Merry Christmas!

Season greetings, Merry Christmas, feliz navidad, Ho Ho Ho, and "Books for Christmas!?!"

(Yes, I am wearing a large puffy orange jacket)

Clever bottle caps

Insanely clever bottle caps from Full Sailing brewer. These are off their tasty Session Black Lager. I didn't notice, luckily it was during a party so someone more observant pointed it out. Highlife should embrace this.

Sidelined before my First Marathon

My first marathon is this Saturday- The Kiawah Island Marathon. I meant to update along the way with training and such, but I was too busy running 30+ miles a week and I didn't think anyone would really care... Things were going great until Halloween. I at the end of 18 mile run when I definitely felt something pop (not like an ACL tear), but something just didn't feel right.

 I took a few days off and then tried to run again, no go. A mile or two into the run my right knee just wouldn't move and there was excrutciating pain on the outside of it. This is not what you want to feel two miles into a run when you have 18 more miles on a that training run and have to run 26.2 miles in less than 5 weeks.

After trying the RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation) treatement for a week I decided to finally see a Doctor, and since I am a terrible person and didn't get a doctor when we moved to NYC I was able to find a Sports Medicine/Family Practice.

After the intitial diagnosis, torn Gastrocnemius (calf) muscle, my GP asked me to come see the Sport MD to get an ultrasound. The look with the ultrasound didn't reveal a tear, but showed signs of stress. I was ordered to not run for a few weeks.

Here's what I learned from not running for a month:

1) The best laid plans can always be ruined.
Like I said I had been training since last January, not specifically for this race, but for two other half-marathons. This was my plan, but I had to cut out he last 4 weeks.

This was my plan (pdf):

 I took a few weeks off here and there during the months of previous training, but for the most part I was following a pretty strict 4 day a week plan. Even the best laid plans can be sidelined or have unexpected hiccups. Luckily, I peaked early and don't think I've lost much endurance--hopefully. So I just had to adapt and change the plan. Plans shouldn't be that concrete anyway.

2) For me, not running on a regular basis sucks
 Looking back at those times I grumbled about early mornings or running after I long day of work I realized that not being able to do either is terrible. Running for me is very cathartic. I normally don't listen to music, but instead try to just zen out, which is probably why I have been extra snippy this week. Getting out and logging some miles is a chance to defrag or just let out some steam.

3) Foam rollers are awesome.
I'm good about stratching after runs, but it felt weird to stratch not having done anything. Enter the magical foam roller. This oversized foam noodle is a great way to message the muscles. Which bring me to. . .

4)Sports massages are even better.
I had never had a massage before being sidelined. I have a professor at Clemson who had one every week (He's run 12 marathons) and had nothing but great things to say about them. After getting over the initial "someone's touching me while I am not wearing clothes" issue it really helped my legs recover quicker. I actually had one final session Wednesday and Donna really dug into my calf, trying to alleviate the knots and scar tissue. Today it feels better than it has in weeks.

5)Everyone needs to rest.
Strangely enough with all the resting, icing, and stretching my legs actually feel stronger. I've noticed this is just about everything I do: School, Work, Reading, Writing. . .Superhero-ing.


Anwyays, I wanted to get these out pre-race and update it post race to see if anything changed.

"Youth in Revolt" (2009)

"Youth in Revolt" , directed by Miguel Arteta, caught me off guard with how much I enjoyed it. This may be due to the fact that I heard a lot of negative reviews from friends and trusted critics when it was originally released. It finally made its way to the top of my Netflix queue Saturday and I had time to watch it Sunday afternoon. I laughed out loud at points, and thought that the dual personality was well done. Michael Cera plays a more nuanced George Michael (His seminal character from Arrested Development), and handles the Francois character with great aplomb.

I didn't plan to write any notes on this film so I didn't take any. All I have to say is that it was a good time and beautifully shot. Obviously the next step is to read the book, but it's kind of tainted because I'll be picture the main character as Michael Cera.

