Ed Foppe

I am now lecturing at the University level and it has been an interesting experience thus far. I am 4 weeks in to an 8 week course. As the last week is simply the final I am over half way through. I definitely have some observations, but I will save them for subsequent posts.

Last week the Wall Street Journal had a cover article on more high school graduates forgoing college to join a trade. It highlighted several high school graduates who went into welding, an electrician and a construction site supervisor. It shared what they were making and how they were in a great place without student debt.

Over the past several years this topic has come up several times in conversations and I find it a little too simplistic. I clearly believe college is not for everyone, but I believe there is great value in a four year degree. A couple months ago I attended MN Tech Association’s Tech Talk where Ron Huesman from the University of MN shared his research on the value of a four year degree. The overall message was confirming to my viewpoint that in the long run a graduate with a bachelor is going to have much greater earnings potential than those who do not go to college - see picture attached.

Not revolutionary I know. If I had to think of a 4 box analysis on this topic I imagine on the vertical axis you have the benefits derived from a four year degree and the horizontal axis is split with those not attending and those attending a college institution (left / right respectively). The top right quadrant contains those who are in college, have the ability to graduate with a degree and will get the expected benefit. They are correctly aligned. Also correctly aligned are those in the bottom left quadrant who not in college and potentially would not get benefit from being there and are hopefully pursuing a trade.

This topic seems more relevant when thinking of the other 2 quadrants. The bottom right quadrant are those who are in college, but will not get the benefit of a degree. Right or wrong, I picture in my mind the greek life, partying, class skipping brat from an affluent family. More troubling I find is the top left quadrant. The young person who would derive the benefit of a four year degree but has been denied the opportunity. I picture less affluent members of society who cannot make college happen for not only economic reasons, but I imagine a whole host of other societal reasons. I do get the sense this situation is improving over time, but I could be wrong.

After starting to blog I felt I needed to reassess how my entries would be presented. For some past posts I felt I was going on far too long and then I felt I corrected and was writing too little. This led to just not blogging, which was unfortunate.

I have made no progress on a style, but I do get the sense I simply need to be spending more time blogging so at some point I figure it out through experience. Probably a lesson in life there somewhere.

We had a great trip to Albuquerque last week for a wedding. The couple did an amazing job planning events throughout the entire weekend for the out of town guests. We spent most of the weekend in Old Town having some good southwest cuisine and then on Sunday got out of town to Santa Fe. There were also ample galleries and craft shops, which get old to me quickly. In general, I do not like going into a business where I have no intention to buy anything. The weekend weather was great so it was good to be out and about.

It was a nice getaway to a part of the country I have not been to. It was my 48th state. Many of the popular states I have been to for fun, but the less popular states I have visited were through work. So now I am down to less popular states which do not have many large companies. I have South Carolina and West Virginia remaining. Asking the couple’s family what were some of the main industries were, they listed out oil, tourism and a large Air Force base where they train astronauts. Then someone joked, methamphetamines - a nice nod to Breaking Bad.

Overall, it was great to be with family, especially having dedicated time with my wife and 2 daughters.

Had a great trip to Durango, CO to snowboard at Purgatory. Four days down the hill saw an easy day where like most CO resorts there was not a lot of snow, to days 2 & 3 where 10" and 3" of snow came and then a 4th day of just blue skies. I have a love hate relationship with powder. I am not out west enough to master the snowboard in powder so it is a lot of effort and at some point is just draining. However, the feeling of riding a snowboard atop 10" of fluffy show is magical.

Good group of 4 guys organized by my friend Toby. My past job would have never allowed me to do a trip like this at this time of year. This is the 4th guys trips I have been on where it was a larger group in the past, but due to job or family commitments, or an inability for some to participate in the physical nature of the trip, less of the original group can go so there is a need to invite others. Good for me and it was a nice way to get to know 2 new people who were great to spend 5 days with.

Over the years I have been somewhat obsessive with goals. After a couple years of trying to dial in a goal list, I believe I dialed in the right list. I have tied them to a focus on living a balanced life in the context of mind, body, soul, and social. When I started to make a goal list I became somewhat dogmatic. Anything on the list had to be met. But after a couple years of not completing each goal, but looking back with a sense of pride regarding what I accomplished, I became less focused on what had to be met and what had the potential to be pursued for a sense of accomplishment. Since I shed the need to hold myself accountable for every goal I set and was just going to look back and be proud of what I was accomplishing I just kept adding goals. One year I had grown my goal list to 20 various goals.

