Christmas Haul
I received a bunch of excellent gifts, including one of the best cards I’ve ever gotten from my youngest brother, Kevin. (It’s an inside joke; not worth sharing.) The two big ticket items were an Asus nVidia 8800GT video card (Call of Duty 4 at 1920×1200 @ 32 fps, hallelujah!) and a Kenneth Cole kinetic watch that is square with all the inner parts showing (can’t find a picture of it). It’s really great, and not something I’d normally pick out for myself. Trida did a great job!
Last night I cooked dinner for Trida and me, and I managed to do a decent enough job of it. Cooking has always been one of those daunting things for me, since I have a penchant for screwing up the easiest thing, but apparently even I could handle the task of simmering halibut and asparagus for 10 minutes on medium heat. I should take a page from my friend Dids and take pictures of my food and post it to my blog; it has helped him to eat healthy and lose over 80 pounds in the process!
It’s been fun…
…but it’s time to go home now. Much food was eaten (gained about 5 pounds or so), much beer was imbibed, and a lot of good times were had.
Back to Seattle for serious business, including, but not limited to: Getting on with relationships, planning out my business, getting back into my workout routine, finding a place to live, and being a responsible adult.
Christmas Pictures
These come courtesy of my middle brother, Chris:
Me and my brothers (Kevin, Chris) in the kitchen of my parents’ house
Kevin and I being serious in the living room
New Years’ (2008) Resolutions
I have a fair number of resolutions to keep in 2008, some that will remain private, but here are the ones I plan on keeping when I get back to Seattle (and I have had about enough of visiting Cleveland, to be honest):
Physical (or baseball playing-related) resolutions:
- Get down to or below 190 lbs by February 7th
- 1RM Squat 300 lbs (currently ~275 @ 195) by PSSBL baseball tryouts
- Consistently sit 80-81 with my fastball while further developing a breaking ball.
- Hit one home run, steal ten bases, and hit over .320.
- Lift (or do total baseball workouts) every other day; Run on the offdays with one day off. (Effective until the regular season starts.)
Work-related resolutions:
- Restructure, form a good vision statement, and build realistic revenue projection models for E.V. Investments, LLC in 2008.
- Surround myself with good people to help me make good decisions.
- Stop comparing my progress with others’ (either negatively or positively).
- Set a 50-hour max workweek and stick to it with very few exceptions.
Like I said, I have other resolutions (mainly interpersonal) that will remain private, for now. The 2007 year in review will come soon. There’s a lot good, and some bad, but overall 2007 was a positive year for me.
Hope you all had good holidays and enjoy ringing in the New Year safely.
Cleveland Rocks!*
* This claim is not guaranteed to be accurate.
The flight into Cleveland was pretty uneventful, minus an hour delay at Sea-Tac, babies crying on the flight, and a really fat woman sitting on my right (I had the middle seat). Pretty standard, all in all. I arrived here on Christmas Eve, finished my shopping, and spent the next two days with my very large family (I have over 30 cousins), which is fun when you do it once or twice a year.
Over the past few days I’ve drank a lot of alcohol, ate a lot of terrible food, and hung out with some people I haven’t seen in a long time (Josh Sabol and Steve Novak, for starters). Still, the city is depressing and gets worse with time. It is especially bad in the winter when it gets dark early and everything is slate gray and cold.
This picture may or may not sum up my feelings about the trip so far:
I’ll let you decide.
Other plans I have for the duration of my stay include drinking, more drinking, degenerate gambling, Rock Band, and hopefully spending some quality time with girls (not necessarily in that order). The concept of an open relationship sounds great to most people, including me, but having grown up in a Catholic close-knit family with reservations about all types of sins, some things are hard to shake. Though I intellectually know that we have an agreement and I trust my girlfriend and we have great lines of communication, I am still not a full-fledged open-minded person and probably never will be. I still have a few social conservative streaks in me; so understanding that there is nothing to “cope” with or worry about when I am spending time with girls or my girlfriend is spending time with other guys is tough. For me, anyway; my girlfriend likes hearing my stories with other girls.
Anyway, time to get ready to go out, as I’m going to a bar tonight with aforementioned girls. One thing I still got in my bag of tricks is being inordinately nervous around girls when it comes to seal the deal** in the bedroom. It’s great.
** You know, have sex.
An update (finally!)
I have been meaning to make this post for awhile now, but I broke my computer by installing an nVidia 8800GT card while there was an ATI card still in there, and this led to needing to find a heat sink and my computer getting hacked and a bunch of other crap that I am happy is in the past. Now I’m running this wonderful Q6600 Quad-Core machine on Windows XP (I was fearing I’d have to use Vista, thank god I don’t).
So, on to the update…
Relationship
Trida and I talked things over two weeks ago, and we decided to try being in a serious relationship again. Right now we’re in an open relationship until I get back from Cleveland for the holidays, but we still see each other and have been on a few “dates.” I’ve changed a lot in the past few months, and having some time apart from each other has done wonders. Our relationship hasn’t been this healthy in years (if ever), and I am more in love with her than ever before.
This, of course, leads to the fact that..
