Beach ball of death - help!

Question

I have a fairly new (purchased in July or August) Macbook air running 10.8.5.  I have run the etrecheck program - pasted below.
I get the beach ball several times a day.  Most often I get it when I'm running my external monitor - if I unplug, it will often go away. 
But sometimes it freezes up when I am not plugged in to anything - including the power cord.  I thought perhaps it was Chrome, so now I'm running safari instead.  Hasn't happened since then - but it's only been about an hour.  Please help!
Hardware Information:
          MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013)
          MacBook Air - model: MacBookAir6,2
          1 1.7 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 2 cores
          8 GB RAM
Video Information:
          Intel HD Graphics 5000 - VRAM: 1024 MB
System Software:
          OS X 10.8.5 (12F37) - Uptime: 5 days 5:31:57
Disk Information:
          APPLE SSD SM0512F disk0 : (500.28 GB)
                    disk0s1 (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) /: 499.42 GB (340.02 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
USB Information:
          Apple Internal Memory Card Reader
          Logitech USB Receiver
          Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub
                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
FireWire Information:
Thunderbolt Information:
          Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
Kernel Extensions:
          com.logmein.driver.LogMeInSoundDriver          (1.0.2)
          com.vmware.kext.vmci          (90.4.18)
          com.vmware.kext.vsockets          (90.4.23)
          com.vmware.kext.vmnet          (0104.03.86)
          com.vmware.kext.vmx86          (0104.03.86)
          com.vmware.kext.vmioplug.10.1.24          (10.1.24)
          com.sophos.kext.sav          (8.0.14)
Problem System Launch Daemons:
Problem System Launch Agents:
          [failed] com.apple.coreservices.appleid.authentication.plist
Launch Daemons:
          [not loaded] com.logmein.logmeinblanker.plist
          [loaded] com.logmein.logmeinserver.plist
          [loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist
          [loaded] com.sophos.autoupdate.plist
          [loaded] com.sophos.intercheck.plist
          [loaded] com.sophos.notification.plist
Launch Agents:
          [loaded] com.citrix.AuthManager_Mac.plist
          [loaded] com.citrix.ReceiverHelper.plist
          [loaded] com.citrix.ServiceRecords.plist
          [loaded] com.logmein.logmeingui.plist
          [loaded] com.logmein.logmeinguiagent.plist
          [not loaded] com.logmein.logmeinguiagentatlogin.plist
          [loaded] com.sophos.uiserver.plist
User Launch Agents:
          [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist
User Login Items:
          iTunesHelper
          VMware Fusion Start Menu
          Google Chrome
3rd Party Preference Panes:
          None
Internet Plug-ins:
          AdobePDFViewer.plugin
          AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin
          CitrixICAClientPlugIn.plugin
          JavaAppletPlugin.plugin
          LogMeIn.plugin
          LogMeInSafari32.plugin
          QuickTime Plugin.plugin
          SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin
User Internet Plug-ins:
Bad Fonts:
          None
Top Processes by CPU:
              18%          Mail
               5%          vmware-vmx
               2%          WindowServer
               2%          WebProcess
               1%          EtreCheck
               1%          fontd
               1%          SystemUIServer
               1%          configd
               0%          Microsoft Word
               0%          InterCheck
Top Processes by Memory:
          2.04 GB            vmware-vmx
          623 MB             WebProcess
          188 MB             Microsoft Word
          147 MB             InterCheck
          139 MB             Safari
          115 MB             WindowServer
          102 MB             mds
          98 MB              Mail
          82 MB              Microsoft Excel
          74 MB              VMware Fusion
Virtual Memory Statistics
          1.10 GB            Free RAM
          2.53 GB            Active RAM
          2.94 GB            Inactive RAM
          1.31 GB            Wired RAM
          33.71 GB           Page-ins
          2 MB               Page-outs

Answer 1

Remove the Sophos product by following the instructions on this page. If you have a different version, the procedure may be different.
Back up all data before making any changes.
If you still have trouble after that, please do as below.
When you next have the problem, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.
If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Scroll back in the log to the time you noted above. Select any messages timestamped from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first. Copy the messages to the Clipboard (command-C). Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).
When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.