Thanksgiving in Two Minutes Nine Seconds

 I decided throw the 500+ photos I took in the 24hrs around Thanksgiving into a pseudo-timelapse instead of trudging through them for days. Enjoy.

Stoop books

I've been pretty lucky with people placing used books on their stoop. Last week I found a copy of "The Black Book" by Orhan Pamuk, a very serendipitous find. My sister, who has read everything, highly recommended it as Pamuk's best book.

Walked by a stoop today with these

Walked home with this.

Of course there is a good chance that someone was actually reading these and went back in to refill their cup-o-coffee, but I'll put them on my stoop when I am done so they can get them back.

Thanks Amazon

This cereal should last me a week or two. Glad we have milk at work.

Weekend partitioning

This past weekend I decided to dual boot myMacBook Pro. I had had a dual booted configuration on my old Mac Book, the one when I first made the jump to a mac 4 +years ago, but quickly went to the single configuration and never looked back. I was nervous about abruptly switching to a Mac in the middle of the semester because I wasn't sure about switching IDEs or coding in terminal on the mac-- I needed a safety net and the dual boot was the best option. I also had a desktop back then and anything that was strictly Windows could be done on that. Jump to know and I've been using Visual Studio 2010 at work and needed to work on some stuff at home, i.e. brush up ALOT!

So I went for it, vaguely remembering it was an easy process, but quickly remembered that the only reason it was an easy process the first time around was I working in close proximity to people like @theandym.

Sadly I don't get to exploit the resources of CCIT anymore, which made this weekend project a little challenging, but brute force prevailed. Man I wish I had the image of the dual booted machine and could just throw that on.

Some things I learned while putting windows on my Mac:
Windows Discs
1) I had an old CD of a Window that was a copy that kept throwing errors. The Drive didn't like it so I had to copy it in Toast and re-burn it.
2) When my original CD didn't work @elaforc provided me with an .iso of Windows XP SP3, but I found that simply mounting the image and copying it through Toast threw errors. I was able to get it to complete when I simple burned the image to a disk, but the version didn't match up with my Serial so I had to return to the orignal disk and troubleshoot
3) I was almost to the point of using a bootable USB stick because who keeps blank CDs around?

Bootcamp
1) Bootcamp should recognize when Windows asks for a restart so I don't have to worry about forgeting to hold the option key down
3) Bootcamp is a little finicky and likes to work with an unpartitioned drive.

Partions
 I created a 5 gig swap drive which let me place all my install .exes so I didn't have to download a lot of programs and updates before I put Windows on the web.

Parallels
I didn't get to use this the first time around, but wish I had. Wow. I remember the drudgery of switching back and forth between my OSs, but Parallels solves that fairly easily with two option of either running a VM or running the two OSs in Coherence, which basically puts them in one window. I'm still spend most of my time on OSX, but it's nice to open a VM window when I need to run Visual Studio or something that is only on XP. I might start using it to run NotePad++

Two weeks later I am very happy with the setup. So I might start posting more coding things on this blog, which feels like a sham because I am way out of the loop, but trying to play catch up.

Get me a pumpkin!

Inspired by this "Where the Wild Things Are" Pumpkin. I've never wanted to carve a pumpkin more in my life.

(Via SeriousEats)

You think you're better than me?

Screened this clip in my sketch class and it convinced me to go back and watch the Upright Citizen's Brigade show since I didn't catch it when it was on the air originally. Netflix Instant FTW!

Upright Citizens Brigade
Ass Pennies
www.comedycentral.com
Ugly Americans New Episodes Nick Swardson's Pretend Time Night of Too Many Stars

Cookie Monster

Found this to be pretty informative description of cookies on the interwebs.

