New Year Resolutions – Page 4 – onvural.net – melih

What a year, 2010

The roller coaster which was 2010 has come to a close. It was pretty awesome. I got married, Micky is pregnant. I changed jobs (still at TokBox though). I’m ready for 2011. I’m going to become a father, and I’m also pretty psyched about the new doors that have opened in front of me. With all of that said, here’s an overview of how successful I was in 2010 as measured by completing my resolutions.

5/10

Lose 25 pounds by June 1st

This didn’t happen unfortunately. I had, by August 15th, lost the weight, but between Ramadan and then not playing soccer I gained it all back and more. Fortunately, as I write this post, I’m down below 200 pounds, but getting back to 185 is going to take a dedicated effort.

Play a round of golf in the 80s

Skip. This was one part ridiculous, one part awesome. Awesome because I found a new sport that I love, and I’m learning to appreciate it more and more. Ridiculous because thinking I could get that good that fast is just disrespectful to the game. This year though I’m pretty sure I’ll get my handicap below maximum.

Increase my personal savings by one-third

I did pull this off, but almost exclusively through the stock market and my retirement accounts. It was a pretty awesome wedding and honeymoon, but it sure didn’t help with this resolution.

Finish the initial BFBP product

I just launched about my dive which is the first product I’ve done under the BFBP banner. Look for more in 2011!

Blog five times per month

Maybe didn’t pull this off every month, but I think the spirit of the resolution was achieved. In the process, I really learned a lot about WordPress, writing and communicating my thoughts. I’ll continue in this vein further this year, but I’ll tell you how in my 2011 resolutions post.

Visit one new country, and three new places

Fiji was the new country. The three new places were London (I’d never visited it properly before), Asheville (again, I’d never visited Asheville properly before, just driven through it) and Guerneville. I’ll keep this resolution in 2011, but it’s going to be a bit harder with the baby coming down the pipe.

Run a half-marathon

Epic fail on this point. This is something Micky and I were going to do together, but I feel like we both failed magically on this point. However, we did run a team marathon back in April. Micky took a bit of a break in the middle of her leg, but otherwise we had a great time, and both had very successful runs.

Learn to Tango

Just didn’t happen. There just wasn’t time. I’ll probably punt on this guy this year as I think soccer, golf and diving are going to be my sports of choice.

Support Micky in helping her stop biting her nails

I’m so close on this one that I’m going to give it to myself. Micky is much better about it than she was a year ago, and she’s really close to kicking it completely.

Support Micky in helping her finish her sailing qualifications

Nope, failed at this one too. Micky passed her junior navigator, but it was in a horrible weather weekend. It was the weekend that the Chilean earthquake led to a tsunami warning across the entire Pacific Rim. After that wedding planning got in the way of Micky being able to take a weekend off and do her navigator, much less her captaining course.

And so I got a 50% clip rate. It isn’t good by any stretch of the imagination, but given all of the other things that happened this year I’d say not bad either.

Onward to 2011!

Resolutions update

Amazing that we’re already two months into 2010. I didn’t have a chance to stop in January and give an update on my resolutions, but I’m flying back to North Carolina today, and decided this was a good chance.

For first timers, I laid out 10 Resolutions for 2010 (which I should have trademarked because it’s an awesome name) in a previous blog post. I tried to make them all something which could be measured, and I put them out in the public sphere as a forcing function to make sure that I deliver.

How am I doing so far?

