should be the last semester I ever spend in school, I’m beginning to think about what is coming next for me. Sure, I’ll be working somewhere, hopefully sooner rather than later, and I’ll be moving back to Utah, again, hopefully sooner rather than later, and that’ll be fine.

My personal life seems to be at it’s highest point in the last six years or so, with a supportive girlfriend that loves me almost as much as I love her and plans for a long life together somewhere. With her support, I feel like I can, and will, eventually accomplish all of my goals, no matter how small, which is one of the many reasons why I love her. Continue reading “Unfinished Business – Prologue” →

The Year That Will Be 2014

Yesterday, I looked at all the goals that I made for myself for 2013 and how I fared, and my performance was less than stellar. Nevertheless, I am not deterred from making even more goals this year, though I don’t think it will approach the number and specificity of 2013. I have a few basic goals that would make 2014 better, and hopefully I will be able to accomplish them.

On with the show!

1) The Fitness Goal(s)
I know that people say that specific and numerical goals are easier to accomplish and whatnot. That said, this goal will be a combination of a couple different things:

Lose 80 pounds – I like this number from last year, so we’re going with it again.
Run 300 miles this year
Get my gym on at least 3x a week
Sleep better and like a normal person
Eat better, including eliminating soda completely by the end of the year Continue reading “The Year That Will Be 2014” →