One thing I realized this weekend is that we don’t make it to Kings county enough. Every time that Reagan and I wander into Brooklyn we are both like “why don’t we live here.” I have to admit though, that depending on what neighborhood we go to, I get a little bit hipstered out. Anyway. We hit the Renegade Craft Fair, which was really cool. It was also really windy, and threatening rain the entire time. As a result, I didn’t really have the camera out much (sorry Zhush). I did snap the image above, just because I thought that it was cool that the display had a shelf made from a skate deck.

Eventually the clouds burst into a torrential downpour that lasted about 5 minutes. We bolted across the street into Urban Rustic just in time to keep from being totally soaked. It just happened that we were also hungry for lunch, so it worked out well. By the time that we finished eating, it was blue skies again. On the way back to the train, we grabbed some frozen yogurt (above) and hit several “vintage” shops (Reagan and Erin’s idea). But we did pass a cool door on Driggs ave that had a few stencils and wheatpaste pieces on it, including a cool C215 stencil. But, I really liked the wheatpaste below. I have seen it before, and I’m not sure who does it.

Anyway the weekend as always flew by far too quickly. See you soon, Monday.

Reagan:

There weren’t really any clear shots of Reag, this time. So, I did some crude editing to make it easier to spot her. The cuteness definitely still comes through, even though the images are so small.

Jake at the finish:

This was such a fun race. It was the first half-marathon that I have ever run without headphones. It was a lot different without them, but not nearly as bad as I expected. In fact, I was really pretty amazed at how quiet it was, especially in Prospect Park at 7 AM. I’m not really sure why I put my fingers up like that, crossing the finish line. I guess I was pretty excited about finishing (five hundred and) first! Hahahaha.

We had fantastic weather for the Brooklyn Half-Marathon today. Reagan and I traveled to the race with a bunch of our friends from the running club, which made it a lot of fun. We all had a pretty good race. I didn’t hit my 1:30 goal. But I wasn’t too bummed about it, since I didn’t really deserve it, the way that I have been slacking lately. The race was really fun for me though, and I was ok with my time.

Stats:
Distance: 13.1 Miles, 21.1 Kilometers
Date/Time: May 22, 2010, 7:00 am
Location: Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Weather: 58 Degrees, 86% Humidity, Wind 6MPH
Total Finishers: Men – 3421 Women – 3585 Total – 7006

I had an awesome view, while being stretched out, under the Parachute Drop on the boardwalk at Coney (above). Below: our group chilling out and stretching on the boardwalk after the race.

Reagan’s sister Jody, who is visiting for the weekend, met up with us after the race. Of course we couldn’t go to Coney Island without taking a lap on the Wonder Wheel.

Danger! Hahhaha

Since we didn’t really get to do much fun stuff on Reagan’s birthday, I told her that we could do whatever she wanted on Saturday. She chose to go to the Brooklyn Flea Market. It was quite a site to behold. The market is traditionally held outside. But for the winter, they moved it into the old Williamsburg Bank building. It is like a gigantic hipster garage sale.

There were a couple of things that I thought were pretty cool. Almost all of the booths had some vinyl LPs for sale. I found the original “Breakin’” soundtrack on vinyl. In the end, I decided that $5 was more than I was willing to drop, for that beauty. I still thought it was a pretty cool find.

Sorry for all of the lengthwise shots. Here is one more of my favs.

Here for plenty more.

Sorry that I am kind obsessed with bridges, at the moment, because of the book that I’m reading. If you are sick of hearing about them, feel free to change the channel. I’m taking a break from blabbing about the Brooklyn Bridge for a minute to share this outstanding time-lapse video of the Manhattan Bridge. The Manhattan Bridge is situated just north of the Brooklyn Bridge, on the East River (for those non-NY-ers who are curious and too lazy to dial up a Google Maps search). I shot the image above during this outing, from the Brooklyn side promenade of the Bk Bridge. Brooklyn even has a neighborhood that is named for the Manhattan Bridge. It is called DUMBO as an acronym for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.” This video comes via a post that I saw in Animalnewyork.com, last July. The video below show the way that “the Manhattan Bridge sways up and down with each passing subway train.” Soooooo cool.

I mentioned previously that I had recently started a new book about the conception and construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. As it turns out, the bridge was the brainchild of the Prussian immigrant architect/engineer/genius named John Roebling. The construction was overseen by himself and his son Washington Roebling, who evidently was equally gifted. John actually passed away pretty early on in the construction phase, after complications related to an injury he sustained at the construction site.

Apparently, at the time, the majority of Brooklyn belonged to the democratic party. The political control seemed to lie predominantly with the Irish immigrants. John Roebling, in addition to all of his other attributes was a very strongly opinionated fellow. In Roebling’s opinion, the Irish democrats did not share his same strong feelings about the bridge. When they would walk off the job demanding higher pay, Roebling would fire them, and hire Germans immigrants, to replace them. While referring to this matter, Roebling once stated:

No democrat can be trusted, they are all disloyal and treacherous, more or less.

Hahahaha. To me, the best part about Roebling’s statement, is that I can think of a few prominent right wing talking heads who are still trying to push that generalization as fact. I’m pretty sure you know who I’m talking about.

Saturday was a banger, in these parts. Although we slept in a little bit on Saturday (which we were allowed to, since it was raining), we made every minute count, for the rest of the day.

We trekked out to Brooklyn for the Mermaid Parade, and decided to check out the Brooklyn Aquarium, first. It was a great idea, since the rain wasn’t really letting up. There was an event at the aquarium that included face painting and hula hooping. Both Reagan and I, got in on the hula hooping action.

We ended up only catching the tail end of the parade, which was ok with me. This is the only photo of the parade that I took, that was fit to post.

Saturday night, we were invited to a Brasil party. Everyone who went brought some sort of traditional Brazilian food, we all dressed up in soccer jerseys, etc. It was a really good time. Afterward, Reagan and I decided to walk home through the park. Here we are goofing off.

More photos of Saturday’s festivities can be found here.

Me, alone on the 2 train at 6 AM

Coney Island Parachute Jump

This morning was the Brooklyn Half Marathon. It was a lonely ride into the BK, without my running partner. I had a bunch of friends that were all going down together, but I had to go early, to pick up my bib, etc.. It was a bit on the warm side. But, overall, an awesome race. Reagan couldn’t make it, this morning, because she is still getting over a cold. Such a bummer. I did end up running into our friends, after the race though. Unfortunately I was really able to hang out with them, since I had to come into work after the race. Oh well. At least I was able to get a small taste of the beautiful weather this weekend. There are more photos from the race in this folder. Also, check out my write up in the Examiner. My time wasn’t the best. It was about 5 minutes slower than the last 1/2 marathon, I ran. I was able to keep my pace barely under 8 minutes, finishing at 1:42:40.

Here is a photo that Becca took of me, after the race, when I was trying to poke out my gut (check) and look flamboyant (check).

[Revenge in Brooklyn Heights. Photo via Flickr/dangottesman via Curbed]

I thought this note was great. I was also glad that the person who penned the note had the self control to leave the note (albeit, penned on packing tape), rather than resorting to actually breaking the windshield. I came out to a deep key scratch on the quarter-panel of Bebe last Sunday Morning. I would have preferred the tape. At least a note would have let me know why someone is hating on me/us/Bebe.