Happy New Year!

Wow, I can't believe 2009 came and went as quickly as it did. It was a very good year in most respects, other than cycling and fitness in general. Let's start out with the good though. 2009 was a good year for me professionally as I received a great promotion at work. That did contribute to a much busier schedule with more time spent away from home. I went back and counted all my trips up from the past year and it worked out to be 45 nights away from home. Add to that a couple vacations with Jackie plus some weekend trips and I was away for around 65 nights last year. The travel can definitely take its toll, but I've really gotten used to it over the past years and whenever I think I have it rough I just think about my cousin Dave's travel schedule. I think he's spent 45 days away from home in a single month before:).

Another great thing that happened this year was our move at work to a new (to us) facility. The building we were in just wasn't the right place for us; poor layout, needed tons of work. After about 14 months of working through environmental issues we finally closed at the end of September. Our goal was to be in by the end of the year. This meant many nights and weekends spent at the new place helping out, then moving loads of stuff once it was time to move. It turned out great though as we began operating out of the new place this past Monday, the 28th. Our new place is really nice; with beautiful offices, a much better layout and plenty of room for expansion.

I've documented most of the fun stuff we've done this year on here, though I've been absent lately with any sort of updates. Since my last post we did have a great weekend up in Traverse City for the Iceman. As we've done the past three years, we rented a large vacation home so some people could stay with us and we hosted a large pasta dinner the night before the race for most of our team members and many other friends. That turned out great, as did the race day. This was the first time in three years I didn't race, but it was a lot of fun just being up there hanging out with everyone. There was a huge turnout this year, around 4500 racers so knowing the campground would be packed at the finish area we rented a campsite for the day of the race to set up our Ez-Up tents, do some grilling, make a campfire, etc. That worked out great as we had a big crowd of teammates and other friends hanging out all day.

The rest of November and December were basically consumed by work with some family activities thrown in there, including my sister-in-law Amy's graduation on December 18th. Congratulations Amy.

Now, getting back to my negatives for 2009, specifically my lack of riding and deteriorating fitness. That's my main goal going forward, to reverse that. We made a big step forward earlier in December. In place of buying each other Christmas gifts this year, Jackie and I bought an elliptical trainer and a spin bike as a gift to ourselves. We've turned our computer room into a mini gym with both of those in there, as well as my flat bench and Powerblocks. It really gives me a ton of opportunities to get some good workouts in. So far it seems to be working. Since we go everything on the 15th of December I've used it every day except for one. Now I just need to keep it up.

Looking into 2010, I think it's going to be a great year. You see all these articles and ads promoting New Year's resolutions, stating "New Year, New You". I read something the other day that said it better in my opinion, "New Year, Better You". That's what I'm going to focus on. I don't need a new me, I need to focus on the good parts and improve the parts of me that need it.

So Happy New Year. Hopefully yours was as fun as ours. We spent the evening with my family; had a great dinner courtesy of Amy and Sergio, had a blast playing the Wii Fit (even mom and dad gave it a shot, and toasted the New Year with a great bottle of champagne. Jackie took the picture above of the champagne. We bought that in Paris almost 2 1/2 years ago and were saving it for a special occasion. It was fun to open it up and share it with our family (other than Hayley, she got sparkling apple juice).

Here's to 2010 and a better me (and you).