Wishing ahead

I just want it to be Sunday already.

I'm as excited for this move as I've ever been for any move, but I can't take the nonstop hustle, the need to do five things at once, in about three different places, with no end in sight until Saturday evening, when we'll only have one place.

Our apartment is a mess -- both because it's in various stages of packing and because there are places where we're just like, "Well, we're moving -- what's the point?" That throws me off. I'm out of my routine. I'm used to sleeping until I can't sleep anymore, hitting the treadmill in the gym, then having breakfast while I watch last night's DVRed shows. Only I'm falling behind on the DVRed shows, to the point where I think I'm going to have to do all the painting I can tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday so that I can spend Friday at home packing while I exhaust the DVR queue.

I'm also down on myself, kicking myself mentally -- and soon physically -- because I lagged too long on setting up our new cable and internet and therefore couldn't get an installation date until six days after we move in. I think that nearly had me sleeping on the couch when I told Casey the bad news. The fortunate thing was that she'd be away for two of the days, limiting the impact on her, and that the only things we watch regularly on cable right now are The Sopranos and Entourage, meaning we'd only miss an episode of each.

However, when I called today to check up on the order, they found it wasn't in the system. Turns out I'd put in the new street address, but our soon-to-be-former town and ZIP code. So when they found out that there was no Clifton Boulevard in Edgewater, they canceled the order. (Nevermind that they never called to tell me any of this.) And now we're stuck with a later installation date, May 16 instead of the 11th (which I haven't broken to Casey yet). And because this all took 45 minutes of back-and-forth and hold music (about 15 minutes' worth), I was on the bus on the way to work when it was finally solved and, therefore, I couldn't really protest the later date. I may try to argue that point tomorrow.

So for the first 11 days in our new home, we'll be back to the days of VCR timers and juggling video cassettes. Fun times. I don't know if I can go two weeks with out The Sopranos, or if Casey will talk to me if she misses two Entourage episodes in a row, so rather than wait until our cable is hooked up and we jump right to HBO On Demand, I may have my parents tape them and make use of the Postal Service.

But we're getting Verizon's FIOS service, which intrigues me. The cable package is better than anything Time Warner (or current monopoly provider) or Cablevision (the monopoly holder in our new county) would provide on its basic tier, but I refuse to use either of those companies ever again. Well, I've never used Cablevision, but they're horrible, arrogant owners of the Knicks and Madison Square Garden (not that I like the Knicks) and pulled some dirty tricks to thwart the West Side Stadium that would've moved the Jets to Manhattan and provided a stadium for an New York Olympic bid in 2012 (not that I wanted any of that to happen).

So let's just hope that FIOS is worth it, and that it's easy enough to set up Casey's computer, because I'm not paying them 60 bucks for the second computer setup. But the new fun fact I learned about FIOS today is that, with the enhanced DVR box, we can record shows on one box, but then watch them on either of our other two TVs that have the standard box, in addition to the TV with the DVR box. That beats having to get a second DVR box.

Oy. I'm just ready to move. Two and a half years ago, we couldn't wait to get out of our old place, both because the reasons it sucked far outweighed the reasons we liked it and because the new place had so much going for it. This time, there are things that are harder to leave -- the fitness center, the parking garage, the groundhogs -- despite all the good things about where we're going.

I'm sure, over the next few days, my feelings will drift more toward the "ready to leave" side of the scale, particularly as we check off more rooms from the painting list.

Starting tomorrow, earlier than I'd particularly care for.

Plugging away at homeowning

Thanks to favorable scheduling at work -- I am grateful and perhaps indebted to my scheduling boss -- I've been able to help Casey at the house each of the past two weekends. Last week, we got our patio furniture and a dryer when her father and stepmother came out from Pennsylvania and, with the help of my parents on Saturday, five of us spent a weekend ripping up carpet, installing a bathroom cabinet and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

The carpet ordeal was taxing -- pulling carpet off of stairs is among Dante's circles of hell, if I'm not mistaken -- but rewarding in the end. Our living room -- the parlor, if you go by the notation left by the former owners on one of the window screens -- had hardwood installed beneath the carpet, we were told. However, our cursory inspections beneath two diagonal corners showed otherwise. All we saw was plain, regular plywood. Yet, once the carpet padding was ripped out last weekend, we found that those two corners were merely replacement planks from a previous remodeling. It turns out that our long, one-room living room/dining room space was once two separate rooms, and those two places we had peeked under the carpet just happened to be two spots where walls used to be. When they were taken out, the carpet was laid down, so there was no need to install hardwood flooring where the walls used to be.

The hardwood in the parlor was in pretty bad shape, but the pine planks we found upstairs in the third bedroom and foyer, in particular, were in really good shape. The other two bedrooms weren't too bad, either, and now that all the floors have been refinished, everything looks spectacular.

On Friday, when I finally reached the bottom of the stairs and yanked up the last section of faded green carpeting, I found that the step that reached from the end of the stairway to the front wall -- about three feet, forming a small landing -- was simple plywood. It turns out that the former owners, for some reason, had essentially extended the bottom step to fill in a corner of the front foyer. Why, I have no idea. Why I didn't think to take pictures of these things, I also don't know.

So on Saturday, when Casey's dad saw the unsightly step, he asked that our contractor tear it out and rebuild the bottom step for us, an he'd pay for it. By Sunday night, it was done, and an antique saw found encased in the added step and a stick of Wrigley's gum lodged along the wall. Those were the only real finds we've had -- no hidden treasures to be found in this house.

Which brings us to this weekend, and the painting. On Saturday, my dad came up, and with his help, we managed to paint a primer coat in about four rooms. The kitchen and our bedroom needed it on all walls, but the dining room, living room and guest bedroom only needed it in spots where wallpaper had been removed and plaster retouched. We got all that, plus a few other needs, taken care of in a solid six-and-a-half hours' work. Upon our return today, Casey and I worked for five hours and primed or painted three and a half whole rooms. She took the living/dining duplex and turned the walls blue, while I primed the half-bath and painted the guest room green. I don't remember the specific names of the colors, and we haven't taken photos yet, but I'll get those up soon enough.

With moving day next Saturday, the plan is to have everything painted before the movers arrive. We'll have another round of floor cleaning ahead of us, perhaps two -- one when the painting is done, but before the movers come in, and then another when they leave. Some rooms still have a fine coating of plaster dust that will only get tracked around the place until we thoroughly mop the floors.

The plan for this weekend is tentatively this: I'll try to get over there tomorrow to paint the half-bath, then team up with my sister on Tuesday morning for another room, before we each work in the evening. On Wednesday, when I'm off, I might allow myself a minor league baseball game in the morning, but then I can spend the afternoon painting and Casey can meet me after work. Thursday, my sister is free all day, though I'll have to work, but we might get a lot done with two of us. Friday could mean the same -- or could mean a cursory sweep of the floors. And I expect Casey plans to spend more than just Wednesday night over there.

With bare rooms and ongoing updates/improvements/construction, the house has yet to feel much like "ours," though now that refinished floors and fresh paint have removed any last hints of "old people smell," it at least doesn't feel like "theirs," or someone else's.

It'll be home soon enough.

Change of design plans

Basement

Oh, that Mother Nature.

Here's what our basement setup could have looked like once we move in a couple of weeks. We actually have a couch that's similar in color -- a base from the red family, with a pattern that can be described as slightly flowery and somewhat swirly -- that will be placed in the basement on moving day. We'll eventually remove the fake brick paneling and the shingled lower covering on the lower wall to avoid the confusing sensation of looking at the outside of a house while actually inside -- and below -- it. I get the impression that most of the basement decorating will be left to me because, as Casey likes to say, it will be my Man Cave.

So Mother Nature -- specifically Sunday's 100-year storm -- decided that waiting to pull up that tan carpet is silly when we can pull it up sopping wet and lay down ceramic tile before we move in.

I stopped by the house yesterday to drop off some things, and as I descended the basement steps, I noticed a new smell. And not a good one. I didn't have enough time to register the scent of wet carpet before my feet were squishing along like those of a Soprano in a far-off, secluded corner of the Meadowlands beneath the New Jersey Turnpike.

I didn't handle it well. It was about 1 p.m., I hadn't had lunch, and I was hungry. I expected to drop off some things, check in on a few items, and head out. Instead, I lost my appetite and couldn't control my thoughts before they started racing. Shit, now we've got to pay to remodel the basement! The carpet's ruined! We're doomed! DOOOOOOOOOMED!

Luckily, Casey was much more level-headed than I, and after talking with her, the solution was rather simple: Pull up the carpet and padding so that they didn't create a dank, musty, mold-infested den and pick out some tile that we can lay ourselves in the next two weeks. Even if we don't get it done by moving day, we can keep the furniture to one side of the basement while we lay half the tile, then move the furniture onto the completed side while we finish the rest.

Despite the fact that I was planning to wear my clothes to work -- nothing fancy, just jeans and sneakers, a t-shirt beneath a long-sleeved shirt on top -- it wasn't a particularly difficult job. Had I been dressed nicely, I would've been in trouble, or at least constrained more by time. In the end, my jeans were wet from my thighs down, my socks were soaked and my sneakers soggy all the way through.

