Brian 09 - Part One

I'm going to break my 2009 up into parts.  One of the reasons is that the photography and travel sections could be quite long. 

One of the biggest changes for me in 2009 was that I continued my workout routine that I started late in 2008 and ended up losing 45 - 50 pounds.  For a while I was working out five or six days a week, sometimes twice a day.  I'd lift three days, and do some sort of cardio five or six days.

Early last year I added swimming to my routine. When I started, I could barely make one length of the Olympic length pool (50 meters).  It had never really learned to swim freestyle properly, so when I was on the treadmill or stair master, I would watch the ISB swim team and their form.  I am still pretty slow for a swimmer, but pretty quickly built my stamina up so that I could easily swim a kilometer.  My swims would be longer except that I would sometimes get bored after a time.  Still, its really nice to be able to swim year round here in Thailand. 

Later in the year, my works outs haven't been as intense.  I'm still generally working out 3 or 4 days a week, although now its a lot of running.  I'm actually pretty happy to be running again.  This is actually the first time in my life that I got into shape without running and I found that I missed it.  I guess I felt that even though I had lost a lot of weight and built up some endurance, if I couldn't run 5k, then how good of shape was I really in?  I'm not running particularly fast or very long.  I'll usually run 5-7 kilometers and I'm pretty happy with that. 

I haven't lifted since sometime in November and I've put on a few pounds.  Monday school starts back up, so its a lot easier for me to get into my regular every day workout routine. 

I would still like to lose quite a few pounds, but it is nice to buy clothes because the ones you have are too big, not because they are too small.   

Also on the health front, I pretty much stopped drinking alcohol in 2009.  Drinking was a double whammy when it comes to fitness. Not only do I have the calories from the alcohol, but if I drank too much, I'd be tired and not want to exercise the next day.  After January 2nd, I think I drank twice during the year, and both times pretty small amounts.  I'm not foresaking drinking forever, and in fact I very well might drink much more often this year. 

This year I feel like I'm settling into being here.  When I got here, I really underestimated how much of a change it would be to not only stop working but to move to a foreign country where I didn't speak the language.  I don't speak Thai that much better than I did a year ago, although better than when I first got here.  I know my way around better than I did last year at this time, although I'm certainly not an expert, even in the most loose and generous definition of the word.  I just feel a lot more comfortable now. 

One thing that has really helped is our maid/nanny Yaow.  In the past, I haven't really felt comfortable around our domestic help.  Part of it is that they didn't speak English very well, and part of it was that they really weren't experienced in Western households.  Often when I was in the room with them, I just felt uncomfortable, which is not something you want in your own house.  We hired Yaow when our previous nanny/maid, Boa left to return to Myanmar.  I was actually a bit sad when Boa left because while she sometimes frustrated the heck out of me, she actually worked very hard and had been the best we'd had up to this point. 

Yaow made me forget about Boa very quickly.  Prior to working for us, Yaow had worked for another falang-Thai family in Nichada for about eight years.  She speaks English pretty well, and is great with the kids.  One of the issues with nannies is that they often give the kids whatever the kids want.  They don't say no, in large part because they don't want the kids to complain to the parents about them.  Yaow will tell them no.  When she asks the girls to pick something up and they don't she will tell them that she's going to take it and keep it.  They believe her, because they always hurry to comply.  Yaow also helps a lot with the kids activities.  I trust her to take Aleena to swimming lessons and she will call Aleena's friends to arrange play dates. 

Tim and I are planning on going on a three day trip sometime in the spring to visit Angkor Wat.  We feel very comfortable leaving the kids with Yaow for a few days.  We are even going to try to bring her back to the U.S. when we visit this summer. That might be tough, but we'll see how it goes.

I was Jacob's cub scout den leader once again this year.  I'm not really a big outdoor kind of guy, and frankly don't really like doing the scout leadership thing.  Jacob likes me to be the den leader, and since he can be pretty excitable sometime, I figure its the best way for him to be a part of scouting.  I think the kids are enjoying it.  My Webelos I den has three kids who are very calm and easy to handle and three who are very energetic.  I'm not sure that I could manage if all six were "energetic". 

This year I also volunteered to be the assistant coach for Jacob's basketball team.  Mark McDermitt was the coach; he did all the planning, ran the practices and coached the games.  There is no doubt that he could have done it without me, but having me there helped with drills so he could split up the team.  At first I really didn't want to volunteer, but I felt like I should.  I often get that feeling, but usually suppress it, but this time I didn't.  Actually, it wasn't too bad.  There were a few times when we had a lot of practices and games in a week that I thought it was a bit too much, but for the most part it was a good experience. 

Once again I worked a program for Tim to manage her customer data.  This time we actually made some serious progress.  I had loaded the data and one of her employees, Sine (who also models for me) was testing it.  We were pretty close to rolling it out to the office when someone quit and Tim needed Sine to transition to that role temporarily.  Hopefully we can get this thing into production this year.  Every time I restart, I have to go back and try to remember what I did and why.  Its tough when you don't code in a while you learn as you go. 

I actually enjoyed going into the office this time though.  I'd usually come in after I finished working out, maybe arriving at 10:30.  Depending on the day, I might stay until 2:30 or as late as 5:00 p.m.  I'd have lunch with Tim if she was available.  If not, Sine and I would sometimes to to lunch.  She and I became friends due to working together on the program and her modeling for me.  Most people at my wife's office are respectful of me, but aren't comfortable because they don't speak English well (and my Thai is terrible) and I am married to the boss.  Status is really important here.  Part of the reason I liked to talk to Sine is that her English is pretty good, and she would joke around with me. 

So it was nice to have something to do, but not have a hard deadline to get it done.  It was also nice to get out of the house.  I mean, I would leave the house every day, and often go outside Nichada, but this gave me a reason to go out.