weekly running evaluation– week 8

Author: Jake

As promised, here is the dreaded first installation of my weekly running blah on Jake’s Mag.

I’m currently working through one of the Hal Higdon training programs (below).

This week, was week 8, of 18. I can’t believe that after next week I will be half way through. It’s kind of crazy/frightening, especially considering the fact that I have been fairly half-hearted about training this year. I left off after week 5, since I missed both of the long runs for weeks 6 and 7. Anyway, here is a recap of this week’s efforts:

Overall, I have to give myself a grade of about a B, for this week. Even though I skipped Monday, and came up short on Tues (I forgot to check how far I was supposed to go), I made up for it on Wed, with a handful of extra miles. I was also pretty happy with the way that I was able to do as Hal suggested and instead of zoning out for the tempo run, do some “associating.” Associating basically means that instead of just throwing it on autopilot and shuffling along at an 8m/m pace, pay attention to my speed, my body, etc.. By taking Hal’s advice, I was able to do my tempo run at a pace that is close to what I want to be running in Oct. I has similar results on Saturday. I capped off the running week with a change of venue, and did some laps in Central Park. The weather was mid-70′s and the early morning shade made for a super pleasant run.

Here is what is on deck for next week:

I did something stupid

Author: Jake

Oh, hey that’s my reflection in the TV. The new TV that we just picked up this weekend. For a few weeks now, the brightness level of our television would sometimes flicker. The TV was an older one. I actually bought it on Craiglist from a hedge fund. It was one of their old ticker screens. Anyway, we just kind of assumed that it was on it’s last leg, when the flickering started to occur. So, last weekend we purchased a replacement. It was a pretty huge project, lugging it up the stairs, taking the old one off of the wall, putting the new one on the wall, redoing the cables, etc. etc.. I had it mounted and running just in time to watch the Laguna Seca GP race.

I took the old TV down and curbed it. Today when I came home from work, Reagan tells me that the TV is still flickering. Awesome. It was the stupid cable box causing the problem, not the television. I can’t believe what an idiot I am for not testing the old unit more thoroughly with a movie or something before just assuming that the TV was the problem. I hope that at least someone scavenged the TV. Nothing like scoring a free 42″ plasma on the curb. Hahahaha.

Awkward Cheek Kiss Greetings

Author: Jake

The other day, I was shooting this thing at the new agnes b, store in SoHo. They are rotating art installations through the store there, and are currently featuring the work pictured above (among other items). Anyway, the PR person who organizes these openings is a really cool lady. At the last one that I went to, Reagan came with me, and we ended up talking to the woman for at least a half hour.

The other night when I showed up, I walked over to say hi and she leaned in for the cheek kiss. PS, this is totally normal practice for this scene. I grew up doing handshakes and high-fives. And I have to admit that I was a bit caught off guard when I first moved to NY and people were doing the cheek kiss thing. I was like, “what is this, France or something?” But over the years I have grown accustomed to it, and even tried to learn how to do it without being totally awkward. But the problem is, I can’t.

My friend Mike, who was born and raised in southern CT has the greeting down pat. He makes it look so easy. I really envy that. When I was in Spain recently, some of our friends there, even gave me some pointers, on how not to mess it up so badly. But inevitably, every time someone opts to do the cheek kiss thing with me, I either end up giving an accidental headbutt, or else actually planting one on the cheek (you are supposed to kiss the air).

So, I apologize to the very nice PR girl and countless others over the years who have been the recipients of my poorly executed attempts at the cheek kiss greeting. One of these days, hopefully I can get it down. Maybe I’ll watch some instructional youtube videos. I mean, hey, if they could teach Reagan how to whistle…

Weekly Running Evaluation, Week 5

Author: Jake

Another good week. I’m going to go ahead and give myself another A. It was tough convincing myself to run on the 4th of July, as well as both Saturday and Sunday, being that we were staying in eastern Long Island for a wedding. But, I still managed to knock out the mileage. I am really starting to enjoy running again, which is exactly the feeling that I was working so hard to get back. I still have a long way to go pace-wise and trim wise. But, I’m really glad to be enjoying the process again. Also– Helen, thanks for pointing out the oversight. I will make sure to affix the “nerdy stuff” tag this week

