We’ve admittedly been bad bloggers this year. Between Alex’s own UX blog and my (newish—I guess I can’t claim that a year later) job, we’ve been too busy to maintain our personal blog this year, but we didn’t want to have an entire gap on this site for 2009, so here’s a photo recap of what we were up to in 2009:

Watched President Obama get inaugurated!
We both watched from conferences room from work—here’s one Alex took at Schematic. It was an incredibly moving day, that could only be topped by actually being in DC that day.

Took one tour of the NYC subway system
Some guy discovered the first NYC subway tunnel below Atlantic Avenue and you can now take a tour of the old tunnel. You literally crawl into a manhole on Atlantic Avenue to start the tour. Here’s a really foggy photo of us in the tunnel.

Took one wine tasting class
I didn’t take an academic class for the first year in my life since probably 1980, but we took a delicious wine pairing class at Astor Wines called “the Elements of Wine“. I would definitely recommend it if you’re looking to learn a little more about wine.

Ate the best meal of my life
At Blue Hill at Stone Barns. It was something like 15 courses and each dish was more amazing than the last, though I think the highlight was the goose egg pasta. Incredible.

Traveled to…

Mountainville, NY.

Florence, Italy

Cinque Terre, Italy

Tuscany (Siena, Luca, Arrezzo), Italy

Rome, Italy

West Dover, Vermont

Dayton, Ohio

Saugerties, NY

Edinburgh, Scotland

London, England

Paris, France

Ran one half marathon
Brooklyn, represent! We both finished in under 2 hours, which was our goal and also somewhat incredible considering we had just ate and drank our way through Italy the weeks before without a single run on the trip (though we dragged our running sneakers with us everywhere). The Brooklyn half is a great race and I’d recommend it to anyone who is thinking of running a half. There’s nothing like starting a race with Marty Markowitz yelling over the louderspeaker “Brooklyn in the house! Have a great race!”

Organized one cookie smackdown
The claim to fame here is that it brought down my entire company for the next two days thanks to the swine flu outbreak. Who wants a cookie?

Attended three weddings. Congratulations to….

Jim and Linda!

Marisa and Vinny!

Michael and Irena!

I got pregnant!
This little peanut is due March 7, 2010! We couldn’t be more excited. We have so much to do before he or she arrives.

Hosted the 5th Annual Grill Free or Die

Celebrated one ITP 30th Anniversary
And had a killer time at the reunion. It was so fun to catch up with old friends and see so many talented people back in the ITP space again. The reunion was truly inspirational, especially hearing everyone talk about what a pioneer Red Burns has been for the program. She’s an amazing lady and I feel so lucky to have gone to ITP under her chairmanship. Check out the video here. (Thanks, Buhny for the photo!)

Attended a playoff baseball game at the new Yankee Stadium
And then watched the Yankees go on to win the World Series!

Alex had one wing fixed
He had a rotator cuff injury and torn labrum. Like a serious baseball pitcher!

I gained 25 lbs (so far!)
I can’t believe I am posting this photo; this is a new level of sharing for me. I think I am around 29 weeks in this photo—and those are supposed to be “skinny” jeans. Ha! They look like weird sweatpants, which I much prefer to be wearing. Look how psyched Sasha is about the baby!

2009 was a great year. I’m sorry we didn’t keep this blog better up to date as everything happened. However, we are both vowing to be better about blogging in 2010, especially as baby Rainert’s arrival gets closer and closer. Hope you have a good 2010 and we’ll back soon to fill you in on more exciting stuff around here!

This year Karen and I hatched a brilliant New Year’s Eve plan that would allow us to eat, drink and dance, while never having to leave our beloved borough. Here’s a quick recap:

We started off the evening with some excellent sushi from the folks across the street at Geido (highly recommend if you’ve never been) – NYE sushi has inadvertently become a tradition 3 years running in our household.

After dinner (and a quickie double espresso from our new Rancilio Silvia) we headed upstairs to our neighbor’s apartment for some homemade pizzas, other sundries and delicious wine. We stayed there for about 2 hours and then set off to scurry down 7th avenue in the blistering cold to our friend Pete’s house (the Aluminum Falcon) near Sunset Park.

