Now that the Red Sox and the Yankees are out of the playoffs, there doesn’t appear to be any reason to pay attention to baseball anymore (unless, of course, you live in Chicago like my friends from FeedBurner and StartSampling do).  I’ve never been a huge baseball fan – the most memorable part of the Texas Rangers games I used to go to as a kid was the traffic jam on the drive home.  I lived in Boston for 12 years – within a five minute walk of Fenway for the last three – and while I’d occasionally catch a game, I never got sucked into the Red Sox Nation (although I admit to watching last years Red Sox / Yankees series and rooting for the Red Sox.)

I was in Dallas at a board meeting a few weeks ago and Howard Diamond – a close friend and CEO of ePartners – decided that the best way to introduce me to a few members of his leadership team that hadn’t met me before was to tell the story of Brad, the book, and the baseball.  It goes something like this (oh goody, I get to practice writing in the third person and taking some editorial liberties that I’m sure Howard would be ok with.)

Brad’s wife Amy loves to go to live sporting events – especially baseball, football, and hockey.  Brad would rather stay home and play with his computer, but he usually tags along just to be in Amy’s presence. 

Several years ago, Amy decided she was going to go to a bunch of Rockies games.  Now – Amy doesn’t do anything half assed.  So – she found someone that would sell her a dozen tickets to several games which included two seats behind the first base dugout.  I mean directly behind the first base dugout – row one – right in the middle of the dugout.  Perfect seats.

Now – Rockies games are like football games – you rarely have the winner score less than 10 runs due to the thin air.  So – these aren’t dull games.  However, Brad knew he’d be bored out of his mind by the third inning, so he brought a book.  I think it was a biography of Howard Hughes.  Stimulating stuff.

After a few innings, Brad tucked into his book.  Coors Field has a special feature – a bunch of guys in the stands wearing funny outfits that act like security guards / policeman in between innings.  They wander up and down the stairs, making sure people like Brad don’t put their feet up on empty chairs or their beer on the dugout.

In between innings, one of these guys (let’s call him Joe) wandered up to Brad and said, “Sir, it’s very dangerous to be reading a book here – you might get hit by a fly ball.”  Brad looked quizzically at Joe and responded, “Huh?  If a fly ball is going to hit me, it’s not going to care whether I’m reading a book.”  Joe harrumphed and wandered back up the stairs.

Another inning (and another chapter) passed.  Joe wandered back down the stairs to try again.  “Excuse me, but you really shouldn’t be reading here.  It’s very dangerous.  I’m just looking out for your safety.”  Again, Brad was confused.  “But you don’t even know me – why do you care?  Plus – I feel very safe here – I’m sitting next to my wife Amy.”  Joe grimaced and wandered off.

Joe realized this approach wasn’t going to work – apparently Brad had a risk profile that was different than other baseball fans.  At the next break, Joe decided to try to something different.  “Sir, you are sitting in fantastic seats.  I’m sure that if you don’t appreciate them, someone else up a little higher would love to switch with you.”  Once again, Brad tilted his head and responded, “Huh?  I appreciate these very much – they cost about the same as my running shoes and – while they aren’t as comfortable, I’ve got a great view of the sky, there’s no shade so I’m getting a nice tan, and it’s really easy to read since there’s such good light here.”

Once again, Joe stomped off.  This time, Brad turned to the baseball fanatic sitting to his left who – by now – was laughing his ass off every time Joe departed.  “Dude – what’s going on with this guy?” asked Brad.  Our friend, Mr. Fanatic, choked down some of his beer and said, “Look – this game is on national TV.  Every time a lefty gets up to bat, you’re on TV reading your book.  I’m sure Mr. Big Man Upstairs told Joe to get down to row one and get that asshole reading a book to either put the book away or move.”

“National TV huh?  I wonder if my dad’s watching.  He’d be proud of my reading skills.”

Next time you see me, feel free to ask me about the time I fell asleep in Howard’s box at a Bronco’s game.