Tribute in Lights 9/11/2010

Click to see the full size, and feel free to save a copy. CC

Tribute in Lights by Christopher Jaynes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

A lot changes in nine years

Sitting in high school Chemistry watching the towers fall nine years ago I never thought I would be able to take a short subway ride to take these pictures. It is a humbling sight. Will post more soon.

Long Run

Today's run should be interesting while in lower Manhattan.

Google Instant

This Algorithm is either smart enough not to complete this preview till I finish the thought, or has a sense of humor.

Tandem Biking post

Jason Kottke's blog directed me to this Reuters' article about biking in NYC:

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/09/03/a-unified-theory-of-new-york-biking/

Lot of similarities with my previous post. The main problem is the strange interaction between Cyclist and Pedestrians--neither know how to behave. Felix Salmon, the author of the article, writes, "pedestrians feel as though they have few responsibilities to others." Very true, but as he goes to point out, cyclist are even less beholden because, like I said, if you are just starting to ride again you don't know how to act. I was actually in a work sponsored bike training class (we can check out bikes from work) and the instructor made it very plain. Cyclist should act like a car. This would solve a lot of the conflicts.

It's not just like riding a bike

I was running in Central Park this past Saturday, and I didn't enjoy it as much as running in Prospect Park. Central Park was a hilly loop, littered with with tourists and cyclists blocking the paths--the latter posing the greatest problems. Bikes were everywhere, which is great. I am all for cycling as a serious means of transportation. NYC is making a strong push to become more bike friendly. I didn't bring my road bike to the city, but wish I had now. (I sold it other wise it would be here now.)

I was hesitant to ride in heavy traffic because of my experiences on the backroads of South Carolina. Drivers in SC aren't good at many things, and add a bike to the equations and things get even worse. Luckily I was never run off the road, but I had friends who were brushed of the road, hit, or had other bad experiences with cars and bikes.

As a cyclist you learn to deal with it cars on a road. Cars will never really pay attention to you, they will always under estimate how soon they need to get back in front of you, they will never give you the right away, and at the very extreme will purposely mess with you because you are on their road. Bikes are considered second class vehicles on the road because obviously roads were made for vehicles, d'oh. The main problem is there is no formal education on how to "share the road." There are two questions on the written part of your license exam, but nothing  during the actual driving test.

Cycling in the city brings a new set of challenges I never thought of. Cyclists are infinitely more aggressive in the city, brazenly ignoring traffic lights, or weaving through traffic, showing little or no courtesy. Pedestrians walk in the bike lanes and step out into bike paths while lights are still green. This is even worse in the parks because tourists/normal people don't expect to have a peloton of 80 serious cyclist hurdling through the inner loop at 25+ mph, and the cyclist think they own the road. Again, there isn't an education project to teach cyclist how to safely move through the city. (If there is I haven't seen it and I guess many cyclist haven't either)

I blame this lack of safety on the old adage that "It's just like riding a bike." Yes, you can pick up riding a bike if you haven't in several years, but that doesn't mean you are good at it or really know what you are doing! In fact, if you pick up a bike after years of not riding a bike you are probably to nervous on not falling to worry about obeying any sort of rules or safety measures.

While running the inner loop of Central Park this past weekend, I hear this loud boom right behind me. A, I assume, tourist had flipped over while broadsiding a runner, knocking both of them down and sending the bike hurtling through the air. The runner immediately popped up dazed and looking at the bike says, "how the hell does that happen?" I and the other runners around stopped to make sure he was fine, he was, and we all started starring at the tourist. No one got mad, but this cyclist was a jerk. He merely laughed it off and got back on his bike and took off.

Again, how the hell does a cyclist hit a runner?

Several reasons:

1) Too many bikes were in a very small area
2) The guy hadn't ridden a bike in a while
3) People get too impatient and try to dart around obstacles.
4) Like cars on the main road, cyclist think they own the inner loops of the park (you don't)

So yes, please enjoy all the biking paths in the city--I plan to very very soon. BUT make sure you know what you are doing.

