Patrick Stedem

To begin my review of 2011, I’ll look at how I performed in regard to my resolutions. I had five resolutions for 2011: 1. run more 2. do more pushups, situps and squats 3. read one hour a day 4. floss and 5. cook at home more often.

1. Run More

While from a technical standpoint I ran more than last year, I in no way achieved the amount of running I desired. When I started working nine hour days and the weather cooled down and it was dark leaving work, it was too easy to just say “whatevs.” There’s no excuse though, because I have a free gym membership for indoor running. I am weak and pathetic.

Rating: FAIL

2. More Pushups, Situps and Squats

I did increase the number of pushups, situps and squats done in each workout and I kept up with doing them routinely. I, however, did not come close to reaching the promised land of the hundredpushups, twohundredsitups and twohundredsquats programs.

Rating: MARGINAL SUCCESS!!

3. Read One Hour a Day

Wow. This souffle never even rose enough to collapse. I forgot I’d even set this resolution. Maybe this year?

Rating: SPECTACULAR FAILURE

4. Floss

Easily the greatest success of my 2011 resolutions, and potentially the greatest success of my entire life. While I don’t necessarily floss every single night, I do the vast majority of the time. It’s become a habit, and it’s to the point that the dental hygienist complimented my dental hygiene. My success owes a debt of gratitude to this Pop Economics entry. My greatest failure was not applying the same “keep doing it, even if only in an insignificant amount” way of pushing towards forming a habit to reading and running.

Rating: ABSOLUTE SUCCESS

5. Cook at Home More

This is a win, but with further room for improvement. I’ve shifted from only cooking humongous, weeklong quantities once a month and eating out the rest of the time to making single dinner portions. I’ve developed a ravishing love affair with the baked sweet potato and experimented with different vegetables I’d never eaten before, let alone cooked. I’ve shed quite a bit of weight, though I think that had more to do with changing, and being more conscious of, what I eat.

This is not to say that there have not been trials and tribulations. There have been abject failures (e.g. pecan and cheddar cheese balls, cooking a piece of fish so improperly it resulted in a sort of boney fishmash), and I have growing trepidation I will injure myself through haphazard knife usage, salmonella (or salamander as my paternal grandfather once referred to it) poisoning or not cleaning my oven of, now charred, sweet potato drippings.

Rating: SUCCESS

Gwangju To Your Room: My Friend Pat

dimmyjenfield:

This post is solely dedicated to my friend Pat.

Pat is a child-hood friend. We first met in the trivia club back in middle school. Since then, we grew as closer friends in high school and ended up falling out of touch throughout college and the beginning of our adult lives.

I always took Pat…

It’s funny to think back to Trivia Club, and that really our relationship began more as (fr)enemies. We’ve had some great trips and some good times. I wish we’d stayed in better touch or that I’d visited you in Korea. When you come up we can definitely take a roadtrip to Maine and etc. I love you, I miss you and I’m sorry too.

Where to begin, where to begin.

So I moved to New Hampshire right as winter was ending (thank god). It snowed twice after I moved, and once enough to even have work cancelled. The image to the left was the view outside on the morning work was cancelled. The snowfall was waaaaay less than forecasted, and, since this happened on April Fool’s day, I was left wondering if my boss was playing a cruel joke on me. The first time it snowed I was overcome with this incredible childlike wonderment. In the past I had a little experience with snow, but not much. This coming winter I’m sure I’ll get my taste. My dad doesn’t think I’ll be able to stick it out here after being a lifelong Floridian. He could be right. I’ve put myself in unknown territory, and now it’s time to see what I’m made of.

On my trip up and upon arrival, everyone thought I was crazy to make this move. My dad and I constantly wondered why people stay in places they think are horrible.

I had several motivations for moving:

1. With the Space Shuttle program ending, my job was likely to follow suit.

If I had stayed I probably would still be working at Kennedy right now, but the future looks no better. Probably worse. With congress’s inability to sign off on a budget for this year, and the whole debt crisis, absolutely no progress has been made in deciding what the future is beyond the shuttle. All indications are that we’ll be seeing another budget fight for FY2012 that starts in October, so who knows if they’ll finally stop with continuing resolutions and make a decision.

2. Having always lived in Florida, I wanted to switch it up.

Might as well see what somewhere else has to offer while I can. I still want to live in a real city, and the obvious choice is Boston at this point. It’s a little far and definitely more expensive (e.g., state income tax, longer drive to/from work, higher cost of living in general), maybe after a promotion or two.

3. Vaishali’s interest (and general distaste of Florida) and her family in the Boston area and my relatives in New Hampshire.

This was, of course, very key. The part about my family ended up being perfect timing, but not for a pleasant reason. Right around the time I moved up my grandma was diagnosed with Richter’s transformation (extremely rare) of the form of cancer she’d had for ~20 years (CLL). This mutation is incredibly aggressive and she passed away in late June. I was incredibly fortunate to see her quite often thanks to my move, and able to help where I could.

In regard to Vaishali, she hasn’t been able to move up so far, but I’m hopeful. Her sister living in the Boston area has aided me in seeing her several times already though.

See, that wasn’t so bad. Although it did take awhile.

Recently, I have had such a desire to blog my thoughts and feelings, and yet I would always hesitate for one reason or another. I’ve decided to disable Facebook crossposting to eliminate one possible reason. I avoid writing a personal blog entry in the way I push laundry or dishwashing or taking out the recycling as long as possible. The task itself is simple and short (perhaps not short in the case of blogging for me), and maybe even ultimately satisfying, but there’s an incredible amount of activation energy required.

A lot of things have happened in the past 4 months. And even before that I never even really addressed moving to New Hampshire. I am going to REALLY try to post more. I want to remember how I felt and even grow a little. Tonight, it’s too late to delve in. Tomorrow… there’s always tomorrow to fail again.

A lack of flossing is not likely to actually kill me, at least not for awhile. However, we’ve all heard about regular flossing lowering your chance of heart disease as well as the more obvious and expected benefits. So why not give it the old college try.