I started in one corner, cutting the carpet into three-foot-wide strips, rolled it up, and lugged the sopping, dripping rolls out through the Bilco doors to the patio. It wasn't long before I was sweating, panting and aching, but wanting to finish in time to eat something, get back home and change before getting on the bus to work, I pushed on. It took roughly an hour to pull up approximately 230 square feet of carpet and padding. It got particularly nasty at the end, when the section of foam padding appeared to be either melting or deteriorating after sitting in the puddle for two days. That, or some glue had broken down and mixed in with the padding. In any case,

In the end I was left with a puddle a half an inch deep roughly in the area of the couch in the photo (after taking everything outside through the door in the back of the pic). A dark-red subfloor was now exposed for the first time in years, and over near the stairs a smaller section of the finished area had once been covered in cheap plastic tile made to look like a red-brick Italian piazza.

When my friend Dave pointed out that a tiled basement can tend to be a bit cold, I was excited by two things. The first is that such a scenario may help keep the basement cooler in the summertime. Those windows in the basement are not big enough for an air conditioner by any means. We can also get an area rug or two to warm -- and soften -- up the place a little. I have just the thing in mind.

Who knew that Mother Nature had a better decorating scheme in mind for the Man Cave than I did?

'Give us all your money' day

At 3:28 p.m. on Wednesday, April 4, 2007, our lawyer turned back toward us from the doorway of the conference room and, in a small ceremonial gesture, said to us: "Congratulations. You now own a home."

We'd just gone through the first round of signings (in triplicate) and said goodbye to the sellers, an old couple likely in their 80s who had come with their attorney. The major documents were signed and the house was ours; all that remained was another round of signings related to our loan and various other things that needed to be turned into legalese and explained to us by a guy who charged us what I think was the best chunk of money we spent on this whole process. Well, that and the actual house.

Before the part of the process that a friend of ours described over the weekend as "the part where they say, 'Give us all your money,'" we drove through a downpour for our 1 p.m. walkthrough, where the weather allowed us to witness first-hand the dry basement and attic, where the rain echoed off the roof of the empty space. Even the shed at the end of the driveway was cozy and dry when I stepped into it and discovered a relatively new, sturdy, well-built structure that will house whatever outdoor implements we determine we need. Other pleasant surprises included the bottle of champagne in the fridge and four filled ice trays in the freezer.

After the closing, Casey and I treated ourselves to sliders at White Manna and then went home -- to our apartment -- to change into more comfortable clothes and gather some things. We returned to the house with a few lights to leave and a tape measure to start planning some changes. Armed with a flashlight for the rooms without lights, we noted the measurements of the closets upstairs and the bedrooms, which might need new carpets. That conditional is included because, when we opened one of the closets to measure its depth, we noticed hardwood flooring that seemed to extend beneath the carpet in the bedroom. Pulling up what we could without any tools, we feel we may have found hardwood beneath the carpets where we were told there wasn't any. The upstairs foyer seemed to hold the same promise, so perhaps our flooring renovations won't necessitate the actual installation of hardwood and we can instead simply refinish that which has been covered up for who knows how many years.

Casey and I shared the same feeling that the more exciting moment was weeks ago when we found out the sellers had accepted our bid. Yesterday was monumental as well, but not quite as thrilling as the back-and-forth negitiations through our realtor and the call that we would be buying this place. However, now that we've been back there -- at night, by ourselves, with the keys in our hands -- the plans and our vision for the house are starting to move from possibility to reality. I think it may have contributed to the restlessness last night, when Casey and I both tossed and turned from 4 a.m. to 6:30. For my own part, I don't think I slept a minute during that time, finally dozing off again around 6:30 -- only to be awakened 20 minutes later by the banshee next door yelling at her drunk of a husband (her words, previously) for not setting the alarm for her Very Important Meeting at 9 a.m.

(At this point, I could only laugh -- schadenfreude -- and think, Well, if you'd focus your energy on getting ready instead of abusing your husband for not setting an alarm that you easily could've done yourself, you could very well make it into the city in the next two hours. She then continued berating him by saying he knows she has a Very Important Meeting every Friday morning. That's when I said to Casey, "Um, it's Thursday." Ten seconds later, the husband gathers up the nerve to say, "Today's Thursday." After a beat, the bitch replies, "That doesn't matter." After that comment is when I managed to drift off again and didn't catch all that followed, but the episode served as a pleasant reminder of what we'll leave behind when we move in a month.)

Tomorrow -- which is now later today -- I'll head back there to wait for the locksmith, the first of several trips I'll make in the next month to wait for one service or another. A folding butterfly chair and tray table will give me someplace to sit and a surface on which to put my laptop. Surfing the internet will not be an option, but I can write or sort through songs on the iPod or watch DVDs I'll likely bring with me. For now, that's all I can do, up until I repeat the process while waiting for the cable/internet guy to come and hook us up.

From our first visit there, Casey and I started picturing it as our house, imagining our books in all the shelves built into the walls, configuring our furniture in the upstairs living room and finished basement, wondering what we'll end up naming the cats. Now, after one month of phone calls and appointments that were at times taxing, we move into a new phase that will change the home from that of an elderly couple that spent the last 40 years -- and all but 13 years of their 53-year marriage -- there to ours.

The hogs return to Edgewater

Rejoice!

Hooray!

It was a moment, an instant when the urge struck me. I looked at the door to our balcony, the blinds drawn on the gateway as well as on the three windows in our living room. The sunlight pushing through the slats made it feel like maybe spring is establishing a firm hold on northern New Jersey.

So I stepped outside, testing the air in bare feet, shorts and a T-shirt. I looked down at the cemetery below our perch and spotted the birds fluttering about the grass, a flock of sparrows with a handful of robins, a pair of dove pigeons and one cardinal.

And there, scurrying about near the Dakers' tombstone was the first groundhog of the spring.

Last year, we didn't spot any hogs through March or April, causing some concern that perhaps they'd abandoned their home beneath ours. But while away on my Memorial Day weekend road trip through the Rockies, I received a text message from Casey: "Joyous occasion -- at least 3 or 4 groundhog babies!"

This year, with our likely (hopefully soon-to-be-impending; more on that later) move, I had hoped we'd catch a glimpse of them before the beginning of May, when we'll be at the end of our lease.

Thankfully, that hope turned into reality today, and I snapped a couple of photos to be sure to preserve the moment. But I expect several more in the coming weeks.

Hunting down a house

It's not like we tried to copy Heather and Kevin. It's just that we couldn't shake this one house from our minds. We'd talk about it regularly, think about it constantly and -- at least once for each of us, I believe -- dream about it.

So we went to our realtor's on Monday to sign the bid contract. She drove it over that afternoon around 4 o'clock and called us with the sellers' counter offer. We sent her back inside with another counter, and they took it.

She works fast.

The last week has been a blur of phone calls and e-mails and mortgage rates and lawyerspeak, making the last four days feel like eight. I find myself wanting four hours to myself to just take a break, yet I'm bound by deadlines and a desire to keep pushing ahead to sort everything out expediently. We thought we had our home inspection all lined up for Monday morning, but then our lawyer received a fax from the sellers' lawyer with changes to the contract rider that were illegible, drawing out that exchange another day. We expect to get the rider sorted out and signed by all parties on Monday, allowing us to move forward with the inspection on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Casey's been great in dealing with our lawyer and the rider, while I've taken the reins on finding the inspector and dealing with the mortgage brokers. That's not fun. You've got all of them quoting you plans and rates and saying it's the best that's available at the moment, but please be sure to let them know if you get any better offers, because I might be able to match or beat it. That's the nice way of saying, "I'll see if I can pull one over on you just a little bit, but if someone prevents that from happening, I still want your business." While it's been a bit of a pain to keep track of five names, companies and plans, it's paid off in the past two days with two offers that are really competitive and appear to be solid options.

We're hoping to close on April 4 -- or within a week of that date -- so Monday will put us within 30 days of potentially becoming homeowners. Our apartment lease is up on May 6, and we want the one-month overlap to make some changes before we fill the place with our stuff. For now, though, I can't think much past tomorrow morning, let alone into next week when we could be a significant step closer to securing this place.

On the hunt

I'm sure it's been said before, and often, but this house-hunting business sure can be fun, exciting, exhilarating -- and exhausting, confusing and frustrating.

We went on our first official searches over the weekend, meeting our realtor for the first time at one house we'd found online that had the necessary requirements (in the price range, low enough taxes, three bedrooms, more than one bathroom, etc.). Despite the rather promising photograph (plus the fact that it was three floors -- having a potentially "mysterious" third floor is something that has always intrigued me), the house sat in an area of a town where a discarded bottle of Mad Dog might appear on your lawn. And it has, at least for this one.

When we walked inside, our realtor seemed disappointed from the start. We passed through the enclosed porch to the living room and continued to the kitchen, where she basically exclaimed, "Hell, no" without even turning on a light. So we spent the next few minutes chatting at the foot of the staircase, merely discussing what Casey and I were looking for with what she said we should be thinking about, particularly in terms of neighborhoods and resale value down the road. After a few more minutes, she dispatched us with a suggestion to check out certain sections of Clifton, Lyndhurst and East Rutherford and said that she'd e-mail us new listings that reflected the changes. Now that she knows us, she said, she'll omit any neighborhoods like the one in which we were standing.

We took to the highways of Northern New Jersey and wound our way through a couple of neighborhoods, joking about all the Valentine's Day decorations on the homes and pointing out gnomes, lawn jockeys and other ornamental flair. One sign advertising an open house on Monday meant we'd be back, and we wrote down other addresses as well so that we could explore those blocks.

