Lover of trading, tacos, 3D/AR/VR, cryptos, and most things Japanese

Master Thomas,

It is with great pride that I write you this letter on the occasion of your graduation from high school with high honors. You have absorbed so much knowledge and guidance from your mom and I, your teachers, and your coaches. You have taken it to heart and performed with excellence. Now it’s time to level up!

I would like to offer some suggestions to help you on the journey through this next stage of your life. The most important stage… so far. 🙂

Find your people
You will be entering a large university and will be exposed to many different people, cultures, beliefs, and perspectives. Embrace the chance to learn about as much as you can from them. The people you connect with in college will shape your experience there. Be curious, seek answers to your questions, and explore the collegiate world. Find the people that resonate with you, that have different opinions and experiences. Get involved with clubs and intramural sports. Find mentors. The connections you make in college will serve you later in life in ways you can’t foresee now.

Explore
College is the opportunity to expand your horizons beyond what you already know. Thanks to your mom, you’ve already been able to travel a fair bit and for the next four years, Oregon State will be your home away from home. Seek out interesting and challenging classes. You will have an entire university at your command, with the chance to learn so much about so many different subjects, take advantage of that. Take courses that pique your curiosity and that you look forward to going to. These are the types of courses that will help define your future.

You may not yet know what direction you want your career to take, and that is okay. I only had a general idea when I entered college, and it took me a long time to get my degree because there were so many things I was interested in. I took classes in Computer Science, Philosophy, Calligraphy, Physiology, Asian Culture, Spanish, Japanese, Animation, and Anthropology before deciding to get a Fine Arts degree. There are so many options it can be challenging to decide which direction to focus on, so listen to your heart as you contemplate your path.

Discipline
You have already learned good study habits, and you may be challenged to maintain them in college. There will be a lot of stuff going on, so many things you may want to do rather than studying, and you will need to maintain focus and discipline in your routine to ensure you don’t get behind. My first semester at USC was a near disaster because high school had been so easy for me that I wasn’t prepared for the rigors of academia. Frankly, I felt free to do whatever I wanted and lost sight of the reason I was at college. It was only in hindsight that I realized the opportunities I had not taken advantage of, and to this day I wonder how my life course would have changed had I applied myself better from the start. That said, my life turned out pretty good.

The only constant is change
People change – change majors, change towns, change careers – often several times in their lives, so don’t feel like your choices now limit your future path. You can do anything you want, it’s just a matter of applying yourself and doing the necessary work. While your decisions in college won’t dictate your life path, they can accelerate your journey.

Take some risks along the way, and don’t be afraid to fail.

Above all – work hard, play hard, be safe, and have fun!

Love,
Dad

Great news! After months of hard work, all the administrivia has been completed and I am happy to officially announce that I will be starting my new position as a Software Developer Senior Analyst with Accenture starting 8/29. It has been a long road to get here, and I am ecstatic to be joining one of the top technology companies in the world. 

Thank you all for your support along the way!

Leg day again. Already?? Yes, I’m hitting the full body twice a week now, so this was the second time doing squats this week. I changed up my routine to Monday, Thursday doing chest and back, hitting legs Tuesday, Friday, and cardio on Wednesday, Saturday. I’m definitely stepping up the amount of work I’m doing each week, and I can feel the difference on the bod.

I’ve started tracking my diet and workouts using MyFitnessPal instead of posting here daily. You can check out what I’ve been up to by going to my Food Diary or my Exercise Diary. You can toggle days and go back and review what I’ve been eating and lifting. One thing to keep in mind is that the app only tracks breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. Since I’m eating about six times a day, I log a lot under snacks or double up on my meals – so lunch might show what I had for lunch and my 2pm meal. Overall, I like the app – especially for tracking diet. They have a ton of listings with nutrient and calorie breakdowns for everything I’ve tried so far, including my supplements and the restaurants I’ve eaten at. Their exercise tracking leaves a bit to be desired, as it is missing some exercises I do and in order to get a rough idea of caloric expenditure during lifting I have to log the time I spent weight training as cardio. Still, it’s a useful tool and I really like the calorie tracking throughout the day to help me see how much more I can eat before going over my goal. In the two weeks that I’ve been using it, I think I’ve only gone over my daily calorie goal once. Cheat day! 🙂

Oh, one other feature it is missing is a mechanism for tracking bodyfat percentages. I’ve discovered that the impedance machine I use at the gym can fluctuate two percent based on how long I’ve soaked in the hot tub. I have really dry soles of my feet, which don’t conduct electricity very well, so it’s really only good to get a relative idea of percentages, rather than absolute value. Tomorrow I shall go in and use it again (forgot to do it today) to see where I sit and what I’ve accomplished these past two weeks. My weight has dropped and is remaining pretty stable around 218, and my pants are getting a little looser, so I’m confident that I’m losing fat and gaining muscle.

The biggest thing I’m wrestling with is the desire to add mass and get cut at the same time. In order to add muscle, you have to eat more than you burn, but in order to lose fat you have to burn more than you eat. My thinking is that by maintaining a strongly anaerobic state as much as possible, through high protein intake and supplementation, I am adding muscle and shedding a little bit of fat at a time. I’ve done some research and it turns out that steady state, low intensity aerobics actually hampers anabolism, and that the best way to do cardio is to do High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). These are shorter sessions, maybe 20-30 minutes, with intense, all-out efforts for 30 seconds to a minute, followed by two to five minutes of low intensity. Think sprint for a minute, walk for five, and repeat. I can tell from how much lactic acid is building up in my muscles during training that I really need to work on my cardio conditioning, so that’s going to be stepped up a notch next week. Depending on how my legs feel tomorrow morning, I may go back to Zumba and see if I can last longer than 20 minutes.

Food intake has been solid. I’m getting close to averaging 200 grams of protein a day – I had 240 yesterday and woke up today a pound heavier. Wouldn’t it be great if that was muscle growth!?! I’ve also cut out the Diet Coke. I used to drink maybe three liters of it a day, as I love the cold carbonation, but I’ve switched to flavored water. The water still has Sucralose, so it’s not perfect, but it’s a good transition and I’m finding I’m drinking more plain water now too.

Six weeks to San Diego, time to ramp up that fat burning and get this bod ready for the beach!