Financial Education 401: Work Toward Financial Independence

You could get laid off. You could get fired. Your company could go out of business. Or maybe you want to take a year and sail around the world. Maybe you want to take a year off to write a book. The Great Recession could be remembered as a blip compared to the 2020s Greatest Depression. Depending totally on your employer is risky business. Oh I’m sure you have a great employer, and a great relationship with that employer, but things change.

You can quit working, at any age, for life, basically as soon as you have 25 times your annual expenses saved in stocks and bonds. Now, that comes with roughly an 95% chance of success over 30 years, however at 30 times your annual spending saved, your chance of not running out of money decreases to hardly anything. Even at a 5% withdraw rate (20 times spending) you have an 82% chance of not running out of money over 30 years. (However, in early 2018 CAPE ratios are over 30, meaning stocks are over priced, so don’t expect 17% annual gains over the next decade like the last nine years.)

In the last post I mentioned saving money outside of retirement tax advantaged accounts, and this is a large part of the reason. As a person in your 20s or 30s, you have an awfully long time until you are in your 60s and can access those funds. So saving money in a brokerage account, or even a savings account allows you to access that money when you end up with a horrible boss and want to quit your job or you want to go climb Mt. Everest more than you want to spend two months at the office. 

Money is a tool, and it buys time. When you are Bill Gates, your plane takes off whenever it is convenient for you. You can talk to whomever you want to. You can sleep whenever you want to. When you want to talk to a CEO, he definitely calls you back. I’m not at all saying that people need to aspire to that kind of wealth. I'm saying, if you have $500,000 in the bank in the USA, or $1 million, you don’t have to put up with other people dictating how you spend your time. It’s a spectrum of course. The more confidence you have the less money you need to exit negative situations.

I’m writing this series also in part because due to paying off my student loans, getting my Kansas Rural Opportunity Zone Tax Refund, and my pension vesting in the last several months has put me at 5X or five times my reasonable annual spending. Maybe more like 4X, but defining how much X is, what I can live on can be nebulous because every year has one time expenses, like a new bicycle. Point being, I could walk away, and be fine, for months! It was kind of surprising when I realized that. I had a bad day at work and I thought, ‘what if I just quit, right here and now?’ It was a perspective change and that’s what I referred to in the introduction. Wealth creates opportunities. It’s not fair. I don’t deserve the wealth that I have. Yet I have been exploring opportunities recently that I had never considered before, and that's fun.

Independence: Weeks 12 through 35

I would like to restart my weekly series. Blogging weekly helps me progress toward goals by holding me accountable to myself for accomplishing things, or analyzing my setbacks. There are a number of reasons I haven't been blogging lately, and you might as well know. The reasons break down into either self consciousness of the ridiculous, which is always hard to share, and the logistical, which is frankly a little depressing.

• After climbing Everest, and wanting to climb it for 12 years what is next? Other mountains aren't the highest, plus I used oxygen, so I don't really know how I can handle altitudes above 8000 meters. If I mention further goals, like K2 and G4... it's so arrogant even to mention wanting to climb G4, I'm not sure I have the skills to do it. Well, I know I have the skills, but I'm not sure about the technical ability at that altitude, even with training. Something like seven expeditions have failed on the southwest ridge?
• I ran on Team USA, for the 2015 24 hour world championship. It was a dream come true. Being on Team USA had been the goal for so long, that achieving it left a bit of a hole in my motivation. In other words, there is motivation to be on your first national team, but the motivation is not the same the second time around. Here again, mentioning I want to be on a different Team USA, like the 100k, and that I think I could medal at the 24 hour world championships, possibly even win is so arrogant I feel ashamed just to think it. Haven't I already enjoyed enough success in life? How can I ask for more?
• Logistically it's a lot harder to go out to a coffee shop and use my lap top in Independence than it is in Dubuque. I miss Monks and Jitterz. The one coffee shop in town closes at 5 pm, and 2 pm Saturdays, and is not even open Sunday. McDonald's doesn't even always have Internet. I'm not ready to pay for Internet, but I am the closest I have been in the last six years. 
• The Blogger app on my phone has been super buggy, shutting down after 10 seconds when I try to type a blog post. When I'm only a little motivated to write on a work night getting shut down a couple times is enough for me to forget it.

