Cotter’s Corner

In lots of ways. I’m going to regret posting this here, but, I’m doing it anyway. Since common sense sometimes escapes me.

I’ve joined an adult soccer league.

I know, I know.

Our first practice was Saturday. I had an absolute blast. I had to leave the practice a little early since the parents were coming to the house for Ellery’s birthday, but, it was still a great experience while I was able to attend. There was a LOT of turnout. Probably 14 people showed up, which exceeded my expectations. Some were in good shape, while others (like me) were just hanging in there.

I can also freely admit that I am sore beyond all reason today (more than yesterday). But, it’s a good kind of pain. We drilled and then scrimmaged for a while, the scrimmaging was the best part – I even managed to grab one turn over while playing. Which I consider a massive success.

And the best news? All that running around and craziness had no effect on my foot. I was completely pain-free. So, I guess this means that I am going to keep doing it. After work today I plan on stopping and buying a few soccer balls to practice with and some cleats.

Our first match is against a group of 15 year old girls and I have NO DOUBT they are going to annihilate us.

After stopping with the 5K program I found it to be easier to just not post anything about it here. My feet were hurting more and more and so I decided to stop. Again. Which totally blows, but I don't know what else to do. However, I stopped for a few weeks and Monday I started again. At least you can give me credit for being persistent, if I don't get credit for following through. I'm going to try it YET AGAIN in hopes that something gives and I see some tangible results this time and no pain.

Also, we've taken our house off the market. For a lot of reasons that I won't get into here – but the whole experience has been disappointing. Completely disappointing. The market decided to take a dump right when we were looking to sell. And as a perspective NEW home owner you tend to be able to really single out all the annoying things about your current house – which I now have to stay in. So, instead of crying about that I'm actually trying to fix some of the issues. Painting rooms and doing other "quality of life" kinds of improvements. So far they are turning out well.

Work is going pretty good. Might have some interesting opportunities coming down the pike, but, I'm not going to get my hopes up. Instead I'll just take things as they come. I've got a lot of things on my plate right now so staying busy is keeping me happier. I tend to focus less on the negatives and it really does make me feel good to have less negatives and more positives.

And lastly (not least-ly), the adoption. We're still waiting for any kind of word from China about our adoption. The latest info that the wife was able to find says that any NEW adoptions from there could now take on the order of 2-3 years! We hope to hear something soon – but I'm trying to stay grounded for my wife who is completely the opposite of grounded.

First of all, let me wind you back to Wednesday (2/21) – I was feeling sick pretty much all day but there was NO CHANCE I wasn't going to take the wife to go see Billy Joel who was here in concert. The show was FANTASTIC. It was a really good show. Went about two hours and he sang a wide selection of songs. Well worth the money to go and see, even if it kept us up late on a school night. Billy Joel sounded great and the show itself was just well done – never boring. No breaks or anything – they just played right through.

So, the next day I was tired and feeling pretty crappy but I sucked it up and went to work anyways. Met with my old ShopAtHomers at Hooters for lunch and then sat in my office and cried the rest of the day. Friday I got up and decided that I needed to go to the doctors office and after sitting for 1.5 hours I got in and got a shot. I laid around all weekend (Yay!) and generally felt crappy, but started to get better on Sunday afternoon. I really hate being sick but I suppose I had to get this out of the way. It's now Tuesday and I'm still coughing a little and I can't hear out of my right ear (stupid ear infections – I can sneeze and get one). But I'm not complaining (much). I'll be happier when I'm done coughing and can hear again. 

I need to get back focused on seeing a foot doctor – but since I've been trying to take care of my feet – the neuroma hasn't been bothering me much. Which is ANOTHER good thing. I got new shoes and I've been wearing my bigger shoes and that really seems to do the trick. If I go pain free these last few days of sickness I may jump on the mountain bike this weekend (or maybe walk – but definitely one of those two). I really have the bug to exercise.

I've been meaning to post about the coolness that is the new commuter rail line from Lebanon, TN. (where I am) to the riverfront of Nashville, TN. I waited for them to finish getting it ready to go for what seemed like forever. It's called the Music City Star and it's up and running. I catch the train at one of two times: 7:05 or 7:50 (the last run of the morning) and then catch it home at 4:20 from Nashville. Yes, I know – I work through lunch here at my desk, so there. I've also estimated the costs of riding the train into the office to be approximately half of what it takes me to drive my truck in on a daily basis.

