Whoosh goes my memory.

I'm a Rush fan. It's true. And I'm proud of it.

I go through phases where I won't listen to Rush for a long time, and then I will. I didn't like a whole series of their albums, but with Vapor Trails, they had me back.

I just picked up R30... Rush's thirtieth anniversary concert tour double-dvd and double-CD set. It's blowing me away. Not only because these dude have been doing this for THIRTY years, and still completely rock the house (unlike a lot of other bands, which come back years later, after breaking up, with half of their people gone, or dead). Rush has been putting out music for thirty years, a lot of it really good, and some of it classic. It's still the same dudes: Geddy, Alex, and Neil.

One of the DVDs has about 10 videos from the 70's and early 80's. Great stuff. The other DVD is the R30 concert... which is just unbelievable.

I know I'm totally gorking out here. But when I hear these dudes cranking out Subdivisions, or La Villa Strangiato with such amazing chops, three decades after they started, I'm just impressed.

Anyway. I'm all tired and wonked-out from getting up at 3:30. I'm going to sleep.

Love to all. Even you, the dude on the train who was watching to see when I got up, so he could get up first and beat me to the door (you have to see this dude.. he's TENSE)... so I leaned all forward all sudden-like to see if he actually WOULD get up, and he did.

You NEED to know this.

At 4:30am, after being woken up to break up a viscious catfight outside (Between cats, boys, not between bikini-clad college women, or whatever the hell your sick mind thought), I discovered that I can simultaneously poop AND relace my blue Pumas with fat (not phat, tho' they are) white replacements.

In fact, it's a convenient combination of activities.

Love to all. Even you, the newspaper delivery guy who fell asleep at the wheel, car in gear, music blaring, a tendril of spit falling from his chin.

Thanks Nikon!

I've had problems with the Nikon S1. It seemed like such a great little camera, but the picture quality was pretty bad... which would really suck, if the camera ever took pictures. But the little Nikon didn't take pictures, because the lens cover got stuck.

I sent it back twice for repair. First, it came back and never took a picture... same problem. The next time, I used it once before it failed again. On the third call to repair, I asked for a replacement. And in the note to Nikon I said "If the lens cover problem is endemic to the model, could you please send me a palm sized camera that doesn't have the issue?"

Today, I got a brand-new Nikon S5 in the mail. I was stunned. Thank you, Nikon!

I figure since I complain on this blog sometimes, I should say "Thanks" as well.

Love to all. Even you, the strangely serene lady in the green dress.

Nike+ Review, Part II of II.

So, calibrating the sensor on a track works well, but...

Don't be an idiot like me. If you have good sneakers, keep wearing those, and fuck the Nike+iPod system. After an x-ray, a doctor visit, and a serious-ass ultrasound to insure that I didn't kick off a blood clot which was lung-bound, I have learned that it's A-OK to stick with what works.

Damn. I can't BELIEVE how much I screwed myself up, all for the sake of geek tech.

Hmm. Geek tech. Aren't there wearable GPS/Heart Monitor sets?

Yummy.

Love to all. Even you, the hypermuscular twenty-something who didn't know what "fast" meant... causing the nurse to yell "DID. YOU. EAT?"

Maggie sums it up.

I was talking to Maggie about how Tricia suggested I leave the Catholic church because I don't believe everything that it teaches (and think, in fact, that some of what it teaches is contrary to the word of Christ).

Maggie thought for a second and said:

That's strange that she would say that: Peter denied Jesus three times, and Jesus made him the rock of his Church.

Smart wife, mine.

Love to all.

Injury report.

Shin splints.

Way back in 2004 (which kind of feels like another life), when I first started getting myself in shape, I would get shin splints when I ran. But I found that if I ran through them, they'd go away.

Fast forward to yesterday, when I didn't bother to think about the fact that I got shin splints for the first time in a long time, just after switching to Nike+iPod shoes from my Asics Kayanos, and I figured "What the hell. I'll just run through them."

13.5 miles later, I was in quite a bit of pain.

This morning, I could barely walk.

So, I've ordered stability inserts for my sneakers, and if they don't work, I'll abandon the Nike+ system and go back to my Kayanos (at least until Nike releases a + version of the Kantara... and I'll be using my Kayanos from now until the inserts arrive. Either way, though...

Note to self: do NOT try and run through shin splints. Especially not over 13.5 miles. Unless you're running a marathon.

In that case, go for it.

Love to all. Even you, the ex-stylist saleslady at ABC in Chelsea whose jaded front didn't quite cover a disappointed interior.

