So with the new year, I took the categories below and launched a plan to act against them all. I’m working on fitness goals, starting to look for a new job, and am continuing projects on the house.

Fitness

For a while, the work I was doing on the house counted as fitness! Between swinging a hammer to demo the tile around the shower and breaking and carrying out cabinets, old tub, and debris, I was able to skip a few trips to the gym. Now however I’m working on a program to run a half-marathon sometime this summer. Not sure which one yet. I’m targeting May/June time frame which gives me plenty of time to prepare and a rundate that is in warmer weather.

Job

After a pretty great gig in Canada, we’re settled back in the states. We focused on the house during Q4 2025, and now it’s time to find the next formal job. I’ve been chasing down open roles, reaching out to people in my LinkedIn network, and going through some certification/e-learning for some technologies I haven’t focused on yet. It’s been nice reconnecting with people in my network and discussing options and possibilities for my next gig.

I’ve read that getting a job is a job in itself. I’m treating it as so, with defined hours, a task tracker, and analytics on my performance, lol. Seriously, I have a report I ran at the end of my first week showing metrics like applications filed, networking activity, and general outreach. Now the baseline is set and I’ll see how the search over the rest of this quarter goes forward.

House

We finished the Bar area in the lower level and the lower level bathroom. Now we’ll adapt a hall closet in the lower level to install a dual-zone wine fridge with countertop and storage for wine, stemware, and supplies.

Of course other things happen in an old house. We added a light to a (very dark) lower hallway, and fine-tuned a dishwasher that wasn’t popping open after a finished cycle. Little tasks that help make the house more homey.

Boy, it’s been a minute. This site has held a number of old posts for quite a while. Now that I’ve had some time to focus on personal projects, I figured I’d revisit this to update it with interesting topics.

Fitness

Back in 2017, I ran a half-marathon to raise money for Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis. The race was in New Orleans, and I had a very comprehensive training plan, along with a team I trained with when we lived in Cincinnati.

The result was fantastic! I raised a bit of cash to help the cause, got into (better) shape, and really enjoyed the experience. You can see the posts below from that time frame when I was documenting my weekly progress as I trained for the race.

Then I did it again the following year, training (albeit less stringently) after we moved to California, and running in the race in Spring 2018, again in New Orleans. My wife came with me for that trip and we enjoyed seeing the sights in NOLA.

Last fall (2025) I ran/walked a Half Marathon with my son in Joshua Tree National Park. It was a night race, which meant the headlamps were required. Imagine running through the desert, with about 2000 other people, in the dark — you bet headlamps are a good idea 🙂

It was a great experience and I’ll add some pics about the races soon.

Projects

Since our move back to the Midwest, we’ve been working on our house. I’ll post updates here as we complete them. So far we’ve done a Kitchen, Side Deck, Lower level Bathroom, Entertainment space, and general updates to the entire first floor with paint, flooring, and lighting.

From an infrastructure perspective we are set for Midwest climate – new windows, new roof, and new furnace/AC systems.