My 2015 New Year's Resolutions

Every year I make the effort to come up with resolutions for myself and ways in which I can meet them.  2014 was a good year for my resolutions and I made progress in all of them, check my last post for my review.  I tried last year to use my calendar to remind me to check my resolutions once a month; however, I failed to do this carefully, so I will try a new way to do this using the site futureme that allows you to send an email to yourself in the future - https://www.futureme.org.  Try it out, cool stuff!  Now, to my resolutions!

#1 - Try to Keep Anxiety and Stress in Check - If you know me, you know that sometimes I can be a little high strung, stressed out, and worry about everything.  I would like to look for ways to self regulate my stress.   Not sure the solution, but probably monitoring when I am stressed would help, trying some yoga, and other stress relief exercises.  My goal is to have less "stress" days each month, which I will monitor on my calendar.

#2 - Compete in one bike race event in 2015 - Six marathons and many more sprint triathlons have given me the "competitive" bug.  After my knee surgery in July, my running days have come to an end; however, I have taken up biking!  So, I have the goal to race in at least one event this year or maybe participate in one of the half-century or century rides around the island.

#3 - Beach time - we live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, yet, life gets the best of us and many times we don't get to the beach on a regular basis.  My resolution is to go to the beach at least three times a month.  I am hoping for more, but I will set the goal low and adjust as needed.

This year, I have decided to focus on my personal life, I have professional goals for the new year as well, but I am not going to list those here.  I am going to look for ways to have technology help me achieve all my goals.

I wish all of you the best in your own new year's resolutions.  If nothing else, it is an opportunity to take a look at your life and reflect.


Happy New Year!
-Mike :-)

2014 Resolutions in review.

The annual time in my life when I review my resolutions and create new ones.  Let's look back:

My Resolutions for 2014:

#1 - Become more organized - At work and at home, I let the piles of paperwork and other unnecessary things gather around me.  Instead of putting things aside to do later, my resolution is to try and deal with it at the moment.  In this way, I will cut down on the clutter around me and leave a cleaner life!  (I never said my resolutions were easy!) ----  Not bad on this one, I did plan time at least once a month to go through the clutter.  And, I have tried to make more things electronic so that I can organize them that way.

#2 - Re-Invent my exercise life - As many of you know, massive knee injuries in 2013 left me with the reality that after 3,700 miles of running, I will have to find a new way to exercise or I will end up using a cane for the rest of my life.  I know that I enjoy biking, weight lifting, and surfing, but I must add in other non-impact exercises like swimming into my routine.  ---- I had knee surgery in July and I was back to exercising soon after that.  I have been biking a lot as a replacement to the running and have made the switch, putting in more than 100 miles on the bike in November.  While I still miss running desperately, I am trying to make the change.

#3 - Focus on professional growth - I was elected as President of HSTE (Hawaii Society of Technology in Education) and I will be traveling to two conferences this year as part of this leadership.  I need to spend some time focusing on my growth as a technology leader and helping to grow my organization.  --- This was a great year for the HSTE organization and I am proud of the work I accomplished in leading it.  There is still more for me to do in this organization, but I am glad it went well and I survived. 

#4 - Family time - This one is a carry over from 2013 and it is still so important to me.  My daughters are growing up fast and I need to find time and ways to enjoy spending time with them and Suzy.  It will be tougher this year with being gone to conferences off-island, but it can be as easy as shutting the laptop and playing Wii with them. ----- Success on this one as well, returning to the classroom in the fall, I found I had a little more time in the evenings to spend with family.  I still want to continue with this one, but overall it was an improvement!

It seems this year, my resolutions are not as measurable as in previous years.  It will be tough to figure out if I actually have "met" them at the end of 2014; however, they are what I need at this time as I look to the new year!

OCD, no, not that one!

Many of you have asked about my knee and the challenges I have faced.  After completing 6 marathons over the past four years and running more than 3,700 miles, I hit a major snag.  I was on a short run in October 2013 and I stopped to tie my shoe on a bench, when I put my foot down to start running again, I had a huge amount of pain in my knee.  It was so intense, I almost couldn't make it back home.  After begging three doctors for help, they finally agreed to an MRI.   Here is what they found (below).  The black area highlighted in the picture by the yellow arrow is the end of my femur bone.  The femur bone is the inside bone that comes down to your knee. It is critical because this is where most of the weight of your body is centered at the knee.  The sports doctor now understood why I was in so much pain.

