Third Street is a one-way avenue that parallels the river and cuts north through rows of houses primed for foreclosure. There are lots of cars parked on either side of the street but very few people (and I traveled up this street at several different times a day during my two-night visit). I’m probably being overly-harsh when I say the homes — which have a median value of $114,000 — look like crack house. But the few people I do see milling about have that look of being up to no good.

A friend from high school who has lived in the area for more than a decade describes Troy and the surrounding capital region in careful terms. He admits that, even after 12 years of living here, he’s hard pressed to find a label, so he draws an analogy.
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Discuss.

As for the rest of my writing life, I’ve been busy with end of semester stuff (I finished classes Monday and submitted grades on Tuesday), planning a research trip to Albany and taking a second look at Gary Zerola. Hence, limited blogging, but that should change once I get into my summer routine.

For those of you in my world, look for RCF’s cameo at the very end of the finish line interview.

If you’re interested in seeing what I’ll be teaching (it’s a work in progress) you can take a look here. And please use the comments to let me know if you have any recommendations; I’m typically looking for feature-length nonfiction articles of 3,000-10,000 words written in a narrative style.

(And yes, I realize I wrote one of the articles on the list — I typically teach something I wrote so I can tell the students how each bit of information was reported, and let them know what I would have done differently).

As a reminder, you can see some of the work my students did last Fall at this site. I plan to make more use of that site next year, so add it to your RSS feed if you’re interested.

1. If there are three or more urinals, and all of them are empty, thou shalt take a urinal on the end. That way, the next guy can take the other end — leaving an unoccupied urinal between the men.
2. Thou shalt never take a urinal adjacent to a urinal that is in use unless there are no other urinals available.
3. If there are other men in the rest room, thou shalt look forward, down, or up whilst urinating — never to the side.

I was able to answer that with a “yes” yesterday.

I’ll spare you the full report but there was something overwhelming about running on a course and seeing people you know, both in the race and on the sidelines, which just didn’t happen as much overseas. I’m happy that I was able to knock close to 40 minutes off of my time in Dublin in 2006. And the crowds — who line the course almost all the way from Hopkinton to Boston — providing me with memories I hope I never lose.

Like this sign, seen somewhere between mile 22 and 24: “Run like a pre-teen on a polygamist ranch in Texas.”

I’m still a little speechless about the whole experience and my thoughts are still a little disjointed. RCF will be sending photos and a video of me finishing later on today. Maybe I’ll have something more coherent to say then, but right now I’m just going to go bask in the delirum (and ake some Advil).