Simon has not been good for bedtime lately. Some of it is what I'd expect, that he doesn't want to go to bed because there's so much excitement he feels he might miss out on. However, it's the tantrums that happen when you actually try to put him down that are getting out of control. Most times, you can leave him in the crib, let him cry it out, and come back to find Mr. Affectionate, ready to go down.

Tonight has been awful though. For two hours he's been getting up, usually doing what I call "fake crying," not in any real negative state other than putting it on because he wants attention. But then twice he's done a scream at the top of his lungs as if he were genuinely and physically hurt. Maybe he was flailing in the crib and hurt something, but I can't tell.

Not sure what the cause is. He's been generally getting up in the morning fairly happy, and his naps have been longer than usual, so his other sleep endpoints have been pretty solid.

I hope this passes soon. As much as we try to be adults and handle it rationally, it does tend to wear on us.

Now that I truly work from home, and I've eliminated even walking to and from my car, it's obvious that I need to find some physical activity. Bobbing my head to the Black Keys at my desk is not exercise. I'm going to work my network of friends to eventually look into playing in some hardcore volleyball leagues. I've also decided to learn how to play tennis.

Why tennis? Well, Diana plays it, so there's that. But it's also a physical game that one can play without a team, and I feel like I need something that is strictly about me when I'm engaged in it (unless of course I'm playing doubles). The game involves some reusable skills in terms of game theory and only a few parts of the technical physiological components as volleyball, so it seems like a natural fit. Sort of.

We joined up with the tennis club where Diana was a member before our stint in Seattle. It's a nice facility, and it's not particularly snobby or anything. If anything, plus one for hiring a girl to work the desk with visible body piercings. There's a lot of what I'd consider douchebaggery associated with the sport, like Wimbledon with their silly dress code and Serena with her, well, with herself, but it's a very physical and fun-to-watch sport.

So I signed up for some lessons, and had the first one last night. What a train wreck that was. I took a tennis gym class in college, but wow, I don't even want to say how long ago that was now because it makes me feel ancient. I did have some interesting take-aways from the first lesson.

The biggest one is that I have to let go of some of the volleyball wiring. For example, when you hit a ball in volleyball, you snap your wrist as you hit and follow through. In tennis, the racquet is more of an extension of your arm and you don't snap. Plus, in volleyball, you back off on the follow through if you want to back off on distance. If you do that in tennis, there's no top spin and you hit the ball into the balcony. My forehand challenge is to consistently swing through. When I do, it's pretty awesome, but I only do it 5% of the time.

The backhand was slightly better, once I stopped trying to do it with two hands. Inconsistency is still the biggest problem, but it feels remarkably more natural.

What I found exceptionally easy was the short game, volleying up at the net. I think anyone with volleyball experience will find this pretty easy to ramp up on quickly, because it involves the same super-quick reaction that net play on the wood floor involves. The biggest adjustment piece is having that medium between your hand and the ball.

When I got to short volleying, I realized that the hardest thing for me is the difference between rebounding and redirecting a ball, to actually striking and pushing the ball. That will take some getting used to.

Still, it felt pretty good overall. I think after the group class is done, I may look into one-on-one coaching, because I need specific technical feedback and attention to improve at the rate that I'd like. That might get expensive, but if I can raise the game to something resembling competitiveness, that would be satisfying.

I suppose I'll need to buy a racquet.

When you hire someone in business, you generally have no problem sniffing out bullshit. First you reject the resumes that use a lot of words without saying anything, like, "Created value by exploiting synergistic opportunities." When you meet job candidates in person, you immediately pass on anyone who answers a question about one thing with tales of something else.

This is not, however, the basis for which Americans vote for elected officials. They vote for the person who can spew the most bullshit, not the least. That's what this Republican race has been. I finally watched one of the debates today, now that the numbers have been thinned a little, and I'm stunned at the amount of irrelevant nonsense.

