Oh yeah, last weekend I went up to the Berkshires for an engagement party/weekend retreat thing for Benny and Keryn at a friend's house. There were 10 of us or so and we mostly ate and drank but also took a little hike through a trail. Here are the photos from that (I didnt have my camera but Dave took some sweet photos). This is benny and me.

I finally scanned my slides I shot when Maddy and I were in Europe. Here's a link. There are about 100 photos.

They were shot on slide film, a format that is a pain in so many ways. Most places need to mail them to a lab to develop them (they can't do them in house), and when you get them back... what the heck are you going to do with slides? You can barely see them and the price of scanning them when you get them developed is about $2/slide, which is absurd. So I finally brought them to my parents' home and scanned them with my mom's slide scanner (to my mom's dismay... she thinks it will break if you look at it wrong, so you can imagine how worried she got when I said I was scanning 100 slides).

The photos require a little explanation, but basically here's the gist:

We were in the French countryside about 2 hrs east of Toulouse in a tiny town called "st geneiz" which we pronounced "saint gen-eeeze" until a frenchie said "no, you suck, it is pronounced 'SAN John-yeh'" our bad. so that's where all the animals came from. Jesse's wedding was at a chateau, or 'big ass castle'. it was pretty scenic and sweet.

there are some nice shots from the town and from the ceremony and wedding party.

then we went to barcelona and the trip to get there took about 16 hours and involved 4 trains and a bus.. no joke. the 2nd train was hit by lightning and died. we met a guy from cirque du soleil and a girl from barcelona who spoke english (thank god).

barcelona's beaches were cool -- lots of topless women, but not the kind you want to see topless.

the photos kind of go the wrong way and are not in any good order but it looks like the later ones are in france and the middle ones are in barcelona.

This morning (EARLY this morning, I woke up at 6am), I shot a piece for Forbes.com about Black Friday with my Journalism school friend Annalisa. (you can watch it already) We went over to Macy's and she interviewed the CEO of Federated Department Stores, Terry Lundgren, about shopping the day after Thanksgiving. Personally I'd call it 'super busy friday' because 'black friday' connotes something very evil and sinister... Like in This Is Spinal Tap where the band members explain how black their record cover is "you can't get any blacker than black". Or the 'black death'. But apparently, 'black' refers to mostly financially problematic days and occasionally is used by Jethro Tull in their hit song (ok, it's one of their worst) "black sunday."

Anyhow, I went over to Forbes to pick up the equipment and of course, typical J-school shenanegans, I forgot to bring a tripod and realized it just as we walked into Macys. Annalisa looks at me and in her I saw some of that 'black' directed towards me. It wasn't my fault -- there was no tripod sitting out (and meanwhile, half the equipment had no batteries or didnt work right anyway). This was great... it took us back to our days of j-school when we'd come back with our footage out of focus or audio-less. This was bad but not terrible. I improvised.

We had brought a light for some unknown reason and sure enough the thread for the top of the light stand (similar to a tripod and with a small screw on top) fit the hole in the camera. It may have been the shittiest tripod ever (no tilt or pan capabilities, and very wobbly), but it did the trick and the shoot went off without a hitch. Go me! I'm like macgyver over here.

I wanted to send a package to maddy in china. I decided the post office would be cheaper than UPS but far more of a pain in the ass, but I figured I'd go with them anyway. Sure enough, it was.

I walked in with my box and tried to get on line. The 104/amsterdam post office is so insanely disorganized and inefficient, to the point wher ethey need a woman who's entire job is to walk around and answer questions and direct people to where they need to go. seems like a good idea except that it should BE OBVIOUS where to go and how to get what you need and see what your options are for sending shit to people.

I want to send a small box to china. Seemed like a simple request. She took one look at my package (i was re-using a ups box so it had a label on it already) and was outraged that i would bring that tainted box into the post office. "it needs to be covered over. you can't send it like that" fair enough, i said, but aren't i going to fill out some big form that will cover it over completely? like a big sticker or label that you're going to put onto th ebox?