Mel Gibson, example number 4029.

"Fucking Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Jew? (...) You motherfucker. I'm going to fuck you." - Mel Gibson to a deputy.

"What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?" - Mel Gibson to a female deputy.

So sad, so sad. And so sadly predictable. William Bennett, Ralph Reed, so many others. Folks who try to define themselves by some weird version of moral purity turn out to be hypocrites. Like Jim West, the virulently anti-Gay politican who, surprise, was caught trying to seduce underage men in onloine chat rooms (he denied knowing they were underage, but did not dispute that he was trying to seduce men).

It seems to me that people who have character traits (sinful - Anti-Semitism or not - being gay) that they can't deal with, often compensate by going on hogwild moral crusades. Can't deal with the fact that you like dudes? Become an anti-Gay activist. Have a gambling problem? Write books on raising children with moral character.

The Muslims say it best: There is no God but God.

We are inherently flawed, and admitting that is what, I think, let's us actually make progress.

The reason I love my AA sponsor is because he's taught me that I have to accept the fact that I can be a complete dickface. And my job is to try to be a complete dickface less often.

So, off I go to Manhattan, to go couch-shopping and art-browsing with Maggie. The kids are away, so it's just the two of us. This is the perfect time to practice not being a complete dickface.

Wish me luck.

Love to all. Even you, the guy who claimed he never got the project description, even though he emailed it back to me with his comments.

Whoosh.

Life overwhelms me,
tater tots and coffee beans,
bright sun on the bench.

Love to all. Even you, the guy in the BMW doing 80 in a 35.

Note: I never knew, until yesterday, that Haiku required a kigo, or a word that referenced the season in which the poem is set. Please forgive my past Haiku errors.

The hypocrisy of the Lebanese Prime Minister.

"Is an Israeli tear-drop worth more than a drop of Lebanese blood?"

So said the Lebanese Prime Minister, yesterday. It's a great political comment. It tugs at your heartsrtings. It's also complete manipulative bullshit.

In 2004, the United Nations passed UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which called for the Lebanese government to, among other things, disarm Hezbollah. If they had done this, there would be no Israeli/Hezbollah conflict. The blame for each and every death associated with Israel trying to disarm Hezbollah and protect itself lies with the Lebanese government, Syria, and Iran.

Iran and Syria could stop this conflict in an instant. Hell, Jordan could have created a free Palestine any time in the last several decades. Does anyone really believe that Palestine exists only in the land that Israel occupies? Please.

And the Israeli's aren't fighting an army. They're fighting guerillas who drive around with truck-launched missiles from different locations. If anyone expects Israel to be able to fight back without causing serious collateral damage, they totally misunderstand the nature of the conflict. This isn't pre-Revolutionary war, line-up-and-shoot warfare. This isn't jungle warfare. The enemy acts from populated areas. Options are extremely limited.

Let me ask you this: If Hezbollah didn't attack Israel, would Israel attack Hezbollah? If everyone left Israel alone, would Israel start a war?

No.

To answer the PM's question: No, an Israeli tear is not worth more than a drop of Lebanese blood. But both are spilling because of you, your government's inaction, and your allies.

Love to all. Even you, Fouad Siniora.

Gay appraisal = The truth.

A short time ago, I posted an admittedly-egotistical but somewhat deservedly-excited body shot of myself which appeared as if I was actually getting in shape. Never having been in shape before, I'm pretty psyched on the whole situation.

I didn't expect many comments from women. But there was one person who I was hoping would comment, for better or worse, Albert, aka ARG, from Obliquity.

Why? Because, in the end, it's the gay man's opinion that'll really tell you how you look... and ARG is the only blogger on my blogroll who I know is gay. And if there's any reason for straight guys to get over any homophobia they might have, knowing whether or not you actually look good should be reason enough.

When I was younger and working in NYC (I still work in NYC, I'm just older) I would get checked out by dudes with some regularity. Then, over time, nothing. It just stopped. It could have been my vibe, that I was getting older... or maybe it was because I was green and bloated from drinking 10 - 16 drinks a day. That could have been it, too.

The thing is, women can't give semi- or unknown-men feedback. Because most dudes would incorrectly translate a "looking over" by a woman as her saying "Please have sex with me immediately." Regardless of whether a gay man is saying that or not, there's more of a perceived power balance between men, and the checking-out can generally happen without fear of one dude
stalking the other, etc.

Yesterday, I was walking from my morning AA meeting with some friends, one of whom is a successful interior designer (he was in Elle Decor a little while back), and this very topic came up.

