I'll be joining Bonnie as one of several blogging I'm sure who are doing swim support for the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim.

Take us once around!

I can't really guess where I'll be when, but the race starts at 6:30AM...  and ends around 2:30ish.  I'll try and snap a few photos to give updates.

My avatar has a good luck message for the swimmers...

Finally, kayaking is back!

Click my SitePal (the little bald guy in my sidebar) for the details on this weekend's free kayaking, brought to you by the Downtown Boathouse.

I'll be up at the Pier 96 location all day Saturday, pretty much from 9-4ish...  Sunday I won't be around b/c I have softball games and then dinner with mom, of course!

Matt Blumberg reminded me of something I noticed the other day.

The Downtown Boathouse at Pier 26 is gone. 

Both Pier 26 and 25 are being demolished as part of a staged plan to renovate all of Hudson River Park and we knew it was coming.  We got evicted in October, but we also moved to the new Clinton Cove Boathouse at Pier 96 and also to the south end of Pier 40.  Still, the boathouse at Pier 26 had a lot of charm and a lot of memories, so its really sad to see that its finally gone.

I biked over there this morning before work.  Its all fenced in, so I couldn't get closer, but I may go back again and ask the construction guys if I can get a closer look.

Here's the before (from '04) and after.  Also gone is the River Project building (the brown one.)

Hopefully, we'll be back in a couple of years, but there's no guarantee.  Still, I'm sure the local community will come together and be supportive when its time for us to fill out the RFP for the new pier.

Yesterday was the last day of the Downtown Boathouse kayaking season.  The season always ends with a whimper...  it was cold and windy, although we did get a handful of public kayakers.

Yesterday was different, though.  It was also the last day of the Pier 26 Downtown Boathouse.  The Hudson River Part Trust is knocking it down to make way for a new pier--one that will last much longer than the one we have now.  Eventually, we'll probably make it back down to Pier 26, but for now, we've moved up to Pier 96 and we'll probably be doing some kind of a program at Pier 40.  Stay tuned for next season's details. 

The boathouse we have is very special.  Its old and we couldn't identify a lot of the rusted out parts that we tried to sell at our "yard sale" a couple of years ago.  But, it has charactor.  It has taken a little something from every volunteer and public kayaker that has set foot in there for the past nine or ten years or so.  Its been my second home for the past couple of yeras during the summer and I've had the best time there.  I've met so many great people there--people that are tied together by two simple ideas:  They like doing new and different things and they enjoy getting to meet other people.  There's no standard boathouse demographic.  There's nothing about free kayaking that draws in a majority of affluent white men the way something like, um... blogging does.  In fact, by numbers, I think we have a majority of female kayakers.  Here are just a few of the pictures I've taken in and around the boathouse.  If anyone has anymore, feel free to load them into flickr and tag them "dtbh".

I will be at the Downtown Boathouse all day on Saturday...  from 9AM to 6PM.  Last boat goes out at 5:30PM...    come stop by, say hello, and go kayaking for free.   

We did a kayak race of about 40 boats...  This is me hamming it up for the camera, explaining what we're doing.

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This is the kind of cool stuff we do as volunteers at the Downtown Boathouse.  Come hang out with us and volunteer!

Link: Vimeo / Jeremy Rolling at the Downtown Boathouse.

Things are really hummin' over at HoboCoBo...

Link: Hoboken Cove Boathouse: Another Great Day.

Sandy is a Hoboken resident dedicated to getting her community to take advantage of its waterfront.  She's been spearheading efforts to build a new boathouse over there.  I coaxed her into writing a blog post in her own words about why she does it.  I think this is great... and its exactly what makes blogs better than brochureware.

Link: Hoboken Cove Boathouse: Why we do this....

Ok, we now have our own website.   www.hobokencoveboathouse.org   Link to it.  Love it.  Comment on it.   And come kayaking tomorrow!

Alright, so *hopefully* the www.hobokencoveboathouse.org domain name parking propogates nicely in the next few hours (playing with domain names is such sketchy business), but in the meantime, you can access our website here.   Please don't link to it or bookmarket or whatever until its up and running at its new domain name. 

The details on tomorrow is that we'll be running our free kayaking program at Frank Sinatra Park from 12-5.   Please e-mail Sandy for more details....    I'll post a rainout notice here and up on the temp site if anything changes.

So the Downtown Boathouse is now open and in full swing.  Come see us if you're down by Pier 26 (right by the trapeeze school) on the weekends from 9ish to 5-ish.   We had a little spring cleaning to do when we first opened, but by noon, the public had found us and we had about 10 boats on the water at a time.  I'll only be there until about 1:30 today because I'm going to see "Sugar", which is apparently the name of my parent's new dog.  The rest of the pics can be seen here.

I'm so excited.  This Saturday, at 9AM(ish), the Downtown Boathouse OPENS FOR BUSINESS!

And, of course, what's the weather supposed to do?

Rain. 