The MRI revealed what is called OCD, not the one you are thinking.  This one refers to Osteochondritis Dissecans (OCD).  Here is a pretty good website about what it is:  http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/89718-overview.  In summary, this is a rare condition in which blood flow to the bone is disrupted for some reason usually resulting in part of the bone and underlying cartilage dying.

Over the summer, I tried the easiest of surgical solutions, which is called "micro-drilling".  In this procedure, the surgeon uses a needle to poke holes in the damaged part of the bone with the goal of getting blood flowing and hoping that it forms a harder shell over the bone area.  The procedure is much more successful in younger patients where their bones are still growing and shaping.  In older patients, like me, there is only about a 40% chance of it being successful.  However, since it is the easiest of solutions, it is the first step.  The biggest problem with this procedure is that you can't put any weight on the leg for 4-6 weeks.   So, needless to say, it has been a long, difficult summer trying to move around on crutches and hopping around.

Now, the bad news.  I have been told by three doctors already that even if this procedure works, all it will do is lessen the pain; however, it will never give me the strength I need to run again.  The other surgical options were much more invasive involving either trying to put in part of a bone from a cadaver in the gap to actually cutting my shin bone and adding screws so that the weight of my leg would be displaced to my other bone away from the femur.  However, neither of these will actually allow me to run again.

If you read this and have heard of any miracle doctors, please send them my way.  I will be able to  bike and swim soon, but it is not the same.  I want to run again!

The One That Got Away - no worries ...

Riding my bike this week, my music shuffled to Katy Perry's "The One That Got Away". 

Here is just a few of the lyrics:
In another life
I would be your girl
We'd keep all our promises
Be us against the world

In another life
I would make you stay
So I don't have to say
You were the one that got away
The one that got away

The song makes me think back to some of the choices I have made in my life.  At each of those times, I knew that I was making a monumental decision, a decision that would forever alter my future.  Do I join the Army?  Do I re-enlist and go to Officer School or get out and go back to college?  Do I stay with this girl or break up?  Do I move to Hawaii or stay in Colorado?  Do I take this job or keep looking?  Do I help start a new business or stay at my current job?  

I always wondered about these things, the regrets and the questions, but then I read Richard Bach's book "One".  This book explores the idea of him traveling to visit other "threads" of his life to meet his other self.  What made me so interested in the book was his idea that every decision we make creates new "threads" of our lives.  In one thread, I stayed in the Army and did become an officer and that is one of my universes; in another, I continued in school and never even joined the Army.  For me, it meant that I no longer had to regret decisions I had made, because somewhere out there I had a thread that continued on with my other decision.  I would never have to regret the "one that got away" because in some universe with some thread, I stayed.

So, if you are still with me, I suggest to you that you don't have to fret on the decisions you have made or the "one that got away", because somewhere out there, that thread continued.  

No worries ...

-Mike :-)

2014 - New Year's Resolutions!!

Every year, I set New Year's Resolutions and publish them on the Internet for everyone to see. I do this for me to document my goals, but also, hopefully, to inspire others to set resolutions as well.  A new year is a time of reflection, but it can also be a time to set short and long-term goals for the future.  As you get older, time seems to move much faster, and if you don't have a plan, the year might slip away and you will have made no changes.  As my favorite quote from Richard Bach states, "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours".  It is to bring change to your life and it starts tomorrow with a new calendar year!

My Resolutions for 2014:

#1 - Become more organized - At work and at home, I let the piles of paperwork and other unnecessary things gather around me.  Instead of putting things aside to do later, my resolution is to try and deal with it at the moment.  In this way, I will cut down on the clutter around me and leave a cleaner life!  (I never said my resolutions were easy!)

#2 - Re-Invent my exercise life - As many of you know, massive knee injuries in 2013 left me with the reality that after 3,700 miles of running, I will have to find a new way to exercise or I will end up using a cane for the rest of my life.  I know that I enjoy biking, weight lifting, and surfing, but I must add in other non-impact exercises like swimming into my routine.  

#3 - Focus on professional growth - I was elected as President of HSTE (Hawaii Society of Technology in Education) and I will be traveling to two conferences this year as part of this leadership.  I need to spend some time focusing on my growth as a technology leader and helping to grow my organization.

