went to dr. for a checkup today. 218lbs. my last checkup, back in 2002, i was 245 lbs. that's a pretty big difference. told the Dr. that i had stopped drinking. she said it will help lower my cholestrol which i am to get checked sometime next week. it was a little high back 02. she said heart disease is the only real health risk that i need to actively worry about. more exercise and a better diet.
reading back over some old posts at the end of 2003, i mentioned that my sides were hurting alot. at the time i thought i might have kidney problems from the drinking or my diet. well, they went away. last fall, i was having lower back pain and went to the dr. she could not find anything wrong w/ me. i told her about the pain in my kidney area and she testing me for kidney stones. no stones. looking back, i think that it was stress. now, whenever, i feel similar lower back pain coming on, i usually try to figure out what is stressing me out so much. then if i can deal w/ the issue, the pain goes away immediately! sometimes, just acknowledging the source of stress is enough to alleviate any lower back pain. awesome.

As I have gained confidence over the 13 months since i left alcoholic land, I think I may be getting too cocky for my own good. In a professional sense, I am no longer content to put up the crap that I had for the past 5 years. Crap such as kissing everyone else's ass, putting in long hours (7 hour days are all that is required at the State) and working w/ incredible, focused intensity on any given project. I am left wondering to myself if this is a parmanent change or merely one that reflects my desire to change my job.
Either way, I miss having the passion and intensity about my work. That really kept me going. Looking back, while under the musty cloak of alcoholism, I often felt inadequate professionally and yearned to learn everything from everybody. I no longer feel that way. Maybe this feeling is just a reflectance of my growing professional experience. Growth in my professional knowledge and skills and people skills as well. I can see pretty quickly if a person is one that I can learn from. Sometimes i go too far in this regard, however, and have to remind myself to be patient and give peole a chance.

I am now deep in the job hunt. After a couple of weeks of applying to openly listed positions, emailing resumes, posting resumes on monster.com, dice.com and geocomm.com, i am finally getting some interviews.

On Tuesday, I had an interview w/ CyberTech who wanted to hire me as a project manager to manage 3 application development projects for the State Dept of Human Services. There is no GIS involved to my disappointment. Also, I have a couple of good friends that are programmers for this company. These friends did not have anything nice to say about CyberTech. They were offering me alot of $$, however. I was considering taking the job until yesterday. Yesterday, you see, was the day that I was to call my contact and tell her if I was interested enough in the position to interview w/ the CEO and be presented to the client.

After telling my boss on Thursday evening that I was looking around for a new job, he offered to get me a job w/ the State Police where he has been doing alot of work. He himself, is going to move over to State Police at some point. His contacts at State Police, Capt so and so and the CIO at Law and Public Safety, were agreeable to considering hiring me based largely on my boss' glowing reccomendation. I have an interview w/ the Capt and his Lt on Thursday.

It gets even better. Yesterday morning I was playing phone tag w/ the VP of a local GIS services company. I asked him if he had any opportunities for me as I wanted to leave my current office. He said yes and that I had good timing. We are meeting on Monday for an interview. I like his company in that they seem small, well respected, personable and focused on municipal clients.

Described above is a clear demonstration of the benefits of relationships (presonal or professional, what's the difference?) for job hunting and for getting things done. Applying thru the formalized channels. Following the rules stated by schools and in books about job hunting had gotten me nothing or maybe sorta that CyberTech interview. I don't know why it took me 34 years to realize this. I've heard that its all about people but the little boy in me still wanted to follow "the rules" in the sense that I would be rewarded, as in school. I am very good at following rules. I guess part of me felt that my personal relationships weren't "good enough" or "strong enough" w/ any potential employers and that I would be a fool to exercise those relationships.

This relationship realization ties into something larger that I have been learning over the last year since I stopped drinking. That is "I am plenty good." I have rtealized that me and everything I do is really just as good as everyone else('s) and in some cases, better. There is no shame in being confident and secure in the thought that I do good work, I am a good person, I am a capable professional and I do not need to be intimidated by any other professinals or management types. This is all cliche, I know, but it took till this point in my life to really FEEL it.

PArticipating in the management meetings at work for the past couple of years had always made me uncomfrtable, feeling small, feeling like I was 'looking in', like I wasn't as valuable as others. Now I realize that these upper managers aren't all that and alot of them are foggy idiots w/ retirment on the brain. I feel now that these meetings are more a waste of my time than something to feel inadequate about.

Look at me, I'm turning into an adult. Final thought here, it is important to be sincerely nice to folks. In school I was though I could be a little snotty to some folks that I thought were losers. At work I was nice to everyone, sickeningly so at first. In recent years I have faded back my civility to only people that I needed something from or could help me in the long run, like upper managers. This is bull. If I am simply my polite self, I find that I am more comfortable with everyone. Also, I now feel good enough about myself that I CAN make small talk w/ anyone at work, even the big managers.

Ugh, this entry is pretty thick and sappy but there it is. I hope that I can help my kids learn these lessons BEFORE adulthood.