Lifetime diagnosis: Seeing through the haze

Stopped for a picture overlooking the Neuse River

It was odd for me to say I was stressed at work because it is an oddity.  At this particular time I had several major projects in the works that all relied upon one another.  There was the production load balancer deployment, a complete replacement of our perimeter email system, and then a roll out of Microsoft Exchange 2010.  The due date for the load balancers and perimeter mail system as April 15th, tax day.  I was primary on 2 of those 3 projects and feeling the pressure.  Or at least I thought it was work pressure.

I began to notice my body speaking in ways it hadn't before:  I was super thirsty continually, and had to use the bathroom all the time.  Of course I looked at this as a cause and effect.  I took up a craving for lemonade and was drinking lemonade like tomorrow might never come.  But back to that day in the office...  It was a Thursday and my manager asked if we were stressed.  After responding in the affirmative he asked how I planned on handling it.  I in turn asked for the next day off, Friday, to just unwind and reload.  My request was granted.

I woke up Friday morning with the expectation of just kicking back and relaxing, which I did for the most part.  However; I noticed something a tad different about that Friday.  The world just didn't seem to be as clear as it usually is.  By clear I mean literally, it was a bit blurry.  I attributed this to wearing an old dirty pair of contact lenses so I didn't think much of it.  Friday night, I ditched those lenses for a fresh new pair.

Saturday morning was a bit more blurry than Friday despite the new eyes.  I gulped down my lemonade and went about life.  I was starting to get a tad worried because the stress just wasn't my lifestyle and now this vision thing, and my growing addiction to lemonade!  Gulp!

Sunday morning we woke up and drove to church.  On the way there I noticed that my eyesight had slipped to where I was having trouble reading street signs.  I was perplexed about how I could go from essentially 20/20 vision to being this bad off in a matter of a couple of days, it just didn't make sense.  On top of that, it was both eyes.  Very weird.

Knowing it wasn't safe to continue driving in this state I asked Suzanne to drive home.  It became real for me at that point because I had to confess, "I can't read the street signs anymore."  After a discussion about what was happening and my rapid vision deterioration the easy way to put it is we were both worried.  I wasn't convinced this was strictly a vision problem.  Gulp, aww, fresh lemonade.

There's an expression, "a case of the Monday's"  well I'd say I got more than a case.  I woke up Monday morning nearly blind.  I could see, but I couldn't read a laptop screen sitting right in front of me.  I couldn't read a book, I could barely read anything on the screen on my cellphone.  I was pretty much unable to see anything.

I had done some research on Sunday and we fairly certain I had self-diagnosed what was happening.  While we knew getting eyesight restored was important, I also knew there was more going on than just to my acute vision loss.  I scheduled a couple doctor appointments on Monday morning, first with my general practitioner to get blood work done.  That was kinda an awkward conversation...  Yes, I've been fasting and want to get blood work done.  Why?  Because I can't see and I'm pretty sure you're going to want blood work to help figure this one out.   Yep, they did, so I had blood drawn Monday morning.

The bigger reveal was at the eye doctor.  At that appointment we did normal eye doctor visit stuff and I was prescribed some new lenses that were MUCH stronger than my normal ones.  Yay!  I can see again!

I have a great eye doctor who was quick to recognize the symptoms and asked if I had used the web to try to determine what was going on.  Yep, you bet, I'm a techie.  We talked a bit more and it was no surprise when he confirmed what I had already suspected.  My vision loss was most likely an effect of diabetes.

My vision would return to normal once my glucose levels stabilized.  I was fitted with new lenses to help the transition and given an intermediary pair to help along the way.  It was about 2-3 weeks before my vision returned to normal.

At my regular doctor a few days later, I was met with the formal diagnosis based on my blood work.  It was at that point it was confirmed to me that I have Type 2 diabetes.

Very High Glucose Reading from 4/3/2011

Just typing that carries a lot of weight, even 4 years later.  It wasn't the end of the world then, nor is it now.  But in both cases, it is a reality that life couldn't and can't carry on the same as usual.  I've had to change aspects of my life to combat this disease.  Some days are better than others, but I know I am not alone.  I am not alone in living with this disease, nor am I alone in managing this disease.  While it is a diagnosis that will last a lifetime, even under control, hope allows us to see through the haze.

This weekend I'm riding in the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure.  A ride to raise money for research and education on diabetes.  This will be my first attempt to ride 100 miles in a single journey, but with your help and support my hopes are high that I can persevere.   You can view my personal page and leave a comment or make a donation using this link:  http://tour.diabetes.org/goto/hopkeno

--Jeremy

Surviving Debt - Part 2: "...The One Car Family..."

