Summer is in full swing, and it almost passed my blog right on by. I kept meaning to post, and now I’m going it! The best intentions are not worth much without action.

When last we spoke, I was about to go to level 2 teacher training with Baron Baptiste. I went, and it was awesome. I’m back, and I’m continuing to work. Being a practitioner and teacher of yoga are both never ending. There is always something to learn, a new experience, and something bigger available at each moment.

Since then I have also changed jobs! I accepted a software engineering position at Google. Yes, the Google. I’m working at the Seattle office, which is about 2.5 miles from my house, making for an awesome 7 – 10 minute commute. I went down to Mountain View, CA for orientation. That was pretty fun. I spent one evening in San Francisco and got to meet up with some friends that I had met turing my teacher training in May.

And, I’m very excited to announce that beginning on August 28th, I will be teaching at 4:30pm on Saturday afternoons at Shakti Vinyasa Yoga (Seattle)! See you on the mat!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the power of intention. Working with an intention is something that we do regularly in Yoga practice, and one of the items that I teach during our intro class. This week I had a big awakening in regards to intention.

Intention has to be present with you and intention must be something you are putting into action, right now. This is my point of growth.  I was thinking if I just got clear about what my intention is, that things will fall into place. And that just isn’t how it works. Intention requires work, intention requires action.

Setting a goal is different. Setting a goal can be having an expectation. I recently fell short on reaching a personal goal, and it was partly because my intention was in the wrong place. By setting an intention about where I thought I needed to be to reach my goal, I missed out on a great opportunity to be present with what was actually happening. Had my intention been in the right place, I might be further along.

The lesson for me is to get clarity on where things stand. To set intentions from where I am, and not from where I want to be, think I should be, or my goals. If the intention is clear and present, it can be put into action. Setting an intention that can’t be put into action, lead me to feel a bit unfulfilled.

Time flies when you are having fun! Today is day 4 of our 40 days to a personal revolution.  That means 36 days to go, and for me, 29 days until I leave for level 2 teacher training.

Since I stopped eating meat a few days early, I’m at 6 days without eating meat. I think I’m at 6 days without caffeine (maybe 5), and 4 days without (or very limited) sugar intake. I’ve found that 100% eliminating sugar is nearly impossible. Sugar, or some kind of syrup is in everything. Now, corn syrup and especially HFCS are right out, not having those at all. I’m trying to prefer things sweetened with honey first. I found some locally produced bread that is sweetened with honey. When that isn’t available, I have regular bread. For teacher training, I am going to have to switch to Ultima Replinisher (instead of Gatorade), but that isn’t a big deal. So, being truthful.  I can’t realistically eliminate 100% of my sugar intake, but I’m being very conscious about what I do intake.

I was thinking about why I’m doing this (the diet portion at least). And, to me, this isn’t about sacrificing things, it isn’t about sacrifice at all. This is about living a more balanced life. I’m not “giving up” meat during these 40 days, I’m adding a whole new list of healthy, vegetarian meals to my diet. I’m not sacrificing my free time for meditation and Yoga practice. I’m using those tools to achieve more balance in my life. The (twice) daily meditation practice is a little difficult. I’m still working on that routine. The daily Yoga practice is awesome! I’m at 5 days in a row right now.  6th day tonight, day off on Friday, and then 7 days straight before my next day of rest.

If we are counting days, yesterday wasn’t really Day 1. It was the organizational meeting. Today is the real day 1 for our 40 days program.

So far, so good. I haven’t eaten meat since lunch on Friday. As a consequence, I’ve learned that I like Halibut. Well, I like Halibut when Ray’s Cafe cooks it.

Today, I went for the 6:15am Yoga class.  And, now I think it is time to go to bed!

Today is day 1 of going through the 40 Days to a Personal Revolution program. I started the day with some hot water with lemon and honey (part of the diet recommendations from Journey into Power) and Cheerios. We went to the 9:30 class this morning. I wanted get started with a practice day, rather than a rest day.

At the meeting today, we were given a choice of 4 categories, CATS. Caffeine, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Sugar. Of these 4, we were to choose one (or more) to give up for 40 days. Since I don’t smoke, giving up Tobacco wasn’t a sacrifice. I have cut back my caffeine intake quite a bit, and I only drink alcohol once a week. So, neither of those would be much of a sacrifice. This leaves me with sugar. I’m giving up all 4 of the items (well, 3 + tobacco).  On top of this, I am giving up meet on my own.

After the meeting, we went grocery shopping… and it is hard to find food that doesn’t contain sugar! I was looking at granola, and pretty much all of the granola contains sugar of some kind. Then bread, almost all of the bread contains sugar. I found a loaf of bread with honey instead of sugar.

That’s where I stand halfway through day 1. The yoga 6 days a week isn’t going to be a problem, but finding enough food without sugar is going to be a problem.

From my previous post, you know that our journey through 40 Days To a Personal Revolution begins tomorrow. I got some things in line today

I started the day with 8am Yoga. I admit it, I love practicing first thing on a Saturday morning. It is a great way to let go of the previous week and transition to the weekend. At 9:45, I assist the level 1.5 class. Today was the first day that I got to teach during this class. It was great! My opportunity in teaching is to “stop trying and start doing.” this has been a progression for me. At this point, I am ou. Of my own head enough that when I am teaching, things are just flowing. This is a recent development, but it is kind of awesome.