Weekly totals:

Count: 6 Activities
Distance: 39.69 mi
Time: 05:19:36 h:m:s
Elevation Gain: 1,749 ft
Avg Speed: 7.5 mph
Calories: 5,755 C

On tap for this week:

I want this: Aura Bike Rim Lights

Author: Jake

I saw this on Curated, which led me to Core77.  I was dying over this quote from the Core 77 post–

When a tip about Project Aura arrived in my inbox last week, I suspected that it was just another hipster bike lighting system and the electropop soundtrack of the Vimeo teaser initially confirmed my intuition.

Hahahaha. Anyway, isn’t this an awesome idea? It would look lame on my current bike. But my friend has been talking about letting me take over his SE single speed when he moves to Italy in July. I’m pretty sure that this system would look very dope on that setup. It’s like Tron meets Williamsburg. Also, is that the young Michael Diamond riding the bike in the photo? I don’t want to start any rumors.

Here is a vid of it in action. Pay attention because it could very well be the coolest thing you see today–

On a completely unrelated note. We bounce for Europe a week from today.

Facebook is for elderly women

Author: Jake

I have been back and forth about the whole Facebook conundrum, several times. You may recall this post. Then, almost a year later, I caved under peer pressure and reactivated my account. I have to admit that some aspects of it have been really pleasant. I’m still not 100% keen on it, though. Possibly still because of the bitter taste in my mouth that Myspace left.

Anyway, it seems like it is pretty unavoidable these days. I read about it everywhere. I have read so many articles about how if they could just monetize the thing, it would be unstoppable, etc. It seems like Wired has a new take on Facebook, every month. But my favorite two Facebook factoids, as of late, are:  A. Facebook is for broads, and B. The elderly is the fastest growing demographic of users. I’m not kidding, in either case.

Examiner sends around all kinds of emails with tips on promoting, etc. The latest thing they have going is some sort of contest, involving Facebook. Here is a quote from the email:

If you think you’re too old for Facebook, consider that the fastest growing group of Facebook users is people over the age of 35.  Among that group, grandparents are some of the heaviest users.

What? Hahahaha. Some of the “heaviest users?” Ok, aside from the poor wording of that statement, I can sort of see some rationale behind the claim. The reason that I kind of buy into it, dovetails with my next point. The elderly are often home bound. With limited social options, I can see them resorting to Facebook, for interaction with others. The other demographic that  spends loads and loads of time on Facebook according to something that I read on Animal New York (and according to my personal observation), is the softer sex. I have to say that it seems like women, stay at home moms particularly (not saying this with any sort of negative inference), seem to author the bulk of the “updates” on my feed. The Animal post was actually taken from an NY Observer article, on the subject. The article claims that:

Women are more likely to be chatting it up on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites you’ve probably never heard of, like “Bebo.” According to data taken from Google’s U.S. Ad Planner, a site that tracks popular Web sites’ traffic, 84 percent (or 16 out of 19) of the sites they studied have more female than male users.

The Observer also stated that a study conducted by the WSJ in October yielded similar findings. So what does this mean? Put the Examiner claim with the other studies, and it appears that Facebook is becoming overrun by elderly women. Hahahaha.

In reality though, I have recently read a few useful pieces relating to Facebook. The first one, was in GQ, earlier this year. This article lays out the low down with Mark Zuckerberg, his unrelenting desire to be the head of the organization he created, and the back story on the ever changing Facebook privacy policy, about which rumors still circulate (Facebook owns all of the IP right to photos posted by users, etc.).

The other article I referred to, appeared in Details. The article discusses virtual friend collecting and lays out some guidelines and protocol on how to deal with awkward Facebook moments. I have found it helpful, when trying to decide if I should un-tag myself in certain photos, etc.. It also discusses the idea of transparency and honesty on one’s profile. It probably seems pretty commonsensical, but it was actually kind of interesting.