On Sunday morning, I was up shortly after 8 a.m., once again unable to go back to sleep when the whitetrash neighbors next door "discussed" whatever lame-assed morning television they were watching at a volume level more suited to a windy day on the beach than a quiet Sunday morning at 7:30. They're as good a reason as any to get the hell out and find a home of our own, and they've got no indoor voices. The fact that we know so much about them -- their names, their sports allegiances (NASCAR, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Florida Gators) -- but have never formally introduced ourselves, shaken hands or said more than five words when passing in the hallways says a lot. As do they, at high decibels.

So I sorted through the listings we'd gotten the night before, comparing addresses with their proximity to bus routes and train stations, finding a few more options beyond those that mentioned the neighborhoods in which they're located. Armed with the list, we set out around noon.

The open house was our first stop, and it was interesting. Home pricing in New Jersey is as much about location as anything else. The size of the structure is not much more important than the location, and if you can walk to New York transportation from a place on a quiet suburban street, you've got a good deal of value beneath your feet. The house, which was about to be reduced by $30,000, the agent told us, was $100,000 more than we are hoping to spend. And it wasn't even the nicest house -- inside, at least -- that we would see that day.

Not surprisingly, each place we saw had its pros and cons. In the end, we toured three of them, with the last standing as the biggest, the cheapest (or about equal with the second one we visited) and with the most inticing option for our respective daily commutes: It was within walking distance of a train station. The first two, within a few blocks of one another, merely sat on a bus route -- a mode of transportation that can be unreliable and more susceptible to the unpredictability of traffic patterns and accidents than rail service is.

A full list of pluses and minuses will need to be written out if we decide to consider a bid, but I'm not surprised that I find myself thinking, "If only this house were in that neighborhood." Of course, if it were in that neighborhood, it would also probably cost $100,000 more than it does, which is $100,000 more than we want to spend.

It's still very early in the game -- in fact, it's still kind of the pregame -- but I find myself both optimistic and apprehensive. Will we find a place that we can't wait to bid on, or have we done that already? And if so, is it too soon for that?

We seem to be in good shape with our realtor, who can quickly grasp what we're looking for and gives us honest feedback. I suspect that having her with us to look at more places next weekend will answer even more questions and possibly clear up some less-than-clear issues.

At least we're at this point already, well in advance of the expiration of our lease. We'll deal with overlap issues if they pop up -- and I said when we moved into our current apartment more than two years ago that I'd be OK with losing some or all of our security deposit, knowing it would be the last time we have to deal with one -- but having enough time to really go through this process deliberately is comforting.

Home alone

Casey's gone, away for three days for work, so I've got the place to myself. It's interesting how that changes things.

I sit on the other side of the couch.

I go to the bathroom with the door open.

I drink alone.

I turn the TV up a little more, not because I can't hear, but because I might be eating and crunching or typing and I want to hear it.

I play more Xbox.

I sleep in the middle of the bed.

I make sure to lock the door. Well, I usually do that anyway.

I have to double-check that I set my alarm.

I don't feel the need to rush home after work.

I talk out loud to myself.

I don't worry about making the place smell like popcorn or hamburger, if that's what I've chosen to eat most recently.

I check the TV schedule to see what sports I can watch.

I make sure to lug a cooler to work to finish off the Super Bowl party leftovers.

OK, I'm not complaining about the last one or anything, but I feel a sense of accomplishment that I managed to package the taco meat, tortillas, shells, salsa and sour cream in the rolling cooler with the shoulder strap (as opposed to the rolling cooler without the strap) and lug it into the office -- without breaking any of the taco shells, particulary those that were merely in a Ziploc bag, rather than still in the box -- without breaking one. And the guys love it, and the meat and sour cream and most of the cheese and tortillas were all gone by the time I had to come home, so that the cooler was a lot lighter for the return commute.

And I'm full tonight, that's for sure.

OK, now I'm confused. Getting off the subject -- well, changing it, really -- for a minute here, I'm watching Studio 60, and they're finishing with "2000 Miles" by The Pretenders. Isn't that a Christmas song? Yes, it is, because they've gotten to that part of the lyrics. What's up with that? That's weird, Aaron Sorkin.

Alright, I'm a little drunk. Three beers -- three Oregon Brewed Rogue Dead Guy Ales in two hours is close enough -- has done it.

Enough of this.

Born to run again

Fine. I admit it.

You got me, Apple Inc.

I love the Nano and the Nike+ gadgetry. I find myself excited to run nearly everyday, even if my legs are still sore from the previous day's workout. Unfortunately, I've had only one chance to take the whole operation on an outdoor run, and that was a trip to a local high school track to calibrate the system.

Man, was that a shock. It was a mild enough morning -- probably mid-50s -- and I was well dressed in nylon pants, a breathable long-sleeved shirt and a fleece vest. I even put a hat on to keep myself warm enough. I stretched and started off with a light jog to warm up. When I found the starting point for the 400 meters, I set the iPod to calibrate and took off at a steady, comfortable pace.

It wasn't long before the pace became more difficult than I'd imagined. The far turn seemed to tilt uphill while I also encountered a headwind now that I no longer had the building as a buffer. I pushed on through the turn and down the stretch, completing the calibration easily enough. I walked another lap before starting to run again, curious as to how accurate the reading would be.

After running another 400 meters, I pressed the center button for an update. "Total distance: point 2-5 miles," the lady said. Excellent.

"Current pace: 8:53 per mile."

What the hell?!?

No wonder that first lap felt so strenuous. Clearly, I am terrible at setting my own pace off of the treadmill. No wonder I struggle to cover even a half-mile anywhere but on a moving platform with televisions in front of me.

The calibration confirmed, however, that the readings on the treadmills at our fitness center are way off, either in their own calibration, or in my pace. When the treadmill says I've run a mile, the iPod says I've covered a mile and a tenth, if not more. The treadmill says my pace is 10 minutes per mile, but the iPod says it's closer to 9:50. It's certainly possible that my gait is not that refined, but it's still a surprising difference.

After a couple days off last week because of soreness in my legs, I've run two days in a row this
week. Yesterday, I set the iPod for a two-mile run and gradually increased the speed of the treadmill, covering 2.2 miles (with a cooldown) in about 22 minutes. This morning, I returned to the OK Go workout, but found myself laboring through the longer intervals, my legs burning with every stride. I slowed down to a walk for one of the recovery periods, and took the sprints on the back end at a slower pace than I'd intended. Tomorrow, the plan is for another rather leisurely two-mile jog, but I may take the day off if my legs remain sore. I'd like to try to do five days straight through Thursday before I take the weekend off while I'm in Pittsburgh for work.

Go go Gadget legs.

Marking an anniversary

Singing "Oklahoma Hills" with Laura Cantrell

It was one year ago today that The Nebraska Project, part of the New York Guitar Festival, gave me the good fortune of running into Bruce Springsteen.

The event opened last year's festival and featured a wide range of artists performing songs off of Springsteen's 1982 album, Nebraska. (He recorded the record in 1981, so the project was billed as the 25th anniversary of the album's birth.) I went to see some of the names I knew -- Jesse Harris, Jen Chapin, Laura Cantrell -- but also knowing, in the back of my mind, that Bruce might just make an appearance.

While I was out in the crowd getting some shots of one of the performers, my cell phone began ringing. It was Casey, not 20 feet away from me, standing in a less-crowded area against a wall. I walked over to her, and she excitedly pointed to a man I had just passed.

"He's here! You just passed him!"

I doubled back and, barely understanding my own words or actions, went up to him, shook his hand, and thanked him for doing what he does. I smiled and said hello to Patti, too, and then left them to watch the show. They stood together, closely, watching the artists put their own spin on his words and music. One of them, Mark Anthony Thompson (who has released some albums under the name Chocolate Genius, Inc.), later went on tour with Bruce and the Seeger Sessions Band later last year. It was at the New York Guitar Festival where Thompson met Springsteen, just as I did.

Bruce was kind and gracious, smiling at me and saying hello. He also seemed reserved, not wanting to be bothered, and I didn't press for anything more than a handshake and a hello. Had I not caught him when he was walking in, I would not have felt right walking up to him as he and Patti listened to the show, and I might have refrained, never getting the chance to meet him. Things just happened to work out that night.

This year, the opening event is being billed as The American Beauty Project. Another wide range of artists will revisit American Beauty and Workingman's Dead by the Grateful Dead. We'll probably go, at least on Saturday, to see some good music and hear some classic songs, but I don't expect to have the pleasure of meeting any of the original artists this year, and that's fine by me.

Grown-up things

Just before the New Year, we got the renewal bill for our renters' insurance. Surprised at the higher rate, we started shopping around for another company. (It was after we found a figure $200 cheaper than what our current company was charging, we realized that our current policy had been upgraded to cover $40,000 more worth of property, an upgrade we hadn't asked for nor which was highlighted for us.)

Still, we decided to go with the new company anyway. It's a company I have no problems with ... at least I hadn't. That's what you get when a lizard does things for you.

A few days ago, an envelope came in the mail from the new insurers. I was confused.

It was a thin envelope.

Just as it was during the college application process, a thin envelope is not good when it comes to insurance. Inside was a short, one-page letter informing us that our policy had been rejected because, it said, of our proximity to "coastal waters." (It also spelled "coastal" incorrectly -- "COSTAL" -- and "within" as well -- "WIHTIN." In retrospect, I'm glad we're not represented by a company that cannot find the spellcheck option on its word processing program.)

