It's the eye of the tiger, cream of the fight...

"Let me tell you something you already know.  The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows.  It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to you knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.  You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.  But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward.  How much you can take, and keep moving forward.  That's how winning is done.  Now if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth.  But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you are because of him, or her, or anybody.  Cowards do that and that ain't you.  You're better than that!"

 - Rocky Balboa

The traveling month continues, as my running buddies and I road trip over to Pennsylvania, where I will be celebrating my 25th birthday running the Philly Half Marathon tomorrow.  One month until the Cali marathon that all of this preparation has been building up to, one month until the real deal, the true test...

Take me home tonight....

They can tear down Ogg and University Square, close Yummy Buffet and Laundry 101, but Brothers holds more memories for me than any other Madtown bar.  I cried a little when I saw this.

University will take over Brothers for new theater

Here's to FAC and the 610, the dance parties and all the priceless memories.

because you never know where your life is going to take you and you can't change where you've been....

What I will miss...

Chelsea. The fun office. Naptime on the beanbags. Dance parties. Christmas parties. Poker nights. Turning off the internets because it was time for Happy Hour. Naouuuuuuuuuufel. Lunch from Paul's sushi place. Billy's cupcakes. Waldy's. The dart gun. The marker board. The LeBron bobblehead. Care packages from Cleveland. The laughter. The inside jokes. Star stickers all over the office. Cookies from the Netherlands. Creative work at Gizzi's with CC. Rogue. Emails from my trainees that made my day. Extended lunch breaks at the Shake Shack. Working with some of the best friends I've ever had.

ciao.

Seven years later, and the World Trade Center site still looks like a construction project put on hold in the heart of the Financial District.  The latest designs for a memorial were unveiled yesterday.  The Memorial plaza is set to open in 2011, the museum a year later.

"Because 9/11 was so much a lived experience...[visitors] will bring their own interpretations to the site.  And that's very powerful."

- NYTimes

Beantown highlights...

Syd and I hit the road, driving through the northeast, a beautiful region of the country which I have not yet explored nearly to the extent that I would like.  The one and only time I was in Boston before was a cold, rainy winter day that did not do the city justice at all.  While NY is still much more my scene, I did find Beantown charming.  

Catching up with some old friends brought me back to the heart of what @ has always been for me - amazing, truly incredible people.  There are no words to describe the friendships that I have formed through the org over the past few years, and after everything that has transpired over the past couple months, it's reassuring to know that they will far outlast our short time in the org itself.

pig heart at the mediocre restaurant in chinatown... disappointing. tasted more like cold cuts.

travel buddies!!

oh, and another highlight of the trip - lunch at GOOGLE.  yes, I'm a dork.

but I look at you, warm in your dream...

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.  

Sure, we know that the Declaration of Independence tells us that we are entitled to all of these things, but good luck finding the third one.  You are only entitled to the pursuit of happiness, not necessarily the discovery.  Most human beings seem to have a remarkably difficult time figuring out just how to grab onto this notion of happiness.  We live in a world where the media is filled with "unhappy" news, we often make decisions that we know will not bring happiness to ourselves or others, yet we continue to claim that we just want to be happy.

So, what is happiness?  Go ahead, try to define it.  Not as easy as it sounds.  We are usually better at identifying when we are happy than explaining what exactly the emotion is.  For years, I have known that traveling inherently makes me happy.  Possibly happier than anything else.  This is not to say that it is easy or that every moment of traveling is positive, but you get my point.  

Living in a country that many consider to be amongst the happiest in the world, a sentiment felt by natives as well as expats, I spent a year contemplating the seeming discontinuity between the level of happiness that obviously existed in what many outsiders consider to be such a violent country.  It didn't matter.  Despite the history of violence and inequality, Colombian people had somehow managed to discover the secret to happiness that eludes so many.  What is it about certain countries/cultures that seems to generate this contagious feeling of happiness?  

I just finished reading The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World, which is what triggered these thoughts.  The author never made it to Colombia, or any of Latin America, in his travels, but I guess in all fairness, that would have ended his experiment prematurely, as he would have found exactly what he was looking for without collecting nearly enough data for an entire book...  

Is that what all of us nomads are ultimately in search of, as we hit the road, traveling to unchartered lands, untrodden destinations, seeking adventure, knowledge, enlightenment?  Do we derive pleasure from being constantly on the move, life never becoming stagnant, the unpredictability of what is around the next corner?  Or are we all searching for our own "happiest place in the world"?  Will the true nomad ever be satisfied with what he finds?

I've never wanted something rational...

Whenever things in my life seem to be falling apart, the only answer is to escape.  Travel seems to cure all worries and stress, allows me to find the balance that has been missing in my life.  These adventures usually tend to lead me across the sea to foreign lands, but this time I'm going to be taking advantage of my time off to explore my own country.  The next few weeks will include some quality time with a few very dear friends, hanging out in some cities that I am well overdue for a visit.  

Destination numero uno: BOSTON.

Let the road trips begin.

running, running, as fast as we can...

I ran with the entire world last night.  Running in New York is unique.  Running with the rest of the globe is a once in a lifetime experience.

More than one million runners lined up from Melbourne to Moscow to Johannesburg to Vancouver.  2,964,921 miles were covered.  We ran around the equator of the earth nearly 120 times.

As we lined up behind the shotgun on Randall Island, athletes were lining up in Asia, in Shanghai and Singapore, Seoul and Taipai.  My shoes hit the pavement in sync with those in Mexico City and Montevideo.  

We pushed the hills, that can't even begin to compare to the inclines in Quito and Mt. Fuji.  From Warsaw to Madrid, Rome to London, Istanbul to Munich, European runners clocked their 10k bests.  

As the time zones past from the East Coast to the West, thousands crossed the finish line in NYC, then Chicago and Austin, finally Portland and LA.  South of the equator, thousands ran through the metropolises of Caracas, Sao Paolo, Lima, and Buenos Aires.  I smiled a little more, thinking of those running in my other homes - Bogota and Paris.  

The average finishing time for New York was 1:02:04.  I clocked in at 1:04:41.  I am a New York runner.

Nike runners, we made history today.  We were part of something bigger, a Human Race, a global community of athletes that doesn't require record breaking Olympic times.  I've never been so inspired by a race as I was last night, amidst the sea of red.  I have never had so much energy crossing the finish line as I waved to the cameras.  The post-race concert concluded with fireworks - a fitting finale to an international celebration.