staten island 6 hour run: race photos and results

great day for a race! the staten island 6 hour run was my first race since getting sidetracked with anemia for a few weeks. i acquitted myself well, getting in 20 miles just under 3 hours, the marathon just over 4 hours, and logging 32.4 miles for the full 6 hours.

here is my race report. will add link to official results when they are posted.


al, brennan, and emmy.


rob and emmy.


emmy and rob finishing.


brennan finishing.


rob, me, and brennan.


rob and susan.


emmy, rob, and susan.


phil, byron, and brennan.


susan collecting her award.


gail collecting her award.


emmy and susan comparing awards.

from the archives: the incredible fog at the 2007 start!

here are the official results.

2nd manhattan cask ale festival at chelsea brewing company

yesterday afternoon i checked out the 2nd manhattan cask ale festival at the chelsea brewing company. the event was part of nyc craft beer week (12 -21 september) and the cask ale festival continues through this weekend. if you're in the city and thirsting for some great beer, get over to the west side and check it out!



here's part of the event description:

New York Craft beer Week concludes with an incredible presentation of tradition. Around 45 ‘firkins’ of craft-brewed cask-conditioned ale will be available, all being tapped from the start, and each available on a pay-as- you-go basis until each is kicked. With no entry fee, come and go as you please to fully enjoy the selection. For three days, until the last cask is kicked, these unfiltered, naturally-carbonated beers will be presented traditionally at cellar temperature. The breadth of American brewing capabilities will be on full display as more traditional methods are adapted to deliver full flavored beers."



john, a veritable factotum of beer and beer related information (and great writer to boot), and i shared this prime location table for the first couple of beers. the first two i tried were:

harveistoun "ice maiden" and
dark horse "oktoberfest"



then we met up with rick (the man behind the seattle international beer festival) and his wife. while the socializing continued, i tried these beers:

milly's tavern "tennessee t.n.t" - a barleywine,
the livery "herb superb black i.p.a"
cape ann "fisherman's pumpkin stout"



all in all, i got to try 5 excellent cask conditioned beers (8 ounces each) for the bargain price of $20 in festival coupons. plus, for an extra $3, took home a commemorative beer glass.

now if i can only convince some friends to head back there with me before the beer is all tapped out....
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check out our trip to the 3rd manhattan cask ale festival!

"it's always sunny in philadelphia" season four premiere

i confess, the utterly non-politically correct, borderline psychotic, and edgy misanthropic, "it's always sunny in philadelphia," is my favorite sit-com. as far as i can tell, it's the only sit-com that sports an age-verification barrier to visit the shows official blog, "paddy's pub!" last night season four kicked off with back-to-back warped episodes: “mac and dennis: manhunters” and “the gang solves the gas crisis.”

after the macabre season opener which featured pseudo-cannibalism, a trip to the morgue to (almost) eat human flesh (said trip undertaken w/a hot plate and six-pack of beer in tow), and the episode titled "man-hunt," the second half hour installment was decidedly more socially acceptable. at least that's what most people would consider the gang's efforts to solve the "gas crisis." nuff, said...

okay, bottom-line, if you're suffering from political-correctness (however mild) or have a dainty constitution, stay very (and i mean VERY) far away from this series. it has the serious potential to rattle your psyche (cage) and send you into fits of (uncontrollable) rage.

on the other hand, if you're jaded - and decidedly thick-skinned - this is must see t.v. (or cable, actually)!

finally, for those of you on the fence, here are five very cool reasons - to either watch or not watch (yikes, that's such positively hamlet-like approach to the silly question)!

dean karnaze's 48 hour treadmill run on "live with regis and kelly"

dean karnazes just finished his quest to break the guinness world record for the longest distance run on a treadmill in 48 hours. unfortunately, his 211.7 miles (unofficial) was well short of the record, 240+ miles. but back to back 100 milers on a treadmill is an incredibly impressive accomplishment. the event was part of the week-long theme on the live with regis and kelly program (each show this week featured someone trying to break a guinness world record).

the best part of this stunt was that new yorkers could catch him running on the treadmill, live, at the abc studio window at the corner of Columbus avenue and 67th street (others could watch him run via the webcast).

this isn't the first running-themed stunt sponsored by regis and kelly. earlier this summer they put on a women's only high-heel-a-thon (a 150 yard dash in high heels in central park)!



check out the cool gallery of photos at runners world.