I called the umbrella company to see if there was another insurer in their midst that would cover us. I was told that no one at the Reptile would take us because we live 894 feet from the Hudson River.

What irks me is that, with today's online mapping technology (pick one), it takes mere moments to punch in our address and find out where we live. Why, when I was on the phone with the agent, could he not have put me on hold for 30 seconds to do that search? While we'll just go back to our previous company, I still think I'll file a complaint with the New Jersey board of insurers (or whatever it said on our cancellation letter), just to point that out.

And to point out another thing. While it's true that we live close -- within 900 feet, apparently -- to the Hudson, and we're far enough south that it's still tidal at that point, we're also on a hill. In a second-floor apartment. On what I can only imagine is bedrock, considering the cliffs that rise another few hundred feet away from us (and away from the river). I'd estimate that we're at least 60 feet above the waterline -- and sea level, for that matter. So if we were to be flooded out of our apartment, there would be much greater issues than whether our insurance company would be able to review our claim. For one thing, The Day After Tomorrow might be considered a soothsaying documentary rather than a fictional (attempt at a) blockbuster. For another, the company that insured us would be underwater in San Diego, and the larger company would likely have oceanfront property at its inland Virginia location.

Whatever. They won't get our money. Well, except the $149 I paid by credit card that will cover us until February 10. By then, we'll be back with our previous company (hopefully at a rate similar to what our previous coverage was, before the 40K bump) and carrying on, as Tim Gunn might say if he had anything to do with this, which he doesn't.

Nano Nano

I don't consider myself a techie guy by any means, and I'm certainly never been one to be the first to own the latest hot thing. Case in point: I didn't buy my first iPod until last May.

And now I've gone and bought my second.

It was the day we got back from Boston after the New Year's party, January 2. We had barely unloaded the car when we sat back down and trekked out to Garden State Plaza to have lunch and hit Best Buy. After thinking about it for a few weeks, I'd decided that I would indeed be purchasing my second iPod, a Nano, and then shelling out for a new pair of Nikes and the Nike+ iPod accessories, the chip and receiver that allows you to track your workout and download mixes and all those other cool things.

The sneakers and chip came yesterday, so today was the first opportunity I had to try everything out. I had only used the iPod once in the week since I'd bought it, and that was for a treadmill run on Monday, listening to a simple shuffling of upbeat songs I'd added over the weekend. So last night, I bought the workout mix entitled, "Mastering the Treadmill with OK Go."

I should say that I'm pretty new to treadmill running. I competed in cross country in high school, figuring I could run 3.1 miles enough to earn a varsity letter. I realized after two years of high school that I had little chance of earning a letter in baseball, but distance running might do it for me. Plus, if I ever decided to get myself a varsity jacket, that winged foot was a pretty cool logo on the back in which to have my graduation year. (I never did get the jacket, though I did seriously consider it. Glad I didn't, in the end, because it wouldn't have gotten much wear after the winter of 1993-94. I definitely wouldn't have been That Guy Who Wears his Varsity Letter Jacket After Graduating High School.)

After my last race, I pretty much stopped running regularly. From the fall of 1997 to about 2003, I tried to get back into it, but never did it more than three or four times before losing interest. In the two years from 2003-05, I'd be back into it in spurts, then something would come up -- a cold, a trip, a string of busy nights that kept me up late -- and I'd be sedentary for a few weeks (or months) at a time.

When we moved to our current apartment in the fall of 2004, it took me a few months before I became comfortable enough to explore the modest but decently equipped fitness room on site. I became adept at the elliptical trainers, then added in various weight machines. Finally, last year, I decided I needed to give the treadmill a run. (Rim shot.)

I never managed to cover more than a mile and a half at a time. Yet when I went down there this morning, the plan was to start the OK Go workout and play the 30-minute session through to its completion.

It starts out easily enough, with walking intervals interspersed with light jogs. It gets serious when you start the ladder progression -- running intervals of 30 seconds, a minute, 90 seconds and two minutes (and then back down) at a pace you consider your max followed by a minute or two (or four, after the longer periods) of a steady jog for recovery. Damian Kulash provides the voiceovers, calmly instructing you to speed up and slow down, while adding bursts of encouragement. When he's not talking, several upbeat OK Go songs push you through the runs, with slightly relaxed beats during the recovery periods. I found myself chuckling at times, such as when their most popular (and most treadmill-associated) song, "Here It Goes Again," came up when I expected it to: at the start of the climactic two-minute run. Another well-planned song sync came in one of the later speed intervals, just when you might wonder just what you've gotten yourself into. That's when the chorus blares, "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

In the end, I managed to make it through the entire 30-minute workout at a pretty good pace. The treadmill readout said I'd covered about 2.8 miles and burned 380 calories (estimates, since I didn't exactly take the time to write them down). When I clicked the Nano, however, to hear its readout, I was told I covered 3.1 miles and burned 420 calories, while averaging about a 10:30 mile. So either the worn-out, public treadmill's calibration is a bit off, or I need to calibrate the Nike+ sensor for my pace. I'm kind of hoping it's the treadmill, however. If I actually ran 3.1 miles today, I'm in better shape than I thought and might not be so far from entering a 5K.

It seems like a good idea at this time, anyway.

Fu-Ki Sake

Time to turn the page on another year. We began ushering out 2006 on a sad note, attending the memorial service for a family friend who passed away a few days after Christmas after a year-long battle with cancer. To her own dismay, she hung on for four weeks after doctors first gave her the "any day now" diagnosis. In the end, it was a moment of relief that the suffering was finally over. After James Brown and Gerald Ford died, I wondered aloud, "Who will the third one be?" because celebrities tend to pass on in threes.

As such ceremonies tend to be, the service was a surreal mix of smiles and laughter and, "It's so good to see you" mixed with frowns and tears and, "So sorry it's under these circumstances." But Casey and I got to catch up with Matt and Denise, who flew in from Seattle with their daughter, before gathering my sister and making good time from Red Bank to Braintree in just about five hours flat, including the initial fill-up at the gas station and a 15- or 20-minute break for dinner on the way.

We knocked on Bryan's back door on the deck just after 10 p.m., thoroughly startling Michael, Cathy and him as they sat in the dark watching a movie. First order of business was to test combinations for the sake for tonight's New Year's party, but after one bottle had been kicked, three or four variations yielded one unanimous composition that will be reconstructed tonight, no doubt to the guests' high praise.

The sake must have energized us, the sugar and the sweetness outweighing the alcohol, because after finishing Little Miss Sunshine and watching various Saturday Night Live sketches online and conducting other YouTube searches, the background music became dance music, the six of us jumping around the living room and singing along -- shouting along, perhaps -- with songs from, as they might say on the radio, the 70s, 80s, 90s and today. A few rounds of Name That Tune later, and it was 2 a.m., and though not tired, I made the first move in calling it a night and trudged upstairs.

Awake and alert at 10 a.m. today, we've now kicked the party prep into full gear with a good two hours down and about three more to go before we break out the drinks and start toasting new years around the world. We've already missed Kamchatka, Australia, Japan, Singapore, China and half of Russia (not to mention everything in between the aforementioned locales), but we've got India, the Middle East, Moscow, Europe and Africa ahead of us.

And so, in whatever language best suits you, Happy New Year.

Christmas in the city

Rockefeller Center starbursts

I had to put up something new for the holiday, and this is one of my favorites of a recent holiday photo excursion around Manhattan. Dozens of images are in my Christmas set on Flickr.

Merry happy.

Happy peanut song ...

I know you know it. You have to. How could you not?

Yesterday, I walked into work at noon and heard the song on TV. "It's been a while since I've heard that," I thought to myself.

That would not remain the case, however. Leaving ESPNews on all day, we must've heard the song 20 times, often within minutes of the last time. It started to drive us crazy. We wondered if Snickers had suddenly come into extra advertising dollars and bought up a slew of spots on the ESPN family of networks. At the end of the day, we wondered how many times we'd heard it and wished we'd kept track.

Today, at 11:55 a.m., it came on again. And I didn't drop the ball. One co-worker who had been in for a few hours said he'd heard it at least twice, so I counted those instances as well. And then I started keeping track.

Here are the results:

ESPN2
1
2
3 - 11:55 a.m.
4 - Noon
5 - 12:26 p.m.
6 - 12:30 p.m.
7 - 12:52 p.m.
8 - 12:58 p.m.
9 - 1:35 p.m.
10 - 1:42 p.m.
11 - 1:50 p.m.
12 - 1:57 p.m.

ESPNews
13 - 3:19 p.m.
14 - 4:20 p.m.
15 - 4:40 p.m.
16 - 5 p.m.
17 - 5:19 p.m.
18 - 5:44 p.m.
19 - 5:59 p.m.
20 - 6:10 p.m.
21 - 6:24 p.m.
22 - 6:41 p.m.

It's ridiculous! It was aired twice within as little as four minutes! And I'm sure I missed some in that 2-4:20 p.m. range, because I was busy at the time and didn't always have the volume turned up enough to hear, and it's possible I missed one or two airings because I wasn't looking at the TV.

What's the reason? What's the point!? Are they trying to make us all mad? I used to love the bit, particularly the song, but it's just gotten old. In two days. Two days of nearly nonstop airings.

I'm finished now and ready to post, but Pardon the Interruption is currently in commercial, and I don't want to miss one last airing.

...

Waiting ...

...

Waiting ...

...

