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!

I know it was only 3 miles, but it was really hot and I had to fight traffic HARD at the beginning, since it was a free for all (no pace chutes). 6’24″ pace is 5 seconds per mile, better than my previously recorded official NYRR time. Progress feels good. 3 girls still finished ahead of me. I’m ok with that.

Distance: 3.0 Miles, 4.9 Kilometers
Date/Time: June 24, 2010, 6:45 pm
Location: Financial District, NYC
Weather: 87 Degrees, 57% Humidity, Wind 15MPH, Clear.

Total Finishers: Men – 2555 Women – 2506 Total – 5061

I really really hope that Reagan blobs about how the race went for her. Because it is freaking hilarious.

The only official item that we have calendared for this weekend is a race that Reagan is running. It is the NYRR Mini 10K. It is a Women’s-only race that dates back to the 70′s– and “mini” refers to the miniskirts that were popular during the era. The race is Saturday morning. If it wasn’t exciting enough that Reagan was running, so is Kara Goucher and Paula Radcliffe. Still not exciting enough? They are both pregnant (Reagan is not pregnant, hehe).

Besides the Mini 10k, I’m sure that we will find some fun stuff to do this weekend. Most likely there will be some World Cup viewing in the mix. I have seen a lot of cool promotional stuff leading up to this year’s iteration of the World Cup. But my favorite, by far is the t-shirt below:

When your team scores a goal, pull your shirt over your head, and this is what you get. Pure genius, if you ask me (via). Even though the matches officially kick off today, for me the World Cup doesn’t really start until Brazil plays it’s first match. It’s so crazy that they have a new Ronaldinho, from when I was living there in 1999. Maybe for the next world cup they can have a new Pele. Hahahaha.

While we are on the subject of cool stuff that I have seen recently– I discovered a photographer today whose work completely blew me away. His name is Nadav Kander. Here is one of his images from the series: “Yangtze, The Long River.”

Check out more of his work on his site. It is seriously otherworldly (via).

Yesterday, Reagan posted about our snowshoeing adventures, that we had during our jaunt to UT.  It reminded me that we had a few minutes of some random video footage from that day, that I hadn’t even uploaded yet. So, if you like shaky camerawork and cute girls frolicking in the snow, then you may enjoy this vid.

Saturday was the first race of 2010 for me. It was a good one to start out the year with, since the weather was beautiful and it was for a good cause (run for Haiti). It was also pretty cool, because it was the first race that our new team “New York Running Club” was listed correctly on the roster/results.

I tried to charge my Nike+ sportband the night before, only to find that it was malfunctioning, again. The display looked like some sort of alien language. Reagan was kind enough to let me borrow hers, since she was sitting this one out. I will be sending it back on Monday Grrrr. The Central Park Races are normally capped at 5000 runners. But since it was for a charity (I guess), they doubled the cap and let 10,000 participants run. It was crrraaazyy. I wasn’t expecting such a crowd, so I showed up at the 9th hour and barely made it starting grid before the gun. As a result, I was way in the back and had no real chance of making it through the pack enough to get a good time. It was ok, though. My friend Mike ran with me, and we just had a relaxing race, and chatted the whole time. It also made me totally pumped for the upcoming running season and nice weather. Woo hoo!

Our Alaska/Hofstra friends also came to visit us, this weekend. Reagan and I pretty much just tagged a long with them through the village to various thrift stores, before hitting Broadway, in SoHo (pretty much Reagan’s dream day). It was a pretty good time, even for me.

We also saw this guy, playing in Washington Square Park. It is the same dude who drags that busted old piano down to the 4th St. A platform in the Subway on the weekends. Pretty awesome.

I have been so freaking bad at running, lately. I haven’t done any running in almost a month. True, Piper has been sick, and I have been sick. But, even when I didn’t have an excuse, I have been extremely bad at keeping with a routine, for this entire winter. Hopefully that will all change, now. Monday, I registered Reagan and myself for this year’s New York City Marathon, in November. We gained automatic entry through the 9+1 program. I have to admit, that the motivation meter was going up a little, just being on the NYRR site, putting in my info.