After the North Coast 2016 where I only did 100 miles I took close to six weeks off. Everest took more out of me than I care to admit, the summer was hot, and that adds up to subpar training leading to the race. I don't like to admit it, but I still seem to get a fair amount of my self esteem from how my running is going at the moment. If you hadn't guessed, it's going well, I won a half marathon today. 

2017 has gotten off to a really good start for me. I've climbed two 14ers in Colorado in the winter, and have plans for a far more aggressive climb in March. My running is coming around to the quantity and quality that I would like, and that is necessary to achieve those goals above. Plus, I basically landed a Cessna 172 yesterday, and I'm only a 9.7 hour student pilot. While there are certainly challenges, and change is hard, I am adjusting to a new situation, and learning how to adjust. I think this summer I will do far more bicycling than running in the afternoons in July and August, not unlike June and July of 2011 the year I bought my bicycle. I just did not want to accept last year that I couldn't have an effective run in 90 degree heat. 

I will ask, if you actually like reading this, please encourage me, specifically though text message to my phone. While I blog mostly for my own understanding of the events in my life, I could journal and accomplish the same reflection, which I have been doing a bit of lately, but that doesn't share any of it with you. 

Moving Farther Away from Family

I did not realize how I appreciate living "close" to family until I moved "away". The median person in the United States lives 18 miles away from mom. In college I was about 1000 miles from home, but spent 3-5 weeks a year at home full time in May and August, then around Christmas and New Years. I briefly lived in Colorado after college, again about 1000 miles. Then I lived at home for about six months. Then I lived in Iowa, about 200 miles from home. I realized at the time that I definitely lived farther away from family than most of my coworkers, there were many who had moved from different time zones, even other countries. Seeing the numbers in the article linked above were interesting. Now that I am over 700 miles away it is a little harder to see my family and I have moved from the 75th percentile to the 85th percentile in terms of living away from home. 200 miles is a convenient distance, you can meet in the middle for lunch or dinner. I suppose being even closer would be even more convenient.

As you read through the article it seems to me that the ability to move is an economic privilege. I think we view moving as a economic hardship, something undesired certainly, and for many people the benefits of moving for a new job are much less than the negatives of losing the existing social network. So for me, taking a job 550 miles away, that comes with a raise, a lower cost of living, and very interesting work outweighed the social network that I had built in my life in Iowa, and that's a huge privilege.

People ask me about the risks of climbing Mt. Everest, and sometimes I respond with my opinion that to me the risk of not climbing Mt. Everest is greater than the risk from climbing Mt. Everest. That is an opportunity cost that motivates people to make a change. When not doing something is seen as the greater risk than doing that thing, new experiences will happen and you will learn.

The New Place Struggle

At a bar in Sheboygan in April 2011 I confessed to the bartender I was nervous about moving to Dubuque. She told me to stick it out for six months, because I could always move again. She also told me to take American Family for motorcycle insurance. 

Well, my water was turned off today. Ironically I got home about 5:05 PM today, so after government offices are closed, on the first business day I have actually inhabited my house. And my toilet would not flush, and my sink would not flow water. Mystified I sent an email to the foreman asking for water and how to pay my bill. Then I did a search of my 15,000 unread personal emails and found the one saying I needed to come into the office with my drivers license and social security card (which I have no idea where that is). So yes, the email was in my inbox, it's my fault the water is turned off, and the bigger question is why do I have to go to the office in person?

I struggled this summer running in the heat. It was demoralizing. It contributed to my poor performance at North Coast 2016. Small town life is not feeling as accommodating for me now as it did 12 years ago. They shut my water off!? Seriously?! No waiting until I was 30 days late for my payment, no letter, no phone call, and just 10 days after I close, and half of that time I was in Brazil and 40 percent of it was a weekend. Seriously!!