During the 40 days program, I have decided to eat vegetarian. Not necessarily giving up meat, but rather bringing in some more healthy choices into my diet. I started that today!

Tomorrow, things start off with a meeting at Shakti west. I’m going to practice before the meeting, knowing that I will be setting myself up for 8 consecutive days of practice.

I know there are going to be challenges along the way. Specifically, I am worried about 4 full days of flying that I’m doing in the next 40 days. We are going to Cincinnati and back, and I’m going to Mexico and back during the program. The Yoga and diet items will be taken care of during teacher training.  For Cincinnati and back, the Yoga schedule is going to be difficult. But no excuses. I’m committed to the program, I will make it work.

Starting April 11th, we will be participating in the 40 Days to a Personal Revolution program at Shakti. I’ve found excuses last year not to participate, but this year, I’m all in! The program is based on Baron Baptiste’s book of the same title, 40 Days to a Personal Revolution.

This means that we will be practicing Yoga six days a week, meditating morning and night, and attending weekly meetings with the whole group.  I have no idea how many people are participating, but I guess we will find out on Sunday.

I’m also a bit excited about the last week of the program, because starting on May 14th, I will be in Tulum, Mexico for level 2 teacher training with Baron Baptiste. I think it will be a great way to end the 40 days program.

So, a few weeks ago, I went to SIGCSE 2010.  You already heard about my travel issues getting there.  On the way, I made it to Minneapolis.  From Minneapolis, we made it to Madison, where we circled, and eventually to Detroit.  This was not my destination, Milwaukee.  I spent the night on the floor of the Detroit airport.  This marks the 3rd time that I’ve had an airport sleepover.  The others were Chicago, and Manchester, UK (where I paid for a hotel room since I had almost 24 hours to spend there).

Instead of arriving on Wednesday night, I arrived on Thursday morning.  This caused me to miss the first keynote speaker, but after a nap, I still made it to lunch.  On Thursday we had the first timer’s lunch.  I was attending as an “old-timer.”  All of the committee members did this, and we shared our wisdom with the first timers.

After that, I mostly just attended sessions. Thursday evening, I went out and had drinks with some of my colleagues from Miami. Friday, more sessions, and a Yoga class at Yama Yoga in Milwaukee.  Saturday morning, I lost my wallet. Luck for me, I lost it in the conference center, it was immediately found by security, and the conference chair has known me for 13 years (I got it back quickly).

I stayed late Saturday night for the committee handoff dinner, and then headed back to Seattle on Sunday morning. I arrived at the Milwaukee airport at like 4:25am, 5 minute before the security lines even opened. My flight to Minneapolis was quick, and then from Minneapolis to Seattle, our plane was upgraded to an A330 (quite a bigger plane). The best part about this, free on-demand movies! By Sunday afternoon, I was home and then practicing Yoga at Shakti.

So – conference summary. There was an increased presence of parallel computing papers and sessions. This was a welcome development. As someone who interviews a lot of candidates, I don’t see enough people with good parallel / multi-threaded programming skills. When I (hopefully some day soon) make it back to academics, I will consider some of the parallel first approaches to programming.

Mostly, I enjoyed being in the conference environment again. This was the first major conference that I’ve been to since OOPSLA 2007 (Montreal). I will be back at SIGCSE 2011 (I am the conference Webmaster again). Our Web site is up and running already, visit us at http://www.sigcse.org/sigcse2011/.

All of my pictures from SIGCSE 2010 are on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/39245109@N05/sets/72157623597468116/

I left Seattle 16 hours ago, but I’m still not in Milwaukee.  My first flight arrived on time, I enjoyed my first visit to Minneapolis.  Second flight took off on time, but then we started circling.  We spent about 45 minutes circling above madison Wisconsin, only to find out that we can’t land in Milwaukee.  It was too foggy there, and the transponder on the ground was, well, broken.  So they fired up the engines, and we headed to Detroit.   We landed in Detroit around 11:30pm (EST at this point).   Luckily, they are going to turn the plan around at 8:30 am and try again for Milwaukee. With the time difference, we should get there just after 8:30am.

Now, I just have to see if the shuttle agency honors my reservation and payment from last night.  And, more importantly, see if my luggage arrives.  I was forced to check my luggage at the last minute due to the overhead bins being full.  I just want to put this out there for the airlines: I would give up the privilege of carrying on a bag, if you let me check it for free.  Just saying.

And now to McDonald’s.  Delta gave out meal vouchers, good for $7 towards breakfast at the airport.  McDonald’s was the first to open this morning, so I went there. I ordered a meal that should have been about $5.  After getting my food, and looking at the receipt, I saw that they had upsized my meal to get it as close to $7 as possible.  They made my meal a large and added an extra hash brown.  I don’t know if they do this to everyone, but one or all, it is unethical.  Sorry McDonald’s, I’ll be calling your corporate office and Delta’s corporate office when I get a chance.  This behavior is not truthful and is not ethical.  If it is a one time thing, great, now you know it happened.  It it is systematic, then I hope you will address it.