OK, it's back. No airing between 6:41 and 6:49 p.m. ET.

Resume your lives.

All burned out

It's all Bryan's fault.

He came down this weekend with his friend Michael and among all the other good times we had, we also put Burnout back in the ol' Xbox and spent a few hours on Friday night and Saturday morning crashing cars and racing on the streets of Palm Bay and Crystal Lake. And now, I find myself wrapped up in the game again, obsessed with completing the next task to be unlocked -- which happens to be a six-race series in which I have to finish first in each. The worst part is that I had won the first five two days ago before a knock at the door. I pressed the start button to pause it and let the maintenance man in. But in pressing start, I had merely skipped the intro to the race and jumped to the start -- and when I looked at the TV, my car sat idle at the starting line while the other three were nowhere in sight.

Anyway, enough of that. On Saturday -- after our Burnout sessions -- the four of us drove across the George Washington Bridge to the New York Botanical Gardens for the Holiday Train Show.


Comin' 'round the bend

An artist uses natural materials to recreate dozens of New York landmarks -- both famous and historic -- which are then placed amid the mostly green displays in the Haupt Conservatory, with the track laid around them.

First, the layout takes you through some standard, educational displays in the vast conservatory -- including a 110-degree (well it sure seemed like it) reproduction of a rain forest that I couldn't linger in too long on account of my winter coat and my tendency to overheat when the temperature in any room gets higher than about 72 degrees.

The show is expansive and fun, but I think I prefer instead the holiday train display at Citigroup Center in Manhattan. For one thing, it's free (not that the $18 at the botanical gardens wasn't worth it -- OK, maybe it was worth about 10 bucks), but my personal preference is for the recreation of tiny little towns, communities and landscapes, so for that reason I'm partial to Citigroup's display, which has buildings, trains, cars and figurines in a relative scale. At least the display at the gardens was less crowded and we were free to move about more easily, rather than being herded through a line under the pressure to keep moving so that the people behind us could get a look at the next scene along the way.

Intending to find out what Gingerbread Adventures was all about, we headed deeper into the complex after exiting the train show -- but then got sidetracked. Michael walked into the gift shop, and it was all over. I'm not sure what this impulse cost him and Bryan, but Casey and I left with $80 worth of Christmas ornaments, including copper-coated ornaments of an acorn and a grape leaf and a silver-dipped mistletoe to replace the flattened, mangled, mangy, moldy one we threw out last year. But from the looks of the Gingerbread Adventures, which is to say it appears geared towards children, it was worth 80 dollars to skip the walk across the grounds to find out the truth.

Just beyond the gift shop stood a cluster of trees -- OK, it's a botanical garden, there are trees everywhere. But just beyond the gift shop, the "reflecting pool" had sprouted a stand of evergreens, which had then been bedazzled with lights and ornaments for the holidays.

Reflecting trees

It is just me, or does that look like a rather tiny reflecting pool? I mean, to me, this is a reflecting pool. Here, it looks like they built a foot-high wall around a depression in the middle of this plaza where water tends to collect and called it a reflecting pool.

Anyway, after that, we were off, back across the river to New Jersey and lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Englewood before taking the bus into Manhattan so we could indulge in wine at dinner and not have to worry about driving home.

On Sunday, after seeing a hilarious play which I may elaborate upon later, we parted ways, and once I had a moment to myself, I fired up the Xbox and began my recent quest to conquer six races in Burnout.

Reflecting in the reflecting pool

Election Day dreams

I dreamt last night that I was at some sort of party -- a fund-raiser, perhaps -- but it was sort of the high school bake sale kind of function. And it was at someone's house. Standing at one folding table was John Kerry and his wife (though not so much Teresa Heinz Kerry as Maya Rudolph playing Teresa Heinz Kerry), and I asked someone if it would be inappropriate for me to go up to the senator, tell him I admired him, and then suggested that he leave the jokes to Al Gore.

I'm not quite sure what that means.

And then I had a mild moment of trepidation when I went to vote this morning, because our polling place was using the electonic machines for the first time. When I talked to my sister later, I told her my thoughts, and she told me that when she voted earlier in the morning, only one of the two machines was working.

"Which one was out?" I asked her.

"The left one wasn't working when I went in," she said.

"Hmm ... I voted in the left one. Seemed to work fine for me."

Let's hope so. As I was leaving, I almost said out loud to the nice attendant, "This has a paper trail, right?" They'd best have my vote in there. I wish I could see it, not that I have seen any others in the past, but still. These electronic voting machines seem to be like umpires or other sports arbiters: you only hear about them when they do something wrong. So I hope we don't hear too much about these machines in the coming days.

It sounds like voter turnout is at highs not seen in the past few elections at many places around the country. Hopefully, that means good things.

Barenaked at Radio City

Thank God. After tomorrow, the political ads will be gone.

But the Christmas ads are already here. And I haven't even loaded the holiday songs onto my iPod yet!

I can't wait to hear the Barenaked Ladies' holiday songs again after seeing them last night at Radio City Music Hall. A fabulously charged show that Casey and I thoroughly enjoyed -- to the point of being Those Fans (not in a bad way).

We couldn't help ourselves -- after two glasses of wine at lunch and four (or five) beers afterwards, we were the fans who stand throughout the show, dancing and signing along. Sitting in the upper mezzanine (or whatever they call the smaller level between the mezzanine and the top level), we were at the end of an aisle with three empty seats behind us in front of the wall. No one to bother, no reason to sit down. There was an empty seat to Casey's left, so we each moved over once and left the empty seat between me and the two women to my right.

From start to finish, we stood and boogied, sang and clapped and wore ourselves out. We were parched afterwards, hustling to Duane Reade -- "Have you noticed there's one on every corner?" Ed Robertson asked at one point -- for a bottle each to drink on the drive home.

There were some great classic and standards played, not to mention the expected between-songs banter and improvised raps and ditties. I especially was glad to hear "Brian Wilson," "Grade 9" and "Falling For the First Time." And while Casey is not a fan of "Fun & Games" off the new Barenaked Ladies Are Me -- it's the frenzied circus-like bridge in the middle that irks her -- I love the direct and daring lyrics.

The setlist:

Wind It Up
The Old Apartment
Sound Of Your Voice
Grade 9
A
Stomach Vs. Heart
In The Car
Falling For The First Time
Maybe Katie
Vanishing
Straw Hat & Old Dirty Hank (acoustic)
Fun & Games (acoustic)
Too Little Too Late
Bank Job
Angry People
Pinch Me
Conventioneers
It's All Been Done
One Week
Brian Wilson

Easy
If I Had $1 Million

Call & Answer

Ethan Hawke is taller than I thought

Having gotten into the city with extra time before work yesterday, I took my time on the long walk along the block to work to notice the parking situations. Cleaning from 8:30 to 10 a.m. on one side of the block on Mondays and Thursdays and on the other side on Tuesdays and Fridays. Next to our building, there's no parking until 6 p.m. on weekdays. It's going to be tougher for me to drive in these days and find convenient, nearby parking, now that I know the police are tight with enforcing the No Standing zone along the south side of the building now that the scaffolding has been removed and the signs are more apparent.

So by taking that extra time to stake out some possible parking locations, I only got a glimpse of Ethan Hawke from behind, at a distance of half a block, when I turned the corner and ran into a coworker also on his way in. With sunglasses on, we didn't recognize one another right away and he was staring off at Hawke walking away down the street, pointing the actor out to me.

"The tall one?" I asked, indicating the one man whose head rose above those around him.

"Yep," my coworker replied. "I always freeze when I run into celebrities. I don't know if I should be calling my friends or not."

I'd always thought Hawke was about 5-foot-8 or 5-9, but he's easily the 5-10 that his IMDB bio says he is (who uses half-inch measurements once you get out of fifth grade anyway?).

Previous pumkin efforts

For the public record, our previous works of pumkin arts. The stencils, as with those in the previous entry, were designed by Casey; I just did the cutting on (in this case) Johnny Damon, Trogdor and Master Shake.



Johnny Damon, 2004

Trogdor, 2004

Master Shake and Meatwad, 2005

The Cheat, 2004

Strong Sad, 2004

Halloween cheer

At some point a few years ago, simply carving traditional jack o' lanterns with triangle eyes and jagged mouths became too simple for our Halloween observances every year. So to follow up on previous designs of Johnny Damon, Trogdor and the gang from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, we went with Mr. Met (mine) and Vincent and Jeffrey from the recently completed Project Runway season.

Cider river on 15th Street

I'm not a coffee drinker. I think I tried an iced coffee or something chilled back in high school, when, as juniors, we'd pile into the car or cars of the one or two of us old enough to drive and hang out at the coffee house. This was back when Red Bank had only three coffee houses. Now, you've got three on one corner, with a Starbucks across from No Ordinary Joe and half a dozen others within about a mile.

Anyway, can't stand the stuff, so I usually find myself holding my breath when I pass the giant exhaust fan on 15th Street that tends to blow hot air out of the Starbucks on the corner. (In summer, it's a strategic move as well as an olfactory one -- hot air blowing on you on a 95-degree day? Not nice.) But this evening, as I walked up 9th Avenue from 14th Street, taking a different approach after stopping for a sandwich before work, I paused in front of the Starbucks to wait for the light to change. And the smell was pleasant. Lovely, even. The sweet, sweet smell of apples -- of cider -- overwhelmed me and it felt nothing like New York. For a split second, I was on the corner of a quiet Main Street in some New England town. It might as well have been Grover's Corners.