1) Read Bikingrules.org
2) Wear a helmet!
3) And I say treat pedestrians how you want cars to treat you. . . i.e. watch out for the and don't blow through cross walks
4) If you are unsure on any aspects of riding in the city http://www.bikenewyork.org/ offers free classes! FREE!

I really hope cycling takes off as an alternative to cars, but as it grows in popularity I hope people treat it with the seriousness it deserves. Again, if we stop treating cycling as a childish things and accept that it is dangerous and people get seriously hurt maybe pedestrians, cyclist, and drivers will start to behave with common sense on the road.

Unaccompanied melody

Taking a cue from Margot, I have been listening to music as it's own activity and not while doing other things. Music isn't background noise, but something that should demand our focused attention, at least good music.

Goal is to spend more time actually listening to just music.

As Milt Kahl said, "I'm not smart enough to think of more than one thing at a time."

What'd I do?

The Shining (1980)

Summer Streets Run

Summer Streets is a program that shuts down stretches of Park Ave to traffic a couple of weekends in the summer. Pretty much from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park. When we went our first year here I was stunned at the amount of people that turned out. It's like people suddenly have a front yard to go play in , and boy do they take advantage of it. Everyone is enjoying being out doors and having freedom to move about outside their 600 sqft apt.

This year Summer Streets features dumpster swimming pools, and they are exactly what their name implies. Also adds a whole new dimension to dumpster diving. If you don't partake in the swimming or the biking it's a great walk because you can walk through mid town and stop and stare at all the gorgeous buildings. It's a particularly nice approach to Grand Central and the Met Life building because your walking towards them straight on then walk either under or around them.

Carla and I are going on a run today to enjoy the fantastic weather and the car free zone. It will actually be my first run in Central Park, which I am very, very excited about. To think me and Nate Archibald will have run in the same park. . .

xoxo, you know you love me

Finally, respect.

Some people spend hours and hours leveling up in virtual universes.  I prefer to level up in the actual universe. Oh, you have an epic mount? Well I have an epic caffeine buzz, go back to your mother's basement and enjoy your Red Bull. This is my (starbucks) World!

Proof that I am on my way now

Not to be nit picky, but that should read Mr. Jaynes, but we'll work on that while you customize my grande pikes place with hazelnut.


( I know this affects my coffee/tea snobbery, but when you work in a building with a starbucks and they have 50 cent refills snobbery goes out the window. )

Not So Taxing Read on Taxing

I'm happy that this isn't a status on Facebook because the word 'tax' has become a hot button topic--I'll tweet it though. I'll admit that I am not a tax scholar (yet), but I have a curiosity about the topic since I plan to be rich one day, which is why I took notice to The Financial Page in the August 16th New Yorker.

 James Surowiecki writes about the fight on Capital Hill over tax policy. Here is the link and you can read it for yourself (it's a quick read), but I wanted to pull out some of the statistics he sites--please feel free to refute them, but include your references.

• Between 2002-2007 the botton 99% of incomes only grew 1.3% a year, while the top 1% grew 10% a year.
• The top 1% growth accounts for 2/3rds of all income growth in those years.
• The top .1% of income tripled over the same period. 
• The top .1% earn as much as the bottom 20 million. (Need to convert this to either both percent or both actual numbers) *

Surowiecki's point is that the very, very rich are pulling away from the merely very rich and that the current tax bracket doesn't account for that. The way the brackets work now is that anything over 375,000 with a tax rate of 35%. Basically, Lebron James and Lebron James's dentist are taxed at the same rate. Surowiecki writes, " The US is now a place where the rich and the ultra-rich really inhabit different worlds." I don't want to use the word reform here, because I don't have any suggestions, but it makes sense to me that there should be a frank discussion on the tax system,. A good healthy discussion should encourage people to have a better understand of the tax system, not just reactions to raising and lowering them. 

I'll gladly take any recommended readings.

