My Life Blog

I have been told by many that I need to blog more.  I’ll admit I go through spurts where I write a lot and then go dark, so right as I reclaim some readership, I leave them high-and-dry.  What can I say?  Sorry about that; let me make amends by offering up somewhat of an update on things.

So let me start by recounting some goings-on from the last six months or so.

In mid-April I was notified that I was being laid off by Nokia.  There was no rhyme or reason for my being selected as I was a top developer integral in several projects.  But for me, it was a “free at last” kind of moment.  While the technology and experience were great and very relevant, the corporate dysfunction had greatly diminished my enjoyment of the job.  Fortunately, Nokia is a very generous and humane company and so my employment didn’t end until the end of June and I was paid a severance package and my first-half bonus.  I was, at first, pretty bitter to be selected and then given no reason, but I’m convinced it was best for my career.

Meanwhile, Suzanne had an upheaval with her job a few weeks after I got my layoff notification.  The attorney that she works for decided to leave the firm after some 22 years there.  Since they’ve been working together for 7 years, he really wanted her to go with him.  And so after some time to think about it, Suzanne decided to go.

But here’s where it gets funny.  She and I had a previously-scheduled trip to Kauai set up for mid-May.  As terms of my layoff, my last day to report onsite to Nokia was in mid-May.  And as luck would have it, Suzanne’s last day at her old job was that same day.  The next day, we went to Kauai for two weeks both with no jobs; though hers was lined up for her return.

Kauai was great as usual and that’s been well-profile on here, so I won’t say much about it.  In late June, I ended up temporarily contracting with a company called Click Here which is an advertising agency.  I then transitioned into being a full-time employee.  I was lured there by the prospect of working on great websites, with talented designers, and using Ruby on Rails while working on my Mac.

Also in late June, Suzanne and I went to The Police concert.  They were awesome!  I was so in awe when I saw Sting take the stage — what fabulous shape he is in!  I told Suzanne that I was completely letting her down in that regard.

The rest of the Summer was rather uneventful, but I was growing disenchanted with the new company I was with.  There were many reasons for this, but I won’t go into them here.  So after about three months, I decided to leave the company to strike out on my own.  I’m currently working up my own little freelance development company.  So these days I’m busy planning, marketing, and doing client work as I have it — and for now, I’m doing so from home.  I can’t tell you how nice it is to work at home.

So now we’re mostly caught up, I’ll try to blog more often with smaller tidbits that are hopefully more interesting and more current.

Mini-Falls

Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

It’s times like these you learn to live again

It’s times like these you give and give again

It’s times like these you learn to love again

It’s times like these time and time again

I am a new day rising

I’m a brand new sky

To hang the stars upon tonight

I am a little divided

Do I stay or run away

And leave it all behind?

– Foo Fighters

And so we begin our time in Kauai. Its views like these that keep us coming…time and time again.

Suzanne has joined me in my training sessions the past five weeks and its been a blast.  Between the two of us and our trainer, there are lots of laughs, good stories, and definitely some hard work.

She should be seeing visible results anytime now.  I had regressed during a lull period over the Holidays and as I worked through a persistent cold.  Our trainer keeps heaping on the extra weight, so there is no doubt I’m progressing.  Though I worked out much more consistently years ago, for certain exercises I’m now lifting more than ever.  That’s not too bad for being 42.

If you are considering working with a personal trainer, consider doing it as a couple.  The hour flies by and its actually quality time too!

Google Earth has updated their Kauai satellite detail to the extent that we can now see the little beach peninsula where we got married. The aerial view of the surf pattern is amazing!

The latitude and longitude coordinates are listed in the post title in case you want to surf there in Google Earth for yourself. This discovery was made tonight as we are officially hearing the island call to us. Photos and aerial views are nothing like being there, but fun nevertheless.

My lovely wife gave me the gift of 10 sessions with a personal trainer for my birthday.  I’ve now completed those 10 sessions and have some positive results to report.

First, let me say that I was a bit fearful of this experience because I’ve never had someone control my workout.  I’ve managed to get myself in pretty good shape on my own, but always knew that I didn’t work out particularly hard.  When you work with a trainer, you pretty much submit yourself to their plan an philosophy.  In my case, this means not taking too many overly long breaks.  The goal is to get some aerobic benefits from the workout as well.

I must say that after many workouts, I was pretty whipped.  Its amazing what you can do in an hour.  In reflection, you can look at it and wonder what was so hard.  Its the absence of breaks and the better technique, I think.  Though I’m only working out for an hour, its an optimized hour.  Curiously, the amount of weight in my reps is not as high as I have done on my own.