While I am venting, I don't know of any place other than McDonald's with WIFI after 5 PM. No place to go pound a keyboard, or socialize without alcohol. Similarly, when Wal-Mart has the best vegetables, and best selection of unprocessed foods, it's hard not to cry. 

Independence: Week 11

I'm typing this with one hand, so it will be even shorter than usual for this summer. You should try using only one hand some time. I doubt most people would make it a half hour before defaulting to using two hands.

Work is interesting. I'm working on a part that has not been updated since 1984. Honestly, I am scared to update it because no one has changed it in 32 years, longer than I have been alive, and I don't want to screw it up. The revelation I have come to is that I will need to do testing on any new design before it sees production. Not really a revelation, but the number of things I put into production without any testing is significant.

The other side of a project like this is that on a part with such a long history quite a few people have opinions on the matter.

Running is going. 60 miles this week with two long runs including a scorcher Saturday that I ended up walking and slowly jogging in the last like 10 miles thanks to a little dehydration and 96ºF heat index, which I thought I was used to by now.

My house purchase is going well! I can't wait to spill the details on the deal. It's my first venture into real estate and I almost feel embarrassed to talk about it.

Independence: Week 10

This was as eventful of a week as they come. It started off high on Longs Peak at 4 AM as S and I attempted to climb the Casual Route on the Diamond. That is a story for another day. At the rate I have been blogging, maybe I'll get to it in 2017.

After a couple quiet days, including an 11 hour sleep on a work day, my parents came to town for a visit. We didn't do a whole lot together because I didn't take any vacation, and they weren't here on the weekend, still it was really nice to get to see them even if it was only for about seven hours.

In other news, I have a contract pending on a house and the inspection was Tuesday. The inspection went well, no obvious show stoppers, mostly small things. I close September 30th, so I will not say much until then, in case it falls through. There is a lot of paperwork required first to agree on a contract, then to get a mortgage.

Work has had it's moments lately where I'm not entirely sure what I am supposed to do, or what I can do. Which is to say, for every job there is a written description, and then there is what you actually do. One of the first projects I have is a big one, and I'm not sure exactly where I fit in it because there are quite a few people involved.

Running is going. I keep running, slowly. I feel unfit, which is to say I ran 8:20 pace tonight breathing decently hard in 80ºF weather, I would like to be running a minute faster per mile at that effort, but I am not. In an effort to spice up my training I did a triathlon Saturday morning, and broke my hand.

Independence: Week 9

Wow, my blog has been neglected. I'd like to say that's going to change, but honestly I have a couple half written trip reports and some videos to edit and upload, and I don't know when I am going to do that.

I have been tired. I spent 11 hours in bed yesterday. That's part of why I'm getting to my week in review on Wednesday after 9 pm. 

Work was pretty quiet this past week because we were on the standard two week shut down for repairs and maintenance. In other words, some of the things we would like to get done will have to wait until shutdown is over. I spent some time this past week studying oil. It's pretty interesting stuff and since the actual chemistry of it is hard to find, it is rather hard to describe why one oil is better than another. Fun fact, GL-5 oil wears away at copper parts 2-3 times faster than GL-4 oil wears away copper parts, and I wish I had a better source for that. 

Running was okay. The highlight workout of the week was a 2:40 run on trails over 17 miles that started with a heat index of 106ºF and ended with a heat index of 98ºF. I drove 15 minutes home, drank probably 1.5 liters of milk and orange juice, showered, and went to bed. I didn't even eat supper I had no stomach for it.

On Tuesday I put an offer down on a house, more details to come on that. Yes, it seems to have been accepted and now I'm working through the paperwork, and bills.

Friday I drove out to Denver, and Saturday hiked up to Chasm Lake to spend the night before attempting the Casual Route on the Diamond on Longs Peak. 

Sunset looking East from Chasm Lake Bivouac at 12,000 feet.

