I love this pic, so much. Reagan probably won’t be too happy that I posted it. Admittedly it is not the most flattering shot of Piper, or Reagan. But, for me this shot really sums things up. It was right after Piper woke up from her nap on Sunday. Reagan put some blankets on the floor next to Piper’s crib and laid down to snuggle with her. They both seemed like they could not possibly be more content with life.

With all of this recent noise about U2, surrounding their show in Jersey, they kind of came back onto my radar again. There was the incident with Bloomberg’s helicopter pilot, before the show. There was the appearance on Saturday Night Live. I even had a recent conversation with my friend about U2 and their appearances in the media. There was also the fake Bono incident with Reagan (ask her about it).

Anyway, U2 was probably one of my top 10 favs, through Jr. high, and high school. I haven’t really listened to them much, since. Given all of the buzz, I decided to try them out again, to see if I just forgot how good they are, or what. I accomplished this by adding a few of their songs back into my shuffle playlist.

I have discovered that not only do I not particularly care for U2′s music anymore, but that I was tired of it. Since I have had their songs back on my shuffle, I have found that when a U2 song comes up (particularly during a workout), it literally makes me feel tired. So tired, in fact, that I have to skip their songs, to prevent myself from losing steam/motivation during my workouts.

The funny part is that I own every one of their albums, even some of the imports. Every one of them purchased in hard copy format, complete with tangible plastic and cover art. It is funny how people grow out of, or away from certain things. I’m pretty sure that if someone were to have interviewed me 15 years ago on the subject, I can guess what my response would have been. I would have sworn up and down that I would love the group my entire life. I would have said something like “U2 is such a dynamic group. They are not afraid to let their sound transform with the times. They will always be relevant [to me].” My statement would have been true, to an extent. Jjust take out the bracketed “to me” part, apparently. Which brings rant #1 to a close.

Rant #2: Why has my running suddenly started sucking so bad? Two weeks ago, yesterday, I had the best run of my life. I ran so fast, and felt great afterward. I have not been able to come anywhere near that pace, since then. In fact, during my run yesterday, before it was cut short by rain, I was turning out mile-times that were over a minute slower, than they were 2 weeks ago. I can’t begin to describe how frustrating this is. It is especially frustrating, since I’m running a scored half-marathon this weekend, and the Hartford Marathon, the following weekend. Am I still going to be in this rut for both of those races? Ugghhhhh.

On the bright side (not that anyone is still reading, I mean the U2 thing was just ridiculous), tomorrow night some of our friends got us ticket to see a lecture by Dean Karnazes. He is the dude that wrote “Ultra Marathon Man” and did 50 marathons in 50 days. I posted about his book, earlier this year. So I’m hoping that after his lecture, and cleaning all of the U2 out of my playlists, that I can get back on the upswing. Wish me luck.

Girl Talk is a dude who has a serious gift for building mash-ups. This is a genre (if there is such a thing as a mash-up genre) that I have been a fan of for a while. For those who have been reading my rants for a while, have no doubt seen me dribble about base58 and Mannion, before. Girl talk goes about things in a slightly different manner that the run of the mill mash-up artist. Instead of just chopping and screwing tracks, then laying them over the top of each other, Girl Talk throws together a load of samples in a way that is much more coherent.

There was actually an article in GQ about the dude behind Girl Talk, this month. His name is Gregg Gillis. He is from PA and used to be too cool for pop music. Now he steals hot pop tracks, left and right, for his mash-ups. Speaking of stealing other people’s work. The photo of Girl Talk show, at the top of this post was shot by my homey S. Smoot. He posted it on his photo blog last November.

Given the breadth of variety included in GTs music, it is pretty much impossible to find a song that is 100% clean. This one is pretty close, though. It is called “Set it off.” Check it out.

Alright, normally I wouldn’t just do a wholesale repost of something else, but dude, this made me laugh so hard that it hurt. In case the image above is illegible, the version of the story that I read, showed up today in Gothamist. A disgruntled New Yorker named Dalton Chiscolm is suing the Bank of America for “1,784 billion, trillion dollars.” Among other awesome facts, the judge reviewing the suit is the same guy who doled out Bernie Madoff’s sentence. But the post really peaks toward the end.