"no, we need to cover it up."

i said OK, how do we do that. "you need a sharpie."
do you have a sharpie. "no, we dont give them out to people because they walk off with them."
i didnt realize sharpies were such hot commodities. but you're a post office, surely you must have some writing device or sticker or paper and glue or tape to cover up this section of the box.
she says "you expcet everyone to do everything for you." i swear the entire time i was diffusing the hostility, being polite, asking nicely. "let me see what i can do," she says obnoxiously and walks off. i realize its not up to her to do this, but give me a break, its a goddamn post office. i'm not asking for CVS, just a little tape and a sharpie in case... JUST IN CASE... someone comes to the post office, waits on their 30 minute never ending line, and has to change something on theri f'ing box.

i say "um, maybe i should just go to ups then," as subtle hint that a) you guys are fucking retarded, b) ups isnt that great but at least they have some goddamn sharpies and tape and c) it's probably worth the $20 in pain-in-the-ass fees to just cut my losses and stop wasting time. she says "well it'll cost you $30 there,... ill be right back"

she comes back witha sharpie. tries to draw over the barcode, and it doesnt work. the only sharpie in the post office is all dried up.

then she comes out with a piece of paper and roll of tape and tapes it over. great, now we're getting somewhere. i write out the address as she instructs, thinking this is odd because i'm pretty sure i'll have to fill out one of their special labels. i keep asking her that and she keeps yelling no, fill it out this way.

she walks me over to the counter and says "here, mr. lee can help you now. MR LEE?" she is yelling through the glass because you can't hear shit on either side. "MR LEE, he wants to send this to china."

yes, lets see if mr. lee can help me. he takes one look at the packaging and says "this is not taped up correctly, you need to ..." at which point the obnoxious but kind of helpful woman who is still next to me starts yelling back (not mean, just so she can get through the glass) "no MR. lee, it was me. I taped up his package. I did that..." but mr. lee pays no heed. he raises his hand to get the woman to stop talking and directs his attention to me.

"you have to tape it up better because something can get underneath this and tear the paper in half," he explains with another letter how that would happen. i think to myself "ok, so um, can you just tape it up better," but he simply says that and moves on. if Mr. lee sees this packaging problem all the time, why doesnt he have a helpful piece of tape so i may fix my packaging. or better, while he's giving me the lesson in packaging design, maybe he could just fix it himself.

mr. lee was nice, though, and didnt do shit but did continue to help me with sending my package. right after he yelled at the woman and the woman walked away yelling to herself "i taped the package up. i did that. you need the paper to cover the label. so i covered the label..."

so mr. lee says "ok, so regular mail." i ask how much. $10. ok, cool. can i insure that?

"insurance???" he says. oh, you have to send that parcel post.

ahhh, parcel post, i think. what the fuck is parcel post, what is the difference, and why the fuck didnt that woman or mr lee mention this.

and then mr. lee takes out a HUGE mailing label (plenty large enough to cover the ups label) and says i need to fill it out. jesus christ, this is exactly why i should have gone to UPS in the first place. so after all this, i was right. i had to fill out a big label. so i did that, add the insurance, and mr. lee puts it on the box. the total is $20, hardly a bargain and i bet UPS could have done it for $25 in about 5 minutes (instead of the 45 it had just taken me).

i dont want to get started on the post office. but suffice it to say, it is the most inefficient place on earth and makes the chinese consulate (which was fast, but i guess has a bad reputation) look like an amazon.com checkout.

god i hate you, post office. i hate you so much.

What a super productive day today...

First of all, I woke up at 12:30, checked my email, and these are the things that were waiting for me:

1- the director of a school in shenzhen is interested in my science teaching skills when i get over there. maddy had told me he was looking for teachers and it might be a good opportunity. sure enough, he was very interested in my travel plans.

2- a fellow j-school alum who works for forbes online threw me a video gig for this friday, interviewing the CEO of Federated Dep't stores about black friday. pay is great and this'll be my first gig for forbes which will hopefully lead to other cool stories.

3- the math dept head of a private school in nyc emailed me to see if i could substitute teach next week. i hadn't heard from this guy for a year and out of the blue he asks what my schedule is. i've basically never subbed, but i'm sure i'll be fine at it, and i'm sure it will be a good story.

-then I helped my cousin with his business school essays. i should charge people and do that for a living because...

