Dash Simon Says

hurricane suspense

2011-08-28T00:04:00.004-04:00

It is almost midnight saturday night and new york city is a ghost city. just got in from walking Hiro and all there is out there is rain, gentle rain, no winds, no hurricane...then I go to all sorts of websites and see the image of a swirling weather condition approaching us. i must admit, i am a bit scared. it is scary. it is scary to come to my building and all the front entrance windows and doors are taped and i buzz the service entrance door and they let me in.

i was late to the game of hoarding. having worked late yesterday and being away all week last week, all i could do was to fill the water bottles yesterday night. everyone has their priorities. mine is running as always. although i was feeling crap tired from the intense work schedule and little sleep of last two weeks, i still prioritized getting my run in before the storm hits rather than going and buying groceries this morning.

after running 11 miles in the first stuffy humid then rainy central park, having run into my friend matt right at the end of his long run put an end to the misery of my long run. i just simply couldn't continue. i was out of breathe and needed an excuse to quit. hence i cut my long run short, went to matt and glenn's apartment on uws, after quenching my dehydration with 2 glasses of water and a diet coke and crunching some crackers, i borrowed money and dry clothes from them and bought a week's worth of groceries at the last open supermarket around the corner from their apartment. i was going to go to fairway, but some passing-by girls warned me: "fairway is closed!"

after filling 7 bags of groceries with the borrowed money and a short cab ride later, i was home by 2pm. now my fridge looks scary as well. it's full. that never happens for a traveling consultant with a nocturnal eating habit. as i said, this is a scary night.

so, here i log the feelings of the night before Irene hits nyc. let's see what's in that suspense for us. Hiro is asleep and I know I must sleep at some point. just scared to be woken up by some wild wind banging on the windows...

9th year anniversary in New York City

2011-08-06T19:00:00.002-04:00

August 6 2002 was when I moved to the city. Or August 5th. I can't remember which of the two days it was. In any ways it has been 9 years. One more year, it will be a decade and I will have spent my 30s in this city. What a transformation...

From naivete to optimistic jadedness

From phd student to management consultant

From upper east side to hells kitchen

From no Hiro to a life with Hiro

From hopeless romantic to warm-hearted skeptic

From budgeting for weekly meals to relentless savings for a house with a garden

From recreational runner to obsessive marathon runner

From a heavy accent to slightly heavy accent

I can go on forever. Life is good. Happy anniversary!

A Good Start to Marathon Trilogy - San Francisco

2011-08-02T22:47:00.009-04:00

I can safely say that I didn't expect to do super well in the San Francisco Marathon on July 31st. This was the first marathon of the three in my series for the next six months. The other two are NYC in November and Houston in January, where I will attempt to seriously qualify for the Boston Marathon. The goal for NYC is 3 hours 20 minutes and the goal for Houston is 3 hours 15 minutes.

As for San Francisco, I didn't really put in the intensity of mileage and longer long runs until t minus seven weeks of the marathon. Madrid Marathon in April was a fiasco with a DNF, and then the heat of NYC summer made it really difficult to push it hard. When I started pushing it hard I started having mild pain in both of my heels and also my lower back issues started appearing. So, I was attempting to run a 3hrs 30-35 mins marathon in this hilly course.

Somehow Sf Marathon day turned out to be a great day. It was hilly, but the weather was great. Overcast and not warm. It could have been cooler, but still it wasn't warm. It was in the lower sixties I am guessing and I was a sweat ball as usual when I finished.

I started conservatively and stayed in the race as the miles kept going. I was ~860th according to mile 7.4 time check and finished the marathon 361th gradually putting it in a higher gear and passing about 10% of the field on the way. There were about 6,000 finishers in the end. I must say the pleasure of passing people in the 2nd half of the race is so priceless.

Here are my splits for fun from my watch (so they won't exactly match the official splits). Irregularities are due to the hills (down n' up):

8:13, 8:19, 8:19, 7:50, 8:00, 8:20, 7:32 [Golden Gate Bridge downhill], 7:34, 7: 34, 7:42, 7:20, 8:04, 7:52, 7: 23, 7:50, 8:01, 7:53, 7:37, 7:37, 7:37, 7:56, 7:13, 7:48, 7:58, 8:18, 7:42, 1:35 (7:14 pace for last .2)

My Garmin showed 26.5 miles so there will be some irregularities. Mile 25 was a bit off my pace, but other wise I had a good ryhtm and 1min 32 seconds faster 2nd half compared to first half.

Overall finished in 3:25:22 a PR by 37 seconds. Here is the official site with pictures and real splits. Shout out to Miss Audra Farrell for the morale boost and hugs and cheers at mile 22. When I look back what helped me do well, I can think of four factors, two of which related to training and the other two related to running the marathon:

Training: First of all, I cross-trained by biking once a week and running four times a week, not pushing weekly running mileage too high but getting in a quality long run and a quality hill work out almost every week. Secondly, I stepped back when I felt the signs of over-training. Thirdly, in the race, I listened to my heart rate, I slowed down immediately when I felt labor in my breathing. Last of all, I stayed in it mentally. when I was really tired miles 23 to the finish, I slowed down a bit but I stayed in the game. It was mental at that point. I need to now rinse and repeat 2x more.

And here is my finisher photo, second before I cross finish line:

How to make money doing what you like to do

2011-07-20T13:44:00.007-04:00

My job as a Digital Marketing consultant requires me to follow the new news in the Digital world. Hence, I read some aggregator newsletters to keep up to date with the new technologies and new marketing events. Yesterday and today was a feast of discoveries of new digital propositions that can inspire you to do your dream job - doing what you like and make money from that...

One offer is from a very big and old company that is very intriguing. I am not sure I can do this myself but somehow made me like what I do more when I heard about AMEX's social deals platform launch. The platform has two new components: "Go Social" for merchants and "Link, Like, Love" for Consumers. These two components add to teh previously launched FourSquare and AMEX partnership and AMEX's offer to small businesses to use membership points to buy Facebook ads. Now these are big steps for AMEX to claim that they are indeed a social currency.

Here, you can read about the details of what AMEX did. The deals platform is a game changer, because it connects the consumer and the merchants through a platform that operates on a technology where everything is automated. On "Go Social," as small merchants "claim" their stores on Facebook Places, AMEX gives them an app to create and push out offers to its cardmembers who check-in at those locations. On the consumer side, consumers can also have access to offers from larger companies, by just liking the new "Link, Like, Love" page of AMEX facebook page and then once they add offers to their baskets all they need to do is go and use their AMEX cards at those companies and they will get the offer fulfilled automatically. More detailed explanation is here.

The AMEX news were really exciting, but it is not something that I can go and do it myself. So how can a professional who knows a bit about Digital Marketing can make a living doing what he likes. Today I discovered an examplar story of a professional who does that. This person who works a recruiter at Google also owns and operates an e-commerce site with her dog: The site is called toys4tails. It offers subscription toy service for your most favorite pet - your dog! I subscribed to this service already to receive one toy a month for Hiro for the next 6 months. I selected a few toys that Hiro might like and can't wait to be surprised by the toys as they arrive on a monthly surprise delivery schedule.

I don't know how much revenue toys4tails brings but what a cute business proposition. Furthermore, she does it as a side job.

Now, all I need to think about is what I want to sell online. These days having a storefront set up on the web is easier than ever. I can use Google self-operated tools and this blog for marketing and use a site like Shopify to create a store front and Google Checkout for payments. I just need to find my "cute" idea. What am I going to sell?

Can Hiro be an independent dog?

2011-07-05T22:42:00.006-04:00

He just turned 2.5 years old and he becomes more needy every day. He needs to touch and be petted nonstop. The situation is even worse with my friends who he stays with, because since he doesn't treat most of my friends as alpha males as he does treat me, so he demands affection and attention in the rudest ways. He stays with Vicky every now and then and he prisons poor girl. He wakes her up at 6am in the morning with a paw poke or tap on the face. He demands attention as soon as sun rises. Vicky sits on the couch working on her laptop, he again taps her with his paw until she turns attention to him. He sometimes doesn't even tap and ask permission. He goes and sits on Vicky's lap on top of her laptop.

The situation is similar with me. The moment I finish eating my dinner he is on my lap and doesn't get satiated with padding at all. I don't mind padding him but his nonstop licking me back becomes annoying after a few minutes.

We used to play fetch and that game even became torturous because he fetches but doesn't bring the toy back. I need to go and get it to continue playing fetch.

I understand he spends so much alone time at home when I am at work and out and about, but I don't know what to do. I am thinking he needs to start going to a dog spa during the day rather than just the lunch time walk. He runs with me once a week and he gets four walks a day, but that's not enough. I think this breed, miniature schnauzers are not good fit for single people who spend more time outside home than at home like me. They need much more constant attention than I can give to him.

Doggie spa will be my solution. I am even thinking of sending him a doggie farm when I am traveling extensively for work. Life is tough, but not for Hiro. Or is it?

Last minute trip to ptwon didn't work, but...

2011-06-20T14:28:00.005-04:00

...I found two very useful resources for future trips.

visitptown.com is a site that lists a bunch of good quality inns and shows their availability very easily

also ptown.org shows the last minute availability (2 week window) of all motels and inns in town

Please note that almost all Inns in provincetown require 4-5 night minimum stays. So you need to still call them even if you see a date available, they may not be.

Now Vasco and I need to formulate another short trip plan for July 4th this year!

Chantix

2011-06-19T20:03:00.002-04:00

I started taking Chantix today for cigarette cessation. I think it is working. I smoked a cigarette at 2pm and then I took the first Chantix. An hour later I had this big nausea and I felt like I was going to faint but it quickly passed and nausea retreated to a manageable level. Now 7 hours later I am fine. The single thought in my mind is whether I should smoke and the answer is a big "I don't feel like smoking now, maybe later..." I am sitting in front of a pack of cigarettes as I type this and all I feel is a huge disgust of cigarettes. I must admit if this is what this medicine does, it is a miracle!

On a good note, my cessation coincides with a peak in my training for SF marathon which is in short 6 weeks. I finally did my first real long run of 18.5 miles. I peaked my weekly mileage of running to 41 miles and also managed to get a 21 mile bike ride in this week. All is good.

I shall report from Chantix-land later again!

Chorizo, Madrid Marathon and a DNF

2011-04-18T18:44:00.009-04:00

DNF is did not finish, in case some of my non-runner friends don't know what it stands for.

I rarely run a race and don't remember much after. My friends Alex, Daniel and mAnja, who had also run this race were comparing war stories from the race after they all finished, and I barely remember any of the landmark buildings on the course they were mentioning. Then today I was given a car ride of the city. My tour guide was pointing at all the landmark buildings during the car ride and all I could notice was the blue line on the road he was driving. He drove through all the big sightings of the city and he showed me all the sites. When I asked him whether he took this route because he knew that I ran the marathon, he said no. He even had no idea what a blue line was for. That's the line that marks the marathon course!

Yes, the organizers of the Madrid Marathon had picked a course that showcased all the major landmarks of their city. Little they knew that a 9am start marathon with temperatures past 70F at km 35 with a constant climb of last 10-11 kilometers would break down this lost soul who slept only 3 hours the night before the marathon due to jetlag and stuffed himself with a continental breakfast at the elite Westin Palace Hotel that morning. The result my friends was a supernova nausea that started as we started running under the blistering heat at around 25km mark. As I passed the 28km mark on pace for 3:30 finish, all I could sense was the taste and smell of the chorizo from the breakfast and I wasn't certain whether I was going to be able to hold those 3 pieces of mini chorizos in until the finish.

There were barely any port-a-potties on the course, so I followed pursuit with my Spanish fellow runners. When I stopped to pee in casa di campo behind the bushes, I noticed I was losing every ounce of liquid in me through my famous sprinkle sweat that had turned to a string of water dripping off the edge of my red cap that was fashionably chosen to match my new red sneakers. Fashion wasn't going to help me in this one. At km 29 the battery of my garmin died and that was a sign from the gods that the end had just begun. I ran the next 4-5 kms desperately looking for a clock by the km-markers but there was none. Hence I kept on yelling to spectators "que hora es" - quickly translating the responses in my head with my broken spanish I was able to piece together that I was on par for 3:35 ish at km 32, but then the hills started...

Those or better yet that non-ending hill, as Alex had described: "what was that hill at the end?!" Yes it was a 10-11km climb with almost no breaks and multiple turns which opened the scene for a new section of da Hill. Alex had passed me bouncing like a bambi at km 36 ish. Those legs are built for long distance and hills. But not mine... I was able to walk-run until kilometer 40.5, but you know when your mouth gets dry at the side of your cheeks and the saliva comes as a signal that you must pull aside and find a secure spot to privately throw that chorizo out. When that gush of vomit came out, I hesitated for a few meters whether I should go on or stop. Soon after, I took a 90 degree left turn off the course and in 5 minutes I was at our carefully selected hotel right next to the Retiro Park where I was supposed to "arrive to the glory" - as the Marathon organizers described the finish line of the marathon.

What could have been a decent 3:30 marathon under my belt is a big blanket of gloom. The only thing that pushes me forward is the support of friends (esp. Liz Hines) and the prospect of "rising from my ashes as the Phoenix" as Kerstin describes it. I am additionally awed and inspired by my amazing friends who finished strong in Boston, Madrid and London marathons this weekend. The new (unofficial) world marathon record from Boston Marathon today is also a sign that impossible is possible.

So get ready the hills of San Francisco Marathon. I have a big rendezvous with you on July 31, 2011.

Bing Maps

2011-04-06T23:52:00.003-04:00

Bing maps started popping up at 3 places as far as I can casually observe. 1- When people check in to places with location-based programs (facebook, foursquare, etc) 2- When people send an invite on facebook and specify a location / address for the event 3- When I log my runs on GarminConnect. Obviously this is a sign that Bing is trying to expand its map product's usage through some strategic partnerships. Will it work? Maybe. Am I happy as a consumer? Hell no! Because I don't like the Bing map interface. Those maps looks as if they are hand-drawn. Can I have my Google maps back?

With a marketer's hat on, I am intrigued that the map product is something publishers buy from big search engines or specialty players. Like buying a computer with an Intel chip inside, or buying a bike with Kevlar tires on. Instead you use web pages with branded map products placed-in. Just like you see Google or Bing search boxes placed on many webpages.

are we crazy?

2011-03-16T22:37:00.005-04:00

I took a new job last week. I only took one day in between jobs. My biggest concern in my job change that I had to go to Spain April 15-24 as I had planned to run Madrid Marathon. Yes, I will. I managed to get my new boss agree.

After 3 intense days at the new job last week, I ran 20 miles on saturday and 5+ with Hiro on sunday logging 43 miles in a week and peaking my weekly mileage for this spring marathon training. Monday, I woke up at 4.30AM and went to DC for work. Tuesday I woke up at 5.30AM and returned to NYC and directly went to work from the train station. Tuesday I went to armory for speed work and my body cried out loud: "stop!" I couldn't finish the 5th of the 5 x 1 mile repeats.

Today, I came home at 8pm from work and went for a tempo run of 9 miles and it felt great. I am tired, but I feel great. I log online and see all the spring blossoms of status updates of other crazies of this world. Mikey B. who was in bed sick yesterday says "Nothing clears away a cold like a nice tempo fun run in the park.." and thanks Dave Lin. Dave Lin, who had a very intense work out at the Armory yesterday and a half marathon PR only 3 days ago, and a multi-sport work out the same evening, responds: "Glad I could help! Hope this mean you can race on Friday! :-)"

I say "Jesus Christ!" Then I read Herr Erpenbeck's status: "Nothing better than a run in the park to clear your head of this stupid day." and 7 people like that. I think we are crazy.

Before I take Hiro to his before-bed walk, I read my biking emails from Tim Guscott who is shopping for a new road bike on E-bay. I count the number of teeth in my chainring for him and email him the inscription on my chainring. He and I are going to change the worn out chain ring! Only a week after we changed the tired that blew out last week!

I glance at the facebook ads that are targeted at me and I think I don't need a mirror. Yes, I am an athlete. I am a crazy person too. This is like a second job. I never had a 9-5pm job and will never do. But I keep on going. If I stop to think, I may stop. Onward crazies!

New York

2011-02-18T08:23:00.002-05:00

I saw Angels in America part 2 yesterday night. In the play, many characters have imaginations, dreams, and visions. The main dream is where a very sick young gay man sees dreams, or perhaps visions of a giant angle.

I saw the play's part 2 (3.5 good hours,) I came back home and went to sleep. I woke up and all I think now, 5 minutes after I woke up, is that I had a night full of dreams. I don't remember anything from these dreams. Just one thing. New York. Somehow I dreamt New York.

I look out from bedroom window as I type this note and I see Empire State Building. I am already in New York. It is not a dream. So then what did I dream about?

Good morning!

Blur

2011-02-08T00:03:00.003-05:00

Life is a big blur in 2011 so far. I have so many planes up in the air that when the time to land them comes I might need some professional help.

Today I described myself to a bunch of work colleagues at a chat in front of the office mailboxes as "desperately single." The only plane that is not up is the love plane. Funny that reminds me of the TV series from my childhood: "Love Boat!"

When I came out 8.5 years ago I have thought that I would never have to spend Valentine's Day single again, but sadly I have spent every Valentine's Day of my life single. Last year was extra special on the V-day. I spent the night with Hiro and Olive! This year, I am going to Spanish Consulate for my tourist visa application.

Yes, life is a blur, such a big blur that it erased romance out of the overload of events. I am ok with the blurry Q1. I decided that I will let this winter go by in this blur and then take control of this random flow of overbooked schedule and commitments by April!

Hanging in there!

Michael and Sad Gloves

2011-01-17T11:15:00.005-05:00

I am blessed by seven Micheals in my life. One of them is Michael Cavaliere. He is a random spirit and enjoys randomness in humanly digestable doses. His love of random includes taking random pictures. This winter he latched on a really interesting story - the photo story of single gloves. I find this very insightful. He really unveiled a common human mishap and made a citizens journalism story out of it.

Michael Cavaliere takes pictures of single pair gloves and posts them on facebook. These gloves are lost by their owners. They are forever separated from their other half and hence rendered totally useless. What use is a single glove unless you have one hand? Michael interprets the scene "sad." I kind of agree, the scene of a single glove is sad. It is not only sad because the pair are forever separated, but it is sad because we have so many New Yorkers who don't even realize that they only have glove on only one hand and walk away just like that.

I understand the gloves that are forgotten in subway cars, in movie theaters, in any such place that it is natural to take gloves off and drop one of them, but man!! how can you not realize a glove that is not on your hand on the street.

I dropped a glove today as I was cleaning after Olive, I walked ten steps while I was tying the poop bag and when I was ready to put my glove on I realized I had dropped it as I was sweeping the horse poop off the sidewalk. I turned around walked ten steps back and picked it up! Then I immediately thought about the story of all the other sad gloves in New York City and all around the world. All winter long, so many gloves are separated from their significant others.

The loss of a glove is the manifestation of unwanted losses. It is a story that is worth capturing. Hence I help seal it in time with this story as Michael inspires others to accumulate picture inventories of the lost gloves.

why can't companies speak human?

2011-01-15T16:54:00.005-05:00

Some advertising messages and some service conversations make me nauseated. Like the ones where you call your credit card company for a problem and they try to seel you a totally irrelevant product or feature. Or sometimes simply you can't hang up the phone with a call center because you are too polite to break the heart of the fragile voice across the phone asking you whether she can help you with anything else 3x before she hangs up eventually.

and then there are the advertising campaigns that they think they have captured the contemporary language of Gen Y but they are being totally off or sometime plane rude or retardish. Like the pepsi campaign that launched last year. I couldn't stand seeing all those "YO" "WTF" big font acronym ads on the billboards from Pepsi.

The use of non-human language is not only in advertising messages. It is also sometimes in our day to day business interactions. Sometimes I go to meetings and I watch people totally speak over each other without ever landing on a same plane. They are too scared to touch a sensitive topic or confront each other and they speak around and over and under the central topic over and over again. A friend of mine was telling me how the top strategic thinkers in his company met a few weeks ago to define how can they work together better and all they did was to define what "insight" meant in an hour long meeting!

My first love of any marketer was Google and I believe Google speaks human, as a company and as an advertiser. When something goes wrong when I am trying to load a page on gmail Google says "oops, something went wrong!" That is exactly what a human would say at that moment.

My dream is to build a giant machine that says the right thing all the time. It is like the best advertising and corporate speak robot ever. It totally gets what a person feels, thinks and totally comprehends where in the conversation the person is and responds with something that is 100% relevant. When I do that, I will retire!

still a semi-smoker

2011-01-09T21:44:00.003-05:00

this week has been a complete success of no smoking until friday midnight. I ended up smoking 2 cigarettes on each of the 3 weekend nights all after 9pm :-( So, it proves that I need stronger will power at late hours especially if I had wine with dinner. On the bright side, I haven't smoked on any of the 5 week days.

New week, new attempt. This week, I will have to beat the performance of last week. No cigarettes. Come on, I can do it. I already see myself getting faster while running. That should keep me focused. I also need to find a way of controlling the junk food intake. If I put on one more ppound I will not be able to fit into my engineered-to-fit clothing!

On the other bright side of new year's resolutions, I managed to get rid of most of the clutter in my apartment. apartment beautification project should help get my mind off smoking too.

I can do it! I can do it!

resolutions 2011

2011-01-03T20:39:00.004-05:00

Day 3 of my resolution of cigarette cessation. It is Jan 3rd 8:37pm. I said it is my last cigarette when I put out a cigarette in San Juan 8pm Dec 31st. but no it wasn't my last cigarette. As I got drunker and drunker on NYE at San Juan, I kept on smoking cigarettes.

The real attempt started when I arrived in NYC 6pm on Jan 1st. I was a good boy until after midnight on Jan 1st. I didn't smoke for 6 hours of my arrival to NYC from San Juan. Then I gave in and chain smoked two cigarettes right after midnight.

Jan 2nd was even better progress. I lit up 3 cigarettes and only smoked one. I managed to put out the first two cigarettes I lit u, but at 11pm, I have in and smoked the 3rd cigarette I lit up. Jan 2nd was an extra difficult day, because it was sunday and I had spent most of it by myself. So I had plenty of time to convince myself to smoke that cigarette.

Today is monday; jan 3rd. I usually smoke one cigarette during weekdays - that is when I am walking to work in the morning. So, not having smoken any cigarettes during the day is no victory. The challenge started two hours ago - alone night hours. However, I am fully equipped and I am fighting. I bought mixed nuts and caffeine-free diet coke. Those have been holding me back so far. Today is a rest day so I am not running. However, I need to find a way to keep busy. In an attempt to keep myself busy I just put a banana-carrot-white chocolate-walnut bread in the owen. It took a while to prepare that. That will be my dinner. I will eat a few slices with tea. I have 1.5 good movies on DVD. That's all of my ammunition against the nicotine cravings: bread in the owen, mixed nuts, caffeine-free diet coke and movies on DVD.

More than the nicotine cravings, the lack of a real immediate reason to quit smoking is the real challenge. Something that can anchor me every time I have the cravings. I guess this time around I am quitting for myself. The fact that it is a big challenge is my most prominent anchor against the cravings. Achieving something very important and very challenging had always motivated me. And no, it is not easy at all. I read Allen Carr's easyway book. No sir. This is not easy. Quitting smoking is not easy. I do not want anybody else to think otherwise.

8:52pm. Another 15 minutes elapse until I will go to sleep without a cigarette. Come on now my dinner: Cook already!

