As we continued down one road, the GPS directed me to “Continue Straight on Old [Something] Road.”  As we got about a mile down this older winding road, I started to get déjà vu, but I figured that was a little crazy.  There was no way I had been here before…or was there? As we continued, I looked over to the left and saw a large concrete wall, part of some kind of round retaining basin up on a ridge, surrounded by a fence with distinctive warning signs on it. I knew I had seen that before.  I finally said it out loud: “I’ve been here before. I know it, even though that seems impossible.”

Further down the road, I began to notice some familiar-looking country and large estate-style ranches.  I still couldn’t believe that I was where I thought I was—even though everything looked so familiar. I mean, even if it was, I would have only been out this way maybe once or twice—three times, at most—how could I remember that?

Finally, we came to a “T” intersection with a sign that confirmed it.  I stopped for a bit and just looked at the sign, taking it in.

“Hello, Leipers Fork.  I haven’t seen you since…Thanksgiving?”

Editor’s Note:  I was going to link to the main Leipers Fork web site I found via Google, but it has background music.  I don’t want to encourage that nonsense, so no linking from me.  Google it for yourself if you’re interested, but turn down your speakers before you click on it–there’s no warning before the music starts blaring.

“It’s the title of one of my favorite books – a perennial summer read. One of my favorite passages is the one I thought of when I posted my status last night: “In a fast car, a man can almost make it to Tennessee on automatic pilot, driving the straight, level road in a kind of euphoria, past the cotton fields and the tenant shacks, the big plantation houses and the primitive little Negro churches, over the muddy creeks and rivers, through the counties with the forgotten Indian names – Leflore, Coahoma, Tallahatchie, Tunica.”

After I left law school, I could not drive to Nashville without feeling terrible…nauseated, even.  In fact, I only made the trip to Nashville twice in maybe six months afterward, in both cases to help Mike and Ashley with their moving process.  After that, I avoided making the drive to Nashville for years, unless I had to go to the airport.

After last year, I have a lot of practice making that drive.  Now, the trip to Nashville seems to fly right by–funny how that works.  All it takes is the right motivation.

Yes, is it my birthday.  I’m trying to be happy about it.  Since I’m taking a little twitter and facebook hiatus, I didn’t post these updates this morning:

“Today is my birthday. I started it by not wanting to get out of bed and face the day. That’s probably not a good sign.”

“I swore I’d never be one of those people who freaked out about getting older.  I hope this is just some mourning/loss-related anxiety and it goes away soon.”

See?  No one likes a Debbie Downer on his birthday.  :)

Actually, I do feel better about some things.  I have great people in my life.  You’re one of them, of course.

As an example: I was planning on coming down to the Sommet Center tonight to skate on the Predator’s home ice, but I forgot my skates at home.  My parents and a good friend offered to bring my skates to me here at work and then go with me to Nashville to make sure I did get this little bit of special time in on my birthday.  How awesome are the people in my life?  I really shouldn’t complain at all.

Long story short:  I got my skates delivered to me, and we made the trip to the Sommet Center.  Now, I’m so glad we did.  It was an experience I will remember forever.  Viewing the arena from the ice while zipping around the rink on my old college hockey skates was simply amazing for me as a Predators fan.

It was just over a month ago on the evening of December 26^th when I got the sudden wake-up call that I needed to start doing something to improve my fitness, as well as burn some energy to help clear my head over some things I was working through in my personal life. I got started with the Couch to 5K program, which slowly works you up from walking to running longer and longer intervals.  There were several great iPhone apps to help keep me on track as I worked through the program.  Even though I was only to Week 4 of the program, I did manage to run most of the race yesterday.  I did resort to “speed walking” one uphill when I realized I was walking up it faster than I was jogging it.

Yesterday, right before race time, I remembered about the “Map My Run” service and figured that might be fun to gather data while running the race.  I downloaded the app, and it worked great.  You can see the map of my run route and even do a 3D video “fly-by” of the route.

According to the official results:

My Gun Time: 33:38
My Chip Time: 33:15

“Gun Time” is the traditional time measurement from the sound of the starting gun to crossing the finish line. It’s more of a what people would think of a race vs. the other runners, i.e. “I crossed the finish line first,” but doesn’t take into account the large crowd at the starting line, which can take 5-10 minutes to clear out. “Chip Time” is measured from when I actually crossed the starting line (I was in the middle of the pack) to when I crossed the starting line.

My overall pace: 10:44.  A little slower than the 5:40 miles I used to post in high school, but then again, I was a lot younger and lighter then. I placed 51st out of 75 in my age group (Male 35-59). I placed 675th overall, and If I’m reading the results right, I placed 384th out of all males.

As I ran through downtown Nashville, I passed several landmarks that brought back some memories and helped me come to peace with things.  Places such as: The YMCA I almost joined on the very same night I found out things were going to change for good, the road I would have turned down had I bought a house there, and the farmer’s market where we spent some great times shopping for international foods that I rarely got to prepare because of the calorie counts.  Running past these places was cathartic for me.

Most importantly, I think I’ve made my peace with Nashville again. I’m looking forward to the next event, and yes, also the next race.

Perhaps I’m getting old, or perhaps social networking tools help “take the edge off” needing to see everyone in person, maybe I’m just more determined than ever to keep costs down, but the “need” to get back home to Oshkosh isn’t as strong as it was. Perhaps this is just a melancholy phase that will pass in time. Perhaps having certain people here makes it easier to stay south of Indianapolis now. Or…maybe I really am starting to despise air travel and the Jetta isn’t getting any younger. Alternators aren’t cheap.

Anyway, I had an enjoyable weekend. I got to spend some time at the lake and hang with Mom and Dad. I got to spend some quality time with @janeqpublic, both at home and in Nashville. We watched most of the Nashville fireworks before we finally could not even see them through the blinding rainstorm. I managed to snap a photo from our vantage point before things got really wet and we had to run for the car.

We then proceeded to get stuck in the post-fireworks traffic, which was exacerbated by the Steve McNair crime scene investigation– we ended up going right past it in the bumper-to-bumper crush. Speaking of the Steve McNair murder, chalk that up to yet another news story I learned about on twitter first–something that happens with increasing frequency.

On the professional front, I’m still very much enjoying using open-source tools to solve business problems. You know I’m in deep when I’m stopping to take notes when I get a flash of inspiration at odd hours. I find myself thinking in SQL code snippets, too. It’s exciting when projects hit this kind of critical mass. I’m excited to see where it goes from here.