I’m anal retentive. I like things to be neat and orderly. I like a clean house, which is why I try to go in my kids’ rooms as little as possible. When I was young I was really bad. Other people’s non-anal attitudes would drive me a little crazy, which in turn would drive me even more crazy for being driven crazy by it to begin with.

I’m actually better than I used to be, though, and I’m not so bad that I can’t handle a little disorder. My wife is decidedly not anal retentive, for instance. I try my best to not inflict my internal torture on her. So it is rare that I find other people’s habits driving me nuts these days.

Lately, though, there has been one habit that drives me nuts. It’s the tendency to use phrases like, “my friend” or “friend of the show.” I absolutely hate this and makes me want to throw my iPad or iPhone out a window every time I encounter it.

It has become common place among too many authors to refer to people they know as “my friend” before telling you about him. On a recent podcast, for instance, the speaker was talking about Fred Wilson, a well-known venture capitalist in New York. The speaker went out of his way to mention that he knew Fred, even though it had absolutely nothing to do with his point. Who cares, I screamed at my iPhone? Are you really so insecure that you need to tell the world you know this man?

In some cases, like when you are specifically promoting something of theirs, it is important to mention it. I usually do this in a footnote. From my perspective, this is full disclosure. But when you are quoting a person or relaying something that that person said or otherwise referencing that person for a thousand other reasons, it really should be omitted. It just comes across as egotistical.

I read a lot and often store up posts that I don’t have much to comment on personally but are excellent articles worth a read. I have more right now stored than I care to mention. This selection is business and technically-oriented. Here’s a few for the weekend:

• Fear of Flying by Dave McClure. I’ve never been much afraid to fail but it’s still good to be reminded every once in a while, to look in the mirror and ask oneself whether that’s still true.
• Unprofessionalism by Allen Pike. When we released powerOne version 4 we received a lot of negative feedback from staunch customers over the design. (We got a lot of positive feedback, too.) Some people were very respectful, saying they didn’t like it and even explaining why, which helped a ton as we developed version 4.1 (now in review). Some were very visceral, even calling for us to be fired. It’s easy to forget that there are people on the other end of that email, people doing the best they can, people who sometimes do the right thing and sometimes make mistakes. (via Daring Fireball)
• Christmas Gifts and the Meaning of Design by Ben Thompson. Ben looks at his favorite gift of all time, what it means from a design perspective, and how we can utilize that in our own products and services.
• On Delegation by John Cook. I came to the conclusion years ago that, when building a company, we should first hire for the things we are not good at or don’t want to do but need to be done. I also came to the conclusion that we know to fire someone when they are making extra work for me. John has a wonderful run-down on some decision points.
• Software Development in 2014 by Tim Bray. Exceptional, tight list of the state of software development in 2014.
• Understanding the Underbelly of Online Marketing by Mark Suster. One of the great business thinkers of our time, Mark dives into the seedy world of online marketing. Important to understand, even if you choose to say no.
• Wearability Is Not Enough by Michael Mace. Michael, a great thinker on technology topics, focuses on wearable computing and why he is a skeptic. I haven’t worn a watch since high school. Can’t imagine doing it now.
• Why Bitcoin Matters by Marc Andreessen. I’ve been trying to understand bitcoin for a while. Thanks to Marc, I do now. Very important read.

I weighed 220 pounds in May last year. That isn’t unusual. Before the bike riding season begins for me I often have weighed in the high 210s over the last dozen years. And I usually lose weight quickly once I started riding. 2013 was no exception. I dropped to 207 within a month or so. But then I was stuck. That has never happened before. Usually I drop to 202 or so and then stick there.

It’s not that I liked being even that heavy but I hadn’t been motivated before to lose extra weight. Sure, I thought about 185 as if it was some long ago dream like my baseball career, but really didn’t focus on losing weight as a goal.

In the fall that all changed. My wife lost too much weight after teeth extractions and braces so started tracking calories to make sure she was getting enough. She suggested I do it with her.

I wrote about the start of the process back in November, about the switch that flipped in my brain the minute I started tracking. I couldn’t let the system win. I had to always be in the green (I under-ate my calorie goal). I had to exercise more so I could eat more.

I’m proud to announce that I blew through my goal of 195 and sit today at 190, exactly two months after writing that first post. Officially I’ve lost 30 pounds.

A few things I learned along the way:

• As I said, the key was tracking food intake. Once I did that everything else fell into place. I wanted to exercise more so I could eat more. I was motivated to get to the gym, which I have done six days per week since.
• Tracking food is hard and impossible to really do accurately. MyFitnessPal makes it easier as it has many foods already and found, in many cases, that there was always something close. But we measured and food scaled our way throughout the process.
• It has saved us money. We eat less food, we go out less often.
• Speaking of eating out, this is the most dangerous thing to do when trying to lose weight. The portions are ridiculous and riddled with heavy calorie stuff that makes it taste really good. Luckily, we only eat out (or bring in) once a week, plus lunch meetings (at which I eat a lot more caesar salads then I used to). Also, iced tea is your friend! (No calories without sugar.)
• Vegetables and meats have low calories; pastas are the worst. Planning is the key. If it is spaghetti for dinner than I better get to the gym, do a solid work out, and eat low calorie meals for breakfast and lunch.
• I can’t eat as much now as I used to. I get full quicker.
• I found that I eat a lot of the same foods, partly because they are easy to track and partly because I know the caloric impact on my day. Staples include Chex cereal or a couple of eggs for breakfast, yogurt with a banana or smoothies or humus with flat bread at lunch, plenty of vegetables which have almost no calories. I like a big dinner so try to save calories for it.
• I didn’t track things like cholesterol before starting this, but I’ve been very happy to note that my count has been below my goal every week. Sugar, though? Forget it. Everything has tons of sugar in it, which is likely why diabetes is so common. I’m actually looking forward to my next blood test as my cholesterol has been high for a while. It will be interesting to see if it drops.
• The best lesson I learned, though, is that I can eat cookies and candy and chips. Again, planning is key. A lighter breakfast and lunch, a solid dinner, enough exercise, and there was plenty of room for a couple of cookies or a few chips in the evening.