Even more stunning, however, is the fact that Ron Paul, while not someone I could entirely back, is the closest thing to a common sense and viable candidate the Republican party has. Yet, as a percentage, only a small portion of self-labeled Republicans support him. It's completely insane. He's the only guy who sticks to policy and not opposition bashing. He actually has things to say.

The most annoying thing is that these guys are constantly getting into a pissing match about who is more conservative. Really? What does that have to do with anything? How about having the most common sense? There's an idea.

This is another example of Americans getting the government they deserve. Pay attention! Vote for the dog catcher because they can catch dogs, not because they're more conservativey or whatever.

Amidst all of the general negativity in the world, I pride myself on trying to hold on to the idea that people are inherently good, and capable of great things. Holding this belief is a little self-serving, like a lot of religious beliefs, I suppose, because I also want to believe that I'm capable of great things I'm not yet aware of.

When I look at the lives of great people, whether it be for great achievement in some kind of global sense, or an anonymous person who is an exceptionally effective PTA member, I wonder how they got to be that way. Certainly you can choose to do great things, but does something inspire people to make things happen?

What I'm thinking about, in no specific terms, is what the impetus might be to do something great. If I look at my own life, I'm somewhat surprised to see just how many external things are the basis for achievement. Professionally, I can look back as far as radio and think about my teenage love for the work DJ's did, and how it got me into the business.

In my personal life, I'm amazed at the intensity of love I have for my wife and child. How did I become this father and husband? I might have always had the capacity for it, but it was a series of events that got me there, arguably including a divorce. Funny how that works.

I'm not sure what else I can be, but now I'm starting to look for things that might help bring out the best in me. Then I can be someone I didn't know I was.

I don't know why it hit me just this morning, but I was looking at Simon, and was very much struck by his... age. We don't have a little baby anymore, we have a little boy.

I'm surprised at how conflicted I feel about this. I don't want to ever go back to the days of intermittent sleeping, and I don't think I have the mental or emotional capacity for a second child, but the days where I could one-arm football hold him went by so quickly. When he could only lie on his back, kick and wave his arms, every day seemed to last a week.

That said, I can see the start of an entirely new phase starting, where he can finally talk to us. We're at a point now where he has specific things in mind that he wants to do, and knows when he requires our help. This arrangement very much forces him to learn to communicate in a way that we understand, beyond his collection of signs. The down side of this is that he can't always articulate what he means, which frustrates the shit out of him, as well as us. Before you know it, he has a mini-meltdown, and we have to fight the urge to yell at him or shake him.

This discomfort will pass as well, and it's tolerable for me because I can see where it's going. Simon's personality gets more rich and detailed every single day. He's a little person, and he's fascinating to watch (when he's not having a tantrum).

I have to remember to get more video of him, because still photos don't capture his personality the same way. He's making interesting memories every day.

By the end of December, I was pleased to realize that I had not yet felt anything like the seasonal affective disorder that I used to prior to moving to Seattle. Today, it's absolutely messing with me. I have a strong urge to curl up somewhere and hibernate, and it sucks.

I don't think it's the shorter days of clouds that cause me to feel like this. Obviously it's not that different from what we had out west. I think when you add in the snow and cold, which forces you inside to the extent that you don't want to even step food outside, that's when it gets me.

I'm not without a plan, though. Tennis starts up next week, and exercise always helps. My home office desk is parked in front of a window (and heat vent), so I'll at least be getting my UV and staying warm. I'm so annoyed that the environment can chemically alter your brain and make you less of a person.

March and April will be welcome when they arrive.

We're having our first real snow event here in Cleveland this week, which is to say we've had a few inches and nothing really happened. We've had it on and off for the last week, making some travel inconvenient, but no one here is having to put their lives on hold.

The problem in Seattle is something else entirely. I like to rag on people for abandoning their cars and freaking out over an inch of snow, but they got hammered. That by itself wouldn't be a big deal, particularly with the rain coming, but tons of people are without power now with no guesses about when it will be back. PSE said today that 239,000 people are without power, and for many that has lasted more than a day. Think about that. It's like being sent back to the dark ages.

