Category: Sports and Fitness

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2013 NYC Marathon: Take that Sandy!

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I am so proud of my wife for finishing her 11th marathon! So far she has completed marathons in NYC, Boston and Berlin. She had been eager to run NYC again because last year it had to be cancelled because of all of the damage incurred during Hurricane Sandy. It is odd to think back to exactly a year ago when instead of cheering her on, we were sitting in a dark apartment huddling around a transistor radio with friend that flew in from Norway to see her run. It was a miserable few days until the power came back on. Also, I had a fair amount of agita because this was the first major marathon in NYC since the Boston bombing earlier this year. My wife only decided to skip that race only because of a nagging training injury. We were lucky.

Fortunately the NYC race was uneventful this year and my wife made it to the NYC finish in slightly over 3 hours and 33 minutes. At first the kids and I were worried that we had missed her in the crowd and then, Continue reading “2013 NYC Marathon: Take that Sandy!”

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No more excuses

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The other day I was talking to my old martial arts instructor, Kyoshi Giles, and musing over the fact that only fellow martial artists seem to understand how getting together with close friends to punch, kick, and stab one another over and over can be a beautiful thing. The camaraderie that can be developed by working out with other like minded individuals is not only fun, but also uplifting. I bring all this up because I had just returned from an early morning knife fighting class at the Krav Maga Federation and was feeling pretty good about getting back into the swing of training on a regular basis.

Over the past year or so I had made a number Continue reading “No more excuses”

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Arkham Origins is gonna be sick!!!

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After months of waiting Batman: Arkham Origins dropped tonight. The new Arkham is the followup to the wildly popular Batman inspired video games Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. I just picked up my copy from GameStop. There was a surprisingly small line for the game. It was nothing as crazy as the launch for Grand Theft Auto V, which made me happy and a little sad. I snagged the collector’s edition, and the season pass that has all of the character skins and downloadable content. I never usually get all the extras but this game is gonna be sick.  I thought about

Continue reading “Arkham Origins is gonna be sick!!!”

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No Sleep ’til Brooklyn part deux

This was my first bike ride since returning home from Oslo. I have been getting over a cold for the past week or so. I think my body has been rebelling against the NYC air quality and humidity. I had trouble getting to sleep because my legendary insomnia was in full effect as a result of the new job. Since I was wide awake I decided to go for a little late night ride. I was still missing Oslo but I felt pretty good all things considered.

I had forgotten how much I love NYC at night. I stopped biking in the city more than a year ago after being Continue reading “No Sleep ’til Brooklyn part deux”

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Really dumb stuff I did over my summer vacation

Bicycling in Norway is very different from the riding that I familiar with in NYC. The bike routes in Oslo are particularly spectacular. You can go from the suburbs to the city and then to the country within the space of an hour. The trails are rarely flat because much of the Norwegian terrain is made up of hills. So you generally find yourself struggling up steep hills or flying down sharp mountain trails. With that said, I decided to go for a fairly challenging and long bike ride this afternoon.

I had recently purchased a ContourROAM Hands-free HD Camcorder to record my travels and document my bike rides throughout Scandinavia. For my first long ride I thought it would be best to select a Continue reading “Really dumb stuff I did over my summer vacation”

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Lone wolves ride alone!

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A few months back my wife and I signed up for an introductory motorcycle class. We have been doing all of these semi-adventurous things as a way to celebrate her promotion to full Professor and her year long sabbatical. Over the past year we have gotten NRA Certified for Pistols, taken up Thai style cooking, started practicing archery. I am proud to say that she just got her motorcycle license after a 2-day intense course at the Motorcycle Safety School (MSS) at Lehman College. I wasn’t able to join her because of my work schedule, which is sad because we always have a lot of fun together doing this type stuff.  The good thing is that she is no longer opposed to me getting a bike. Plus she is now talking about wanting to travel down Route 66 on 2 wheels for our next big vacation trip. Personally I would rather ride through Europe, but we have time to figure all that out. I still have to get my license.

 

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Call me Hawkeye!

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When I get bored I tend to do things like spend money and build silly things. I am still not sure what to do with myself while the whole family is away at summer camp, so of course I broke down and bought a new recurve bow for my birthday. I picked up  the Martin Saber Takedown bow with a 55 lbs draw weight on Amazon for less than two bills. I have been meaning get back to the archery range ever since I took the family a few times last year. I really enjoyed the sport. Oddly enough, I found that shooting a bow was very calming in contrast to the Continue reading “Call me Hawkeye!”

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I do crazy stuff when I get bored.

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The fourth of July is kind of boring this year with the wife and kids away at summer camp. Still, I shouldn’t complain too much since I am a married man at home without the family for a couple of days. The little things like having the TV and bathroom all to myself are pure bliss. However the house is too quiet and I am trying to keep from going stir crazy.

Right now I am deciding on whether to go to the movies or wait around for my boy Adesola to come over and hang out like we used to do back in high school. Or at least I am hoping he rolls through and brings a brother something to eat. HE KNOWS I CAN’T COOK AND AIN’T GOT NO DAMN FOOD IN ‘DA HOUSE!

I spent the morning sleeping late and watching cartoons. I spent the afternoon at the dojo, sweating profusely and getting punched in the head. The early evening was spent putting together this killer Batman costume I have been making for Comic Con this year. I have some of the main pieces such as the utility belt, the gauntlets, and the boots. However I am still searching for a good cowl.

As always with making one of these suits you have to decide to either go with the old school skintight spandex or the more modern armored batsuit. Unless I am in much better shape by the time Comic Con and Halloween roll around I am leaning towards the modern look. It is more forgiving than the spandex. I don’t want to go out and get called “Fatman”.

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Straight out of a comic book!

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When I was a young child growing up in Harlem there were very few people that looked like me in the media. And when they were people that looked like me presented in the movies, or on the small screen, they were almost always portrayed as unintelligent or docile. This is the rare exceptions to these rules made a seismic impact on me and many other impressionable black children. Yesterday I saw that one of my earliest heroes as a child, James Milton Kelly, had passed away at the age of 67. He was better known to the world as Jim “The Dragon” Kelly and was one of the prominent stars of the 1970s martials arts and Blaxploitation film era.

Jim Kelly was a martial arts legend to many of the brothers that I grew up around. He inspired many of us to start training in the martial arts just as much as Bruce Lee, and maybe more in certain ways. Being a young Continue reading “Straight out of a comic book!”

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Prepare for the Smackdown!

A few months back I was interviewed on the occupational activities of former LaGuardia Media Studies student and Cannes filmfest participant, Girard Tecson of Dayside Productions. The interview appeared in a new documentary on Girard’s unusual decision to make a career shift from independent Filmmaking to professional Wrestling. I wish him luck in his new endeavors. At 5’5″ and 150 lbs, I think he is gonna need it.