In addition to running the NYC Marathon, this year. we have also started a club. When I say “we,” I should say Becca. She did almost all of the work. It should be really good for getting in some group runs. Nothing like a little healthy competition, for a pick-me-up. BTW, if you want to be in the club, and are not already on the email list, hit me up. Since we were able to Recruit Carl, I’m pretty sure that we will have the club points championship pretty much in the bag. But, if you would like to be a part of Carl’s entourage, we are currently still recruiting. As of Monday, our name is now officially showing up on the “affiliations” drop down, on the NYRR registration screen. At least it is, if you are registering for the Marathon .

This may sound totally dumb, but, after having so much fun shooting last year’s race, I’m kind of bummed that I can do it again this year. I’m a nerd, I know.

Go NYRC!

Reagan and I have been working all year long to gain guaranteed entry to next year’s New York City Marathon. We have been doing the NYRR 9+1 program. We have had all of our races (plus a few extra) finished for quite some time now. But when we got online to sign up to volunteer, everything was booked except for the last two races of the year. Good thing that we didn’t procrastinate any longer than we did.

Reagan and I woke up at 5:30 on Saturday, so that we could be in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, by 7:30. It was a gorgeous day. The temperature was in the low 20′s but it didn’t feel that cold, because we were bathing in sunlight. The photo above is of Reagan dancing to Madonna’s “Holiday,” which was playing through the PA. So, it is official now. We will be running in Nov. 2010. We also had that chance to talk to another volunteer, who was near us, who has run NYC and Chicago for like the last 15 years straight. He said that they are spread almost perfectly apart. We have wanted to run Chi town for a while now. We are debating possibly doing both of them next year.

In Piper news, the date that she is scheduled to move back to NJ, has now been pushed from Tuesday to Thursday. We took advantage and had a super long and fun visit with her today. She is a clapping and smiling fool, these days. It is really fun to goof around with her and watch her smile and make little squeaks, like she is trying to laugh.

Reagan told me that on Friday, she was clapping Piper’s hands together, and when she stopped Piper kept clapping by herself. I couldn’t wait to see it for myself. To my amazement, I had her bouncing on my knee, clapping her hands, and she totally kept going, when I took my hands away. I was busting up laughing. One of the cutest things I have seen. It is especially cute the way she turns around and looks at me for approval afterward. We took some video today, that I’m hoping to get posted at some point. Anyway, I have rambled too long. Below, is a shot of Piper being so patient while Reagan works on her hair.

Here for a few more shots.

With such an anticlimactic Valentino Rossi world championship victory, this year, I almost stopped paying attention to the GP headlines. But, today Vito Ippolito, the president of FIM Confirmed the rumored change in engine specs for 2012. This should make things interesting. You may recall when the bikes changed from the first 4 stroke size of 990, to  800 ccs of displacement, Stoner and Ducati dominated. Ducati had not really even been on the radar before that. I mean sure, Stoner had something to do with it, but I’m just saying. Also Nicky Hayden, who had won the world championship on the 990 cc Honda Repsol, the previous year, had a tough time even finishing in the top 10, on the 800 cc bike. All I’m saying, is that the new specs could shake things up, a bit.

For 2012, the maximum displacement limit will jump from 800 ccs to 1000. There will also be a limit of 4 cylinders, with a maximum cylinder bore measurement of 81 mm. The 800 cc bikes are pushing 200 mph. I can’t wait to see what the factory teams will be able to do with the extra 200. According to MotoGP.com, Mr Ippolito said:

The main changes we have decided on are new rules for the MotoGP class. We will have four cylinder engines, 4-stroke of course, with a 1000cc maximum, and the bore of the cylinders will be 81mm. This base will give all the manufacturers the opportunity to start work. At the beginning of next year we will produce the new rules in a more complete format, but that is the basis; 2012 will be the year of a new era of MotoGP.