* I tired to research the actual number the .1% represents and I found this: "This 10 percent of the returns in the top 1 percent amounts to only 141,000 tax returns but accounts for nearly 12 percent of the adjusted gross income earned and approximately 20 percent of the nation's federal individual income taxes. "

 http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

Laurel and Hardy

"The Big Noise" (1944)

Summer Adventures in NYC Parks

Charlie Chaplin Retrospective in Prospect Park

The Daily Show in Central Park

(Line to get in)

Jon Oliver was delightful--he got heckled by crickets.

Swell Season in Prospect Park

As Jared said, "swoon."

Money can buy happiness, sort of

Great article in the NYTimes business section today purchasing happiness: But Will It Make You Happy?

Things I took away from it:

• Move from conspicuous consumption to calculated consumption. 
• You can purchase big things, but putting it off for a while adds to the happiness value.
• Spend on leisure activities and time with friends: Spending money should be on experiences. You can't really compare your experiences with others like you do with cars. Apparently, “A $20,000 increase in spending on leisure was roughly equivalent to the happiness boost one gets from marriage."
• You don't have to live a spartan life (100 Item Challenge), but getting rid of somethings isn't a bad idea. 

Bye Bye Phone

Aug 9th 2010, New Yorker

Hack Shack experiment

Chicken is the predominately featured meat in the Jaynes household, erhm, Apartment. Don't get me wrong, we're not vegetarians or anything. I'd call us flexitarians because I love a good hamburger. The problem with going out to get a hamburger is the sheer size of what is placed in front of you. You wind up leaving the place full of half a cow and self loathing. Luckily, some unsung hero invented the slider.

The slider, depending on your size, is a bite-size hamburger. It's really the perfect solution to the Minetta Hamburger that is the size of your head. We decided to take the Hack-Shack recipe from Serious Eats and Wayne Szalinski'd it down to a bite size morsal. After much experimenting, Serious Eats came up with a comparable recipe for the meat used in the Shack Shake Burgers, which are delicious and reasonably sized. Having just eaten one--friends were in town--I have to say the meat blend is a pretty close approximation. Unfortunatly our apartment doesn't have Abita Rootbeer on tap, which goes a long way to making the Shake Shack experience.

At the risk of becoming one of those food blogs here is the process:

For the meat we went to our awesome butcher and asked him to grind up:
1/2lb of Sirloin
1/4lb of Chuck
1/4lb of Brisket

This is the ratio that serious eats suggests, and it suited us just fine. We formed them into little patties and seasoned them with salt & pepoer, aren't they cute?

We didn't get fancy with the seasoning because we wanted the meat to speak for itself, and it did. The next tricky step was where do we get mini buns? And even if we find them bun quality really makes a hamburger. The ratio of bun to meat is also important. After a little Googling I ran across Martin's Potato Dinner Rolls. Picked some up at Key Food, and tried one on the walk back. Problem solved.

I toasted them quickly on the griddle, and added onions while getting the meat ready.

Then, in lieu of the proper grill, we plopped the patties on a well seasoned, hot griddle.

I cooked mine for 2-3 minutes on each side, then moved them to a slightly cooler area of the griddle--I prefer mine medium-rare. Carla on the other hand likes her's similar to charcoal briquettes. After we burned hers we placed the patties on the buns with ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, spinach, and onion.

We had a side of fresh corn too. Shucked, and placed in boiling water for a few minutes.

Don't let the size fool you these little beauties will fill you up! I actually couldn't finish mine, but they fit perfectly in our tupperware for lunch the next day.

Today's run

Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

Prospect in July

Sublime summer in Prospect Park.

Eggplant sandwich

Knowing what your friend had for dinner is only boring if what they had for dinner is boring. Monday night was "something new" for dinner at the Jayneses. We got this idea from Real Simple. This warm, crispy eggplant around goat cheese and ripe tomatoes will be added to our regular rotation.

