IBM X2

Wow, I can't believe it's already been 20 years since I started working as an intern at IBM.  A lot has changed since then.  A made a post about working here after a decade, so you can read that here if you haven't already.

My mentor who helped hire me, Sonny Williams, has retired.  He had an amazing career at IBM, all in the Performance team, over 40+ years...  He was probably one of the most well-known people at IBM when he was here and was responsible for so much of the company's products' success.  I always hoped the day would come that he would retire and I would still be at the company to congratulate and thank him for everything he did for me.  I honestly would not be the person at IBM I've become without his guidance and advice.  Sonny had a funny mannerism about himself where he would say the funniest (yet very clever) sayings in regards to the business and life in general.  Everytime he said something memorable, I wrote it down in a notepad on my computer, with plans to eventually put them on a poster when he retired.  I had years to accumulate so many of his quotes, and when he finally retired I asked colleages and his family to send me photos so I could make a retirement collage for him.  Congratulations Sonny to a wonderful career!

In addition to Sonny leaving IBM, my team in Tucson has changed a lot.  Only a small number of colleagues who were around 10 years ago are still working at IBM.  The Storage Performance team in Tucson mostly dissolved, although some of them are working on Spectrum Scale on the "Real Fast" team.  The last decade I've mostly worked on FlashSystem, which is a solid-state storage product I've grown to love over the years.  There was a brief period where I moved to developmental software projects like MetaOcean and Machine City, but unfortunately neither of those ever came to fruition.  At least there was always a home for me in FlashSystem.

However, as the Performance team in Tucson began to dissolve, most of the FlashSystem work was being developed in Hursley, U.K., so I eventually got transferred to that team.  Nowadays, I work a very odd schedule, which involves me working late at night to sync up with the Hursley team and late afternoons to attend to anything in the U.S. that requires my attention.  But to be honest, this schedule fits my lifestyle.  In the first decade of IBM, I was always known to come in late and leave late, arriving to the office as late as noon on some days and working late at night from home to fulfill my job responsibilities.  Now I am about 95% remote and only go into the office to work on the systems in my lab when they require attention.

Covid hit the world in 2020 and the site at IBM was forced to shutdown for half a year.  A lot of people lost jobs during that timeframe and everyone was remote.  It's 2023 now and the world is finally past that pandemic (although it still exists, it's just not killing people like it first did), and as a result they have pushed to get people back into the workplace.  However, I still feel like the site is not as populated as it used to be.  In fact, there'll be days I go into the office where I'll hardly see anyone in my building.

The culture at IBM was something I used to love.  I'd look forward to all my coworker friends I'd see on a weekly basis and the company would hold on-site events to increase employee morale.  While I can still walk around the buildings and see a lot of familiar faces, the culture here has definitely changed since I first started here.  There's no more cafeteria on site where people would have a lunch break and mingle for a bit.  The perks of working have decreased over the years.  There's no more sports leagues (that I know of) and the years of gaming with coworkers is a memory of the past.  A decade ago I would have said IBM Tucson was one of the greatest companies to work for, but if you ask me now, I'd say it's good for some and not so good for others.

Don't get me wrong though.  I've had a wonderful career at IBM and personally I would love to retire with them.  We'll see if I eventually get that opportunity.  I have a six-figure salary in a city with a low-cost of living, and for the past decade I've lived a very financially comfortable life.  I never think that I'm spending too much money to enjoy the lifestyle I want to live.  My lone debt is to my home mortgage, which will actually be paid off in about 5 years.  My retirement funds are growing well, although I'm still about halfway to the point I'll eventually want to be when I reach the age of 59.5. I've had a very flexible schedule, I usually work less than 40 hours a week, and I can comfortably work from home on a regular basis.  To be honest, I've had a very stressfree career and IBM is the reason for that.

So while a lot of things have definitely changed here over the past decade, there's still a lot of reasons to stay with this company.  There'd have to be a really good offer or some life-changing event for me to change jobs at this point in my life.  I want to thank IBM for everything they've given to me after 20 years, and here's hoping I can make it another 20!

Also, there's one last thing that changed.  The sign outside the lobby was painted a different color. :D

Trying a Fitness App: FitCoach

As I've gotten older, it's no surprise that my metabolism just isn't what it used to be.  You may recall that recently, I've been making a more conscious effort to eat healthier and drink less alcohol.  It's been working slightly, but the results just aren't where I want them to be yet.

At the beginning of the year, I weighed in at 185 lbs and my belly (when relaxed) measured 38.0" around the biggest part of the circumference.  If you didn't know, my height is about 5'10".  Both of those numbers are more than I would like them to be.  I set out on a goal to lose fat around the belly and get that size down, and my guess is that my weight should be closer to 175 lbs for someone of my stature.  It's now the end of May and by altering my eating and drinking habits, I've seen little results, weighing in right now at 183.3 lbs and my belly has only shrunk half an inch, down to 37.5".

After a while, I start to get targeted advertising on social media based on all the stuff I google about becoming a healthier me as I get older.  One of the advertisements finally got to me, an app called FitCoach that sold me on prescribing a simple 7-minute workout to do every morning in addition to the fitness routine that I already do.  In case you're wondering, I still work out about 5 days a week on average.  I have a membership to Anytime Fitness, which is a 24/7 gym just 3-minutes from my house.  I also work out from home if I don't make it to the gym, usually doing P90X cardio workouts, 15-minute HIIT workouts on YouTube, or the occasional set of 9 DDR songs on Heavy (because the last one is also the most fun)!  The only days I'm not working out is on Tuesdays because of pool league and Thursdays when I have bowling league.