-a few minutes later, my roommate IMd me and said he got into Columbia Business school!! un-f'ing believable! (i helped him quite a bit on his essays). he found out he got into NYU also about a week ago. i told him i should probably get a pat on the back as well.

- then i downloaded some episodes of "House of cosbys"... an animated show, 5 minutes in length, about a dude who clones bill cosby multiple times, and every 10th cosby has super powers. it's so absurd but actually kind of funny.

-then i tutored for a few hours


yeah, i had a kickass day today.

Last night I went over to a student's house and we began our typical session. Within a few minutes I heard music that sounded like it was coming from another room just beyond view. It was Electric 6's new album! I knew the girl has an older brother and thought "cool, this guy has good taste in music!" The album played in full and all I could think was "wow, this is going to make a great blog entry... my student's older brother is listening to E6, that's so awesome!"

The album finishes, but we're only halfway done with our session. The next song comes on. It's still faint, I can't quite place it. Then I realize, oh, this is Evanescence's new album. And I thought wow, this guy has cool taste. His picks are so similar to what I listen to, maybe we ought to swap playlists (though I dont have a lame-ass ipod, so that wouldn't work). But the music is a bit distracting so I glance around trying to find the source and I realize it's not coming from the other room. It sounds like its coming from a cell phone tucked inside the bookcase behind me. Weird.

Then I realize: it's coming from my mp3 player in my coat pocket. HAHA! It has speakers and i guess it accidentally turned on at some point. My bad. And of course just as I am shutting it off, in comes the older brother, from a totally different side of the apartment (so he obviously wasn't in the room I thought he was in). Oh well.

Forgot to mention ... Last week I scored some free tickets from my friend Alisa to a Broadway show: "The Little Dog Laughed." I brought Zak and Chung and we actually sat in the very first row! The show was a 4-person comedy about an up and coming movie star who is about to go bigtime with a new movie, but can't come out of the closet because he would jeopardize his role. The guy from "that thing you do" is the movie star and his agent, a feisty Julie White as the agent. It was hilarious! Well worth the... uh... trip to midtown.

My girlfriend Maddy is a looker. When we first started dating (wow, almost 8 months ago), I would talk about her incessantly to whoever I was with. After all, it was a rare thing for me to have a girlfriend. Early on, I was convinced Maddy looked just like Angelina Jolie, only smaller, and not insane. And jewish. I was emailing my favorite journalism school professor, Julie, and mentioned that comparison. She immediately coined the term: "the Jolie of Judaism." That was the funniest thing I've ever heard.

Fast forward to just a month ago. It's a small world. Several of my students are actually classmates with Julie's son, and the parents are friendly with each other. So Julie ran into the mother of one of my students and they got to talking about me and how awesome I am (as a student in journalism school and as a tutor).

So last night when I went to see that student, her father says to me, "Julie told me to ask you how the Jolie of Judaism is." I cracked up.

This morning, the mother of one of my students said I look exactly like Will Farrell (whom she met in person a few weeks ago). She said "you don't look like you could be his brother... you look exactly like him." Haha. And by extension, Farrell looks like Flay. What a trifecta we'd make!

Today was a highly productive day...

Before the day even began, zak came into my room and woke me up at 8am asking which switch on the circuit breaker goes to which part of the apartment. Zak had blown a fuse in the kitchen and cut power to everythign in the apartment from trying tofigure out which switch was for the kitchen. Agh.

1- It's 9am. I am sleeping. I wake up to a loud drilling noise that sounds like its coming from inside the apartment. I don't care. I'm tired and go back to sleep. Then Benny, my SUPER, walks into my room, mumbles something and hands me his cell phone. Paula (my roommate) is on the line and says Benny is there to fix our shower drain. What a way to wake up. Already the drain was unclogged. I just knew it would be a splendid day.

2- Then I picked up my laundry (sorry for the change in tense, I am more fond of past tense than present). I love picking up my laundry.

3- I headed down to the tutoring office to pick up some stuff. Not that exciting, but I got to chat with the other guys. Found out some great shows that I need to start watching:
-Wonder Showzen
-Venture something
-Robot Chicken
-Harvey Birdman (I already love this show, I just remembered it)
-House of Cosbies

4- Went to the Chinese Consulate to pick up my visa for china... it only took 5 minutes, again! Cost $75, but was worth it. I'm really going to China.