Thankfully, despite some single-digit temperatures, it just isn't anything to worry about here. In fact, it's actually kind of pretty, and I love that peaceful quiet that it creates.

By next week, I'll be over it, and wishing for sun and palm trees. Sunday we get back to 40's for the kind of weather Seattle should be having. I'd be OK if the rest of winter was like this.

I've been working consistently on my forum project almost every night for the last two weeks, which is something of a record for me. This next version (v9.2) will be localized, meaning you can pretty easily translate it to other languages by editing one file (I have Dutch and German ready to go). It will also have a fairly extensive feature I call the "scoring game," inspired in part by the old Insurance.com habit of the same name. Yeah, it's voting and awards, like every site has now. Still, it was a user-requested feature.

I've been surprised at the interest in the project since making it open source, and it has seen well over 2,000 downloads. Keep in mind that's a developer audience, so that's a huge number considering how small the potential audience is. I never expected it to continue to grow like that.

Then when I stop to think about it, it makes sense. Honestly, the noble Web forum is not even remotely sexy or interesting these days, especially in the context of social media. Yet, there it is, on almost every site with a niche interest that I visit. It remains one of the most used features of many sites, I suppose because it's one of the best means of extended and deeper communication. You can't get that kind of context on social networks.

I doubt end users care one way or another about the forum app, or any forum app, and that's cool. That developers and site owners dig it really makes it worth doing though. Considering the core motivation is to serve my own sites, the rest is gravy. It feels good to give a little back too, considering how much I use open source stuff every day.

After I made my post about "The tortured entrepreneur" yesterday, I stumbled upon a motivational speaker deck or something (which I can't find now). In talking about how to be awesome, one, obvious phrase stuck out with regard to taking action and risk:

"Nothing is permanent."

Imagine what we could all accomplish if we really took that to heart.

In all of the excitement lately, and particularly the forthcoming transition to a new job, I had the strange realization that I've become a little unbalanced in my professional endeavors. By that, I mean I've concentrated heavily on the primary paycheck without thinking about everything else that I care about, specifically my own business and ideas.

There is actually a strong and repetitious pattern around my behavior, and I can see it in my blog posts over the years. I get swept up in a new job, become disappointed with it over the course of a few years (assuming the company doesn't choke and start ditching people first), then I get energized over things I want to do on my own time, then forget about them when the cycle repeats. This has been going on for about a dozen years.

So what exactly does this mean? At times, I've mistakenly thought that it means I hate working for The Man. That's completely untrue. Working for others is exactly the thing that has enabled me to raise my skills to where they are today. Do I struggle with figuring out how to fit my skills and interests to a specific company? At times, sure, and I'm sure everyone does. But really, I'm thankful for every opportunity I've had, and what I've come away with in every case.

What I have developed, to some degree, is some level of contempt for the conditions surrounding working for someone else. In other words, I've always had an entrepreneurial itch to scratch, and sometimes the day job has anti-itch lotioned over the desire to the point it was completely obscured. Then, later, I realize that I had these ideas that I never did act on, because I was too busy with other things.

This brings me to the self-assessment stage of my realization, to take inventory. Things I'm good at include product design, software architecture, writing code, managing the process of development, marketing to customers, setting goals and deliverables, relationship building, etc. Conversely, I'm not good at accepting risk, starting up something or believing that what I want to do has enough value to overcome the risk. The things I'm not good at tend to be largely emotional issues rooted in fear and doubt.

When I put on my process management hat, I immediately think that next step is to reduce fear and doubt. Duh. Since the fear is largely rooted in risk, I've already started steps to reduce risk. Unfortunately, those steps will take probably two years to be fruitful, so there's a lot of expectation management on my own part that I'll have to do in that time. I think that the most important thing to do in that time is remember 1999 and 2000, when I very successfully managed to start a business and work a day job, with the two endeavors coexisting easily, and not interfering with my social life.

The most obvious change in my life is that my actions now dramatically affect my family, which I didn't have before. There's no changing that. What I've learned in the last three months is that I can manage those effects as well.