Ok – back to setting in the airport.

For the last 15 or so months, I’ve been the Webmaster for SIGCSE 2010 (http://www.sigcse.org/sigcse2010).  SIGCSE stands for the Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education.  Most of my publications are in the computer science education area, so I’m excited to be able to go.  I’ve never actually had a publication at SIGCSE, but have had 2 conference papers at ITICSE 2007 (associated conference) and have had a publication in the SIGCSE bulletin.

Since I do hope to shift my career back to academics at some point, I’m also going to be on the look out for CS departments that are hiring. Maybe there is a need for someone with my background

Being the Webmaster for a conference is a lot of work. Requests for updates come from a lot of different people, and there is just a lot of information to collect, parse, format, and post (all at the right times). Apparently I enjoyed doing it, because I am performing the same role next year.  I’ve already go the 2011 site up and running, http://www.sigcse.org/sigcse2011.

I’ve got a full Yoga schedule tonight, but I’ll be flying out tomorrow and enjoying the west of the week at the symposium! I’ve even found a Yoga class to check out when I’m in Milwaukee.

Well – in December, I completed the Baptiste Level 1 Teacher Training in Mexico. It was an awesome experience, made even more awesome by attending as a couple. There is so much more I could say about this training, but I’m not going to. If anyone out there ever goes through this program, it is best if you enter with a completely open mind and have no expectations.

Last month, starting on Jan 12th, I started in the Teacher Mentorship Program at Shakti Vinyasa Yoga (where we practice). This is a pretty unique program in the Yoga world (from what I can tell anyway). As part of this program, I assist two nights a week in our 8 class intro series. Assisting takes multiple forms in this environment. We organize the room, teach some Yoga philosophy, demonstrate poses, and physically assist the class. Our studio is very hands on, with the teachers and assistants actually helping students with safe alignment and the deepening of poses.

My first month was a lot of fun. I was able to see a class from a different perspective. Literally. Viewing a class from the front of the room feels very different than being in the middle of the room, as part of the class.  It took 2 or 3 classes, but now I feel at home in the studio as one of the teachers. In the last week of my first intro series, I was able to teach 2 sections of the class (1 each on different days). Over the next few months, the amount of teaching that I get to do will increase. It is a lot of work to become a Yoga teacher this way, but it is the right way for me. Lots of training time, lots of hard work.

As usual, I’ve been very busy.   2 of the last 3 weekends, I participated in the Teacher Assisting Program (TAP) at Shakti Vinyasa Yoga.  This was about 24 hours of training, Friday night, Saturday and Sunday.   I supplemented both weekends with 8am Saturday practice, and the Sunday 9:30 practice.    Overall: awesome experience.

So, what exactly did I do?  We learned how to assist other people in Yoga poses.  Assisting always starts with safe alignment (the corrective assist).  Once you have someone in a safe position, all kinds of possibilities open up.   You can give support, spark awakening, help some one go deeper and expand their edge.   I had a great time, and learned a lot.

Since we all needed people to practice on, I ended up doing lots and lots of Yoga poses over the workshop, and holding some of them for a very long time (longer than I’m used to).   This turned out to be a very valuable experience.   I learned a lot of things to help deepen my own practice and to help others along their own path and learned how to analyze my own body in a pose and see where I can self adjust.

To top it all off – assisting is fun.  There are some standard templates to assists, but there is lots of room to be creative and really find the best way to help someone in this moment.  I had a chance on Sunday to assist someone for an entire class – and since some of the poses are taken several times, I already had a change to experiment a bit.

Next steps: I have already applied to enter the mentoring program at our studio.   I have an evaluation this weekend where I will assist one of our teachers during a class.   And we’ll see where it goes from there.

All of this experience should be a great help when we head to the Baptiste Level 1 teacher training.

Earlier this week we enjoyed the October cupcake of the month, Carmel Apple. It is fabulous, and it comes on a stick, what’s not to love?

We had a wonderful time in Disneyland last weekend.   The parks are very manageable (compared to the size of Disney World).   So, it was nice to be able to do everything we wanted to do in just two days (including riding a lot of rides twice: space mountain, big thunder mountain, the matterhorn, haunted mansion, and buzz lightyear).

The lines were ok.  Saturday early evening was a little crazy, but other than that it was ok.   We saw the Fireworks both nights (9:25, but the park was open until midnight).   And then Sunday morning, the park wasn’t supposed to open until 10am, but it was open early…  So we went in and knocked out a few rides early.

Also, on Saturday, we had 6 free Fastpasses (Disney’s system that lets you head to the front of the line).   This helped a lot!   We were able to avoid a lot of line waiting.

Fun time! great weather.   All pictures are here -> http://picasaweb.google.com/mike.helmick/Disneyland#

Not my brithday… Cortny’s birthday is coming up (Sunday)!  Happy Birthday!

We’ve got a very exciting and fun filled birthday weekend planned…. Disneyland!   We’ll be spending 2 short days in California with Mickey and the gang.

That’s all for now – I’m sure we’ll have more to say after we actually go.