On Friday the NYTimes published an article which caused a lot of controversy, "Plodders have a place, but is it in a marathon?"

"It used to be that running a marathon was worth something — there used to be a pride saying that you ran a marathon, but not anymore. Now it’s, ‘How low is the bar?' " - Adrienne Wald, New Rochelle

This is in anticipation of the New York City Marathon which happens this weekend. It is a marathon I've attended 3 times. Once as a volunteer passing out water, once to cheer on strangers along the route and once to cheer on Jason (who had leg cramps starting in mile 12 and had a really tough time, missing his goal by 40 minutes).

Having since attended many more marathons to cheer on family, friends and strangers, I believe marathons are pure inspiration. I've never attended without crying at least once at the sight of someone pushing their body to this amazing place where they are able to reach a goal that seems impossible because they refuse to quit. Sometimes you can see that every step is agony, but they keep going. Sometimes you can see by their t-shirts that they are raising money to fight a disease that took their loved ones. Sometimes you can just tell that they are ultra-competitive and you probably couldn't be friends in real life. But on Sunday morning at mile 24, everyone is family and you yell your head off with every encouraging thing you can think of...anything to get people you will never see again over that finish.

It doesn't matter how long it takes to finish a marathon, because that isn't the point...at least not from the sidelines (which is where I will always be)

- Jen

Trouble watching it? Try here

So apparently we didn't win the Evening Magazine Best of Western Washington thingy (insert Price is Right sad horns), but we did get an awesome little Teevee feature out of it. Thank you so so much to all of you who voted for us, then forced your friends to vote and then stole your children and grandparent's ID's to revote. We really really appreciate it. It turns out that this is actually the most hotly contested category, and the people we lost to had been lobbying for months and months (oh, and they had an actual radio show, which kind of helped them too).

Anyway, thanks again, and watch out Best of Eastern Washington Radio Contest! Voting starts soon!
(wait... there's no Best of Eastern Washington? Damn it.)

-- Luke Burbank

While in the Bay Area we went to Chez Panisse, the restaurant that basically began the Slow Food movement in Berkley. Alice Waters, the founder, wasn't actually there (apparently she takes weekends off), but our waiter, Gianni, was so adorable I asked him to come home with me. Although I believe he was perhaps more attracted to Jason, he seemed interested. I told him I live in a 16 ft. trailer and I'm pretty sure I lost him there.

The restaurant really is amazing. You feel like you're doing something important just by dining there. There is no pretension; people of every race seemed to be having a great time every direction you looked, and there was no dress code and food and company was all that mattered.



- Jen

Grapes of Mad?

A couple of weeks ago I headed over to the beautiful Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle to chat with Ben Parsons and Aaron Mason, proprietors of the very excellent podcast The Grapes of Rad. We chatted and chatted, about growing up as Christians, menial jobs we'd had, and lots of other stuff (I stayed for like 1.5 hours, and I think they were really ready for me to go after I basically talked their ears off, but they were very very polite about it).

Check out the episode right here

-- Luke Burbank

Colonel Sandwich

On today's show, KFC is giving away free chicken again today, what could possibly go wrong with that? Poison coffee @ Harvard? Yet another reason you're glad you went to community college, and stop it already with the zombie-loving. Seriously.

-- Luke Burbank