I am reaching the end for now. My body is telling me to slow up and let it recover. I get cold more easily than I used to and I have had a couple of dizzy spells and headaches for no specific reason. My body is sore from all the exercise. But overall my energy is way up and I’m not embarrassed to change in the locker room anymore.

As my wife has said to me on more than one occasion, “Food doesn’t taste as good as skinny feels.”

A week and a day ago I had surgery on my nose [1]. I had both septoplasmy to fix a deviated septum and turbinate reduction surgery. Turbinates are in the nose and help to filter, warm and humidify the air before it passes through to the lungs.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been unable to breath well through my nose, and it has gotten worse as I’ve gotten older. The good doctor told me that the turbinates swell for two reasons. First, a deviated septum causes more air flow through one nostril than the other so the turbinate on the non-herniated side grows to handle the extra flow. Second, untreated allergies have an effect. I’ve had allergy problems as far back as I can remember and in the 1970s and 1980s there was no good medical treatment except remove the offending allergen. With the rise of nasal sprays in the 1990s it became a lot easier to treat and control.

The surgery was under general anesthesia. I remember them wheeling me into the operating room, I remember him telling me he was starting the flow of drugs and then… it was that fast. I woke up in recovery, very groggy and not thinking at all. I slept on and off for a while, having some problems as every time I’d fall asleep my blood oxygen level would drop too far and the alarms would go off, waking me up. Eventually I realized that sleeping on my back was part of the problem and it stopped happening when I rolled on my side, so they sent me home to bleed in piece.

They gave me all kinds of stuff: gauze for under my nose, a little rolled up mask to keep it in place, pain medication, an antibiotic, and anti-nausea medication. They gave me crackers and breathing stuff (because of the blood oxygen levels) and other things, too. I took the antibiotic but never needed the pain or nausea medications [2].

The bleeding lasted about 24-36 hours, at which point it mixed with and slowly turned to a steady stream of mucus, which did slow up as the week progressed but never truly stopped. It mostly sounded and felt like I had a head cold. I also used a nasal irrigation system throughout the week, spraying a water/mild salt solution up my nose to keep things cleaned out. I thought this would be horrible. It wasn’t.

The biggest problem I had was eating and brushing my teeth. Can’t breath and chew in the same orifice, it turns out. So I would have to hold my breath, chew, chew, chew, gasp for breath as I ran out of oxygen. More than once my family laughed at me. It was pretty comical.

After one week (yesterday) I returned to the doctor who took out a stitch, removed the stints (packing) from my nose and checked things out. He said it looked great in there and immediately my nose cleared up. The amount of air was almost overwhelming. There was so much oxygen that it almost hurt, maybe the best pain I’ve ever felt. It was awesome! I have a little swelling today, which he said is normal and will pass in the next couple of days, but I can breath through my nose better than I could before the surgery even still.

As for work, I took off three days through the weekend and then worked a partial day on Monday. Tuesday, though, was mostly full-time again although I was very tired the next couple of days. For exercise I was able to walk a little but am very restricted. No weights or bending exercises, no swimming, so I am mostly on the elliptical right now or walking, although I don’t have the stamina to go very long or far. I’ve dialed back the intensity, too, and will build back up over the next couple of weeks.

If you are considering such a surgery I want you to know that it wasn’t too bad, especially after the first two days. I can tell you that breathing through my nose decently for the first time in my life, though, was well worth every second.

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[1] I appear to only have surgery in years that are divisible by 10. I had cancer surgery at 20, again at 30, and now nasal surgery at 40. Outside of a few extracted teeth, I have never otherwise had surgery, local or general anesthesia.

[2] Except amusement park rides I rarely feel nauseous. And as for pain, I have a high tolerance. I once, after surgery a decade ago, had a stitch put through a nerve. That pain would leave me crumpled on the floor, stars in my eyes, but I didn’t take the pain medication. Given that, I never even felt the slightest twinges of pain with this surgery.

While the calendar has added a a year, the headaches and heartaches that ended 2013 continue. The last couple of weeks of the year are always painful for me. We did finish some things up and got ready for a new year, but the lingering issues about money and survival continue. Making matters worse, pretty much everything stops for two to three weeks while the holidays progress. Just like last year, this year I get a couple of weeks to fret about my position while there is little I can do about it.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the holidays, even though I didn’t truly take much time off. I spent time with my kids, time that has been sorely lacking lately as I’ve been running like a chicken with my head cut off, and spent time cleaning up before the new year. While I worked, I worked more humanly sane hours, not the 14-15 hour days I was putting in before. I literally have a clean slate right now as I shipped powerOne version 4.0 to Apple just after the new year. We are just waiting on approval now. The goal is to find the next contract work to start in February while getting the first beta of Equals out in January.

While I had a little down time I also scheduled some surgery I’ve been avoiding for almost ten years now. Last week I had surgery on my nose, fixing a deviated septum and enlarged turbinates. I haven’t been able to breath through my nose for years. Now at least I have hope. The first 48 hours were pretty miserable but now it feels like a bad cold (with the lethargy to go with it). I hope, in the next few days, I should be back to normal.

I know this is rambling and not exactly the uplifting, beginning-of-the-year, rested-and-ready-to-get-back-to-work post I’m supposed to write. Just because the calendar changed doesn’t mean the fears and pressures did.