5- Tutored for a bit. Then headed down to my next student, but realized it was probably going to rain... like, torrential rain, so I figured I'd insure myself in case it did. I bought a $7 umbrella from a dude on the street who was in the middle of hawking his wares.

"... but how do I know this isn't a piece of crap." asked the customer.
"it's fine. it'll keep you dry." said the seller.
"Yeah, I bet. And I'll come back here tomorrow and you'll be gone."
Then the seller says this: "I'm out here. The Misses told me don't you come back 'less you makin' green. So I'm out here. Been out here for 6 years now."

I figured it was a good deal. Insurance against rain. It had a "made in china" tag on it, which made me miss maddy. But then I remembered her words of wisdom: "never buy shit that's made in china. It sucks and it breaks and it's constructed cheaply."

I learned the wisdom of those words quickly. Every single time I opened the umbrella, another piece broke off.

After the next student, it started to rain and the wind was blowing hard. I opened the umbrella, so far so good. I walked a few blocks, got to the subway, and realized the plastic thing at the tip of the umbrella to cover it when you go indoors broke completely off. No matter, i didnt need it anyway. I got out, and went to my next student. Afterwards it wa raining badly... the umbrella opened upside down. Ok, whatever. The handle was shaky and i had to hold the neck of the umbrella with my other hand to keep it steady. More rain. I checked the inside of the polyester to see if it was wet -- I stopped trusting the umbrella. After the last student, I opened the umbrella one final time and one of the tips connected to the fabric came loose. This piece of crap was literally falling apart by the minute. The rain let up a bit, so that was nice and i kept the umbrella. maybe I can sell it on ebay. a real NYC umbrella might go for some real cash.

6- I got an email from PC Magazine -- I am going to get published!!! Fuck yeah, at $1/word for a 300 word piece about skype. I've been waiting for this article to go somewhere and it looks like it finally has!

7- Finally, I received my Cowon A2 video/mp3 player. This thing is a bit big, but so damn sweet its unbelievable. CHeck it out on their site: www.cowonamerica.com

8- also I received the footage of an eagle release in Florida for my story about, yes, eagles in Florida. Can't wait to watch it.

And that's my day.

On my way to the museum, I ran into my aunt and uncle! Totally random. I'll be seeing them next week for Thanksgiving.

I went to the museum of natural history last night with Dave to see a discussion with Ann Druyan (Carl Sagan's widow) about the search for god. Druyan transcribed a lecture series Sagan gave in the early 80s and published it in a new book called "A personal view of the search for god." The talk was pretty much a re-hashing of all the arguments trying to reconcile science with religion. That religions answers what science cannot. That science doesn't provide a structure for ethics or morality. That the god that Sagan believed in was very different than what most people believe. And there was a lot of talk about how great Sagan was (which he was) in popularizing science.

It was a bit annoying because they dealt with this talk as if the audience knew nothing on the topic. But the audience was not your typical museum audience that knows little and wants to see cool stuff. I think this audience, showing up at 6:30 on a tuesday night (many sporting AMNH badges -- probably scientists that do research at the museum), had a far greater understanding of the issues presented than Ann Druyan had thought. So she went over a lot of the same stuff we've heard forever rather than jumping into more complicated issues or exploring certain ideas more fully.

It wasn't bad, but it wasn't all that interesting either. But it's great to see people like Druyan dedicating her life to making science more mainstream and accessible.

The lecture will be podcast on the AMNH website... but its not up yet.

Oral B is OK in my book... I bought one of their electric toothbrushes a few months ago and just recently it started acting strange. Basically, when I take it off the charger, it turns on. Period. It doesn't know how to turn off unless it is back on the charger. It's the weirdest thing. Even smacking it on the sink doesn't turn it off.

This is how the previous one I had broke, but I just bought the replacement, thinking it was normal for it to die after a year.

This time I figured I'd see what I could get from the company. I called Oral B and said their shit broke. I barely had to say anything and the woman said she'd mail me a replacement. Way to go me!

