Valentines Day is one of those holidays that guys consistently screw up. One year it’s great; one year it’s not. Fortunately, Wikipedia has a wonderfully long history of it, which just makes me think the people at Hallmark love this holiday. Several years ago, a guy name Tom Birdsey created a comparable holiday for men. Since I’m a vegetarian, it’s only partly relevant for me. So – this morning – after 9 inches of snow last night, I emerged from the shower, got dressed, and wandered down stairs to clean the snow off my car so I could drive into the office. Amy was out there cleaning it off – when I shouted out the door “thanks – you’re awesome” – she responded with “happy steak and bj day.” Amy – you rock.
My dad and I spent the last two days hanging out together in San Francisco. We try to do this once a year – just the two of us – exploring a different city together. This year we picked a perfect weekend – the weather in San Francisco has been incredible. We stayed downtown in the Hotel Vitale – an ideal location right on the edge of the Embarcadero Waterfront.
We spent Friday afternoon wandering around, followed by dinner at Lime and a semi-private viewing (e.g. surprisingly few people) of Firewall at the Metreon. We both went running early this morning followed by another day of museums and a great dinner at A16.
We started the museum thing yesterday afternoon at the San Francisco Museum of Craft & Design. They were between exhibits but let us wander around because I mentioned my friend Wendy Lea’s name (Wendy is one of the founding members of the museum.) It turns out my membership expires in a month so I used the opportunity to delay my expiration by another year. I’ll have to swing by again before May 29 to see the “Textile Art in the 21st Century” exhibit. Since we hadn’t seen much art, we ducked into a few galleries – the memorable ones were the Himmelberger Gallery and the Caldwell Snyder Gallery – both on Sutter Street.
After an awesome run on the Embarcadero, we started our day at the Crown Point Press. Amy and I collect several artists that Crown Point represents (such as Christopher Brown), as do my parents. However, I was really disappointed this visit. The exhibit space was sparsely populated and the artist (who’s name I don’t remember) wasn’t memorable. Oh well.
SFMOMA (The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) was up next. I love this building and the museum never disappoints. The Chuck Close Self-Portrait retrospective felt a little meglomaniacal, but it was intriguing. The 1906 Earthquake photography exhibit was great – it’s a superb perspective on how fragile the city actually is in the face of a major earthquake. SFMOMA – as it often is – was one of the highlights of the trip.
We finished the day by taking a cab over to Golden Gate Park to take a look at the de Young. The building – created by Herzog & de Meuron – looks amazing in photos. Unfortunately, in real life I thought it was much less impressive. I might be jaded by the new Denver Art Museum by Liebeskind – which is an incredible work of architecture – but I was disappointed by the de Young. The trip up the de Young Tower to the top of the building was ok – the views of the city are great – but was also overrated. The overall collection is a total hodgepodge of stuff. The museum tries to make sense of it and rationalize the collection, but I thought the descriptions (and the art) missed the mark.
Dad – thanks for the great weekend!
I took the day off and played with my friends.
Some of the places I hung out in were “above the action.”
I got to hang out where the president struggles with the weight of the worldly issues that he doesn’t really want to deal with.
I can’t tell you much more about it – you’ve read my file, you know what I’m capable of.
My friends Paul and Renee Berberian (and their daughter Marlo) are taking a trip around the world for the next year. If you’ve ever fantasized about something like this, I expect you can do this vicariously through Renee’s blog. She has a delightful entry up about packing for a trip like this. Whenever Amy and I travel, even if it’s for a week, I get to watch Amy have a similar experience. Of course, being a guy, I can pack in five minutes for any trip.
It’s a “two-fer” day on the Friends Blogging channel. Mike Hirshland – a partner at Polaris Ventures – has started blogging. Definitely worth following if you are into VC-bloggers.
My friend and almost relative (fiance of my wife Amy’s sister) Stacy Maxwell has started a blog. Last fall at the age of 28 Stacy was diagnosed with Berkitt’s Lymphoma and his life (and his fiance Wendy’s, and his family’s) was turned upside down. Stacy has handled things incredibly well, was dedicated to his treatment, and is currently in remission. He’s started to write about his experience – if you have a friend or family member with cancer, Stacy’s story will resonate and might be helpful.
This was another marathon weekend for me. Amy and I spent the past week at our friend Jared Polis’s apartment in South Beach getting acclimated. I ran the Miami Marathon today – knocking another state of the list in my quest to run a marathon in every state by the time I turn 50 (I’ve done 6 and I recently turned 40.)
South Beach has been a trip. When I was a kid, my dad’s parents lived in Hollywood Hills and I remember never being allowed to go to South Beach because it was “too dangerous.” I’ve been here several times over the past few years and dig the scene, even though I’m not a late night party guy. Jared’s place is perfectly located on the corner of 14th and Ocean, which happens to be the turn at the 6 mile mark of the marathon.
I was anxious this time around – my last marathon was New York on November 7th – so there wasn’t much time between marathons. My longest training run this cycle was 2:30 which is shorter then my normal long run (3:00 – 3:30), although I did it on a treadmill in a room that was 90 degrees to try to simulate the heat, followed by a 2:00 run the next day. The rational part of my brain knew I was ready; the irrational part got spun up a little.
The marathon was well organized and sponsored by ING, the same lead sponsor for the New York Marathon. It was much smaller (about 10,000 runners total – half doing the marathon; half doing the half-marathon). The course starts in downtown Miami, starts early at 6am, cruises over the MacArthur Causeway to South Beach, through Miami Beach, back over The Venetian Causeway, through downtown (where the half marathon ends), to Coconut Grove, and then back to downtown.
Since I felt a little nervous, I went out slow with a goal of finishing in 5 hours. I put the Coverville 2005 top 40 countdown on my iPod Shuffle and settled into a rhythm. When I passed 14th and Ocean, I stopped for a minute, gave Amy a kiss, and grabbed a Clif Bar from her. I continued to cruise through the half way point and started feeling strong, at which point my headphones broke. I continued music free and – at 16 – decided to pick up the pace since I felt that 4:45 might be in sight. At 19 miles I knew I had made a mistake and backed off, but still ran out of gas at 21 and slammed hard into the proverbial wall. My lonely miles are usually 13 to 18 – today is was 21 to 24. It had gotten hot, my legs were completely stiff, and my brain wasn’t working any more. I got a brief second win at 24 and saw that 5 hours was still a possibility so I pushed it as hard as I could for the balance of the run. When I encountered one of the only hills on the course at 25.75, I knew I wasn’t going to make 5 hours, but kept up the effort, enjoying the thrill of cruising by my fellow runners. The finish line finally came into sight and before I knew it, I was done.
Six down, a bunch to go. Next up – the 110th Boston Marathon.