J-Sin

Having worked at one place, Network Solutions for my entire “professional” career (I joined right after college in 2000), it was certainly daunting to leave that all behind and join a new organization. Why stress it you may wonder? Well I had been there nine years, was comfortable, making good money, and had a very secure position in the company. Given the upheaval that the global economy has been in, that sort of security for not only myself but my family is coveted. However, I had been working so hard that I had been missing out on my children’s lives and the job had put undue stress and burdens on my wife and I to the point where I resented every waking moment. While much of it was personal reasons for leaving, there was also a volley of issues stemming from our upper management team that required me to rethink my current track and journey and move along somewhere else.

Now that my fourth week at my new position at NeuStar is over, I know for certain that I made the right choice. Not only did I join a growing and strong company but I was lucky enough to get a position that was created for my own particular specialties, get a nice pay increase, and enjoy a more reasonable work/life balance. It’s great to hear people wanting to hear your input, valuing it to the Nth degree, and to be challenged on many fronts myself. I continue to find myself learning a lot each and every day. It’s also nice to have my own assumptions challenged time and time again (in a good way). I’m excited about the opportunities that lay ahead and really genuinely excited about the years of experience ahead of me.

So the work thing is working out nicely for me. Recently a colleague of mine accepted an offer to join my team and I’m really excited for what lays ahead for my team. I just wish I could bring so many other great people that I’ve met over the years at my former employer on over; I truly was blessed to meet and work with such superb and intelligent individuals.

I recently bought an amazing recipe book on South Indian cooking and techniques that I’ve found quite fascinating. I already made one semi-traditional Sambar dish. It was divine if I do say so myself.

Over the past couple of weeks, I really feel like I’ve bonded with my beautiful daughter Avery. She seems to take everything in, is extremely chill, and loves to giggle. Each night I have been putting her to bed, rocking her in a rocking chair as I feed her. It’s truly special to have the kind of bond a parent gets with their children. Keegan has been hilarious lately, saying lots of funny stuff. He enjoyed Halloween with his best friend, we went down to Gainesville to their home to do trick-or-treating. Keegan dressed as Buzz Lightyear from the Pixar movie “Toy Story”. He got lots of compliments. A week or so earlier, we went to the “Boo at the Zoo” event at the National Zoo. Him and I took the Metro up and met my wife at her work, then we rode the subway over to the Zoo. He got to get tons of trick or treating in and see a lion, a leopard, gorillas (and a cute baby gorilla!), orangutans, and some other various animals. It was a total blast.

Lately I’ve been playing a lot of Madden NFL on Playstation 3. I think it’s due to the fact that sports are essentially over for me. The baseball season ended in a hum-drum fashion (who really wants to see the Yankees win yet another world title?), with my fantasy teams finishing up in disappointing fashion – my Yahoo team finished third, which sounds good but we were only a couple of points out from first all year, and my “pay league” team that I co-run with my dad finishing next to last. The Redskins and Rams are stinking it up yet again. I’m rooting for the Saints to go all the way because I’ve always been a big fan of Drew Brees and could never understand why San Diego ran him out of town, though Philip Rivers is pretty beast. My fantasy football team SHOULD have been unstoppable but due to crappy luck and a few bad picks, they are only one win better than the Redskins at this point. Sigh. There’s always next year…and there’s always Madden to dominate!

Last night I pulled out some old Rage Against the Machine albums. Hadn’t listened to “Bulls on Parade” in who knows how long. I was surprised I remembered some of the words. I can’t believe I tried to rap that song back in the day. Sigh. I miss singing for a band almost more so than playing drums in a band. I always kick around the can and wonder out loud if I should do music again but I always seem to never find the time. There are so many ideas floating around in my head about music I’d love to write or play. I guess things would be different if someone lived close by that I had good musical chemistry with or something.

Disappointed about the Virginia elections for sure. Oh well, Craigh Deeds ran a bad campaign and deserved to lose. I think, generally speaking, I’m disappointed in politics and Barack Obama and all that cliched hope that he had generated for me and thousands of others. I got the blahs big time.

So is doing a fantasy sports team like Dungeons & Dragons? Of course not. Sorry web team debate, that is just silly. My twelve-sided dice landed a good fantasy football team this year on Yahoo’s Fantasy Sports site, the Jugglin’ Jugs are crafted for supreme domination. I was lucky enough to draft right smack in the middle of the pack, and had my brother-in-law Curt at my side who helped as I just generally talked a bunch of smack during the draft -  lots of “your mom” jokes and drunken silliness. Buuut I was able to draft a ridiculously talented squad with in my opinion the best running back (sorry All Day), LaDainian Tomlinson, and the best QB (sorry Peyton, though personally I like you more!) in Tom Brady. Sure they both are coming off of injury-plagued years but that just means they will be more rested and are ready for some career years. I think Brady will be turning in some major donkage this year.

At the wide receiver position I was fortunate enough to get the chip-on-his-shoulder Terrell Owens who will no doubt haul in his annual allotment of 10 TDs with a thousand-plus yards. My back-up runningbacks are Marshawn Lynch (suspended for the first three games) and Willie Parker (not suspended) as well as my fourth option, Dallas’ Felix Jones who is going to be a helluva receiver. I have Baltimore at defense with the Jets as my backup (they play Oakland during the Ravens bye week). My tight end Dallas Clark is due for a monster season as essentially the #2 receiver in Indy. I also have Dallas’ kicker Nick Folk who should get plenty of extra points and field goal attempts.

DeSean Jackson (Eagles) will be doing some Wildcat stuff for Philly this year and Donald Driver will be hauling in a ton of TDs and yards from Aaron Rodgers. Backup Isaac Bruce is more of a “let’s just see” kind of a pick. I doubt I ever play him except for a bye week play. Brent Celek is Philly’s starting TE and should be good. My backup QB is Matt Hasselbeck who is a top-tier QB.

Turning to baseball, my Yahoo team, Drools McGoo is having a good year.  I should finish 2nd or 3rd this year. I did not pay nearly enough attention to it, often not making moves or adjustments for a week or two. So boo on that. My pay team, in the West End League, Mr. Yuk and the Jolly Rogers is not as fortunate. We were devastated by injuries all year: Grady Sizemore, Josh Hamilton, Ian Kinsler, Scott Kazmir, Joey Devine (a terrible pick up, and poor research on my part!), Nelson Cruz, Andruw Jones, Gil Meche, Troy Percival, Jeremy Bonderman, Kelvim Escobar, and several others were just downright awful. We had many bright spots though such as the aforementioned Cruz and Kinsler (sans BA of course) as well as a great trade for Jeff Niemann of Tampa for a throw-away reliever from Seattle, as well as great waiver wire pickups such as Luke Hochevar, Scott Feldman (won 12 games for us!), and Jered Weaver & Jarod Washburn’’s fantastic pitching season. We’ll place second to last because of the injury bug but it was a good season none-the-less. Our outlook for next year is pretty bright.