I turned to my right to look inside, to see if there was some kind of cider special. Nothing. I looked over my left shoulder and found it: a man emptying a couple of large, brown catering drink jugs, the kind with spiggots and the kind that, I believe, can keep cold drinks cold and hot drinks hot. He was emptying them before putting them into a minivan, leaving a cider stream flowing six feet into a gutter, no doubt giving the rats a welcome change from the usual sludge that they get.

Friends and football

I had Monday off, so I planned to sleep in after working Sunday night -- the cap to a long day -- and then hunker down to recall the weekend before it was lost to me. While I failed at my intentions, Heather wasted no time pounding out a fabulously detailed recollection of 48 hours in South Bend. She must've typed on the flight back to L.A. or something. That, or she's just much more motivated and disciplined than I.

Five years ago, I sat in the bedroom of my first Edgewater apartment, SportsCenter on TV, Casey beside me for what must've been one of our first sleepovers at my new place, and I saw the crawl on the bottom of the screen that announced a home-and-home series between Notre Dame and Penn State for the 2006 and 2007 seasons, with the first game to take place in South Bend. We must've known already about the UCLA series that would take place during those same two seasons, with the locations the same as with the Irish-Nittany Lions coupling: 2006 in South Bend, 2007 at the other school. Five years out, and I was already giddy over the thought of two trips to Indiana, one with my oldest, best friend from back home who had gone to Penn State, the other with one of my closest college pals and her West Coast Bitch Posse crew of Bruin alumnae.

But then a lot happened in the interim four years. Matt, my longtime buddy, got married -- to a Domer who graduated the year before me -- and they just couldn't wait to start their family, naming their daughter Gwen back in May 2005. This past March, I got myself a new job, one that took me back into the sports news world and meant a non-traditional schedule working often on nights and weekends. I wasn't sure how it would play if I followed up two weeklong vacations within the first two months with various requests for weekends off so I could go see a couple of football games. I sensed, however, waning interest from Matt and Denise, and when I told him that I didn't think I'd be able to make it, he revealed the same thoughts from their perspective.

That left the UCLA weekend, which had the apparent misfortune of falling during the first weekend of the World Series. Luckily, that did not pose a problem and I was cleared for the trip in August. (Our related plans to make the return visit to State College and Los Angeles in 2007 will probably suffer the reverse fate -- I still hope to clear a September weekend next year to see the Irish in Happy Valley, but I will not be able to fly out to California during the first weekend of October during the first weekend of October to see my first game in the Rose Bowl.)

As the baseball season moved from August into the climax of September, I started to wonder whether the sports gods were going to be overly generous toward my teams. Having not grown up as much of a fan of the NFL, I have no solid allegiances to any professional football team. But with the best former Domer playing in Pittsburgh until this season and since marrying into a Steeler family, I have grown more and more fond of that team, which made our Super Bowl party this year more than just a night of eating, drinking and shushing during commercials. Then the Mets burst out of the gate in April and ran roughshod over the National League, all but making reservations for the World Series by Sept. 1 -- when No. 2 Notre Dame flew to Atlanta to prepare for its Sept. 2/my birthday opener at Georgia Tech.

First the Steelers, then the Mets and potentially the Irish, all winning or playing for their respective championships in the same season? Certainly it couldn't last.

And, alas, it did not, of course. First, the Notre Dame echoes remained somnolent in a tough home loss to Michigan in the third game of the season. The, a week later, the Mets labored to clinch the National League East while their pitching ace, Pedro Martinez, struggled to come back from an injury. They were at least able to complete the inevitable, securing the division and the best record in the National League, but on the eve of the playoffs, they learned that Martinez would be lost through the postseason with a torn left calf muscle and, a day later, that he'd miss the first half of next year with a torn muscle in his shoulder that would require surgery. No problem, they said, they still had the veteran and playoff-tested Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez ready to start Game 1 and be their new ace.

But on the afternoon before he was to start the first game, Hernandez -- whose age falls somewhere between 37 and 41, the discrepancy related to his Cuban roots and the nature of his arrival in the U.S. via raft in the early 90s -- tore a muscle in his right calf while jogging. What the heck is a 40-year-old pitcher doing jogging the day before his start anyway?! I asked. Who cares about conditioning at this point? All he has to do is pitch.

El Duque was not missed during the first round, when the Mets swept the Dodgers onto the golf course, but they could have used him in the National League Championship Series against the Cardinals. He was left off the roster and therefore unavailable, but he recovered enough that the Mets began discussing his possible return for Game 1 of the World Series, should the Mets advance. But last Thursday, in a cruel twist of Dan fate, former Notre Dame pitcher Aaron Heilman served up a two-run home run in the eighth inning of Game 7 that propelled the Cardinals into the World Series and produced the silver lining that at least now I could relax.

Back "home" again in Indiana

I've digressed. This is about football.

On Friday, I awoke after merely four hours' sleep to head to Newark Airport with Casey, who would be spending the weekend in Chicago with her dad, stepmom and sister. We met my father, who had flown in a couple of hours before us, and she headed off to the El while he and I picked up our rental car and chose I-294 as our best guess for a route from O'Hare to Indiana.

Having checked with a coworker from the area who had recently made the trip, I knew that no route south from the Windy City was clear of construction. And on a Friday, I knew I-90 -- the most direct route, but one that takes you downtown and past the lakeshore -- would be backed up by 1 p.m., which was when we were departing the airport. Heather and the gang was about an hour ahead of us, stuck in that I-90 traffic, but she'd mentioned that they'd probably need to stop for lunch at some point en route. We checked in with one another frequently, and when I announced our position as we approached the entrance tolls for the Indiana Toll Road, Heather exclaimed that they were roughly a mile from those very booths.

From that point, I set the cruise control about 5 mph slower than I'd been going and waited for them to catch up to us. When the blue Toyota Highlander appeared in my rear-view mirror, I waited for them to pass, waved, and remarked to my dad that Kevin -- riding shotgun -- had no idea who I was at first. Before Heather had completed the pass, however, I spotted the girls in the back seat through the tinted windows, waving, and Heather settled into the lane in front of me until we reached the last rest area before South Bend, 20 miles out.

We stopped there, said our hellos and caught up while Dad and I got our lunch at McDonald's. For the first time in my life, I did not order a burger and fries, not wanting to spoil our dinner at CJ's that night. A crispy chicken caesar and a Strawberry Passion Awareness Fruitopia it was for me.

I made the decision to approach South Bend from the west, getting off the Toll Road near the airport to avoid the exiting traffic five miles down the road and to bring the California crew up to campus in a more dramatic way. First we passed through the run-down western part of town, acknowledged the South Bend Tribune on our way through downtown and cruised the neighborhood streets south of campus, crossing St. Peter, St. Louis and other avenues familiar to us from friends who lived there during school and the parties they threw. At Notre Dame Avenue, we turned left, heading north, and saw the Golden Dome emerge through the autumn-hued oak trees. Standing sentinel on either side of the road, their branches met in an arch over our heads and parted like two cells in a Disney film as we passed beneath them, revealing the gilded centerpiece of campus. More than once, I've heard a story about how Father Hesburgh, the iconic president emeritus of the university, once met an unsuspecting freshman (or prospective student) on a flight into South Bend and offered her a ride to campus. "Close your eyes," he instructed as they approached from the south, as we did on Friday. Only when they'd made the turn and the Dome came into view did he tell her to open them, an audible gasp escaping her mouth as she took in the sight.

South Bend has two distinct smells in October. One is the ethanol wafting from the processing plant on the north end of campus, the other the scent of burning leaves on block after block in the surrounding neighborhoods. It's this second scent that brings me back to my college days, that last fall spent just a few blocks east of campus in an apartment complex that has since been renamed Clover Ridge or something, from Campus View -- a misnomer from the start, since trees and houses blocked any view of campus. (I don't know where Heather's complex, a block from mine, got the Turtle Creek moniker, there being neither a creek nor, to my knowledge, a turtle, other than the one chiseled from stone outside the complex's leasing office.) But driving to campus, walking from the parking lot to the bookstore, and transversing the grounds on Saturday morning, I smiled at the smell of the leaves -- burning and otherwise -- that took me back to (gasp) nine autumns ago.

After "checking in" to Chez VM, the house of friends of mine who were out of town for the weekend, we headed downtown for burgers at CJ's, one of the iconic South Bend pubs that tends to fill up on football weekends with alumni who enjoy looking at the old photos on the wall and ordering pitchers for the same price as you'd pay for a pint in New York, and most other cities, I'd imagine. Heather batted her eyes at a table of three gents who'd received their check, stressing that we weren't rushing them, but requesting that whenever they were ready to depart they notify us -- standing a few feet away -- so that we might inherit their table. As the six of us settled onto three stools and pondered how we'd create table space for the other three to put the burgers we were soon to order, two even older gentlemen at an adjacent table offered us their spot, enabling us to bring together the two and pull up three more stools.

Things just seemed to work out for us that way throughout the weekend. Well, at least for the Notre Dame fans among us.

