Had everything worked out perfectly I would have taken a bus last night from Seattle-Tacoma Airport to Bellingham, WA. But things don’t always work out ‘perfect’ and the flight ran late in complete disregard to the slim window I had to make it from the plane to the bus which departed promptly at 9pm. The next bus wasn’t scheduled to leave until after 11pm, and was already full.

I’m staying for a week with my Uncle Mike and Paul for both work and pleasure. In the end, Uncle Mike drove down to pick me up from the airport. A 3.5 hour round-trip drive that was supposed to have been avoided via the aforementioned bus. We made it home around 1am, had a bowl of ice cream, chatted a bit and went to bed.

The “work” part of this trip involves installing a structured media system in Uncle Mike and Paul’s new home. All the wiring is (added when the house was built) so I don’t expect any back-breaking work. Most of the work is placing pieces of equipment in and on walls in the correct place and connecting the correct wires.

I’ve been planning this system for a while now. Although the ultimate plan I came up with was bitchen (excuse the language) it was too much work. It would have required pulling new wires (quite a few) all over the house and was, in the end, simplified such that we will be able to just place equipment. I’m storing the design away for use on the fictitious home I plan to buy with my imaginary lottery winnings though.

I sit this morning in the spacious living room after a late night with my laptop and a cup of coffee, listening to the multitude of birds in the small forest just in back of the home. I’ll be running into town soon to pickup all the equipment and getting the project started. I have plans to meet up with friends on Saturday, a trip to Vancouver B.C. either Friday or Sunday and a day’s visit to Seattle on Tuesday before my flight leaves.

I am very much looking forward to all of this.

Even approaching thirty, I don’t really feel grown up. However, there are times I feel old. It seems like not that long ago I could happily drink a veritable cornucopia of alcoholic concoctions, go to bed and wake up the next morning ready to run a marathon. Now, it takes me a full day to recover from such a binge. Similarly, sleep has become more of a necessity, and where I used to be fully functional on mere hours of sleep, these days I become something akin to the extras in Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video when I don’t get enough beauty rest.

I celebrated yesterday with a group of friends who came downtown last night. We saw a couple of bands at concert in the park. Had sushi and sake bombs at Nashiki for dinner and we wrapped the night up at a couple of bars. I ultimately had 4 beers, 4 sake bombs, 1 shot and a couple mixed drinks. This morning, a few of us made it over to Cafe Bernardo for breakfast. Tonight a few more friends are coming into town and we’ll do more of the same (although, maybe a little less alcohol for me). Tomorrow, my parents are planning to be in-town for lunch which means that I will have successfully extended my birth-day into a birth-weekend. Huzzah!

I’m thankful for the friends and family who’ve shared the last 27 years with me and look forward to many more.

A word of warning, this tutorial goes VERY fast. Its designed to be more of an overview than a step by step guide. If you have any questions though feel free to ask in the comments below and I’ll see if I can add to this guide some with more video’s or explanation, but without further adieu:

Look for more of these sub 5-min video tutorials in the future, as I think its a great way to express a task without boring the learner with paragraphs of text.

I am generally opposed to setting resolutions, particularly “New Year Resolutions”. I feel that most people set themselves up for failure by listing broad resolutions without any plan and they never get started. A resolution by itself is too vague to have substance in most cases, it needs to be split into goals and sometimes further into smaller action items to make sure you don’t lose site of the bigger picture.

A good example that I see all the time is the infamous ‘I want to lose weight’ resolution. Unless you set goals (“I will weigh 175 by the end of the year”), and break that down to manageable pieces (“I will lose 2lbs per month”) you’ll likely lose interest within the first month. Make sure you answer Who, What, When, Why, and How when you set your resolution. Don’t skip ‘Why’, its arguably the most important question of all.

That all said, I have a few resolution of my own that I’ve decided to plans out and act on. I’m writing them down here for a few reasons; primarily that writing out goals is the best way I know of to commit to something. Also, by writing them down where all can see I become accountable to my goals; an important bit in my own self motivational needs.

Resolution #1: Write More

More specifically, write more consistently. This blog goes though periods of dead silence and stints of furious postings. I want people to to come to my blog on a regular basis and find interesting information every time [why]. I actually started this with the “Flavors of the Holidays” series between Thanksgiving and Christmas and really liked it.

The simple goal is that I [who] will have have a new post every Wednesday morning [what] for you to read, starting today for the entire year [when]. WordPress allows me to create a post well in advance, and schedule it to be posted Wednesday morning. this is the secret of how I plan on achieving the overall goal. And means that I don’t have to sit down every Tuesday night and write a post, instead I can write two or three in one sitting and schedule them out.