#4 - Family time - This one is a carry over from 2013 and it is still so important to me.  My daughters are growing up fast and I need to find time and ways to enjoy spending time with them and Suzy.  It will be tougher this year with being gone to conferences off-island, but it can be as easy as shutting the laptop and playing Wii with them.

It seems this year, my resolutions are not as measurable as in previous years.  It will be tough to figure out if I actually have "met" them at the end of 2014; however, they are what I need at this time as I look to the new year!

I hope my resolutions will inspire you to create your own and monitor your progress throughout the year.  I have set a reminder on my calendar at the end of every month to check how I am doing and remind me of what I set.

Happy New Year!!

2013 - Year in Review

Well, I guess I am not much of a blogger, my last post was my 2013 resolutions!!

Here is a review of those resolutions.

#1 - Get the hood and actually graduate with my Ph.D.
--- Done!  It was a wonderful graduation, especially when I got "hooded" and then got to sit in the stands with the other professors.

#2 - Find success in the Honolulu Marathon and achieve a "best time" for me in this race 
--- Sadly, this did not happen and will not happen again, probably.  I faced knee injuries throughout the year with arthritis, then I broke my toe, finally, I messed up my left knee so bad I found myself in the urgent care and a trip to get an MRI.  Basically, I have torn the cartilage below my thigh bone in my knee.  This is where all the support comes from for doing running and other "pounding" exercises.  The doctor says it is time for me to re-invent myself through other exercises.  I spent six weeks on crutches.

#3 - Find a balance in my exercise - I have started this re-invention and I am lifting weights, doing the stationary bike, and swimming.  I have to take it easy and be careful not to re-injure my knee.

#4 - Utilize my PhD to educate others - Success!  Last summer, I started teaching as an Adjunct Professor for Argosy University.  I have been teaching Education classes to Master's Degree students who are in American Samoa.  It has been a great experience so far!

#5 - Family time - I would say I have found some success with this and have tried to spend more time with my family and balance my life more.  I seem to have more time on my hands lately with no more dissertation writing and no training for marathons.  My full time job is still very time consuming and stressful, but I have found more time for my family.

Well, there you have it!  I think I would say that I have succeeded on 4 out of 5 of my resolutions!  Not bad!  It only my medical injuries hadn't held me back.  At one point, I was even considering running the marathon on crutches, but Suzy talked me out of it.

Up next, my 2014 Resolutions!

2013 New Year's Resolutions

Setting resolutions is the way we plan out our lives and succeed in our goals.  This year, make the effort and set some for yourself.

My 2013 resolutions are:

#1 - Get the hood and actually graduate with my Ph.D. - just working on the final edits to the dissertation paper having passed my defense in November, so this one should be easy to complete, I hope.

#2 - Find success in the Honolulu Marathon and achieve a "best time" for me in this race - I have run 6 marathons since 2008, but I have struggled with achieving great times in the Honolulu Marathon (my PB for all marathons is 4:01). The course is difficult due to the amount of people walking and I always seem to have problems in the last 4 miles heading in from Kahala.  I define "success" as not feeling like I am about to collapse after I finish and I want to beat my last two times that were a 4:45 and 4:41, respectively.  (I wasn't planning on ever running this race again, but couldn't resist the early bird price of $26.20.)

#3 - Find a balance in my exercise - for the last few years, I have been focusing so much on running that I have worn my knees out.  In 2012 when I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in my right knee, I realized it might be time for some changes.  My goal for this resolution is to work on cross training throughout the year - less focus on running, more on the non-impact exercises like biking, swimming, walking, hiking, surfing, and weight lifting.  To quantify this resolution, I would like to do at least 3 different types of exercises each week, reducing the focus on running.

#4 - Utilize my PhD to educate others - while my dream is to be a professor and teach education classes full time to undergraduates, there are no openings right now on this island; however, that shouldn't stop me from teaching part time, so I will apply and try to start doing this in the summer.

#5 - Family time - Our family struggled in 2012 with lots of medical problems, beyond my knee diagnosis, and it has made me re-think some of my priorities.  I resolve to work harder on spending more time as a family.  So, this means at least one meal together as a family each week, but I would like to try and have at least one activity together as well, whether that be playing a game, going to a movie, or just going to the beach together.

Well, there you have it!  My five resolutions for the year!  Good luck on setting yours and finishing them.  You can do it!  You just have to believe in yourself.