Anyways, the train ride is great. I find that the days I take the train in – I am much more relaxed and calm. Score one for the anti-traffic people. I can also choose to walk to my building (about 3/4 mile from the train station or so) or take the bus. So, I can get in a little extra exercise before work and/or after work.  

Here is my older (and sometimes) ride into the office:

Hmmm, what are all those people waiting for?

Ah yes, the train!

These are apparently cars that used to belong to the Chicago train system that the city purchased and refurbished. Inside they are QUITE nice. I'll add some more pictures to my Flickr train set as I get more opportunity. But for now, here is a picture of the inside:

And here is a picture of the engine, with downtown Nashville in the background. (Picture shamelessly stolen from the Music City Star website, btw)

 It's a fantastic way for me to get to work. Only problem is mobility once I get to work. My truck is 30 miles away. So, that's really the biggest drawback. That and getting out of the office a little early here and there when the boss isn't around.

Just kidding, I don't really do that. No really. No… really. 

Lots of good things going on this week (well aside from the wife and my daughter being sick). I got my review yesterday and it went smashingly. I was told that I was doing an excellent job and I received a nice raise to go along with the praise.

Hey that rhymed!

Anyways, that made for a good Monday, but then I also stuck to my guns (after not being able to wake up to run early) and I ran Monday night as well. Running felt good. In a desperate attempt to get myself ready for the Fangtastic 5K. My friend Paul is ready to run it and is encouraging me to do so, as well. Of course, he’s knocking off 10-13mile runs on the weekends now while I’m struggling with less than two miles. My strategy has been to increase my speed and punish myself a little in the short term so that I can perhaps run slower – longer. We’ll see how it works out. I’m still in the “getting my wind back” stage now. I was able to run until my legs gave out before, but now the huffing and puffing has more dominance over how long I run. However, I’m getting there.

No news about China yet.

No news cars yet, however I’m making a definitive listing of what I want and I’ll be pouring over that for the next few months. And I’ll be sharing the boring details here. Oh, and I’m not buying new or anything – so no more calls for Dave Ramsey to come and whap me on the head. It’ll be used.

I’ve got a whole post about how pissed off I am with the Fox show Prison Break coming soon. So, don’t miss that!

So, in the past three days or so my Linux server (that I lease from a company to host my sites) has been down for about 24 hours total. My Windows server? Fine, just fine. It’s really, REALLY becoming a problem as one of my biggest customers was holding an “event” and that event was completely a cluster for them since the server was up and down the entire day. And then in the last 30 minutes of the event when all the users who procrastinators were finally purchasing their stuff? The server finally died. My service provider put in a completely new piece of hardware and built it from the ground up and then restored all the data to it. Problem solved, right?

Umm, no.

Today it’s already been down twice and they are telling me ANOTHER drive failed. So, the server is functioning in a “degraded” state. Fantastic! How is that two completely separate pieces of hardware can have the exact same problems?

Anyways, this is pretty much a disaster for my little hosting business. You know, I’m really starting to wonder if I’m cursed.

Yeah, actually had a good day today. I was billing, I was busy – it was just fantastic. All in all a very good day. Time seemed to just fly by. Yesterday was the day I was supposed to get my review and I didn’t hear anything about it from my boss. He was out of town in the morning, but was there in the afternoon. No word. But that’s okay, the day more than made up for the fact that I am feeling like I am struggling at work.

Just wanted to post a quick note to talk about the good news. A good day! A really good one. So, I’m just enjoying it.

Okay kids, it’s teef time! My teeth (I’m delighted to report) are doing better. I’ve been without packing for over 24 hours now (flying without a net) and I’ve experienced only mild pain/annoyance. So, I’m pretty fired up to report that I am feeling much improved. I’m so excited I can hardly stand it.