If you didn't catch Part 1 of this series check it out here

If you recall from Part 1, we have just started our Total Money Makeover.  It is June 2009, we are flat broke spending somewhere between $600-$1000 per month more than our income and somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000 in debt.  Let me rephrase that just to make sure you didn't miss anything here, financially we are up a creek without a paddle.  This is no ordinary creek either, it's a Mississippi River sized creek with a whole lot more pp's in it than you see at first glance.

We had just acquired a pair of golden handcuffs as I borrowed $9,000 on my 401(k) in an attempt to borrow our way out of debt.  Everyone knows the best time to go into debt is when you're in a financial crunch.   And when you're in a financial crunch that's the absolute best time to essentially lock yourself into your job or face a large loan payment being due, or a heavy tax bill for early withdraw on retirement.   Oh, I digress, we were there and I can't change that now.

A funny thing happened at this point, we stopped for a moment and decided we should plan out how we were going to best utilize the 401k loan.  As a moment of full disclosure, if you asked me today if you should borrow on retirement, or if I would do the same thing again, I would say, "Absolutely not!" Without hesitation, I would recommend you not travel this path.  Had I the clarity then that I do now, we would not have cashed the 401k loan check, we would have sent it back and canceled the loan.  Again, I digress, we cashed that check, and in our situation it probably worked out better than it should have.

We needed a vehicle, pronto.  I was now an expert on beaters, you know, a garage sale car.  I had read Dave's book and listened to him on the radio and seriously, aren't all cars less than about 3 grand a piece of junk anyway?  So, we quickly located and found a car that seemed like it would work.  We got a STEAL of a deal.  And by steal I mean, we were stolen from.  Not really, but eventually that's the way it felt.  On July 12, 2009, we bought our beater, a 1998 Volvo V70 station wagon with 209,234 miles.  We paid $2000 cash, literally cash, for the car.  I didn't mind driving it, but it certainly wasn't a head-turner.  Here, have a look.

The big mistake we made is we didn't have it checked out first.  So, for the next 4 months we watched it slowly fall apart.  First, one of the back windows wouldn't roll down.  Next the other back door wouldn't open from the inside.  Then, it needed the coolant filled at least once on a roundtrip to work.  Then, I don't know, make something up, it doesn't matter, over the Thanksgiving weekend in a puff of white smoke, literally, the head gasket blew and she was done for.  We held onto that car for another 2 months and sold it January 17, 2010 to a local body shop to use for parts.  We got $500 for it when we sold it.

Think about that.  We bought the beater for $2000 and sold it for $500 after driving it for 4 months.  That's $1500 for 4 months.  While it isn't exactly a nice car or great deal, $375/month is essentially a car payment so it wasn't a totally bad deal, and it kept us from continuing to accumulate miles on the VW Passat that was coming due on it's lease.  In October we had turned in the Passat, and with the mileage overages we had accumulated, we owed $5232.26 at lease termination.

That Thanksgiving marked the start of a totally new era for us, the era of having a single car.  Another full disclosure here, I also owned, and by owned I mean had a loan on, a motorcycle.  So while we really did only have one car, I did use the motorcycle for my work commute when the weather was acceptable.

How to you operate a family of 4 on a single car?  Easy,  the same way my parents did.  You carpool, plan your schedule, communicate on who needs to go where and when.  Was it a challenge?  Sure.  Was it easy?  Nope.  Is it possible?  Absolutely!   Suzanne and I lived the single car family life for 3 years and don't regret it, not one bit.

Damn, we still need a car...  The lease on our Acura TL was coming due in March.  With our Total Money Makeover well underway we were forced with a dilema.  What do we do about a car?  We had a really bad taste in our mouth about getting a beater (again), but had committed to quit borrowing money.   By March 2010 our credit was so far gone borrowing wasn't even really a choice.  However; we had managed to clear a LOT of debt so we had income to cover the bills.  With this in mind, we borrowed a few thousand dollars from an individual and moved them to the top of our repayment list.  That vehicle was a little more than a beater, for $7750 we purchased our 2007 Saturn Vue with 91,325 miles on it on March 8, 2010.  This vehicle was paid for in a combination of cash and direct bank transfer.  Again, no lien on the title, but we did have a unsecured personal loan with an individual.

This ends the saga of our vehicles during our Total Money Makeover.   I didn't expect this post to be entirely about cars, but once headed that road, I figured I might as well continue.  In Part 3 of Surviving Debt I will back track a little bit and take you on the road with us as we started our Total Money Makeover and started attacking our debts and getting our financial life back in order.