A week goes by, and Fedex sends me a note saying to call a number about a package. They said the package wasn't packaged properly (I have no idea) and that they had to return it to the sender. So I called Oral B again (my breath was REALLY kicking at this point... j/k) and they apologized and said they'd throw in some brush heads as a goodwill gesture.

Today I received the package. A brand new electric toothbrush and a few heads. Go me!

I got back a few hours ago from the Chinese Consulate to apply for my visa to China and had the most pleasing experience there! I had heard from several people that it would be miserable, that lines are long, that the place is mobbed from the second it opens to when it closes, except for the 1 hr lunch break everyone goes on.

A few days ago I went to the website to find the documents I'd need to fill out beforehand. The website barely works. Literally. Pages either do not load or take 10 minutes to load... even the page titled "Notice about the technical problems of the website" DOES NOT LOAD! I could barely get some of the FAQ pages and even the hours of operation page. For the PDF I needed to fill out, I ended up going to the webpage for a service that does visas for a fee... their page actually works and they had a copy of the PDF file to fill out.

Anyway, the consulate website explains that the office is busiest in the afternoons, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, Monday mornings and basically all other times. I was pretty nervous and decided I'd arrive first thing in the morning - at 9am, when it opens. I obviously slept late, till about 10, because I'm just no good at getting up. I anxiously headed over to 42nd and 12th avenue... so far from anything that no one can hear you scream. Except I guess the Intrepid, which is right across the highway.

I walked into a room like the DMV - windows with the call number on LED signs and rows of seats with people waiting. I picked a number and needed to get my photo taken first. That took about 3 minutes with 2 people in front of me. Then I was ready to sit and wait for 10 hours. There were maybe 50-75 people in the room, waiting, filling out forms. It was not crowded but who knows how long these things take. I figured it'd take forever. Sure enough, though, I looked at my number and compared it to the LED signs... It appeared they had already called me. Was it that fast? So I went up to a window and asked, and the nice lady said "do you have your form filled out" I said yes, gave her my passport and photo and form. In 10 seconds she hands me back a slip and says "pick up on Thursday".

Holy crap that was efficient. This was not the bureaucratic, inept, miserable experience I had nightmares about. It was easy, painless. Thank you Chinese Consulat for starting my day off so well. I can't wait to go to your country and buy pirated goods and spend $3 for a 10 course meal. Can't wait!!

Whattup Sushi lova’s…

I know you’ve been having the craving, the itch, and I’m here to give you your fix. I’m your sushi dealer and I’m hooking you up with enough rolls and sashimi to keep you going ‘til next week. (Ok, well, not exactly me… more like the trained sushi chefs at the restaurant, but whatever. I’m the enabler.)

You can try to say no, but face it, you’re not ready to go cold Ahi tuna and give it up just yet. You want it. Just one more all you can eat meal. You need the sushi fix.

(funny sidenote… I just googled “get your fix” to find some good drug-related language to use in my email and stumbled across this ridiculous site that trumps all humor I might have included in this email. Here’s the quote from the front page: “Are you a Birth Junkie? Do you need a daily fix? If you're like me, you can't seem to get enough of anything related to birth: stories, photos, videos, etc... I've even given birth 10 times myself, not to mention all the births I've attended as a doula.” WTF?? Who, pray tell, is like her?? http://www.birthjunkie.com/ )

Anyway, back to sushi. I think that quote just cut my humor short. I’ve been humor-blocked by birthjunkie. Sorry.

Details:
All you can eat SUSHI ---
WEDNESDAY (11/15 this week) 7:30pm
@ Eastern Sushi (AKA Nihon Sushi) 2nd Ave btw 72/73rd st (West side of street)
$26 (incl tax + tip) and half price drinks/sake.

Come or be eaten at the bar. The dragon roll awaits. And so does that weird lady who runs “birthjunkie.com”. What? I’ll be sporting my custom-designed “All you can eat Sushi, Team USA” shirt.

And finally, a great quote from the song “Germans in Mexico” off the new “Electric 6” album - ‘sing everybody, Deutsche! Detsche!/Vaya con dios, amigos!’ This is my favorite album this month. We can discuss at sushi.