Lose 25 pounds by June 1st
- I didn’t define what 25 pounds would actually mean so let me do that now. I started 2010 at 202 lbs. That means that I have to get down to 178 pounds by June 1st. Right now, nine weeks in, I’m down to 194 pounds which puts me right on target for one pound per week. I’ve upped my soccer and gym time, and I’m at the golf course walking every weekend. Which leads me to my next resolution
Play a round of golf in the 80s
- If you’ve followed me on Twitter, then you know the love-hate relationship that golf has with me. I love it, but it’s a cruel, cruel mistress. I’ve been playing weekly at the Fleming Course at Harding Park where Saket, Matt and I saw the President’s Cup last year. It’s a 9-hole, par 30 course. I’ve never made it out of the 70’s.
  Now that said, my short game is just awesome, and last night at the driving range I really started making progress with my 7- and 9-irons.Â That said, this may be the most ambitious of the bunch.
Increase my personal savings by one-third
- While I had a really good idea that I was going to get engaged this year, I didn’t really appreciate how it might affect this resolution. I’m not talking the cost of a diamond ring, but the fact that I no longer have savings because now we have savings. I need to do some thinking on this one and redefine it for the next update.
  However, I am thinking about formally creating an investment club and would live to know if anyone wants in. The structure would be to invest your own money, but amortizing the cost of doing research by sharing a wiki and occasional meetings with others. If anyone is interested, then let me know.
Finish the initial BFBP product
- The good news is it’s on paper, and it won’t take too long to build. The bad news is that I’m having a tough time finding one hour per day to work on it. That will be my goal in March to help make this resolution happen.
Blog five times per month
- Success. Loving every minute of it, and I’m really glad you guys are here to share it with me.
Visit one new country, and three new places
- Total failure so far. One new country may be Egypt, Cook Islands or Bora Bora as part of the honeymoon. The new places may be Pacific Northwest. Not really sure. Would love any and all suggestions.
Run a half-marathon
- The Box, as I’m affectionately calling my place of employment, has sponsored two internal teams to do a relay marathon at the end of April. That, and losing weight, will be good indicators of how successful this resolution will be.
Learn to Tango
- I unfortunately have had no chance to work on this resolution. Honestly not holding out a lot of hope for this guy.
Support Micky in helping her stop biting her nails
- I was told an engagement ring would help. No luck. My next tactic is to use the sour apple stuff that got an old high school classmate of mine to quit. That however will happen covertly, and without prior knowledge. Very secret agent of me.
Support Micky in helping her finish her sailing qualifications
- Last weekend, Micky went out on her second cruise as the Junior Navigator. We practiced some book knowledge in the car, and I left her alone while she was studying. I did suggest that she skip the cruise because of the gale conditions, but that just inspired her to go. I give myself a “C+” score on this one.

I’d have to say that so far it looks like things are going pretty well. I’m actually really pleasantly surprised by the weight progress, and just hope that golf and BFBP follow along in the months to come.

New Year Resolutions, Uncategorized 5

No Flour, No Sugar for Lent 2010

I started observing Lent two years ago because I’m fascinated by the idea of self-restraint and how it can help make one better. The goal isn’t to give something up forever, but to see if one can give it up at all. The reward, if it can be called as such, is knowing that one’s sacrifice is a mere 40 days away from being restored to them.

The rules of Lent have been redefined to me many times. Whether one eats meat or not on Fridays. What day one stops the Lenten fast. How to make up for a mistaken breaking of one’s fast. But I quickly learned that intent is much more important than technicality, and it’s all about what one feels in one’s heart when it comes to the right and wrong of it all.

Two years ago, I gave up red meat. My family wasn’t super supportive of the idea, but it was really good for me. I really started to understand how much red meat I eat, and it was a real change of pace to make myself eat chicken, turkey, sushi and a LOT of tuna sandwiches. Thank goodness for Subway’s $5 footlong! Just once, I went to Taco Bell and ordered a bean burrito, got a beef burrito, and said to myself, “Don’t worry about it.” Other than that, I was actually able to stick to it for the full 40 days. The best bit is that I think since then I’ve definitely changed my attitude towards looking at my daily menu to include the produce section, poultry, seafood and salad as opposed to focusing on the biggest, reddest option. That was definitely a huge win.

Last year, I gave up fast food. I started Lent with a 38″ waist size. I went to 6 proms, and never had a tux pants size greater than 30″. Talk about college 50! So I gave up fast food and decided that if I quit going to McDonald’s for all of my non-TokBox provided meals that I might start to slim down. Turns out I was right. Also turns out that fast food just does insane things to your whole system. I had a lot more energy. I didn’t constantly feel out of shape. I made myself start exercising again. And now I’m down to eating fast food only once per month. I don’t think I really realized how poorly I was treating my body until I gave up fast food. It’s really obvious when you shed 15 pounds that you’re not supposed to be that big. You have to really try hard. I’m not trying that anymore. The reward last year was confidence in that I could restore my physical health.

