January 5, 2011

New Year’s Resolutions

Filed under: Personal — spiro @ 4:34 am

I usually don’t make new year’s resolutions. And when I do make them, I typically don’t share them, mainly because I hate being asked the question. I usually respond by saying something like this.

A good nerd comeback that won’t go away :)

But this year I am going to do things a little differently. I will take resolutions will share them, and will hold myself accountable to them.

Weight Loss

Just over 4 years ago, I decided to lose all that weight I had. Now many people who didn’t know me back then won’t know that I used to be really really big. So I shed about 100 pounds, in a little less than one year, and kept it off for two years. The problem is that the weight has started to creep up on me again, and it needs to go.

Weight loss is a little tricky, because it doesn’t quite subscribe to the traditional S.M.A.R.T. goals idea – that is, goals that you take should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. Setting to lose X amount of pounds by D date isn’t very likely to be a successful goal. Instead people should completely forget about losing weight and instead focus on making the necessary lifestyle changes, and weight loss will come with it. I won’t go into the details in this post, but I’d highly recommend Dr. Phil’s Weight Loss book. I don’t want to give this guy more advertising than he already has, but honestly this is how I got started.

Building My Finances

As an engineer, I have not gotten much exposure to the financial world, but I do know enough about it to notice that it’s pretty hopping! I’m starting to feel increasingly lonely, tapping code on my keyboard, investigating bug reports, and attending meetings, while some others are getting filthy rich on the stock market. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. It pays very well. I just feel as if I’m staying home on a Saturday night while my neighbors are having a huge party with lots of hot chicks next door!

Enough with the analogies, it’s time to move! I’ve got some tools to get started: a Fidelity account thanks to my employer, and I’ve recently been watching Nightly Business Report religiously.

Yes, just two for now. Let’s see how I do :p

February 25, 2010

Biking to work

Filed under: Cycling,Microsoft,Personal,Seattle — spiro @ 6:16 pm

I finally bought a bicycle last weekend, after roughly a year of thinking about it. Monday was pretty nice here in Seattle, so I bailed out of work early to go ride a bit around Kirkland. Not only did I enjoy the ride, but I ended up doing 10.5 miles going to Juanita and back, then all the way to South Kirkland P&R (see route). So the logical conclusion from that is that I should be able to get through the 6.1 miles to work right? But unfortunately the weather would not cooperate this week, until today.

So here’s the route to work:

bikeroute

bikeroute

So I made it, the only big surprise is how I was exhausted climbing the hill west of 405, and a strong southerly wind, which should both help me on the way back :)