E-newsletter

2010-12-03T15:57:00.004-05:00

This is an email of me trying to get off the FRNY e-Newsletter - a monthly email that I was the fairy god-mother to, As Alex had put it, and he calls that e-newsletter his ex-child.

And yes I am disowning it! Because when we launched the e-newsletter it served a purpose and was nice. In today's world more interesting FR content is readily available elsewhere, and why would i have to gulp massive amounts of duplicative stuff. it annoys me...

However, getting off it wasn't so easy! [below is copy-paste from my email to the president of Front Runners New York]

"..., the email beneath the FRNY newsletter is not working. I don't wish to receive the newsletter anymore, but constant contact doesn't have separate senders set up for the GRAM and the Newsletter or other communications, so when one wants to subscribe off the newsletter the only option is "wishing to receive no more emails from FRNY" which is not what I want.

A few recommendations:

1- You should update the email addy at the bottom of the newsletter with a working email address
2- Creating separate email sender addresses for different type of communications might help to individually unsubscribe from communications. Or you can create separate list for different communications
3- To increase the readability of the newsletter, you might consider:

Some random suggestions:
The content of the newsletter is duplicative of the website, but I understand that some people may prefer to get it in their email than to have to go to the website to read it. To make it a worthwhile communication for everyone, you can actually shorten content, improve layouts and provide links to the website for the full articles. This is what many organizations do. This way you can create ongoing engagement with your website. Also, in an age where majority of people read these emails on their blackberries / iPhones etc, short and sweet emails are the way to go. You should consider doing the same for the Gram by the way. There still would be a percent of people who would like to get the entire content in batch form (like current newsletter) - for those people you can create a pdf file that they can download from the website - print - and read.

Furthermore, newsletter readability rates are found to increase a lot,
when the reader can see all the content in one or two scrolls down (so not a lengthy scroll down of several pages)
if newsletter publishes some sort of flash news, so it is "newsworthy" as the name implies
if newsletter acts as a gateway / reason to drive people to higher engagement places (like website or our facebook page)
if newsletter provides a recap of all media sources (like a recap of FRNY related facebook chatter)
if the newsletter has less of monolithic single-author content but is more dynamic and short and sweet but many stories - can again be achieved with a balance of monthly columns vs. changing content.
if the newsletter has less novel-like long articles and more pictures-linked stories..."

this blog is turning to an aerobic running diary

2010-11-27T12:17:00.006-05:00

Well, record-keeping is not a bad habit at all. What better place than this little webby corner of mine to hoard my baselines at this new running venture. Today it was a 2 hour run. The course was loops of Central Park. Kieran was nice enough to accompany me at this coldest running day of the season so far.

So in 2 hours, we ran 13.8 miles aerobically. That roughly corresponds to 8:40min/mile. This is faster than my two other runs this week. I don't think I am improving so fast. I was just more adamant about keeping the pace close to 147rpm and right under 147 rpm. I ran faster on the downhills where the heart rate drops incredibly fast. With the accelerated downhills average pace came down.

I was able to keep this pace almost throughout the entire first 9 miles and I had to slow down going the uphills a bit in the miles 10 and after. But all the mile splits were within 8:30-8:56 band even towards the end no single mile slower than 9 mins and no walking. I say that is a good day!

Running aerobically - Baseline on the hills

2010-11-24T17:33:00.003-05:00

I ran a loop of Central Park in the opposite direction and plus 3 miles today from/back to home. That is total 9 miles of Maffetone at 140rpm in 1:20:22 (8:56 min/mile.) This was the hill baseline to add to the track baseline from yesterday. Interestingly the average pace is about the same. I suppose the downhills compensated for the slow downs of the uphills.

I write this down here in this web diary of mine so that I can make a comparison in a month and two months again!

The beginning of an aerobic period

2010-11-24T00:08:00.004-05:00

Today, I started a new training regimen with 3 other brave Front Runners - Alex, Darin, Jim McCarrick. I am not sure where this journey is going to take me but it already feels so interesting. As a PhD and a natural nerd I love experimenting and using my own self as the subject!

As Darin and I ran 5 miles on the Riverbank track, we were pulled back by an invisible force everytime we faced the wind or picked the pace a bit. The invisible hand had a very audible sound...the chirping of our Garmin watches that were connected to our heart rate monitors that were telling us that our heart rates reached to the aerobic limit, and we would have to slow down or we would start an anaerobic workout - god forbid! We would have to slow down or we would start burning carbohydrates instead of fat. We would have to slow down, or else.

And we ran and we ran. We ran for 5 miles or 20 laps, like little track runners in the summer olympics computer game I used to play on my commodore 64 computer as a 10 year old kid. I would go two steps ahead of Darin and then would hear the chirping and then slow down and then Darin would go ahead by two steps and he would be ceased by chirping.

This is our new training regimen that was first softly introduced to me my dear buddy Tim Guscott last summer when he went through a similar phase of 6 weeks of aerobic capacity building. This regimen is supposed to improve our aerobic work out abilities and reduce the heart rate we can run at a certain pace and eventually make us better endurance athletes. I am hell curious about the outcome. I will write about the experience more, probably! But for now the result of day 1 at a heart rate limit of 147 rpm is:
mile 1: 9:10 min/mile
mile 2: 9:12 min/mile
mile 3: 8:58 min/mile
mile 4: 8:59 min/mile
mile 5: 8:52 min/mile

Bring it on Dr. Phil Maffetone! And someone please tell me when will I see results and when am I supposed to race again!

No walking, no hypothermia, and a Marathon PR

2010-11-12T17:48:00.006-05:00

I ended up in the medical tent because of hypothermia in 3 of the 4 previous marathons I had run.
In all the marathons I have run before...
...I walked in the last few to 10 miles.
...I had positive splits
...I slowed down considerably towards the end / in the 2nd half

Furthermore, I cried during and after finishing because of emotional overload. That's the only thing that hasn't changed at my 5th marathon - NYC Marathon 2010. I burst into tears right after mile 24 when my friend Audra caught be off guard with a heartfelt and encouraging cheer when I was getting ready to walk a bit. And I burst into tears and I didn't walk. Instead I picked up my slowing down pace to 7:40 for the last two miles.

Overall result was 3:25:59 (new marathon PR) with a 7:52 min/mile pace and overall 4028th finish out of ~44 thousand finishers.

I am simply ecstatic. And yep, no hypothermia, no walking and a new concept of a negative splits marathon.

I ran the first 14 miles with my Front Runner friends - team 3:30 - a bunch of us aiming to finish around 3hrs 30 mins. That surely helped me to control my pace. It also helped me to get couraged by my friends when I parted them at mile 14 to pick up my pace to reach my goal of 3:25.

I had at least 6-7 friends cheering me on in the last most difficult miles of the Marathon. That surely helped too to prevent me from walking when all I wanted to do was to walk. After the race I compared my pace mile by mile to my pace in 2009 NYC Marathon to find out that I ran almost exactly the same pace in 2009 as in 2010 until mile 23, but after mile 23 I started walking in 2009 whereas I picked up my pace in 2010 which resulted in a 6 minute faster time.

I think I can now say that I understand this distance. I think I cracked the code, thanks to so many friends and my running team of Front Runners New York. The next race will tell whether I can put the learning into practice again. It has been a great year of distance running for me. As I aged to become 38, I did break my own personal records in both marathon and half-marathon distances. I have thought that wasn't at all possible, at least at the half-marathon distance. Time to set new goals now.

Personal Best

2010-10-19T16:26:00.002-04:00

I was reading the Personal Best column of NYC times and, this made me think of my recent half-marathon personal best. I did PR by 1.5 minutes in the half-marathon distance after 3.5 years of not even coming close to my PR except for one other race. I have to admit I had PR-ed on a pancake flat course and this course of Hudson-Mohawk River Half-Marathon was also pancake flat and even mildly downhill in the first few miles.

The weather was great, the course was easy, I had trained hard and really hard, I was rested, well-fed and carbo-loaded before the race and such, but still what pushed me to a new PR was that mental stamina that kept me on pace on most of the race at 6:50-7:10 band even though my right foot had fallen asleep starting at mile 9 and I was running on just mental stamina through miles 11-13.

There is something special about running a small race where running a 6:58 pace brings you a 23rd place finish whereas that would only bring you a 300th place finish in any NYC half-marathon race with thousands of entrants. I was with 4th and 5th place woman finishers from the 2nd mile on. Both of them were runners with personal coaches that followed us in the entire race and gave the ladies very specific instructions. Everytime I had doubted myself and wanted to fall back I didn't because I had to run with those ladies. It was my spontaneously decided mental plan to take advantage of an ideal day that could and did end with a PR. I had to stick to them and I did. One of them pulled ahead by dropping her pace by about 10 seconds a mile at around mile 9, but I was together with the 5th finisher girl until the very end. the 5th place finisher girl was first behind me but then she passed me at mile 10, but I was about 50 yards behind me all that time and I took my pace down to 6:40 a mile at mile 13 and caught up with her and passed here. As I passed her I told her come finish with me and she did. We finished within 1 second of each other.

I am not sure I would have stayed in that determined zone if I wasn't running with that girl. She was a perfect pacer for me. Not too fast to kill me but fast enough to push me to an uncomfortable but a PR-ed finish. I love it that the announcer at the finish says: "some girls are coming in!" as he sees me and my girl sprinting to the finish. You can watch that here!

I think I want to run more of these smaller field races in the surrounds of NYC so that I can test my limits and see what I am really made of. Oh yes, the new half-marathon PR I need to beat in some future time is 1:31:14! This will be a tough one to break.

Boston is so last year, Literally!

2010-10-18T22:13:00.004-04:00

It is because, Boston Marathon 2011 sold out within 8-10 hours of opening to registration today. So your qualifying time in some of the earlier Fall Marathons from last year will no longer get you to a Boston Marathon. My first response, shocking. Second response, annoyed for my friends who had qualified through years of hard work. Third response. I hope this is the beginning of a nice new era!

Among many comments on social media, the below exchange took place between two friends. Alex was being sarcastic but I think this is my prediction of what will end up happening in a few years.

Steve: "Irritated at the thought that the Boston Marathon filled up in a few hours. Feels like it's being a little less exclusive and it's losing some of the magic."Alex: "Yea, Boston is last year, I think you should go straight for the Ironman"
...
...
Steve: "Alex, I'm doing a 250 km foot race through the Chilean Atacama Desert instead."

If once so exclusive Boston Marathon becomes so accessible we must set other weird goals. We must express our individuality through other ways. Even I - a pretty mediocore runner - had started calculating if I age enough I might one day qualify for Boston Marathon. So I think this is a blessing in disguise. This way we will watch dear fellow athletes set new wonderful goals for themselves and add color to our lives.

I think Steve should do the Ironman and also do the 250km race. There is no reason to force oneself choose between these two wonderful events! I might even run a longer than marathon race next year and even try my hand and legs on a triathlon [on the condition that swim happens in a blue lagoon] and I race with chipmunks on the bike course :-)

Special Note: Literally is now one of the most used words in social media [according to some serious social media reports, seriously!]. Even so that some social media expert-gurus started using it excessively and sarcastically to make fun of the situation. I very distinctly remember how a bunch of us were over-using "literally" about 5 years ago. Now even literally literally became a thing! Is it so easy to become a thing?

The fight is all about becoming a thing. Expressing oneself. Even if we don't admit to it ourselves. Even if we are not aware of it ourselves. Why else we would try to do elitist races, marathons, ironmans,...?

Toughmen

2010-09-13T00:11:00.003-04:00

I was in Boston for the day on Wednesday. Woke up at 5am and took the 6:20 Acela from Penn Station to Boston to attend a client meeting at 10am. I got back to NYC same day. On Thursday, I took a 5pm flight to LA to attend another client meeting 8am in the morning Friday morning. I got back to NYC Saturday 1am. I was supposed to get a good night's sleep saturday night - that didn't happen. I only managed to fall asleep after 2am.

Sunday 4:50am, I woke up randomly realizing I slept through my alarm. I immediately looked at my phone to notice Alex's missed call who was waiting in front of my apartment's door - 22F as we confirmed on the phone that minute. Luckily he was ringing the bell that somehow woke me up though I have no recollection of hearing it. 5:15 our team, peach, pear and plum was on the road to Toughman Half Ironman Relay Race at Croton, NY.

We were in the first wave with other relay teams. Peter (the Peach) was 9th out of water in 31 minutes. Then Alex (the Pear) went on an epic bike ride in the hills of East Hudson. Though he told me that I shouldn't expect him before 3.5 hours, I knew the athlete in Alex and the adrenaline rush would bring him home much sooner than that. And yes he can! He did come back in 2 hours 59 minutes. Then it was up to me (the Plum) to bring it home. My last half marathon was Bronx Half about a month ago which I had run in 1:43. I knew that my back was getting better and physical therapy had helped me a lot, but I didn't know how well I could run the half marathon in the hilly yet scenic hills of Croton. I started out with an amazing adrenaline rush having seen Peter and Alex perform so well. There is also a unique advantage of being fresh in a relay team when all the other amazing men and women doing the race individually have already been on the road for almost 4 hours. I pushed it, I really did. I went on "1,2,1,2,1,2,..." then "left, right, left, right,..." in my spandex superhero outfit that doesn't leave much to imagination so much that some had called me stuffed sausage in that outfit before. Crazy people. I think this was a day that I outdid my mind - the perception of what I could do physically - though my finish time of 1:36 in the half marathon was 4 large minutes off my PR, given the course, I was so proud to have done it. As I was approaching the finish line banner, I saw the time: 5:09 and felt damn good for what we had achieved as a team. Just after finish I was ecstatic and teary-eyed, though no tears came down - all bodily fluids were generously consumed in sweat.

It is an amazing day and amazing feeling for Peach, Pear and Plum. I have all the intentions of going through this experience again. There is something about running and racing that connects with me so intimately that I can't even verbalize it. The sense of self-achievement and what I can do with myself is beyond what I could have imagined of me a decade ago. I know there are still so many more amazing athletes compared to me, but still...I know who I am and my personal limits and pushing those limits and reaching to new heights that I have thought I would never reach....sigh! I have told you... I just don't know how to describe it. You just need to do it for yourself and see what that "sigh" means! I can only say that now I am officially a tough man. Alex, Peter and I are officially Toughmen!

travel bug

2010-08-21T17:02:00.005-04:00

I am going to go on a travel spree the moment I get my greencard, which should be soon very soon. Maybe the reason I am having this travel itch right now is because I can't travel at this last stage of the process, but I decided to make a list of places I wanna go. The thing is there are so many and I have no idea how I should prioritize. There are even places that I have been multiple times and I wanna go and see them again!

So places I have never been and I wanna see and I am really trying to keep the list short:

Mexico - I have no clue where to start
Cuba - I must see
Argentina, Brazil, Chile - need to perfect an itinerary. I will call this trip ABC
Berlin
Tokyo
Vietnam and surrounding little countries who have non-rectangular flags, and lots of elephants and no snakes!
Montreal, Vancouver
Madrid
Lisbon
Morocco and coastal hopping in North Africa until I see Kleopatra's tomb or even Petra
Rome and Sicily - this could be a trip to do Rome marathon

Places I have been and I wanna go back again:

Dubai - I need to go see my friend Asli and see the city with her
Barcelona - several times, ideally multiple times a year
Prague - I need to see it with Alex and visit Bratislava while there
Croatia, Slovenia and a little hop to Venice
Paris - I need to go make peace with Paris over a weekend and then extend north to Normandy, and even to Amsterdam before re-assessing whether I like London as much and whether Hiro and I want to live there one day
Southern Turkey - It is past due that I go and revisit many beaches that I love so much and extend that into a few Greek islands - I will call that UN Peace Talks on the beach
My parent's mountain summer house on the coast of black see, so that I can go see this monastery and see my inheritance at the same time

Seee you in 10 or maybe in 20 years I suppose with all these trips. No need to mention I want to buy a car and re-start my traveling days in the US itself. How can I have a job and travel a lot and have Hiro lead a stable and loving life with me? Back to academia?

adventures in the office...

2010-08-20T15:16:00.003-04:00

life is longer than a week

2010-08-15T23:04:00.004-04:00

It is longer than a day. It is years and years and we need to keep on remembering that when we sweat over little things. Easier said then done, but I find peace myself when I can put this word into action. No it's not the end of the world if we don't see each other for a few weeks. It is ok not to make one's mind on larger life matters immediately. It is ok to feel down on some days, because there will definitely be some good days.

One thing I kept on observing and learning about my life is when I push things to happen with the myopia of not realizing how long life is, I end up regretting those rushed and forced decisions. When things fall into place by themselves - of course after strategic manipulation combined with forces of nature - the outcomes are more enjoyable.

That myopia exists in everything. For instance, some research shows that we do not borrow enough when we are younger imagining that we will never be able to pay those loans; but then older people realize that they were too worried about money when they were younger and wish that they took more loans out to enjoy their youth.

Everything else eventually makes sense in retrospect. We just need to learn to be patient not to force or rush things. That few months of break from running because of an injury makes a runner stronger later. So, the merit is hitting the breaks when we feel the injury shows it face. Not rushing oneself into a not-so-right relationship because of an infatuation helps us see our object of romance more objectively in due time. Not wishing to be just in "a" relationship but waiting to naturally fall in one produces a healthier and longer romance life. Persevering at one's job and not sweating about daily ups and downs pays off eventually. Not jumping onto the first headhunter's call opens the door to better opportunities that may show up tomorrow and beyond.

Now chin up. So that you can see the future. even if you can't see it very clearly, I promise there is enough fun and enough variety to keep you busy for a long long time. And a bit of obsessive shopping for just a today is not the end of the world.

This is not a note for self! But one day it might be! So here I keep a written record of it.

Love

2010-08-01T22:24:00.002-04:00

A topic that I wrote about before. Something I think about I have every know and then. The most mentioned emotion / feeling in America according to a research study. Second most mentioned emotion in America is regret. Regret is omni-present when there is choice. I did a phd thesis about regret already. I didn't study love but it is as much, if not more, complex as regret. I saw " I am Love" (sono l'amore) with a bunch of friends tonight. the movie is not a masterpiece itself but triggered some thoughts. Tillda Swinton character was interesting.

After the movie I asked to my friends at dinner table: Is love something you live within a short period and then turns into other emotions or is there something as eternal love? Glenn, my insightful friend, and I had a lovely chatter about it. My own opinion is that, yes, love turns into other emotions over time, but the memory of love is so intense that, it colors the experience of those new transformed emotions like companionship and affection. Every rememberance of that intense memory of what was once love makes one's companionship and affection feelings stronger.

Whatever it is and however long it lasts, love is a potent feeling. It lifts you up and makes you see life through pink spectacles. What is beautiful about it that it happens totally out of control. It finds you and you can't find it where-ever you do look for it. The tricky question is whether love is an emotion that only belongs to humans? According to Glenn the species of Vole is a species that is one of the few strictly monogamous species. So if one thinks love and monogamy are related, then the Vole is capable of love. I know a dominant proportion of Americans reading this might think that monogamy and love are separate constructs. And I claim that a dominant proportion of Turks who read this think monogamy is preceeded by love. As a Turk in America, I think love and monogamy are separate.

I told you love is a complex matter, a very complex one. But it is a nice matter, isn't it?

is a kid in a candy store happy or sad?

2010-07-05T22:43:00.012-04:00

depends...if all the candy flavors are his favorites then he is very very happy. Let's say there is no marginal diminishing returns from having one extra candy and if the marginal utility from one candy is on average 1 happy units. If the kid is in a store with 100 flavors of candy the kid is 100 units happy!

No?

In the past decade or so, loads of research studies have been published pooping this happiness theory of mine for this candy-love kid! Some of these research papers are empirical studies that are led by Sheena Iyengar. Sheena actually shows in many choice experiments how people who choose from large choice sets are not happy but on the contrary regretful and frustrated with their choices. Sheena was actually on my thesis dissertation committee (although she didn't attend my defense :-) Here she speaks at TED conference on art of choosing. Another celebrity on this topic is Barry Schwartz who has published a book on the topic and suggested that choice is a paradox. Here is his point of view at TED. Dr. Schwartz is trying to convince us that "freedom of choice" is a bad thing!

I don't agree. What's wrong about freedom of choice? Dr. Schwartz thinks that that kid is not happy. He actually thinks that kid surrounded by 100 candy flavors is about to make a horrible choice because of the overload of choice options and will make a bad decision on candy. Hence he thinks we must limit the number of choice options for that kid and give him only a manageable number of choice options. Otherwise the kid may regret his choice forever.

I need to publish my dissertation so that I can actually show when and how people might want more choice and that choice can be a good thing. But this book I am reading is already a favorite of mine on that topic. The book is called Nudge and it is co-authored by Rick Thaler, a professor of behavioral economics from University of Chicago. He approaches the whole broader topic of the bad, biased, irrrational choices we all make and rather than suggesting that we should be refrained from making decisions, we should actually benefit from being "nudged" towards better decisions by "choice architects" that could be policy makers, businesses, doctors, experts, some people who are in better place to claim that they know what a better choice is for most people.

In Rick Thaler's perspective, which I like, we shouldn't be eliminating large choice sets, or freedom of choice, we should just be helping people making as good decisions still in the freedom of choice. I say "Candy to the kid!" If not for anything else, because it is the founding principle of American Society!

Pride

2010-06-22T21:43:00.003-04:00

Last weekend, I received a threatening phone call from my dentist back in Turkey. Since the dental expenses were too high when I was doing my PhD in New York, I used to have my teeth fixed when I visited family back in Turkey. That is until 3 years ago. At my last visit to my married (to a woman) with no kids dentist, as I was lying down in the dentist chair, my dentist reached over my abs and felt them saying "have you been working out?!" What does one make of it? (Yes, that is a rhetorical question)

I know my dentist's cousin. She lives in the New York area. So I made the big mistake of sharing this episode with the cousin, cousin shared the gossip with the dentist's brother on a drunken night breaking her promise to me. Dentist's brother looped the gossip back with him and the result was nasty voice message last sunday that in summary said: "Listen you nasty faggot, even if there is no single woman left on earth, I wouldn't have the guts to touch a disgusting faggot like you. If I happen to see you around again, I will crush your head!" This is a well-educated, very soft-spoken and a decent man. However, god forbid there is any doubt about his straightness, then he becomes the nastiest bitch. I am just burying this episode. I kind of understand him. It took me sometime to become who I am. So let it go...

...Let it go, but instead I will share my personal story with the entire world - I mean with my 725 friends and some more - so that I set an example. I do my own share of sharing, so if there is anyone out there who needs just a little nudge towards courage and pride, they can hang on to my story. Read on!

On sunday, I will walk down 5th avenue like I did 7 years. 7 years ago I walked in the pride parade coming screaming out in my red pants. Red pants that I had worn when Turkey beat South Korea and finished 3rd in World Cup in 2002 - just a year before my coming out pride parade. Red pants were a bow to the color of the Turkish flag celebrating the ultimate masculine victory in 2002. The victory of football. Red pants were a bow to boldness and a new carefree life celebrating the man in me. The man that likes men!

That's what my facebook profile says: "interested in: men!" I am interested in women too. But you know what I mean. It was a lengthy long journey to be able to say that to myself: I am interested in men. At age 28, I could finally say it out loud in front of a mirror in my apartment in Istanbul. Shortly after my mirror rehearsals of coming out, I was looking for ways to make it to New York, so that I could put that thought into action. At age 29, I moved to New York. At Age 30 I came out and kissed a man for the first time, liked it and walked in the gay pride parade of New York. At age 30 I came out to everyone including family and put my father and especially my mother into a medium-term emotional coma of denial.

