Colorado Startup Life: Week 9

Ugh, I'm sick. That about sums it up.

Work was the most difficult, and humbling week I have had. When there are only 30 people in the company, and more than half of those started in 2018, there isn't much established structure. I hope that I can help contribute to the structure of our processes, but it's been nine weeks and I haven't done a whole lot of process optimization yet. I had my first design review on Thursday this week, and honestly, it did not go well for me. It was okay, but not good. It was humbling, and frankly I wasn't looking to be humbled. It is to be expected that on boarding at a company that doesn't really have an on boarding process will be difficult.

Wednesday I came down with a sore throat in the afternoon. I blamed it at the time on the amazing 4 mile run at 7:53 minutes per mile pace that I did on my lunch break, because we have a shower and a gym at work! However, it's been a roller coaster ride of tiredness, sore throat, and feeling okay ever since then. It's the mono I never remember having attacking me! Haha, but maybe...

Some super positive upside to my negativity. We went up to a new power level this week. The same day I was fumbling though a design review, we hit 70% power for the first time! Later that day we hit 80% power! Well, we got full power fever and went for 100% the next day (after being stuck at roughly 60% for months), but unfortunately had an unexpected thermal event before we reached it. Point being, this is a huge milestone for our company, and reaching 100% essentially guarantees we don't go out of business in 2019.

I ran 13.3 mile for the week, which I'm happy with considering I was down for the count most of the week. Also, I'm super excited that I had that sub 8 minute pace run! That's a big mental barrier, and it's nice to be under it again, even if only for four miles.

Monday I went to the Evo rock climbing gym in Louisville and signed for a membership! We get a discount group rate for my company and I only need to go once a week to make it worth it. That being said as I write this I will only have gone once in two weeks.

Saturday I met a friend and we climbed at EarthTreks in Denver for a whopping four hours. I'm still sore four days later! I need to go climbing and build on this strength, but I don't want my compromised immune system exposed to all of the holds right now. I mean, climbing is putting your hands on holds that other people touch, germs are bound to spread.

The weather was pretty terrible on Saturday too. It was that 30 degree rain where it freezes on your windshield because the wiper spreads it just that thin, so driving around was a bit of a sport. Funny story, I saw at least three pickup trucks in the ditch on my drive back from the climbing gym, but no cars. My theory is that pickups typically use rear wheel drive and they hit a patch of ice and swung into it. I once did a 720 degree turn in my rear wheel drive Toyota Previa in Estes Park on ice way back in 2011. Front wheel drive, or all wheel drive is the way to go. I mention the weather because as I write this I'm in the Denver International Airport on a 59F and sunny and no wind day, which is more common than bad weather days.

I hope you had a good week!