He agreed with me: if gay men don't think you look hot, then you don't look hot. Alas.

So, I'd just like to thank God for making me appreciate the appraisals and dismissals of gay men. Homophobes just aren't getting appropriate feedback, which is a shame.

Love to all. Even you, Ms. Knock-Over-The-Apples-And-Run-From-The-Aisle.

Love.

How lucky are we who get to love people, and have them love us back?

I need to remember that, in the midst of everything else.

Love to all. Even you, dude who HAD to get on the uptown 6 train, much to the physical (and probably emotional) discomfort of the woman in front of him.

Preliminary Nike+ review.

Calibrate, calibrate, calibrate.

After gearing up with my iPod Nano, my Nike+ AirMax Moto Shoes, and my Nike+iPod connection kit, I learned that, without calibration, the Nike+ system makes me look SLLLOW.

For those of you who don't know, the Nike+iPod system is a combination of sneakers, ipod, a transmitter and a receiver, which collects running data from your sneakers (via the transmitter that slots into the specially designed shoe), sends it to your iPod (via the receiver that clips into the dock connector), and syncs it to nikeplus.com to track your runs. During a run, you can have the Nano give you feedback via headphones about distance, etc.

Sounds great, right? Is it, sort of.

Unless you calibrate the sensor on a track, by running a set distance and telling the sensor what that distance was (400 meters, a mile, etc), the sensor can be WAY off, which is disconcerting during a run.

During the 4-mile Run for Central Park, I would pass a mile marker, and a long time later, the Nano would say I just went that mile. When I finished the race, the Nano thought I had gone 3.49 miles. That's a huge difference between reality.

The drag is that it synced that race to the site... so it thinks I ran MUCH slower than I did, because the clock was accurate, but the distance wasn't. Bummer.

Anyway: I'm going to calibrate the sensor this weekend, and I'll report back then.

Love to all. Even you, the guy driving the limo, fast and in reverse, through the train station parking lot.

Last note to Tricia.

Fascinating, how you make so many sweeping statements, ask me to leave the Catholic Church, but then you repeatedly fail to answer simple questions like:

• If you believe the Pope is infallible, why did the Church issue a formal apology for it's inaction during WWII, when it allowed the Holocaust to proceed without protest?
• Comments about disturbing conceived blastocysts aside, what's your problem with condoms, which intercede pre-conception, just like the APPROVED methods of the Catholic Church?

Shocker. At this point, after asking you multiple times over several days, if you DO answer them, I'm going to assume you are repeating someone else's words, not your own. Sad.

Love to all. Even you, Tricia.

“Then don't be a Catholic.”

“Then don't be a Catholic.,” she says. “Why be something you're not?”

Aside from the response I gave her in the comments to this post, her comment to me demonstrates exactly what I mean about people who claim to be Christian but appear to be going completely off message.

Who did Jesus seek out? With whom did he take meals? Sinners. People who didn’t believe as he did. People who needed help. (Luke 15:2, Luke 19:7)

This lady, when she sees that I disagree with some of the man-made weirdness of the Catholic Church, wants me to LEAVE. “Don’t be a Catholic.”

And once again, she proves that not only is she not acting like a Catholic, but she’s specifically acting against the very basic teachings of Christ. Would Jesus ever have said “You are too sinful to follow me?” No, he said that these are the people whom he would seek. (Luke 5:31-32)

If she believes the the Catholic Church is the true apostolic Church, if she believes that she is following the faith and that I am misguided, then then she should embrace me, try to bring me into the Church, discuss things with me, and through her example of tolerance and kindness, try to show me the Way. No disciple of Jesus would try to convince someone to LEAVE the Church. That's madness.

But no: She thinks I should leave. And that, my friends, is antithetical to the Gospels.

It's also interesting how she completely ignored the whole condom thing. Why, I wonder?

Anyway, Tricia, I invite you to stay in the Church, even if you preach things that are entirely against what Jesus taught and did.

Love to all. Even you, the burly dude who, while bothering me with his loud-for-5am train conversations, has surprisingly lush hair.

Anti-Choice Hypocrisy.

"The truth hurts," the lady says, referring to a sign on a woman's car that says "John Kerry Approves of Killing Babies!!!!!" The truth hurts.

No, it doesn't.

What she doesn't realize is that she supports abortion wholeheartedly. In fact, she is doing a great deal to grow the number of abortions at the most rapid pace possible. I don't know a single pro-choice person who wants to do anything but make abortion a rarity (via education, contraception, etc). But this woman, she's doing her best to make sure that abortion remains tragically frequent.

