Stephen Bruington

(I apologize for the implied explitives in the title of this post, they were, however, necessary.)

Admittedly, a better title might have been "Simplify, Simplify, Simplify", but either way - my point is it's time for me to rein in some things in my life and "trim off the fat". I'm all over the place, so much so that a friend on Twitter made a comment about my far-reaching social networking appearance (not influence), and asked how I manage to maintain it all. The truth is, I don't maintain much of anything, anymore, or ever have. I need to close a few accounts, delete a ton of email addresses and K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid).

At one point in time I had the grand idea of creating an email address, for every account, everywhere on the internet (the unnecessary commas have been added for an intentional...momentary, but rather obnoxiously...long...pause). I chose to use the prefix "i83." to begin each address, for example: i83.facebook@gmail.com. This email, of course would be used as my login/contact email address for...you guessed it - Facebook! I also had, among others, i83.itunes, i83.redbox, etc. (You don't even want to know how many there actually are...nearly 2 dozen.)

I admit, I'm a little OCD and I'm having a hard time coming to grips with actually deleting, and discontinuing the use of these email addresses. It feels "clean", and it made sense to me when I did it, albeit I can't remember why, but I'd like to think it was a reasonable idea. It is, however difficult to remember whether or not I'm using a custom address, or stephen@bruington.com, which is my personal, 'everything else' email address.

In order to simplify I feel it's necessary to cut down on the number of accounts I have, but do not (for many reasons) maintain. I have written about, and even tried this before: http://blog.stephenbruington.com/tag/migration, but this time will be different, right? ;)

Here's the thing, I have accounts at places I know nothing about. Yep, little old me has probably already been to your website and established a username/password, etc. I've been on, logged into and/or used these, and many more: blip.fm, last.fm, facebook.com, twitter.com, bebo.com, orkut,com, linkedin.com, friendfeed.com, posterous.com (Haha! Thanks for hosting my blog.), wordpress.com, tumblr.com, livejournal.com, typepad.com, typingweb.com, plaxo.com, rememberthemilk.com, stikkit.com (which, by the way was the BEST ever note, memo, sticky message website...ever), gmail.com, hotmail.com, yahoo.com, flickr.com, photoshop.com, gmx.com, meebo.com, AIM, Skype, ICQ, myspace.com, and many, many others. Wow!

Do I really need all that stuff? No, I don't. I know I don't, but I think I have a problem...an addiction. I would like to keep the following:

Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, tumblr, posterous, flickr, Skype, Photoshop.com, and maybe a few others. I could write a book about all these sites and why I've used them, but I don't think anyone would read it. In fact, if you've made it this far you're either my wife (thank you Sweetheart), or crazy!

C.Y.A. - yes, the 'A' stands for what you think it stands for. I don't have a real good reason for using it as part of my title other than the fact that the internet is filled with identity-stealing goons and...quite frankly, I'm exposed. I need to CYA and get rid of a lot of these sites with my information. If you've made it *this far, please do not SPAM my email inbox. I realize I posted my email address to the world, but I don't believe anyone will use it to contact me anyway, so what the heck.

That's it. I need to consolidate and do away with a lot of useless accounts, and unused (by ME) websites. Thanks for reading, I'll let you know, at a later date what I decide to do, and how the cleanup is going, and/or turns out.

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Earlier today I received call from a woman speaking on behalf of her daughter. It turns out her daughter is 25 years old, has cerebral palsy and is a Medicare beneficiary. I immediately "warmed" to this woman due to the soft spot in my own heart for people touched by cerebral palsy. (My daughter, who is 8 years old, has cerebral palsy.)

I followed Medicare, and UnitedHealthcare policies and procedures while gathering information on both the mother, and her daughter. I wasn't able to speak with the daughter, at the time so I had her mother provide me everything I needed and we proceeded to discuss plan benefits.