A trip to New York isn’t complete without art.  Amy and I managed to squeeze in The Met (mostly modern stuff), the Guggenheim (Russia – top two floors were great, Malevich and Kandinsky are total stars, the rest was portraits of peasants, workers, farmers, and royals), and galleries in Chelsea last weekend.

Chelsea disappointed in a major way this trip.  We did 23rd to 25th street and had high hopes.  I only really liked two artists – Chris Jordan and Danica Phelps.  Both do crazy obsessive stuff (which massively appeals to me) while maintaining a supremely deft touch with their subject.  Maddeningly, the two Jordan’s that I wanted to buy (Circuit Board 1, Circuit Board 2), were both sold.

The best line of the day – alone on a large canvas – was by Robert Price at the Perry Rubenstein Gallery: The way she looks in the morning! She ran after the garbage man and said, “Am I too late for the garbage?” He said, “No, jump in.” …

After about 20 galleries, I felt like I had enough data to make the pronouncement to Amy that “Apple is the dominant IT supplier to the New York Gallery market.”  It was wild to see iMac after iMac after iMac at each gallery.  Amy was not impressed by my powers of observation.

Amy and I saw Serenity yesterday, along with $10m worth of other people.  We loved it.  This morning, while I was running over the Brooklyn Bridge with Matt Blumberg, I asked him what he thought of it (he saw it yesterday also).  He was unambiguous – he didn’t like it.  I probed a little, found out he hadn’t seen the TV series (amazing show, but cancelled after a dozen episodes or so) and it was clear that he didn’t understand a lot of the movie.

It’s a fantastic movie.  However, I’m going to guess that you have to at least be familiar with the backstory to get it.  And – like other movies that evolved out of TV shows (e.g. The X-Files) I’ll bet that you have to love and have befriended the characters already to understand all the jokes, bantering, and double entredres.  If you haven’t seen the TV show, but want to see the movie, spend some time on the Firefly Wiki getting up to speed (c’mon – you’ve got to love a TV show that has its own wiki.)  Or – try the fan blog if you want to keep up real time with the chatter.  Or – go hardcore and watch the TV show Firefly on DVD in four days like Amy and I did.

Yes – Joss Whedon is a genius.  Jayne caused me to fall out of my chair when he said – referring to River – “she’s starting to damage my calm.”

Two people suggested Pandora to me in the past 24 hours.  It’s from the creators of the Music Genome Project.  You create a radio station based on things that you like (e.g. I’m listening to the Pink Floyd Station right now) and it find music you’ll like.  You give it feedback, and it adjusts its recommendations.  It harkens back to Agents Inc (Firefly) from the mid-1990’s, but in addition to recommendations, actually streams the music and lets you buy the song from iTunes or the album from Amazon.  Very cool.

I had a monster run today in Dallas on my ramp up to the New York Marathon. In the pre-Rita heat, humidity, and wind I covered 16 miles. While I kept waiting for “Lovely Rita Meter Maid” to come on my Shuffle, I ended up hearing the best cover of Comfortably Numb (by Copper Box) that I’ve ever heard thanks to Coverville. I’m a huge Pink Floyd fan and – after struggling for a few miles at about 90 minutes because I ran out of water (and didn’t hit a store for three miles) – this Polka / Stevie Ray Vaughan / Country Rock style version helped me kick it back up into a faster gear.

As every runner that listens to music while running knows, the music you listen to has a meaningful impact on your run. I’m totally into covers and mashups these days because they are complex and different enough to completely suck my brain in. So – if you have recommendations, my legs will thank you – simply tag them in del.icio.us as for:bfeld

And – for the rest of the day – I have become comfortably numb.

Tom Evslin has launched his newest project – hackoff.com.  It’s a blook (an online book distributed as a blog).  I’ve been watching this evolve and occassionally helping with some of the tech ideas from the sidelines.  In addition to being awesome content (this is the book that every entrepreneur from 1997 – 2001 wanted to write), Tom is using (as well as inventing) lots of blog / Web 2.0 publishing technology into the experience.