In other words, I'm figuring it out. As I'm blessed (or cursed) with a professional soul as part of my overall self, being happy in that part of my life means navigating a combination of corporate work and entrepreneurial efforts. Maybe the question that I've never asked, or developed a plan for, is, "Do I want to get to a point where I'm self-sufficient, or is the mix the best way?" If I try to intellectualize it, then the combination world is obviously the best (not to mention easiest and safest) way to go. If I root the question in my own ego and pride, then a strictly entrepreneurial outcome is best. Maybe that's what holds me back the most. I'm just not ready to risk the ultimate failure, or maybe I'm not willing to make a decision rooted in my pride.

As is often the case, you only go after what you want the most. Hopefully I'll stop dicking around and figure out what that is.

When I stop to look at the applications on my phone, almost every single one that is not a game is something that can easily be done on a Web page. Heck, a lot of them are just shells around the exact same functionality. As someone who has no desire to learn how to build something on three different platforms, when one will do, you can see why this would annoy me.

When the iPhone was first released, the phone did not support native applications. In fact, Steve Jobs made it a point to say that "apps" were just Web sites. One might argue that he was saying that because they had no native app story ready at the time, but honestly I agreed with him even then. Most of these apps are doing the work of a Web browser, calling back to services the same way your Gmail or Facebook does.

After our successful trip to the Great Wolf Lodge last year in Washington, and Simon's recent love for playing in the bath tub (and getting me soaked), I've been anxious to get back to an indoor water park. Plus it's cold. We figured we'd give Castaway Bay a shot this time. As you might guess, I can't not compare to Great Wolf (in Washington).

First off, I was really impressed with the theme throughout the hotel. It's fairly well executed, and not cheap looking. They even have a little animated show in the lobby. My last visit to that hotel was probably ten years ago, when it was still a Radisson. The exterior looks a little weathered in places, but the interior feels fresh and warm throughout.

Our room was clean and in good shape, and I'm usually pretty picky about that. The furnishings were in pretty good shape, and generally better than what we had at Great Wolf. The thing you typically ask yourself about the indoor water park hotel is whether or not the room rates are worth the room and admission, and I would say they're absolutely pricing it right. The only thing I could really pick on is that I wish they would use real glasses instead of those individually wrapped plastic cups.

The water park is very well suited to a family with a toddler. It's not overwhelmingly huge, and that's a good thing. We started at the wave pool, because that's what Simon seemed to enjoy the most last spring at Great Wolf, but he wasn't really having it. I think some of his apprehension comes from having to wear a life jacket, which they require at his height. That just seemed to generally make him uncomfortable. It's a small-ish wave pool that probably gets crowded at busier times, but has solid wave action.

The toddler pool has a number of splash elements and spouts with a zero-depth entry, perfect for the little ones. Simon took to the big squid thing with a slide on it, and it was definitely the thing that made him comfortable there. Unfortunately, its lowest step is way too high for a toddler, so he needed some help to start climbing it, but particularly when it wasn't busy, he owned it. Later he graduated to the two bigger slides at the other end of the pool, and kept going around over and over. He really enjoyed it!

The big play structure with the bucket was impressive, and after seeing the bucket dump a few times, he was totally into watching it. He traversed much of the structure with our help, but his favorite spot was a group of spouts in the floor and a valve that controlled their spray height. He went completely apeshit over them! I did one of the body slides off of the structure, and was impressed with how fast it went, given its younger targeting.

There are a few activity pools along the one side of the building that are really geared more toward tweens and teens, but they did seem to be a hit. Back in the corner, almost hidden, is the entrance stairs to the three big body slides that can be seen on the outside of the building (they could really use better signage for them). Diana and I both took spins on these, and they're seriously intense. There aren't enough body slides out in the world anymore, that you can do without tubes. By the time you get to the bottom, they pull some serious G's. Excellent!

Neither one of us got up to do the water coaster, which is unfortunate, but I'm so tainted by Wildebeest at Holiday World that I'd probably find it lame anyway. It'll be fun for Simon once he grows a few inches, I'm sure.