Resolution #2: Better Cash-flow

“Better Cash-flow” is much more vague than the previous resolution and involves a couple smaller goals (broken into even smaller pieces). This isn’t going to be something I can complete in one year, or cover in a single post so I’ll be breaking this resolution down in multiple posts over the first part of 2010. But in summary, my committed expenses (read here about committed expenses) are nearly 100% of my income, which means I’m cash broke all the time. The main contributing factors are reduced income (compared to previous years), lingering debt and increased living expenses (living on my own). I want to be able to go out with friends and not borrow cash, I want to be able to buy a new TV with cash to replace my aging panel and I want to stop giving money away to the banks.

So until next week, when we can go over things in more detail, thanks for reading.

Do you remember in elementary school, after summer break when your teacher would have you stand up in front of the class and explain what you did over the summer? Me either frankly, but its so cliché I couldn’t avoid brining it up since it leads right into my post today.

I want to actually start this off by saying I’d love to get some input back on this, tell me what you did over the summer. A lot of the people I’ve grown up with are just getting their families started while others aren’t done exploring the world. I’d like to know where life’s path has lead you.

As much as it irks me to admit it, Facebook is great for keeping tabs on old friends, but it lack any personality, its nothing more than a list of milestones. Facebook lacks the telling of a complete story. And I know this sort of thing is often left to a letter in a Christmas card, but frankly the Holiday’s have enough things going on, I think its time to go back to elementary school when we updated our friends at the end of the summer. So without further adieu, My Summer Vacation, a report by Kyle Klaus:

I’ll admit, 2009 started out on a bit of a sour note. But I ended up having a great new years with Matt Lockyer, his girlfriend Kelly and brother Travis in Oakland. It was a bit of a foreshadowing event, but more on that later.

2009 marks the fifth year of this blog (through various forms) . While its not much of anything to celebrate, and to say its been constant would be a lie, I’ve still enjoyed putting my musings, ramblings and ravings to ‘paper’ and I hope to continue. This post actually makes number 316 over those five years for anybody who is counting.

In February Kerry and I (as well as the rest of her family) made the long drive down to San Diego to watch the 2009 Rugby Seven’s tournament. It was only the second time I had ever been to a rugby game, and this was on a whole different level. I had a great time and took a ridiculous number of photos of the event. Also, before we left to San Diego we spent a brief amount of time enjoying the very very rare snowfall in Cameron Park.

In April though, Kerry and I split up. Without trying to be too much of a downer, there wasn’t much love left there and it was just simply time to move on. Unfortunately, our lease wasn’t up until the end of September, so we stuck it out and continued to live together until the end of our lease (not really something I would recommend, but we managed it OK).

On a better note though, I started taking tests towards my MCSE certification. The link does a better job of explaining fully what that means than I will here, but basically its a Microsoft certification that says I know what I’m doing when it comes to managing computer systems and, bottom line, is a meal ticket to higher pay. I still have 5 more tests to take to finish my certification, but with the tests I’ve done so far I can officially call myself a “Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP).

I also was able to spend a brief time with the Hoffman’s at Cody’s parents cabin. We went for two reasons, one because the place is awesome and a great way to spend a weekend, but more importantly Cody and Becca wanted some portraits of the very beginning of their new family.

In September I moved out on my own! This is somewhat of a highlight to the year for me. I’m living on my own now in Downtown Sacramento. Its only a studio apartment, but its comfortable and makes me feel très chic. Keith (my brother) only lives a few blocks away, so we’ve been able to work more closely on a small project of ours called Flublub (more on that when its closer to finished). Being able to walk to family, friends and the downtown life has been a gift I don’t plan on wasting.

In case you thought I forgot to mention work; I’ve been working for Airtop Technology Group since February ‘08 as a Technology Consultant. Its a small company (only four of us) but we have some big plans. Most of my time is spent with clients providing proactive service on their servers and workstations to make sure they continue operating 24/7. Its sometimes a thankless job, and that can wear but if I’ve done a good job, nobody knows I was there in the first place, so in a way its a complement.

So that brings us to about now, where I’m enjoying the cool crisp air of the night, listening to my eclectic collection of music and composing overly lengthy posts. Now its your turn, tell me what you’ve been up to. You can email it, post it in a comment below, or put it on Facebook somehow.

Until next summer my friends.

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In the past few weeks, I’ve missed easily 4 lunches. In those same past few weeks, the lunches I did have, were nearly exclusively fast food. I do on occasion make time to sit down at a Subway, but even then I usually get a food long, and sometimes ask for a toasted BMT (likely they worst sandwich on the menu).

Besides the fact that I’m eating extremely poorly (my late night math puts my average caloric intake for just lunch well over 1000), but I’m spending more money than I need to be. According to Mint.com (a subject I’ve been meaning to create a whole post on) in the month of June I spent $135 on fast food. Its hard to get a solid per day cost though since often I use cash, and occasionally it goes on the company card but some guestimating tells me I spend about $8 per day (during the work week) on fast food, or expanded out a little under two-thousand dollars per year. Yikes.