Surviving Debt - Part 1: From the Depths of Debt and Despair

Just six weeks ago we welcomed into the world our precious son.  If you have children you likely know that "top of the world" feeling of that special day.  But how on earth did I end up here?  Today started like any other Monday, we woke up got ready for work and got our three and a half year old daughter ready for daycare.  The baby was clothed and fed and we headed out the door.  The difference here was that we didn't go to work on this Monday, after dropping our daughter off at daycare we headed to an attorney's office.

I had spent the previous Thursday night filling out what seemed to be an endless questionare in preparation for our Monday morning appointment.  As we sat in the lobby of the office with our six week old son, we read over the framed posters on the wall that displayed the names of numerous celebraties and famous persons that had also traveled the path we were on.  Finally after an eternity of sitting in shame, we were called back to discuss our bankruptcy case with a paralegal.

I'll be honest, I don't remember much from the appointment other than feeling like a complete and total failure.  I kept wondering, how did we get here?  How could I have been so stupid?  Looking back on this, the answers to my questions were simple.  It came down to simple math.  We spent way more than we made, and we did that for a long time.  Walking out of that office we felt defeated, but at least we came to grips with the seriousness of our situation.


At the time we weren't behind on any bills, but we would be soon and very soon.  All our credit cards and lines of credit were maxed out, there was no money left for us to borrow.  For the first time we actually wrote out our expenses and compared them with our income.  Come to find out that we were spending about $1600 per month more than we made.  No wonder we were in the spot we were in.


About a week after our meeting we received the quote for the cost to file our Chapter 7 bankruptcy.  It was only going to cost us $2939 to free ourselves from the debt we'd acquired.  At the time, we were thinking we were in about $50,000 worth of debt.  For just under $3K that would be discharged, we'd keep the house, both leased cars, and my motorcycle.  This seemed like a plan, but we were still in trouble.  Later that month, we missed our first of several payments.

This was November of 2008.  We stopped making payments on nearly all of our unsecured debt and this resulted in about $1000 less in expenses per month.  Now we still had a $600 per month burn rate.  I'm not sure what happened or how we survived, but we did.  We cruised along trying to figure out a way to obtain $3000 to file bankruptcy and get out of this mess.

In March of 2009 I received my annual bonus which was a net take home of $4100.  Yes!  This was it, we could finally afford to file Chapter 7!  First things first, vacation time.  See, my dad had been battling cancer and we hadn't seen him in awhile, and he had never met his only grandson, our now six month old son.  So we traveled to Texas and visited with friends and family.  If you think we'd obtained the discipline at this point to budget a trip and not spend too much, well you are wrong.  So we spent that bonus money down below the $3000 we needed for our filing.

And the hits just keep on coming.  We were back in the mode of trying to save a few bucks, or a few hundred.  But, life doesn't wait, nor does death.  About a month after our visit to Texas my Grandfather passed away, so we headed back to Texas again.  This last trip pretty much cleared us out and we were again broke.  Bankruptcy seemed like a far fetched dream at this point.

And when it couldn't get any worse.  Life, or death rather, comes around again.  Another month had passed and my Grandmother passed away.  We were too broke to attend the service.  This was really a breaking point in our life, May 2009.  For another month, we lived in limbo.  I had been listening, off and on, to The Clark Howard Show on my local AM station, but they had recently replaced it with a show called, The Dave Ramsey Show.  I was upset because I enjoyed listening to Clark teach me how to "Save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped-off".  Eventually this Dave character started making some sense.  I liked what he was saying and heard mention of his book several times.  So, in June I ordered Dave Ramsey's My Total Money Makeover from Amazon and started reading.  

I loved the plan, I loved the ideas,  it was like he stole them straight from my grandparents!  Spend less than you make, save up and pay cash for things, and basically don't be stupid.  I was excited.

The financial goal at this point was to try to arrange transportation.  We had about 4 months left on one car lease and 9 months left on the other.  We had already taken a 401k loan on my retirement so we were about to have some liquid assets to purchase a car.   But then I decided that silly ole' Dave's plan was probably better than ours.  I mean, how well had our plans been working?  Really.

Husbands, don't do the following, I was lucky, and I don't think your result will be similar.  Suzanne and I were talking about the cars and what to do when I said something like, "Naw, we should use the money to buy a beater, like a $2000 car."  "What?!?! Are you crazy!?!? We can't go from driving an Acura TL and a Volkswagen Passat to a $2000 beater!"  (ok, those weren't her words, but that's what I heard).

