Road Race & Gustav

Dave ran the 31st Annual New Haven Road Race on Monday. It was 20K. He finished 441 out of 2090. Awesome! Here he is near the finish line. Dave wrote about the race on his Northeast Runner blog.

The best part was that they had free beer for the runners!


The bad part was that he later got called into work because of Hurricane Gustav. It's going to be another six-day work week for Dave.

Thankfully, the storm wasn't as devastating as it once appeared. My cousin Ben and his fiancee Kira -- who are getting married in New Orleans in November -- evacuated to Florida. My step cousins also evacuated. Who knows what property damage was done.

Conventional Wisdom

Barack Obama ruined my week. John McCain will do the same next week.

Because of the Democratic National Convention, I had to work an extra day, Monday, and wound up staying an extra hour each night, as our FOXNews.com political team relayed stories from Denver to us back at the New York newsroom. If the Democrats had scheduled their speeches an hour earlier each night, I might have gotten home on time, but no matter. It was an exciting experience. I only regret that I couldn't pay close attention to the speeches because my mind was focused on keeping our home page up to date.

Luckily, I still have this Monday off, so Liz and I can relax on Labor Day — after I attempt to compete in New Haven's annual 20k race that morning. Then it's back to convention coverage, this time with the Republicans from the Twin Cities. So hey, all you Minnesotans, if you see my colleagues Sharon, Judd, Steve, Christina or Mary Ann, tell 'em I said hi.

Down and Out With the Walkmen

We survived our one night of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle ... which is to say daytrippers from Connecticut must bring tougher stuff when trying to live like New Yorkers for an evening.

In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, after three bands, many drinks and sightings of the famous Fung Wah Bus (twice!), we were safe in declaring the night a success, and Liz even left the Bowery Ballroom pledging a newfound devotion to my favorite band, the Walkmen, even though she had lightly mocked them for their "preppy" clothes (they did, in fact, attend prep school in the D.C. area).

The show was the first on their new tour, to support the album "You & Me," which was released Tuesday. As mentioned in a previous post, I took advantage of an early download version a few weeks ago, and many of the songs the band played Monday night were from the new album, beginning with the song "New Country," if I recall correctly.

"In the New Year" is a natural crowd-pleaser. And "Canadian Girl," which has got some wood-block percussion going on that made Liz think of her beloved cowbell. (More cowbell!)

They also played "We've Been Had," one of my favorites from their first album. You might know it from an old Saturn Ion commercial. Liz enjoyed that. And forget the cowbell, she nearly went out of her mind during the song "Louisiana" when the horns poked in on the right side of the stage for their fanfare.

From the upper bar area, we could look through the window out onto the Bowery, once home to all variety of bottom feeders and social refuse but now slowly moving upscale like virtually every other formerly blighted corner of Manhattan. The Bowery Ballroom is an intimate venue with general admission that still feels worn in rather than spruced up. Just the place for an indie rock experience.

We probably should have tried harder to catch the 12:22 a.m. train but stuck around for the end of the show instead and hopped the 1:12. Home around 3:30 (ouch!) but we'll be back to normal in another day or too. Just in time for the weekend. Which we'll probably spend at home in Connecticut. Back to our New England lifestyle.

Canoeing & Shakespeare

We finally went canoeing! On Monday, we paddled on the Mill River near East Rock Park in New Haven for a couple of hours. The weather was perfect, and there was only two other paddlers, so we had the river nearly to ourselves. You can see our photos by clicking here.

As you can see in the photos, we fueled up for our great canoe adventure by stopping at JP Dempsey's for a Bloody Mary!

Later in the evening, we piled our camping chairs into the car and headed to Edgerton Park to see The Elm Shakespeare Company perform Hamlet. It was very good. We are thinking of going back next week to see the company's other summer production, The Matchmaker, by Thornton Wilder.

In about an hour, we are hopping a train down to NYC to see Dave's favorite band, The Walkmen, perform at the Bowery Ballroom on the lower east side. Stay tuned this week for how that went.

Mystery Magazine

We received a surprise piece of mail this week: the August issue of Outside magazine.

It was a surprise because I haven't subscribed to Outside, at least not that I recall. Is it possible I could have sent away for the magazine and then totally forgotten? It surely wasn't Liz, because she thinks I get too many magazines already.

The most likely scenario is the phenomenon of the gift subscription. My buddy Kyle got me a Runner's World subscription a while back, and I returned the favor by sending him an Atlantic Monthly subscription. Keith is a fan of Outside, so I figured he must have been struck by a sudden fit of generosity. Not so, says Keith, though he's willing to take credit if no one else does.

So if anyone can solve this mystery, please let us know. The subscription is much appreciated. Now I can pursue my life-long ambition of becoming an unwashed, Everest-dreaming, surfboard-carrying, gear-grinding Sherpa of the soul.

Tanglewood, the Canoe & Rain

It was a rainy weekend, but we managed to get up to Lenox, Mass., to see the Boston Symphony Orchestra perform at Tanglewood, the orchestra's summer home.

The day started off beautiful as we made the drive north, but it turned to storms once we got our camping chairs arranged and opened a bottle of wine on the lawn section of Tanglewood. We were asked to seek shelter - about a week ago someone was struck by lightning at Tanglewood - only to discover that they turned the speakers off in the Shed, so we couldn't here the music.

But the rain wasn't heavy and we didn't see lightning or hear thunder, so went back out and hovered around the Shed to see the world-renowned symphony, which started in 1881. It was magnificant! The symphony played all Mozart.

We spent the night nearby at Dave grandparents. And on Monday, we loaded up the car with fresh veggies from their garden and yes, finally, our canoe!

Our wonderful canoe has been in storage in the Monico's shed since last year. Storage has been our issue, and well, it still is. We decided that we needed the canoe so much that we are willing to forgo some space in our apartment. The cats don't seem to mind...

We have yet to take it out because it rained Monday, but we hope to finally get it wet this weekend.