"lennon in america: 1971-1980" book review

hands down, "lennon in america: 1971-1980, based in part on the lost lennon diaries," by geoffrey giuliano, is the darkest and creepiest book i've ever read. i picked it up at the scarsdale library book fair last weekend and thought it would be a interesting look at lennon's post-beatle years in the united states - in particular, his years in new york city. giuliano paints such an unrelenting negative portrait of lennon (and an evil one of yoko) that it's hard to reconcile with his statement, "when you respect and admire someone as much as i do john lennon..."

but i should have expected the salacious with a jacket blurb like this one:

"here is john lennon as both devoted husband and thoughtless adulterer; the doting dad and absentee father; a macrobiotic health enthusiast who wrestled with alcoholism, heroin addiction, and bulima; a pitchman for world peace unable to control his volcanic temper; a vocal feminist and recalcitrant chauvinist...."

still, the john lennon that emerged from his book is hardly a shadow of the man who was a beatle. instead, we see - chapter after chapter - someone who eventually spiraled downward into an eccentric recluse. while he pins a good chunk of lennon's decline on his relationship with yoko - she can't bear all the responsibility for his years in the wilderness.

with access to lennon's unpublished diaries, guiliano spills all the tawdry minutiae of his daily life onto the pages of his biography. it would be interesting if the unexpurgated diaries themselves are published someday. but, the strange fascination of this book is wondering if the anecdotes find ink in lennons diaries, or are the recollections of witnesses.

while "lennon in america" wasn't my cup of tea, for the hard-core lennon and/or beatle fan - it's probably indispensable reading.

constitution day: 17 september

today, 17 september, is constitution day (or citizenship day). prior to it's official renaming in 2004 as "constitution and citizenship day," it was known simply as citizenship day. while the federal holiday is intended to celebrate citizenship, september 17 is, in fact, the anniversary date of the signing of the final draft of the united states constitution at the constitutional convention in philadelphia - way, way back in the misty days of 1787!

while i haven't taught constitutional law since 2004 spring semester, it is my favorite legal subject (particularly civil liberties and our first amendment freedoms).



check out the constitution day resources at findlaw.

"bottle shock" movie review

i finally had a chance to see "bottle shock" on saturday night. interestingly, it wasn't playing in westchester, so pat and i had to drive over to greenwich to catch it! it was pat's second film in as many nights. on friday she finally had a chance to see "man on wire," and then stayed for a question and answer session with co-producer, maureen ryan, after the show. if you haven't seen "man on wire" yet, put it on your list of films to see!

getting back to "bottle shock," when i first read about this film and it's wine theme, i was keen to see it. but after i read an initial negative review, my interest in seeing it took a back seat to some other films. what a mistake it was to put off seeing it because of a misguided reviewer inaccurate comment that the film was more about the love triangle among the cellar rats at the montelena vineyard than it was about the actual wine competition at the heart of the story.

the opening scene is practically stolen by dennis farina as a chicago expatriate with the next door travel agency, tasting wine with alan rickman in his modestly named wine shop "the academy of wine!" from that first scene, straight through rickman's adventures in napa valley and then back to france for the actual competition, the film completely engages the audience in rickman's single-minded plan to stage this prestigious international wine tasting event - nominally, as part of america's bicentennial celebration (and fostered, in part, by farina)!

i will confess to being a fan of dennis farina - long before stint on law and order - since that long-ago series, "crime story," in the 1980's. he fits into the garish 70's vintage plaid polyester suits perfectly! and i've been a fan of rickman since he tried to do away with bruce willis in "die hard!" the two actors make quite the unintended comedic duo in the scenes that bookend rickman's trip to californina. rickman, himself, is outstanding as an unflappable, albeit beleaguered, brit, in love with french wine culture, and in his traipsing through napa valley to find american wine good enough to compete against the french.

his trip to california opens with his beaten up gremlin suffering a flat tire. as he hopelessly tries to change it, bill pullman (conveniently, the owner of montelana winery) stops to help. that initial encounter sets the stage for pullman's subsequent antagonism toward rickman. but it's watching rickman make his way, tirelessly, across the various wineries that makes this good stuff. he eats kentucky fried chicken out of a bucket in his car, samples guacamole as part of a wine tasting, and even drinks wine out of a tumbler - all while wearing his stuffy 3-piece suit in the hot california sun - edgy stuff for his character!

despite being painted as an obnoxious snob - by pullman - rickman, instead, repeatedly comes off as endearing (a strange word choice, but appropriate). the climax of his trip is hilarious - at the airport counter he shockling discovers that the airline won't let him bring his precious bottles on board (only one per passenger). he and bo (pullman's son) engage the services of the fellow passengers about to board - each taking a bottle to carry on until rickman emptied the two cases he wanted to take on board. he, fittingly, walks on with just one bottle - of course, montelana.

while predictable, the suspense is artfully maintained during the blind-tasting in a bucolic farm in the french countryside. one thing that puzzled me was why the film-makers neglected to mention - until the film credits - that stags leap winery (another american winery) won in the red wine category! the entire film was focused on white wines (never mentioning reds at all)?! aside from that quirk, this is a fun movie to see. as an extra-added benefit, the panoramic vistas of napa valley are breath-taking.