I’m curious to see if this will open the door for a new factory team to dominate the premier class of motorcycle racing.

[Photo: FIM/MotoGP.com]

Reagan took me to a futebol game today. It was in the Maracana, which is one of the largest stadiums in South America. It has held as many as 200k people before.

Here we are field level about an hour before the game started. Also about 5 minutes before we took our shirts off. It was 40 degrees in Rio today. I’m not exactly sure what that translates to in Fahrenheit, but I can tell you that it is pretty freaking hot.

The game was after we spent the morning on the beach, before it became incredibly crowded. I’m wondering if the the beach is this nuts here during the week. Anyway, I really enjoy this shot the Reagan took, when we were passing through a feira.

After the game, we went out to the point between Ipanema and Copacobana beaches to take some sunset shots. We kind of missed the sunset, and it was kind of cloudy anyway. But we still snapped a few. Hopefully we can have better timing/weather on a different night.

This one is of Reagan, with a little cove in the back.

When I was just a little tyke, snowboarding was just starting to become an acceptable sport. What I mean by acceptable, is that it had it’s foot in the door, among the alpine sports community. There was only one resort along the Wasatch Front that allowed snowboards in, and it was only on two lifts. Yes, that’s right, segregation. Brighton, and it’s parent Boyne was like of the like JFK of snowboarding, trying to usher in the era of peaceful co-existence between snowboarding and twoplanking.

Not long afterward, several other Resorts along the Wasatch range decided to allow those pesky mogul wrecking “ski-boarders.” The early 90′s brought in the Jim Crow-type of era for snowboarders. “Sure, you can come on the lifts with us, since you are buying a ticket, but don’t get too comfortable around here, you lateral stance hip-hop loving freaks.”

What happened next, I still have mixed feelings about. Snowboarding was ushered in as an Olympic event, which was kind of the catalyst for world acceptance of the sport. Before that, I think that it was still viewed as a passing fad, to a certain degree. It was so exciting, as a snowboarder, to feel validated. At the same time it was kind of sad, because snowboarding was losing it’s edgy nouveau freshness. Suddenly snowboarding was all the rage. All of the little silver spoon turtleneck wearing Austrian tourists were riding, instead of skiing. Those were the same kids that we got in fights with on the ski-bus bus in jr. high.

Suddenly the sport was flooded with tons and tons of money. From the perspective of a kid who had to save for months and months to buy his first deck, and who wore Sorel boots, because he couldn’t afford Burton, it felt kind of sad to see the sport change directions so abruptly. It felt like the sport went from a bunch of rag-tag hoodlums to glitz and bling, over the course of a few short years.

After 2002 SLC, I embraced the new “snowboard culture.” I accepted the fact that, like anything else, the sport, and culture associated with it is an organic thing. I was a little irked at Park City Ski resort, that vying for the Olympic bid, is what it finally took, for them to finally open their doors to snowboarders, and buy a pipe dragon. There are still a few resorts that don’t allow riding. Not surprising, two of them are in UT. One is Alta, another is Deer Valley. I like to think of them as the dirty south good old boys of ski-resorts. Since Alta is located on BLM land, there is no stopping riders from poaching early season pow, before the lifts open. In honesty, I prefer the bird anyway.

Before this rant/manifesto carries on too much longer, I’ll get to the point. One of the things that I absolutely love about the modern snowboard culture, is that the roots rowdy originality that has always surrounded the sport still comes through in modern snowboarding innovation. Only, now is super deep with funding. The DC mountain lab is a great example of this. I’m sure that Ken Block isn’t the first dude to come up with the idea of a rally car-style snow cat. But since DC supplied the cash flow, he was able to make it a reality. When I saw this video, I was smiling ear to ear. Who else is getting stoked for snowboarding season?

BTW: all references to the American civil rights movement are tongue-in-cheek. This post is not meant to diminish the struggle for racial equality, in any way. I fully understand that the struggle for snowboarders to be recognized as athletes, can’t even be measured on the same scale as the magnitude of the civil right movement. So there is my disclaimer