So today, on my way home from work (at 9pm) I decided to do something about it. I stopped in Raley’s, grabbed a basket and started gathering supplies. My goals were more along the lines of getting a filling, satisfying and physically robust meal than making a perfectly nutritious one. I figure the nutrition can come in more seriously when I get used to this new pattern, and I have more time to plan meals than skimming nutrition facts in the super market.

Over the past seven years I’ve been working, I’ve taken in maybe 10 bagged lunches. For a very long time I’ve had excuses, and "reasons" to not take a bagged lunch. However, no matter what I tried to convince myself of, I can easily put together a lunch that can sit in the car all day without being destroyed and if I make the lunches ahead of time (like, when I get home from the store) then it doesn’t take up any more of my mornings.

All that said, what did I end up with in my bagged lunch? A single serving of Oberto Beef Jerky Strips; "Chicken of the Sea" Tuna Snax (tuna dip with crackers); A bag of Sun Chips; A bottle of water and a few pieces of hard Caramels for desert. Which puts this meal at a much healthier 390 calories (overall nutrition information is posted to the right)

I also took the opportunity to look at more than just my lunch eating and spending habits. Its no secret that I like Starbucks (mmm, venti, soy, no-water, Chai Tea Latte). But, the amount of money I spend on Starbucks each month could probably feed a third world village. Not to mention that a twenty ounce cup of steamed milk (albeit soy milk) satisfies none of my morning nutritional needs. So I also picked up some instant coffee (for my caffeine fix) and a variety pack of instant oatmeal.

Its not a complete plan, and has some gaps (like dinner) but its a change for the good, and one that I hope will inspire others to do the same. Save yourself some cash, and make those miles on the treadmill count for something: brown bag your lunches this week! I’d also like to hear from people with the things you put in your bag.

In good tradition, this post is a bit of a read (although not as bad as some), so get yourself a cup of coffee and prepare to read every mundane detail of my weekend.

Update! I’ve uploaded all the pictures for your viewing pleasure. Check them out here.

I’ve known Cody and Becca since January 2006 (wow, has it really been more than three years!?). They were our Neighbors when I lived in Elk Grove and came over to see what was going on the night we got a little crazy with some rum. From that night began the summer of nightly BBQ, wonderful weekends and perpetual tom-foolery (see examples here and here).

Since then they have been able to buy a home in Elk Grove, and start their family and while I was over for Dinner about a month ago they asked me if I would take some portraits. I was flattered and shortly we made plans to go up to the Hoffman cabin at Donner Lake for a weekend to have some fun and take the pictures.

I took all of Friday off so I would have time to get all my stuff together and take care of a few other nagging things around the house. I ended up  on the phone, going through emails and taking care of some paperwork though so I still worked part of the day. I made a trip up to my parents house as well to pickup my Camera (which Chadd had borrowed) and to show my Mom the Blog I setup for her (http://tracysnotes.com, more to come on that later though). and left from there straight to Cody and Becca’s house.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t what we hoped for when we planned the trip a month ago and it rained the entire drive up, we even had a few miles of light snow as we crested Donner Summit (~7,200 ft). Once we got to the cabin, and were settled, Cody and I passed time playing some board games and I did some reading before we turned in for the night.

We woke up fairly early Saturday to cloudy skies without rain and made a point to get out and start taking some pictures. We did have some very light rain (almost a mist) to deal with, and snow on the ground but I think overall we were able to get a lot of great shots in. I did a preliminary processing job on the photos so far, but they aren’t ready for prime-time yet, so I’ll save all that for a later post.

After we wrapped up our multi-location photo shoot we headed into Truckee to get groceries for the rest of the weekend. Cody and I stopped in the local bookstore and did some quick perusing, but didn’t end up finding anything interesting. We all headed back to the cabin for one last set of pictures (indoors) and lunch. Becca made fabulous sandwiches while Cody and I played a game of Arkham Horror. I did some more reading, and played more games. Cody and I even managed to play one round of Axis and Allies before dinner. Again, Becca made a delicious Pesto Ravioli meal while Cody and I played (noticing a trend here?). We all played Coloretto, Yahtzee and watched SNL before going back to bed with the rain pouring outside.

I got up Sunday morning around 8am and intended to make a pot of coffee, but all I could find was decaf and a bag of Peet’s coffee dated Aug 2007 so I gave up, and decided to read some more of my book. When Becca got up a little later she ended up making some of the Decaf (turned out to be all there was) and scrambled eggs with toast for breakfast (by the end of the trip Cody and I were feeling pretty guilty that she kept doing all the work while we played). Cody and I played a few more games and after lunch we packed everything up to head home.

All-in-all it was a great trip in spite of the rain. We were able to get the portraits done that we wanted to do and I read a few chapters in my book but mostly I had a great time relaxing with friends.

Also, a fun side note on the same line; When I came into Prudential NorCal Realty’s office this morning I was greeted by heart shaped, pink dough-nuts. They usually have something every Wednesday morning, since thats their weekly stafff meeting, but this was unique and deserved an iPhone snapshot.