9/29/09 Daily Pic

Daily Pic 9/28/09

Saturday Morning Bike Rid

I went out on a bike ride this morning in the attempt to figure out if I could ride from T&R's house to work. It appears I have to cross the river on Highway 77/Cedar Ave. Which is kind of dangerous.

Because its what I do, I took some pictures on my trip out and about in Bloomington looking for a way across the river.

Here, I found an albino squirrel running around outside an apartment complex.

Here is the old Cedar Ave Bridge. As you can tell, its slightly unusable. This is probably going to drive me onto the freeway.

Park in Bloomington. A very nice bird watching park next to an elementary (I think) school which is only blocks away from where I work. Found a new place for lunch breaks I think.

Baseball field, which overlooks the park and the bird watching area. Nice place to play I'd imagine, especially in the August evenings.

Another park I found. Nice ducks or geese out in the pond. I couldn't get close enough to tell.

Daily Pic 9/25/09

I left at 7am this morning as I had to take the GRE. So its a wee bit darker.

Daily Pic 9/24/09

Couple days late. Softball beat me down

Daily Pic 9/23/09

And the neighbor's car is gone. How odd

Life Stuff

So, the blog is up and hopefully at full speed. I'm trying a new thing, which you might have noticed, to take a picture out the front door of my car wherever I'm living for the next year. Right now, I'm at my Aunt Teresa's and my car gets parked out on the street, so that's where the pictures are going to be for a while. In Minnesota, I should be able to capture the changing leaves and then the snow in the winter. I'll be taking the picture each morning as I walk out the door, so I won't be able to post it until I get home, later that evening.

As for the job, I'm a Freight Claims Coordinator at a online children's furniture company. We have a warehouse and showroom near the mall. My job is to do with all for the broken furniture and get the freight companies to pay for their mistakes. So, I get to start calling the companies today and figure out solutions. Freight companies are notoriously difficult to deal with. Its not a great job, at least so far, but its a job. In this economy, that's ok at this point. Also, there is lots of potential for growth as its a small company that is doing pretty well in spite of the economy. So far the only thing I'm not a big of is that the hours I will work are 9.30am to 6pm. I'm a morning person, as in, I would prefer to work at 7am and be done at 4pm. I'm much more productive with my personal life at 6 pm and I would prefer to be working early in the morning.

I'm also thinking about biking into work, which in the depths of Minnesota winters could be interesting. Its about 10 miles from where T&R live which isn't a really long commute, but I have to cross the river and the only bridges remotely close are all Freeways, which I can't ride a bike on. So, I need to figure out if there is a bike path that can get across, or if I feel like riding on the shoulder and risk getting killed or if there is another option. Perhaps bus from certain locations. I might also have to go back to the thicker tires on the snow and ice packed roads. And invest in some long underwear.

I'm also playing on three softball teams so my weeknights are pretty well packed. The shoulder is holding up ok. I have figured out how to throw like a catcher all of the time so that I don't over extend and get the excruciating pain like I used to. I occasionally over extend and it'll hurt for a couple minutes, but that goes away.

So, keep an eye out for more posts.