Maybe it is kind of pathetic I have even felt like I needed any guidance when dealing with Facebook. Maybe I’ll be strong armed out by all of the elderly women who are taking over. I guess I wouldn’t be too bummed about that.  Anyway, I find Idiotbook much more entertaining.

The good and the bad

Author: Jake

Much love to the b-berry cam. They always come out gritty and distorted, just the way I like ‘em.

My metrocard is a 30-day ride, that starts counting days, from the first swipe. They come to me in the mail. So, when I get a new one, I just put it in my wallet, so that I am prepared for the morning that the turnstile tells me “insufficient fare.” Then I just throw out the old one, and start using the new one. As luck would have it, my card ran out this morning. So I’m using my new one, for the first time, on a Friday, right before a 3 day weekend, when I probably won’t use it once. I know it isn’t a big deal, but for some reason, that kind of stuff makes me crazy.

Now for some really good news, if you are a nerd, and you like long and boring. If you aren’t a nerd, and/or don’t like long and boring, skip to “[Unboring].” I’m always battling for more disc space on our home comp. In the past, I would always just drop a new hard drive into the tower and call it good. The problem is, that it would rarely ever be that simple (Exhibit A). I have thought about just going the external drive, route. But USB 2.0 writes too slow and firewire is too expensive. So I have had this idea in my mind for a while, that I would just build an extra tower out of an old motherboard I have, and a couple of enormous hard drives. I could then just save everything on there via network. Well, yesterday I was on Craigslist, looking for someone giving away an old cpu case, and I struck gold. I found a place that was unloading all of their old workstations, sans hard drives. Exactly what I wanted. So I grabbed two boxes with Pentium 4s and DVD drives already in them. Now I just need to pick up a couple of hard drives, and install Linux on there (which I am also excited to do [it will me my first experience with Linux]).

Which brings me to my second point, I now have an extra pentium 4 machine, sans hard drives, if anyone is interested. It only has 512k of memory, but depending on what you want to use it for, it could workout great. Let me know if you are interested.

[Unboring] Continuing with the the positivity theme, it is a 3 day weekend. It is going to be especially fun, since Reagan’s sister will be in town. She and her friend will be attending the Open, for part of the time, but hanging with us, for the remainder (to visit Piper, etc.). Taking a slightly less positive tone: I have been chatting all morning with Reagan, who has been visiting Piper. Apparently Piper has not been feeling too hot. She has a fever and seems very subdued. Hopefully it is nothing serious. Fingers crossed.

Veering back toward positivity:  Last night, the Univ. of Utah football team convincingly won their season opener. I hope that everyone has a fantastic holiday weekend.

CK Spy Glasses

Author: Jake

I cracked up, when I saw these today. Calvin Klein is relasing them this October. They are the CK USB Frames. The frames contain a USB flash memory stick that holds 4GB. I think that this may be the coolest nerdy thing that has been invented, to date. They will be featured in “Ocean’s 15,” which is also due to be released this fall. Ok, I made up the part about the new Ocean’s movie.

Tumblr

Author: Jake

I have been keeping a photblog at photos.jakesnewblog.com for a couple of months. At first I really liked it. I liked making the photos show up 1000px wide, and all that jazz. But I really haven’t been feeling it lately. So I have decided to totally abandon the daily photoblog, for a quick and dirty alternative on tumblr, instead. I had never used the tumblr platform before starting the new page (which incidentally is found at shotbyjake.com). I like the simplicity of it. For those who have never used tumblr, it is sort of like Twitter, w/o all of the hype, and spam. I like it because it is very conducive to just dropping some photos on there, when ever I feel like it. Posts link to the larger images, etc.. So that’s that.

Switching things up (again)

Author: Jake

I have been wanting to do this for a while. I could have probably just ditched the skinny side bar that was on the left, but for some reason I like creating work for myself. I wanted to widen out the main content column, so that I could put wider photos in the posts. The biggest reason that I have been putting it off, is because these posts are syndicated into breinholts.com and another blog that I my family shares. So, I had to reformat those ones too, to prevent the photos from bleeding over onto the side bars. Anyway, it took me all night, and I’m tired now. So, good night.