Overall, the water park is really nice, and very right-sized for a family with a little one. I suspect older teens wouldn't be as into it, which is OK by me. Other than the toddler pool, it seemed like the water could have been a few degrees warmer, especially in the play structure. Maybe I'm just too used to the hot tub. They have a snack bar in there too, where you can apparently charge back to your room with your wristband, but we didn't get around to that. They also have a small food shop and a restaurant open for breakfast, but we didn't go to either one of those. We did go to the attached Friday's, and it wasn't bad at all. I haven't been to one in probably two years because they sucked, but what I had wasn't bad. Plus one to the manager, who refilled Diana's draft cider after a chain reaction spill that started with Simon's milk.

I don't know that Simon will remember his visit there, but I know his parents had a good time! We had a nice little getaway there, in a comfortable room and perfectly sized water park. I can definitely see another visit in our future, and likely for years to come while our little guy remains little.

I'm feeling very motivated to write this evening. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm in a dark hotel room, with Simon sleeping in the corner in a crib. I recently made a status update to Facebook where I indicated that I didn't feel like I had anything to say lately, and just haven't been able to get my words out. A surprising number of people responded, saying they thought that was unfortunate. I've been trying to figure out what to do with that.

When I look at the post count on a monthly basis, I can clearly see that the number of posts I was writing started to drop off after my paternity leave in 2010. (Shit, it's weird to think about 2010 in the past sense. Where's my flying car?) The latter part of 2011 was even worse, even while I was in the midst of more intense life changes.

Yes, some of the issue has been time. Having a little guy definitely takes a lot of your time, and leaves you feeling a bit tired at times. We were talking today about how it's starting to get easier though, and I imagine that situation will continue to evolve. 

I think the bigger problem that I've been having is that I have been second-guessing virtually every little thing that I do, ranging from the move back to the choice of background colors on my phone. I guess I don't see the value in sharing some of what I used to write about, though the response on FB implies that those concerns are unfounded.

A little of it is probably issues of privacy, too. I've often written about how I filter a great deal, and most people don't have all of the context or information to really know anything about me. I've turned up that filter quite a bit, probably in part because I have a child now, and partly because I just like to hold some things a little closer.

Still, one of the things my friends have made me realize (and I refuse to think of them as an audience), is that there might in fact be value in compiling some of my writing into a book one might loosely categorize as a "self-help" book. It would be something of a very long letter written to my 21-year-old self. "Shit You Should Know." OK, that's not a good title, but you get the idea. It would have to be framed as something that helps you in all of life's ridiculous situations. I fully expect you have to fail and flail, but maybe the book would help you at least realize when you're doing it.

I think there's some merit to the idea. Rework is just an edited collection of blog posts (with illustrations!), so I think there's potential. The question I ask myself is: Do I want it enough to make time for it?

I've done a lot of bitching lately about my distaste for Cleveland, and to some degree Ohio as a whole. Indeed, Seattle is "better" in most ways. But as was the plan all along, we're realizing the financial advantages, and as we get closer to spring, we'll also realize the travel and social advantages. Tonight was a good preview.

We met up with the Walsh family for dinner, which surprisingly included the kids. It was pretty cool to see them all together, especially having known them since the kids were in car seats. Tim has been a good friend for a lot of years. He even got upgraded from usher in my first wedding to best man in the sequel. When life took one of its shittiest turns, he's the guy I went to.

Something I've noticed about the enduring friendships in my life is that long periods of time can pass between meetings, and you pick up as if you had just seen them the day before. I often wonder if it's the time and distance that makes them so easy to maintain. I mean, would we be good friends if we saw each other every day? I'd like to think so, but I'm not entirely sure.

One of the particularly surprising things is how a couple of families we're friends with are people we have, on several occasions, shared hotel rooms, cottages and RV's with. We see each other once or twice a year, and end up bunking on those occasions. It's kind of neat, and I suspect wouldn't be possible if it weren't for the Internet. I wish we got to see them more often.

