Let the adventure begin!

West of House

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.

There is a small mailbox here. (Zork I, Infocom)

AT END OF ROAD

You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully. (Adventure PDP-10 (Colossal Cave Adventure))

For most techies/geeks/nerds, you will recognize these lines as the start of two classic adventure games. I first played these adventures in the late 70s, early 80s, one on my Apple II+, the other on a teletype connected to our district's PDP-11. To successfully complete the adventure you have to navigate your way through the developers universe, completing a series of puzzles, quests, riddles, challenges or battles, figuring out which way to go next, and collecting the tools and artifacts along the way that you need to be successful.

This morning I will begin my next adventure - the start of my career at Best Buy. And in a similar fashion to the classic adventure games, I will need to navigate my way through, leveraging the tools and information that I find to solve the challenges, puzzles, and opportunities I encounter along the way, to be successful. With this knowledge I will build a map that will help me find my way through. There will be paths that lead in the right direction and others that I might have to backtrack from, challenges that stretch me, puzzles that may stump me, but pulling from my knowledge and experience and working with my colleagues I will find the right path to reach success.

I am joining Best Buy's Global Business Services team as a Program Director, focused on leading initiatives to support business opportunities through technology. Something that I am passionate about. During my interview process I had a chance to meet several great people, each sharing that same passion. I look forward to getting in and learning the business and to begin working with those individuals and the rest of the GBS team, and other Best Buy teams. I look forward to sharing my knowledge and experiences with the team and to engage in the continued development of GBS and the services it offers the Best Buy enterprise.

You are standing in a parking lot, in front of a large brown building.

> Let the adventure begin!

Week 13: The other part of David 2.0 - Professional Transformation

Project David 2.0 consists of two components - physical transformation and professional transformation. Up to this point I've focused my blog on the personal transformation aspect, but have been working quietly on the professional transformation. Today we get caught up on both parts!

Personal Transformation

Yesterday marked the end of week 13, and also 3 months of David 2.0. My total weight loss at this point is 33.6 po

unds of my original 61.6 pound goal. Look for that target number to change (increase) after the first of the year. I have also logged 142.26 miles on the treadmill over the last 46 days. It wasn't put of my original plan but I will be setting a mileage goal for this project as well. All is going well, and I continue to be amazed at the difference that those pounds are making.

Professional Transformation

The other leg of this project was the professional side. The goal was to figure out where I wanted to be professionally. I've spent the past 10 years as an IT consultant, focused on project and program management. It has been very rewarding and I have been fortunate to be a part of many business changing initiatives, but over the last year or two I have felt something missing. I started to focus more on my big picture - that is, what am I looking for in the long term? Where do I want to go professionally? What is it that I enjoy doing the most, and what do I need to do to get there.

I had decided that one thing that I missed was seeing the long-term benefits of a project that I implemented. Many times I've gone in to do a project, then following the launch, my contract is up and I move on. Never seeing the full results of what we did or having the chance to continue to improve, or update the solution. In order to do that I felt I needed to transition from a consultant role to an employee role. Ok, I can be good with that. So the next question, where do I want to work? I've been interested in Best Buy for the last couple of years. Why? Well, my wife has worked there for almost 10 years and loves it, I am a big fan of the products, it's a big company, it's a technology company, and they are in the midst of their own "IT transformation". Many of the reasons that I got into technology in the first place. In August, as I was in the midst of thinking about all of this and starting David 2.0, I received a LinkedIn message from Jonathan Kidder, Best Buy Social Media Manager for HR Recruiting, letting me know Best Buy was in the midst of hiring IT people as part of this transformation. A couple of days later I received a tweet from @bestbuy_it_jobs saying the same thing. It took me a week or so to follow the link and look at the current openings. Once I did I saw one or two positions of interest and connected with Jonathan. That led to Jonathan connecting me with one of the recruiters for GBS, which led to me applying, several rounds of interviews, and to last Friday where I received and accepted an offer to join Best Buy's GBS team. I'll be starting right after Thanksgiving.

The first 90 days of Project David 2.0 have gotten off to a very successful start. While it has only been a short journey so far, and there is much more to go, it has been very exciting and very rewarding. I am excited about the new doors that have opened and the challenges and rewards that they will bring. I look forward to continuing to share my progress and success as Project David 2.0 continues.

Week 12: Major milestone - more flour

Why is this man smiling? Because today marks 12 weeks on Project David 2.0, and as of today I have lost 30.8 pounds. That means two things. First, it's time for another bag of flour. Second, I am officially at the half way mark of my original goal of 61.6 pounds. That goal will be increasing.

Holding those 3 bags of flour I continue to be amazed at how big those 30 pounds are. I can set those down, but 12 weeks ago, it was part of me. I can't even being to imagine what another 30 or 50 pounds is going to look like.

What have been the keys so far? Diet, exercise, and water. I continue to use the myfitnesspal app and web site to track everything (almost) that I eat and record my exercise. I continue to make smart food choices, and continue to avoid things like soda or Halloween candy. As for exercise, on September 30th I started walking on the treadmill. Averaging 50 minutes and close to 3 miles a night. I have walked 116.12 miles since I started. I did not set a goal for walking during this project, but maybe I will. We'll see. The other key is water. My daily is 12-16 8oz glasses of water. I've found it is much easier to get all of my water in during the week. I take two 32 oz water bottles to work each morning and they are both easily gone by the middle of the afternoon. Drinking another one in the evening is no problem. On the weekends for whatever reason, I struggle to get all of my water in.

In the next couple of weeks (before Thanksgiving) I am going to go in and have my A1C tested to see if this loss has made a difference yet. I have to believe it will.

The challenges will be coming over the next several weeks - Thanksgiving and Christmas. Around here, like for most of you, it is a feeding frenzy. It's going to take a lot of will power to manage my portions. I love the foods that my family prepares for these holidays. But I am also loving how the first 30 pounds gone feels!