Living
I’ll be staying in Seattle for the foreseeable future. My friend and co-worker Kevin and I will be living together as we scour the ends of the earth for a suitable townhouse or rental property to live in. Currently we have a great 3 bedroom place in Lake City and a 3 bedroom townhouse in West Seattle that we’re considering, but nothing’s set in stone yet. Hopefully we can bang out the contract before I leave (Monday night).
Baseball
Jacob and I will be putting together a team for the new PSSBL Baker league, and we have a few people interested already. I’ll also be coaching Little League for NESLL with Jacob and Brighten, and I hope to find time to work with my high school hitters as well.
I’ve been throwing lately to interrupt my constant hitting drills, and I’ve fixed a major flaw in my pitching motion that has really increased velocity. Definitely very happy about that.
Work
Kevin and I will be working together as Brendan will be ending his involvement in E.V. Investments, LLC in 2008. I have no concrete plans for the future, but I have a few ideas I’m kicking around as I plan on the major changes happening in 2008. (I might be in touch, JS.)
So, that’s that for now. Back to work!
Custom-Made Baseball Bats
I wrote a more detailed explanation of these baseball bats on my other blog, but I wanted to share this with everyone (click for larger image):
Ballin’!
Dealing with loss
It has only been in the past two days that I have really begun to think about my future outside of Seattle. I would say that most of my identity was formed here - my life has changed so much since I decided to come here almost two years ago to be with Trida. When I think about my future three thousand miles from here, without Trida, I really begin to understand that it would be the end of a major journey for me, concluding in what could only be interpreted as a failure.
Of course, that sounds ridiculous - it’s probably not all my fault that the relationship ended, but the fact of the matter is that was the major reason that got me out of Cleveland and into Seattle, and it didn’t work out.
When I ended the relationship with Trida, I wasn’t very emotional. I thought I could get over it like any of my other relationships. Sure, I cried and was sad after I broke up with my other girlfriends, and I was sad here. However, I could just think ahead towards my best friend’s wedding and my role in it, so that helped deflect emotion. After I got back, I focused solely on my business, and had a lot of problems for awhile. That kept me busy and I worked with my head down. Now that things have gotten better, I haven’t been working less, but there has been a major burden lifted from my shoulders. Unconsumed by work-related stress, I now have turned my view inward.
It is safe to say that I have felt like absolute shit for the past two days; I think a major reason is because I have only now realized what Trida meant to me, and how devastating the breakup was. Typical of me; I wall off my emotions and deal with them later after all the logical work is done.
I have never felt this unsure about my future than I have right now. Not even when I decided to pack up and leave everything I knew to go to Seattle have I felt this confused, and to be honest, unhappy.
Growing up really sucks.
Uncertainty.
How do I know I’m making the right choices?
Just 24 hours after I announced that I’m moving back to Cleveland, I have suddenly experienced so many different emotions: Failure, hope, excitement, distress, sadness, and loneliness.
Now I don’t know what to think.
Life is tough.
Major Life Update
Financial Situation
I’m doing fine. Work’s been a lot better for various reasons, but I’ve been putting in a lot of hours when I can and the results have been there. Over the last week my sleep schedule was really messed up, but it’s more or less corrected now, so I should be back on my regular shifts for a few weeks before I invariably screw it up again.
My side work has stalled, but that’s not a big deal. The business comes first and foremost.
Physical Status
Pretty darn good, actually. I’ve been concentrating on eating a higher protein/fat diet and consciously lowering my carb intake (not ketosis-inducing levels, or anything), and it’s worked out really well in combination with my standard heavy lifting + intense cardio program. I’m under 200 pounds, I feel good, and I think I look good as well. My clothes are certainly fitting better, which is always nice.
I went out and got fitted for running shoes at Super Jock ‘n Jill’s in Greenlake. The sales person who was helping me was absolutely awesome - she spent over 45 minutes watching me run, testing shoes on me (about 5 pairs, if I recall correctly), and helping me eventually pick a pair of Mizuno’s. Everything was 15% off due to a sale, and they had some redline items at 50% off that I picked up - mostly dri-fit shirts and a pair of running shorts.
In the weight room I’m focusing mainly on squats and chest work. My dumbbell chest press is embarassingly low (probably around 45 lbs/hand 1RM), but my squat numbers are increasing. I’m cleanly hitting 260 as my 1RM, and I think it would be easy to squat 280 by the end of the week. Again, my goal is 300 by the holidays, and I think I should hit that without a problem.
Here’s a recent photo of me, for the endearing public (click for larger size):
I promise I’m not sucking my gut in too much. 
Baseball-specific work has been lax - Jacob’s shoulder is hurting him, and I haven’t had time to hit the cages. Hopefully I’ll get some work in at Strike Zone in the next few days.
Life Update
Well, this is the big one. After seriously contemplating life and my situation in general, I have made a major decision: I’ll be moving back to Cleveland sometime in 2008, before the holidays. The exact timeframe is unknown, but it depends on a few things:
- How quickly I can pay off my outstanding debt,
- How quickly I can accumulate enough money to fully start my own operations,
- Whether or not I want to play a full season of baseball in Seattle.
If I decide not to play baseball here, the target month will be April. If I decide to play baseball here, then it would be more like August.
It sounds ridiculous, but baseball is such a huge part of my life now. I really want to play another season, but I just don’t know if I want to wait that long to start up my own work in Cleveland.
Well, time to sleep.