NYU mathematician Sylvain Cappell tells Reuters, “These are the kind of numbers you deal with only on a cosmic scale. If he thinks Bank of America has branches on every planet in the cosmos, then it might start to make some sense.”

Ok this part is so sublimely retarded and funny on so many levels that I was sitting at my desk literally laughing at full volume. It is so ridiculous: (a) that Reuters actually went through the trouble to consult a mathematician about this case, which is so clearly just another crack-pot with too much extra time and cash on his hands.; and, (b) that the mathematician, instead of shrugging off the amount as preposterous, qualified the scope of the requested damages by saying that they “might start to make sense” if the claimant thought that BOA had branches on every planet in the cosmos. If only all reading material were so rich.

We had a great visit with Piper, this weekend. Both of these photos are actually from Reagan’s Friday visit, last week. Reagan had really taken some great shots recently. It is fun for me to look at them, since I can’t be there on the Tuesday or Friday visits.

Speaking of not being there, when we arrived at the hospital yesterday, Piper was snoozing. Her nurse came up right away, and was like “I have to show you how piper fell asleep today.” Piper been doing her normal flipping and twisting around in the crib, and apparently tuckered herself out, once both of her legs were sticking out of the bars, and one of them was wedged securely in her little back-side. We were both dying laughing. Reagan posted it on her blog.

^–Dash Snow Tribute in SoHo

It is such a nice surprise, when I think that I’m going to be working all weekend, then find out on Friday afternoon, that I’m off the hook. I took full advantage and slept in on Saturday until noon, to catch up on some sleep. Reagan was a good sport, to let me. She wakes up before 7 AM every day by default. Normally, on the weekend, she is jumping on the bed to get me up too, so that she doesn’t get bored.

This afternoon, we took an impromptu trip downtown with our friends the Carter’s which was cool, since we haven’t really been able to kick it with them since, like, last month. Reagan wanted to check out a flea market in SoHo, plus we were meeting up with one of Aubrey’s other friends. So Col and I were just kind of along for the ride. It was cool though. It definitely felt like fall, today. It wasn’t cold, but it is definitely not summer anymore.

^—Reagan and Addie

I had the camera with me. So of course I got some shots of SoHo and Chinatown. Os Gemeos are a street art duo from Sao Paulo, who are identical twins (which is actually what Gemeos mean in Portuguese). They came to NYC recently and threw up this mural:

It was the first time that I have seen it in person. So that was kind of cool. Like the first shot in the post, the mural is a tribute to Dash Snow, a legend from the neighborhood, who died this summer.

Other noteworthy event= Utah Football chalked up another W. It is probably one of the last games that I will be able to get on TV out here, this season, since conference play starts soon.

One of my favorite times of the day, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, is the last 10 minutes of my workout session. This may sound totally retarded, but whatever. I endearingly refer to those 10 minutes as, “nap-time.” After 30-90 minutes of running, then a 60 minute workout, I get to just lay there on a massage table, with ice packs on my knees. It is so amazing.

I’m not one of those guys who works out with the blackberry in-hand. So gym-time is already kind of sacrosanct, in the sense that I’m “off the grid,” as it were. So, I totally love those last 10 minutes, where I can just let my mind drift, and veg-out, before showering and getting back to the inevitable inbox buildup that has accumulated.

Today particularly, I was realizing how much I appreciate my 10 minutes of solitude. During nap-time, today, I got to thinking how much I appreciate the small things generally, when things get particularly hectic in my life. For example, I love the re-designed tab on Orbit gum. It is now so much easier to close the flap.

I love it when Reagan sneaks some cookies into my backpack, in the morning, while I’m in the shower. I love it when I come down the last set of subway stairs right as the train is pulling up. I really think that is the kind of stuff that keeps me going. Anyway, sorry to get all pensive. I just thought I would share.

I saw this gem about 20 feet up on the wall adjacent to the old First Methodist Church on John Street. I saw it on my way to the gym last week. I’m not 100% sure who the artist is. But I have a pretty good idea of who it was. This photo is with the b-berry cam (as if there was any doubt, judging from the super high res).