So what have my results been?  A loss of only 2 lbs so far.  However, a loss of close to 5% of body fat which translates into a probable loss of 10 lbs of body fat.  Don’t do the math on that or you’ll know just how puffy I have become.  My legs, well known as my best feature, have actually shrunk in size; what little fat I carried there is for the most part gone.  My waist and my mid-section are down and inch respectively.  My chest has increased in size about 3/4″.

To me, these results are quite remarkable given how poorly I’ve managed my diet in the past two weeks.  With a more disciplined diet, I am quite sure that the next round of results has great potential.  However, the Holidays are a terrible time to tighten the diet.  Wish me luck!

Consider what you might think if your wife gives you ten sessions with a personal trainer for your birthday.

Do you wonder if she thinks you are out of shape?  As in, is this some kind of message?!

Well, this was Suzanne’s gift to me for my recent birthday.  I turned 42 and its fair to say that my level of fitness has been better.  When I was 37, I was probably in the best shape of my life.  However, in the five years since, I’ve let my diet and my exercise regimen slip.  So training sessions is just what I need right now to get back my mojo.

To clarify, it wasn’t a message on her part, but rather a creative gift.  She definitely got for me what I would not have gotten for myself.  I have had a fear of submitting myself to a personal trainer for fear that they would run me ragged.  As it turns out, I have just had my third session and this hasn’t been the case.

What I’m learning instead is that I still have a pretty good basis strengthwise and that much of my previous research has been confirmed.  But more than that, I’m getting the benefit of someone educating me on my technique and designing a different kind of workout.  This is really important because it helps to optimize your workouts.  I think many of my past workouts haven’t been very efficient.

So I’m highly recommending anyone who works out to give a private trainer a go sometime to explore these possible improvements in your own workouts.

DSCN1042.JPG
Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

My gift to Suzanne for our first anniversary was a weekend’s stay at a bed and breakfast in Gruene (pronounced green), Texas. Gruene is a little German town located near New Braunfels — which is 30 miles northeast of San Antonio.

For your first anniversary, the suggested gift is a clock. I extrapolated from that the concept of time and thought a weekend away would be perfect.

We both took Friday off to enable a casual drive down to Gruene. Its about a four hour drive from Dallas. The drive was pretty smooth, but was slowed predictably by traffic in Austin. We lost another 45 minutes trying to satisfy a Starbuck’s craving within Gruene — basically, we got embroiled in some unexpected traffic there and never found one. Go figure, they aren’t on every corner in New Braunfels.

Once we got to the bed and breakfast, we discovered it was as beautiful as I had hoped. I had found the place on the Internet by using keywords like “Gruene”, “Guadalupe” and “Bed and Breakfast”. Anyway, the point is, I wanted a place on the river. And when we arrived, we were very rewarded with beautiful gardens and a river-front deck. If you explore the Flickr set, you’ll see what I mean.

The bed and breakfast has many places to stay, but I had booked the cottage which added a bit more privacy and its own overlook to the river. It was quite nice inside.

Once we got our stuff moved in, it was time to gather up a bottle of Pinot Gritio and explore the deck and riverside. It was beautiful and relaxing. We stayed for quite a while and took quite a few pictures.

Later that night, we went to the Gruene River Inn for dinner and that too was wonderful. We closed the night with a half hour in the hot tub.

On Saturday morning, we reported for breakfast at 9am sharp where a raspberry cobbler was waiting for us. I’m told it was nice, but a cold dessert wasn’t my thing for breakfast. The main course was a kind of creamy scrambled eggs with sausage and sweet potato medalions. Pretty fancy! And the presentation was beautiful. I didn’t know what to expect, so it was a surprise to have a gourmet meal.

Later that morning, we went to Landa Park and hiked the Panther Canyon Nature Trail. If you’ve read about our previous hiking experience, you’ll no doubt be surprised to see the word “hike” make its return to the blog. All I can say is that this is what we think of when we say or hear hike: level ground, short, scenic, and fun. The hike was fun, but the river bed was completely dry. We did stalk some deer up the canyon, so that was fun.

By the end of our hike, full-blown rain had set in, so we retreated to a restaurant to have lunch. We were a bit disappointed with the Mexican food restaurant in Gruene — can’t remember the name, but there’s only one, so you’ll know it when you see it. It wasn’t bad, I was just expecting better since we were closer to San Antonio…and thus closer to the Border also.
We walked the town later that afternoon; I took pictures while Suzanne did some shopping. By then, the rain had lifted some, so the walk was pleasant.