It's 3am and I just finished the last episode of Season 1 of "Lost". I know, i'm a few years behind on TV. I'm catching up. I've been watching TV shows on my iAudio incessantly on the subway and bus. These days I pray the bus gets stuck in traffic just so I can watch another 10 minutes of whatever episode I'm on. I don't mind waiting for the trains just as long as I can watch Hurley and Jack and Kate do their thing on the Island...

I just acquired a whole bunch of new shows:
-Dangermouse Season 1 (an old british cartoon from the 80s)
- Dexter (as the episodes come out each Sunday night)
- House season 1 and 2
- Jericho (first 9 episodes)
- Lost Season 1 and 2
- Weeds season 1 and 2
- 24 season 1
- knight rider season 1 and 2
- Prison break season 1
- Family guy season 4 and 5 (already have DVDs of 1,2 and 3)

To help me watch TV better, I just bought the Cowon A2 player... a media player about the size of my old mp3 player, but with a 4 inch screen and a 10 hour video battery life. This thing is the coolest gadget ever. It has all the features of my iAudio, just made for video. It can even play video out to a TV and get this, it can RECORD video direct to divx. wtf? It's $300. Check it out

Hmmmm.... this guy looks so familiar. Yep, it's Bobby "10 minutes behind Jeff" Flay. haha.

Where did Gallagher come from?

It's "where's waldo," but Jeff instead of Waldo.


Marathon photos baby! Yeehaw, mile 20!

Funny things people do with website names...

So I was looking up website names for a site idea I had. I looked up tutortv.com and it is taken (nothing is on the site yet, it's just "parked" and unused), so I did a "whois" lookup for who actually owns the domain. It is a woman who runs an upscale tutor company in ... you guessed it... NYC, called "Stanford Coaching Inc." I found an article including a reference to her $2 mil company here where she discusses how she flies her tutors all over the world for super rich families to tutor their kids while yachting around the globe, etc etc. Anyway, I couldn't find shit online about her tutoring company -- apparently she buys domain names for everything but her own company. (Her company changed names to www.inspirica.com and apparently is doing quite well!)

I googled her email address and found this site http://scaletheheights.com/

"Dear Domain Seeker, I'm a small business owner who renamed my business. I learned that the best potential trademarks seem to be made-up names. After I chose my new name I decided to register many of the other great names I came up with (listed below) If you are interested in inquiring about any of these names, please feel free to contact me."

Apparently she really DOES register every domain address! haha. what's interesting here is that you would think the tutoring business would be far more lucrative than than squatting domains and hoping someone picks a silly name and pays you for it. But then again, you can do both and the overhead is small. But just look at some of these names! They're just funny.

Last night I filmed Nicole Baguer's performance at Crash Theater. (Nicole is a friend and fellow JHU Alum and she has some of the most amazing vocal cords ever, plus she's hot and puts on a sick show!)

Check out her album through her website, or listen to some songs online at Rhapsody

See for yourself...

So Electric Six came out with a new album. I went to download it on Allofmp3.com but I have no money in my account there, so I have to credit some in. Turns out, VISA (the only credit card I own) has stopped paying shady overseas companies like this one (a Russian version of iTunes -- way cheaper and a much larger library of music). So I'm screwed. If I have no way of crediting my account with them, then I can't buy this awesome Electric Six album (and dozens of other albums for about $1.50 apiece).

That's when I decided to get a Mastercard, just so I can fund allofmp3. Go Mastercard.

On Saturday I randomly bumped into Dan on the UWS. He's from Westchester, my age, and doing well as a radio producer. Incidentally, I've been filming my father's house-calls each week in an effort to document his work for use in a possible documentary. Last week we went to see Dan's grandma (who lives in Westchester), so he mentioned that when I saw him.

I forgot to mention... last week I did a shoot for a company called NeoStem. I lit and filmed the CEO giving a "intro to our website" message. Check it out at www.neostem.com. Robin (the CEO) is quite funny and very nice. Her company basically provides 'bio-insurance' -- they take adult stem cells from you and freeze them for later use if something goes wrong. Pretty neat idea and apparently it's a proven technique that rivals embryonic stem cells.

So cute... Teresa's photos from race day and the weekend.

Well, I finished the marathon… in 4 hrs and 56 seconds. Let’s just round it down and say I did a 4 hr marathon. Hell yeah.

