I don’t mean to brag, but, in my very biased opinion, I seriously have some of the cutest  nieces and nephews on the planet. It is basically blowing my mind that two of them have now grown enough to start school. Here are some adorable recent shots of them.

Maya off to her first day of school in Ketchikan Alaska. Beyond cute–

I seriously love that her backpack is as big as she is. Flawless first day of school outfit, right down to the ruby slippers.

And here is my little nephew Kelton. I’m not going to say these are cute (because I don’t want to risk taking a samurai sword to the knee caps next time I see the guy), but he is a handsome little kindergartner.

Serious props on the hairstyle (he chose it himself). His teacher is going to smell trouble in the air from a mile away with this little guy.  Hahahah.

First of all– Well done, Mr. Schuman, on the above photo. I can tell you right now, though, that there are some mommy bloggers (no disrespect intended) out there, who don’t approve of the way he is wearing that hat, all crooked-like. Hahaha. I bet Nigo and Pharrell don’t have to put up with that kind of crap. Not that I’m pretending to have fashion designer status, but I’m just sayin’.

Actually, thinking about it now, I’m guessing that most mommy bloggers probably aren’t into Bape or Ice Cream/BBC. So, this whole blurb is just a waste of characters. Aaaaanyway, I am generally not too fond of re-posting stuff (especially not from the Sartorialist, since he is probably the most re-posted dude in blogsville). But, aside from being the poster child for my hat rant, I really do dig that shot.

Random topic #2– Sometimes I swear that Jim Nelson and I share the same brain. I just barely was able to catch up on my magazine reading enough to crack the September issue of GQ, yesterday on the train. As I was reading Nelson’s opening commentary, I was thinking to myself “tttttttttttooooooooooooooooottttttttalllly.” For a minute, I was like “I should be a magazine editor. I think exactly like this guy.” Then I realized that the reason Jim Nelson is a magazine editor, is because he can write something that makes everyone who reads it feel like they would be Jim Nelson’s best friend in real life, and that they and Jim Nelson are extremely like-minded individuals. Hahahah. That is a skill that I definitely do not possess.

So, yes, September is here. Ads galore in all of the mags. At some point I’ll be posting some of my favs along with commentary. But interestingly enough, I have been a lot more taken in by the articles in this year’s September GQ than I have by the flashy fall looks. In addition to Nelson’s article mentioned above, I read another piece yesterday that I found interesting. It was about keeping the flame alive after marriage, kids, etc.. It wasn’t the typical Cosmo-style, “10 ways to keep your spouse at constant climax” sort of thing. It was about figuring out the logistics of “date night,” when you and your spouse both have insanely busy lives. I thought it was pretty cool.  The article is by Joel Lovell and it is called “How to date your wife.”

Reagan will probably punch me in the neck for admitting that a magazine article is what convinced me that I need to focus a bit more on spending structured “date” time with her. I might be safe, though, since I waited until this far into the post to admit it. She told me this morning that she doesn’t really read the stuff I write when it gets too wordy. Hahahaha. Anyway the article isn’t online yet. But, I found it interesting enough to recommend checking it out (if you haven’t already) when it does show up .

To wrap things up– I’m pretty excited about some of the stuff that I will be shooting for the rest of the week. One item in particular, is a famous tattoo artist who operates in NJ. I have never even been in a tattoo parlor before. So I’m keenly interested to see what it will be like. Tomorrow night college football starts (go Utes). And finally, as we all know, this weekend has three days. What’s not to be excited about?

It is amazing how hard it is for me to get my haircut, seeing that I live with a stylist/barber extraordinaire. Anyway, after 2 or more weeks looking like Chewbacca and wearing hats on the weekends I was finally able to regain my clean-cut image. That, and several other things made last weekend a pretty good one.

We had a blast doing these shots of Reagy on the roof, for an eye wear co. I’m not sure if I will be able to use any of the shots from this set, but I liked how they came out. Reagan is such a cutie (and a good sport).

One more-

Reagan and I had Piper outside again on Sunday. This was probably our most lengthy outdoor excursion, so far. It was still a bit bright for Piper, but we had her in the shade, and she seemed to acclimatize after several minutes. Occasionally she would look up, only to look straight back at the ground and cover her eyes with both hands. So Cute. Reagan snapped a couple of shots of (pre-haircut) me and Piper hanging out.

Part of it is the white balance, but doesn’t Piper look like a zoned out little porcelain doll, below?

We capped off the weekend by watching one of my favorite sleep over movies from when I was a kid– Tron. I forgot how awesome/nerdy that movie is. What was even better, is that we watched it with a bunch of our friends while eating some super-delicious cookies.

Can you believe that this week is already September? I’m in denial.

Since Reagan and I both chose to have a lazy morning, instead of getting up really early and hitting the trail. We had to opt out of Governor’s Island, today. But we still had plenty of time to hang out with Piper. She had just woken up when we arrived. So she was in the mood to play, but not super smiley, yet. It takes her a few hours to warm up into chipper self, when she wakes up from a nap. Above, she is getting some good snuggle time with Reagan, and of course, the monkey card. Below, she is actively engaged in “A Bargain for Francis,” By kicking the page, as Reagan reads to her.

Grade=A

Total Miles=49.96

Average Pace=7:11 per mile

This was a pretty good week for me running-wise. I was frustrated with my pace on the shorter runs, but I was able to really pick it up on Wednesday and Today. I was able to push out a 7:05 pace today for 16 miles. That is probably the fastest pace that I have ever had for more than 10 miles. I don’t want it to seem like I’m bragging, because believe me, I’m well aware that 7:05 is not some sort of amazing pace, especially when you take into account that there are plenty of people who can do a marathon at better than a 6:00 per mile pace. But I’m just saying, for me, I’m feeling pretty good about this week. Six weeks until the Hartford Marathon and 10 weeks until NYC. Woot!