Having 7 goals seems like a better number. My job seemed to challenge me mentally, so I did not feel I needed much in this area, but to read a book a month sounded like a worthy goal. As my job was fairly sedentary, the body needed the most focus. No goal list should be without a weight goal, so I made a goal to be in the normal range for Body Mass Index. At my height this meant I needed to be 178 pounds or less to be in the range. I will likely never need to know what the lower end of the range is unless I get very sick. When I turned 48 I had heard about a goal of running a 10K in minutes equal to your age. I thought this sounded pretty bad-ass and felt it would be a good goal to keep my running pace in check as I aged.

The fourth goal was discussed in a previous post, which was initiated to push myself to workout 6 days a week and have some cross training designed into a point system.

With the mind and body being covered, there appeared to be a need to cover the social and spiritual aspect of my life. Though there did not seem to be a need for a social or spiritual goal, there did seem to be a need to check in on how I am doing socially and spiritually. Once a week, typically on a Sunday morning, which would be a good nod to the spiritual, I would make myself journal a page in a 5” x 7” journal. The journalling would need to have some reflection of how the week went and what could be an intention for the upcoming week. If I was not being a good person and felt my spirit was not where it should be I could reflect on why and what I could do better in the upcoming week. It also addressed the social, so if I felt I was not getting out in the world and connecting with others I could make it a priority which would bring the social pillar in balance.

Any coach on goal setting would have to agree these are well articulated, specific goals with good timeframes. With 5 goals being SMART, I felt there was room now for goals to be more open ended and provide space for more creativity, spontaneity and ability to take advantage of changes in life events. I still had a nagging notion I was not addressing the spiritual aspect of my life for attaining balance even though I did not have any reflections I was out of balance. The sixth goal became a general goal which stated daily I should do something good for the soul or makes me feel uncomfortable. This is broadly defined as meditating, relationship building, sauna / cold water therapy or something new which would take me out of my comfort zone and would lead to the final goal.

The last goal also was structured to allow unstructured activities in. Simply titled, “Discover” the intent was to try new things and bring some spice to life. If the journaling was on track there would be some level of monitoring if I was regularly bringing new and interesting activities into my life.

I have a mild obsession with tracking my workouts and overall movement. I am sure there are more obsessed people out there than me, but my wife would argue I am in a top tier. Back in November I realized 3 fitness goals I was tracking were all trending towards 2500.

For 2023 I ended up biking 2,518 miles. After retiring this summer I had much more time to be active, especially with biking. I was able to get out on 4 touring trips, which allowed me to log many more miles than prior years. Buying a new gravel bike also helped.

A couple years ago I heard a good goal would be to have Walking + Running Distance in the Health app on your iPhone to exceed the year number, so 2,023 miles for this year. I was able to log 2,567.

The hardest one for me to achieve was a complex point system I had developed over the years. Though easy for me to comprehend, I find it complicated to explain to others as I developed it over a couple decades. In general, this annual goal forces me to work out regularly, cross train, and brings some gamification to the workout routine. In the past I had an annual to run 1,000 miles, bike 1,000 miles and workout 100 times. The workout could be a 30 minute core routine, yoga or anything I deemed a solid physical activity which was preventing, or at least reducing, my running or biking. When Leelau came along I wanted to push myself to get out walking with her, especially after a work day spent inside an office. The goal became a point system based on running. So, running a mile was a point, biking 3 miles was a point, and working out or doing yoga for 30 minutes felt like an equivalent to running a mile, so a point. Adding the walking dimension took more thought. In the end, I felt one should move at least 3 miles a day, or 6,000+ steps. Therefore, I determined I would only get a point for miles moved exceeding a base of 3 miles, obviously excluding the run miles already accounted for.

The goal each year is 2,000, which I meet most years, but not all. For 2023 I was able to rack up 2,501 points. Barely made it, but it felt great to wake up new year’s eve morning with 2,494 points and head out on a 6 mile run and hit the 2500 mark.

My new year’s resolution was to start a blog, which I created yesterday. I named it Leelau Lessons to embrace those things I take away from my dog, Leelau. The blog will be more about capturing what I think about when I am out walking Leelau, but overall her main lesson is for me to try to be the person she thinks I am.

My motivation to start a blog is to hopefully experience a new medium and learn something new. Years ago I soured on social media, but felt there was an underlying positive aspect if it was done right, which I think blogging could be. I am also hoping to evolve to a newsletter, which might be a good forum to keep in touch with my network and share some hopefully useful thinking.

I plan to blog about my current life activities and Leelau’s adventures. I will want to share the random thoughts I am having while out on my walks. I will also try to share what I am currently reading. But I also hope to evolve the blog to share what observations I took away from a 32 year career in professional services and what I am sharing with my students as I start to lecture this spring.

Leelau wandering if this reindeer can fly.