We found, in her area, a PFFS (Private-Fee-For-Service) plan that would meet 'the daughter's' needs and determined we could complete enrollment today. I finished documenting her account (in our Customer contact/management system) and was just about to begin the enrollment when I realized, I haven't spoke with the daughter!

Just before the enrollment I put the mother on hold and asked for help. It turns out that 'the mother' does not have POA (Power of Attorney) and as such we would have been unable to enroll her daughter in this plan. (Normally I would give her my phone number, and extension and have her call be back. It's important to note that UHC does not operate "normally". At this point, I'm NOT ALLOWED to give out my phone number and extension on inbound sales calls. Which means if I don't close the sale, I lose it.)

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I thought it might be important to give a quick re-cap on the past few weeks and months to identify the progress I've made. There have been so many changes in my life over the last weeks, months, years that it's sometimes hard to keep track. I could spend hours writing about all the different areas of my life and the intimate details of each, but I decided to narrow it down to a select few: relationships, career, education and fitness.

Relationships
I can't say that I've mastered this one, but I've learned enough to know that it's easy to mess up without realizing it. I've had my fair share of challenges, frustrations, battles with pride and learning experiences. I've been up hill...and down...and up, again...and down, again. I finally feel like my "boat" is running an even course and the keel is finally fully inserted.

I'm engaged! I feel so lucky to have this girl in my life. After all I've been through I not only felt like giving up, but I was convinced that I wouldn't find anyone to love me, care for me, trust me and open their arms, life and heart to my daughter. Well, I found her!

Sarah and I have been together for almost a year. We met a long time ago, in Richmond, but never really knew each other. We became re-acquainted on Facebook, I moved to Utah and spent 6 months with her out there, then she moved back to VA with me and the rest is history. We'll be married on November 28, 2009 and neither of us has been so excited. She's bought a dress, I've rented a tuxedo. We've had engagement pictures taken, invitations created, printed, put together and mailed; dinner reservations made, and to top it off - my Dad's performing the ceremony. Ah, life is good! :)

Career
This has been a looong, difficult, exciting, motivating/depressing road that has taught me more than nearly any other area of my life. I'm currently working for UnitedHealthcare as a "Medicare Inside Sales Representative", ie: I sell health insurance, via the phone (inbound calls) to Medicare-eligible beneficiaries across the entire US. I feel very blessed to have this job, it pays a base salary plus commission. I've become fairly proficient at this job and attribute my immediate success to the experiences and life lessons of all the other jobs I've had, combined.

At this point I've worked in such a variety of industries and positions I'm not sure what's left. Waiter, check. Cashier, check. Manager, check. McDonald's, check. Small business owner, check. Call center, check. IT support, check. Military, check. Sales, check. And the list goes on.

Education
This area still has work to be done, in fact quite a bit more, but the fact is I have a plan and I'm sticking to it. I'm 18 credit hours shy of an Associate's degree in Business Administration from Virginia Western Community College. I'll complete my degree in the Spring or Summer of 2010. Once graduated my current plan is to transfer to Virginia Tech's Accounting program and finish my bachelor's in the Spring of 2012. This goal may get bumped or skewed since I'm currently considering running for political office, at some point in my future, and may re-direct myself onto the attorney/politics track.

Fitness
Ah, the category of greatest need for improvement. :(  I must say, it's so much more depressing to lose weight and gain it back, than it is to lose weight. I spent most of my adult life around 180lb, but then ballooned to 230. I was then able to lose about 35 pounds and hovered under 200 for almost a year. I'm now back to 205lb and sad about the loss of progress over these past few months, but I digress.

I hope to run a marathon. I said, "hope" not "I have a goal" because I don't know if my knees will carry me that far. The farthest I've ever ran is just over 13 miles and that was about all my poor little legs could take. I'd like to think I can complete a 1/2 marathon, but we'll see. For now, I want to trim down to 170 - 175lb and be able to breeze through a 6 - 8 mile run, regularly.

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