When I first realized the instinctual feelings I had, I was probably 4 or 5. That intrigue towards men was actually more than just being interested in brotherly masculine friendship. I didn't know what to do for it for so long, until age 21, when I saw two men kiss for the first time in Pittsburgh, PA - where I was doing my masters. That was a big turning point, because two men kissing instantly filled the void in my chain of argumentation. No, being gay doesn't mean I need to change sex or become a prostitute. Those two used to be the only public portrayal of gayness in Turkey. Hence a huge stigma. My parents would say that they would rather die than seeing their son gay. This is when I was being attacked and teased all throughout middle school and high school as "homo!" At age 23, I gladly retired from all my spiritual muslim inclinations. I was never a devout muslim. It was easy to embrace who I was in exchange for organized religion.

Somethings were easy, some weren't. Knowing who you are is one thing and coming to terms with it sometimes take longer. It took me almost 9 years to be able to say that. I am gay! I grew up in a very secular household in Turkey. Dad, a retired general; mom, a retired grade school teacher. Parents who believed and still believe that you can be anything and anyone if you are schooled well. Hence, I have a masters degree and a PhD and finished all schools at the top of my class. And I became "someone." Parents that are secular, worldly, live life in the military protocol and etiquette under strong social awareness and stubborn attachments to labels that come with it. It took me 9 years to say and accept that "I am gay" in front of a mirror to myself, who knows how long it will take for Mr. and Mrs. Bulbul to come to the same comfort level.

Parents still to this day can't feel comfortable that their son can have a boyfriend. A mom, that hopes that his son getting a dog means that his son will not need to have a boyfriend. Because dog is his family and that should be enough. They have nothing to worry about, because their son has been single most of the years of his Pride. When I was a kid, I would daydream that I would be married to a woman at age 28. That is year 2000. The year I had thought I would be married by - there is really something special about millenium. I am still single a decade after millenium.

Single, however proud and happy. For all I know I can be single for the rest of my life, but the prize of not having to carry any lies, secrets is immense. If nothing else, it means regular bowl movement, no ulcers, no excessive smoking, no insomnia, no anger comas, no yelling. Ok maybe just a little yelling! Life is peaceful. Life is good. I am who I am. I mean no harm to anyone. That includes my dentist, although he wants to crush my skull. Maybe one day he will understand I mean no harm. Maybe one day mom and dad will want to meet my future boyfriend that the hopeless romantic in me wants to meet soon. Maybe not, but still I am proud and will always be. Tears come to my eyes with Pride as I march down fifth avenue celebrating gay pride every year. Happy pride to all men and women, out or not. And those who are not out yet, I hope I will see you marching down in your parade one day!

love is not enough

2010-06-12T00:58:00.002-04:00

i don't remember if i ever consciously came to this realization before. the words poured out of my mouth as we were having silly devilish chat on a friday night dinner with dear friends. i grew up thinking love is all what matters. if you love someone that's it, that's enough. all else doesn't matter. but all else does matter. love is a must. without love you can't overcome that pride and all. but love is just not enough to go on and to live life as a couple. as one large and one small dog are licking me all over on my bed in between their breaks of gulping water and wrestling around, i can't help but remember that the only relationship when love is enough is the one between a dog and a man. or in my case, between two dogs and a man!

thankful. and it is not even november

2010-06-07T23:03:00.003-04:00

I have been waiting for some good news for so long. something good to happen. something to lift me up and carry for a while and a few good things happened and i am so thankful for them.

my dream dance show that i saw in istanbul more than 10 years ago is coming to new york. since i moved to new york, i was hoping that they would come to new york one day. and i learnt that they are coming to nyc indeed. i am going to to see the show on my birthday. i cannot wait. that is matthew bourne's swan lake with male swans. if there is anyone who argues that swans are delicate feminine birds they should come see this show or you can just talk to me and i will argue for male swans endlessly.

over to the next wish!

letter to you, me and all the single ladies

2010-05-10T22:22:00.002-04:00

i hope you hear me, because i will repeat what i have been saying to you. being alone and being alone for a long time is really ok. there is nothing wrong about it. our parents got married at young ages and made babies and we grew up with the dream of one day having that happy family of ours and only better than our parents. that's not a bad dream. especially if you make that dream come through with the right person, it can be really magical. but that's not the only option and that's not at all a reason to be unhappy while being single and being single for a long time. you are beautiful. you turn heads on the street. you are smart. however fragile you seem from outside, you are as strong as a rock. you have achieved so much in work, outside - with all the phycial activities you have completed and all that require loads of perseverance - and most importantly you are strong for your friends. for me. i want you to embrace that strength in you and project it inwards to yourself this time. being single is ok. you have your friends. you have that loving and fun and funny family. you have your health. do you know how important that is? and who knows? one day...one day you might actually meet someone and that someone might convince you to compromise on all that freedom and strength you have to a risk again to give him a try. someday, you might actually give up your kingdom of singledom and open up some room in that bed in which you have been sleeping diagonally because he might worth taking a chance. but please do not index your life on that. because he will find you and you will find him when this option is supposed to present itself. there is very little we can and we should do to accelerate the schedule on this, because then the magic will go away and it won't be right. be patient. as the cliche asks us to do, please enjoy the rare blissful moments, be thankful to your good health and live your life.

i need you to do that, because i need you in that happy life with me.

Hiro's First Run

2010-04-27T20:36:00.002-04:00

I wasn't feeling it today to have a good run by myself and I decided this is a great day for Hiro to start running. He is about 1 year and 4 months old now.

We went on a run on the West Side Highway - 2 miles out and 2 miles back. The run went exactly as I imagined. Hiro pulled me with explosive out-of-control energy the first two miles. By pulling his leash tightly I could only slow us down to 7:40 min/mile pace for 2 miles. To my surprise he didn't want to stop to mark territory though. At our turn around point he gushed out a big pee.

Then on the way back it was of course exactly opposite. The strong head wind wasn't helping my 17.5 lbs mini schnauzer either, but he was totally out of it. this time I had to pull him hard so that we would continue running. We still were able to make 8 min /miles. The big surprise was bumping into uncle Kieran on the way back. He gave Kieran lots of kisses.

And that's it 4 miles, just under 32 minutes. I have to say I am impressed by his performance. No need to mention he is flat on his bed now :-)

Business Planning for Gay Running

2010-04-23T09:03:00.004-04:00

Front Runners New York (FRNY) has about 1000 members and way too proud of it. When I do some back of the envelope calculations, this number feels microscobic to me after this club has been in this city for more than 25 years.

Let's look at a few bechmarks:

NYRR (New York Road Runners) has 50,000 members; by direct ration, if 10 percent of population is FRNY friendly, then we should have 5000 members. But that is anchoring FRNY to the success of NYRR. Why should we do so? We should aim higher.

There are close to a million gays in New York and I would dare to suggest 1 out of every 4 gay works out and 1 out of every 10 gay who works out runs at some capacity (the rest might exclusively lift, parctice yoga, play ball sports, or wrestle, cycle, swim or something). Then we should have 25,000 members.

Let's settle at a number in between. We should have 10,000 members. Why don't we? Because we do almost nothing to set that vision and to move towards it. We do piecemeal work at member acquisition that produces as a result of shoplist of ideas rather than setting a strategic approach. It is not easy to entice people either to convince them to come to the club either. When we set that approach we should have the ammunition to get people excited about the club and convert them. I know that for a fact from my year as a board member of FRNY. We need to make membership more desirable for new members and also our people. That has two components: Emotional and Rational.

Rational: There needs to be more concrete benefits. Such as discounts to local stores, many of them, not just a dozen in manhattan, everywhere and 100 such places all over. discounts to things that compliment running, such as 10 yoga studios in different neighborhoods, other fitness activities, rock climbing, dancing, shopping related to running, learning opportunities about each other and about running (we do some of this, but not enough) and an amazing social presence that goes beyond once a month events or once a year events. A social presence by having 500 Front Runners at Fun Runs and taking over 10 UWS restaurants after fun runs rather than congregating at the basement of our church. Why can't we do more?...

I remember it took 2007 board two board meetings (about 3 months) to allow a fun run in Brooklyn on tuesdays. For god's sake what is there so much to discusss? We need to provide a safe infrastructure of operation for our members and they should do whatever they want.

There are about 10,000 local runners NYC marathon. Applying the same ratios we should have 1000 marathon runners in the club. We have about 100. What are we doing to make long runs more diverse, versatile, accessible?

And emotional connection. I believe the answer in the emotional connection department is hidden in the nature of running. We are all runners because we like this individual sport that pushes us into new highs and we immensely enjoy sharing the war stories of it. When that connection with running and runners is interrupted by too many rules the emotional connection is weakened. We need to anchor our decisions on that emotional connection not argumentation.

I want to imagine Front Runners a place I have access to the most unique runners and runner community that knows the best about running in NYC. I would like to see Front Runners as a place where Mary Wittenberg comes for advice. I would like to see Front Runners as a place where we are the undeniable beacon of running in this city; not the largest gay running club. We just need to aim high, act high...

Disclaimer: All I want is world peace, no I do not want to be the president of anything.

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

2010-04-21T03:49:00.002-04:00

Liberty
When one is stranded in the supposedly most beautiful city of the world, everyone else think that this is the best thing that can happen to someone given the circumstances. I agree. It is a nice spring weather in Paris, with early morning chills. Although I had exhausted all the touristic spots, walking to work every morning by Arc de Triumphe is better than my walk to work at 11th Avenue in New York. I have shelter and I have still some money - for now. My 30-50 Euro dinners reduced down to 7 Euro bagette sandwiches from the supermarket. Le shopping became doing the laundry with Alex in the local laundromat and teaching other stranded tourists how to use the machines. Mindlessly strolling the streets with a light heart became trying to work and get as much as done so that I do not end up using my precious vacation days on a strand that nobody would take responsibility for but I.

I work at a global company and our Paris office opened their doors to me most welcomingly as long as I might stay. Though I feel like a half-man not speaking the lanuguage, not being able to work as efficiently on my frenchie laptop that takes 7 minutes to start, with a mild cold, stubbornly irregular bowles and a sore hip from the marathon that I ran last week. The more I stay here, the more I grow appreciation for little things that I critisized before - like the marathon itself and mostly the beauty of the city and the niceness of people. I still have a decent life and things could have been much worse. Hopefully they won't get there...

Equality
Airlines rebook you randomly to the next available flight. Unless I am willing to pay a hefty price for a flight 2-3 days earlier I am booked to fly back on April 27. I was stranded here with Alex and Daniel and they left for Bratislava and Budapest yesterday and they are booked to fly back from Vienna on April 25. My sister; her husband and 3 friends had come here to support me in the marathon. After the marathon they had left for Amsterdam and they managed to catch a charter plane out of there yesterday to southern Turkey and after a 9 hour drive they made it home. I see airports started opening on TV and even some transatlantic flights being operated. I do not know (je ne sais pas) which direction the icelandic volcano decides spewing ashes to, which airline will operate next day, where I should base myself to maximize my chances of safe return home. All I believe is that I can't control a volcano or others, but I can control my life partially. So I am sticking to the plan that Continental Airlines outlined for me.

Fraternity
The hotel receptionist Salma calls me Mr. Victoria Soler. She assumes I am Vicky's husband, cause I share a bed with her. Everytime I go down to the reception to replace the magnetic room keys that break down daily. How lucky Alex, Daniel and I to have Vicky here this week for work. We managed to find a shelter. I am not her hubby but I might as well be - sleeping two inches away from her every night. Friendships go through tests and grow in time. Yet another situation where I discover how great mine are. Glenn and Matt are parenting my sunshine Hiro back at home. Vicky is providing. period. Alex and Daniel morale support and sharing illnesses. We all had cold and diarrhea. It must be a strander common disease.

When I arrived in Paris on April 10th I told Alex that I won't even try. I was referring to the language. I won't even try speaking French. Now I have post-its on my desk with basic French words. Isn't life really very, very unpredictable? Perhaps something good can happen all out of this. Perhaps I am lucky that I don't have to go through the doorman strike that is happening in New York now. Perhaps it is good that I am not running and instead resting my sore hip to prevent an injury. Perhaps Glenn and Matt's extended stay with Hiro will prevent them making the horrible mistake of getting a dog? Perhaps, I can help Vicky go through this difficult work week by just being present? Perhaps...

French Marathon

2010-04-12T05:04:00.003-04:00

We - humans- attribute failure to contextual factors and success to ourselves. Because we are wired to do so. That's the evolutionary secret formula of being happy and having a positive outlook in life.

As I crossed the finish line at marathon de paris, I threw up. Throwing up might be an understatement, because there were 4 fire hosey, very strong gushes of powerade + water. After the first outpour I had two meds holding me already and one idiot finish line photographer trying to comemorate my misery. Soon after came the hypothermia which held me in the medical tent for an hour with Alex by my side together with 7-8 french meds trying to predict the color of my face. One senior med at one point paused for 10-15 seconds and she went through the colors of the rainbow before she announced the color of my face: grey!

I googled hypothermia and marathon running this morning and I found out the reason in addition to the known ones: "a significantly slower second half of a marathon causes sudden drop in body temperatures." Mine was a mild hypothermia with 34 celsius body temperature.

This is kind of a nice verification of why I couldn't achieve my goal time in this race. I ran the second half of the race significantly slower. As I sweat like a pig, my jersey and shorts were soaked wet in this sunny paris day after the first 20 mins of the race. I pushed it, I pushed for a 3:25 almost on pace for about 28kilometers, but then came fatigue and I gave in and walked and walked. Until I saw Alex -who had run the 1st 3 kms with me- at kilometer 39. thanks to Alex I saved some lost time and finished at a still respectable 3:40. The first half was at 1:41. I will wait to break 3:30 another day. Despite my significant slow down I am not regretful that I tried an ambitious pace. I tried and I failed - just this time.

After I was taken to the medical tent I swore to Elody and Claire - my French meds, that I will never ever run a marathon again. But I will, because it is the ultimate sense of achievement the next day when you sit on your sore butt and think about all what you went through that 3 hours and 40 minutes and the months of training leading up to it. It is an amazing game of mind, physical achievement but also mental determination. Most important of all, it is strategizing and making those calculations and analyzing and reanalyzing and understanding yourself better. It is learning from experience and not misattributing failure to context and success to yourself. It is understanding the context and accepting the result to only strategize better next time.

All this being said, I will give you a flavor of the context. We, New Yorkers are spoiled by having easy access to our one and only NYC Marathon that is run by an amazing team of people. Paris Marathon is the 5th largest Marathon in the world with 40 thousand participants, but it shouldn't be. They shouldn't admit more than 20 thousand runners on narrow cobble stone streets of Paris. Espeically when many of the runners push you every minute to be caught by the photographers, to randomly diagonally change running lanes, to slow down in any of the 10+ squares that the course runs through or any other random reason you can find. Every 5km there is a chaotic approach to the water stations when hundreds of runners at the same time change lanes like herds of dolphins to grab a bottle of vittel (water brand) then uncap and throw the red caps on the road and then pour a bit of water away before they take a few sips and throw the bottle away. So you need to play tip-toe at water stations. Only when you think that you learned the game the challenge is upped for you at around 30km mark. This time the stations turn into marketplace tables with a pinch of raisins, a pinch of sugar and bananas, apples and oranges, whose peels lie on the road meters ahead when you need to display a small act from Swan Lake in order to make your way through without slipping. Last but not least, there were many people who I thought were deprived of showers for at least a week leading up to the day of the race on the course. Also, a scenic course through the most amazing city in the world is an overstatement. With a blinding early morning sun rising up from the east, the first 15km of the race, the most scenic part, the only thing one can see is the grey silhouttes of buildings. Once we were headed west again and took the sun on our back, the only thing I could notice was the flapping noise coming from the bottom of my right sneaker. That was the sound of the resigned sole of my new Newton running shoes that I will never ever wear again. The bottom of the shoe partially came off in the race, can you imagine? What can one attribute that to?

It is the day after and I am content with my performance. I will run another and many other marathons hopefully. I am very lucky to have amazing friends that supported me on the course. Alex, Vicky, Elsa, David, Thomas, my sister Yesim, her husband Sinan and their friends and many others virtually supporting with messages over the internet. Thank you all. this time, I got teary eyed after the finish not when I realized what I achieved, but when your overwhelming support sank in!

manhattan half for the record

2010-01-26T23:57:00.002-05:00

Manhattan Half wasn't a big race for me. Two loops of Central Park. I had raced the approximate course twice before in Greta's Half and had blah times in both those races. Never had done Manhattan Half before, because it somehow is always the morning after FRNY awards night, and I default to drinking when there is a trade-off between stay home, stay sober and rest well versus go out, get drunk and get as little sleep as possible the night before a race. But somehow this year I was determined to run this race. The race was fashionably the morning after our awards night at 8am. Long story short, after 6-7 drinks and 5 hours of sleep, I woke up and did the race.

I wasn't going to log this not so big race, but I decided to do so to have a record of my mile splits. I will do NYC Half in 2 months and I want to pace myself in the first 8 miles of that race (which is again in our lovely hilly Central Park) based on my performance at Manhattan Half. So here are the splits:

7:42 mile 1

8:22 mile 2 (includes a pee stop and subsequent dropping gloves and running back)

7:21 mile 3

7:46 mile 4 (Harlem Hill)

7:34 mile 5 (west side hills)

7:29 mile 6

7:16 mile 7

7:36 mile 8

7:17 mile 9

7:51 mile 10 (Harlem Hill again, jesus)

7:42 mile 11 (west side hills again, oh dear)

7:17 mile 12 (excessive cheering by fellow front runners, e.g. Zander, Kelsey, Chris Stoia)

7:25 mile 13 (lovely pull by Adam Pollack)

0:43 (6:33 pace) (sprinting my ass to the finish)

Result: 1:39:17 (Not bad, my course PR). But somehow a lot of fast people must have run this race because I finish 1050th or something like that. such a time usually gets me 500-700th finish rank. Oh well. Happy Happy! And the training goes on. My hopes are high for NYC Half this year after last years flunk result of 1:45!

teens

2010-01-11T22:56:00.003-05:00

it is again that time of the year in the damn frigid part of this world I can't seem to detach myself from. I do everything in my power to continue liking new york in january and february. but it is challenging after an 8 day siesta and fiesta at Barcelona, which I sum up as "armando, fernando, rodrigo, that boy ate my heart, that boy is a monster, run cenk run, and en el amor todos es empezar,..." it is so cold that at some point during my sunday morning run of 16F - that is teens - I wanted to give up my soul to the wind that was furiously rejecting me from inching forward. i persevered. i did though. my week 1 post the paradise a.k.a. barcelona. hiro returning from near-fainting attack of double sickness, me surviving a quick trip to boston, i even managed to log 36 miles towards my paris marathon training. all 36 in the frigid cold of january of the center of universe. so i need to keep find activities to keep my soul warm when my body doesn't stand a chance of hanging in there. tonight it is food and music. i love my random recipe creations that i create when i am shopping in the supermarket. tonight's draw of luck was chicken, with onions, peppers, mushrooms seasoned with mint, garlic and tomatoes in a risotto! i like me cooking... for dessert it is disko partizani by shantel. shake that belly, oh yandan yandan!

Oktoberfest

2009-10-14T20:52:00.002-04:00

October is my favorite month of the Fall. yes, just Fall, because summer months - however humid and hot they are - trump all else. so, I am am being amused by small things and getting disappointed by small things in my fave month of the Fall.

First off, my amusement piece: Homeless person by port authority sees me in short shorts and a long-sleeve top running back from fun run on a wednesday night and talks to himself: "That's crazy man, doesn't he get cold?" Yes, I do get cold, and I am particularly cold on this breezy night, but I am practicing not to feel cold in prep for the NYC marathon in 2.5 weeks

Then, my disappointment: I can't get over my wave #2 start at the marathon. Booohhh!!! Why not wave #1? And I have been feeling in so good shape and was am so excited about the marathon. Now, I have to start 20 minutes behind!

To forget it all, I decided to partake in Halloween activities, albeit that will be a day before the marathon. I will just remember to behave and get home before midnight and limit alcohol intake!

Happy Oktober.

as 37 approaches

2009-10-14T11:14:00.001-04:00

I want cheap high heel boots,...
I want cheap shrill wig,...
I want lycra tights and a mini dress to cover my melting butt,...
I want a sparkly purse and limited supply of marlboro ultra lights,...
I wanna drink and dance and wake up rested and sober to run a 26,2.
I wanna live the life of rich and famous...
What else, of course I want world peace...

Would this get me a Nobel Prize for Sleeze?

i am just a little gassy...

2009-09-09T22:51:00.002-04:00

...sitting from a conference room for 10 hours so far and basically being and feeling totally useless. i guess it is a learning experience from being exposed to an unfamiliar process that i shall be doing more and more in the future: new business pitch!

water fight

2009-06-15T23:33:00.002-04:00

brooklyn pride 5k 2009. i am late yet to another race as usual. two minutes after start, I start running past through the start line. I am parched, hungover saturday morning and it is hot and humid. Needless to say biking 8 miles to the start doesn't help.

Here arrive at the one and only water station. I grab a cup of water, it is almost empty. I ask for another one and extend my arm to reach out get the 2nd cup and I say "water please" and the girl throws the water at my chest!! I hear the other volunteer at the stop go: "Ashley?!" I stop immediately and I repeat: "Ashley!?!" I grab another cup of water from the other girl and throw it back to Ashley and I get a new one thrown at me by Ashley.

Finally, I take a deep breathe and verbally convince Ashley that I sincerely need a cup of water to drink. She hesitantly gives me one - to drink!

the man or the cross

2009-06-15T23:31:00.001-04:00

me: what's that at the end of your necklace - a cross or a man who opens up his arms to the side (asking about semi-visible necklace blocked by the t-shirt)?

him: uhmmm, that's a man on a cross

me (thinking): oh, jesus, crucified jesus!!!

New Jersey Marathon Storm

2009-05-05T00:46:00.008-04:00

A bunch of Front Runners, unbeknownest to each other, planned to run the NJ Marathon at Long Branch New Jersey. Hence, together with me there was a great cheering team and a bunch of friends running full or half marathon in New Jersey last weekend under the spring rain. Fatai, Kieran, Dave Lin and I stay at Dave Lin's place and wish wish that I didn't rain, but it did rain all the way from mile 5-6 until the end.

I had taken 9 months off from running after the NYC Marathon in 2007 because of getting injured with never-healing stress fractures on my tibia. At NYC marathon, I had totally fallen trap to my uncontrolled running: running the first half totally out of pace only to hit the wall at around mile 13-15.

I had finally started run-walking september of last year and I could do regular 25 miles february of this year. I still wanted to do a full marathon before attempting nyc for a 2nd time, so that I can learn to pace better, stick to my game plan so that I can pull a successful marathon. Hence I went to Long Branch last weekend to try my legs and my mind on a 2nd marathon. I didn't have a specific goal, perhaps run under 4 hours, wishing secretly that I can beat my NYC PR, but really, I only wanted to run an even pace, so that I can say that I can stick to a pace for 26 miles.

