Life Equilibrium

As the saying goes, “Old Chemists never die, they merely reach equilibrium.”

I think in some respects I’ve reached my new equilibrium with work/play/live/drive/run. As you’re probably aware, I and my entire office were laid off on March 31 of this year as G&O shut down the Atlanta Office. I was picked up by Moreland Altobelli exactly four weeks later and I continue to do the traffic engineering thing. The changes since March 31 involved:

  • 4 weeks of doing whatever the heck I wanted to which were immediately followed by 4 weeks of getting used to a new job, new coworkers, new ways of doing things
  • Longer commute, with consequently less time for other activities
  • Ramping up my Ironman training
  • Shifting my sleep schedule to an hour earlier wake up

During all this time, we were also significantly committed to assisting some friends of ours first prepare and then move into their first home.

Now it’s the first week of June. I believe I’m getting used to waking at 5:15 AM, even though I don’t like it, plus the commute is only bad in the evenings1. I’m starting to get into the flow of my workout routine which had suffered for the past month. Now it’s on to doing some of the work on the house that needs to be done.

Things have changed a bit in my mindset. I can say that the difference in commute times is making me less willing to drive around town more than I have to. I’m already spending approximately two hours in a car everyday; I don’t like to add on to that unnecessarily. I’m also less willing to interrupt scheduled events for spontaneous items. That’s something that I’ll have to be mindful of. I don’t want to turn into a schedule nazi.

There are upsides to this equilibrium. You should start to see more blog posts out of me and maybe even a Talking Traffic episode or three. I will also stop feeling as guilty for neglecting my yard.

All hail my new equilibrium!


1: Although I have three times now just barely dodged2 a morning crash that shut down the interstate lanes I was using.

2: By “barely dodged” I mean that I drove through the area within 10 minutes of the crash. Nothing more exciting than that.

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