Wacky station and no record for me.

I've commuted on the three major rail lines out of New York. NJ Transit is by far the rudest. Metro North is nicest. The LIRR is a close second But when it comes to train stations, nothing is zanier than the information and ticketing area at New York's Penn Station. Normally, I'm a Grand Central kind of guy, but last night I was visiting family on Long Island.

Yesterday, I ran a 15-mile training run. It was scheduled for today, but Maggie is working, so I took a long lunch and did it yesterday. My initial idea was to do today's 4-mile race, the Run for Central Park, and then run another 11 miles. But since Maggie has to leave early, I'm doing the race and going straight home.

My legs are a little shaky from yesterday... so I think today won't be one of those personal record-breaking runs.

On another note, I'm trying my Nike+iPod sneakers for the first time. We'll see how that goes.

Love to all. Even you, the guy in the gym who was talking on his phone beneath the "No Cell Phones" sign.

TV Audtion Number Two.

In case you thought the offices of a major TV production studio were fancy, I’m here to tell you that it isn’t always the case. While this office is atmospherically very pleasant, it is physically like any other… only more casual.

For the second time ever, I got asked to audition for a TV show. It seems that a well-known production company is putting together a show that involves people in my field helping other people do better in their field.

They emailed me because they were looking for someone to host the show who, well, was a lot like me: someone 30-40, outgoing, has teaching experience, is in this particular field of expertise, etc.

They invited me in because they liked my written response to their email, and thought I sounded good on the answering machine when I followed up with a phone call.

Pardon. Can you move over, please? My ego needs more room.

I arrived 15 minutes early. Before I went upstairs, I said the Serenity Prayer, and asked God to help me do whatever it was that I was supposed to do as well as I was supposed to do it. I also called a TV-experienced friend of mine (who gave me advice the night before) and told him:

“If I don’t pee on anyone, I’ll consider this a big success.”

She said: “This is going to be quick. We’re just going to do a 3-5 minute video, and then we’ll edit it down and send it upstairs.”

She told me where to look (to the right of the camera), and asked me to repeat the questions back to her before I answered them. Then she asked me questions about my job, my life and my field. And I answered them the best I could, trying not to think about why I was there at all.

I think she was a little surprised when, in response to a general “describe yourself” question, I said: “Well, I own my own gorilla suit, which has always been a lifelong dream of mine, and I buy glowsticks in bulk.”

When it was over, she said: “Well, you did great. You seem confident on camera, you definitely know your business, you’re funny, and the fact that you can change your schedule to accommodate the shooting schedule is a real plus. I’d be totally surprised if you didn’t get a callback.”

I’m afraid you have to move over some more. My ego just grew again.

My TV friend said: “Congratulations! Now forget about it. You did as well as you can do, but someone upstairs might reject it for a totally different reason. But good job, brother.”

So I’m reveling in a fun event for a moment, then I’m getting back to work.

Love to all. Even you, the two twenty-somethings engaged in a very loud conversation about how much they hate their boss.

If you're bored... or, why I have no friends.

Lisa's post reminded me that I haven't done this in a while.

Sit at your regular phone. Take out your cell phone.

1. Using your cellphone call a friend.
2. Talk to your friend for a minute.
3. Using your regular phone, dial *67 and their number (this is caller-ID block, at least on Verizon, so that they won't see your incoming phone number)
4. When your friend switches lines to answer call-waiting, say "Still me."
5. When they try again, say "Still Me."
6. When they try again, use a grandma voice, cough, and say "Still me."
7. Repeat with iterations until they strangle you through the phone.

Love to all. Even you, the group of soldiers in Grand Central Station who I've only seen standing in a tight inward-facing circle, talking to each other.

I. Can't. Resist. Part II.

Doesn't this joker know he's 37?

Sheesh.

Love to all. Even you, the sweet, personable purple-haired HR woman who has absolutely no idea what the people she hires does for a living.

Edited for Snarkiness.

When Lisa AND Tricia AND Shqipo think my attitude is getting a little wonky, it's time to step back and self-examine.

And you KNOW how much I love to, um, self-examine.

More soon.

Love to all.

One question about Palestine.

Okay. I believe the Palestinians should have their own country. Mostly to keep them safe from Arabs, who have slaughtered many, many, many thousands of them over recent history.

But why is it that the land the Palestinians want happens to be ONLY IN ISRAEL.