Independence: Week 8

I am going to get this posted before next week. Last week was not terribly dramatic or exciting, which is a good thing.

Work is going just fine. I'm asking questions that no one else ever seems to have asked and I'm crunching through data that no one else has ever crunched through. It may not be as thrilling as flying around the country and world to repair machines but it's how real breakthroughs come up. It takes time staring at something to ask the questions and challenge the assumptions that have gotten us to this point. In other words, I'm learning quite a bit, which is exactly the reason I wanted to come down here and work in this department.

Running went really well. I did 81 miles for the week, including 22 on Friday and 23.6 on Saturday for a couple back to back hard days. Not to mention, all of that was run in temperatures above 70, some above 90, not including humidity and sunshine, which both increase how hot it actually feels. I've never trained for a 24 hour run and it's different. Everything is pretty slow. For example, before my first 24 hour run I was marathon training and doing 10-14 mile tempos at 6:10 pace, and 100 mile weeks, but no runs longer than 2:30. This time I haven't done a single tempo and I'm doing less overall mileage, but many runs between 2:30 and 3:40, which is a long time to be on your feet.

Pretty quiet week otherwise, just watching some Olympic preview coverage.

Independence: Week 7

Man, I have gotten so lazy. After Everest blogging about my daily life has moved down on the priority list. That being said, living in a house with wifi and video streaming has been awesome! Do I want to watch Tour de France highlights tonight, Olympic preview coverage, Top Gear, The Walking Dead, or a movie?

Work is going well, I am learning so much. There is so much about detailed drivetrain design that I don't know and slowly I am learning it. This past week I drove up to Dubuque (9 hours from here) Wednesday and went to a two hour meeting on Thursday in person for a technical review with a diverse team of engineers. We had people from three locations in the meeting, and honestly, should have maybe invited a fourth factory to make sure we were all on the same page. Regardless, we cleared the air and decided on a direction to proceed. Engineering is so much about risk management, just like mountaineering. There is no perfect, there are simply different levels of "good enough". Which is to say, what NASA sends to the space station is held to a much higher level of "good enough" than a welded sheet of steel that digs in the dirt. The hard part is determining what is "good enough" in any specific situation, thus our meeting.

My running started the week poorly, but ended the week much better. I have been struggling with the heat. And yes, I do try and run in the mornings, but even then it is 74ºF and 80% humidity, and I'm half awake. I generally run slower in the mornings than the afternoons because I haven't had anything to eat or drink and it is typically dark out. Also I think the mentality in the morning is often 'get through it' and the mentality in the afternoon is 'enjoy it, see what I can do' probably having something to do with getting to work for the day versus being done with work for the day.

I took Tuesday off (from running), after taking the Thursday before off and it was depressing. I think the heat is taking more out of me than I care to admit, and the effects are lasting several days. A couple times I have come home from work, and taken a nap from 15 minutes up to 90 minutes, and it's hard mentally when I didn't run in the morning and I am so exhausted in the afternoon that I take an unplanned day off. The good news is my runs up in Dubuque went well because the weather was much cooler so I did an 18 miler at the Mines of Spain and a 28 miler on Heritage Trail. That 28 miler was way easier than the 21 miler I did the week before in the heat and sun here around Independence. Which means, I am in better shape than my pace is showing for my runs here. Also, Jeff Galloway had a nice article on page 44 of the August Runner's World about running in the heat and it made me feel better about how I am doing.

In other news we grilled out Friday night and climbed on my friend's bouldering wall in Dubuque. The Olympics are coming up and it will be interesting. I have been reading a lot about the recent drug/cheating/doping scandals and I have my own opinion to share here when I get around to writing it. Keep chugging on right?

Independence: Week 6

Who would have thought that having Internet would lead me to being less productive at home? The problem is I am mesmerized by streaming videos and TV shows. Tonight it was "The Whistleblower" and last night was "Top Gear".