I think I secretly hope that we'll all end up living in some retirement town like The Villages in Florida, driving around golf carts and working a few days a week at Disney World just to stay active. We'll all party and barbecue and go bowling, or whatever kind of shit old people will do by then. Or we'll just keep meeting up to ride roller coasters. That would be OK, too.

I feel like I'm finally coming down off of an oddly stressful couple of months. I saw some of it coming, and dealt with it easily enough, but the parts that I didn't see coming really tossed me for a loop. That the job I moved back for turned out to be a joke was a possibility I expected (and frankly, I knew better, but whatever), but then there were issues of too many choices and very difficult decisions. I hate to complain about that when there are folks who can't find anything, but it was hard in a different way. Then you toss in the holidays, which weren't too bad this year in terms of stress, until the car accident. That in turn led to the financial discomfort associated with buying a new car.

At this point, most of that is behind me, but I've never felt more physically beat up by it all. The worst part of it was the IBS. I've talked openly about it before, about how my triggers are sometimes diet, but mostly stress and anxiety. It's the classic constipation-diarrhea cycle, and I've been in it for several weeks. It seems like it's finally settling down, but I'm so done with that.

Then there's the sleeping issues. I'm normally an exceptional sleeper, probably to a fault when I don't hear my own kid crying in the same room. Lately I've had all of the problems you can think of, ranging from staring at the ceiling to crazy legs and an inability to find any comfortable position. It leaves me exhausted by the evening. I seem to be really getting over that in the last week, thank God, because I'm super grumpy when I don't sleep. I also worry that Diana will be offended when I go down to the couch, just for a change of scenery.

To a lesser degree, I was also binge eating, but usually I realize that and get it under control pretty easily. That's more psychological, I think.

It's a weird phenomenon when your body starts letting you know that it's not happy with your mind. Usually, it's the other way around. Once I get back from starting my new gig, and settle in, I look forward to the positive routines I can engage in, particularly better eating and tennis. It will also be nice if we can get some weather that is dry and not windy so I can enjoy more hot tub meditation. Cold isn't a problem, but wind and rain is.

We received a gift card for Macaroni Grill, a place we enjoyed going to from time to time prior to our move out west. In fact, we had our second (maybe it was the third) date there. As far as Italian restaurant chains go, it wasn't bad, and was relatively affordable. However, after two recent visits, we've noticed that it just isn't as good anymore. The menu is smaller, and everything actually appears less expensive. I fear this is the place is going the way of Friday's, a restaurant that used to be known for its great burgers and appetizers, and now serves a bunch of microwaved crap.

The lower prices and lower quality imply that they've made a decision to pursue a different market. By different market, I mean cheap people without taste. At risk of sounding like an elitist dick, I mean the people who can't live without Walmart and think McDonald's is good. While this might be a large market, where volume counts, it's a race to the bottom with like-minded businesses over low margin crap. Why would anyone want to be in a race to the bottom? That seems like a crappy business to be in.

The world of computers has seen the same kind of battle. Dell and HP compete by building the cheapest computers they can, making a few bucks on each one, hoping to make it up on volume. Then the report comes down that 2011 was a crappy year for PC sales... unless you happened to be Apple. Sure, they shipped half as many machines as HP or Dell, but because they concentrate on the premium markets, they likely make ten times the profit on every unit. Dell and HP make premium stuff too, and it's priced similarly to the Apple products (spec for spec, depending on where in the Apple product cycle you are, the Macs don't generally cost more), but they don't see it as their core business. Apple doesn't even mess with the low-end in their product lineup.

Going back to the world of food, you can't get out of a Chipotle restaurant without dropping at least six bucks, not counting a beverage. They have a super simple menu composed of limited ingredients, most of it premium stuff, organic and increasingly local. And every day at lunch, there will be a line out the door for what they make. Is McDonald's cheaper? Yes, if you can even call it food. But again, look at the P/E ratios of the two companies, and it's clear that the place going after the premium is the better business to be in.

