Marathon Sunday

This morning we jogged down three avenues and walked along 4th Avenue in Brooklyn to watch the NYC Marathon.

It was about 8 degrees outside and there was a cold breeze so it got really cold for spectating but was generally good for running. Once we started a run back it was fine but I did have to take one of the free Dunkin' Donuts hats they were handing out as I was freezing.

Got real close to the elites as they sped past.

Then we wandered further up 4th Avenue. There was really good crowd support out between 5 and 6 miles and for runners who like to get involved with the crowd there were plenty of kids to high-5.

There were so many people with either their names on their tops or running in national colours, tonnes of French kit, lots of Swedes, Italians, a few Poles and a lot of Mexicans & South Americans getting their Spanish speaking support from this generally latino area.

Run a marathon? Never say never.

Good news

On Monday I finally had my final interview with a view to getting a green card. I say me, but it was really the both of us and it was actually more Heather that got asked a few more relationship specific questions whereas I was just really asked the yes/no list of questions such as have I ever been involved in genocide, a member of the communist party, polygamy, etc.

He didn't even really take all the paperwork we were asked to bring, just a few photos and checked our marriage certificate and passports.

Within a couple of days I got a letter welcoming me to the USA and was told I should get the card within 3 weeks.

Of course, he asked why we were unable to attend the original interview date on July 30th. Heather was sitting her bar exams which he took as a good reason!
So we also heard this week that she had passed!! So double good news for us.

3 for 1 on Banksy

The Banksy doing something everyday in October around New York thing just happened to be 3 blocks from work and was a dusk to midnight thing so I popped over to see it on Sunday night after work.

It was a giant grim reaper in a bumper car with some disco lights, smoke machine all while Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear The Reaper" played.... loudly.
The neighbours had complained about the noise and crowds so it was only on for the weekend.

They just happened to have the Waterfall Truck and also the Sirens of the Lambs there too so I got to see all three! It was reasonably busy with people coming and going and also parking on the main road to jump out and see them.

The truck

Inside the rear of the truck

The animal one just puts a smile on everyone's face despite the fact it's supposed to be making a point about fresh farm meats (on the truck door), the cuteness of the animals and the way they are transported.... to your plate.

Gig-tastic

We had the last round of concert visits for a little while.

Last Friday and Saturday we hit up the (reasonably) local Barclays Centre to see our favourites, Pearl Jam! They have been one of both Heather and my favourite bands since they came on the scene around twenty three years ago (nearly to the day) and were one of the factors in us getting together as we mentioned our shared love of them.

We entered the fan club draw for both nights of tickets and were lucky enough to "win" for both nights.
As they are well known for playing different sets each night we were lucky to hear around 66 songs over the course of Friday and Saturday night with only about 10 repeated, mainly stuff from their new album. Nearly three hours shows with no opening band starting at 8.30pm. Excellent.

The best bit was when their large lights descended form the ceiling and they started pushing a few out and then carrying on playing but dodging them as they swung back towards the stage, then Eddie got all angry and climbed up on one and started swinging on it, out over the crowd.

The fan club seats are selected in order of how long you have been in the fan club so for Friday (Heather's) we were in the floor seats and for Saturday we were in the lower bowl for mine.
We got great and different views for both nights which was neat. You could tell the surrounding crowd on the floor were a bit more old school fans than the following days!

The following week I got to visit two new venues for us, Hammerstein Ballroom for Franz Ferdinand on Tuesday and a blast form my past at the Roseland Ballroom to see Simple Minds.

Franz Ferdinand were excellent. The seats were old theatre venue so the view was good but the leg room was about half that of an economy airline! The sound was soooo loud but they were really good.

They finished the set with this amazing drum foursome. 

Simple Minds were a little disappointing if I'm honest. I think the time to see them was probably about twenty five years ago! An old pale white crowd for sure, ha ha.

Kurt Steiner 5K

Sunday, a beautiful bright sunny morning and a two hour, 1 bus and 3 train ride up to Van Cortland Park for a 5K New York Road Runner's Cross Country.

After the half marathon, the 10K the week after this was going to be my final 'serious' race for the season. I couldn't make the previous one and the 40-44 age group results showed the medals for the top 3 were up for grabs.... maybe, fingers crossed.

A good size field of 280 runners, I'd have preferred a better warm up but train delays put paid to that. I set off and eventually the field was strung out. Eventually I caught up with the 1st placed girl and used her as bait to pull me on and then concentrated on catching the guy in front over the last 1/4 mile.

My heart rate actually maxed out at 213 at the finish after I tried my hardest! I walked slowly past the medal table, your age groups are on the race numbers, and after the guy in front got something they called me back and handed me a medal.

So I got 2nd 40-44, yay! 19.26 (6.17 pace) but you can tell there were a lot of good club runners (because it's a NYRR event) as I was 38th place in total.

The results are funny because if you are a NYRR member you can fill in your club name or where you live such as Brooklyn or Queens, etc but you can put your country if you are not American. So I was first Brit, ha ha, the first page of results has a finisher from Canada, Israel, France, Spain, Paraguay and more.
The winner has won a few of the races, he is from Uganda. No photos of me this time but a couple of the winner to show the nice sunny weather we still have, ha ha.

 
It's just now starting to get close to dipping below the 10 degrees mark.
We can moan about the humidity during the summer but the other side to that is today was the first day since sometime in April that I didn't wear shorts to work!

Banksy

Just a quick post to say that I seen the Banksy truck!
Banksy is doing this whole one piece per day thing around New York for the month of October. It's been mainly graffiti but he did this really funny and slightly scary "Sirens of the lambs" thing where he put stuffed animals in a slaughterhouse truck driven around town by "the farmer".

The video is so funny especially the kids reactions to the freaky sounding animals.



On one of my breaks at work I was standing at our front door getting cell phone service and some fresh air and I just happened to look up as the truck was passing. Of course the lights were green and by the time I got the camera to pop up on the phone it was away round the corner.

This is what it really looks like close-up:

 
It sent me back downstairs with a big smile on my face. I guess if you live in New York you shouldn't bury your head in your phone all the time as you miss all the cool stuff passing by.

Midnight at the pop-up shop

In celebration of the release of the new Pearl Jam album Heather and I attended the above pop-up shop on Monday night. I left work just after 10pm and we walked down Broadway, getting there just before 10.30pm. There was already a line! I mean I should've expected that but I thought we'd just rock up before midnight and it might be busy but...

So we waited and waited and just after midnight it opened and the line moved a little. They let about thirty people in and then every so often a few more when people left.

 
As we got closer everyone was watching the people coming out to see what they were getting. They were selling some limited edition t-shirts and also all the merchandise that is going on sale at the two Brooklyn gigs we are attending this weekend. So it was also a chance to get some stuff including the poster without having to worry about getting it at the gig itself.

In the end we got into the store around 1am and stayed 40mins. We got a couple of t-shirts each, the cd and one of the posters.

Don Pendleton, the artist who did the posters and all the artwork for the album was in attendance painting something similar to the poster artwork but everyone entering was told not to speak to the artist, ha ha, and he will not be signing anything!

When we left there were still just as many people in the line waiting to get in. I read a comment from one guy that was one of the last to leave the store at 3.30am!

It was a fun night, everyone was in an excited mood which made up for us not getting to bed until 3am.