I think I owe the blogosphere another more blog

It's been a while since I posted and I've been writing this in my head for a while. But ever since I got kicked out of AdSense for killing the bird that was laying the golden eggs I haven't felt that inspired to post. But I wasn't really making that much anyway so here goes

i have actually had an amazing spring and summer. I could say it's been amazing because I got to run an a marathon in Brighten England with my son, and a half marathon in Reykjavik Iceland with my daughter. Honestly you can Google pictures of Brighton and London and Iceland much better than me showing you pictures. But I will show you some highlights.

To the left we see the entrance to a tunnel that goes under a road that gets you to the beach in Brighton. Not an entrance to the Q train at Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. Also a picture of my son smarking with the actual Rosetta Stone behind him. And a picture of each of us goofing around in front of Stonehenge.

And oh yeah we did run a marathon when we were in England. Here we are finishing last.

Also got to give a shout out to my son. He accepted a job to accompany me to England and run a marathon with me. Then after we bought the plane tickets he got accepted to graduate school at Brooklyn College. Night school. That meant he had to take two remote classes in the middle of the night from England. Well done, Nicholas!

And I just realized that I've been to Europe twice this year. After going to England in April I went to Iceland in August. I went there to run a half marathon with my daughter Sabrina and we did tons of touristy stuff with her brand new fiance (YEAH), Julia. 

Upper left hand corner of the picture shows Sabrina and Julia enjoying Icelandic breakfast with jet lag like rock stars. And then to the right is the two of them at 12:30 a.m. with the northern lights behind them and then me and Sabrina with The Northern Lights behind us. (By the way if we would have turned our head 90° from looking at the northern lights we would have seen the sun peaking out from the horizon at 12:30 a.m.) On the bottom we see them in front of a glacier in front of a waterfall and in front of the crevice that separates the North American played from the European plate. Below is a short video of a geyser.  (Again use your Google to find lots of great pictures of Iceland)

I could sell Iceland as a vacation to everyone I know. Glaciers and geysers and waterfalls and northern lights and the crevice that separates North America from Europe. Reykjavik is also a completely new city. It's like the anti Disney World of places to visit. Things are natural and beautiful but it takes a little work to get there and the weather is not going to be great. But again google to look at some great pictures. But then you wouldn't see what I did so because you're not me.

I also just got back from a long weekend conference to Denver Colorado with the GBS Foundation. I did get to do some touristy things while I was there. On my first morning I woke up on Eastern Standard Time and just ran around Denver. I was really pleased to find a creek that had a pair of trails on either side of it. One was recycling and another was for pedestrians and they seem to go under all the roads in town.I went out for 45 minutes and then ran back and I felt great. I pre-registered for a 5K in Suburban Denver. It was called the Nun Run. I really assumed it was just a fundraiser for the archdiocese or something. I assumed I can take an Uber to the start and then I would walk over to the bagel table say hi to people and finagle myself a ride back to the hotel. That was a bad assumption. This was not a fundraiser for the Archdiocese, it was a religious event....Lots of prayer at the start. The run of show included a mass and confessional. And they were people that to finish line area encouraging people to sign a petition to end children sex change mutilation surgery. Needless to say I didn't stop and ask anyone for a ride back to the hotel. Back at the hotel I realized I got a text from a friend who wanted around Denver on Thursday and told me that I should go to the arts district and enjoy some galleries and some tacos made by people who knew how to make tacos. I was glad I took that walk.

I have to wrap up this blog post. I'll do it by talking about a couple of things I learned this year and some of the highlights.

One of the things I noticed about Iceland was that there has been an incredible amount of growth and construction over the past couple of decades. Included in this is a lot of American franchise stores opening up. There was a lot of Kentucky Fried Chicken, subway Hero shops, and Sbarro Pizza (often in the same building).  One morning while waiting for the tour bus to pick us up I actually was craving a bacon egg and cheese and at the pizza place they had a bacon egg and cheese pizza. I thought it might be reminiscent of the breakfast pizza that they serve at table 87. I was wrong and I should have known I was wrong. That abomination on a pizza plate was an insult to every Italian-American who ever made pizza as well as everyone who I've ever operated a Bodega or a breakfast card and made an egg sandwich. 

Have to Sabrina and I were a quarter mile into the half marathon it became apparent that we were the back of the pack. We were accompanied by two cyclists who made sure we found our way. At about mile 11 we passed one of these fast food halls. Our bike marshals didn't speak much English but when we passed this food hall I turned to them and apologized that America sent them our shit restaurants. They understood me clearly but responded by saying" at least we have something now". I felt that for telling her what she liked was shit to me

Along the pedestrian path by The Creek in Denver I took a picture of this sign. I took the picture because I was confused The path wasn't wide enough for anything but a golf cart to travel on. Only work vehicles would be on that path Why would they tell people no standing or stopping. Then I realized it was anti homelessness laws because they didn't want people sleeping under the bridges.  along the way I was passed by a jogger and I asked her how far the path went and she said it went for miles and stayed very beautiful but I should watch out because it's pretty creepy under the bridges.I responded that I was from Brooklyn and wasn't worried about any creepy under the bridges. She looked at me and said"I understand but you're a dude"

i think I grew from these two interactions. I simply learned that at sometimes I could keep my mouth shut. Don't always have to say the thing that I think is funny.

But I do have to go back and say why I think this has been a fantastic year for me.

• did I say I won the lottery and got accepted into the London Marathon for 2026. That's not the big deal. The big deal is that the first thing I did was that I called my son and told him I won and I wanted him to come back with me. The fact that he wanted to go back to England with me on Broad tears to my eyes because I thought he wanted to kill me after we came back from Brighton.
• My daughter told me that this was one of the greatest vacation she ever had in her life.I got to tell her that I hope it's the first of many.
• And I got to tell my future daughter-in-law that I was so happy to spend time with her.