The result is progress compared to NYC, because I ran a more even pace, but I still have room to learn more. I made again a similar mistake of running a bit out of pace in the first half. My 1st half was about 12 minutes faster my 2nd half, but that's an improvement over NYC where I had 26 minutes difference between the 1st and 2nd half of the marathon. Better yet, I enjoyed this marathon way more than NYC. I had much less pain and only walked within miles 21-24 vs. NYC where I walked consistently in the last 10 miles.

Now I think I know what I should do in NYC = Train better and run smarter.

Here is mile by mile, the race:
Delayed start by 30 mins. chit chating with Audra. I started the race with Audra, who pulled a kick-ass Boston Qualifier eventually. I was supposed to glue myself to her ass and I lost her at the start (well-done Cenk)
Mile 1: 8:26 (feeling good)
Mile 2: 8:10 (I repeat to myself: slow down after mile 4)
Mile 3: 8:07
Mile 4: 7:56 (not good, slow down boy - hey Sandi Rowe)
Mile 5: 8:17 (there you go - well done )
Mile 6: 8:00 (what's wrong with me - I got my personal "slow down boy" warning from Loren Mooney and gave a hug to Kelsey)
Mile 7: 8:20 (John Soto is right in front of me and I am trying to pace with him)
Mile 8: 8:11 (ran with John Soto who told me that we were running at 8:15 min/mile and I should show some control o/w I would crash)
Mile 9: 8:32 (I am glad that finally I am running on pace - I see Dave Lin at around here)
Mile 10: 8:00 (again started to speed up, I feel this super energy boost, and I know it is because of the half-marathoners who are finishing their race and I am going with them, a mistake that I will soon realize)
Mile 11, 12, 13, 14: ~8 min each (so many Front runners cheering me on as I pass my the half line: Hilary, Les, Rosario, Timmy, Dave Lin, thanks to all, it is such a great feeling)
Mile 15: 8:17 (back to close to pace)
Mile 16: 8:22
Mile 17: 8:36 (this was supposed to be my pcae, but weirdly I am still feeling strong)
Mile 18: 9:10 (this is first sign of loss of strength, John Soto and 3:40 pace group passes me)
Mile 19: 8:36 (I see Kieran on the other side of the course right about here, he looks strong. I look at my watch 2:46 and he has 2 miles to go, he may be able to pull a sub 3)
Mile 20:8:46
Mile 21: 9:01 (first signs of cramps at right quads)
Mile 22: 9:56 (a minute or two of walking, right quad really tightening up)
Mile 23: 10:51 (walk/run, ready to give up - I see sweet rachel kliegman on the other side of the course at mile 22 - she cheers me on, how nice of her, that gives me a tid bit of renewed energy)
Mile 24: 10:55 (more walking and ready to throw in the towel, but guess what, I have a savor: Audra, who comes from behind and she is literally bouncing, she is so full of energy, I try to tag along but I can't and I let her go, but that presence, gives me the boost...although I can't keep up with Audra, I pick up my pace and here I go, I run and repeat to myself, all the way to the finish, all the way to the finish, no walking, no walking....
Mile 25: 9:31 (I look at my watch and realize/think I may PR, looks like a 3:48 is coming, my NYC time was 3:49)
Mile 26: 9:05 (no walk and finally threw away those fake arm warmer fatai and I made off white tube socks) - all the front runners line up with cheers and really heart-felt ones, I guess the girls group got bigger (those finishing the half join the cheering team of FRNY-ers) but I can't tell exactly who is there - pain and excitement of closing to the finish...
last .2: 1:44 (I see Fatai, good, he must have pulled a Fatai. I am in pain but running as fast as I can to that finish. I see and hear so many FRNY-ers. Thanks to all that energy....I did I PR: 3:47.16. So happy, so so happy...saw Audra right after finish, gave her a big hug, but I was totally a wreck, can't move, cramping legs and shiver, shiver, shivers)

Listening to Loren's advice I go into the medical tent shortly after finish, got treated for hypothermia-like shivering and cramps (by two unnecessarily gorgeous marine nurses both of whom held my arms as I lied down under 5 blankets)

The next morning I took a flight to LA with Hiro. I will be here for 2 weeks for work. Hiro sleeps right by me as I type these lines. I guess time to rest for me too.

marketing marketing

2009-02-02T23:59:00.002-05:00

I watch many of my facebook friends write 25 things about themselves on facebook these days. I will never follow pursuit. If someone wants to learn 25 things about me they can hang out with me. If that's too much pain then read my blog as you are doing now. I am amazed how many folks - even those who say they resist marketers and dislike their manipulations - are herded by the social media and networking craze and get silently drawn into doing things they wouldn't otherwise do or would claim that they would never do...

So the secret of 25 things about yourself on facebook: some product manager on facebook decides that still many people aren't using the blogging like features of facebook. To claim monopoly like consolidator role, facebook needs to drive the mass social networkers into the idea of blogging softly by having them write 25 things about themselves. and wallah...there goes my resistor facebook friends - all declaring their 25 manifesto one after another. The only handful few that I know who won't feel the need or urge to do so are the already hardcore bloggers and twitters. Exceptions always apply but don't change the generalization.

is recession over

2009-02-02T23:53:00.002-05:00

obama got sworn into the office. I broke my swear and made two expensive purchases in 09 already. clients started to commit to projects again and i found myself again in the midst of projects flying in the air. as life started to move again after a deadly slow december, cold hit peak. and as it's been happening to me every winter with the teens freezing my soul my face reached to full moon size with alarm bells going off for an immediate spring detox diet.

life is flowing again. fast...and i have little or so no control over it. that is good. i have new excitements in my life again. some in the shape of hopeless infatuations, but that means all the negativity i have gone through just about this time last year is over and this year i am waiting for the spring with excitement.

i had argued long before the recession hit peak that we were in a recession. later on, the government agencies confirmed that persistent argument of mine that the recession had actually started in december 07. i know claim that the recession will be over before this year ends. i trust my intuition. i feel it. like i felt it before.

a companion for the next dozen years and more

2009-01-30T00:38:00.004-05:00

Years of deliberation, fine calculations, considerations...I finally gave in. I am the 2nd in the line to choose from the 3 male pups of the winter 2008/09 litter of Eddie and Penny. Here is the three brothers who were born on 12/29/08, 4 1/2 weeks old now and waiting to grow to become 8 weeks of age in Rochester, NY until they can be taken to their new home.

I am so excited and so happy with my decision. A puppy can never fill a void in someone's life - at least that's what I always believed in my ever-busy NY life that has no room for any voids...However that's exactly one of the main concerns that held me back from getting a puppy all these years. I have no one void in my life! How am I going to find one to fit the puppy in? My puppy will sure not fill a void, but hopefully will add more fun, companionship to my too-much-set-in-its-order and routine life.

It looks like it will be difficult in the beginning, because I hell know nothing about miniature schnauzers or even dogs as a matter of fact. Weirdly, it feels like it would be easier to raise a child - isn't it easier to rear your own kind? In the end, I would know the basic feeding, holding, nurturing, cleaning and showing affection, etc. routines of a baby. How will I learn about de-worming or building alpha character/dominance, etc routines of a dog? Those are foreign concepts to me.

I am a fast learner though. Also, I am very eager about all this. In a month of super anticipation, I will read much to become book-ready for my new friend and do hell lots of new unnecessary shopping for sure. Then the real life with the pup will begin March 09.

Cenk: This is not a love song!

2009-01-03T15:18:00.008-05:00

My name means war, or something along those lines. I kind of like my name, how it sounds. I am hoping and have believed so all these years that's why my father named me Cenk. Because I hate wars. Every time I read about wars in the newspaper I get scared. I am so scared now. Although I have never lived in a place where an active war was taking place, I just can't understand how greedy, irrational, f*cked up people can get to go kill other people.

How many generations of hatred needs to be planted for people to get convinced to go kill others. It all boils down to the question of who started the killing and then the side that gets attacked first responds in killing the other side. I wish to believe that there could be a world without wars. While all the contestants in beauty pageants wish for "world peace" why can it never be attained?

When we can share a bench in park on a personal level, why can't we share resources, land, histories on national level? Only crazy people go about killing others when they can't make their requests come through in a peaceful way. So those nations (including mine) who get into wars must be crazy. I naively wish to believe that we can live in a warless world. That's what we need to teach our kids before anything else...That is how to live in peace - literally. That's my new years wish for all the next years to come: "World Peace!"

If you need some reminding about how bad wars are, you can go see the movie "Waltz with Bashir."

New Year, Old Year

2009-01-02T15:17:00.004-05:00

This morning Vicky was asking me whether I wrote my New Year's resolutions. I never do such a thing. so I haven't done that.

Most of the folks, including me, entertain the folksy thought that however you enter the new year is going to be the reflection of how your new year will be.

Both of these arguments - resolutions and what you do on NYE is what you get in the new year - are very folksy, and products of social therapy for us to have a positive outlook in life, etc etc.

The fact that I woke up at 4pm on Jan 1 and stayed in bed for the rest of the day instead of going for a run doesn't say anything about my new year other than (1) I had a fabulous NYE celebration to the point of coming home totally boozed at 5am (2) The weather gods should rethink about how they will play the Jan 1 temperature, teens is way no cool!

Furthermore, I think the NYE celebration is not a reflection of what's going to happen to us next year, but more so what's happening to us now. We are in a recession and it's winter. I called this past two weeks as "winter recess" because not only we have a recession and it's winter, but also I had the last two weeks off from work.

However active I tried to be, in the cold weather when I am trying to spend as minimal money as possible, winter recess made a lazy ass out of me. Hence the celebration of NYE and how I wake up on Jan 1 was a pure reflection of my two weeks of winter recess: lazy, domestic, happy, lazy....

Now! No big resolutions for 2009. I intend to live 2009 one day at a time and just try to expect less from the entire year when I will try to be happy with each and every single day. That's my big resolution for 2009. If I manage to slide the scale to the light-hearted, happy-go-lucky end just a bit - even be it at the surface - that would be a big win.

It is Jan 2nd now and I am living today as a happy, lazy man.

Black Ice

2008-12-21T23:41:00.002-05:00

Be careful of black ice if you are running in the winter like I do. This evening's run was part ice skating part running for me. I got back without a fall, so I should get full technical points.

The concept of winter running was incomprehensible to me until 3 years ago, but I am finally getting better at it. So far, I had two torrential rain runs and tonight's ice skating and a few 15mph head and then tail winds. Still the most horrible running experience of the season is still none of these but another one when I stepped onto newly-laid asphalt and not knowingly walked in my house with those sneakers.

Do you ever fall in doubt?

2008-12-21T23:24:00.004-05:00

I saw the movie Doubt tonight. There were two personal moments of significance:

1- This was the first PSH movie after which I didn't feel disturbed by him. I even thought he did a great job in his role.

2- I connected some dots for myself. Only last week I was watching the video of senor Warren who was setting homesexuality equal to pedopholia. I just realized that the only case the two can be compared is when a gay person is also a pedophile.

I had an interesting conversation with Matt and Omur after the movie: When I shared my #2 observation above to Matt and Omur, Matt mentioned that it was the catholic church at the first place who sent the gays and lesbians to monasteries to become priests and nuns so that they are out of the sight of the society. Omur asked so why didn't they (priests) hook up among each other rather than with the kids? Matt calmly answered: "They did hook up among each other, not with the kids!"

A few isolated pedophile gays not necessarily make the rest of gays (or gay priests) pedophiles or doesn't make the entire gay and lesbian society pedophiles at all. As a matter of fact, senor Warren wasn't even suggesting that us-all were pedophiles. He was suggesting that just like pedophiles shouldn't get married with the subject of their love, neither should gays and lesbians. Anywho, the movie....

Doubt just induced so much thought without being over-bearing, overly dramatic, or disturbing...It was human and that was what it made it great. Meryl was superb, she was better than herself. She should be rewarded for this performance. I can't believe that I am gonna say this for PSH: He should be rewarded as well...

nonsense

2008-12-18T22:46:00.002-05:00

I am writing this on here, so that I always have a record of this and I remember this nonsensical message. After last saturday, it is proven that even I forget people and events - something that I thought would never happen. Am I aging or what?

I wasn't even drunk when I wrote the below text message. I was just multitasking:

"Funny. My friend John is at dinner. He is the guy at dinner at my place now. He was the one who was looking for jew. Remember. He just made the medi. jew"

I just can't even try to explain this nonsense. It is what it is.

long long time

2008-12-16T22:33:00.003-05:00

first snow of the year on my orange umbrella

an hour long walk under the snow with no gloves

no friends to find at the reunion party

a long streak of forgetfulness and absent-mindedness

a running jacket, gloves and hat the victims so far

and hitting toes and extremities all around the house

that forgetfulness monster leaving the gloves in the orange glove box

no gloves and a long walk with the orange umbrella

come home to find the dinner of the season: dumplings

divorce italian style on dvd wishing toronto was here

new discoveries of music on social utility

route 66 leads me to the leopard skin sampler

and the leopard skin to the left over bottle of red

sipping the red sitting on the orange chair

the chair that bath in the red wine last halloween

seeing the city under white through the new brown blinds

last drops of the night, last sips of the red

heavy eyes

and the velvety voice on the leopard skin

a colorless night for the pink panther!

Back to Running

2008-10-24T13:44:00.002-04:00

I used to write lengthy posts that would take your breathe away or suffocate you at times.

Now, I am changing into a snippet format. In the era of facebook taglines to broadcast your status to the entire world, perhaps I will use this space as a more private place to form a personal diary of deeper thoughts and feelings and perspectives.

I might be able to achieve that because very few people are looking this way, when facebook and alike are shining on our social worlds.

So yes, I am back to running. I have been jogging / running in the last month after my doctor ordered me to. I made a brave decision of running a race to keep myself motivated. Although my pace is at around a slowish 9 min / mile - a.k.a. nowhere close to me personal bests, I will do it.

Watch out for the result on sunday or later.

Transforming Lives: FRNY XC Fun-Raiser

2008-09-01T18:55:00.006-04:00

This year I volunteered to direct Front Runners' XC Race in Van Cortlandt Park in NY. Here is my invitation to Front Runners to come out and run this race. If you are runner out there and like the cross country races in the Fall in New York, come join us. The race is in Van Cortlandt Park on September 27th and race start is 11am - registration is onsite before the event.

Front Runners New York transformed lives of many in the last 29 years in so many different ways. I write about the stories of transformed lives as much as my radar allows me every month in this column. Some of us lost 45 pounds after joining FRNY, some of us met our life partners, some of us found an outlet to nurture our competitive nature, some of us found shoulders to cry, some of us found a safe home to grow in. Examples and stories are countless.As a thank you, we gave back to our club and the community in so many ways.

This exchange of transformational experiences that has woven the history of our club has inspired me and a few other Front Runners this year to organize our traditional cross country race. Ladies and Gentlemen, we give you the FRNY XC Fun-Raiser yet as another piece of this transformational fabric.

This is an invitation to you so that you can yet again help transform lives with a small contribution on September 27, 2008. That small contribution will be your participation in our annual cross-country race at Van Cortlandt Park. This year I volunteered to be on the race committee for our XC Race whose other volunteers are Fatai Shieh, Paul Holmes and Jess King. We volunteered for organizing this year’s race, because we believed that we could do something fresh for this traditionally humble event.

After some initial very ambitious thoughts and ideas, we believed that the best we could do is to help transform lives – just like Front Runners did for us. We are aiming to do so, by donating all the proceeds of this year’s race to a charity residing in the home borough of our race: That is Bronx Pride (www.bronxpride.org). Bronx Pride is the LGBT community Center of the Bronx and as you can imagine they work in all the ways to help transform lives of Bronx LGBT community.

While helping transform others’ lives, we would like to add new blocks of fun to our lives in this year’s race. Hence we have a few fun awards in this year’s race. In addition to your typical top 3 male and female finisher awards we will have awards for the 29^th finisher (male or female) to celebrate 29 years of our club. In addition, one lucky Front Runner will be taking home the XC Fun-raiser award. That will be one of you (male of female) who will be enjoying the beautiful fall of NY in VC Park by taking an easy pace and finishing in 100^th place. Finally, we will have a race in a race. By coupling with another FR and forming a team of two, you can win one of the three Doubles awards (male+male, female+female or female+male). We will determine the winners of Doubles awards by adding the finish times of two racers that are registered as couples.

So now, please mark your calendars, make no other plans for September 27, 2008 11am. Come and enjoy a fresh race on a fresh fall day in VC Park. Let’s together make this a wonderful experience for us all and a great resource for Bronx Pride. You can start registering for the race, by emailing me at the below email or by contacting one of the board members at one of the work-outs or fun runs. You don’t need to worry about entry fees – just bring cash and check on the race day for your choice of contribution: $5: Fun-Raiser / $10: Bar-Raiser / $ 25: Transformer. I will tag those of you who don’t show up as party-poopers. :-)

Looking forward to seeing all of you on the race day if not sooner. Please email me by saying that you will be there. cenk.bulbul@gmail.com

Marathon and Love

2008-03-18T17:05:00.003-04:00

NYC Marathon was my first marathon and was a very unique life experience. I was delirious once I got off the Verrazano Bridge having faced the non-stop cheering crowds of Brooklyn. I was so elevated and so excited seeing many and many people, thousands of them cheering their lungs out for the runners that I just lost control of my running. Add to that condition the perfect marathon day weather, I ran with no control of myself. I ran out of my pace and sped the first half in 1 hour 41 minutes. I knew I had to slow down and go back to my target pace – the pace of 8 min/miles I had trained on for several months, but my mind had no control over my legs. Every mile marker I was realizing more and more I was way out of control. My body – my legs eventually collapsed on Queensborough Bridge with 4 cramps in my legs. I barely dragged myself up 1^st avenue over to the Bronx finally clocking 2 hours and 7 minutes in the second half – walking running and jogging, but I didn’t give up. I finished. My friend Charlene ran-walked with me at miles 22 and 23 and demanded me that I do not injure myself. It was too late of a warning, I knew I was already injured, but I had to persevere. I had to see that finish line.

8 months of a relationship is rather short, but it was my longest in my active gay life so far. I thought it would never end from the first day. I loved him like there was no tomorrow. However, I now realize that I loved him more than I can handle and more than necessary. I first consummated myself and then him. In a tragically similar experience to my experience of the marathon, the 1^st half of my short relationship was exciting, new, and irrational, but felt good. The 2^nd half of it was a struggle of perseverance on my part. No more words are required to describe, you can build the parallel story.

What have I learned? I learned that it is the person, the character of the person, the person’s core traits that define how that person will run the marathon or be in a relationship. It was the same me in both situations that made both experiences unique. I am an overly emotional person whose emotions frequently take over his mind – actually a beautiful one! The delicate difference in these experiences is that I had control over my marathon finishing decision despite the risk of injuring myself. However, it takes two to tango in a relationship.

Is life so miserable for overly emotional runners and lovers? Not really, I had exactly the similar experience to my marathon experience when I ran my first half-marathon. I walked, I threw up, I ran the sloppiest race of my life up that far when I did my first half-marathon. Then I learned how to still be the person I am and how to be a successful half-marathon runner. So I believe there is hope for me for doing another marathon without changing my core personality. I can learn from good or bad but significant life experiences. There better be chance for me! I am already signed up for Chicago Marathon this year. Love is not so predictable as signing up for a marathon, but the beauty is in that uncertainty, no?

The Runner Commuter

2007-08-20T17:18:00.000-04:00

I woke up at 7am in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn last Monday. Being a late July Monday, one would expect a nice sunny day. Having woken up to rain, however, didn't set me back. What if it rains on the day of the marathon? I am fired up with the motivation of prepping for my first ever marathon. So I was laced up pretty quickly and hit lovely, tree-lined Bergen Street, made a right on Hoyt and by 7:30am-ish I was running down Adams Street toward the Brooklyn Bridge.

At 7:40am, I passed by City Hall – Hello Manhattan. 54 short minutes later, I was at home in Hells Kitchen getting ready to go to work while enjoying my runner's high. If I had taken the subway, it would have taken me about the same time to do the same trip door-to-door. Juggling marathon training with a New Yorker lifestyle, I was pretty content with my new discovery: Inter-borough running. My new best buddy is my super-light and snug backpack (Available at Paragon Sports: Back Diamond Flash backpack).

Actually running-commuting is not my own discovery. I am sure many others have been doing it for a while. I was personally first inspired by my friend Alex (a 3hr 11min marathon runner) who has been running to work. Then Scott inspired me for more. Scott is training for his first triathlon and he bike-commutes to his swimming practices and sometimes to his runs in Central Park. He has been long commuting to everywhere on his bike. Next on my list is to bike to places to run. This way I will not only cross-train by biking, but also be able to go to places to run where the air is fresh and clean.

Yes, running-commuting is super cool and leaves behind an immense amount of pleasure and sense of accomplishment in many ways. I feel like I am also contributing to a greener environment by using the most environmentally friendly commuting vehicle: my feet – like our ancestors did. However, running-commuting in our century is not as easy as it was in the stone age. You may not be at risk of becoming prey to carnivorous dinosaurs when running, but you are at risk of lung damage when running in an urban setting.

Running by the Heliport on the West Side Highway at 7:54am last Monday, I got my usual dose of fumes like every other time I pass that area. The West Side Highway itself is already exhaust-hell with non-stop traffic passing by on the side. There is even traffic in Central Park – runners' heaven. Exhaust fume everywhere – air pollution is your running mate along almost any running course in NYC. It is such an oxymoron to have so much car exhaust and pollution everywhere in this running city: Breathing in that car exhaust and helicopter fume when trying to run for a healthier life style.

Much of last summer, Central Park was a runners' safe haven while cars were banned, but they are now back. One solution until we have a safe-haven for running-commuting (=utopia) is doing runs in the morning because there is less pollution in the early hours than later in the day. The NY Times recently did a great job of informing New Yorkers of this issue in an article title Fitness; For Athletes, An Invisible Health Hazard.

Chapter 2+

2007-05-29T18:41:00.000-04:00

80s Madonna songs echoed all over the apartment as I unpacked several boxes all throughout the night. I finally couldn't stand on my feet any more when I decided to go to bed. Took a quick shower, turned off the music and lied down on my mattress. There were fewer boxes unopened at the empty apartment and that made the apartment look even more so empty than a few hours before.

All the work of five years...I lied down uber-tired on my mattress with midtown lights right on my face. I didn't wanna close the blinds. I wanted to see it all. The city that has been in my heart for more than a decade was now in my bedroom. I came here for him. And here his lights were finally on my face. I was so overwhelmed, at the edge of even shedding a few tears of exhiliration. I couldn't fall asleep for several minutes even though I wanted to. So much has happened in the past five years, but again this is just another beginning of a new chapter.

I am happy!

Surprise: Turks, Greeks and Armenians

2007-02-08T12:01:00.000-05:00

I am reading the book "Bastard of Istanbul" by Elif Shafak as this month's assignment in my book club. This book is actually not chick/chic-lit. That is the genre of choice in our book club. However, after our last read (Confessions of a Shopaholic), we all needed a bit more substance and more realistic drama. When the subject matter is realistic drama, what is better to read than the Turks?

So this book is about a young girl/woman (Armanoush), who is the only child of an Armenian father and American mother. Armanoush is born in Arizona and soon after the parents get a divorce. Mother marries a Turk after the divorce and that marriage opens the way for Armanoush to seek her future by resolving the conflicts in her past by visiting her step-father's relatives in Istanbul when she turns 19. The book is a nice read. It makes me miss Istanbul.