Having worked in the dot-com world for many years, and non-Internet businesses that wanted to be more relevant in virtual terms, I've seen so many examples where decisions were based on entirely wrong things. Ten years ago, it was eyeballs. Be popular, be rich. Convert more people to customers, but don't worry about repeat business. Get the top spot on a Google search, be famous. It's staggering how misguided these beliefs are.

We talk about theme parks all of the time. People flip out every time Disney raises their prices, and yet, the crowds they can attract are staggering. Why? Because they deliver on the promise of treating you well and showing you a good time, in a way that almost no other entertainment venue can. Even if you're not in the same industry, you'll still compete with them for discretionary spending, and you'll never take it away from them with crap. I theorize that this is one of the many reasons that movie theaters install leather seats and invest in better concessions.

I really believe that consumers can appreciate high quality, craftsmanship and value, even in the crappy economy. I certainly don't mind spending a little more for something better. It's something that guides my business sense as well, and I've found that it has kept my little hobby going for more than a decade now. I hope, for the sake of our economy, others follow suit.

Tyler made a good post about his transition to a manager role, and how it suits him. I like that he's able to see the connection between what he likes and what satisfies him in his professional role. Naturally, I think about this sort of thing a great deal, and have been thinking about it a lot in the last year. Hopefully, I'm taking action now that fits with the thought process.

The manager thing seems like an obvious outcome of any advancing career. For me, things really happened in reverse. My first professional job (post-radio) had me managing a city department, with a budget and employees. What was so great about it is that I also got to do on-the-ground work. It was a video nerd's dream job, buying and spec'ing equipment, doing production work, on-camera stuff and leading people and processes. For being as immature as any early 20-something, it was a fantastic opportunity.

When I ditched broadcast for the world of the Internets, I started by managing processes (not really people directly), and from there made the transition to code monkey. At various times doing consulting work, I did hire and manage a few people, but it was never a core responsibility in this industry. Microsoft frustrated me that the path to that role was so hard to get to, even having already been there in previous work. My goal since moving back has been to find something that has a path or components of managing stuff, or more specifically, making people and processes better. It doesn't even require that people report to me in order for it to be satisfying.

Out of the blue, I got a call from a Fortune 100 health insurance and wellness provider from Louisville, and they indicated they were hiring "application consultants." They're people who often work remotely in a great many capacities on various projects. At first, I was just interested because it was a pants-optional work environment, and I know many people who find that work appealing. They were doing a speed dating interview thing, with eight candidates rotating through eight groups to see if there were any good matches. Of course, when someone offers to fly you somewhere to interview, you accept.

I wasn't sure how seriously to take it, because I already had a likely offer in play, and another company I just wasn't interested in as I got to know them. I felt like I already had options. When I got there in the typical "interview casual" garb and noticed I was the only one not wearing a suit, I figured it would be a total waste of time and a poor culture match. Fortunately, the interviewers varied a great deal, and were not without jeans, so it wasn't me who had the mismatched expectations.

As it turned out, about half of the people I met with were working on really interesting things. I didn't need this company for work, which was freeing because there was no pressure to dazzle anyone with bullshit. I politely told some of them that I had no interest in what they were doing, and others were straight about me not being a good fit. It was surprising how honest the whole thing was, and not at all what I expected, in a good way. Looking around the room, there were very obviously many degrees of corporate culture, much as there were for Microsoft, but this felt different.

A week later, I talked to one of the hiring managers that I didn't think would be a great fit, and he made a very good pitch about why I would actually be a good fit. The role he pushed had a broad spectrum of responsibility that was only partly based in code, and heavily based in improving processes. Those are the kinds of challenges I'm into. Being a ring leader to make stuff better is fun to me. While he made a great pitch, I didn't expect that the money would be right, so I kind of let it go.

Two weeks pass, and just after Christmas and the accident, I get the call with an offer. If not having to commute felt like an interesting perk before, it felt like divine intervention after a random moron tried to kill my family with their truck. With lunches at home and no driving, it would be like getting back two hours every day. Not counting vacations, it was like recovering three weeks of my life every year. I had to seriously consider it. It was also Seattle money with lots of time off.