Pretty anticlimactic week. Work is good. We had a health fair and they took blood pressures and a blood test, which I am excited to see in the coming weeks. It included a test for the thyroid, and I've never had mine tested, so that is something new. When the nurse took my blood pressure and pulse, using the automated machine, I made it to 104/68 and a resting heart rate, at work, of 52. Those are the best numbers I have ever registered at work! Usually my blood pressure comes in upper 110s or 120s, and even 130s. My pulse is usually upper 50s. Part of the reason I wanted to try out Coffeyville is that it always felt very relaxing when I came down to visit, well, the proof is in the pressure, it's lower.

One of the projects I am working on has to do with metal in oil and how that affects or results from wear on various parts. As I get to learn about the drivetrain products we design I couldn't think of a better initial project. Simply put, some parts wear out, at a relatively constant rate, while other parts essentially last forever. It's quite interesting.

I'm not sure how much I ran, probably in the 70 mile neighborhood. That includes some tempos and two long runs, Friday and Saturday. Oh Saturday was rough! After two stops to refill my 20 oz water bottle, I started walking just after 19 miles, a little before noon. Walking... on flat ground. It wasn't even that hot, maybe 90ºF. It wasn't like I walked for a minute either, I walked .8 miles before my heart rate dipped below 150. Running in the heat is hard.

Socializing we had a grill fest on Friday night, which was a good time. Saturday we went out and shot guns. Well, I basically just kept score during skeet shooting, but I did shoot a little .22 for the first time in years. Oh Kansas...

Independence: Week 5

I had a good week, and it's funny to say, but I've been too busy to blog more. Not having Internet, besides my cell phone, and not having cable or satellite the last five years basically forced me to actually do things. However, now I'm renting a room where we have Internet, including Netflix and Amazon Prime. So it's a lot easier to surf the web on my computer, or watch a Top Gear episode, or even a movie. Yes I am still running and bicycling, I haven't stopped, but my free time where I would otherwise write a blog post or read something has been taken up as a spectator simply watching. It's interesting. I think that I find it more interesting because I haven't been exposed to it as much the last five years. For example, I find commercials interesting.

I'm not sure how much I ran, but it was enough. I'm still recovering from Nolan's 14, and that trip report is 2/3rds written by the way. A quick calculation for how heat affects runners, you will run about 1 second per mile slower per degree Fahrenheit over 65 than your ideal pace. That's a simplification, the dew point matters, and relative humidity, but it's reasonable to say that at 95 degrees Fahrenheit you will run 30 seconds per mile slower than you would under ideal temperature conditions.

Work is going well. I'm not sure exactly all of my duties yet, in part because one of the benefits of my new job is defining my role. It's an interesting concept, yes I have concrete deliverables in this position, but to fill up the rest of the time there are other projects that I can work on. One of my skills is that I come from the vehicle side, so when we have questions about how the vehicle views our components, I jump in because I'm pretty good at those discussions. I'm also getting into some details that I wanted to get into. For example, I'm working on a warranty project with a moderate size of data, and statistically interpreting that data is quite interesting. There are many ways I can present the data, and it's hard to determine which way is the best, because honestly all of the interpretations help describe the situation. In other words, we want to say, X is a function of Y. But I'm finding that X is a function of Y, Y1 (Y at a different point in time), and Z, not to mention different operating conditions.  It's great, I'm making three dimensional scatter plots with best fit surfaces in Matlab to find the best correlation.

Independence: Week 4

Wow I haven't been blogging lately! I suppose it is not surprising, I did only spend two nights in Independence this week. I still have to write a trip report for Nolan's 14. I was hoping to do that in Mexico, but I was tired, and ended up with almost no free time after getting in some runs.

I started the week Sunday morning by climbing Huron Peak before sunrise in a snow storm. Yep, another boring weekend. Haha! Like I said last week, I have to write a trip report for my Nolan's 14 attempt. Hopefully this week.

Monday I drove across Colorado and Kansas. I made it back to my house just before the sun went down in time to pack for Mexico and crash in bed. Tuesday I woke up and went into the office for a few hours before getting on a plane in Tulsa and heading to Torreon, Mexico.