Ingredients: Eggs, flour, eggplant, tomato, spinach, goat cheese, breadcrumbs, basil, salt and pepper.

1. Slice the eggplants into half inch circular pieces. Coat slices in flour then dredge in eggs before coating in bread crumbs. (In lieu of Panko we crushed up wholewheat crackers then added salt and pepper.)
2. Fry breaded eggplant slices in canola oil 2-3 minutes on each side or golden brown.
3. Remove from oil and place on paper towels to soak up excess grease
4. Create sandwich by placing on cooked slice on a plate. Add Spinach then crumble goat cheese for the next layer. Sprinkle basil on the cheese. Add a slice of tomato. Top with another eggplant slice and some salt.
5. Enjoy with a nice white wine.

Angel Oak

 

   Driving towards Kiawah Island, South Carolina down the two lane highway that stretches for ever, it is very easy to speed past the dirt road that branches off, leading to the Angel Oak. If you are fortunate enough to know where to make the turn or accidentally spy the tiny sign point towards the Angel oak, you travel down an oversized single lane dirt road, flanked on either side by arching trees. It’s a short trip down from the main road. If you listen carefully you can still hear the cars whizzing by, hurrying towards the white sand beaches.

    The chain linked fence, that protects the tree’s historical site from who know what, is closer to the road than you’d imagine. How easily could the highway have been built a hundreds yards over, causing the 1,500 year old tree to be chopped down because it was impeding progress?  Luckily the road didn’t, and the Angel Tree still stands, an east coast omage to the Red Woods of California, though South Carolina trees prefer to lazily grow out, instead of rigidly up.
    Our crew arrived early one morning so there wasn’t a crowd of people, leaving those who valued sleep back at the beach house. Only a few other earlier risers arrived and left while we spent time exploring the tree. It was a serene summer morning, and the light broke through the adjoining trees so there was a golden hue about. Because we mostly had the place to ourselves and the temperature was relatively mild, we lingered about exploring the tree, itching to climb it. There are signs warning that “climbing” is strictly prohibited. Though we didn’t want to, we obeyed the signs.
    If you have a few minutes on your way to the island or when you are leaving, make the turn down the dirt road so you can really appreciate the scale of the tree. The Angel Oak may only stand  95 feet tall, but its branches reach longer than a hot summer day.
    The only two things could have made the moment  better: a rocking chair and a tall glass of iced tea.

Guess it's offical

Now I have to answer both the literal and figurative versions of, "What do I do with this?"

Pure Imagination

Hands down this is the most thoughtful/heartfelt commercial ever. It came on a few times this past week while I was at home in SC. Every time it aired I had to stop and watch or go to the room it was playing in.  My favorite character is the one scuttling with all the legs--cracks me up. Got any commercials that can challenge this? Post 'em!
 



And for good measure the original scene from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3nV6WqA4Y0&NR=1  (Embedding disabled on this one. . .)

My Man Godfrey

"There is the peculiar mental process called thinking, you wouldn't know anything about it."

-- My Man Godfrey (1936)

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; 

The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, 

it seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end, 

will come when it will come". - (Act II, Scene II).

Happy Fourth of July!

Flags in front of a shop in Amagansett.

Team whoever this guy is. . .

Just in case you wondered where my Twilight allegiances lay

Pleasure Island

There are few writers that are as intellectually intimidating and yet at the same time utterly sublime as Jorge Luis Borges's. I am a fairly late comer to his works, but I am a fan. The NYTime's ran an essay over the weekend that adequately describes Borges's genius.

Time, eternity, infinity and dreams--- these are the only subjects commensurate to the passions of this quiet man who lived in Buenos Aires and in  Geneva, though mostly in the vast nutshell of his own mind.  -- NYTimes

If you're going to delve in to Borges start with his short story "The Library of Babel,"  which is in the collection of his short works entitled Ficciones. Next move to "The Garden of the Forking Path."

Happy Birthday Ray

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)