In the end, I took the job, even though telling them yes meant I had to tell another set of people who were very good to me no. It was a very difficult decision. However, this company has an HR mentality that seems genuinely interested in getting the most of its people and giving them room to grow. They don't keep you in a position for arbitrary amounts of time, and they want you to succeed in whatever place makes the most sense. It's doesn't seem stuck in rigid career models. It felt like I could have a future, even if I don't know what that is. As a relatively new dad, you can imagine that stability is more important to me than it used to be.

Working from home means setting up the spare room as an office, which is fine. I know enough remote workers to understand how to do it, with the right boundaries and rules to keep life balanced. Diana is fully supportive as well, understanding that when I'm working, I'm not home. The trade-off is the lack of in-person social interaction, but it means I'll have to double up on lunches and dinners with friends. The social thing depends entirely on who you work with anyway. My first group at MSFT yielded many BFF's, while the second was full of people I had no social connection to.

I'm looking forward to something new. This wasn't something I expected at all. The salary and benefits were better than expected, and frankly there are a lot of lifestyle changes that are easier to maintain when you aren't rushing off to beat traffic or get a good parking space. I'm glad I didn't settle for something crappy. Fingers crossed that this is a worthwhile adventure.

Thinking about the Christmas Eve accident, I'm getting to the point where I'm just glad that we all escaped relatively unharmed (physically, at least), and it could have been much worse. While insurance in this case is fabulous and serves its purpose, the crash that wasn't my fault still has fairly significant consequences.

The first problem is that my lease payment was stupid low, just over a hundred dollars. The market being what it was in March 2010, and with the bad PR around Prius brake pedals (which turned out all to be bullshit, as it turns out), the lease deals were fantastic. I also had my old car to put down and a little cash, making the payment even lower. When you're done with a lease, you have to start over. That would be fine if it went to term, because I could have prepared for it financially.

So knowing we were always going to buy the next car instead of lease, because we didn't want mileage restrictions, I knew we'd have to put a lot down to keep the payments down. With my new philosophy being that wealth is about less expenses, and not necessarily about more income, that was going to be a bitch jumping in 15 months before planned. I had to dip into the "move to a warmer client" savings.

Now I'm trying to find ways to make up the "loss" to savings. I was thrilled to find out that I'll get about a grand and a half back from the wrecked car, essentially because I did have equity in it from the money and trade down on the lease. That was unexpected. I finally sold my last bit of Microsoft stock, so there's a little more there. Now I'm crossing my fingers for a substantial tax refund. If I can get to 60% of what I took out, I'd be content with that.

The financial negatives of a lease ending prematurely is not something I ever thought about, I suppose because you don't expect that some moron is going to smash into you and destroy the car. I guess in the worst case, if I wasn't working and had no savings, I'd be getting a used car, or at best, a new Corolla, which wouldn't be awful considering how good those cars have been to me over the years. But still, it's a punch in the nuts of my bank account I wasn't ready for.

I think it's an appropriate time to recognize that Diana has started to blog very consistently about food, yarn and what not. You should add her blog to your RSS reader. You can find it at http://dianamattoni.com/.

I can't say that I'm particularly sentimental about cars, especially how I'm known for not taking good care of them. But I have to admit that I'm a little sappy about my destroyed car.

I think the car was symbolic of the many drastic changes in my life when I got it... A baby, new place, new job. It was an intense and exciting time in my life. There were so many adventures. Some even involved the car, like our first road trip with Simon.

The car was Seattle, and now that it's gone, I feel like I have one less connection to it. I'm starting to realize just how much that place became a part of me. I don't know what to do with that.

I'm pretty good about being thankful for the experiences of life, and grateful for adventures I haven't yet had. What's strange though is the desire to hang on to them, and have all of your most ideal situations at once. Is that greedy?

I finished the year making significant changes that will help us in the long run. Some short-term uncertainty aside, I'm happier than I've been in a long time. I guess the experiences of life are ultimately what empowers you to understand and prioritize your endeavors to find your ideal. The connections don't really go away, they're just a part of the bigger story.