There was no free trial for me to try on FitCoach, so I ended up paying $40 for a 3-month subscription.  Today was my first 7-minute workout, which involved a series of burpies and core exercises, since I made my goals centered around my abs/back.  I also set a goal of getting to 175 lbs by mid August, and hopefully the weight loss also translates to a reduction in belly-size and maybe even getting some of my abs back (I used to have a 6-pack back in high school when I was super skinny).

Anyway, here's hoping the process helps a little.  The app basically ensures I'm doing something every day now, and it'll be like I'm working out twice a day for most days of the week.  I'll circle back eventually with news of how it goes!

Review: Nationwide Pet Insurance

My Pet Family and Buying Insurance:

I've had a happy pet family for a couple years now.  A tuxedo cat named Benzi, an orange cat named Ember, and a white terrier named Lucy.  You might recall that my first cat, Duncan, died at the age of 13.5 years due to bladder stones.  At that time, I didn't have pet insurance, so the veterinary bills quickly started to pile up when he got sick.  I think I spent around $4,000 to keep him hospitalized in hopes that he would get better, and I was prepared to drop another $10,000 should he need surgery to save his life.  Unfortunately, we never made it to that point, he was put to rest before he was able to have surgery.

When I adopted my new pets, I wanted to sign all of them up for pet insurance.  I wasn't really sure what to go with since I had never bought pet insurance before.  I researched many options and found one that sounded good: Nationwide "Major Medical".  This was an insurance plan that offered a 100% reimbursement for many medical conditions after a $250 annual deductible.  My cats were signed up for $18 a month and the dog is $30 a month.  They say dog insurance is more expensive since they go outside and are more prone to getting injuries when outside.  They also offered me a 5% discount for each additional pet.  Another perk to the plan was that they would allow me to use any veterinarian, not just ones they approve.

My philosophy for getting pet insurance was simple math.  Assuming a cat lives for about 15 years and at $18 a month, that would be about $3,200 towards insurance over the span of its life.  I easily spent that much on Duncan when he got sick and was prepared to spend much more.  A dog living 12 years at $30 a month would cost $4,300.   I figured the math made sense, so I would go ahead and give Nationwide Pet Insurance a try for the lives' of each of these three new pets of mine.

Adding pets to a pet insurance plan was pretty simple.  Nationwide did run a background check on the pets to eliminate any pre-existing illnesses/injuries from being covered and the plan doesn't take into effect until 2 weeks after you sign up.  This is obviously to prevent people from only signing up for insurance once their pet gets sick.  To my knowledge, you can cancel pet insurance at any time.  I'm also not sure if it goes up in price per month as the pet gets older.

My Experience Claiming Pet Insurance:

My dog Lucy recently had a couple operations based on vet recommendation.  First, all of her little teeth in the front of her mouth were loose.  My vet suggested we remove them, since it was probably painful for her and it's not like she chewed with them anyway.  Second, she had developed a couple masses growing under her shoulder and above her belly.

OPERATION #1:

Based on my vet's recommendation, I proceeded to have her teeth removed and the rest cleaned.  She also ran two punch biopsies on the masses to have them sent to the lab to for analysis.  The first operation ran me $1,500.  You can see my invoice here:

Invoice #1 for Teeth Removal, Cleaning, and Mass Biopsies

Submitting a claim to Nationwide was very easy.  I wrote two paragraphs describing what had happened to my dog and attached a PDF of my invoice, similar to what you see above.  I also mentioned that surgery on the masses would likely be needed in a couple weeks.  A few days later, they had approved my claim!  I assume they called the veterinarian for confirmation of the procedure, but personally I was never contacted.

Claim #1 for Teeth Removal and Mass Biopsies

I knew that I would have to pay $250 for the annual deductible.  I also knew that dental cleanings were not covered, so I expected to pay that portion as well.  A couple weeks later, a check arrived in the mail for $1,150!

OPERATION #2:

After the biopsy results showed that the masses were benign and there was more clarity what they were made of, my vet proceeded with surgery to remove them.  This operation cost me another $1,000.

Invoice #2 for Mass Removal

I submitted another claim to Nationwide and after a couple days they had approved my claim!

Claim #2 for Mass Removal

Another check arrived in the mail, reimbursing me for all of operation #2.

Overall Review:

This was my first time submitting any insurance claims for any of my pets and I could not have been happier with the process.  It was exactly as I expected it to be.  I spent around $2,500 to have these two operations done for my dog Lucy and overall I only paid $250 for the annual deductible and another $200 for dental cleaning, which I knew wasn't covered.

Even before the operation, I had questions and each time I called Nationwide, their support was very quick to get a hold of and very informative to explain me what was covered and how it was going to be covered.

I've had my dog Lucy for 30 months, which means I've spent about $900 in pet insurance to this day.  Throw in the $250 deductible, I've spent $1,150 on her but I also saved $1100 so far because it would have cost me $2,250 if I didn't have the insurance.  Already the insurance has paid for itself.

Based on this experience, I highly recommend Nationwide Pet Insurance!  The Major Medical seems like the best value to me.  You can upgrade to their premium plan "Whole Pet" if you want things like vaccines and dental cleanings covered, but I think the value is not as good there.  I also had a lot more peace of mind when the vet suggested actions for my dog.  Knowing that I had insurance to help cover the costs of the operations made it easier to get the proper treatment for my dog, which is ultimately in the best interest of my pet.

You know your pets will eventually get sick.  If you're like me, you adopt these pets with the responsibility that you'll do whatever you can to help them should they get ill.  Having pet insurance is now a no-brainer for me and I'm really glad I signed up for it.  I hope you'll consider Nationwide if you're looking at options!