More happened this morning to make me remember my homeland and miss Istanbul. As I was reading my book at the Deli by my house, I was also making phone calls to Tuygan and the broker we are dealing with for our Fire Island share. As I hung up the phone first with Tuygan and then with the broker, the old ladies sitting next to me asked me whether I was speaking in Turkish. Yes, I was speaking in Turkish to Tuygan. It turns out that the ladies were Greek-Americans. The mother, Katherine, 97 years old, was born in Turkey and the daughter, Kristine, was born in the US but have been to Turkey several times.

I had a beautiful conversation with these beautiful ladies about secrets of longevity, history of Turkey, my hometown (that turned out to be Kristine's father's/Katherine's husband's hometown too). I am neighbors here on upper west side with Katherine. We talked about books. We talked about why I was single. They told me I was so handsome. I blushed. It was such a nice pleasant surprise. I felt: I like these people. I have always liked them as much as I liked Turks. I mean the Greeks and the Armenians. We belong to the same geography, same earth and water and air. We are so the same. The Armenian cuisine is like Turkish cuisine. Kristine looks and behaves like my mother. Why can't we all get along? Or better yet, why can't they all get along?

I had read another book about the Turks and the Greeks and the Armenians in the recent past. That book talks about the friendship among these people before World War I and tries to lay out the background of the conflicts of the day among these nations. That was another beautiful novel: Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres.

Here is to world peace one more time! Oh and as Katherine revealed to me, the secrets of her longevity lies in her diet: Stuffed graped leaves, fried eggplants and plain yoghurt with much garlic. Good luck with the garlic! A long and a single life...

End of an Era

2007-02-02T10:30:00.000-05:00

Mister, your eyes are full of hesitation...

is the opening words of the song I have been listening the whole week. That is from the soundtrack of the movie Kinky Boots (song is Yes Sir, I can Boogie) - one of my favorite light movies from last year. I was packing my desk at NYU last week and that's not a very taxing task! So I had much ample time to do all the stupid things I couldn't do in the past few years - search for a share in Fire Island, buy songs on the internet, decide on the color of the cake for my farewell party and such.

Yes, in a few minutes I will go and pick up my farewell to NYU cake from Cupcake Cafe. It is an orange cake covered with chocolate and decorated with orange (my favorite color) and violet (NYU's color) flowers. It will say "Thank you for an amazing 5 years!" on the cake. It was actually an amazing 4 years and 5 months. My schooling is completed forever. I doubt that I will seek higher education than this.

As the reader, you guys, can imagine, this is a wildly orgasmic feeling, but as much melancholic. I reflect back and remember so much. So as the cliche goes, here are the before and after pictures of the past 4.5 years:

Fall 2002, my first semester, at Pinar and Murat's house with Asli (celebrating my 30th birthday):

Asli and I moved to New York on the same day, sitting next to each other on the same plane as best friends. She came for her MBA at NYU and I did for my PhD. Now, Asli is at Dubai with her husband. And here I am, shortly after defending my thesis, Jan 2007, at FRNY Awards Dinner:

I don't see much difference except for loss of hair, do you? Oh yes, I acquired a kilt for past Halloween and I am planning on wearing it on certain occasions! Happy then, happy now! or as Mikey would say "Good Times!". Many friends lost on the way and many gained on the way.

I mark this day as end of an era. As I was collecting the mail for Front Runners this morning at the post office as part of my secretary duties, a woman filling in her application for a passport asked me the date. I said without hesitation - February 2nd and thought silently "end of an era!"

Let me now go and celebrate!

Yes Sir, I can boogie, but I need a certain song, I can boogie, boogie, boogie all night long....

p.s. here is the cake:

Surreal Gold

2007-01-28T23:34:00.000-05:00

I fell asleep talking to a friend of mine - Richard at a cafe saturday early evening. What an embarrassment! I hadn't seen Richard for such a long time and we were catching up at Cafe Rafaella - my new favorite spot at Chelsea. I had ordered a glass of white wine. I would be at Vik's birthday dinner in an hour, so I thought I should just have a glass of Chardonnay as an apparetive. So, as I was listening to Richard and making small comments my head fell down momentarily and I woke up in split second when I heard Richard say: "Cenk!!! You are sleeping!" Oh dear god, how much more embarrassing can life get? I quickly tried to explain Richard how little I slept the night before and how I woke up early to go for a run and such.

Vik's birthday dinner was great fun at L'Orange Bleue, but I was devastatingly tired and sleepy, so I retired to home at around midnight. After eight wholesome hours of uninterrupted sleep I woke up to present myself at the corner of the street around my block to be picked up by Mike O. to head to Long Island for a 5K race. Mike O. had just acquired a minivan - which we quickly named as gayboymobil and decided to use as the official out of town race vehicle.

The gayboymobil comfortably fit Alex, Mikey, John, Rob, Mike O and me. The trip was smooth thanks Mike O. However, since we were in a rush, we couldn't stop to get coffee or even a bottle of water, so I was even considering drinking the beer at the back of the van to hydrate. I didn't! Of course, I didn't feel like racing at all today, I still had left-over fatigue from the day before! However I had committed and I stood by my word to my friends. Alex and I agreed to run together and take it easy before the race.

As the horn went off, I saw myself sprinting and I told the Front Runner friends around me (including Alex) not to sprint - I was trying to unconsciously self-control. My self-control attempt didn't work. I ran the first mile in 6 minutes! I was feeling good, the course was flat and I was dashing! Second mile in 12:25. This was going to be much better than I had ever imagined. I still had energy despite the fact that I was slowing down. Mikey caught up with me and I demanded: "Pull me to the finish!" I stuck with Mikey. Mikey is a much faster runner than me, but he had run a long run of 20 miles the day before. So we were almost at par. The last half mile I just fixated myself at Mikey and the finish line and hence could hang in there.

I made the sharp left turn just 50 yards before the finish line right after Mikey. We were both sprinting and I was just behind Mikey. Right there, I saw Rob and Mike O. who had come with us but didn't run the race. Just then, I heard Rob cheering me: "Go Cenk!" and Mike O cheering Mikey: "Mikey, he is just behind you, don't let him pass you!" I am gonna slap that b*tch Mike O after the race I thought in amusement! Mike O. is so funny...I passed the finish line 2 seconds behind Mikey in 19:41 at 6:20 pace - a new PR. The course was fairly flat and that made the PR easy, but a PR is a PR. I am so happy! And yes, I didn't slap Mike O; instead we hugged each other... :-) Happy day!

The real surprise came, when the race results were posted. I had placed 12th overall, and 1st in my age group! I have to admit I got lifted up with pride and happiness. Oh-my-god, 0migod: I won a gold medal in the 30-34 male age group! This is surreal. I couldn't imagine this in a thousand years. Of course there were few people at this race (563) and they weren't as fast as New York runners and I only won the gold in my age group, but this is a day to remember. I surprised myself and that is such a rare happening. Isn't this amazing? The chubby boy grows up to grab a gold medal at a race! Sleep will be real sweet tonight...

World Peace

2007-01-24T11:01:00.000-05:00

Like all gay men, I want world peace. Hence I am deeply sorry when anything bad happens threatening the world peace. Last week an Armenian journalist - editor of the largest Armenian newspaper in Istanbul - was assasinated in Istanbul. I didn't follow the details of the story in depth but apparently over hundred thousand people protested the very sad event in Istanbul this week. The number of people at that protest meeting is way higher than the Armenian population in Turkey, so it is happy to hear that there are other people, some of which are my countrymen, who care about world peace.

Atatürk, the founder of Turkey, had said: "Peace at Home, Peace in the World!" So I abide by this rule that if I want world peace, I would have to be in peace with everyone else. That is a hard to attain goal, because I have an argumentative nature when I think that I am right. I guess I have softened the sharp corners of my argumentative nature over the years. I successfully taught myself to be quiet and let it go at times. Instead of getting mad at my friends and disturbing our friendship, I just let it go and sometimes I write. Here are two recent such disturbances of peace. I just type without comments. I write so that I can let it go:

Peace Threat 1:
A and B are friends. They have recently gone through difficult times in their lives, but all is good. A and B occassionally meet in person but talk a lot over the internet on GTalk. So one day they both disappear from each other's screens/contact lists on GTalk. Here is when differences between perspectives float and both A and B get upset for different reasons:

A thinks B is on vacation abroad, about when B disappears among A's contacts list on GTalk. A waits until when B is back from vacation to contact B. B is back, but still absent from A's screen so A writes a long email asking whether B is fine and hope all is well. B never responds.

B and A meet in person at a social gathering shortly after A's email and B starts mentioning how hurt B is because A blocked B on Gtalk. A is utterly surprised and says: "No I didn't block you! Are you well? What happened? You disappeared among my contacts and you didn't even return my email." B goes on and on about how A blocked B on GTalk. Whatever A says it is useless. There is no convincing of B. So A goes home and checks to make sure that A didn't by mistake block B. No A didn't block B. Everything looks fine in his contacts list, it is just that B doesn't appear in his list mysteriously. Three days later they magically appear on each others screens. However, A is not feeling good about being in this situation and wonders how when A can think that a friend must be hurt or sick or too busy and perhaps not well, B can think that my friend A must have blocked me! In case A had died, B wouldn't even bother to check, because B would think that A blocked B, hence A disappeared!

Peace Threat 2:
A and B dispute about a bill. A thinks B needs to pay $9 and B thinks he needs to pay $7. They exchange two arguments each in support of their perspectives within few seconds - i.e. the dispute escalates very quickly, but all seems still under control and ok. Just re-calculations and such. Then all of a sudden B storms out and starts counting 9 $1 bills in german to A's hand: eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf,... and adds a few german blurps. A is utterly shocked and offended, gives back $1 and asks B to pay jusy $8. B says it is too late now. A says I am sorry I didn't think that was such a big deal. B utters a few german sentences. A says that it is very offensive and impolite for you to speak in a language I don't understand. B says you wouldn't like it if I translated it and B leaves.

I am sure one can come up with explanations in support of both A and B's behaviors and thoughts and feelings in each of these stories.

I on the other hand, I am a bit disturbed that I was in these situations myself. Yes I was either A or B in each one of these peace threats. I think that I will just let it go for the sake of peace. However, I cannot control my feelings. I am just upset by the way I was treated. Hence I am deeply breathing and letting it go. Let it go,....

Snow

2007-01-23T12:42:00.000-05:00

Snow is the title of one of Orhan Pamuk's latest books. Orhan Pamuk is a Turkish novelist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature this year. I like his books a lot, however difficult it is to read them. He is a great stroyteller. Snow is not one of his books that is hard to read. It was easy to read. I had read about 50 pages of it with pleasure until I mysteriously lost it. Since I try to read Turkish authors' books in Turkish I have been waiting to retrieve my new copy from my friend Burcu who brought a Turkish copy of Snow from Turkey during her recent trip to there.

In all this while, when I was waiting to get a new copy of Snow, we have all been waiting for the snow to hit NY. It didn't. It fooled us a few times when we saw a few sprinkles of snow flakes in the sky, but it didn't accumulate. A strange winter without snow in this part of the world. Last night there were again flurries in the air, but all there on the ground this morning were shy patches of whiteness at the dark street corners and around trash cans. Perhaps snow will hit us with more confidence and it will accumulate when I get my new copy of Snow from Burcu. That would be a fitting environment for me to read a great book.

Let It Snow

2007-01-18T16:23:00.000-05:00

The first snow of the year is falling on New Yorkers today. We had wished for it at Steve Vizena's holiday party a few weeks ago. Here is me in between Mikey and Rob:

My Own Doc?

2007-01-17T22:30:00.000-05:00

I fell sick to bed today after two years. Yes! I haven't been bed-sick since Spring 2005! Yesterday, I was running around the city to buy business casual clothing for my new job. I now have a small wardrobe of sheek business casual outfits, but I am sick. It was freaking cold yesterday and I wasn't dressed warm enough to spend more than three hours on the streets. I am sure the fatigue from last week when my friend Elsa was here or the super intense track work out of yesterday night didn't help either.

I am a doctor of consumer behavior! That's oxymoronic. My doctorate doesn't heal my cold that I acquired when I was shopping! Oh well! sometimes a day at home with splitting headache and fever is good. That is when you can pay attention to the lyrics of pop songs:

"If you have done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear;
if you've something to hide, you shouldn't even be here."

"...Sun, Sex, Sin, Divine Intervention, Death and Destruction, Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome
to the Sodom and Gomorrah Show...!"

These are from the Pet Shop Boys album - Fundamental, fun stuff. A day of pop culture, I watched Devil Wears Prada on DVD. I listened to this album and read my chiclit bookclub assignment: Confessions of a Shopaholic. This book is not great at all, but I committed to be part of this club, so I am reading out of obligation. Thank god there are sprinkles of humor in the book. The book, the movie, these songs wanna make me return all what I have bought! So much shopping. Oy! Thank god there is more in life than these. Go see Pan's Labyrinth for a fresh air of fantastic realism.

Running Ahead

2007-01-17T01:17:00.000-05:00

Today, it was miserably cold. I just wanted to get back to my overheated apartment after strolling the streets for almost three hours looking for business casual clothing for my new job. I couldn't rest even for 5 minutes after getting back home, because I had to go to armory for the speed work out.

I started running seriously again after recovering from my injury. Armory is helping a lot to keep me going in terms running in winter. Despite my recent acquisition of many winter running clothes, I find it still very very hard to run outdoors. So I try to frequent Armory as often as possible to train with my other runner friends from Front Runners. I have 3 races coming up in the next month before I head down to Virginia Beach on March 18th for the Virginia Beach half-marathon. The three races are: A 5K in Long Island, Bronx Half and a 4 miler of NYRR at the end of February. My goal is to break 26 mins in the 4 miler. Hence, I have been training intensely.

I did 4 x 1 mile repeats today at the Armory. The splits are 6:21, 6:21, 6:25 and 6:20. That adds up to 25:27. If I can keep this up that means I will get a good new PR. However, I am so sore now that I am not sure keeping this up will be possible. We shall see. I had to take note of this intense experience. It helps me to keep focused! Now need to stretch more, back on my foam roller. Need to massage the ITB! :-)

My Own Doctor

2007-01-16T01:19:00.000-05:00

A PhD in a reputable academic institution means doing research to unveil the truth. If one pursues a PhD like that as I did, it means that he is truly interested in doing academic research. I am innately intellectually curious. My mind fires up questions all the time. I only discuss some of them with others. Because part of me is very pragmatic. I like seeking the essence in things and moving on. Hence I am accustomed at leaving my intellectual curiousity as silent mental masturbation.

No matter what I like, I have always sought the truth and told the truth. My father is proud of me if not for anything else but for the fact that he was successful to upbring a truth-lover. Is that why I did pursue a PhD? Perhaps yes - at some unconscious level. At the most conscious level I did pursue a PhD to start a new life. I did successfully build a new life and obtained a PhD as of last week.

I am a doctor of marketing. I studied emotions in the context of consumer behavior in the past 4+ years. My dissertation was about how different experiences of regret make consumers want to choose from fewer or more number of products. Hence, I dedicated my dissertation, in addition to my family, to consumers who try to find a path for themselves in the jungle of products and services. I sucessfully defended that thesis last wednesday. I am silently happy, relieved, proud. It is slowly sinking in. The feeling is amazing.

I had a life full of academic success stories, but this is different. This is so special. My PhD is my baby. I worked for 4+ years for it. I sacrificed some. I did get my new life. Life is full of endings and beginnings. This is a great beginning of a new life for me. What does a PhD in marketing get me if I don't go for an academic career? I become a doctor of my own. I like shopping. I like peoplewatching. Now I can do it in an educated manner.

Hey! You must understand that it is more complicated and useful than this. I can also make educated comments about human behavior in gatherings with friends. Hmm, perhaps I can self-control my shopping behavior. Perhaps I can get the best bargains. Perhaps I can get better insights than anyone else about how people behave, consume, buy and watch ads. Perhaps life can be fun like that.

Perhaps I did great by trusting life and embarking on this journey. Life floated me and carried me to this great period of my life. I am proud and happy. Thanks for all who supported me so far. I trust there will be more to smile and be happy about in life.

NYRR Fred Lebow Classic 07

2007-01-08T10:38:00.000-05:00

I ran my first race since Reach the Beach 06 - the race that pushed me to an ITB injury and took me away from running for about 2 months. I was feeling really good the past two weeks and after the Saturday fun run of Front Runners, Alex suggested that I run the race and I did. The whole week I couldn't decide whether to run or not to run the race. I even mislead poor Stephen and Tim a day before that I wasn't going to run it, but the incredibly beautiful weather of Saturday and feelings of strength put me in the mood for it.

The race was uber-fun. It was a nice sunny winter day. I was in my new superhero racing outfit from Asics: blue long tights, white compression fit long sleeve shirt and Front Runners singlet on top. A nice running outfit always puts me in the mood to run better. However, coming just back from injury, I decided to take it easy in this race. I simply didn't have much to expect. Hence, I started the race a bit behind Kelsey, Alex and Tim to be conservative, but at the end of the first mile I had already caught up with them. All three were running a relatively slow 6:50 min/mile pace because they were planning to do another loop after this 5-mile race to make a long run of 10+ miles. I was feeling good. So, I ran the 2nd mile with them. But then around mile 2+, an excruciating pain hit my left shin - something that happens when I don't warm up enough. so I had to slow down. I slowed down but not too much: I tried not to lose the sight of Alex and Kelsey.

Just before mile 3, Dave Swinarski caught up with me. Apparently he was late for the race and started way in the back and now he was sprinting his way back in the race. He looked very strong, hence I told him to catch up with Alex and Kelsey.

Until mile 4.5, I ran just about 100-200 yards behind Kelsey and Alex. I could see Dave Pitches just in front of them and Tim in front of Dave Pitches. About mile 4.5 I caught up with Alex and Kelsey and asked them to wait for me. They did. Right at that moment my nemesis from Warren Street running club passed us and he greeted Kelsey as he passed. Kelsey cheered him on. When he passed me , I immediately thought -that explains the "Go Warren Street!" cheering at my back since mile 3. It was Ming. Ming and I run at very close paces. I always pass him uphills and he always passes me downhills. Hence I call him the downhill runner though I never met him personally.

Just after Ming passed us, I heard Alex whisper - "Go get him!" - Alex later on claimed that he didn't say that! I had to go get Ming no matter what though. 10 seconds after asking Alex and Kelsey to wait for me and perhaps a quarter mile before the finish, I took off just behind Ming. I sprinted the last 100ms as I usually do. I finished 2 seconds in front of Ming (Ming's net time was better) and I PR-ed:34:06 - not a great PR (just off 5 seconds), but makes me happy to come back to races and open 2007 with a PR. I introduced myself to Ming after the race, now we can greet each other at the races :-) It is always good to compete with someone in a friendly manner. That keeps you in the race and gives you a visual target when you feel like dropping out. Thanks Ming!

Beautiful race. The day after is sore, but not catastrophic. Thank god I bought "the stick" and used it yesterday as I have been doing the past month.

Dashing Days

2007-01-04T12:20:00.001-05:00

2006 ended really fast and festive. 2007 started really festive and fast!

My running is coming back and I am coming back to running real fast. I ended 2006 with my first long run since my injury. The run was mere 8 miles in Central Park, however I managed to do the 8 miles in 60 minutes flat. That is quite victorious for me. After my injury this is the longest distance I ran and in a very good pace. Track work outs are also feeling less and less difficult and that makes me merely happy.

Amongst all the dashing in Central Park and on the track my dashing days are also passing at a dashing pace. I have been typing away my thesis non-stop the last two weeks to make it ready for my defense that will happen in in less than a week. I am done with writing of the thesis now and my friends Asli, Tuygan and Alex are proofreading it while I am preparing the presentation of my defense. All is good but I am mildly nervous/excited about the whole process.

The new year and the new duties: I am now officially the secretary of Front Runners New York - that is my running club. Great responsibility with a team of wonderful people.

Knock on wood and bite your tongues, life is good. My new year's resolution is to have good health and take care of myself as much as I can. That's all I can wish now because all is so much in place. I am simply perpetually happy. I am approaching to the end of my PhD, I have a job and a great one, I am at peace with my friends, I got over my injury, hence I am getting in shape. All is well. Yes all is well.

Yesterday, I was trying to decide on my opening quotes for my thesis and also my dedications. I totally got emotional when the last 4.5 years just zipped by in front of my eyes and my heart. I will post the dedication and quotes here after I defend and I officially become a PhD. Until then you know what I am doing: Dashing!

Winter Running Gear for the Jungle

2006-12-22T10:00:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Brooklyn's comment on my previous post, I decided to give back to the running community. Yes, dear runners who struggle to run in colder climates like mine, now you can also build a superhero wardrobe for yourself like I have been doing in the past few months. The commonality among all these winter running tights and long-sleeve tees and such is that they are all skin-tight! So you will for sure feel like you are wrapped in cellophane once you get your own gear.

My adventure of acquiring winter running clothes started with my friend Richard Ervais giving me a pair of fleece gloves for my birthday. I had to match those gloves with caps and hats I had from previous years. You can acquire your hat(s) and gloves in any of the running stores in the city (niketown, jack rabbit, running company at the time warner building, paragon sports or any super runners shop).

The challenge is the tights and the layers. I have a few sets of gears that I alternate amongst depending on the weather and my style worries of the day.

For a dry not so cold day (~45-50F, breezy) I wear my knee socks (sold at the soccer, baseball department of sports goods stores), long shorts (6'' or 9'' inseam), long sleeve technical tee (any kind - sold everywhere) and sometimes depending how cold it is I wear my Nike windbreaker.

For colder days, I alternate between two running tights I have and some top layers I have:
I have one pair of light running tights that I bought from Nike. I had bought mine from Niketown on 57th Street a few years back, however searching the Nike website now, I found a cheap alternative to what I have. For colder days (less than ~45F), I bought a thicker pair of tights from the store at TWC building at Columbus Circle (The Running Company). This pair I have is from Asics and they had the lighter version of the same tights which came at a cheaper price. Remember to ask for the 10% NYRR discount if you shop there. Both of my running tights are black, so being the stylish runner I bought a pair of Navy Blue tights online. I first browsed the Asics website to locate them then I ordered them from www.roadrunnersports.com. They are the Asics Aptitude tights.

For the tees and jackets, I followed the advice of my friend Tim Guscott and I acquired a long sleeve ColdGear tee from Under Armor. Apparently all I need is a winter windbreaker (somewhat thicker than the light winbreaker I have) to complete the outfit. This Cold Gear tee is really made of a thick fabric with different feel in the inside than outside.

For fashionable racing, I bought a white Asics Compression Fitted long-sleeve tee from roadrunnersports.com. I am planning on wearing my Frtont Runner tank top on top of that. The navy blue Asics Aptitude tights complete this outfit beautifully for a race that is on a sub-45F day.

I do not feel very comfortable walking around in all these tight clothing, so I bough a very cheap pair of Adidas warm-up pants from the Running Company. I also still struggle to fit all this gear in my regular gym bags when I go to training and it simply doesn't happen. I think I need a larger track bag to stuff all the coats and sweaters and such that comes off me when I go running in the light and tight pants.

One of the key details to remember is to make sure you order the right size when ordering online. I quickly found out that as much as I am a small adult male in this part of the world (5'8'' 150-160#s depending on how much I have been running), I am actually a medium super-hero on some brands and styles. I am medium at Under Armor's super fitted long tee. I am small at the Asics thick winter tights, but I am medium for Asics Compression tee and Aptitude tights. Much of the variety exists only on the internet, but you can get a feel for the fabrics and sizes in the stores.