Six burgers and two pitchers later, we settled our tab and shuffled out of the bar, turning sideways to squeeze past a couple of men on their way in. As one passed, a sense of familiarity came over me and my first thought was that this was someone I'd shared a dorm with or perhaps saw often in class. Then I realized I'd actually seen him on Notre Dame and NFL broadcasts, for it was former quarterback Rick Mirer. "Heather!" I called out over the mix of crowd and jukebox noise, "There's Rick Mirer!" As I turned to point him out, I caught his eye and his reaction to my shouting his name at the bar. Embarrassed, I nodded hello and turned to exit. When I relayed the story at work on Sunday night, one coworker's reaction was, "If I were Rick Mirer, I'd spend a lot of time hanging out in South Bend, too."

Gameday

Saturday dawned dark and cold. The four of us staying in the basement -- Heather, Kevin, Lauren and myself -- awoke in a cocoon of darkness, the lone slit of a window revealing nothing in the way of daybreak. With northern Indiana now observing Daylight Savings Time, the region remains aligned with the East Coast throughout the year, making South Bend one of the westernmost cities in the time zone and making for particularly long light in the summer evenings -- 9:30, I imagine, still provides some light on the horizon in the weeks approaching and following the summer solstice. But it also makes for dark mornings, and with the cloud cover on Saturday, 7:30 a.m. felt a bit like 4:30. So while it took the six of us a full two hours to make our way through the metaphorically revolving shower door, we piled into the car by 10 a.m. and managed to rather successfully navigate the mounting traffic as fans arrived hours before the game to allow for adequate tailgating time.

For our parking donation, we chose the Saint Mary's College athletic teams. OK, we didn't so much choose them as Heather has parked there before and it worked out for her, and it worked out for us on Saturday. The plan was to park at SMC, walk the tree-lined road past the religious retreats and housing, the cemetery wherein several founding fathers of the university are buried (that is, the guys whose names adorn half the dorms on campus) and start the transverse of campus that would double as the girls' tour at the Grotto.

I was torn. I wanted to see campus, all of it, on a football Saturday, to share it with friends -- three of them seeing it for the first time -- recall moments with Heather, laugh at the memories and smile at the scenes before us. But I also wanted to drink. I wanted to meet up with the crew -- my father, several of my classmates and the South Bend-entrenched parents of one who host a tailgater every week -- have some chicken and brats, drink some beer and talk football. I kept going back and forth in my head, one minute not walking fast enough, the next not wanting to move on until I'd taken it all in. I could've sat on a bench on God Quad all morning and watched the fans criss-cross the paths and lawns, shuffling through the leaves, stopping for pictures every time a new view of the Dome appeared through the trees. Clearly, the next time I go to a game, it needs to be either in early September or in November, times when I can take at least four days and not feel that I have to squeeze everything into such a small window. Even on Sunday, when I had to wake up earlier than anyone else and leave them a few hours early, I wished I had more time, had those extra hours to talk with them more over breakfast or to take a quick peek at Chicago with them.

At the tailgater, I drank beer and took compliments on my beard and then we were asked our thoughts on Notre Dame's 14-point spread over UCLA. We all gave Jim our thoughts -- unanimously in favor of his $50 saying the Irish would cover. Later, Jim wanted another one. He asked me to look over the list and pick another game on which he could wager another Grant. "We can split it, if you want," he added. Saturday was a tough one for the spreads. I managed 12 out of 20 on the just-for-fun, no-money-down Yahoo group I do with friends (including the three UCLA gals; Heather bowed out this year because, as she said, she could no longer enjoy rooting for the upsets if she hadn't picked them in the pool -- I can totally see her point), but I wasn't so confident when there was money riding on it. I considered several games -- Rutgers getting 6 1/2 at Pittsburgh (would've been right on that one); Louisville giving 17 to Syracuse, but it was in the dome (my home-field hunch was correct); Texas a mere 4 1/2 favorite over Nebraska (I would've been wrong); and Cal giving 23 to Washington (wrong again).

Then I found one I felt better about. Michigan, at home, was giving 13 to Iowa. Surely the Wolverines, with their stout defense, could hold the Hawkeyes and their second-string quarterback at a two-touchdown arms' length. On our drive from Chicago, my dad and I had seen a few eastbound cars on I-80 decorated with their Hawkeyes flags and magnets. We played a short, impromptu game of "recite the Big Ten schedule" trying to figure out where the Hawkeyes could be headed. Minnesota, Wisconsin and Northwestern were out. Indiana was a possibility, but then I remembered that the Hoosiers were headed to Ohio State. Penn State was a possibility, but that seemed far for the cars we saw that were only in northwestern Indiana at 3 p.m. on Friday. Michigan, Michigan St. and Purdue became our possibilities, and we settled on the Boilermakers, only to discover that night that the Iowans would have continued on I-94 once that interstate split from I-80 on the eastern edge of Lake Michigan.

"Jim, I think Michigan is it," I told him. We split the 50 bucks, Kevin and Jessica, I believe, congratulated me on my first foray into sports gambling (not counting a day at the horse track) -- I believe Jessica playfully used the word "degenerate" -- and throughout the afternoon at the game, I whiled away the TV timeouts watching the rotating scores on the stadium scoreboard, happy I passed on all the games I clearly would've had wrong. The next morning, when I picked up my father at Jim's house, he handed me my $25 share.

The six of us were lucky enough to have three pairs of tickets within three sections of the north end zone at Notre Dame Stadium. Heather and Kevin sat together, being married and all, and so Jen, Jessica, Lauren and I drew tickets to pair up. Holding them face-down, I let the three ladies choose while I held onto the last one. Jen and Lauren nabbed two seats on the aisle about 10 rows up from where Jessica and I sat; Heather and Kevin were just two sections over. As a result, Jessica and I were the only pair with split rooting interests. I realized after the game that I held back a bit in my enthusiasm. Naturally, I still jumped up and cheered for big plays and I screamed prior to big plays on defense in the second half. But I also have come to realize that I don't always have the energy anymore to shout and scream and cheer myself hoarse before halftime. Perhaps a close, back-and-forth see-saw game could've brought that out of me, but this game, from a Domer's perspective, went forth early, then back for the bulk of the contest, and then finally forth again only within the final minute, with 27 seconds remaining.

So Jessica and I remained rather reserved. Early in the game, she found herself cheering for Brady Quinn and the Irish on nice plays, momentarily forgetting that the opponent this time -- for the first time in 42 years -- was her school. Late in the fourth quarter, after Notre Dame went for it on fourth-and-1 and didn't get it, I conceded the game was over. "It's not," she said. "I can see us blowing this one." Even after UCLA ran the ball three times, failing to get a first down, and Notre Dame's expenditure of its three timeouts meant the Irish would get the ball back with about a minute remaining, I sat there and said, "I don't think we're winning this game." Jessica responded quickly with, "We're not winning this game."

Three Quinn passes and a Victor Abiamiri sack later, she was right, and Notre Dame came away with a surprising win when Quinn hit Jeff Samardzija on a 45-yard catch-and-run for the winning TD. But although I'd just witnessed what would soon become a piece of Notre Dame lore (if the game were broadcast on ESPN, it would be known as "instant lore"), it didn't feel like it. I don't know if I was in shock or just in awe. After coming around to Notre Dame in the late 80s and early 90s, when one potential national title was taken away by a phantom clipping penalty and another by inexplicable voting, I've not yet come to terms with the Irish being one of those teams that gets things right at the end of games. It was only the third game-winning TD the Irish have scored in the final minute of a game, or something similar, according to ESPN, but I didn't think of it that way at the time.

Love thee, Notre Dame

I stopped off at the tailgate one more time, then caught up with Heather and the gang at Legends -- nee, Senior Bar -- the sports pub on campus, just across the parking lot south of the stadium. On my way, I passed a tailgating group that was standing solemnly around their car as a priest released incense -- they were observing Mass. The thought of a priest wandering aimlessly -- believing for a moment that a priest might be without aim in his life -- around the parking lots after a football game offering to perform Mass had us laughing when I relayed the scene, but the more likely scenario is that the Father is a family friend or former dorm rector of one of the attendees of the tailgater/Mass and the arrangements had been made beforehand.

We walked back across campus in the dark. I love Notre Dame at night. I always got a homey, warm feeling walking beneath the trees under cover of night, the Dome an illuminated compass point. Mary faces due south, so as long as you can see in which direction she's facing, you can find your way around campus. South Quad is more impressive in daylight, when it's teeming with students walking along the sidewalks or throwing footballs and Frisbees on the lawn, but the floodlights on the Dome, the lights on the buildings, the spotlights on the statues give the scene another unique look.

We visited the Grotto once more, coming at it from the right side, watching the candles shimmer in the hollowed-out alcove in the side of the hill. Not an overtly religious person myself -- and not a Catholic, either; I'm a Methodist -- I would often walk down to the Grotto at night as a freshman, spending some time on a bench just sitting and watching. Thinking. Meditating, I suppose. Here and there, I would kneel and pray, usually in dire times for a friend or family member in need of a little extra thought and support. I lit candles even less frequently, only two times that I can remember, perhaps no more than three or four, total, if I'm forgetting any.

The walk along the road back to Saint Mary's was long and painful. I was tired of being on my feet, and we all were longing for a bathroom, hoping we might find a building at Saint Mary's that would let us in. After we crossed Route 933 -- the four-lane highway that, along with the long road, the fields, woods and religiously affiliated buildings that serves as a barrier between the two affiliated schools -- I spotted our answer shining across the vast, dark lawn across which we walked: The Inn at Saint Mary's. A quick pit stop, and we piled into the car to head to dinner.