I’m still a little bummed about the story I mentioned in my post yesterday – but, there are some very odd circumstances surrounding the whole case. Why would you pick up your shell casings? And if they were truly shooting at the guy, why were there no rounds found in the sand? And how could a jury of these guys peers find them guilty of all of this? I just don’t see how testimony from a drug dealer is better than testimony from two Border Patrol Agents. Anyways… the sentence is friggin excessive. Way too much for the crime. Especially considering these guys have had exemplary records and no previous criminal history. Unreal… But, I’m moving on.

I’m glad it’s Friday today. I’m done with work. The people here have been exceptionally annoying today. Oh man, perhaps some day I’ll detail all the annoying things – let it suffice for me to say that imagine the soft soothing sounds of a donkey braying. It’s like that.

Yeah.

So, my neighbor Gerry had a prior engagement for tonight and couldn’t meet me to play racquetball so I decided to go ahead and hop back on the treadmill last night. I ran for about 1.5 miles and alternated between walking and running. Did about 25 minutes total. Felt good. I was tired, but not dying or anything. So tonight I shall hop on again. I need to get back into the swing of running again. I thought I could replace it with racquetball, but I don’t think I can play enough to really take the place of it – so, I’ll just do both.

I’m also hoping to perhaps serve as encouragement to my son who is kind of a bump on a log. Perhaps if he sees the old fart doing stuff, he’ll be enouraged to do something as well. I’m not holding my breath or anything, but you never know.

Work has been pretty okay the past few days. I’m going to be setting up a review with my boss soon. I’m hoping that I get some good vibes from that.

Oh, and the commute to work this morning? 1.5 hours. Please hurry Santa, please hurry!

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m looking forward to taking the train to work. It gets closer every day and I grow more annoyed with my current parking/commute problems. I don’t recall ever detailing this before now, so let me see if I can explain to you how amazingly bad the parking situation is here at my job. We work in downtown Nashville where parking is a premium. Not as much as in New York or any place like that, but it’s hard to find a spot here, and this building only has a limited number of spaces underneath it. So – they ship off the lower ranked employees to a completely different area to park. Namely? Across the river near LP Field (where the Tennessee Titans play). The city makes extra money by selling these spaces to companies who need a place for their employees to park. Win-win situation, right? Ummmm, no.

There are supposed to be three shuttles running continuously to take people to and from our building, which sits about 9 city blocks away from where we actually park. In reality? These shuttles frquently end up in a line one right after another and the first one gets filled to capacity while the others are nearly empty. So, we pack in like sardines and enjoy the uncomfortable ride across the bridge. Oh yeah – the bridge. The one the city decided to start refurbishing the DAY we started riding this new shuttle. Lucky coincidence, isn’t it? Round trip time for the shuttle? About 15-20 minutes. So, if you get it timed wrong you can be standing outside the building waiting for a shuttle to come and get you for about 20 minutes. In a hurry? Don’t be. The shuttle gets there when the shuttle gets there, baby!

It’s insanely frustrating to show up in the lot ten to fifteen minutes early (say 7:15 or so) and then having to wait 20 minutes and then sit for another 10-15 on the ride over. Early? Not anymore you aren’t. Leaving early? No. Sorry. You can’t. You think, “I know, I’ll get out about 4:15 and beat the crowd!” No, no you won’t. You’ll walk to the lobby at 4:15 and the shuttle will be no where near the building. You’ll wait until 4:30 or 4:35 and THEN it will show up. Then you can wait for the 20 minute drive. Since going back to the parking area takes roughly twice as long as leaving it. And the buses are laid out nice too. There are seats all around the outer edges with everyone forced to look upon one another uncomfortably the entire time. I realize that may sound wierd, and sometimes its not so bad, but there are days you just don’t wanna stare at people for 20 minutes straight.

Anyways, it’s the WORST parking situation I’ve ever been a part of. It’s one of the reasons I was seriously considering leaving here.

So now I just bite my lip and look forward to the train. Yeah, I’ll have to walk a little more, but it will be worth it. The train will be on a *GASP* schedule! So, I’ll know exactly when it gets here and when it leaves. What a FRIGGIN concept that is. 50 minutes of no traffic, no anything but ME time. The cost will be about half of what I spend in gas ALONE. So, it’ll be awesome. September 18. Please, PLEASE hurry. I feel like I’m waiting on Christmas.

Hurry Santa, bring me the train!!