Once you get out there running in cold weather you quickly realize that you need layers and you don't need to wrap yourself in blankets. However that being said, I also own a fleece front-zip vest and a fleece long-sleeve half-zip sweater - both from Nike for the worst days to add another layer. I don't dare to run below the freezing temperature of water (a.k.a. my sweat), but who knows: One needs to be ready for all conditions. You never know when your feet will want to pound the roads again.

Happy running!

Good Times

2006-12-20T14:53:00.000-05:00

In the "good times" of holidays, binge-eating and binge-drinking are the main problems of an average American. However different he or she is than the average American, an average New Yorker is also trapped into the rituals of Holidays. Attending to many "Holidays" events, responding to "received" Holidays cards and buying some gifts for the loved ones are all good obligations. Even some braveheart NYers host "Holidays" events at their tiny little apartments.

After having resisted to join the ritual of the Holidays in this part of the world during my first few years in the U.S. as a young confused Turk (referring to my years in Pittsburgh, PA in 1994-1996), I am now completely assimilated by the traditions of the Holidays - but only as a New Yorker. I hosted a holiday brunch and I drank and ate a bit too much at my event and at some other events of the Holidays in the past few days. Hence, my muted nagging about my weight has come back again. Luckily or unfortunately more holiday parties are at the horizon.

My loyal readership knows how self-conscious I am about my weight. Hmm, in reality, one doesn't need to be a loyal reader of my blog or doesn't need to be a gay anthropologist to know that an average gay man - especially in New York - is obsessed with his weight. After starting to recover from my long-lingering injury, I started losing the weight that I had gained during my running hiatus. Now holidays are the biggest challenge. Although I picked up on running by doing indoor track work outs at the armory, doing the FrontRunners' Central Park runs in addition to a few miles on the treadmill every now and then there is no way I can eat less than I can burn these days.

There is constantly a trap here and there: A basket of muffins in the kitchenette at school, a box of truffles as a gift from a "friend", a bottle of champagne, a keg of beer, a deliciously stuffed turkey,etc etc... We all know the ritual. In the midst of all this eating and drinking some close friends noticed that I started throwing in my trademarked exclamation more frequenly than ever: "Oh Dear God!" tm.

Winter running is fun but I couldn't pick it up fully to fight against the holiday calories, therefore losing the extra pounds is postponed till after the holidays. I am not yet running as much as I used to run before my injury, however I am on an accelerated shopping frenzie of buying winter running clothes. With the running tights and long-sleeve t-shirts I bought so far I can start a modest super-hero wardrobe/practice. Yes, winter running is practised in skin-tight clothes. Now that I have all my gear and my legs seem to be cooperating, I registered for my next big event: a half-marathon in March at Virgina Beach! I am already looking forward. Training for that should definitely put me in shape. I hope the legs don't give up!

No matter what, aren't these simply good times?

My Life, My Job,...

2006-12-14T16:02:00.001-05:00

Five years ago, Fall 2001, I started playing with the idea of pursuing a PhD in marketing. I was burnt out. My business life was no less volatile than the political and economic conditions of my country. My personal life was deep in the closet. It didn't occur to me until December 2001, one short month before the annual PhD application deadlines that I could apply for a PhD in New York and start a new life, a renaissance of some sort. I found myself calling my old professors for reference letters and registering for GMAT (the test one needs to take when applying for a masters or a PhD degree in business). I got into both programs I applied for: NYU and Columbia. I was super happy: a new life. Who knew what would come out of this journey at the end of five years, but I knew that I would come out of the closet in the very beginning of those 5 years and I did.

When I started the PhD program in marketing at NYU, I didn't even think anything else other than going to academia after I finish my PhD. If I didn't have that commitment, I wouldn't have the motivation to read thousands of pages of literature in marketing and psychology and produce the research I produced. Simply put I might not have produced enough to earn my degree. Hence I always worked to find the best academic job. As I started my job search by sending applications to 44 business school in the US, Canada and Western Europe, I was fully confident that I would do great in academic job market, however at the corner of my mind there was a question whether I should pursue a corporate job instead.

Hence, I followed a dual job search. A closeted job search in corporate world and an out job search in academia. I was hesitant and doubtful about my job search in the corporate world in the beginning. Hence, I only talked to a handful of places in the first few months of my corporate job search. However, the more I progressed with my academic interviews the more my focus shifted and the more ambitious my alternate job search become. The months that passed since last May - when this process started - was very exhausting, full of mixed feelings, anxiety, travels, complexity, uncertainty. I was so scared that I would end up jobless in this marathon-like job search after years of experience and education.

Out of the 44 applications to schools, I could get 14 first round interviews. Then 5 out of those 14 invited me to their campuses for second round interviews and I chose to visit 4 of those 5 schools. When I was doing my campus visits I was doing a rather accelerated job search in New York for corporate jobs too. Interviewing is like having your life being disected by amateur psychologists - especially if you are interviewing for consulting jobs like I did. Consultants love giving feedback after they reject you, they like articulating on reasons: "You are not pragmatic enough!", "You are not structured!", "You do not have intellectual curiousity!", "You are a bit too assertive!".... But it was not exactly any of these. I just didn't have the chemistry for many of these prospects. It was just a mismatch.

In a sense job interviews are very much like dates: it is all about chemistry. Having survived a single life in the dating jungle of NYC, I grew a thick skin for rejection. So many rejections here and there, but I didn't stop. I knew that I would find propsects that I had the chemistry with: Nice and smart people who would think that I am nice and smart. Eventually I met those people. I managed to conclude my job search with four gorgeous job offers:

University of Michigan (Top 5th Business School according to BusinessWeek rankings) - Assistant Professor in Marketing position
Georgetown University (Top 22nd Business School according to BusinessWeek rankings) - Assistant Professor in Marketing position
Ogilvy- Associate Director, Relationship Marketing
Vivaldi Partners - Engagement Manager

After much deliberation, I chose a life with a job. I actually had chosen a life five years ago, I chose the job that fit that life the most. All the people in all the above four great institutions were great. They treated me so well. They made me feel humbled so many times. They were constant ego-boosters. They were great hosts. However, one of them makes me feel just a bit more comfortable than the others. I believe one of them makes me say more "this is my life". I will join the American Express team at Ogilvy. I feel that this will be the best transition of my past to my future. My new job compliments my consulting experience and my PhD in Marketing by offering me a dual role in marketing strategy and relationship marketing.

My friends, all around the world, supported me in these painful and difficult months of job search. One of them, Zeynep, sent me a virtual toast from Turkey. She said: "I toast to the victory of enthusiasm, to the possibility that good things can happen, to the ability to remain positive, to keep on trying, to working hard and mostly to you!" Thank you Zeynep. Now it is time to celebrate!

Thank you my friends. Most importantly, thanks to those generous organizations who made me great offers. Thank you Michigan, Georgetown and Vivaldi. Thank you Ogilvy!

I will defend my thesis in January to become Cenk Bulbul, PhD. I will start my new job at Ogilvy in early February. Stay tuned.

Happy Holidays

2006-12-11T23:04:00.000-05:00

I am very happy this week. I have some job offers and I am thinking and weighing and trying to decide which one to take. It is a great thing to have choice. It is liberating and contrary to what some lay people and academics claim more choice is not a bad thing. It doesn't frustrate me. It makes me happy and proud. In my case, it is like the reward of my hard work, years of commitment and dedication. Hence I am happy.

Amongst these happy thoughts with a smile tatooed on my face I decided to go to my most favorite yoga class at my gym. This yoga class is called "Yoga for Jocks". I am not really a jock. I am a runner. However, this yoga class does everything to my body that he demands. Hence my mind is further liberated at and after this class.

Very happily I entered my gym. I greeted the happy receptionist who happily asked me whether I got the holiday gift. I said yes. The holiday gift is a one week free membership to my gym. The gift is gift-wrapped in a small, but sheek red box, comes with a big chocolate and a card in the form of a plastic credit card. So it makes a great gift. I already took this gift a week ago and gave it to my good friend Michael O. Now, the receptionist was trying to give me one more, but he got confused when I said I already got the gift. He got more distracted when someone else asked him a question when he was extending me the gift box and he tripped and the box flew at my chest like a rocket. Ouchhh!!! I had to accept the gift for the second time and they had to give it to me after throwing it almost to my face. I broke in laughter of course. I was already over-happy and I was looking for reasons to smile and laugh.

There you go Mikey. This is the story of how I got your one week membership gift to our gym. Happy Holidays.

Google Him

2006-12-07T12:10:00.000-05:00

Is Google the new Microsoft? I claim that the answer to that question is a big yes. I blog on Google, email on Google, keep my calendar on Google, keep my photos on Google and even work on spreadsheets on Google. My favorite of all Google functionalities is that you never need to file any email on Google. You just Google-search your own inbox when you need to find something in your email. That is so convenient!

If you are one of those crazy people like me and personalize your Google homepage you can spend your whole time on the internet on Google with links to games, weather forecasts and news and so much more. The formula to Google's success is interestingly not a big invention. All the big guys - yahoo, msn, lycos in the earlier days and such tried the similar strategies but it worked for Google. I suggest that it is because Google brought together the right combination of content at perfect proportions. Google is aesthetic, friendly, flexible, one of us, so simple yet so sophisticated and useful. Google works, try it. Perhaps that's is the most important factor why Google is the best. Google works ladies and gentlemen! As a bonus, you never receive a spam email from Google on anyday. They just pull you, they never push anything on you.

I taught a Consumer Behavior class at NYU last summer and Googling things and people was one of the subjects I mentioned in class. Yesterday someone asked me the lyrics of a particular song. I couldn't remember the lyrics but I knew the band and the song had something to do with the days of the week, so I Googled: "the cure, friday monday tuesday". There it was in front of me, the lyrics of my song. I Google new friends, I Google potential Internet dates as a security/background check. I had Googled my father. I Google you. Please you Google me. Here I write my full name so that Google sees me: Cenk Bulbul.

Put me asleep

2006-12-04T17:12:00.000-05:00

How much red wine can I drink to achieve complete forgetfulness of the reasons of my anxiety?

How much can I work out to drift away from my troubles sailing off to the sea of endorphines?

How much can I eat at potluck dinners in attempt to drown myself in the delicacy of the food whilst ignoring the size of my stomach?

All is to forget, to bypass the dire straits of my life and to build patience while waiting for godot(s). Painfully counting down the days to December 15th. December 15th is the big bada bum. I need to respond to Georgetown University's offer by then. Keep reading this blog. I will tell you the complete story once the decision is made. That will cover my life since last Spring. I will spit out all the juicy details of what I haven't told so far together with my decision on this space. Yes, I will blog my decision. Until then, I will be riding on the roller coaster of wine, food and working out.. There must be plenty of water in-take in between each of these activities.

Noone had said that life is easy. It is god-damn difficult!

Is it me or is it you?

2006-12-02T12:37:00.000-05:00

Me: One grande coffee and one venti coffee please...
Starbucks girl: Excuse me?!
Me: One grande coffee and one venti coffee!
Starbucks girl: One grande?
Alex: One grande coffee and one venti coffee!!!
Starbucks girl: One grande coffee and ...??
Me: One grande coffee and one venti coffee!!!
Starbucks girl: Oh! :-) One grande coffee and one tea! What flavor of tea?
Me: [Laughter, very loud laughter!] VEN-TI COFFEE, NOT ONE TEA! VEN-TI COFFEE!

Post Turkey Syndrome

2006-11-27T23:00:00.000-05:00

I am suffering from post turkey syndrome.

I had gained some pounds after being exposed to my mama's delicious meals in Turkey for a week in early November. The meals in Turkey weren't eaten when I was hungry, they were rather eaten when I could gulp in more food. No, we didn't eat any turkey when I was in Turkey. Everyday my day started with a seven course non-turkey breakfast which was followed by a long walk. The whole purpose of the walk was to keep my stomach unfolded so that I could breathe. This ritual of large breakfast cured by a long walk still didn't allow me to gulp a decent lunch. Despite my mother's persistance I skipped lunch almost everyday when I was in Turkey. When I opened up some space for more, I had another seven course meal called dinner which was always followed by a light supper. Having done that for seven consecutive days in my mother-land I returned to NY so out of style: a.k.a. fat. Even Alex was telling me today that I looked noticeably different after I returned from Turkey.

Right after coming back from Turkey, I went to Philadelphia with my FrontRunner friends running the marathon there. Obviously I did my sympathy carbo-loading with them the night before the marathon. That didn't stay there. The second day at Philly, I gulped more carbs as I was watching the marathon and I concluded that trip of gluttony with a grandoise post-marathon celebration with further eating and drinking. As I was hoping that it was time to recover from the post Turkey syndrome, Alex didn't do any good by having that thanksgiving dinner at his place. As I was struggling to lose my new friends: extra pounds, I had to sit in a fifteen course semi-potluck thanksgiving dinner. A picture is worth a thousand words, see the last stage of complete damage:

Whatever I couldn't gulp there from that turkey, I took back home with me. I gulped it in my cave and had no mercy while watching my belly grow. Now, the only thing I can hope that the interesting t-shirts that I wear will divert the attention away from my face that is in the shape of full-moon:

In the meanwhile, I found the cure for the post turkey syndrome. I started running again. I am mildly healed from my injury. I did a 5 miler run in Central Park today for the first time since the beginning of October. How else to burn a turkey that lies as a two-inch-in-perimeter layer around one's waist?

FFWD Lives

2006-11-25T23:56:00.000-05:00

Alex and I were walking down the street when the food delivery guy zipped in front of us on his bicycle. We were mildly happy and conversing and gossiping and sharing the drama of life - some of which was ours and some of which was other people's. Alex and I like analyzing our circle and try to understand why people behave the way they behave. I guess I am in the right profession of people-watching - I meant PhD in Marketing!

Alex had just asked me an open-ended question - my favorite type of question that allows me talk as much as I want - just when the cyclist zipped by. When I was getting ready to answer that question, we heard and saw a BANG - SLAM - SCREECH - A**-H*L*!... The food delivery guy had crossed the street, hit an old woman getting ready to cross the street (BANG). I had turned my head to catch her feet fly up in the air and hit the sidewalk upside down (SLAM). She threw an evil scream immediately (SCREECH) and started swearing at the immigrant food delivery giant (A**-H*L*!). The food delivery idiot was really a large man and was demanding that she would be fine and was forcing her to get up. He was wearing red plaid pijama pants and was at least twice as tall as the old woman who was resisting the delivery guy trying to pull her up as she was swearing non-stop. I dont't know which one looked more weird, the old woman or the delivery guy. The woman was a hunch-back potato with toothpick legs, at most 4'6'' tall, with an utterly ugly face with a giant nose and crooked teeth. If she didn't talk to us I would tell that she was absolutely a witch. Yes, we talked to her.

Alex and I weren't the only spectators of this event, but we were the only ones who quickly ran to the help of the old woman. While Alex was calling 911, I was telling the delivery guy that he was wrong at what he did. This was a rather short conversation. As we ran to help the woman and started screaming at the guy that he was too fast and he was wrong riding his bike on the sidewalk that fast and he was an idiot, and that we were going to call the cops, he got scared and ran away swearing at us. Miracolously the woman wasn't injured at all, not even a scratch. In less than five minutes we had witnessed an incredible event. It was as if lives fast-forwarded, just like my life in november.

November passed like a continuously streaming video. Things didn't stop happening for one second. Perhaps they did, but my mind was obsessively on one thing: my job search. That intense focus on my job search made things flow painfully slow in a painfully jammed schedule. I felt like if I had to go to the bathroom I had to pass part of my own life, but actually that might have been just an illusion in my mind. So I tried not to go to the bathroom very often!

Although it was my life, I felt like a spectator at times. My calendar ruled once again. I just followed my google calendar. Even my friends did follow my calendar. John emailed me and asked me whether I would be up for dinner as soon as I returned from Turkey. That friday, two days after I returned from Turkey was open and John could see that because I had previously given him access to look up my calendar. So we all followed my calendar.

Previously I had written about my experience of NYC marathon. Careful reader would remember how I ran the last 2 miles of the marathon with my buddy Alex. Here is the visual of that:

It was an amazing experience to wind up the marathon experience with Alex. Months of training, then my unfortunate injury and then the grand finale with Alex. Little I knew that that finale was the beginning of another period of my life: running last two miles of all the marathons in Northeast America. Yes, Alex and I was in Philadelphia last weekend to support our FrontRunner friends running the Philly Marathon and this time I took off with Zander at mile 24 pulling him to the finish line. Zander eventually ran a Boston Marathon qualifier.

So much travel, so many nights at guest beds and hotels just throw up one's life in the air and then slams it head-down on the ground. Just like the surreal event Alex and I witnessed last weekend. All these travels and all this interviewing and on-going experiments at school are markers of another month zipping by in front of my eyes. I always remind myself not to wish that time passes quickly when the times I am in are painful, because I don't wanna wish that my life passes quickly. However sometimes life rules and pulls you with herself. That was just the case in November for me. My life was fast-forwarded and I just followed suit.

Domestic Activities

2006-11-10T11:59:00.000-05:00

I am in Turkey this week. Before I give a talk at a Turkish Business School in Istanbul, I am spending some time with my family. Family time is the same as usual: First, it is a bliss to see parents, my sister, my 2 year old nephew and my bro-in-law. After the first two days, it is overbearing to answer my mom's open-ended questions. However it is always fun to observe little tricks of my nephew. What is most worrisome is the sheer amount of food that is offered at every meal. Given that I can't run beyond 15-20 minutes every other day at this stage of coming back to running after my injury I assure you that my face started to look round already. İ forgot again what it meant to feel hungry!

This afternoon, I heard my mom calling my name from the TV room as I was checking email and also keeping an eye on my nephew who was entertaining me wrestling with his "Pooh" - a large size stuffed animal. I had just convinced him (my nephew Derin) not to pour grape juice on the keyboard. I had to distract him by offering him to take my pictures while typing.

I went to the TV room to see what my mom was upto. She was asking me to fix the TV which had no volume and the picture was simply green. My mom was asking me whether I knew anything about electrical appliances. The question sounded way more technical than what the current situation was about. The cleaning lady had come in earlier in the day and I quickly thought that she must have loosened up the sound and picture cable that was going into the TV. So to check whether that was the case I decided to bend over the TV to look behind. Oh shit! I had banged my head on the upper shelf above TV as I was reaching behind. And magic: I fixed the TV as I put a little bump on my head. I was right: the sound/picture cable was loose and my bang had shaken the TV a bit and had put the cable in place. I sure know a lot about electrical house appliances.

Da Marathon

2006-11-06T22:45:00.000-05:00

Da day has come and passed by already. It was a much better weekend than how I thought it would be. Given my recent injury and not being able to run the marathon, given my melancholic nature, given my competetive streak, given peer pressure and vivid anticipation of my friends running the marathon, I was expecting a weekend full of deep sadness. However, that didn't happen. I will tell you why.

The whole weekend was full of marathon activity, however all the activities induced happiness of sharing and being there for others rather than creating a swirl of sadness. Friday night, I volunteered at the Front Runners pasta dinner that was held in anticipation of the marathon. I did my sympathy carbo-loading to support my fellow friends. After the pasta dinner, I carbo-loaded more with beer celebrating Mikey's birthday.

Saturday morning, we held a pancake breakfast for the fellow Front Runners who would run the marathon. At the pancake breakfast, it was announced that there were no contenders racing against our candidate board of diractors for Front Runners New York. Hence, I finally announce here that I will be on the board of Front Runners in 2007 as the secretary of the board. I am so excited about this duty.

So the pancake breakfast was full of many announcements like the announcement of next year's board, but obviously it was also full of carbs. I am telling you, I shouldn't have gone to these events, because I have an innate weakness for carbohydrates, but I was volunteering for my friends. The good thing was that before the pancake breakfast, I had run another 2 miles as part of my getting back to running program. Furthermore, I didn't run just any two miles. Instead, I ran the last two miles of NYC Marathon with my friends who would run the marathon the next day. It was a superb excitement doing that. If there was anything more than carbs filling our weekend, that was the excitement of the marathon.

Sunday Morning, I watched the marathon start on TV. After seeing the elite women and men start and after some weeping in front of the TV, I rushed across Central Park to meet fellow Front Runners who were volunteering at the 24th mile water station. Before we know, we heard the NBC's chopper and then saw the cops on bikes leading the Elite women: It wasn't Deena. It was Jelena who was leading the race at mile 24. Deena appeared as 6th at mile 24 and she didn't look very strong. She finished as 6th. Jelena won in 2hrs 25 minutes as she did last year! Damn! I wish Deena won this race! Next year Deena.

And then the elite men appeared swiftly after the classic chopper sound and an escort of cop bikes and TV cameras. Another surprise: Gomes was leading. As I saw his Brazilian jersey I immediately thought Gomes was the Brazilian who was taken down by a psycho at Athens Olympics when he was leading the olympic marathon. Later on I learnt that the Athens victim wasn't Gomes, but was Vanderlei de Lima. Gomes won in a non impressive 2hrs 9 mins.

After the Elite men, many Europeans and some locals kept on dashing by. Our own Front Runner Rich Velazquez appeared 5-6 minutes before we expected him and finished beautifully as 127th with a time of 2h 38 mins. After Rich we saw a few other Front Runners (Jason, Ross, Chris) and some other local fast runners passing by as well as many cute Italian men and some cute French ones. By the time, Lance Armstrong appeared at par to reach his goal of 3 hours, I had quenched thirst of many runners as a water station volunteer. After Lance passed as a muscle ball and with an army of runners who were escorted by a TV camera on a large bike, I took position to welcome my buddy Alex. Mark was with me as my camera man. Thanks Mark!

Alex was running to finish in 3h 10 mins to qualify for Boston Marathon. Although he was in great shape, we didn't know whether he could pull a 3:10 in his marathon debut. Alex appeared 1 minute behind his pace time and I took off with him from 24th mile to push him within his target. His legs were a bit stiff as I could gather. God knows how stiff mine were - just getting back to running from injury. I was running in jeans and a fleece sweat with my sun glasses in one hand and a cup of water in the other next to Alex. It was a scene to be seen:

- Go Alex!
- Push Alex!
- Almost there Alex!
- Looking great Alex!
- I am proud of you Alex!

I ran with Alex until mile 25.5 on the course. Then an Italian runner pushed me out of the course. I quickly cut across Central Park to catch Alex at mile 26 again. Last 0.2 miles was tragically funny: I was running behind the spectators screaming out my lungs: Push Alex, Push Alex, Push Alex... Go Alex, Go Alex,... as Alex running on the other side of the barricades pushing as much as he could. 200 yards before the finish line I had to stop having bumped into the bleechers. Alex finished in 3:11 and some change. I am so proud of him.

That sprint with Alex helped me a lot emotionally. Having shared that little with him made me feel great about myself. I have no sadness left in my heart, just the hope of getting back to running soon and running next year's marathon. All in all, the oxymoronic consequence of my sprint for Alex was my injury coming back. I was screaming "sorry" and "mercy" interchangeably today as my physical therapist Heather was massaging my screwed up IT band. I promised her not to run again until the therapy is over.

Those who run seem to have all the fun

2006-11-02T10:57:00.000-05:00

Judging from the title, can you infer that I am back in fun? Yes, I am.