And on that theme, this year I am going on the No Flour, No Sugar™ diet. I’m also adding caffeine to the mix, as in No Caffeine. My main goal is to become more cognizant of all of the food I eat, and soda I drink. I think I average one soda per day, which isn’t a lot, but do I really need it? I eat a lot of bread with the food I eat, and is that really a good idea. When I drink tea, I add way too much sugar to it. So the big question in my mind was how could I change physically, emotionally and all else if I were to increase fruits, protein and simultaneously decrease empty calories from my diet.

The answer awaits in forty days time…

Extreme Blue Internship, just thinking out loud, New Year Resolutions, Uncategorized 1

Good bye old friend

My best friend Matt D. and I have a tradition to which we’ve held since the summer of 2006. Whenever we go out to eat, to complain, to laugh, to cry, we always end up at Outback Steakhouse. There was one down the road from where we stayed during our IBM internship, and from there a tradition was born.

Since that summer the standard plate has been:

Outback Special ( size dependant on hunger )
Side of mashed potatoes
Bloomin’ Onion ( of which 90% is always finished )
Salad ( dressing is consumer dependant )
Coke to drink ( they never had sweet tea )

We went, and ordered the exact same thing, for the whole of the Summer of 2006. I came back out a few times for interviews or just to visit Matt, and we always went. I moved out to the Bay Area, and at our footsteps were all of the shops and restaurants of downtown Palo Alto and Mountain View, but we never broke. You can take a hick out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of a hick ( or so the saying goes ).

Alas, all good things must come to an end. And so it is for the Outback tradition. Tonight was the end of something truly special to us both. Yeah, it was just a restaurant, and not a great one at that, but we really grew up together in those oversized booths eating greasy fried onion strips, and mixing our mashed potatoes with steak. We escaped into our own world. Jobs, dreams, and heartbreaks were all up for discussion between courses. We genuinely fulfilled the Jimmy V legacy of laughing, crying, and spending time together thinking about how we were going to save the world.

So, what changed? It wasn’t the steak or the Bloomin’ Onion that’s for sure. It was us. In front of us is a brave new world filled with adventures and turns we’ve never imagined. And as we embark into this brave new world we bid our past good bye with the anticipation of building new, better and a bit healthier traditions. But at the same time we do so with a small tear in our eye.

I’m really optimistic about the future, having now looked back on where we came from. To this day, I’ve kept an e-mail I got from Matt in the Fall of 2006 after our paper was presented to a packed audience by our mentor, and friend, Eishay Smith. It’s a one liner:

Subject: Us
Body: Yeah, we kick ass!

And watch out because we’re going to do it again

New Year Resolutions, Uncategorized 1

10 Resolutions for 2010

Much has been made of moving through the first decade of this century (and of course this millennium) with all of the “Best of” and “Top 10 of” lists written by newspapers, magazines, blogs and the rest. It’s hard work to look back and try to understand the best of what has happened. Do we focus on the positives? Graduating high school and college. Getting my first job. Finding Micky. It’s not really worth reliving the negatives. They are better off left in the past.

This post is about looking into the future. It’s vast, it’s scary, and it’s full of opportunity. To really jump into the next year with both feet, I’ve decided to set ten resolutions for myself. In picking my resolutions, I had a couple of metrics in mind. First, the resolutions should be easy to measure. It should be put into the public eye, which I think gives a higher incentive to get the resolution accomplished. It should also somehow improve my ability to accomplish my longer term goals, which I’m going to document in another post this month. All of that said, the final list is:

Lose 25 pounds by June 1st
Play a round of golf in the 80s
Increase my personal savings by one-third
Finish the initial BFBP product
Blog five times per month
Visit one new country, and three new places
Run a half-marathon
Learn to Tango
Support Micky in helping her stop biting her nails
Support Micky in helping her finish her sailing qualifications

I really do think that I’ve got a list here that’s going to set me up to be both happier today, and a better me in the future. I’ll be keeping track of my progress on this blog (which will help with item #5). What are your resolutions? What are you doing to make sure that you accomplish them?

Welcome 2010, and let the fun begin!