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Screenshot of a map showing the NYC area. A 35.5 mile route is superimposed over the map with numbered markers for each mile.

When I say walking around Manhattan, I really mean around, for the most part anyway. This was supposed to be a 32 mile journey, but we ended up clocking over 35. Believe me, I felt every step of those extra, three miles. I’m not even sure what motivated my friend Jonas and I to embark on such a trek, but we’ve been talking about it for a couple years.

I had some history with this. My previous Manhattan circumnavigation attempt several years ago ended unceremoniously around West 86th. My shoes weren’t up to the task causing some painful blisters and I hobbled off to the subway. My walking partner at the time forged ahead only to succumb to a mysterious and sharp foot pain in Inwood Hill Park.

I mention this only because the truly wise man learns from the mistakes of others. While my blisters healed quickly, the other guy limped around for the better part of two months. Thus, my one stipulation for agreeing to this at all was “I’m going to stop at the first sign of any blisters or sharp pains.”

However, on this journey, the blisters didn’t really kick in until about 2/3 of the way in. By that point, the thought of having to retread those miles at some future point helped propel me to the end. For those last few miles, I was a bundle of misery. My usual, brisk pace was reduced to a kind of shuffle. All but the slowest of tourists were passing me. It wasn’t just my feet—though, they were the worst—my whole body was protesting with minor pain and major fatigue.

This will paint the picture of how beat I was: A quarter fell out of my pocket when I was retrieving my apartment keys. I began to bend down to pick it up and almost immediately said, “screw it, I don’t need 25 cents that badly”. At the time, I don’t think even a crispy dollar bill would have motivated me. A five? Maybe.

Who’s the wise man now? Certainly not me. But, we accomplished something As I write this, I’m happy to report that I’m back to 100%. The body is a remarkable thing, even this one.

So, to answer the inevitable “Would you do it again?” question: Maybe. But, I’m going to stop at the first sign of any blisters or sharp pains.

By the way, I’ve included a few observations and lessons learned below, in no particular order…

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Photo taken in an NYC subway station showing a temporary, blue partition build around a subway sign. "Grand" is the only lettering exposed on the sign. An empty subway platform and tile wall is in the background.
Nice carpentry, but it may have been easier to remove the sign.

We started the week with our own odyssey as we traveled back from Toronto. Our story isn’t blockbuster material, a 12+ hour journey where only about 60 minutes of it was off the ground is quite the snoozer. As a result, I’ve sworn off LaGuardia flights for a while. That little airport is way too over committed. It’s as if a butterfly flapping its wings in Detroit results in a ground stop at LGA.

The other major black mark against LaGuardia is the lack of a rail connection. It’s embarrassing that one of our major airports doesn’t have subway service or some sort of air train. The massive ride share pickup area they recently constructed could be smaller and less chaotic if there were better connectivity to the transit system at the terminal. Sure, LGA is served by two bus lines, but we can do so much better than this.

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Photo of a yellow sign with the text "PEDESTRIANS YIELD TO TRAFFIC" in black letters against a blue sky with the skyline of Toronto waterfront buildings are in the background.
Really?

We were in Toronto this weekend. That is where I saw the bizarre sign posted here. In all my years, I’ve never seen such instructions, especially in a heavily touristic area. Based on what I witnessed, no pedestrians were yielding to anything, so perhaps it’s just a curiosity.

Don’t judge the city by a single sign though. Toronto was wonderful, made all the better by the excellent weather we had. There we still some vestiges of World Cup 2026, which made for a festive to the atmosphere. I won’t bore you with a travelogue, but I will say that if you’ve never been, check it out. If you want to be maybe just a little bit bored, you can scroll through a few more random photos after the links.

Enjoy!!!

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Photo of Joe Jackson with the band on stage at the Beacon Theatre. Left to right: Joe Jackson at the keyboard, Doug Yowell on drums, Graham Maby on bass, Felipe Fournier on percussion and Teddy Kumpel on guitar.
Photo credit: @dougyowell on Instagram

Caught an evening with Joe Jackson and the band at the Beacon Theatre on Saturday night. He began the show at the piano, solo for the first song. Then he was joined by his long time bassist, Graham Maby for the second. These guys have been playing together for 50 years. I wonder if they think about how special that is while they’re on stage, just the two of them. Maybe after thousands of performances, they don’t. But, I like to think they do.

The rest of the band joined them, one by one from the wings for the third number and proceeded to rock the Beacon. It was a wonderful show with plenty of newer material mixed in with the classics from his extensive catalog. He even played Home Town, one of my favorites, and a pleasant surprise.

I did some quality procrastineering this week and created a little menu bar pomodoro timer. It already helped me break a procrastination spell this weekend, so it’s not a total loss. If you also suffer from procrastination from time to time, the pomodoro technique can help jump start things. You don’t even need my fancy application, you can just use the timer on your phone.

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There are a lot of links this week—so many that I’ve decided to categorize them..

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Screenshot of a map showing the NYC area. A 35.5 mile route is superimposed over the map with numbered markers for each mile.

The big news this week: Jonas and I walked the perimeter of Manhattan. As I write this, I’m hurting a little bit—to be expected base on first-hand accounts from others with experience. While we had sort of trial run about a year and a half ago when we walked the length of Broadway in Manhattan, I’m not sure if anything can fully prepare one for their first 35.5 mile walk.

Overall, it was a great experience, one worthy of a post of its own. Stay tuned for that, once I’ve had some time to collect my thoughts. In the meantime, here’s a screenshot of our route.

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