Ancient Palestine was much, much bigger. In fact, Jordan is included in this area. Why don't people ask Jordan for land? Jordan, of course, is responsible for some of the biggest Palestinian slaughters in history... so this would make some sense.

Israel is teeny weeny. It just seems a little stupid that it's precisely that land which is desperately important to the Palestinians. You know?

Love to all. Even you, the dude with the crinkly foot.

Splash and Dash 5 Miler, Central Park, NYC

So, check it:

Had a five-mile race today. For the first time I can remember, the announcer said:

Do NOT try to set a personal record. It’s way too hot and humid. Go slow. Just have fun.

Note well, people: never, ever tell an alcoholic what to do.

Previous best 5 mile race:
July 20, 2005, Nike-Run-Hit-Wonder: 7:51 pace, came in 642 out of 3391 dudes (top 18.9%), 822 / 7553 overall. Although to be honest, a lot of non-runners sign up for this race, so the percentage is skewed.

Today’s 5-Mile Race, 76 degrees, 74% humidity.
July 15, 2006, Dash and Splash: 6:56 pace, came in 129 out of 1657 dudes (top 7.6%), 144 / 3227 overall.

That’s just nuts. NUTS.

Some thing cool happened to me: At mile five, I started to slow down... but this Italian dude (like from Italy, not just ethnically), gestured for me to run with him (he was using me as a pacer, apparently, and noticed when I fell behind.). So we ran together, picking the pace up a little at a time. I’ve never had somone push me (and vice versa) like that.

Then, at 200 yards to the finish, I took off in a sprint. He didn’t. I actually screamed: “COME ON!” And he smiled, put both hands up and said “No, no.” He patted me on the back after the race.

It was way cool to make a quick connection like that.

Love to all. Even you, runner who blew snot rockets every five seconds for like three minutes.

My take on the Israeli/Lebanon conflict.

Hezbollah holds 14 seats in the Lebanese parliament. That's all that matters to me.

If a U.S. Senator was openly a member of a terrorist organization, and the terrorist organzation started attacking, say, Canada, AND the U.S. Government didn't kick his ass out of the Senate and/or jail the fucker, I'd understand if Canada tried to kick our ass, anywhere it could.

If Hezbollah was operating inside Lebanon, but wasn't an official part of the government, I'd feel a little differently. But it is what it is.

Love to all. Even you, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

Rational? Huh?

I have kickass machines at home that I never have time to use.

Take my G5. It's a kickin' 2.3Ghz dual-processor machine with monster drives (totalling about over a terabyte of space) and many gigs of RAM. It faces the world with a Dell 24-inch flat-panel display.

Mostly, it's used to play Marble Blast with my kids.

So I finally decided to face the technological reality that it's better for my server at work to be the G5, and the computer at home to be a Mac Mini (instead of the other way around) and that the 24-inch monitor would be put to best use at my desk. Not at in home office that I don't use enough.

I got home from work 10 minutes ago. I set up the G5 with a mirrored raid, wrote all kinds of backup scripts (offsite and onsite), and basically tweaked the crap out of everything. It took me all day, and most of the night. I'm having a pasta-n-butter dinner tomorrow, before the 5-mile Dash and Splash race in Central park. Gotta get up early.

Whoa: rational application of technology, for the first time in 37 years. And I don't think the kids noticed that they played Marble Blast on a mini, vs. a G5.

No worries, though. I'm sure once the quad-core xeon Macs come out, I'll be getting one.

Love to all. Even you, the bus driver who parked in the only passable lane on University place for twenty minutes.

I love my friends.

I was in a crappy mood last night... and I told this to a friend of mine. A few minutes later, I get an email back from her saying: "Smile."

With a picture attached.



I love my friends so much. At 37, I'm developing the kind of super-tight friendships I had when I was 19. Lucky, lucky me.

Love to all. Even you, the corgi who has me posting at 4:57am, because her stomach is upset and she needs to go out a lot.

My Bronx Half-Marathon Playlist.

Lots of slower songs, here... but not all. I found that running to slower songs often makes me faster, but more fluid.

Love to all. Even you, the lady I just put on my company's email blocklist.

Madly, joyously.

Let's take a moment, here.