This was my first trip to Mexico. Kind of surprising that it's taken me 30 years of my life to get there, I mean, it's one of two countries that touch the USA, so it's pretty easy to get to. So Torreon is actually ranked as the seventh most dangerous place in the world on occasion. So I only ran outside once. It was a pretty awesome trip. I didn't feel threatened or scared like I supposed you are supposed to in a place with a high murder rate. Well, I felt scared enough to not go running in the dark.

My biggest impression during the trip was of the factory, it was awesome. So awesome I wrote an article about it on the plane from Torreon to Dallas that I'll publish tomorrow.

Friday I made it back to the house where I am renting a room Friday night, and proceeded to sleep 15 hours, waking up at 1 PM Saturday. About all I did Saturday was a tiny bit of rock climbing and then go for a run. The run was on trails in hot and humid conditions, but not the worst I have run in this summer, and my heart rate was from 175 up to 191 the last half of the run, and I was just jogging. That's pretty crazy. I mean, my heart rate should not be over 170 unless I'm really pushing the pace. I hope it was a combination of the heat and some sort of exhaustion from Nolan's and maybe a low blood pressure from sleeping 15 hours all wrapped into making my heart race.

So I went to sleep early on Saturday, and called it a busy week.

Independence: Week 3

I'm so tired right now. It was a pretty average week, let's be honest most are, except that I did head out to Colorado for a little adventure on Thursday night. That's going to be the subject of a different blog post. 

It is interesting adjusting to a new place. I am fortunate to have a number of friends to share activities with already, specifically rock climbing partners, who I climbed with at Elk City Lake Wednesday evening. Figuring out where to shop, who does what, where to run, where to buy vegetables and sea food all take time. Also, since I have moved so many times I know that you just have to get your hands dirty and learn the new place. There is no magic it just takes effort to find the good running routes and vegetables. 

As I learn my new job I am discovering aspects of a product life cycle I did not know about before. We call it continuous improvement. That too deserves another blog post. The teaser to a detailed post on continuous improvement is that it takes more effort to change something once it is in production than before, and more effort can be real science.

Not sure on running and biking mileage this past week. I'm in okay shape, I'm doing some fartleks and long runs, but not top racing shape at all. Although, I am in pretty good mountain climbing shape.

Independence: Week 2

It's still a bit of a whirlwind. I am learning new things quickly, figuring out where to run and shop, and adjusting to the heat. It's significant, the heat. It's not just the 90+F heat either, it's the 80+% humidity at the same time.

So why did I name my new series "Independence", aside from the obvious fact that's the town I'm living in?

Well, for starters now that I'm 30, I feel that I can't even pretend to be a kid any more. I mean, in your 20s you still count as young, but 30? People make a billion dollars by 30. Successful professional athletes retire by 30. Rock music stars overdose and die before they get to 30. It's like there is no pretending, no hiding, on do overs, this is your life. I'm an adult. Which means, at least in America, that I strive for independence. That means financial independence, it means living independently (like not in my parents house), and in my mind it means buying a house too. Those are all things I am working on, developing my independence.

It's also ironic and I find it funny because I don't think true independence really exists. I could say I am living independently hundreds of miles from my family, but I still talk to them often and I have all of the relationships with my coworkers and friends. Similarly, I strive for financial independence, from my parents I made it years ago, but ultimately we aim for the same thing from our employer (it's called retirement), where we are financially independent enough to do what we want when we want to. Yet, everyone has a boss, and to pretend that you are free from the constraints of the financial industry when you are financially independent is ridiculous. Analogously, I say I am striving for independence, but looking for a nice lady friend, it's a contradiction.

Work was good. I led a meeting with some international colleagues that I will be working closely with, and I had never been in a meeting with any of them before, and only previously met one in person. Other than that I'm learning the more detailed aspects of axles, which is why I came here.