Vicki and Heather, my physical therapists, have been kneeding my knee for the past 3.5 weeks trying to loosen up that stubborn IT Band of mine. They put me on a treadmill yesterday for 6 minutes and I ran almost pain-free. They said: "Dash, you are ready!" My eyes were misty for the remainder of the day. The week of the marathon, I got the green light to get back to running.

I put on my orthotic supported NB sneakers this morning. I call them bull-dozers because of their size. I put on my blue wind-breaker I had bought just before my injury and just before the end of the summer. So never had a chance to wear that. I put on my shorts. I hit the lower loop of Central Park. I ran some 2 miles with plenty of international runners who were getting ready for the greatest of all races. I saw NYRR President Mary Wittenberg giving a press conference in front of the marathon finish line. I had fun. Running is so much fun. Here goes one marathon, there will be another.

What are you waiting for? Get out there and run already.

100 on 34

2006-10-31T23:15:00.000-05:00

I am finally 34. Istanbul's licence plate number is 34. So I kind of like this number. I like Istanbul and I like my new age. 34 sounds and feels really cool. I still have a year before hitting the mid-point of my life. Famous Turkish poet Cahit Sitki Taranci had once written: "Age 35, mid of the road..." When I translate these lines, they lose their poetic value, but you get my point. My birthdays become better and better as I get older. My friends and my family were with me all day long today and I felt safe with feeling of being remembered and being loved and being cared for. As a gift in return I am publishing my costume from my birthday party on here. Here is the long anticipated Bloody Scotts (Alex and I):

As I wrote on here after my birthday party of last weekend, I am drunk with love of my first-class friends. I am also happy for another reason now. I am so delighted to announce that this is the 100th entry of my blog. I started this blog in January 2006 in an attempt to fill the void of my life after I quit smoking. After all, smoking had served as a void-filler for 13 years. I used to smoke when I was hungry or when I was full, when I was happy or when I was sad, when I wanted to lose weight, when I felt happy after a run. That was gross and I am happy that my blog took over smoking as a void-filler. However then, through time, this blog became the blog of a first-time marathoner. That marathoner sadly got injured a month ago and things got a bit awry in the realm of missing NYC marathon that will take place in a few days. However, I kept on logging my life and my mind and my heart. This spot is for you. I believe that with every entry I reflect part of what some of you might have experienced some time in your lives. But again, perhaps this is all about me.

This space helps me organize my thoughts and cope with life and sometimes cherish it. This is a day to celebrate. It is great to be 34. It is great to see what I have become after years of trying this and that. Life is an endless journey. I am sure I will surprise myself everyday with what I do and what I can do. However, I must say I am already pretty content in my own skin. I am comfortable with who I am. I know what I have and I know what I don't have. It is incredibly liberating to have this sensation. I would say wearing a kilt is a similar sensation: liberating! I tell you: If I knew of this great sensation before, I would have just fast forwarded my life to my 30s and frozen it there and would also have gotten a few kilts much before!

Tip

2006-10-29T10:10:00.000-05:00

I read the book "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell recently. Among other popular psychology trivia, the book talked about the famous "six degrees of separation" experiments of famous psychologist Milgram. Six degrees of separation is a concept that highlights the fact that we are all connected by six degress of separation thanks to connectors. Connectors are those special nodes in the web of social networks. They are like airport hubs. They know lots of people and bring them together. Thanks to connectors everybody is connected to each other by six degrees of separation or less.

I ask myself whether I am a connector. I sometimes act as a connector but I try to minimize that role. Being a connector is effortful. When I act as a connector, many times I feel like I lose my own interests trying to connect other people. I lose my desires and my time trying to connect nodes in a social network. I'd rather connect with people rather than trying to connect nodes in a network. I know I will act as a connector for years to come because it is in my nature, however sometimes I like taking a break from connecting people.

Yesterday night, I had a fabulous birthday and halloween party: Birthween on Halloday 2006. It was connecting with my friends while connecting them to eachother. Thanks so much to everyone for coming out to the party. Thank You! A humangous thank you to Alex, who (1) hosted the event at his apartment (2) was super nice and cute all night long (3) bought me a birthday cake matching my outfit. Thank You Alex. Big Hug! I felt drunk with the love and the joy of people around me. Everyone who I cared and who is connected to me just with one degree of separation was there.

I am thankful to have such a fun group of friends. They looked so fetch in their costumes yesterday night. At times I retired from being a connector and watched my friends have fun. We danced, we ate, we laughed and we people-watched eachother in our funky costumes. I love my birthday, it is a wonderful opportunity to see everyone at the peak of their creativity. I have such a naughty birthday, because the costumes bring out the little kids in us. Sometimes the costumes are what we want to be but what we can't be in the social rules and norms. It was a fantastic and spicy night full of creat ideas, great dreams and great imagination. I will post pictures of costumes very soon on here, but until then I will enjoy my first-class hangover from the big affection of my first-degree friends and my love of Bloody Mary!

Will You Marry Me?

2006-10-25T22:57:00.000-04:00

- Will you marry me?
- Yes, yes!!!
- hmmm! (I wasn't serious.)
- Ha, ha,...Oops! I didn't mean to say "yes". I meant: Yay! Yay! and Hooray-yay!

Such happy news for the day. We now can get married in New Jersey. That feels weird. As a jaded Manhattanite I have been one of those who dragged his feet not to cross the Hudson River to go to Jersey. I successfully minimized my trips to New Jersey all these years I lived in this geography. "What is wrong with New Jersey?" - one might ask. I say the highway system comes at the top of my list of things that are wrong about Jersey. That's the only highway system in the U.S. where I ever got lost driving. The NJ Highway System is way too complicated.

In a oxymoronic way, if one day I get a boyfriend and one of us or both of us propose, and if we feel like that we want to get married, then we might plan a trip to New Jersey, if New York State doesn't surprise us before. We have to make sure that we find the way to our wedding unless NJ highways become better before then.

I suggest that New Jersey opened the way to gay marriage because of the pressure coming from the sizeable Lesbian community who live there. Lesbians are more interested in domestic life forms than gays to start with. Of course there could be all sorts of exceptions to this stereotypical statement, but on average Lesbians can be still content living in less than urban neighborhoods unlike gays. Lesbians feel comfortable living in the woods and the suburbs of New Jersey and kicking-back in their backyard while flipping burgers on the barbeque that is fueled by the wood chopped again by the lesbian herself. I applaude lesbians for making this happen. Congratulations New Jersey.

Joke aside, this is a wonderful happening. Shall I just start daydreaming about my house in the woods with flowery patterned curtains and matching wallpaper and carpets and upholstery? Should we adopt or find a surrogate mother? Hmm, "we"!? Hold on a second, perhaps I should meet my partner-to-be, who will first be my boyfriend-to-be, after being my date first. Life goes on "so quickly"...I will be 34 in a few days and still single!

One Day At a Time

2006-10-24T23:47:00.000-04:00

I was munching sushi and cookies with Alex a few hours ago. In my absence he apparently acquired new skills. He baked a tray of oatmealish, nutty, raisin-and-cranberry-full cookies. And I only left New York for two days...I vacuumed one and a half of mama Alex's cookies off the plate after two rolls of sushi and a report of my trip to Montreal to Alex. After we were done, there were still almost a dozen cookies on Alex's counter top to be taken to work tomorrow.

Tomorrow is yet another super busy day for me. When I look at my calendar these days, I simply get overwhelmed. Therefore, everyday I just think about only "today" and perhaps a little bit about "tomorrow." The sad thing is that this crazy busyness and business will go on at least one more month. Interviewing it is. That's the name of the game. After all, perhaps having dropped out of the marathon was good for a reason. So, I was at Montreal the past two days visiting McGill University's Marketing Department and giving a talk there. The weather was so awful (cold, rainy and overcast) and my schedule was so jam-packed full that I didn't even imagine myself doing anything outdoorsy put aside marathon training.

I am off to D.C. for the remainder of the week to give yet another talk at Georgetown University. When I get back to NYC on Saturday, it will be my Birthday Party three days before its original date: The Annual Birthween on Halloday. Ok, I have gone too far and thought about three-four days in advance and I am again already overwhelmed. There is already so much to do tomorrow. "One day at a time" is how I take life these days. Otherwise it is very unbearable.

It is not only my busy calendar that makes me anxious and overwhelmed. It is also my absence from running that causes anxiety. I am feeling that I am getting closer to getting back to running. It maybe very soon that you can again spot me at Central Park. As we were munching our cookies Alex's was telling me that it must be really annoying to be around all this running conversation as the marathon gets closer. Actually, it is not. As long as I start running again, I am totally fine. It sometimes feels like "whatever", since I don't have anything to contribute to these running stories, but I feel for my friends. After all I learned a very important lesson from running: "one stride at a time" and "one step after other". That learning translates to a philosophy of "one day at a time" and makes life beautiful even under most demanding circumstances.

Experimenting

2006-10-18T11:48:00.000-04:00

I attended a "science high school" in Turkey. I had to pass special exams to be admitted to my science high school. This special schooling system of "science" high schools in Turkey was founded in order to raise the future scientists of the country. That's why most of my classmates from the high school ended up pursuing phds, just like me. However, we didn't pursue PhDs in basic sciences that we were intensively trained for in high school. My major was physics in high school, however I was also required to do lots of lab work in chemistry and biology classes. I even ran a large biology project by myself in a nationwide science project competition. The project was about improving the digestability of industrial grains used to feed the poultry. I devised an enzyme mixture that was sprayed on the ground grains before they were given to the poultry. This enzymed grain cocktail improved the effectiveness of indutstrial poultry food. What does that mean? The chickens that ate the enzyme-sprayed grains grew much faster and they weigh more at the end of a 10 week period. That was the beginning of formal experimentation in my life.

Now I am doing psychological experiments to understand consumer decision making better. I try to unreveal what happens in our minds when we are making decisions and particularly shopping decisions. Anybody whose work involves some kind of research knows that we need to try out these experiment concepts on many people to obtain statistical power in our results. There could be so many idiosyncratic properties of each experiment subject that would make the results look weird. However, when averaged across a sample of subjects, these weirdnesses wash out and the remainder is a beautiful scientific result if one had gotten the theory part right. Therefore, we need a meaningful number of experimetal subjects to get statistically acceptable results.

Amongst all these experiments, it is very possible to become very mechanic and forget about the individual - the subject, unless there is a constant reminder of the individual differences or unless one stays alert to watch out for individual differences. However, beyond the statistically meaningful individual differences, it is also very important to understand every individual separately, as a person. Outside the lab, the world is not anymore about an ambitious race to wash out the idiosyncratic individual weirdnesses in an attempt to find statistically significant scientific results. It is about treating everyone as a single person and cherishing those idiosyncratic individual weirdnesses and sometimes profiting from them. It is that uniqueness in people that makes everyone ultimately to find "the one" for him- or herself.

I feel like I am a subject of some sort of experimentation these days. An experiment that Vicki (my physical therapist) and I conduct on my right leg. I was recently injured and now I am going to physical therapy for my injury. I observe myself, my idiosyncratic weirdnesses, twice a week during my therapy sessions. I did observe some of those this morning. It made me think how my weirdnesses can not be washed out in just one experiment with the presence of a statistically meaningful sample. Vicki has to deal with those weirdnesses just working on me until she corrects my particular weirdness: ITB syndrome. Her theoretically meaningful effect will be a healed runner. She has so much patience or she puts on a mask and is patient with me. It is a process of back and forth, healing that is I am talking about. One day I feel twice better and next day I feel half as bad. It is not a controlled experiment. So Vicki doesn't know exactly what is going to work best on me, but she tries a set of powerful tools. In a sense, she is experimenting too. Her effort gives me strength and power. I try to follow everything she says and suggests. However, it is also a mini experiment I am doing on my body. I don't know what every single sensation I have on my leg means. If I listen to every little bodily feeling I have, the inferences become meaningless. So I also wash out the idiosyncratic weirdnesses that flow out of my right leg. I wash those signals out to eliminate random noise and produce a meaningful feedback to Vicki so that she can try the most effective therapist strategies on me.

Leave all the abstractness and scientific lingo aside, I am energized by my personal experiments at physical therapy. It gives me hope and power. It makes me feel that I do something good for myself. It gives me patience and calms me down. It fulls me with determination in other aspects of my life. With all these good vibes after the morning therapy session of today, I started out one of the last experiments of my dissertation thesis. After I kicked off the experiment at school, I left the office for a short field experiment in Soho: dress shopping for a maid of honor - my dear friend Sue.

When Sue was in the BCBG Max Mara dressing room trying out her 7th dress, the salesperson asked me whether I was a designer. I wanted to say: "No honey I am gay!" Instead, I said: "I know a lot about shopping!" It was a fun lunch hour activity with Sue. Although she didn't buy anything yet, she appreciated the difference between BCBG Max Mara and Kenneth Cole: "That $350 Kenneth Cole dress was made of Jersey Polyester!" It is experimentation that she had to do for herself to believe in me that sometimes paying $900 for a dress is worth it. She had to wear those high heel shoes both at BCBG Max Mara and Kenneth Cole to appreciate the hefty price she may have to pay at West Broadway. Hey, if you are going to stand up on 9-inch heels for more than 3 hours, you'd better get comfy ones. Interestingly, the better looking ones are also the comfy ones. One only learns that with experimentation!

Fall

2006-10-15T23:33:00.000-04:00

I like the Fall. Besides many other reasons, I feel like the whole universe is celebrating my birthday when Fall hits my geography. Now that I am in North America, I appreciate what nature offers us in this part of the world. North America is one of the greatest places to feel the power of this season. I call it the power of orange and melancholy. I am all orange these months. Orange is my favorite color for a reason. Orange is somewhat the color of melancholy too. It is deep, warm, yet not very exciting, not too sour but not sweet either...

Melancholy is an intense feeling of mix of so many emotions that I want to call it an orgasmic feeling. Melancholy it is; it makes you laugh, but then cry... It makes you shiver. It hardens your nipples! It washes your miseries of the past, but throws more on your way. It makes you sigh and find your inner peace. It stuffs you with long gazes into the horizon and places a sporadic smile at the corner of your mouth.

This past week, I was momentarily taken away from the beauty of the Fall in my city for an important purpose. I took my melancholy with me when I flew to Ann Arbor to give a talk at the University of Michigan Marketing Department about my research and also to meet the faculty there. U of Michigan is a great research power-house and my hosts treated me very well. All in all, it was a pleasant trip with a few exceptions. First off, I got off the plane on a jet-bridge. Not being able to find enough time to wrap my coat over my shivering body, thanks to the overly abnormally low temperatures there and the out-of-place mini snow storm happening at that instant, I stepped on the airport tartan in jeans and just in a single brown/orange colored t-shirt with hardened nipples for the wrong reason. The t-shirt had ironically "no longer responsible for my actions" imprinted on its chest. My only other complaint was that the color coordination of my presentation slides and my outfit wasn't noticed by the audience during my talk: My slides were in navy blue and orange and I was in a navy blue suit and was carrying an orange computer bag!

I got back to New York safely and indulged in the pleasures of not running and not training for the marathon. That means sleeping in late. However, that also means starving. I cannot eat as much as I used to, now that I don't run 40 plus miles every week. I try to frequent the gym, but it is not the same thing. I am about to throw a fit if I don't recover soon. I seriously think that weight-lifting is not for me. I fell from the heights of running to find myself in a nicely decorated basement doing bench presses:1,2,3,...12 X 3! Over and over and over again. I may look buff soon. That would actually make me look good in my halloween costume that I am putting together these days. Yes, it is Fall and my birthday is fast approaching. I can't wait for the day I will publish my photo in this year's costume here on my blog. That is something to look forward to.

Fall is just like this. It brings out so many thoughts, and makes me ramble. This Fall is going on in a very challenging manner. I am holding so much in me because this personal space has become very public and there is so much one can announce to the whole world. Tonight I saw the movie "The Queen" with Mike O and Alex. Of all the things, I noticed how lonely the Queen was and how few people really understood what an above-human effort it takes to be that strong to take on the roughness of the lone. I feel similar at times. I am such an extrovert. To the world, it seems that I unload all that is in my mind and I don't carry a bit of stress in me. If only they knew how much I don't tell and keep inside. There are even some thoughts that I don't tell to my closest. One of my old friends - he was my best friend when I used to live in Istanbul - Sinan, had once showed me an article about extroverts. According to this article, the banter created by extroverts is a self-defense mechanism to distract people away from the inner weakness of the extrovert. In a less formal manner, this article claims that I put on a show of happiness to hide my sad. Hence there is so much room for melancholy for an October-born me: Dash Simon.

Disclaimer:
1- If you don't understand this posting that's great
2- Don't ask questions, but you are allowed to co-melancholy...

Vicki Says: "2 to 6 Weeks"

2006-10-11T19:35:00.000-04:00

Vicki is my physical therapist. We met this morning at 8am, so that she could kneed my leg. I was 15 minutes late and she wasn't very happy about it, but we got along well overall. She is hell of a strong woman despite her athletic, but slim/medium built. My (bad) luck again! These women have no mercy massaging my leg! However, Vicki thinks Helen can kneed my leg better. I agree. Helen is the muscle-ball physical therapist that helped me heal 4 years ago when I had a combination of Runner's Knee and IT Band Syndrome four years ago on my left leg. My lingering injury of the past 3.5 weeks got diagnosed fully today. Yes, as we all suspected I have IT Band Syndrome on my right leg now. So I started my physical therapy sessions. I was biting my lips as Vicki was massaging and massaging my IT Band.

After massaging, applying ultrasound and electrical therapy, stretching and kneeding and massaging again the IT Band for more than an hour, Vicki concluded: "It might take two to six weeks until you can start running again!" I immediately thought: "Damn!" I had imagined I could actually run this weekend, but apparently it is still too soon. On a second thought, I think Vicki is right. I feel much stronger now. I can walk easily and the stairs are not much of a challenge, but the weakness of my right leg comes out if I try to run. Oh, Damn!! And yes, I wish I hadn't eaten that bag of chips today and that hamburger deluxe yesterday at lunch. It seems I will be gym-going for a little bit longer than I wanted to.

I Feel My Sad

2006-10-08T22:49:00.000-04:00

Finally, last wednesday morning I made the difficult decision. I am not running the 2006 NYC Marathon. In the busyness of past week of running experiments at school I was able to contain my deep sadness of this decision. However, even typing it here, on my blog now, is so difficult...I tried to convince myself that I could actually run it, I might be able to do it, everytime I felt a little bit better as the week progressed to an end. I eventually resorted back to the "wise" decision. I am not running it. Only I know how it feels. It is my sad.

It is not like feeling down for no reason as you would wake up one morning and be bored and wander around your apartment and you wouldn't want to go to work. It is not like you are overwhelmed by the busyness of your life. It is not like you are angry at your cheating boyfriend. It is not like that you are disappointed that you didn't win a lottery. It is not like that you regret a wrong choice you made and therefore you are kicking yourself. It is not like you are painfully longing after missed opportunities. It is deep sadness that knots around your throat, that makes you ready to burst into tears everytime the topic comes up. It physically hurts in your belly that is newly forming due to lack of exercise. It is a mix of helplessness and pain of deep loss.

I had two options at the face of my sad: (1) To miserate in my helplessness (2) to bounce. I chose to bounce, but I know that my sad will linger until it eventually disappears. I am bouncing with a newly created busyness thanks to my job search. My job search took a new turn this week and it is a whole new drama within itself. I will write about that when this whole "Shakespearean" job hunt is over. I am walking over at the edge of "to be or not to be..." I have so much material of drama and tragedy from this last week that I can easily fill in a full season of TeleMundo soap opera. However, I will not drama me or you anymore. I am bouncing back.

As a first step of my bounce back program, I volunteered for Front Runners' marathon training this morning. After waking up at a surprising 6.30am, I served water and gatorade to 16 marathon training Front Runners starting at Brooklyn, going to Queens to Bronx to Manhattan to Central Park and ending at the Tavern on the Green along 20 plus miles of the Blue Line Run. My reward of the day was lovely appreciation of my runner friends. I heart them. And a spiritual power sent a small but pleasant gift to my way too. I spotted two celebreties at once this afternoon. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robin Williams stopped at Doma, the coffee house I was hanging out with Vicki and Pri and bought coffee for themselves. I even briefly chatted with Robin. He was funny and nice as usual. I never favored Philip Seymour, but it was a memorable celebrity spotting.
...
So if you are wondering what I will do on November 5th, 2006, instead of running 26.2 fabulous miles: I will be volunteering at the 24th mile of the Marathon - at the water station. See you there runners. Be well, stay well, take good care of yourselves.

Most Famous Person on Earth

2006-10-04T23:55:00.000-04:00

how high are the stakes
how much fortune can you make
how high are the stakes
how much fortune can you make

it's funny
I spent my whole life wanting to be talked about
I did it...

She is Madonna. Is she the most famous person on earth? Perhaps not yet. Depends...

How do we define the most famous person on earth? Is he Moses or Jesus? The owner of the question of "who the most famous on earth" is Mikey. He asked this to our van on the way back from Reach the Beach. I responded immediately as Bill Clinton. The others in the van objected. They said it must be Muhammed Ali or Michael Jordan. Then the conversation drifted away, but the Q remained at the corner of my mind.

These days I ask anything to google or wikipedia. So after asking google this question, here are the highlights of some of the entries on first few pages of google results:

Muhammed Ali - The greatest. King of the World....Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The most famous athlete who ever lived. Once widely considered the most famous person on Earth. -- Dec. 19, 2001 -- NPR website

Yahoo answers are here: Michael Jackson? Bill Gates? The Pope? Hitler? One of the Yahoo answers bring out an important distinction: Living? or Dead?

I came across another blog entry that argues the question from a different perspective: "Who will be the best known person of the 20th century in 5000 years?" Among others, this blog suggests again Muhammed Ali, Michael Jordan, Hitler, Pele as candidates. But then counter-argues against this list and poses the question in an interesting manner: Who has more staying power? An athlete, an artist, a politician, a president or a dictator?

I suggest that whoever will save the earth from disappearing will have the most staying power. Whoever has all of his statues erected all over the world will stay. In Turkey, Atatürk is that person. In Russia, it was Lenin, but now he doesn't have any statues left - kind of erectile dsyfunction, no? However ask anyone who goes to Turkey, they will respond the same manner: Atatürk is everywhere. He saved the nation from disappearing in 1923 and established a modern secular islamic democracy that has no other equivalent on earth and the Turks celebrated his life with his photos hung above every blackboard in every classroom and his statues erected in every town and every city.

What are the major global problems that we are fighting against now? Who is trying to solve these problems? I think the name that answers these two questions will be the one: "The most famous person on earth some years from now." The man or woman who will save the earth will have the most staying power. I will propose my answer and you can propose yours by commenting on this entry. However, before I suggest my naive and humble answer, I will describe a common judgment bias that all of us are prone to (because all of us are humans).

The bias is an outcome of a heuristic called "availability heuristic" that is suggested by Nobel Prize winner (2002, Economics) Daniel Kahneman and late Amos Tversky. What is this heuristic? "Availability is a cognitive heuristic in which a decision maker relies upon knowledge that is readily available rather than examine other alternatives or procedures - see more here". I am prone to availability heuristic in making judgments as much as you do. Therefore my answer is biased by my initial answer to this question and what I have been reading lately (that is what is readily available to me).

