Happy New Year! I thought I would write down some of the highlights for me in 2007, and some of the things I am looking forward to in 2008.
2007 was a year of change for me. Two of the biggest events that happened in my life were changing jobs in July and then turning 40 years old in October.
I had worked at ESPN for over 7 years, and in late 2006 began working in the Community group which I really liked. If you visit ESPN.com now, you can see some of the things I had a hand in creating. I was responsible for the development of the Conversation Pages that were launched early in 2007, and are now linked up off of just about every page of he site. I also had a hand in the development of the Fan Profiles that are now part of ESPN.com. Whenever you update your ESPN Fan Profile settings, you can think of me.
Mid-year it was decided that the Community Group would be moved to Los Angeles. That wasn’t something I was interested in doing, so the other option was go back to doing the same type of work that I had been doing at ESPN for 7 years, or move my family back to Seattle and work on site registration. I wasn’t ready to move back yet. I’ve grown to like where I live in Connecticut. I have a great cycling club to ride with, good friends, and a nice community to raise a family in.
It turned out that Sports Technologies, the creators of FanNation.com had a job opening, and their office in Collinsville is only 1.5 miles from my house. I had been learning Ruby on Rails, so this was really a perfect fit for me. I made the decision to leave ESPN and start at Sports Technologies at the end of July. The first project I did for FanNation was the redesign of the Fantasy Sports section, and recently I developed the Bowl Pick’em game.
With a busy spring at work, then the job change mid summer, one thing that suffered this year was the number of miles I put on my bike. I did end up getting a tandem bike in the spring at the Benidorm Bikes sale, and was able to do a few memorable tandem rides with my girls. I didn’t do many organized rides or races in 2007.
I did just one of the races in the Pleasant Valley Time Trial Series and put in a slow time. I did a great 75 mile club ride on Memorial day weekend, but I really struggled on the hills. I did another long ride into the Northwest corner of Connecticut and over Mt. Washington into Massachusetts, hitting a lot of dirt roads on my cyclocross bike. One goal I had was to do the D2R2 at the end of August, and I completed the ride, but again I struggled on the hills in the high heat and humidity. In the fall I helped out again at my clubs annual bike race at Winding Trails.
We had some memorable family times in 2007. Melinda’s parents came out to visit in February and we went to visit West Point and the FDR Mansion and Presidential Library. We did overnight trips to Maine, Boston and New York. For our vacation in July we went to DisneyWorld and used our Disney discount for the last time.
In the fall Skylar and Annika took tennis lessons, so I enjoyed taking them to practice once a week. In October my mom, my sister Shauna and her family came out to visit for my 40th birthday. We went to visit Plymouth, Massachusetts, and also spent a beautiful fall day picking apples and pumpkins here in Connecticut.
For my 40th birthday Melinda threw me a surprise party! My neighbors, and friends came dressed in 80s themed outfits. It was a lot of fun.
I guess turning 40 was the motivation to get a head start on my goals for 2008. One of those goals is to focus on my health, lose weight and have a good cycling season this coming year. At the beginning of October I tipped the scales at 230 lbs! I spent most of my 30s battling my weight, so I am determined to make some long term changes. I began changing my diet to focus on eating healthy foods, and making time to ride my bike and exersize.
As of today, I am down to 206 lbs., which is about the lightest I have been in over 10 years. I still have a ways to go. My goal is to get down to under 180 lbs., which is what I used to weight in the early 1990s when I was a Cat 1 road racer. I am half way to that goal, so I am well on my way.
I signed up for the Battenkill-Roubaix Road Race on April 19th, so I’d like to get to my goal weight by then, but I also want to do some other races in the coming year.
I started rebuilding my web site bikeride.com in Ruby on Rails, and my goal is the re-launch the site in Rails in 2008. I’m not going to sacrifice time riding my bike, but I am making progress on the site, and should have something ready to launch in a few months time.
Another goal I have this year is to get my home office organized. I’ve started by relocating my desk last month, and I’ve started going through old filing cabinets and decluttering. I’ve shredded about 6 garbage bags of old files so far. I got a label maker for Christmas, and I am going crazy with it.
Another goal is to spend more quality time with my family doing activities together. We plan to go ice skating soon.
I feel like I’ve got a head start on 2008, and I think it is going to be a great year. I’ve got a job I love, I am getting in shape, and I am getting organized.
