Student Awards, Career, Nutrition

Student Awards

Both boys did incredibly well during student achievement awards. Ben nabbed several including a special selection for art and showing respect to his teachers. Both boys landed attendance awards, we are good about getting them into school. I am surprised how much school some children miss. The first step to success is simply showing up. We were very proud of them both for their hard work and we are laying out a special rewards for them to enjoy.

Career Progression

I am starting to understand my next steps in my career progression. A lot of what I thought I’d be doing upended itself when I decided to bifurcate my endeavors between accounting/finance and information systems. I talked to a recruiter friend and reviewed my background and his feeling was that I definitely fit in roles that needed a little of both, but I also had the feeling I didn’t necessarily stand out for anything specific. When I was in accounting, the career progression was well stamped out. I just didn’t foresee myself going down that route anymore. I am also comparing myself to other types of roles that sound interesting but I’m lacking some of the hard technical experience. One thing I like about IT work is the IC progression where you’re not limited by managerial experience and have the ability to progress alongside traditional leadership paths. This requires a lot of sharpening skills and keeping them up to date.

One of the biggest obstacles I’m seeing to this whole endeavor is what offshoring and AI are doing in the job marketplace. There are also significant federal workforce layoffs coming and that’s going to clog the job market up quite a bit also, at least for the for the next five years or more. It’s hard to imagine 2 million or so middle class people suddenly being out of work and competing for roles in the private space.

Nutrition

I finally found a great nutrition plan. My doctor recommended a low glycemic index (GI) diet and although it took me a month to get it together I finally worked out all of the kinks to make it a reality. The hardest part about it was finding lunch food. I tend to eat quick and on my feet during the workday so I needed something non starchy that I could eat quickly. I chose two make two items in a crock pot, the first chicken breast and the second beans. I can alternate these up with feta cheese, wraps, and guac to make a pretty tasty lunch. I’m finding that eating a bowl full of beans around 10:00 is the best for satiating my appetite and seemingly calming my blood sugar.

As I move through my middle age, I’ve decided the only regret worth harboring is reaching old age in poor health. I am aware that at some point an inflection point is breached and bad habits compound and become unassailable. I already see it in some of my colleagues and friends. A few I know are on statins and diabetic medications and I’m not interested in going down that path with them. I think what really bothers me is seeing someone continue making the poor choices that led them to their state and not realizing they have a chance to turn it around.

Updates

I finished reading Kevin Mitnick’s “Ghost in the Wires.” It is one of the books I grabbed from Kindle Unlimited. I don’t know why I am paying for this service, I simply do not read fast enough for it and I already have so many unread books floating around. However, this book I did enjoy reading. I came across Kevin Mitnick first in a cybersecurity training course I was doing. I am not old enough to be familiar with his exploits in the 90s so he is not a household name for me, but I do know he passed away recently and I was aware of it. The book is worth reading. I do not understand the odd comments about it on GoodReads. First, I do not believe Kevin is bragging about anything. If anything, he communicates his bewilderment that people even cared about him in the first place. They also comment that he’s not really a hacker, but more of a social engineer, however there is plenty in the book about launching exploits and installing backdoors, spoofing, man in the middle attacks, that were common back then. I do feel for him in his time in prison and solitary confinement. What is comical is he never did any of his hacking for profit, it was merely a fascination with him and a game. Who would do that?

I am wrapping up Microsoft SQL Server 2012 T-SQL Fundamentals. This is a book I purchased as a DBA to learn more about my job brand new as many years ago as it sounds. I never read it. I guess I didn’t have enough time in that job to read it before I was laid off. I finally finished reading it and I am glad I did. I do think though I needed to see SQL more in action so the book made sense. It’s really hard to learn code without actual coding, the same is with SQL and data engineering. Chapter 10 for me, which was the last chapter, was the absolute best. It described some of the more advanced topics I am seeing in my role now. I learned some more about creating functions, using cursors, and temporary tables. This book also took me along a fun side project learning about SQL injection and leading to my next book on SQL, a deep dive into windowing functions.

I purchased some clothing from 5.11 Tactical. I don’t normally go for this look but to be honest they fit well and are durable. I am a fan and I kind of wish I’d bought more pants while I was there. I also bought an air fryer! I will have more on that in a future post. Since I am eating healthier it made sense to grab something I could crisp some vegetables up in quickly without having to make a big fuss out of it.

It seems like the leadership at the troop is doing find and everyone is learning to work with each other. I honestly dreaded coming into a situation where things were a mess. I would feel the need to fix them but I cannot do that right now like I did with the Pack. That was way, way too much work. Rewarding work for sure, but it was a lot of work!

My hair is getting long and I am not sure what I want to do with it. Everyone tells me to cut it but I’ve not grown my hair out like this since COVID. Perhaps I will cut it but perhaps I will leave it go just a little longer. I already had to buy a swim cap because my hair was getting into knots during my lap workouts so I’m learning to live with it. I just like to change up the look from time to time. I could go for clean cut business person but I think that just makes me look like everyone else. I do miss my facial hair though but I have this terrific electric razer and it just feels like it cost too much money not to use.