From there is was a little blurry, but it was essentially me tossing the Total Money Makeover book on the floor in front of her, she was already sitting on the floor, and declaring this book to be the source of my madness.  "Talk to me again after you've read this! (or at least through Chapter 4 (or whatever the chapter on getting out of debt is))"  And so it was...

Over the next couple of days, she read.  I waited.  I waited some more, and then gently asked, "so?"  And I waited some more.  Ok, it was probably only a couple days until she reached a point we could have a conversation of mutual understanding.  We figured what the heck, what have we got to loose?

June 2009, we started our Total Money Makeover.

... Stay tuned for part 2 as we start the baby steps ...

What was the point at which you realized the pain of the same was more than that of the pain of change?  In other words, what was your "I've had it!" moment?

Receiving a beating at an interview

It's happened to me twice so far in my career.  I've hung up the phone feeling beaten up after an interview.  I love and hate these types of interviews.  Both have been with "big boys" of my industry, Amazon and Google.  I pretty much knew going in I was going to be destroyed.  In both cases I was actually a little surprised because the questions were not overly complex or even necessarily very difficult.  The format was this. I would be asked a seemingly easy question, what is this or that?  How does such and such work?  After answering the questions the response is typically, "ok good, you said xyz happens.  How does xyz work?"  It feels like you just had a missile shot at you and the interviewer is essentially yelling, "Dive Dive Dive!"
Next comes the part that leaves me feeling defeated.  The barrage continues until we get to the part of "Why is this bad?" or "Should you be worried about that?"  or just a simple "What else?"  Because sometimes there are no more "what elses"  sometimes the answer is "Nope, it's not bad so no need to worry."  Typically I can spew out one, maybe two, more what elses before I raise the white flag of surrender and admit I'm done.
I have also found that the tone of the interview can totally be determined by your interviewer.  With Amazon I had a great first interview with a guy from Ireland.  The accent wasn't an issue and we really had a great conversation.  I did really well.  The second interview was with someone here in US and it was awful.  In some interviews the interviewer will prompt you if you are struggling and rephrase questions or describe them a little differently.  Not so for this guy.  He'd ask a question then silence.  I'd answer and he would retort, "ok."  Then proceed to the next question.  That one didn't go so well.  Not to mention I bombed a pretty easy coding question.  I'm not a developer by nature so reading code over the phone is not a comfortable thing for me.
My interview with Google I felt went ok.  Not great though, and probably not well enough to continue in the process.  I've not gotten intimate with linux internals or network switching in quite some time and we spent a good deal of time on those areas.
In my experiences with both Google and Amazon I do feel that I came out of the interview a more intelligent person.  I thought about things differently and in ways I haven't thought before in a long while.  These deep dives result in a stronger knowledge base in the end.  They also expose weaknesses and strengths to be better prepared for next time.  Yes, there will be a next time.  Maybe not with Google, maybe not with Amazon, but with someone, somewhere.
So if you've felt beaten by an interview, pull yourself up, identify where you think you failed and why you think you failed.  You'll be a better candidate due to the experience you gained.

Spontaneous Moments of Thankfulness

I've found from time to time that just sitting back and witnessing an event will trigger spontaneous moments of thankfulness.  Society in general is, in my opinion, not nearly as grateful as we could be.  We take for granted the things in everyday life without much thought or reflection on how lucky we are.  We carry on in our lives without saying thank you, without acknowledging the sacrifices of others, without a care in the worlds except that which is passing through our head at that moment in time.  Lately, I've been overcome with emotion at seemingly random times and then filled with thankfulness for the situation.

Not too long ago I attended a baby shower for one of my wife's childhood friends.  Thankfully this wasn't a traditional baby shower where unhealthy amounts of estrogen and an equally unhealthy lack of testosterone rulled the party.  The party was primarily couples that had come to celebrate.  This would typically be an easy place to find things to be thankful for: babies, children, parents, etc.  But instead, it hit me as I ventured out to the car to put my phone on charge.  On the windshield of pretty much every car there was a sticker.  It was those stickers that brought on this surge of feelings.  The stickers were all U.S. Government stickers, Department of Defense more specifically.  Even more specific than that they were all issued to identify the drivers of the vehicles were allowed access to Camp Lejune, the US Marine Corp base nearby.  I realized we were some of the only non-marines in attendance.  Furthermore, the baby shower wasn't just a baby shower, it was of sorts a deployment party for several of those in attendance, including the father-to-be.  He is scheduled for deployment a mere two weeks after he welcomes his son into the world.  That hit me and made me think about just how thankful I am for those that sacrifice so much to defend my freedom and to bring democracy across the globe.

