Thursday, February 21, 2013

The truth about having kids (what they don't tell you)

A typical morning on baby duty before Junior gets dropped off at daycare (pre-pre-kindergarten):

  • Up at six AM on my "sleep in day"
  • After one hour have not done by dooty
  • Have not brushed my teeth
  • Have not had breakfast
  • Had to chug my coffee
  • Got baby-yelled-at for not getting His Highness' breakfast ready quick enough
  • Got baby-yelled-at for not providing the appropriate selection
  • Sucked out big green boogies with a bulb
  • Had a wrestling match to change outfits; broke out in a cold sweat
  • Dog has not been fed; dog looks sad about it
 Also...
  • Got to play basketball and chase with Junior for 5 minutes
  • Got a hug
  • Got a toothy grin


Monday, February 18, 2013

Monday 4,500 yard distance swim

I made it to the pool for another solo workout today.  This one is good for long distance type triathletes coming off a leg busting weekend.  I didn't bust my legs but still am working on longer swims (2x per week instead of 3 shorter).



warm up: 1000 easy mix (stroke, drills, etc)
200 kick

main set:
1 x 1000 paddles moderate
50 easy kick
30 second rest
10 x 100 pull buoy moderate-hard :10 rest
50 easy kick
30 second rest
1 x 1000 paddles. this could be moderate to hard depending on your fitness.  I did it moderate-hard.
100 easy kick

cooldown: 100 easy swim

4,500 total.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Words Junior can say at 14 months

Before I forget forever here is a list of words Junior can say with definitive meaning, and roughly the month or so he was saying it.



Da - 8 months or so
Dadadadadada - What's that what's this look at this what's that I pooped etc - 8 months
Hi - 9 months a few times then none until 12 months or so
Ma - 10/11 months I think
Mama - 12 months
Da? - What's that - 12 months
Tah - Tassie - 11/12 months
Bah - Banana - 13 months
Bahma - Banana - 14 months
Baw - Ball - 13 months
Mah - Milk - 12 months
Meel - Milk - 13/14 months
Baa-bye - 13 months
Uh-oh - 13.5 months
Dawk - dog - 14 months


Baby tricks:
High 5 - 10 months
Where's your belly button? - 12 months
Where's your ear? - 13 months
Pound it (fist bump) - 14 months
Baby crying fits  - 13 months
Picking out his own shoes for the day - 14 months


Fighting crime in a superhero outfit- 14 months

We are having fun. :)

Monday, February 11, 2013

Today's 4,000 yd swim workout

In order to make the most of my free time, I am encouraging myself to swim more than 2,000 yards in a swim.  This is tough for me solo as I get bored having done this for 30+ years.  But, today We made it through.  In all it's boring glory:

Warm up:
800 easy mix of strokes
200 kick
--
Main set 5 x through
200 individual medley on :15 rest
300 pull moderate on :20 rest
--
cool down:
6 x 50 kick - odds fly on back evens flutter on :10
200 easy

4,000 total

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Taxes!

If you decide to get into small business and entrepreneurship, even if you just go with a sole proprietorship (non-incorporated) or small S-corporation like we do, you will have to deal with accounting and taxes.  These two subjects are major time drains and it is not really something you think about when calculating your billable hours.  It is work that doesn't earn you any money (unless you or your accountant work hard to find all your deductions, in which case it does pay to be diligent).

Now, you can throw all your receipts in a box and then hand it off to your accountant, but you have problems here. The major one is that your accountant doesn't really give a hoot if you pay the maximum or the minimum amount.  He will give lip service to finding you the best way to account for things but as a small business you're not paying much in fees - and you can expect about that sort of service in return.  Want diligence?  You have to pay for it and good accountants cost a pretty penny.  Or you can do it yourself.

Which gets us to our point.  I do all the accounting for our little enterprise.  To some extent I enjoy it because it gives me a different way of viewing our business.  But, it is also a pain in the butt.  I use Quickbooks for invoicing, bills, and payroll, which does help significantly, but when you get into tax-line mapping and classifications and ledger entries for vehicle mileage and then for Pete's sake, North Carolina REQUIRES a depreciation schedule for small businesses, it is intensely time consuming.  Just learning how to use the program correctly takes hours of practice and trial and error.

This year NC also wants to see how much of your gross was paid through online systems like Paypal.  So you have to keep meticulous track of that.  I hope you've figured out how to download reports and read them!

Again, this is not work that "makes" you money, but it can help save money by not overpaying or missing your deductions.

After I wrap up the business taxes I get the joy of moving onto our personal taxes.  This is much easier as we don't have a bunch of rental property or massive trading outside retirement funds, and we use Intuit Turbotax.  Between the two Intuit programs the cost does add up - Quickbooks advanced payroll subscription is $200+ a year and every three years they force a Quickbooks pgrade down your throat to continue using Payroll service.  The alternative is calculating all your paycheck deductions by hand, which is possible, but after analyzing the time-value of money, not worth it (for me, it might be for you).

I pay Bri and myself a salary as employees of our business, as the IRS looks at S-corps and expects major shareholders that also are involved in the operation to draw a salary.  The rest is paid out as dividends which is reported on a K-1.  We also issue 1099s to contracting coaches.

I could get totally geeked out on this subject but if you ever have questions about small business accounting, I probably have a decent answer for you.

Yeah, so, the point is, learn you good some basic accounting if you are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur.   It is more than just putting up a "open for business" sign.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Biking

The past couple of weeks have not been good for cycling.  Two weeks ago I was sick and only managed a one hour Sunday spin on my mountain bike.  Last week I got out for a decent 36 mile ride on Tuesday but then was bogged down with work and exhausted by a one year old who loves running in circles.  Fortunately it is still early in the year and my main races aren't for a while.

I planned to get out today but was tired, so I didn't get out.  Waah.  Maybe I'll jump on the trainer tonight after Junior Awesome hits the sack and watch some movies.  Or not.  It all depends.

Running and swimming have been fine and my general fitness is good.  Last week I got in 4 runs for a total of almost 21 miles.  The foot continues to feel fine, now I am back to working on the pace. 

In other news, I gave two presentations last week.  The first was at Inside Out Sports on the importance of base training.  The second was at the Endurance Magazine Lifestyle Expo on Half-Ironman Specific Training.  I'll post both as pdfs to the One Step Beyond articles section in the next couple of days.

We've also finalized our dates for swim clinics this year.

Feb 24 - Beginner swim clinic
Mar 30 - Powerstroke clinic
Apr 27 - Open water clinic
June 9 - Open water clinic
July 13 - Open water clinic
Aug 11 - Open water clinic
Oct 6 - Powerstroke clinic

You can sign up for any of these via our triathlon camps and swim clinics page.