On a totally unrelated note: When I was downloading the photo above, I saw and remembered the shot below, that I took on Sept. 11, this year. These flags are in front of 7 WTC. I thought it was kind of cool.

Besides having to work all day, Saturday, this weekend was a lot of fun for me (despite how serious I look in the photo, above). We were able to get to know some friends a little bit better on Friday night, by having dinner with them. Saturday night, we attended a party hosted by one of Reagan’s clients (and good friend). Then it was time to do work. Our friend Mike came down from CT to spend the night at our place in anticipation of the Queens Half-Marathon today. We woke up at 4:30, in an attempt to get to Queens in time for the race (7:00 AM start time). Things just got crazy, from there.

We caught the A, around 5:15, or so. The starting line was at College Point, which is not a very easily accessible location by public transportation. But they were going to have all of the roads shut down super early, which is why we opted out of driving. I kind of forgot that the A is still running local, at that ungodly hour. But when we got to 42nd Street, and were waiting for the 7 train, there were still plenty of runners in the same boat as us. So, I thought that surely we would be ok. For the final leg of the journey to the starting line, NYRR had chartered a shuttle service to take runners from the last stop on the 7 train line and take them to the park. We arrived at the shuttle stop around 6:45. With a gun time of 7, we knew that things didn’t bode well, especially accounting for the fact that we still had to pick up our numbers, check bags, etc.

^–Watching the sun come up, from the 7 train

As soon as we came above ground, and saw that the line wrapped around the corner and then went on for roughly 2 blocks, Reagan was ready to throw in the towel, right then. I have to admit that I was considering giving up, myself. 45 minutes later, we were finally at the front of the line. We were just kind of hoping that maybe they had delayed the start a bit, because of the bus debacle. Much to our dismay, after a short bus ride, we arrived at an impasse. I’m sure you can guess what it was. Yes, a solid pack of runners, blocking the roadway. We were like, whoa, that is a pretty thick field, maybe they did delay the start. Nope. It was just because they were already 3 miles into the race. Hahahaha. So we started hoofing it to the starting line, since the bus could go no further. I was basically dragging Reagan, at this point. She was so mad, and just wanted to go home and take a nap. It was going to be Mike’s first half-marathon, so I said it should be his decision.

We had walked for about 1 mile, and weren’t really seeing anymore runners at that point. Mike said that he didn’t really feel like doing it anymore, especially since they had probably shut off the mats. So we started walking back towards the 7, stop. We even tried to get a cab. Then we had a sudden change of heart. We turned around again, and walked back to the start area. Once we had finished our 3+ mile warm up, we were at the registration tent, where everyone was being totally cool, and trying to get us all suited up and ready to go, as quickly as possible. They even took our bags right there, so that we didn’t have to check them. As we were walking to the starting line, we paused to cheer on the winner of the race, as he made his way back into the park! Hahaha. The icing on the cake: the mats were still on. NYRR had totally redeemed themselves (in my eyes) from botching the transportation situation so badly.

As part of the deal to coax Reagan into not going home, I agreed to run the whole race with her and help pace her. It really turned out to be a lot of fun. For the first 8 miles, we were virtually alone, just chatting it up. Around that time, we started to pass some of the stragglers. It was really cool, the way that the course just wound through residential College Point and Whitestone. We saw all kinds of exotic birds that had become wild and nested under power transformers, on telephone poles. It was crazy! Reagan and I almost never get to run together, and I think that this is probably the longest that we ever have done it. I didn’t turn on my headphones once, during the whole race. I know that this story has become extremely long, so I’m wrapping it up.

^–Mike, making the victory call, after the race.

After the race, we picked up our bags and headed to the shuttle line. It was about as long as it was, before the race. You can see it in the background of the photo at the top of the post. I knew that our friend Greg was going to be working in the medical tent at the finish area. So, I had kind of been looking for him. But I didn’t see him. Then he and his friend came walking by as we were waiting in line. They offered us a ride back into Manhattan, which we accepted in a heartbeat. It turns out that Greg’s friend was actually headed back to CT, afterward too, so he offered to give Mike a lift. Holy crap. For a race that could not have started anymore chaotic for us, it certainly wrapped up nicely.

After eating lunch and taking a quick nap, we made a trip up to visit Piper, who was as cute as ever. The end.