To the men and women serving this great nation, I thank you for all that you do.  I thank you for your service to this country, I thank you for the sacrifices you make for strangers.  I thank the husbands, wives, and children here at home that lend their loved ones to our nation.  I say thank you to those that have given their lives and to those they have left behind, I behalf of a grateful citizen, I say thank you.

Finding God Exactly Where You Expect

For most of my life I've felt that God and I have been playing a game of hide and seek.  Sometimes it seems God is hiding from me, and other times I'm hiding from God.  We go back and forth like this, it's the nature of our relationship.   Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to attend Uno Camp at Camp Caroline with my 6 year old daughter.  Camp Caroline is nestled on the banks of Dawson's Creek right where it opens up to the Neuse River just upstream from the Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.  This was my kiddo's first church camp and the first for me in many many years.

As a youth, I loved going to camp in the summer.  It was a time to see friends that I hadn't seen since the previous summer, a time to hang out with some grownups (aka counselors, aka just big kids) that I had come to admire, a time to ignite some summertime romance (even if it was just for a week), and mostly a time for fun.  Church Camp in Athens, Texas at Disciples Crossing, though we didn't call it that way back then, certainly holds a special place in my heart.  Among all the fun we worshiped, praised God, and learned to love Jesus together as we joined in fellowship.

In a place as tranquil and holy as either Disciples Crossing or Camp Caroline you just get that feeling that God is there with you.  Guess what?  You're right!  That, my friends, was the highlight of my overnight trip to Uno Camp.  I went so that my daughter could experience camp, like I and many of my friends did, so that she too could grow closer to Christ, and also so that she, quite selfish of me I must admit, could be comfortable with the camp so that next year we could send her away for the weekend.  What I personally expected was to go and have some fun and maybe see if I could find God lurking around there somewhere.  What I walked away with was truly a surprise to me.

I'll just get right to the point here.  For years, I've looked for God to be hiding, to be lurking around the corner, to be whispering to me in that "still, small voice."  I've hidden from God and been distant so that our Almighty Creator wouldn't know the sin I was participating in.  What hit me that weekend was that sometimes, more often than we realize really, God is exactly where you would expect!    It kinda hit me in the face like, "Wake up, I'm right here in  your face!" while I was standing there in admiration observing the beautiful sun set behind the calm flowing waters of Dawson's creek.  Standing in front of the water was a tall wooden cross that towered above the stone worship table.  On the front of the table the words "This Do In Rememberance of Me" and to top off this scene of Glory was my beautiful daughter standing at the table, reminding me that I was lead to this place, to see this beauty and divine creation, by the hand of a child.

Yes, sometimes you don't have to go looking for God, sometimes we just need to open our eyes and look, we'll see that God is right there ready to smack us in the face.  Pay attention!

Peace be with you as you find God exactly where you'd expect.

Graduation is for High School and College

We've come so far in child protection that we lead them to believe they graduate several times before they really do.  I've reluctantly participated in one such event so far and now have to figure out a way to prevent any further pre-high school graduations so I'm not a hypocrite.  Let's look at the definition of the word:

graduation |ˌgrajoōˈā sh ən|

noun

1 the receiving or conferring of an academic degree or diploma.

• the ceremony at which degrees are conferred.

So, let me ask you newly graduation pre-K kid, what degree or diploma did you get?  What? Oh yeah? It's a certification of completion not a diploma?  Yeah, that's what I thought!  Wow, look at me, picking on the pre-K kid.

Each time I see an adorable little person in a cap and gown I stop myself from emitting the audible groan.  I'm fairly certain it kills a kitten when you protest a cute little preschooler holding a diploma while participating in a commencement ceremony.  I just can't stand it though.  Graduation is for High School and College, not pre-K.  I've found it actually is worse than that.  There are Kindergarten graduations and elementary school graduations (5th or 6th grade depending on your locale).  Then middle/junior high graduations.  It's so bad that by the time high school rolls around I wouldn't be surprised if the kids intentionally fail so they don't have do wear that stupid hat (again)!

Sure, I feel crummy for saying, "Hey little dude, that diploma doesn't mean anything."  But you know what?  It doesn't, it isn't even a diploma.  I've never put on any resume or job application where I graduated pre-K or elementary school.  In fact, I may just go and take off my high school because it's becoming less relevant.

We must find a way to alter this mentality that we must have a ceremony for passing a grade.  Surely there have been sillier protests.  Let's do it brandishing signs claiming, "You still can't spell graduwit, and now you are one!"