OFFICIAL RESULTS:
Here’s my official time breakdown:
Place: 12,495 (out of 37,000)
Official time: 4:00:56
Pace: 9:11/mile
Half marathon: 2:00:55

RUNDOWN:
The run went well. It was perfect weather. Cool, mid 40s to start, clear day and sunny. The first 10 miles were fine but I realize now I went a bit slow on them than I should have. Teresa was supposed to jump in at mile 11 but she wasn’t there! (I found out later that she couldn’t find where the mile 11 marker was and waited on Bedford and 5th, maybe 10 blocks from the marker. Oh well.) At the water stop around 70th street, some dude spilled a cup of gatorade on me from behind. He said sorry but that didn’t seem to make me feel better. I now looked like I had peed my pants, had yellow liquid running down my leg, which made my leg all sticky and on top of that, it was cold out so the liquid just made my leg even colder. Damn Gatorade. I managed to see my parents shortly after the incident at 1st Ave around 78th street. But I thought Jon was going to be with them because he wanted to jump in and run with me for a bit and I had told him to wait with them. I didn’t see him and scanned the next few blocks for him, but figured it was going to be another Teresa mishap and just focused on running. Out of nowhere, around 85th street, I hear Jon behind me say something. I can’t remember what it was, but I was elated he was there. He then ran with me for the next 8 miles, up until the last .2 miles where an organizer noticed he had no number and told him to get off the route. He was so helpful – I definitely would have slowed down if he weren’t running with me. Last year, my biggest mistake was stopping twice to walk a bit, thinking I wouldn’t lose much time. But this time, the last 4 miles I didn’t stop for water nor slowed down. I actually saw Teresa at Central Park South (about ½ mile from the finish), which was great. And I finished. Hopefully with a smile and a decent photo.

My nipples didn’t bleed, thank god, although I totally forgot to put Vaseline on them. I realized about 3 miles into the race that I forgot and it would probably be a problem, so I grabbed a stick of Vaseline from one of the medics on the sidelines.

The funniest part of the race was watching two guys dressed as the Blues Brothers take a piss on the side of the highway about a few miles into the race. They were standing there together, peeing on the cement on the side of the road. Hilarious.

Also hilarious is the video Jon took of me and him running. That is here for your viewing enjoyment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NsgziUyGaE



I had a slightly negative split – I ran the second half faster than my first half—which basically means I should have run a bit faster in the beginning. It’s a long race though, so it’s really tough to gauge how fast the first few miles should be.

When I finished, I waited with my dad, Jon and Doree for a while. My sister finished at 5:42 which is faster than her last marathon in Arizona. Pretty impressive since NY is a much tougher course (not flat at all) and she beat her last time by a lot.

BOBBY FLAY RUNS TOO:
My sister’s friend said something like “did you see bobby flay in the race,” which I thought was a joke, since I look like him. But she was totally serious. I said no.

Turns out, Bobby Flay actually runs the NYC marathon!

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/468065p-393913c.html

This is funny for several reasons:
1) he is my doppelganger.
2) When I was on Iron Chef, Cat Cora (the female iron chef), would tell me I’m too skinny to be Bobby Flay. I told her it was because I’m training for a marathon.
3) I beat him by 10 minutes, but he’s older and wider than me so I probably should have beat him by more!

LANCE:
Lance just barely broke 3 hours and said it was the hardest thing he’s ever done. That’s a lot to say coming from him. Read what else he said. He’s cool even if he juiced up for this.

http://www.nycmarathon.org/news/story_27
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/468725p-394425c.html

COOL BAND:
There were some great bands that performed on the marathon route. Teresa said she really liked the one that she was standing near for a while waiting for me. I believe they are “Lewd Buddha,” a funk fusion band that rocks. I listened to some songs off their website and decided they were good enough to invest in. So I bought their album on CDBaby (one of the few albums I’ve actually purchased over the last 5 years) for $10 including shipping. I even emailed them to say they rocked. http://www.lewdbuddha.com/

I’m running in the NYC Marathon this Sunday. You should all come out and watch, it should be a lot of fun.

