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  • ThomasPowell 1:27 am on January 1, 2018 Permalink  

    2017 Year in Review 

    January

    • Pigeon Forge field trip as chaperone
    • Pinewood Derby

    February

    • Double Bridge Run
    • Manatees
    • Mardi Gras Parade in Pensacola

    March

    • New Pergola
    • New Patio
    • New Piano
    • Trip to Louisville to meet Poland team
    • New beds

    April

    • Mad Violin
    • Blueberry Festival

    May

    • Wife quit job
    • Savannah to OBX

    June

    • Lighthouses
    • Sea Catchers
    • Dan TDM in Jacksonville

    July

    • Palafox Application
    • Etsy shop
    • Wife got a new job

    August

    • 41
    • Traveled to Clayton, GA to see total eclipse
    • Sang with bishop installation choir

    September

    • Palafox Market
    • Solar install
    • Hurricane Irma panic
    • Baby Musical accompaniment

    October

    • Solar up and running
    • Hurricane prep and Tropical Storm hit

    November

    • Webelos weekend
    • Pow-Wow for Thanksgiving
    • RubyConf NOLA
    • Blue Angels Homecoming

    December

    • New treadmill
    • Trip back to Louisville
     
  • ThomasPowell 7:22 pm on December 31, 2015 Permalink  

    2015 in Review 

    Monthly Summary

    January

    • Started work on a solo project at work that pretty much gave me lots of experience building something from end to end.
    • Working from home 2/3rds of the time to work out any kinks for a possible move to Florida.
    • Thank yous going out to people who helped fund Emily’s medical mission to Kenya.

    February

    • Emily is gone for 10 days on a trip to Africa.
    • I have to dress the kids by myself exactly one day of her absence.
    • …because the kids were off school due to snow the entire following week.

    March

    • The small solo project goes into “User Experience auditing” mode and I get help actually meeting the demands.
    • The kids were off school due to snow (for entire week?) again.

    April

    • Painting, final prep for selling the house.
    • Spent a week with mostly no cell signal in St George Island

    May

    • Broke news to parents officially that we were moving.
    • Sold the house then listed it. (At least that was the order the offer versus official listing happened in.)

    June

    • Packed up the house, closed on the house, vacated the house, and flew off for the Philippines in a span of 5 days (with our 12th wedding anniversary in between.)
    • Last times accompanying at various churches in Louisville.
    • Went to the Daluyon resort on the island of Palawan in The Philippines.

    July

    • Celebrated my grandmother’s 100th birthday with the rest of the family in The Philippines.
    • Realized the madness that is flying to/from and traveling in a foreign country with very picky eaters as kids.
    • Flew back to the US, tried to adjust to jetlag in 2 days, drove our belongings not packed in a trailer to Florida in two cars (one with a broken A/C).
    • Scrambled to find a rental house that accepted a big dog in the school district we wanted, signed a lease, moved in (in a week from arriving in Florida)
    • Officially began my 100% remote work life.

    August

    • Sister-in-law brought our dogs down.
    • Kids started at their new school.
    • I wilted on runs in the Florida sun and heat.
    • Transferred our licenses and cars to Florida officially.
    • Went to beaches

    September

    • Emily waited around on callbacks from job applications.
    • Joined in with the Cathedral music program.
    • Went to beaches

    October

    • Actually saw a decent amount of the area on foot–running.
    • Not so much with the beaches.
    • Emily started a new job!
    • Olivia made All County Chorus

    November

    • Failed at Monkey (intentionally bailed at 11.5 miles, may have missed my bail out point a couple times.)
    • Drove back to Louisville, had good times, but way more hectic than expected.

    December

    • Apparently the A/C can mostly not run in December in Florida.
    • Went back to Louisville for Christmas.

    Media

    Music

    • Quite a bit of Hamilton the Musical.
    • Surprisingly less music listened to at home office than on site. Strange.

    Books

    • 72 Books. Getting into Hamilton the Musical led me Chernow’s biography of Hamilton. Excellent book, very dense read.
    • Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke and the Space Odyssey series were also exceptional (though I was a bit disappointed in 3001).
    • In following the post-apocalyptic/YA-ish series reads of past years, I got into the Extinction Point series by Paul Antony Jones
    • …less impressive was the Defiance trilogy (CJ Redwine), probably due to the believability of an alien race doing astounding things versus ordinary humans accomplishing futuristic feats in a world thrown back to the Dark Ages.
     
  • bqx40 10:56 am on October 19, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: crash, , life   

    One Month Out, “Normal” Still Seems Foreign 

    It’s been a month since I survived a car crash that demolished my car.

    Since then, we’ve closed on our new home, bought a new car, and spent two days’ worth of effort moving in. Because of the second car payment, our finances are not as secure as I’d like them to be, but we’re capable of making it–even if the next 6 months will be stressful.

    I’ve gotten back to running to some degree. The last two blips in the graph below represent my “return” the last two weeks, after 4 weeks off. Hardly compares to my normal weeks, or even my “even” weeks before.

    Weekly running totals

    After running 5.5 miles this week and moving things, I realized my ribs aren’t quite healed enough for physical activity. I had been able to quit taking ibuprofen, but I’m having to take it again due to the pain. Picking up anything over 20 pounds aggravates the pain.

    I’m wallowing in a fair amount of self-pity, but, right now, I’m just hoping for a normal, relatively pain-free life–outside of running. Seeing my aunt in her final days of her battle with cancer when she has a brand new granddaughter and knowing that I survived the wreck puts things in perspective, but it doesn’t make the waiting and uncertainty of healing any better.

     
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