Passion and Motivation

---2/21/18

So I really am terrible about this 'regular writing' business. Oh well. How about I just post as often as I can instead?
Anyway, last night I had the opportunity to attend an event celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the University of Utah's Master of Healthcare Administration program. The event was pretty fancy and I felt very out of place at first.

Luckily for me, I didn't have to do much. One of the current students recognized that I had an alumni name tag and came over to me. He was hopeful I could inspire him with my success story about how my MHA has really paid off in the real world. Boy was he surprised when I let him down. I'm just a regular Joe working as a health inspector. Well, I guess there is some relevance--I am currently Lab Director at the health department. This means I supervise 1 single employee, and when the State comes to do an audit, my butt is on the line--at least metaphorically. Anyway, I chatted with a few up-and-comings for a bit, and then saw a few former classmates enter the hall--even an old friend. The chat with my friend was interrupted by dinner (how dare they!) and then the program. The food was delicious, and despite my best efforts to load up on veggies and limit breads, etc. I still over ate, and then enjoyed the cheesecake that was in front of me. I have no self control. For those of you who don't know, I don't really care for cheesecake. So why did I eat it? Because it was small, looked decent enough, and the kid sitting next to me said it was amazing. Well, I had to at least taste amazing. He was right. It was light and fluffy, and the fresh berries gave it the perfect amount of flavor. "But you hate berries!" Yes, at least most of the time, I don't care for berries. But this cheesecake was delicious.

Enough about the food though--it was only a small part of the overall wonderful evening. 

----October 13, 2020. I decided to resurrect this Blog, and I discovered this draft. Since it's been 2.5 years since I started, I don't have a clue as to what else I was going to say. Oh well...

Unintended Consequences

So I am currently in a bit of an obsessive health kick. At this moment I am in 5 different health challenges trying to whip myself into shape. I try to get others to join me so they can encourage me to keep going—so there’s someone watching me, so to speak. Well, we’re only 2 days into a step challenge that I started with some friends. Not as many joined as I hoped, but still there’s a group. Well, last night I wanted to kick off this challenge with a bang so I went 3 miles on the treadmill after having a fairly slow day at work. I took a picture of the treadmill display and then one of my sweaty face. I then posted those to social media—again for people to subliminally encourage me. Well, tonight I got a text from my wife’s little sister that is in this group challenge.




Apparently, my efforts to keep myself on track are helping others. This meant a lot to me. I don't really know how to put it words, but just perhaps I may help others along the way. As much as I'm in this for my own personal benefit, if I can 'inspire' others along the way, nothing would make me happier. Thanks Leslie!

Happy New Year 2018!

It's hard to believe that it has been a year and a half since I started this Blog Journal. I had grand intentions of writing just whenever I felt like I had something to say. I've thought about writing many many times, and just never did apparently. Well, I decided to make it a goal of this year to write at least once a week--or at least average it out to that. So, I'm hoping that by Dec. 31, 2018 this Journal of mine will have more than 50 posts.

Since I'm already on the topic of New Year's Goals, I guess I should share the rest of what I came up with today. The first is a modification of a goal I had for 2017. My goal for 2017 was to take more than 3,000,000 steps during the year. That comes out to a little more than 8,000 steps per day. The American Heart Association says we should try to get 10,000 steps per day. So I thought 8,000 would be a good start. Well, I'm happy to announce that I did--well at least most likely. According to my FitBit, I took just over 2,500,000 steps during the year, with 10 weeks of blank data (my first FitBit died, and it took some time to replace it). So, if I figure 500,000 steps shy of my goal, with 10 weeks of missing data, I would have needed an average of 50,000 steps per week, or about 7,000 per day. This is much less than what I averaged the rest of the year, so statistically, I made it! Now, since I accomplished my goal of 3,000,000 steps last year, I'm upping my goal to 3,500,000 steps this year. This comes out to about 9500 steps per day.

My next goal for the year is to win/complete every health challenge I participate in during the year. I'll provide a little back story to that one another day.

Last year I had the wish of losing 20 during the course of the year. Well, that didn't happen. Why? Because it was a wish. Besides, I have no idea what I weighed at the beginning of the year, so there was no way to measure it. This year, my goal is to weigh less than 180 lbs on New Years Eve Day 2018.

The next goal is also health related, but may be a little more difficult to achieve, since I don't know the underlying factors. The goal is to get my 'cholesterol' closer to normal. I put cholesterol there to encompass the wide variety of related issues. Currently, my triglycerides are off the charts; my good cholesterol is low, and my bad cholesterol is high. So, without knowing the inherent reasons behind those numbers, I'm going to try to regulate them better.

The last goal I wrote today was to end 2017 without any credit card debt. Now, we do a pretty good job of keeping our debt under control, but I'd like to take it to the next step. We currently let our cards accrue debt throughout the year, and then when we get our income tax return, we pay them off. I'd like to end the year without any debt, so that our tax return can be put toward something else.

So, on that note, I am going to bed now. Good Night, and wish me luck!

The Story Behind the Name

Yes, I am the highly educated idiot. Now before you get all excited about my self esteem, you should know that I actually think fairly highly of myself. I understand full well that we are human and that we all make mistakes. On that note, however, you should know that I am a perfectionist. There are areas in my life where I think I should not make mistakes--or certain kinds of mistakes. When I do make those kinds of mistakes, I (sometimes audibly) call myself an idiot. I don't remember the exact moment the name came to mind, but I believe it was one day a year or so ago when my education and been brought up, and that same day I made one of those 'idiot' mistakes. For quite a while I kept the term to myself, then one day I up and changed my Instagram username to thehighlyeducatedidiot. Then today I decided to start writing a journal, and what better name for it?

Okay, now for specifics. 

Highly Educated:

In 2008 I earned a Bachelors degree in Biology with minors in Chmeistry and Spanish. In 2009 I turned that Spanish minor into a Bachelors degree in International Studies. At the time I thought I wanted to become a doctor. Then during the winter of 2009-2010 it became quite clear I was not destined for a life in medicine (story to come in later post), and ended up going to grad school instead of medical school. And so in 2012 I finished a dual Masters program and walked away with Masters degrees in Public Health (MPH) and Healthcare Adminstration (MHA). Thus I have two Masters degrees, two Bachelors degrees, and two Minors--some might call that highly educated.

Idiot:

The main example that comes to mind is the difference between a percent and a degree. I work as a health inspector, and the bulk of my time is spent permitting and inspecting septic systems. One requirement for a septic system is to stay at least 50' back from a slope 35% or greater. I have a device called a clinometer that measures the slope of the ground. For years I've been using this device, and making estimations from experience determining the suitability of a lot. After about three years of determining the slope of the ground, my boss said something that made me realize that a 35% slope is very different from a 35° slope. 35° is quite steep. 35% really isn't. Now, I don't think I ever allowed somebody to build a septic system on too steep of a slope, but I realized my initial estimations of some lots were way off. I was rather ashamed to admit (to my boss no less) that I had never made the connection. Anyway--it is stuff like that where I should not be making such silly mistakes.