This will be my fourth marathon and second NY Marathon. I’ve trained a lot for this one and I’m feeling better than ever. I’ve gotten rid of some of the summer weight I gained while tanning (burning) in Barcelona eating tuna and guzzling barrels of wine and wheels of cheese with old college friends in France. (I certainly gained no weight from my girlfriend’s cooking—whole wheat muffins sweetened with molasses.)

Running is a lifestyle, and training for a marathon is a lifestyle change. Consistency is the key to success. Missing a run one day is bad. Missing several runs or not keeping up the training can cause you to fall behind and not be adequately prepared. You probably won’t get a great body by running. You’ll lose weight, but it won’t necessarily show. Your resting heart rate slows significantly and your lung capacity improves. Your threshold for pain goes up and you rarely get sick.

But what is Sunday going to be like? Let me paint you a picture of the experience of running a marathon. You feel great for the first 15 miles. If you can’t do 14 or 15 miles without breaking a sweat, you’re probably in the wrong race. So everyone starts out looking good. Your motion is smooth, your legs are strong, your breathing is easy. 2.5 million people are cheering and it’s the happiest time. Then mile 18 comes along and all of a sudden things get painful and you fatigue. Your legs start aching, it feels like the route is entirely uphill now, and you start wondering why you thought this would be fun.

Mile 21 kills. That’s where you can’t ignore the pain and fatigue anymore. They are deafening and become all you think about. By mile 23-24, you begin rationalizing: it wouldn’t be so bad if I stopped this race right now. I’ll still have done a lot. I’ll still have succeeded and accomplished so much. You think “what difference does it make… I’ve done all the training. That was the hard part. This is just another 3 miles. What’s the big deal if I don’t do it.”

A marathon is many things for the people running it. For some, it’s a race. For others, it’s a one-time accomplishment, to see if they can do it. For me, it’s an attempt to beat my personal record. But for everyone, it’s painful.

Pain is generally a hard thing to describe. Humans are wired to not be able to recall the experience of pain. We can conjure up old images in our heads, hum songs we heard a long time ago, recite phrases. Even remember how things smell. But trying to remember how a certain pain felt is very difficult. Thank god.

Pain is what a marathon ends up being about. When I ran the Arizona Marathon last year with my sister, she complained that her legs hurt, her head hurt, her feet hurt. I turned to her incredulously and said “do you think this is a walk in the park for all those people behind you?” I explained that this race is special because we are experiencing a kind of pain that takes 23 miles of running to feel. It takes hours of hard exercise to attain the level of stress and sting that we were feeling throughout our legs. Few will ever achieve that agony in their lives. It’s not like breaking your leg. It’s a club that comes with a high price to pay in determination and discomfort.

But the reward… oh that sweet, delicious reward. At mile 25.2, with just 1 mile left, every step forward feels like you’re climbing a flight of stairs. An eternity passes each moment. You are at your slowest pace but you feel like you’re sprinting. The finish line comes into view and finally an end to the misery is in sight. But it is a mirage. It approaches slowly. It barely moves. You’re in a dream, treading water and going nowhere fast.

And then it’s over. Maybe you noticed a camera taking your photo and put your arms up and smiled, but maybe you were too busy drowning out the excruciating pain to notice anything. When I crossed the line last year after 4 hours 11 minutes, my legs buckled and I couldn’t stand straight. I kept wobbling and knocking into people as we made our way, slowly, to the street. Then I cried. It was easily the biggest thing I’d ever accomplished.

I’m hoping to break 4 hours on Sunday. The numbers are in my favor. I ran a 1:52 half marathon in late August, then a 1:50 half marathon 2 weeks later in miserable pouring rain. Both shoes were soaked, one nipple was bleeding. I ran a 5:50 mile on 5^th avenue. I ran a 10 mile leg of a relay marathon (my 2 sisters and father ran the other 3 legs) at just under 8 minute pace.

Teresa will be jumping in and running a stretch with me, probably around mile 11 hopefully til the end. Feel free to do the same if you see us. I’ll be wearing a white shirt.

I’m ready for the burn on Sunday and I’m ready to have a personal record. Come out and watch. Check out www.nycmarathon.org and www.mta.info (click on the marathon subway map link). Or if you’re really lazy, just come to the end. Official start time is 10:10am so I’ll hopefully finish by 2:15pm. Go to the reunion spot under the letter “N”