I have been reading an article in the New Yorker by David Remnick the past few days. The title of this article is the Wanderer and yes, Bill Clinton is the Wanderer. He is wandering the Globe for a good reason these days. The article describes Bill Clinton's post-presidency and discusses whether his legacy as the head of Clinton Foundation will be better remembered than his not so legendary presidency. Every one who knows (directly or indirectly or through media) Bill Clinton agrees on his charisma. Apparently, Bill Clinton is using his charisma to help fight the AIDS problem in Africa these days. You may argue that AIDS epidemic in Africa may not take the earth down, but who knows? UN and WHO statistics indicate how serious AIDS epidemic is with thousands of people dying from this disease every day. If Clinton helps find the AIDS vaccine, he will definitely have enormous staying power not only in Africa but all around the Globe. Bill Gates Foundation is in this too and apparently Gates and Clinton made a trip together to Africa last summer. Can Clinton be the savor? What if Hillary Clinton is elected the president? Will that help? Will that make any change?

I will think more. I was reading too much about Clintons lately. I need to de-bias myself a bit. What do you think? Who has the staying power? Can it be me? Can it be you? How high are the stakes?

über-...

2006-10-03T11:01:00.000-04:00

Back from Orlando, I landed in NY on a pleasant sunday afternoon. The sun in the sky made adjusting a little bit easier. After four days of über-nice sunny weather in Orlando, a chilled out NY would be a drastic cold shower to bring me to reality and make me forget the pain of my leg. Yes, I am still in pain and I am running in struggle, but I am running and I will run. I came back to running with 34 miles last week. I ran in Orlando on the highways with passer-by small lizards. There is no shoulder on Orlando highways or country roads. I figured this out soon after I started parsing the 7.5 mile über-flat course I mapped around my hotel.

Little I know that only a few hours before I arrived, New Yorkers were being hosed down in chilled water by the Gods of the Sky! Lucky me. The pleasant sunday afternoon allowed me to throw in a longish run of 13 miles as soon as I arrived NY. Again - little I know that as I was parsing Central Park hills on a pleasant dry afternoon following the footsteps of those who ran the Grete's Great Gallop (a half -marathon race of NYRR named after a great norwegian runner woman) that morning under chilled rain, my running and drinking buddies Mikey, Michael, Rob and Alex were celebrating Alex's über-PR at yesterday's half-marathon (1:28:40) - I am proud of you Alex! Way to go!

Orlando was an über-success for me academically. I bonded and networked with many people. More importantly, I did a kick-ass presentation that received a rare compliment from my advisor: "you really did a very good job at the conference -- people like that presentation style -- they like to see someone who enjoys the research, yet doesn't take himself too serious..." For now I will just enjoy the compliments. God knows what had gone into making that presentation. I really enjoyed myself though. So that's good. What is better than giving a presentation for an extrovert? It was my 30 minutes of attention to room full of people.

I made a bunch of new friends at the conference this year and I had great time socializing with them. I was as gay as I can be with my new straight friends. One night as I was going to dinner with a group of academics, a professor from a New York school told me that I was dressed as metrosexual. I responded saying: "Well, that's not quite fitting, because I am homosexual." The professor (after just one or two seconds of hesitation) responded in wit: "You are über-sexual!" Hence the über-ness of this essay.

Apparently über-sexual is the new metrosexual. I shall yet see the über-sexuals on the streets. Perhaps, I shall not wish that. I am really confused with all these sexuals. In all vagueness of the sexual orientation of the cute dorky guys on the train or on the street, metrosexuals were confusing enough to muddy the waters and making it very hard to identify who is gay and who is straight. Now there are über-sexuals. How am I ever going to meet someone on the street?

I should not worry about meeting someone on the street these days actually, because I am über-busy trying to finalize my thesis and find a job at the same time. Did I say that I am also training for a marathon? I just don't have a single minute to do anything other than research and running (ok perhaps a few other personal activities too, but that's it). I promise to appear on the streets, in the lives of dear New Yorkers and friends after all this job search cha-cha is over. If you are a runner, lucky me; then I can see you while running and we don't have to miss each other. Otherwise, I promise to blog more often and spring out über-quality essays. Until then bear with be please, you - das über-patient people.

Back to Running

2006-09-28T00:11:00.000-04:00

Yes. I am back. I did a slower than usual 6 mile loop in Central Park tonight, but it wasn't bad at all. My right leg felt heavy at times, sometimes there was that well-known stingy ache of my knee problem (a.ka. IT band syndrome) but I did run the loop. I did finish strong and 3-4 hours had passed and I still feel good, just a bit sore!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am in the game again!

One learns how many latin named syndromes there are only when starts running heavily. So I managed to get two of those syndromes on my left knee and one on my right knee and I still feel good. I also had an injured toe and a brief period of shortness of breathe problem when I used an inhaler. All in all, none of these syndromes are that serious. Especially, none of the knee syndromes are related to my knee cap, so that's all good. As long as the cap is in place the muscles can show all the drama that they want. Did you hear them talking the other day?

One not only learns that there are several latino knee syndromes but also learns that his legs are talking to him. If I only listen to them everyday... Let them do their own thing, they will benefit greatly from my running (shhh, I know you don't buy this, but please don't let them know about it, because that's how I make them get going... And all those fake tears of last week seem to have worked! Shhhh!!)

I am off to Orlando tomorrow morning with a 7 a.m. (another challenge) flight to the Annual Association for Consumer Research Conference. I will make a presentation of one of my research projects in that conference. But most importantly, when you are reading these lines, I will be most probably running.

Waist Down

2006-09-24T01:18:00.000-04:00

R: What a drama! I am the one who is in real pain here and I haven't said a word. He keeps on talking about how sad he is, how unexpected all this had happened. Unexpected my ass! He had been running too much!
L: I know, there is a point I wanted to scream out "enough already!" He deserved what had happened to him.
R: Don't say that! It is not nice. You know how much all this means to him.
L: Honey! Either you are a great actor, or you have a heart of gold! After all he had done to you, you still want good for him.
R: In all selfishness, look how beautiful we look. We used to be fat. Despite the pain now, it is a great outcome.
L: Yes I agree and I think that those fat people he kept on gossiping about cursed him.
R: I hope he is not cursed. He should show more respect to fat people.
L: Even I agree with that, but It is not gonna happen. He can't help it! Ha, ha!!
R: Oh well, that's true! He even quit smoking this year though. I am totally impressed how committed he is to his health these days.
L: Blah blah blah! What's the benefit of him quiting smoking for us?
R: That means, there is not a risk of being chopped off one day because of a clogged vein, you idiot!
L: Oh whatever! You are more drama than him. I am the only cool one here.
R: Oh whatever, up yours, you bitch. I am the one who had been in pain all this week. Despite all the pain I am going through now, I am happy.
L: Oh yes? Happy? How so? Please tell me.
R: He came to his senses. Did you hear that he is reconsidering the idea of going drag for Halloween? Can you imagine being on high heels for 3-4 hours?
L: Oh thank god, No drag - No heels. I was dreading that! What kind of dumbo would think of walking on high heels for 4 hours?! Oh I know, please don't answer that question.
R: Oh well, but I am in still pain.
L: Didn't you say that you were feeling better today?
R: Yeah I am actually... I am actually amazed how well he knows us. He had been doing all the right things all week long. He even massaged me the past three days, although he hates massages. He is doing all the right things! He is doing all he can and he knows how to support me. I have to give this to him.
L: Yeah, he is seriously sad.
R: He really cares about me. I actually saw him crying a couple of times last week.
L: Honey, those tears weren't for you! He is crying for himself. He needs us. So he was crying out of helplessness.
R: Poor thing. I feel sorry for him.
L: Well, I know what it means since I have been through this four years ago with him.
R: Yes, I remember. How can I forget eight weeks of physical therapy and that muscle woman masseur!
L: She was something! And you have been so selfish about my condition. You never showed empathy. You kept on laughing everytime that masseur muscle-ball laid her hands on me. And you, you blamed me for my physical shortcomings.
R: But you have a few important shortcomings. For once, you are literally short and that influences me badly!
L: Isn't this great? Perhaps, you may now shrink a little...and this way we can be even.
R: Shut up! You are making me nervous.
L: Well, we are in this together don't forget. He never came to terms with us. We were always fat. He kept on trying to get rid of us. What are those jokes about donating us to charity, and such? And some people laugh at his jokes!
R: Oh yes. But I have to admit we look more handsome now that we had shed a few pounds. It wasn't bad after all.
L: Yes, I agreed with that a few minutes ago. Stop repeating yourself. You don't have a shred of originality. I am telling you, you are totally like your uncle!
R: Stop arguing. You act like a woman!
L: Oh you are way so overboard now. Do you need glasses to see the veins and the hair on me?
R: Ok, ok... enough of this banter! Aren't we going to cooperate and put this to an end already?
L: Yes, we will eventually cooperate. But I want him to suffer a few days more.
R: Why is that?
L: You were just admiting it yourself. He despised us all these years. It's as if our fault that he weighed more, he should have eaten less.
R: Yeah, but if we slack him out of training for a few more days, it may jeopardize all his chances to run the marathon.
L: I am still kind of mad at you. I was in so much pain all along those four years. I had to go through eight weeks of physical therapy and so much needling and chinese medicine shit and see you only how it feels only now.
R: Yes, yes. I am sorry it had taken you much longer to heal and much more pain, but he learned so much since then and he is stronger now.
L: Ok, ok...We will send him back on his flat feet wednesday night. Let him have another session of acupuncture on wednesday first.
R: Oh I hate those needles.
L: They are good for you.
R: Yes, you are right. I want to be strong once he starts that crazy training schedule of his.
L: You will be fine.
R: We will be fine.
L: We will...
R: ...
L: I love you Right.
R: I love you too Left.

And here I run: Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right,....

Royal Matters

2006-09-21T10:44:00.000-04:00

I received the below story from a friend and the person who told my friend the story is interestingly someone I wanted to date in my straight days (a.k.a.dark age )! So this beautiful girl whom I once had my heart and eye on witnessed this all on a flight in the middle east. There might be a certain factor of exaggaration or the story can even be made-up, but the events seem realistic and amusing enough to publish. Enjoy!

My flight was being served by an obviously gay flight attendant, who seemed to put everyone in a good mood as he served us food and drink. As the plane prepared to descend, he came swishing down the aisle and told us that "Captain Marvey has asked me to announce that he'll be landing the big scary plane shortly, so lovely people, if you could just put your trays up, that would be super."

On his trip back up the aisle, he noticed this well-dressed and rather Arabic looking woman hadn't moved a muscle. "Perhaps you didn't hear me over those big brute engines but I asked you to raise your trazy-poo, so the main man can pitty-pat us on the ground."

She calmly turned her head and said, "In my country, I am called a Princess and I take orders from no one."

To which (I swear) the flight attendant replied, without missing a beat, "Well, sweet-cheeks, in my country I'm called a Queen, so I Outrankyou. Tray-up, Bitch."

High Spirits

2006-09-21T00:47:00.000-04:00

I am celebrating my decision to be fine, to be on high spirits and to grow my hope and heal my knee with a Dos Equis. I just opened my beer and saluting to all those friends who have been emailing and calling and reaching out having heard that I might be injured. Cheers you guys.

Tonight I couldn't run with Front Runners in Central Park as I have been doing in several of the past weeks. I couldn't go to dinner with them and I couldn't have a beer afterwards at a local bar. Instead, I did go to a long forgotten destination: the gym. I tried to work my knee since the first time I came back from Reach the Beach. The wonderful news is that miraculously I could do some cardio exercise as Michael O suggested. Although my knee felt a bit sensitive, I did the elliptical and the bike and I felt hopeful and strong. More importantly, I did some sort of aerobic exercise which should help to keep my form. Then I did my knee and IT band stretches. On the way back home, I felt weak again trying to go down the subway stairs, but as soon as I got in home, I iced my knee like there is no tomorrow, exactly how Alex told me to do it.

I think I am responsible to recover from this minor injury. I owe it to myself. It is possible that it may not work out, but I will do my best to come out of this as soon as and as strong as possible. Tomorrow, I will feel gradually better. Tomorrow evening I will see my acupuncturist, that will help me a bit more. Friday, I will feel even better. Saturday, I will have the false sensation that I could run again but I won't, I will wait. Sunday will be the day I will go up and down the stairs without pain and before I know I will be in the Park breaking into my newly purchased Marathon Sneakers. Yes, they are here. I bought my blue and white Asics Gel Nimbus VIII. They are waiting in my closet to come out!

Thanks to you all for cheering me up on this. And cheers to you!

45 Days Left and I am Injured

2006-09-20T12:33:00.000-04:00

It feels sad even to accept that I am now seriously injured. Hopefully not very seriously.

I remember telling Alex right before I started my first leg of 7.2 miles at Reach the Beach last friday that my right knee hurt a little. I forgot about it during the following 24 hours of running high on adrenalin and endorphins. Then I was so high happy after the race and the pain got mixed with the muscle soreness and overall fatigue of running for 25 hours and almost no sleep in two days.

Now it is wednesday. It has been 4 full days since my last run. Muscle soreness, sleep deprivation and all that high have slowly gone, but I have just one big souvenir left from NH: A sharp pain on the outside tendon of my right knee. I limp as I walk and I can't do the stairs with my right leg: neither up nor down. I tried to run in the hallway of my department, the pain was so sharp on my right knee that I stopped after the first step. I don't even dare to take one stride of running under these conditions.

I feel it that I may not be able to do NYC 2006. I am sad, but I am not tormenting myself. I am in this for a lifetime. Furthermore, I am hopeful. There are other marathons and other years. I am already qualified for NYC 2007 thanks to running 11 qualifying races for that so far this year. Furthermore, if I cancel my NYC 2006 entry, I can transfer my right to NYC 2007. But again, I wanna run NYC 2006. I have been through so much. I need to be there this year.

Waking up every morning this week has been an interesting experience. I walk out of bed reluctantly, feeling scared that the pain could still be there. I take my first step on my right leg to see whether there is any lessening in the pain. I kind of walk a bit faster today, despite the fact that I am still limping and walking like a duck shaking my butt left and right trying to adjust for the pain on my knee. Fortunately, I have my acupuncture appointment tomorrow evening. If I don't feel any better even after that then I think I might have to see my gorgeous sports medicine doctor again. This time for a real injury.

Reaching The Beach

2006-09-17T23:45:00.000-04:00

I just returned home from one of the most unique experiences of my life. Only two days ago, last saturday early morning - and when I say early, this is real early: 1am - I was agreeing Alex how this was an incredible first-ever adrenabulous experience when we were stretching (Alex right after his run and me right before my run) and waiting for Michael O to pass by us so that we can give him his water on a local route in the mountains of New Hampshire. Yes, Michael O was running one of the night legs of 8ish miles in the Reach the Beach relay race. Here is him preparing for that run with Mikey who has just returned from running his leg:

The night runs were just one of the many unique parts of this experience. Our team of Front Runners NY - For Running Out Loud was one of the 296 teams of 12 people who did this 200 mile relay race from the mountains to the beach of NH. My team was a super fantabolous team of 12 gorgeous and ultra fun men. Each man on this 12 person team ran about 15-20 miles during the course of about 24 hours. The 15-20 mile share for each runner was run in three different legs, so every runner ran a leg of 3-9 miles every 7-8 hours or so through the race. The race had many intrinsic details which are best described for the more interested on the website, but I choose to describe our personal and picturesque experience of the race.

My twelve person team was parted in two vans of six people each + a driver in each van. My van was the van that forgot Michael O's bag at the car rental place and took its carb load through barley containing drinks (a.k.a. beer). We also had an amazing appetite cumulatively, so we managed to consume several bags of chips, nuts, candies and assortments of other junk food with beer on our long trip to NH from NYC. Since we managed to get lost trying to get there without any directions, it took us 9.5 long hours to finally arrive at our rooms at 3 am Friday morning. Some say excitement, some say sudden raid of van 2 members to our rooms, but whatever it was, we (van 1) woke up after few short hours of sleep. We had yet another dineresque high-fat breakfast and before we knew we were by the race start.

We first salvaged Michael O's forgotten bag that traveled to the race start line with another participating team (as a random act of kindness of God)...We registered and oriented and then we beautifully goofed around while waiting for the start. The slower teams took starts at earlier hours. We were one of the teams who took a later start. The race organizers wanted to make teams finish close to each other, hence they have everyone start according to their estimated race pace:

The first leg of the race was a 3.1 mile stretch that involved running up a ski slope and then coming down. Here our team is coming down the ski slope after our exploration of the course (left to right - Marty, Kelsey, Mikey, Michael):

Marty started the race:

Marty looks so fetch in his knee socks just finishing the leg 1 of the race:

Marty came down the ski slopes and passed the flag to Jeff. [Then, Jeff to Mikey, Mikey to Alex, Alex to Michael O and Michael O to me, me to van 2, van 2 to Marty + several hindsight mistakes how each one of us remembers running each leg from past years + no sleep + several bottles of water and gatorade + several rolling hills and sharp descents + many skanks + more junk food at volunteering schools along the course + much nagging + taking a few wrong turns + much peace and no fights + many teases and much banter + so much sweat + at least that much manly odors + lots of pee-stops in the woods + one racoon + one small bladder + big hearts + three snakes + some flirts + much eye candy + freakishly strong women + some surprisingly slow men + some quiet zones + many cheers] x 3 = 25 hours 5 minutes of running and 13th place among 296 teams.

Finally Gerrit finished the race like a sand plower on the beach and we all followed him past under the finish line banner. We were so thrilled by our performance that we kept on smiling for the rest of the day:

After a quick dip into the ocean at the Hampton shore of NH, we headed back to NY. The trip back was jolly and fast:

- Alex and I complained about how much weight we gained
- Some (including me) moaned from muscle pain and soreness
- A few of us squeezed in a snoary nap that was interrupted with quick sips of that barley drink
- Jeff sang a bunch of songs and initiated half a dozen pop trivia questions
- We reflected back a lot: How many runners Mikey clipped (or better yet shaved)? How beautiful the several rolling hills of NH were? How the bubble wrap team was so friendly? How that iron runner woman passed Michael O? How blind Cenk was to scream out Kelsey, Kelsey where are you at the exchange point? How handsome some of the other runners were?
- A very intriguing question came up: Who do you think the most famous person on earth is? Any ideas?
- Marty accepted being Marty for us - the Front Runners
- Jeff sang more
....

Now I am back. I am so exhausted and also exhausticated and I brought back an injury, most possibly two problematic tendons. So I am now coping with the pain of my tendons trying to suck up as much juice as I can from the runs of this race. I am off from running for now. Let's hope that this tendon pain goes away soon. I still have a first marathon to train for and I am really not looking good. I was limping most of yesterday and today. I am not sure how long this injury will linger, but this past weekend convinced me one more time that I will run till I drop.

Post-Summer Syndrome

2006-09-12T17:33:00.000-04:00

Summer is officially over. For those of you who are energized by the summer, however humid, sticky, wet it is, these days might be days of that feeling of internal hollowness. However summery the days are now, I already feel the Autumn deep in my heart. So in an attempt to energize all the other summer lovers I put together a prescription to overcome post-summer syndrome (a.k.a. PSS). I am a Pollyanna after all.

10 - Run a Race or two. I am running three. Reach the Beach on September 15, Staten Island Half Marathon on October 15 and ING New York City Marathon on November 5.

9 - Throw a party, so that you can co-miserate with other summer lovers, get trashed and wake up to a fresh breezy fall morning. I am going to throw yet another party for my birthday, which is handsomely on Halloween and my friend Alex is graciously hosting it. Aint I lucky?

8 - Start putting together your Halloween costume. I am famous for my creative yet ultra ugly costumes. On my 32nd birthday I was a Witch Sorcerer (a witch in soccer player costume - see below pics). That costume had freaked my mom out, because of the dark eye make-up I had on. On my defense, the make-up was supposed to be artistic and make me look scary, not drag! So I am thinking Pollyana this year and I am fantasizing becoming a sharp marine, I should be able to pull that off, but that's so boring!

7 - To get used to the idea that Fall is here and there is no escaping, just cherish this beautiful season that brings out the best colors in nature in North America. A trip to Hudson Valley is a great way to achieve that blending in with the season.

6 - Write a letter to your parents. If your parents are already in heaven or in New York City, write a letter to someone you love who is far away. Writing helps us to deal with our miseries better. It is a great way to cope with mixed or changing emotions. Why do you think that I am writing this letter to you?

5 - FALL asleep and wake up in the winter or skip winter and sleep until Spring comes out.

4 - Go to a museum or two. I love NY museums on Friday evenings. I especially like the Met. I like seeing their permanent collection from time to time. The armor collection of the medieval knights is my favorite. More so, the current exhibition in the rooftop seems interesting. Just make sure you don't FALL, if you choose to see that rooftop exhibition at the Met.

Look what I found, me on yet another halloween/birthday. This time I was an intern witch (The Witch-Wanna-Bee) and I suggest some art apparently. [I know this Halloween costume is beyond gross - that pancho I am wearing was an old blanket from my apartment]

3 - I can't help it to suggest yet another travel. My office mate just visited Niagara Falls with her parents who were visiting from Belgium. I lived in the U.S. for six years so far, I saw so many places - little towns and big cities...I still need to go to Niagara Falls myself. They say early FALL is a great time to see the FALLs.

2 - Pretend that it is still summer. Go crazy and wear your summer clothes in the Fall. Become one of those college boys/girls who show up in the coldest day of the winter in flip flops and cargo shorts. Keep on wearing the summer outfits. If you find this suggestion way too chill for yourself, then you can just keep the summery attitude in Fall clothes. If you don't have the Fall wardrobe fixed yet, shopping might be killing two birds with one stone. Start spending some $s.

1- Just give in and FALL in love.

Aslan

2006-09-12T01:13:00.000-04:00

Who watched Chronicles of Narnia? I did. Tonight, on DVD, by myself. It was kind of fitting to today's special meaning: 9/11, it is one more time just like it has been every year since we adopted our calendar system. Chronicles of Narnia is the story of 2 brothers and 2 sisters. It is an epic tale of these 4 kids whose mother sent them to safe ground to protect them from war that is happening in their homeland. Running away from war, in irony, the kids find them in another war - a fantasy one this time. The inhabitants of Narnia trust on these sons and daughters of Adam and Eve to save their world - a fantasy one - from the cold-hearted b*tch witch. The kids defeat the witch eventually with the help of Aslan. Aslan is a Lion. He talks like the rest of the animals who are in the cast of this fantasyland movie. The surprise is that Aslan means Lion in Turkish. And My Turkish name Cenk means War in English. And that circular logic doesn't make me Aslan or Lion! However my name kind of makes me extremely anti-War more than anyone else (only deep at heart, because I am a pacifist). I am so sensitive about the subject that I can claim that my desire to have ultimate World Peace has nothing to do with my gayness.

As I write this hopeful short essay under the insomnia created by the vanilla black tea I had 3 hours ago, I hear the voice of the war on TV. He says for the millionth time as he did in the past few years that America will win the war against terrorism. 5 short years ago I was crying my lungs out for New York City watching the terrorist attack on TV in my apartment in Istanbul. I just didn't know yet I would be moving to the city and be so much part of it just like finger & nail in less than a year after 9/11/01 . The world didn't know what kind of journey that terrorist attack had sent us to. Here I am sitting and hoping for peace. Here I sit and I hope to be as brave as Aslan, as virtuous as him. I wish an Aslan for the world - the real one this time not the fantasy world of Narnia.

Post-note: Thanks to "Brooklyn" you can read about what Chronicles of Narnia was all about in more clarity and detail in his comment below. Thanks Brooklyn :-)