The CrossFit difference, after just a month...

As of tomorrow, I'll have spent a month doing serious, regular CrossFit workouts.  It's part Tough Mudder training, part challenge, and part experiment.  My story won't ever be as dramatic as some.  But I have already hit some accomplishments I'm pretty proud of.

The Modern (Gentle)Man

For someone who doesn't buy into TV shows until they've proven to be worthwhile, I was uncharacteristically intrigued by How to Be a Gentleman.  Maybe it was partly a residual affection for Johnny Drama.  But mostly, I was drawn by the promise (well, possibility) of a new look at classic questions of what makes a man -- something I've pondered far before it became a fad with this television season.

Our Indoor Future

Today, events transpired to keep me in the office all day.  Apparently I missed quite a rainstorm.  But, upon reaching the bottom of the stairs of the 23rd St. subway stop, I looked up and was surprised to see a square of beautiful blue sky.

I'll leave it to someone much more talented, with much more money invested in their photographic equipment, to capture the image (just wish it was in color):

When You Gamble... And Lose

It's a dark era for online poker.  Its legality has been under fire for years.  And it turns out that the card-sharks-turned-entrepreneurs willing to circumvent the law and financial interdiction may not have been the most trustworthy of characters after all.  The Justice Department came out firing last week, branding Full Tilt Poker - by my reckoning, the best-known, most mainstream online poker site - a fun but still fraudulent Ponzi scheme.

Memories of Illyria

This last weekend I had the pleasure of seeing the Brown Box Theatre Project's rendition of Twelfth Night.  I don't have much to add to the already positive reviews; enjoyed the play immensely, laughed out loud, thought it was very well done -- acting (as far as I'm qualified to judge), costumes and sets, even the few instances of stage fighting.  Much more fun than reading Shakespeare for English class.

A Small Tribute

Ten years ago yesterday started as a typical fall day for me, early in my senior year of high school.  We first heard the news about the attacks on the World Trade Center in Mrs. Weissberg's English class, I think.  I remember it being confusing and shocking, but not quite scary.  It wasn't real at that point, not until we watched the towers come down in a plume of dust in NRHS' smokestack area.

Rumblings...

There I was at work, minding my own business, when I felt a wobbling in my desk chair.  I immediately dropped all of the important things I was doing to assess.  Seconds later, I felt the same, barely-perceptible shaking in... what?  My chair?  The floor?  My ass?

Shortly thereafter, coworkers, with the help of Twitter, confirmed that, yes, after apparently sleeping through seismic activity in two different hemispheres in my youth, I had experienced my first earthquake.