Okay. Cool. I realize that I've been moderately whiny, recently... but when I sit back and think about it, it's because life is rocking along mightily and change, even good change, can be a little disconcerting. Some things to be happy about:

• I'm coming up on 3 years sober, again.
• Maggie's rocking away at her new job.
• My oldest is confident and funny, and he's freshly 10 and starting middle school.
  
• My daughter rocks my world with every breath, and challenges me constantly.
  
• My youngest is incredibly social and happy and starting kindergarten.
  
• I can run 15 miles at any given moment, which is hilarious, and utterly antithetical to the way I used to be.
• I've got muscles I've never had before.
• I've got my own company, again, and I'm being pursued by others for work.
  
• We have a nice house, cool dogs, and sassy cats.
• We've got family that loves us.
• We've got friends that we love.
  

So we're adjusting to changes, here. But who isn't? We're lucky people, and while I think that we know it... I certainly need to take more time to appreciate it.

I am madly and joyously in love with the process of living.

That's all for now.

Love to all. Even you, the guy who apparently deleted a magazine's press-ready files on purpose.

Babysitter blues.

The babysitter didn't show up today. I've been saying that this lady's unreliability has overstepped her niceness for years. She was even fired once for being late, not showing up, etc. On the other hand, she's super trustworthy with the kids, and genuinely nice. Apparently, even though Maggie says she explicitly gave her instructions as to when she was going to be working.

Although, she didn't give me those instructions, either.... so...

Maggie told me that if I didn't come back home, she would get fired. Of course, and this sounds so mean, Maggie's job doesn't generate revenue yet... it kind of washes with the babysitter (when she shows up)... but mine is the one that, at least currently, pays for our lives. And after discovering that several things fell by the wayside at work while I was away, I wasn't keen on coming home. But Maggie really needed me. So. After taking the 5:30 train to NYC, going to my morning AA meeting, and walking to my office near Union Square, I got the call at 9:20 asking me to come home. I sprinted to the 9:48 train.

And now the day is done. Maggie is back, but going out tonight. Admittedly, the kids had a hell of a schedule, and I'm impressed that Maggie handles all this stuff: tennis team, swim team, diving lessons, dentists appointments, AND one of our cats had to be picked up from being spayed. Busy, busy.

Now, though, I'm making dinner, and trying not to feel unappreciated. Maggie did tell me at the end of the day how much she appreciated my help. And I should be glad she did. But I feel kind of weird. Maggie and I even got into an argument during the day when she called me on the phone for tech support with Excel... and laughed at me because she thought I wasn't listening to her. I was. There's a difference between "duplicate" and "fill down" and Maggie was trying to do neither, but accidentally doing the latter, and describing it as the former. She thought they were the same thing, and that I was just repeating myself.

I love this woman a lot. We are adjusting. It's a good thing I'm such a big jackass, so that I can't be too judgemental when she's a little wonky.

Love to all. Even you, bride-o-mine.

Bronx Half-Marathon 2006 and a story.

I am SO psyched.

I just blew the doors off my old personal record for a half-marathon, in weather that was much less conducive to setting a PR than the last time I did so.

On March 19, 2005, in perfect 40-something degree weather:

• Time: 1:48:10
• Pace: 8:15
• Gender Place: 819 out of 1965 dudes. (Top 30.05%)
• Overall Place: 1007 out of 3351

Today, I ran in a sunny, 77-degree day (62% humidity):

• Time: 1:45:25
• Pace: 7:53
• Gender Place: 482 out of 2073 dudes. (Top 23.2%)
• Overall Place: 536 out of 3187

This makes me think I can hit 7:30 in the next cool-weather half-marathon.

Cool story: I was walking back to my car from the race, and a young, kind of petite woman said to me:

"How'd it go?"
I said, "I think I just ran my best race. I'm happy. You?"
Her: "Well, it wasn't my best race, but I won."
Me: "Won what?"
Her: "I was the first woman to finish. I won the race."
Me: "Oh... you mean won won."

So we talked a minute more, and she told me that's she was from Morristown, NJ. So I said "MORRISTOWN! That town put me into the hospital!"

She: "What?"
Me: "Since I'm never going to see you again, I'll tell you a true story. One time, I was hired to walk around Morristown NJ handing out leaflets for Penny Press dressed as Mickey Mouse. But since I was kind of a dirty drunken oaf, I didn't wear socks. And the Mickey Mouse shoes cut my feet up something fierce. So, about two weeks later, I'm tripping my face off on mushrooms, my ankles get super-infected, swell up, and I had to go to the ER. I made a conscious decision to have a blast, since the alternative was to freak out completely."