I ran 59 miles and bicycled 57 miles during the week, and the high temperatures were over 90 Fahrenheit six out of seven days, and only 89 on Saturday. The temperature alone is not so bad, but it's humid here, routinely 70+% in the two weeks I've been here, which makes any afternoon activity a sweat-fest.

Social activity has been up to my desires already. I went rock climbing Saturday afternoon. The rock was hot, the routes were difficult, and we sweat like crazy. I've been out to eat with coworkers (friends) a few times and been to a couple grill out events at people's houses. People are quite friendly and social and I can see already I will soon be turning down invitations to do this social thing or that social thing so that I can sleep and run more. That's kind of something I was famous for in Dubuque, not committing to social stuff.

That's about it for week two. Next week will be a little crazy as I go out to Colorado and try Nolan's 14. If anyone wants to join for all or part of it you are welcome, but fair warning, I'm not waiting for you if you can't keep up.

Independence: Week 1

I thought for quite a while about what to name this, "Small Town Kansas", "I Live in Kansas", "Small  Town Living", "Back to Kansas", "Return to Kansas", but nothing struck me as really capturing the essence of this move the way I wanted. I wanted something that was an unambiguous fact, like "I Live in Iowa" was, and something that could not be taken negatively, as inevitably I will have some criticism of small town life. As a bonus, it's always nice if I can see some humor in the title, and it's late and I want to get this published, so I might save that description of what the word Independence means to me for next week, but superficially it means Independence, Kansas, where I am temporarily living until I buy a house, and I may buy a house here.

The week started with Sunday in Dubuque. I went to church so that all of my friends could see that I was alive and healthy with all of my fingers. Then I finished packing and headed down to Kansas. So I work in Coffeyville, well, I work in the Coffeyville industrial park, which is outside of the city limits. It's a five minute drive from the city limits of Coffeyville, and 15 minutes from the city limits of Independence, so my coworkers are split somewhat between Coffeyville and Independence, with a number out in the country, and a few from places farther away, like Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

Monday dawned and I went into the office. The week was both slow, and a whirlwind. A number of people were traveling so there were some quick conversations as I tried to learn all I could. Tuesday we had a test failure. That's a big deal. Tests aren't supposed to fail. The test had been running for hundreds of hours and on the morning of my second day a test fails, and it's on "my" project. I put my in quotations because while it is part of my responsibility to solve the problem, it was my second day in the office down here and frankly there was so much I did not know, I was afraid to say much of anything. Of course, I never get into the specifics of work, but the failure does not seem to be as significant as initially feared, and should be a minimal setback.

I ran 62 miles last week, with one double. Not a big number, but higher than I expected. That's part of the reason I moved down here, fewer distractions and better ability to focus on my limited remaining competitive running career. We shall see if I was correct or naive.

Saturday I quit sweating 10 miles into my 16 mile long run, because it was in the upper 80 Fahrenheit and humid, at noon. A few miles later I found a gas station and had some water, but a bit of a scare none the less. I've quit sweating in hot weather a number of times, so it doesn't scare me too much, but it's a really good reminder that I need to be hydrated as much as I can, especially as the forecast has highs above 90 ever day for the next two weeks, and lows all above 68F.

Saturday afternoon I went down to Tulsa and did a little rock climbing, then some shopping for some new biking shorts, and I ended up buying running half tights, which have no padding, but are very light, and padding is really not necessary for rides under two hours. Then I went to Whole Paycheck... I mean Whole Foods for some grocery shopping that you don't get in a town of 9,000 people.

Full disclosure, I'm definitely in the honeymoon phase of moving down here to Independence and Coffeyville, so if I don't blog about it much now, it because first impressions are often wrong, and I'm apt to be more positive than reality, that's just the nature of the honeymoon phase.

Facebook friends, I posted the vast majority of my Everest 2016 pictures into an album on Facebook, feel free to go over there and check them out. Some are pretty good.

Finally, here is a photo of me on my 30th birthday at Everest basecamp, a small part of the motivation to name my new blog series "Independence".

30th Birthday Cake at Everest Basecamp