Lucky for us, a nice cabbie named Sonnie saw us and practically flagged us down for a lift. We zipped down to 23rd street, with a bottle of Evan Williams in hand for our host, and were there with plenty of time to spare.

Upon arrival, we saw a few friends getting their karaoke – real karaoke discs, no Rock Band BS here!

This rug was too interesting to not take a picture of. Pete’s neighbor goes to Afghanistan every year and brought this back for him as a gift. I challenge you to find me a stranger rug. Seriously. Find one.

After about an hour, Pete began to set up the yearly [something] of fire to lower at midnight. This photo captures the initial lighting of what was a ball made of two planters attached to each other and covered in red, plastic fabric.

14 minutes to go and… My iPhone beeps and buzzes in my pocket. What could it be? Ah, it’s a totally insane alarm I had set for myself months ago and potentially the furthest thing from my mind at this time of the evening.

Back to the festivities…

Happy New Year!

After the ball dropped, Karen and I indulged in some delicious potato chips with french onion dip. We had to literally put ourselves in another room in order to stop pigging out on it. Then it was into the main room for a little late night dance party where we were finally joined by our friendly bottle of Evan Williams, that got passed around the dance floor until the wee hours of the morning.

All in all, this was one of the best New Year’s Eve’s in recent memory. Thanks to everyone for a great time and best of luck in 2009!

The World’s Largest Urban Adventure Series will turn the Big Apple in to a giant obstacle course as teams of two navigate their way around competing in physical, mental and humorous challenges. The NYC event promises to be a full day of laughter, adventure and discovering the diversity and character of New York City.

Whether searching Soho, exploring Central Park or traveling the largest city in the U.S. on public transit, participants will be pushing their comfort zones in a fun, adventurous way. You need to be a part of it, New York City Chase is the final leg of the U.S. Series so get your partner and sign up today. Limited space available. The winners will advance to our National Championship for a chance to represent the US in the World Championship in Morocco.

How long do you think it took me to sign Karen and I up for City Chase after a friend at work sent around the information?

If you guessed “less than 3 minutes” you’d be right. Everyone knows that Karen and I enjoy competition (Subway Wars, anyone?) and have also been know to enjoy a spot of reality television here and there so you can imagine my excitement at reading about this 1 day mental + physical + squeamishness (?) challenge that was going to take place right here in New York City.

The race costs $190 per team and there are 15 events of which your team has to complete 10 in order to win. Karen’s already getting her baby on and calling that we’re going to skip any of the “eat something gross” challenges. Meanwhile, I want to practice by digging up earthworms in the backyard and feeding them to each other.

The other excellent part is that they fully encourage the use of mobile technology as well as remote team members that can act as a research dept. for you while you’re running around the city. On that note, I have the honor of being able to announce that our good friend (some might call him an Internet master) Micah is going to be a pivotal member of Team Kane Street during the challenge. Our hope is to get him an unmarked van he can sit in as he follows us around from challenge to challenge but we may have to settle for him (and his assistant Carmen) setting up Command Central at his place in Park Slope.

Anyway, this is what we’re going to be doing on Saturday, September 13th and so should you! Grab a partner and go get signed up !

To complement Karen’s post about Robb and Sarah’s wedding in Rhode Island as well at Karen and Matt’s interpretation of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time, I wanted to (belatedly) post a selection of photos I took that weekend. Here goes…

Oddly enough, this felt like a bit of a bargain.

Indie rock album cover?

Matt and his little slide.

Every wedding weekend needs a ghetto blaster.

A couple of artsy photos for you and yours.

A super smiley Karen after a Smiley wedding.

Sarah and Robb make their entrance. Hooray!

Our crew (not pictured: Matt – he hates that)

Just one of the many personal details that Robb and Sarah personally tended to.

We thought W might be sneaking his way down the East Coast on Ground Force One but then realized it was just a cleverly spruced-up Chinatown bus.

Check out the rest of my photos here.

Here’s a great interview with my buddy Jon, whose movie, The Wackness, comes out on July 3rd. It’s looking like Karen and I are going to the premiere + after party this Wednesday so we’ll be sure to post a quick review (as well as blog the crap out of the rest of the evening!).

