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

Great news! I was discharged from the hospital on January 28th, 2015. My half-birthday, my re-birthday. After 2.75 years of hard work and long waits, I am free to get back to my life again. I took the end of last week, through the Super Bowl (Pats win!), as a last bit of vacation and hit the ground running yesterday.

I am getting shit DONE. I’ve done a ton of follow-ups, emails, organizing, and the like. I am back at the gym, on a new whole-body workout plan. I went to get my ears pierced again only to discover my holes had not closed up after all that time and just had to buy new hoops with captive balls to get back my “old look.”

The workout plan I’m on is a modified whole-body, six day split. I’m doing bench and squats on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, with cleans and cardio on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Sunday is a rest day. I will do this split through the month of Feburary, just to get the bod back in shape and used to working again, then I’ll probably shift to my usual five day split, with added cardio, to build a better foundation for cycling this summer.

I’ve had several interviews in the past week, and reached out via LinkedIn to find a good local IT recruiter. Within 12 hours I had a recommendation that I’ll be following up with later today, so things are starting to pop on the job front too. My time at Payback appears to be nearing its end, as I haven’t heard anything from them in over a month and it seems the contract won’t be renewed. My other client, CommunityEchos, has been patiently waiting for me, and I expect to wrap up that contract this week.

I have also reconnected with the author about writing my story. That’s the reason I haven’t put a lot of detail about my adventures here so far, we are working on what will be at least a series of articles that talk in depth about every aspect of what I’ve been going through these past years.

I’ve said goodbye to my friends at the hospital. There were congratulations all around, and even a couple calls to wish me the best and tell me what an inspiration I was. Those were great, completely melted me, and made me feel like no matter what else happened, I have had a positive impact on people’s lives. It’s a great feeling.

Alright, another busy day ahead, I’m off! More soon…

I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating. 🙂

I’m blessed. So fortunate. Fortunate that things didn’t get worse than they did. Fortunate to have a large group of close, supportive friends and family. Without them, my situation would be completely different. People I’ve come to know over these past years are in a much worse situation than I am. I feel bad for them, but I also feel grateful for being in the position I am now in.

My new bestie has played a key role in my progress. Since we reconnected 10 months ago, she has almost always been available to me. We’ve had some form of contact, practically every single day, over those months. She came out to visit, both me and some other friends in the area, we had some fantastic experiences and we’ve had some deep conversations too. I don’t know if it’s just great to have a new close friend who’s in my age group (recently, my friends have been younger than, almost generationally so) or the fact that we have so much in common that it has become almost passe when we discover another shared interest or belief. The running joke is that we share the same mind.

My family has been nothing short of wonderful. My mom and stepdad have opened up their home to me, letting me stay with them during this transition phase. My father, who moved to town two months ago, is always there to support me in this journey. My sister and brother-in-law have opened up their hearts and their home to me each weekend.

My family is coming back together as a unit, something I haven’t experienced in about 40 years, and it’s wonderful. I now have dinner with my mom, dad, and stepdad regularly and, for someone who grew up living first with one parent, then the other, it’s rather surreal to sit down at the table with both of them at the same time. I am grateful.

I am grateful my parents are still here, alive and doing well. I am grateful for my reconnecting with my sister. I am grateful to have a fantastic new job. I am grateful for my friends who have been so supportive. I am grateful to be healthy. I am grateful for my son, who’s growing up to be a fine young man. I am grateful for my ex-wife. I am grateful.

The Dalai Lama himself (big hitter, the Lama) talks of the importance of gratitude. It is when we forget to focus on what we have that we become dissatisfied and unhappy. So, I’m taking this moment to be grateful for everything I have in my life.

What are you grateful for?

Good news! I’m now officially under contract to provide web services for a local startup company. I’ll be developing their web site, integrating community-based features, facilitating their social media presence, and developing systems for them. This is just a small contract, part-time work, but it will lead to bigger and better things. And I’m getting paid, which has it’s advantages too.

Progress is still being made with my other ventures. I’m still in the interview process with another firm for something that will be closer to full time work once it commences. I’m reviewing their code, looking for fixes to some of their bugs, and should be speaking with both their mobile developer and marketing head next week. This opportunity is an exciting one, with lots of big data potential, and could revolutionize the way many, many, people interact with their online presences. I can’t go into details yet, but rest assured I will be spreading the word about this company should we come to terms and move forward together.

Unfortunately, my school work is falling by the wayside a bit. I haven’t had the time lately to keep up on my lectures and quizzes because I’ve been head down and working away. This isn’t a super big deal, as I’m not taking the courses for grades, but both do provide useful information that I can use in my business going forward, so they are still a priority to keep up on. Say hello to late night study sessions again! 🙂

In my “copious free time”, I’m also considering starting a consulting business for several reasons, and am just waiting for a few more things to fall into place before I commit to it. You’ll be hearing about that one too, when the time is right. I’ve already developed a substantial Twitter following for it, so it looks like there’s a lot of interest in that arena thus far. Good stuff.

That’s all I have time for right now, stay tuned for future updates – and thanks for visiting. 🙂