24 – you’ve now got competition for my brain.

I’m gearing up for the New York Marathon at the beginning of November (yes – I have a number – thanks Jack).  I’m running it with Matt Blumberg (unless he decides to run for time and try to break four hours – then he’s on his own) so I’ve been logging some serious miles.

This was my first week on the road since I got back from Alaska.  My travel rhythm is completely bunged up and – as a result, I’ve been unable to get out of bed early enough the last two days to get my runs in before the day starts (yes – it’s dark at 5am in Atherton these days).   I ended up in LA this afternoon at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference and – after sitting through the one session I was really interested in (Windows Vista: Building RSS Enabled Applications) decided to squeeze in a run before dinner.

The hotel I’m at has a nice little laminated card with a “Runner’s World Magazine Recommended” 6 mile run – so I hit the road and did that.  The first mile on Figueroa Street was nice enough, but then I turned left on Sunset to head up to Elysian Park.  Suddenly, I went from a nice downtown to lower pitsville – trash everywhere, broken down buildings, graffiti, tar scars all over the sidewalk, and the smell of yuckola everywhere.  Eventually I got to Douglas and did a sharp uphill to Elysian Park where I went from pitsville to a scene from 24 Season One.  I’m Kim, on a dusty, isolated fire road, up above the street by a half a mile, tromping along looking for some sign of a normal human being.  I kept waiting for one of Marwan’s honchos to step out from the trees at the side of the path (yes – I know I’m mixing up seasons).  Eventually I got to Stadium Way (where it turned pretty again) – at which point I turned around and retraced my steps.  This time I had the extra bonus of rush hour traffic and – as I noticed that virtually every car only had one person in it – I soldiered on back to the hotel. 

My standard line for Alaska is that the place needs a paint job and a vacuuming.  This place needed a power wash.  At one point, the unambiguous smell of shit overwhelmed me.  I wrote it off initially (every runner I know farts with enthusiasm) but then realized that it both wasn’t my brand and was just lasting too long.  Somewhere on Sunset between Figueroa and Douglas is a shit-smell factory that must operate 24 hours a day to generate the haze that lingered.

My eyes are still burning, I’m coughing a little, and I’m ready for a nice dinner at The Palm with a bunch of Microsoft folks.  At least I got my six miles in.

When I posted the article I wrote on Discovering Work Life Balance for the MIT Sloan School Alumni Magazine, I received numerous positive comments as well as several follow up interview requests.  One of them was from The Open Grove, a non-profit in Denver that “is an independent forum that provides a dynamic convergence of perspectives on holistic health and well-being.” 

Claudia Christian – the founder of The Open Grove – asked me a few questions; the resulting interview is available now.  It’s only 11 minutes long, is tightly (and nicely) edited, and is a good companion to the article I wrote.  Enjoy.

I had an awesome hour run on Fowler Trail (and then on the fire road that goes to Golden – I don’t know the name of it) today.  I love data, so I’ve been searching for a great watch / pedometer / HRM / web service solution for a year and I think I may have finally found it. 

I’ve been running with a Fitsense watch for the past year which I liked, but didn’t love.  I bought a Garmin Forerunner 201 and played with it some, but the Garmin software stunk (and wasn’t web based, so it ended up being stuck on one computer.)  I was contacted by the folks from MotionBased a week ago and they set me up with an account.  I dusted off my Forerunner 201 and – after three runs – am completely loving the combination of MotionBased and the 201.  Since I do my training based on heart rate + time (vs. distance), I ordered a Forerunner 301 so that I’ll have a HRM.

Following is the run I did today.

It’s live data – you can click through on the View Activity link and you’ll get more data options (and get a feel for the kind of stuff that MotionBased keeps track of).  The maps are awesome – you can play to your hearts content simulating your workout.  I always thought the first part of Fowler was pretty steep, but it only gains 200 feet to the top.  However, it’s a hilly run (and very rocky in the middle) so I gained (and lost) 1300 ft. over the 5.3 mile out and back run.  An excellent way to massage the brain.