The soundtrack is a veritable who’s who of hip hop deep cuts from 1994. Check out this interview that highlights how music came to play such an important role in the flick:

Talk a little bit about why that era was so important to you, in particular 1994.

For me it was two-fold. First off, I saw a great deal of authenticity in the story. If I were to try to write kids today, it would have come off as disingenuous. In order to get the authenticity that I value so much, I needed to go back to 1994. That was the year I graduated high school.

Beyond that, I think there’s a rich tradition of movies that focus on the high school years of a decade or two decades ago. We wanted to follow in that tradition and have people feel the same nostalgia for that time that I was feeling when I was writing it … When you can be one of the first people to look back at a time — remember this music and remember what people were wearing -– you just get this rich wellspring of goodwill. People like to remember these times.

Check out the whole interview here

Check out the trailer for my buddy Jon’s movie, The Wackness, due out in July. With some luck, Karen and I might be able to catch a screening prior to the official release, in which case we’ll report back and tell you all to go see it.

Read some more about it at I Watch Stuff.

Here’s a great piece about the Virginia Chutney Company (made of up of our friend Oliver Turner and his lovely parents) and how, whether you realize it or not, chutney is sweeping the nation. In fact,

…if you think you’ve never eaten chutney, you’re probably wrong. Ever had ketchup? Or McDonald’s sweet and sour sauce on chicken nuggets? Then you’ve had chutney, says Oliver Turner.

Chutney can take on many forms, but it’s basically some combination of fruit, vinegar and sugar, he says.

Don’t let the mention of McDonald’s steer you away. We’ve had a few of the Turners’ flavors and really enjoyed them. If you’re looking for a condiment alternative for your meats, sandwiches, etc. have a look at www.virginiachutney.com.

Read the rest of the piece here.

With each passing year, our annual Oscar party becomes less about the movies and more about the competitive nature of our friends, particularly when it comes to making food. This year we tasked our friends with bringing a dish inspired by one of the Oscar nominees. The following are some of the entries:

Juno’s SunnyD from Sarah.

No Nachos for Old Men by Karen

Buns in the Oven by Sarah

More buns in the Oven by Rob

Alex’s Captain Jack’s Caribbean Sliders with mango salsa

There Will Be Brunswick Stew by Sara (paired with Katie’s corn muffins)

Fleet Street Mince Pie by Daya

There will be Bloody Guacamole from Matt and Freya

And one more: No Cookies for Old Men, from Micah.

By the time we finished consuming all these fine snacks we were too tired to vote on the creative entry, though my fan favorite vote probably would have gone to Micah’s incredible peanut butter oatmeal monster cookies. I’d like to think these parties are turning him into a budding baker.

Once we reached the point that we could no longer consume food, we turned out attention back to the show and the Oscar pool. It was a close call between Daya and Alex, but in the end the house ended up winning.

Our very serious point structure

Alex’s winning entry

My good childhood friend, Jonathan Levine, has just premiered his second feature film at the Sundance Film Festival. First off, as a friend I want to give a big congrats to Jon – its really amazing to see someone doing exactly what you knew they should be doing back in 6th grade.

Back to the movie… its called The Wackness (check out the coverage here), and it stars Ben Kingsley, Mary-Kate Olsen, Josh Peck, Method Man and others and the quick synopsis is as follows:

Jonathan Levine’s second feature is set in the hot summer of 1994, when gangsta rap was beginning to penetrate into mainstream culture and a young depressed drug-dealer named Luke (Josh Peck in a career making performance) sets off on a journey to get laid before he goes off to college. Problem is that Luke is a combination loser/loner (what I like to call – “Loneser”). His only friend is his oddball psychiatrist Dr. Squires (a Harvey Keitel-looking Ben Kingsley) is suffering from a late-middle age crisis, and takes pot for trade for therapy sessions. Luke falls in love with Squires’ step-daughter Stephanie (Juno’s sexy supporting star Olivia Thirlby), while Dr. Squires makes out with a hippied-out Mary-Kate Olsen (yuck) in a phone booth.

So far, its been getting lots of attention at the festival and I’m sensing it will continue to build.

His first movie, All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (check out the trailer here), should be coming out here in February, just in time for Valentine’s Day. Karen and I caught the premiere last year at South by Southwest and and I highly recommend it if you’re a fan of thriller/horror films.