Enthusiasm

So over the weekend, focused on 3 main things. Fishing, entering Geo-cache entries from our Astoria trip (57 of them plus TB’s), and spending time with Kerrie and the rest of my local family at a memorial day BBQ.

Saturday was an homage to fishing. It was Kerrie’s first fishing trip with her own licence and new 2-6 lbs micro action fishing pole. We spent the morning cleaning and then headed out to Harriet lake, picking up the Oregon / Washington National Forrest annual pass along the way. We got some stunning views and I think in a way the drive was almost as enjoyable as the fishing. Estacada lake especially looked beautiful as we wondered about how awesome it would be to have our first boating experience there.

When we got the Harriet, it was crowded and tiny, so we continued forth to Timothy Lake. I quickly got my bearings and then we settled in at the usual doc spot where Dad, Ray, and I used to fish. We got setup, tested our fish finder finally (yeah it works), and then started fishing. The day started off slow, but once they started biting we landed 6 fish in pretty short order. After we got home at almost 10:00, I cleaned and prep’ed the fish for Sunday night’s dinner. Sunday Kerrie cooked them bone / skin on, I cleaned them off the bone after cooking, and man was it good eats.

Oh and I’m never going back to Faraday. That lake sucks.

So after the massive guild kick fest on Tuesday (which I blogged about on Wednesday), one shining light on the guild was finally the return of Gnarsokar to our raids!

After a grueling month and half of dealing with a semi-serious medical issue, my brother is back in tip-top shape. We did IceCrown Citadel Deathbringer through Putricide and not only did he do good, I think he played better that night than he had before he got sick. He and everyone else had a really great time. I think it was a good morale boost for the guild. I hope that next Tuesday goes as smoothly so we can keep up the good momentum.

There comes a time in every leader’s carrier that they need to make a decision for the betterment of the company, that there needs to be large firing of employees. Sometimes that’s because you have a large division of “Eeyores” which are bringing the “Tiggers” down, sometimes it’s just a large group of individuals who are under-performing and affecting the high performer’s performance, and sometimes it’s just a cultural issue where you have a large group of people who have created a cultural subdivision in your organization that makes the culture what you don’t want it to be. It’s interesting that I had this conversation recently with one of my x-bosses about how to deal with people who persistently Eeyores and dragging down the organization. He gave me examples of new CEO’s or other change leaders who tried to change things through good leadership alone, but at some point you have to cut your losses and remove those who aren’t following your leadership.

So after months of work trying to lead cultural change from casual / unsustainable organization to a more performance based / sustainable / great organization, I finally gave up and removed those who were dragging behind and pulling down my change efforts. It wasn’t easy and there were some people that I had a hard time even authorizing their removal, but as discussed with my officers and our core members, it needed to happen. I still have a sense of regret from what had to be done, but I think some quick wins and success post this action will help us all get over the emotions that’s hanging on us after this large the wave of removals.

My hope is that Friday we will make some good positive movement. We’ll see.

Saturday I was in the “Gentleman’s Edge”, which by the way is a fantastic barber shop run by one man and has been doing so for over a decade. Isaac knows how to cut hair like no one else I’ve even seen and frankly I wouldn’t go any place else for a hair cut. On top of that the Gentleman’s Edge is a fun little nostalgic place with old stuff on the walls, sports car, motor bike, and pretty much lots of guy stuff all over the place. He also has something always on the TV in the corner of his shop playing a race, car auction, or something else related to motor sports (sometimes other cool guy programming)…

Plug for my barber aside… he tells me that I should talk with his brother. I call him, leave a message, and figure I might hear back from him. Wow was I underestimating the response I’d receive. He sure did call me back and after an honest candid conversation I think that it’s a good fit. We will be getting together for lunch some time soon (either Tuesday or Wednesday). I have a lot of hard questions to ask him. I want to make sure it’s the right decision.

Tomorrow we will be buying a Porta-Bote. Here is the cost breakdown:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AuYGJzSqEk8WdEFqVHZCWVY0MjdlTi1FYnFMTzhnRlE&hl=en#gid=0

I’m sure it’s not everything, there will be little things that I forgot to account for, but overall it seems like it’ll be around 4,000 bucks for the boat, both motors, the battery, charger, fish finder, and all the assorted other junk we need like an anchor, anchor line, etc. Tomorrow we meet with the factory representative in Sherwood and see the boat in person for the first time. If we like what we see, then we’ll be signing the paperwork for the boat ordering it and then buying all the stuff for it over the weekend (check of course prices between Outdoor Outfitters and Fishermans). If all goes well we should be in the boat in around 2 weeks from now.

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Day 5

Sorry, not able to blog today, this is pre-scheduled post. I’m off in nature away from the internetz.

This morning we leave for our vacation. Debt free, car packed, ready to go.

We’ll be leaving a little later than planned, but it should be a fun ride and even more fun setting up our tent for the first time in a while. Will not be blogging on Monday, but will be making a large blog post on Wednesday.

This weekend we’re going on a trip to Fort Steven’s state park. Camping, fishing, hiking, geocaching, sight-seeing, and of course relaxation. It’ll be a nice chance of pace since half the trip we will be in nature, and half the trip we will be in a luxurious hotel on the pier. To help plan for the trip, tonight I wrote a pretty cool LINQ to XML application which parses GPX files and produces an grid output of cache information which I then copy and paste into excel. I’m pretty excited about it because it’ll make prep work for going geocaching lightning fast. Who knows, maybe I might perfect the application, add more features, and then sell the thing.

Thanks to a large tax return from getting married, buying a house, making home improvements, and finishing school…

My Mastercard – empty
Kerrie’s Mastercard – empty
Kerrie’s Business Credit – empty
American Express – empty
My prius loan – paid

What’s left? House (5%), windows (home improvement loan to be refinanced and consolidated), Kerrie and my student loans(5-6%), and Kerrie’s Prius (4%) which is at a lower interest than the house. All this right on time for Kerrie and my 1 year anniversary. Oh and I’d like to thank Mark Nortman of Ameriprise and David Bixel of MB Tax Pros for their wonderful financial planning and tax preparation services.

On top of that, my work is finally going to be adjusting me to a REASONABLE rate June 1st (though they still have work to do and they know it) and we have a comfortable amount of money in savings left over from paying off debts. Furthermore, I will be getting several stock vestings this month which is going to allow us to buy a Porta-Bote (www.porta-bote.com). These things are amazing and will not only be fun for us, but will add to my recent re-addiction into mastering the art of fishing. We have a trip planned for next weekend, then the weekend after I plan on going fishing with Dan in central Oregon, then the week after we plan on ordering the boat, beginning of June I’ll be attending a fly fishing class at Blue Lake and from there it’s all gravy.

Good times are ahead of us. I think while this last year was pretty fast paced, stressful, and a roller coaster, I think in the coming years will be good to us and we can focus on doing well at our careers, advancing slowly in the companies that we’re now pretty happy with, and progressing through our list of things we want to enjoy / accomplish together.