Anyway, hopefully, the weather will hold up, because I can't wait to get back to volunteering.  Basically, here's the deal.  On weekends, until mid-October, you can come to either of our two (soon to be three) locations at either Pier 26 or 72nd Street and just walk up, sign up, and get on the water...  FREE KAYAKING ON THE HUDSON. 

Although the website still has info on it, I've been told that our Pier 66a location won't be open.  However, we're opening up a new location at Pier 96 that should be ready soon enough.  On most days, I'll be down at Pier 26, but I'll also be helping Sandy run some Hoboken kayaking as well, too.  I'll try and post where I'll be on any given weekend day.  I know I'll be in Hoboken on 5/21 for sure.  Contact me for details and let me know if you're coming by.  Bloggers especially welcome!

Link: A VC: New Boathouse on the West Side.

Woooo!    Kayaking season starts May 14th!  Supposedly, we have a new boathouse, too.  Details to come...

So, kayaking season at the Downtown Boathouse is over, and its quite saddening.  I basically lived there on weekends, spending a good chunk of my Saturdays and Sundays helping people get onto the water, patrolling the embayment, and meeting lots of new people.  I took some trips to the Statue of Liberty, Governor's Island, and up the Hudson to the Intrepid. It was probably the best summer I've ever had. Here are a few pics I took towards the end of the summer. When I get a chance, I'll move these pics from the Graveyard trip over to this site as well. 

So we went to the "Graveyard of Ships" over the weekend. (I know, its Tuesday, but its been a busy week.)

Here are the pics...

http://findmypath.typepad.com/photos/kayaking_photos/

Now, I know that putting them up on my career posting site is absolutely the worst place for them, but I didn't realize how the naming convention and structure of Typepad would work. One of these days, I'll fix it and put them in the right place, but for now, you can't get to them unless you know the exact site. Besides, so what would be so bad if they knew that their career advice was coming from someone who kayaks in the Hudson River. Well.... umm.... nevermind.

By the way, I got my first question up on the site. I need more, though... lots more! Encourage your college student friends, parents of college students, etc. to find people to e-mail to findmypath@gmail.com and checkout the site at www.findmypath.com.

Have I mentioned the site enough?

findmypath.com

Once more... just to be safe...

findmypath.com

Use it. Post questions... or I'll hunt you people down like the dogs that you are.

Or... I'll just be disappointed. Either way. :

Dear Boathouse Volunteer.

Unfortunately we have to cancel the safety session we had planned for 9/30 due to poor water quality. The heavy rains have made the river unsuitable for wet exits.

Well.... that's just gross. :

I was talking to people about the Hudson River yesterday--we did a Hoboken kayaking program with Sandy. Someone said that the river flushes itself out twice a day with the tides. I wish my life would do that sometime. When you work at the same job for a while, things start to build up--little things that you just can't seem to get off your plate. You have little scraps of paper scattered around your office to remind you of all the things you were going to do, but have yet to get to. It just doesn't stop, you know--especially in private equity, because everything is so long tailed. GPs raise money for months and months... unless you give them a quick no, they hang around the hoop forever. I think that's what I liked about school... the fact that things come to an end at regular intervals. Semesters end, years end. Every three or four months, your life came to a close and then you had a little bit of a new beginning. You'd get new people in your classes, and the new classes would take you new paths around campus, at different times. Your work from last semester was done--there was nothing more you could do. It had a natural end.
There's so much on my plate right now. I wish the semester would end so I could have a fresh start. Perhaps our move to CT will do the trick.

If you even have the slightest notion that someone might be down at Boathouse, you'll probably be right. So the Fordham Young Alumni whitewater trip got washed away (after we drove halfway to Jim Thorpe, PA), and I wound up in my apartment as the sun started to poke out. It was around 12:30 and I thought, "I wonder if anyone is opening up now that the sun is out." So, I hop in the car and decide to take a look. No surprise at all... Taino, XL, and Zia are preparing for a trip on their own, and Victor is hanging around as well. I asked Taino if he had another spot and he looks at me, points to the river and goes, "We have the whole river.. there are thousands of spots, but if your boat isn't ready in about 3 minutes, we're leaving you here." So I rush to grab a kayak, life jacket, skirt, pump and paddle float... and a paddle of course, and in no time, we're on the water paddling north. The sun didn't stay out too long though, and there was a pretty brisk wind coming off the shore. The water was incredibly choppy, and I had one of the longer kayaks, which would ride up a wave and then flop back down the other side with a big splash as it came down off the peak. It was a blast, and we paddled up to 66A, right by Chelsea Piers. We got out and sat around on the pier for a big, but when the skies got even darker, I suggested we get back on the water--plus I was getting cold, because my swim shorts were wet. It was a lot warmer in the water, actually. It took us no time at all to go back, and in fact, the toughest thing about going back was trying to keep the waves from pushing you sideways. Every now and then, you'd fishtail b/c the wave was pushing you faster than you could paddle. So, while we didn't get to go whitewater rafting this morning, I got to go splashing around in the Hudson in a kayak.