In contrast to the past few weeks, this one has seemed to drag on FOREVER. But it will soon be a happy memory, being that today is Friday. It actually feels like I got the weekend started last night, since I covered two events that were both pretty fun. My favorite of the two, was the preview party for new Chrome store [above], which opens Saturday.

The weather is supposed to be awesome, this weekend. It should be ideal for our long runs on Saturday. In addition to running and visiting Piper, we have a few extra items of fun slated for the weekend. Tomorrow and Sunday is the Gatsby Festival at Governor’s Island. I’m hoping that we can make it down there for that. Also this weekend, is the second of only two MotoGP races that occur on American soil each year. The GP riders will be fighting it out at the brick yard. I have to admit though, with Rossi’s injury, and Stoner’s apparent ineptitude, It hasn’t been much fun to watch Lorenzo run away with the title this year. Just the same, it will be fun to watch Hayden and the other American riders go for broke on their home turf. I’m getting ahead of myself for a minute, but I am also very excited about Rossi’s new contract with Ducati. Sounds like a match made it heaven. Italy’s hero piloting Italy’s flagship.

I’m also excited because this is the last weekend in 2010 without college football. I’m sure that I have told this story before. But, here it is again. Once, several years ago, about this same time of year, I was feeling kind of bummed out because the summer was over. I was in college, living with my parents and dreading going back to class for fall semester. I was expressing my dismay to my mom one night and she told me “Jake, that is why God gave us college football. So we have something to look forward to.” Such a wise woman. Since I have never been a BYU or Notre Dame fan, I wasn’t used to hearing the words “God” and “Football” in the same sentence. But the way she contextualized it, I had to agree Ma B. Utah’s first game is next Thursday against Pitt. Getting ahead of myself again, I can’t wait to see how the U of U does next year as a member of the Pac10.

I hope that everyone has a fantastic weekend!

The rain finally went away, today. It left us with some awesome high fluffy clouds. If you hate shots of fluffy clouds, feel free to skip this post.

^–Looking east. Below, looking west.

I have sort of taken the week off from blogging. Here it is Thursday and the last time that I posted something was when I was complaining about the weather on Monday. Part of my silence is a little bit because some recent sentiments have caused me to become slightly disenchanted with blogging altogether. Another part of it is because I have become more than a slightly disenchanted blah blah blah. Here is a list of positivities:

1. This was hump-week for my marathon training program. That’s right, only 10 weeks left after Saturday. My speed is not where I would like it to be. But, hey, I have 10 weeks to work on that
2. It is late August, which means that practically the entire firm is on vacation. This makes my schedule extremely flexible. I have been able to catch up on my real work, and even make some headway on my fake work.
3. I am lined up to shoot some pretty cool/fun stuff for the rest of the week.

When my alarm went off this morning, it was pouring outside. So, I didn’t get up and run. I only have 5 miles scheduled for today, so hopefully I will be able to sneak them in this evening. It looks like I’m going to have to have to get wet at some point this week, though. I just checked the forecast and apparently it is going to be raining until Thursday.

Yesterday evening shaped up nicely. We did a couple of videos for Reagan, then shot some stills (also for R’s hair blog) on the roof with umbrellas. Just when I had resigned to being a homebody for the day, I received a text from some of our friends to hang out at their place. We had a blast hanging out with them and eating some delicious food together. They live about a mile and a half up Broadway from us. Since we had the dog with us, we had to make the journey on foot. MTA doesn’t allow dogs, unless they are in a carrier. Plus, we learned the hard way that the little guy gets car-sick pretty easily.  So, all three of us had a really fun night-walk through the park in the rain, on the way home.

This has been a pretty strange weekend, for me. Not strange in a bad way, just different. I think that the rain today might have something to do with it. We had a huge day full of activities planned today, but as it stands, I have only made it outside today for three quick tasks. 1. Moving the car (when I shot the photo above); 2. taking our friends’ dog (below) for a walk (we are dogsitting, while they are out of town; and, 3. to do a quick and wet 4m. run. Other than that, I have been helping Reagan shoot another tutorial for her hair blog. Right now the battery is charging, so that we can do one more.

I suppose that I can take comfort in the fact that we had such a productive day yesterday. We had our long run in the morning, for which we incorporated the Summer Streets event. Summer Streets is when the City shuts down Park Ave to auto traffic, so that peds and bikes and ride all the way from 72nd St. to the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a really cool run. Apparently the training is paying off, too, because Reagan and I both felt fine afterward.

We headed up to see  Piper after grabbing some lunch. It was a cool visit, because one of our friends came with us, who was meeting Piper for the first time. We talked about Piper  and how proud we were of her accomplishments, for about 4 hours straight, hahaha. It was one of those overzealous proud-parent moment, that ended up being a lot longer than a moment. We didn’t get any photos of her, this weekend. Actually, Reagan snapped some really cute ones on Friday that she will probably share. But I didn’t get any.

I hope that everyone else had a great weekend.

Someone is barbecuing in our alley. It smells delicious.

Grade=A

Total mileage for the week=56.15

I feel like I may have been a bit generous with the grade. Even though I did all of the mileage this week, I haven’t been at my normal pace all week. But, I’m just about to crest the half way mark in my training program, so I feel like I have some time to bring up the speed a bit. Plus the 20+ miles that I did on Saturday was the longest distance I have done this year so far, since I didn’t do a spring marathon this year. Next week is another pretty hard week, then week 12 is a bit of a break. The end.