Over wings, beer and fries, we watched the end of Rutgers-Pittsburgh, the start of the World Series and any football games that were on at Buffalo Wild Wings. We played along leisurely with the NTN trivia game, not bothering to get a console to play competitively, knowing that we were fading fast. By 11 p.m., we'd all changed into more comfortable attire and were lounging in the basement. Minutes later, we were under the covers, lights out.

For me, Notre Dame is not about football. I don't go just because I love to watch the game live or because I want to cheer on the Irish. I don't believe I've ever once gone to a Notre Dame game without drinking a beer -- outside -- beforehand, or without shaking hands or hugging someone I used to have class with, party with or get drunk with, and probably haven't seen in a year or more. Even during my senior year, when I went to Ann Arbor for the Michigan game as a stringer asked to help out a website that covers Notre Dame sports, I met up with the contingent from our campus newspaper about four hours before the game and had a couple of beers.

I love Notre Dame because I love the friends I made there, the friends I still e-mail, visit, plan trips with and chat with on the phone. I may not be able to keep up with all of them regularly, and I certainly don't see everyone as much as I would like, but to do that, I would not be able to hold down a job. And they'd probably get sick of me. But there's usually one weekend a year when I find myself back in Indiana, or a few of us plan to be in Pittsburgh or Atlanta or Baltimore the same weekend the Irish are there, and football brings us back together. We catch up, we look ahead, we talk football, baseball, life and love. It may sound cliche, it may sound trite, but it is what it is. It's more than just football. It's Notre Dame.

We are Notre Dame.

Hey, bus driver, keep the change

Because I go to work in the late afternoon, there's a belief that I have an easy commute because it's a "reverse" trip, going against the swarms of people leaving Manhattan at the end of their more standard 8-4 or 9-5 workdays.

Rarely is that the case. The issue with my trip into the city between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m., depending on my duties that night and my start time, is the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It begins at the Lincoln Tunnel, six lanes in three tubes that begin as gaping maws into the bedrock in Weehawken, N.J., descend rapidly while bending to the right, to the east, and traverse beneath the silt of the Hudson River until they spew us out into a concrete basin in between 9th and 10th avenues in Midtown Manhattan. But during the afternoon rush, four of the six lanes carry cars out of the city, leaving just two lanes for about eight lanes' worth of cars to merge into after passing through the tolls. The whole process of passing through the tolls and merging into two lanes to get into the tunnel can take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the day, the weather and the traffic.

Once inside the tunnel, however, it's still not smooth sailing. Coming from the local roads -- rather than the highway that winds down from atop the bluff on a spiral helix built on towering concrete pillars above Weehawken -- the buses are forced into the right lane of the two-lane inbound tube. Changing lanes inside the tunnel, of course, is forbidden, so generally the buses are stuck in the right lane, which under normal circumstances wouldn't be a problem. But during the afternoon rush, in an effort to "ease" traffic flow, the Port Authority Police block off the access lane that allows vehicles in the right lane of the tunnel to make the left necessary to enter the Port Authority Bus Terminal immediately upon exiting on the New York side.

The daring bus drivers, those who tempt fate -- or simply know they have a legitimate excuse to go against the law -- will cross the double white line inside the tube, putting themselves into the left lane that will allow them to take the immediate route to the terminal. Those are the best drivers. I love those guys. They can keep the trip to 30-40 minutes, even with the slow process of merging into the tunnel.

It's when we're stuck in the right lane, when we're forced to the right -- away from the Port Authority -- that the trip takes up to an hour or more. By ostensibly alleviating the congestion on the route to the bus terminal, the P.A. Police create gridlock and a worse jam, it seems, on the streets to the south of the terminal on the small back alley of Dyer St. and on 10th Avenue, where I've sat on buses in a right lane that essentially becomes a parking lot where my driver has actually stepped off the bus and chatted on the sidewalk with the driver of the bus in front of us for 15 minutes.

Those are the days when I get out and walk. In the sweltering summer heat, I'd take a bus half an hour earlier than the one I'd normally take, just so I could remain on the bus, reading, napping or gazing out the window while staying cool in the air conditioning. In the fall, it's been nice to stroll the streets, walking from 9th or 10th avenue over to 8th to get the subway downtown to Chelsea. We'll see how things go in the winter.

Yesterday, however, I finally had an epiphany of sorts. It was a mild realization, and one I clearly should've made earlier, but yesterday was the day when it all came together. As I crossed 35th St. on 9th Ave., intending to turn east and catch an A, C or E train downtown, I spotted a downtown bus as I turned my head to check for traffic. The 9th Ave. buses head straight downtown, stopping right in front of my building. Why walk the extra long block over to 8th Ave. to get the subway, when I'll have to walk back from 8th to 9th to get to work once I get downtown? It was so simple.

So simple I should've realized it before, but yesterday was the day it was meant to happen. Yesterday was the day the island was talking to me. Or at least mass transit was.

Maybe I shouldn't write so soon after watching Lost.

Like the nameplate isn't enough

I have several pet peeves when it comes to cars, and I won't elaborate on them all now, but my rock-solid top five breaks down to: use of hand-held cell phones, not using turn signals, not knowing how to drive/park your gas-guzzling SUV, litering (particularly cigarette butts) and not letting me merge.

On the B list are things like buying ugly cars (I'm looking at you, Aztek), tricking out Honda Civics and stupid vanity license plates. I saw one of the latter the other day while waiting for the bus. I tend to see at least two of my top five everyday while waiting for the bus. Anyway, a balding man pulls up to the traffic light in his Midlife Mobile, a Porsche convertible, with the following license plate: PORSSHA. New York, of course.

Dude, really? Like we can't tell what you're driving without looking at it? Of course, he goes the pompus extra mile by giving us all a lesson in phonics. Whatever, dude.

I'll drink to that

It's been a good week for socializing. On Wednesday, despite having to come to work in the rain -- standing at the bus stop was not a particularly dry experience -- and having the Mets game postponed until tonight, I still got home around the same time I would have otherwise. Sure, I left work earlier, just after midnight, but instead of heading straight home, I took two co-workers up on an offer to join them for a few drinks.

It wasn't just the pints of Yuengling or the talk of music, baseball and Cory Lidle that made it worthwhile, but it was the whole experience. I turned to one of the guys sometime after 3 a.m. and said, "This is the first time I've been out with coworkers to shoot the shit since I worked at the newspaper four years ago." Unbelievable, but true. The few times I'd gone out for a drink when I worked at the magazine it was for someone's send-off drinks -- and in one instance, my own. With the offices in New Jersey -- as well as my home -- and most of the other employees living in Manhattan, I didn't often partake in those after-work invitations to meet up at a pub.

So finding open bars between midnight and 4 a.m. in midtown New York on the East Side -- 30 blocks below where Lidle's plane crashed -- was at times a difficult process, but we found two and knocked a few back until the wee hours, then went our separate ways to sleep away the morning.

As for today, I caught up with a college friend who e-mailed last night only hours before she and her fiance got on a plane for New York. Met them at Rockefeller Center, then we walked down to the library to gawk at the design of the building and escape the biting wind whipping through the New York canyons. A drink before work and talk of what they should do while here took us up to my departure time, but we'll probably catch up again before they head north on Wednesday.

Boy, not nearly as involved and interesting as I'd planned to make such otherwise mundane events sound, but I'm still a little weary from the extremely late nights and an afternoon strolling around Manhattan. I'll be OK; I have a couple days off in a week.

At dusk in New York

I wasn't sure if it was because of the five hours' sleep I got last night or the surreal feeling I had riding the subway to work at 6:30 p.m. -- me heading into the office while just about everyone else in the car was heading home -- but I sat down at my desk and looked at the "America: The Book" daily calendar on my desk.

OCTOBER 06 it read in the upper right-hand corner. TUESDAY it said in the lower right.

I stared at it for a good 20, 30 seconds. I tried to remember what day it was on my own, thinking back to the schedule of the Mets-Dodgers National League Division Series. Didn't they play on Wednesday and Thursday? I thought. Today's Friday, isn't it? Finally, I picked up the calendar to flip the page, thinking I'd somehow neglected to turn it in three days, even though I was sure I had last night -- actually, 4:30 a.m. today -- before heading home. "Saturday," it said. Phew.

But here I am, hoping for a smooth, even quick night at the office. The walk down 15th Street was strange in the twilight, the flag atop the building spotlighted as I'd remembered it back in February when I first came here. Earlier, on the bus, we'd waited on the ramp into Port Authority because of the usual evening congestion and I gazed out the window at 9th Avenue below us, the river of red tail lights seeming brighter, clearer crisper on this cold autumn evening.

Walking to work in the winter won't be as fun as it has been this summer -- even on those stupidly hot days -- because of the decrease in gawkers. It's guaranteed in New York that if you're walking behind a good-looking woman, at least two-thirds of the men who pass you heading the other way will check her out. you can spot them as they approach, casting sideways glances without her noticing. If you're far enough behind her, you can catch them getting a look at her from behind, too.

And I won't see the pair of commuters -- car-poolers, or, more accurately, bike-poolers -- that I saw yesterday on 9th Avenue. As I stood on the corner waiting to cross, a gray-haired man in a suit rode his bike down the middle of the avenue, his backpack wrapped around the front, between his arms and the handlebars.

Only, it wasn't a backpack. It was a harness, a harness holding a dachsund, a dachsund staring intently ahead, enjoying the wind in his face, his front paws dangling from the openings in the harness.

That's a sight that will bring a smile every time.