We retreated back to our Inn for another early evening edition of wine on the deck. We got halfway through our wine when we decided to go walk the road to look at all the deer that frequent the area. We must have seen 15 of them over the course of the 30 minutes we were out there. Seeing deer up close like that was really cool!

Later that night, we went to the Grist Mill Restaurant which is THE place to go for dinner in Gruene. We actually got there pretty later, 8:45pm, but still had to wait 45 minutes to be seated. If there had been another option, we probably would have bailed. Dinner was nice, but not remarkable.

Breakfast the next morning was again pretty remarkable, although it wasn’t compatible with my picky eating style — french toast with pumpkin spread in the middle. But everyone else seemed to love it.

After breakfast, we checked out and began our trip back. We stopped at an Outlet Mall near San Marcos and shopped for two hours before getting on the road for good.

All in all, it was a nice trip. If anyone is interested, the bed and breakfast is called the Lamb’s Rest Inn. Highly recommended.

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In the Nokia parking lot, I saw a black Saturn Sky; a roadster from Saturn!   I’ve been driving my car, also a roadster, for 6 1/2 years and I don’t have car envy, but I had to do a double-take when I saw this car.  And to be honest, I didn’t immediately connect with the iconic logo and had to search the car to see it in writing.  Imagine my surprise.  I mean, Saturn?!  But damn.

See a video here.

We are now officially back one week into the "real" world.  Suzanne and I agreed that we had to somehow prolong that relaxed vacation feeling.  We coined it the "vacation buzz."  So how are we doing?

Well, I think quite well. 

Last night, we went to a local restaurant called Bahama Breeze.  Just go to their website and you’ll see that it was quite an appropriate choice for us.  The website suggests that "you don’t worry, everything is going to be alright" and gives you a great initial view of the ocean through a palm tree frame.  While we weren’t big fans of the calamari, we both enjoyed the mahi-mahi.  Suzanne said the Key Lime Pie was the best she’d had in a while as well.

Things are still a bit dodgy at work, but I resolved to not let it bother me.  And so it didn’t.  But let me tell you, there are many there that need vacations to restore their energy and sense of humor.  My jokes and my tan weren’t appreciated by all.  I guess when you are in a bad mood, there are few things that can deliver you from it other than an extreme scenery change.

Suzanne is off doing some power shopping right now.  Returning to the mainland has brought new inspiration for what needs to be done to our "nest."  And so quite a few things have been purchased in today’s first shopping session.  She’s off taking care of the twilight portion of the shopping double-header now.

And now I look forward to the Mavericks - Suns game.  If the Mavs win, they go to the Finals.  Fortunately, this is the only time I feel stress as yet.

Without going into the details, let me just say that the IRS and I have a disagreement on my 2003 tax return.  Its a minor one, really, but the experience is frustrating me.

The process began with a "Note of Deficiency" sometime in December…right around Christmas Day, actually.  After reading it, I could see what their concern was and why things weren’t quite clear on the return.  So I put a thorough paper trail together and wrote a very clear cover letter.  In addition, they also provided a form which had likely reasons for the deficiency.  My reason was among them, so I checked the appropriate box.

In early March, I received a confirmation from the IRS that they had received my letter and that a decision would be made by March 27th. 

Yesterday, we received a notice that a registered letter awaited us.  Today I picked it up and it was a note from the IRS detailing a "Note of Deficiency".  There is no explanation as to why my case was denied, just several pages detailing how I can pay the amount owed. 

Folks, this is a small amount of money.  Very immaterial given some things that you hear today.  But anyway, I think I’m right, so am reluctant to pay just because the IRS is intimidating.  Because I feel the need to understand how I am wrong, I’m going to have to call them to get the details that they should have provided in this latest mailing.  Thus I’m going to be wasting additional taxpayer money as I occupy some IRS specialist to help me understand this.

I’m just a little frustrated because I pay my taxes on time and honestly and when asked have provided a thorough explanation for an exceptional condition.  And yet the IRS cannot provide the same courtesy back.

UPDATE:  I called the IRS today to discuss my case.  It appears that the registered letter that I received kicked out of their system automatically because the case was not settled and has 90 days to go.  However, I discovered that my case has not been assigned to anyone and that they have no record of my response.  This is disconcerting since I have a written reply from them acknowledging my response along with an advisement that they will respond by 3/27.  They have asked me to fax in my response again since the original is apparently lost.  This explains the lack of explanation within the registered letter, however if I were the passive type, I would have accepted that I had lost the case and just paid the amount due.