I Live in Iowa: Week 133

What happened this week? While at work we saved the company over $20 million in three days of brainstorming and simple critiquing. Not bad for a group of 40 mostly young people like myself. Of course, we still have a few months, and in a couple cases years, of work to put the ideas into practice, but we generated over 1000 ideas on possible ways to reduce costs. Of course you have to take cost cutting ideas with a grain of salt, we don't want to reduce the quality of our product. It was an interesting, and long, three days.

We also learned that we would be getting a bonus this year because the company did so well. I try not to talk about my enormous wealth often because it makes Americans uncomfortable, and they are still 75% of my audience. However, there are a couple points I would like to share:

1. I never expected to get a bonus in life. I always thought engineers were paid for their work and time, but no bonus if the company did well. It's a nice perk to have.
2. I will get twice as much before taxes in my bonus in 2013 than I made in all of 2010. That's not saying much, but it is something I am incredibly thankful for and don't take for granted.

Running went great! I basically tripled my mileage to 27 miles for the week! I even doubled on Saturday. I am still maybe only 90% but my right calf pain has nearly disappeared and in no time I will be doing workouts. 

Coaching was very limited, but as always, it's like an addiction. The hope that my presence will help a couple youngsters be a little better, not just on the track but off too, keeps me motivated to keep showing up, even when I seriously question my coaching value.

What else? I logged on Facebook for an hour. That's rare enough it's newsworthy.

Thanks for reading! I haven't said that recently. I hope that sharing as much as I do helps provide real concrete advice and encouragement to do the right things in your life. The fact that people do read this keeps me posting.