She was looking at me with a really awesome, entertained smile. I think she didn't expect this kind of story (duh), but clearly wasn't worried that I was psychotic. I have this weird vibe which lets me chat with people kind of randomly, without offending. My boys have it, too.

I finished up: "Anyway, I've cleaned up my act since then."

We got to the corner, and I said "Congratulations again. I got a killer parking spot, I just hope my car is still there." She told me that she was given a parking spot by the security folks, and that she worked at a running store, gave me her name, and said that if I ever was back in NJ, I should come by the shop where she works.

By the way, I checked her results: she won at a 6:28 pace. Holy smokes.

This was an awesome day.

Love to all. Even you, the crazy truck driver who passed me on the shoulder, even though there were other lanes available.

And now, the real training!

So, this is my last week of pre-Marathon Training training...culminating this week with the Bronx Half-Marathon this Sunday. After this, I'm going to go on the formal training program, as provided by the New York Road Runners. I didn't run a long run this week because Sunday's race is 13.1 miles. That's far enough, this week, even if the miles count towards next week.

I'm getting kind of psyched about the condition I'm in. I've never been that fit... I mean, I had the cardio, but never the musculature... and at 37, I'm starting to look somewhat, well, good.

Weird to say, but it's true.

We leave for Westchester tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing the kitties and puppies.

Love to all. Even you, the Armonk parents who kept their backs to their six-year-old while he played right on the edge of the ocean.

Trajectories.

“Yo! Get out on my side, please!”

We had pulled up on the side of the road, and Maggie was dropping us off at the beach place in Montauk. I asked the kids to exit the van on my side, so that they’d step onto the grass, not into the middle of the road.

As I got out of the van, I saw my daughter already across the street.

I asked: “Did you look both ways?”
She answered: “Yes.”

Then my youngest started running around the back of the van.

A red car was coming down the road, approaching our vehicle. My youngest was rounding the corner of the van and heading for the road, not looking for oncoming traffic. Not seeing that there was oncoming traffic.

Slow motion.

Trajectories overlayed my vision in neon, just like they used to when I was a younger. My youngest was going to get hit. He ran out of my field of vision, and I started sprinting around the van. “STOP!” I yelled. He kept going. “STOP!” I yelled again. He didn’t.

I rounded the back of the van at speed, figuring to run into the middle of the road and knock his ass off the street.

No need. Apparently, I screamed loud enough that the oncoming car heard me. They were stopped, about ten feet from my son, who was still in the road. I grabbed him, and said “Jesus. Do you see the car? Do you see what could have happened? You HAVE to look before crossing the street. Always.”

He started crying.

Love to all. Even you, the dude with the hearing aid who screamed “HUMILITY!”

Hey, America.

Happy Birthday, you big, dumb, son of a bitch.

I love you SO much, even though you're really making me nuts. I even wore a special shoe combination just for you.

Love to all. Even you, Mr. Unemployed on 1/20/2009.

Two feet for two kids.

Normally, we don’t have the pool to ourselves. This is a pretty sweet moment.

Love to all. Even you, the 40-something-year-old, brother-in-law who didn’t get my son a 10th birthday present, even though he was in a toy store this morning, and said “uh, I, uh, helped pick out the present your grandmother gave you.”

Who knew?

After going to the 7am AA meeting across the street, a friend and I went for coffee. Now, I’ve been going to the farmer’s market in Amagansett, for like, a decade… but when my friend took me around the side of the market to sit down and chat, it turns out there’s a way cool seating area.

Nice stuff.

Love to all. Even you, the Mother-in-Law who came over to visit my son, but immediately went to sleep for the entire time she was here.

Looking out.

And thus the dad-enabled segment our family vacation begins.

This is my youngest, taking in the day, seeing the possibilities, and planning what to do next.

It's nice to be here. We've been coming to Montauk for 8 or 9 years, now. And we've been coming with the same friends for 6 or 7 of them. One year, they just showed up. And we've been doing it ever since.

I have so much going on in my head and in my life. I have to figure out how to blog it. And soon. Frankly, I'm just a little baffled by how to express things these days, and that is certainly not my normal mode of operation.

Love to all. Even you, the lady who clearly didn't know where the corners of her Escalade were.