This woman, you see, is anti-contraception. Thus, she's making sure that lots and lots of conceptions occur that are destined for abortion.

"Wrong," she might say. "Adoption! Adoption!" Yeah, right. I'm sure she's going to monitor and the nutritional input of the woman she is forcing to remain pregnant. I'm sure she's going to enforce this diet, lack of smoking, drinking, and drugs. And I'm sure she's going to pay for maternity clothing, housing, and lost work time. And I'm sure she's going to fund the life of the child that results from forcing a completely undeveloped, unable-to-feel-pain, brainless zygote through term.

"Wrong," she says. "Abstinence! Abstinence!" Well... no. There's not a chance on earth that abstinence will ever be the answer. This is historical fact. And besides, grownups having safe, mutually respectful, recreational sex is certainly on my moral "No-Problem List."

Oh, and since she won't fund international medical programs that include abortion in their broad suite of otherwise-missing services, she's going both to fund the lives of all the people whose lives she destroys, and attend the funerals of all the people she killed by withdrawing their medical care.

Actually, she's right. The truth hurts. Or rather, it should. But my sense is that it doesn't bother her at all.

Love to all. Even you, the people who do so much damage, thinking they are doing the will of God.

We never count on growing up.

My oldest son just left for sleepaway camp for the first time. Maggie is driving him all the way to Vermont, dropping him off, and coming back late tonight. It's for two weeks, with an option for four if he really likes it. Maggie and I both think he'll like it, but he'll want to come home.

He was so excited. So nervous. So big and tall and gorgeous and strong and at once ready to head out on his own and clearly wanting to stay here where things are known and safe.

His mother is trying not to lose it, which is decidedly cute.

Last night, he said to me: "Hey, Dad? Remember a few years ago when I said that I was never, ever going to sleepaway camp? I didn't count on growing up."

We never do, do we?

I just started crying. I have to stop writing.

Love to all.

Training Chart Update & Back to 160.

This was the most I've ever run in a week. Rockin. On another note, I weighed in at 160 for the first time in a while.

Love to all. Even you, whoever invented "waffle crisp" cereal.

Ten Seconds of Post-Workout Rippage.

Why, oh, why, do you fade away so quickly? Why can't you at least stay until I get to the local pool? WHY MUST YOU GO, OH 10 SECONDS OF POST-WORKOUT RIPPAGE?!?!?!

Love to all.

Raffle for Jesus!

So, I went to Church the other day, and in the front row of parking spaces, there was a brand new, bright red convertible that had a big sign on it saying "WIN ME!" The parking spot next to it was blocked off, so that nobody (like the older folks who normally park in the front row) parked next to, obstructed the churchgoers view of, or accidentally door-dinged the bright, reflective prize.

Tickets were $100 a pop. Apparently, proceeds were to benefit a well-off local Westchester hospital.

They announced the raffle during mass, too.

Now, if I recall, Jesus got pretty angry when he went into the temple and found it being used as a marketplace. And when I go to Church, I don't want my kids thinking "WHAT A COOL CAR!" And I certainly don't want my kids thinking, "Wow, at Church, they ask the grownups to gamble!"

I talked to the Monsignor about this, and he said he didn't have a problem with it. Now, I have a solid relationship with the Monsignor, so I felt comfortable enough to say that this struck me as hypocrtical.

His answer really bothered me.

He said "A lot of things in the Bible are contradictory. Sometimes, I preach one lesson, and a month later, I'm saying something different!" I asked him if that was really relevant to what we were talking about, and he said he thought it was. And I just dropped it.

I don't know. It just seems weird and wrong to me... the wrong message.

Love to all. Even you, the lady who has had the "John Kerry approves of killing babies" sign on her car for years, now.

Race Results: Run for Central Park, 7/22/2006

This is the first race where I had trouble breathing. 94% humidity. Ugh.

Previous best 4-mile race:
7/23/2005, Run for Central Park
261st out of 1734 dudes. 289th out of 3281 runners overall.
Pace: 7:04/mile.

Today's 4-mile race:
7/22/2006, Run for Central Park
96th out of 1931 dudes, 99th of of 3846 overall.
Pace: 6:30/mile.

That's fucking nuts. I broke the top 5% of dudes, top 3% of racers.

Competitive-ass me keeps thinking, what if I didn't run a 15-mile training run yesterday afternoon?

Love to all. Even you, the Dad at the swim meet who had a really angry way of cheering.