Manilow!

Last night Ronnie and I ventured out to the Showare Center in Kent to see the Pandora Love on Ice ice skating exhibition. Music performed by — yup — Barry Manilow.

Manilow impressed, big time. The 69-year old belted out iconic hit after iconic hit. I know it’s not cool for forty-three year old guys to like the dandy dude, but his body of work is impressive, and to be belting them out a year short of seventy — well, amazing.

On a date.

The evening was marred, however, by the ice skating. Actually the ice skating by Nancy Kerrigan, one of the eight skaters in the Pandora show. Tonya Harding’s former nemesis fell twice during her only stint in the program, the only skater to bite the white. But then it got worse. The show was made for television, and as it turned out the show producers needed to get shots of Kerrigan nailing the jumps she missed. Easier said than done. Kerrigan came out after the show was officially over to nail the jumps for the TV production. But fell again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. In total I believe she fell five times (in addition to the earlier two) before she finally hit one.

Unfortunately the iPhone pic wasn’t as good as Manilow’s performance ….

It was, as you might imagine, tough to watch.

All in all, however, it was a fun evening out. Looking forward to the next one. Something tells me Nancy Kerrigan will retire before then.

but it was better than Nancy Kerrigan, who fell no fewer than seven times in a painful-to-watch performance.

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Seahawks 24, Patriots 23

A view from our seats at game’s end.

It wasn’t pretty, and we were down 13 heading into the fourth quarter, but the Seahawks beat Tom Brady and the Patriots 24-23 yesterday (box score) at Century Link Field — with Joel and I in attendance.

We’re 4-2 now. The playoffs look increasingly likely and my 11-5 prediction — very possible.

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Reese’s First Professional Soccer Game (Or, MY First Professional Soccer Game)

This afternoon Reese and I joined the Belle family and several of their closest friends for an afternoon out at the Sounders game. The occasion was Tommy Belle’s fifth birthday and the location was Suite 17 at Century Link Field — a pretty nice place to take in a game. It was both my and Reese’s first-ever professional soccer game — and it was a heck of a lot of fun.

A few pics:

First ones there.

Pre game.

Gettin’ ready for the game.

Olivia and Reese.

Some of their fellow partygoers.

Tommy digging into a considerable stack of presents.

Cake time!

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The St. Patrick’s Day Dash — and Snow

Today the Jenkins fam joined the Richardson-Bryants and Joffre fams for a morning out at the St. Patrick’s Day Dash.

It was an exercise in braving the elements. It was lightly raining and very, very cold. So cold, in fact, that by the time we started back to our car for the drive to Blue Star it was snowing.

Can’t say I’ve ever done an organized race with temperatures in the mid thirties. Can’t say I’m anxious to do it again, either.

A few pics.

You can't really tell from the photo, but it was very, very cold.

Tom and Carrie joined us like last year ...

while Aaron and Beth joined us for the first time.

Not sure what the guy in the shorts was thinking.

VERY happy to be home.

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The Green Lake Gobble and Mashed Potato Munch Off 2011

This morning the fam ventured back to my old stomping grounds for the 2011 Green Lake Gobble and Mashed Potato Munch Off. For me it was a 5k fun run on a crisp November morning. For the kids it was there first kiddie run ever. Reese finished the 1/4 mile or so course — albeit with me on her hand and in last place (not that she was trying to win). Finn finished in mom’s arms. We may be a little young yet.

A few pics:

A pre-race family photo.

Some pre-race family stretching.

Crossing the finish line.

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Seahawks-Ravens: And Then There Were Three …

Today I joined Joel Aro and old buddies Brent Satterlee and Jeff “H.” (name hidden so he doesn’t show up on Google) for a day out at the Seahawks-Ravens game. We got started pre-funking at Joel’s place in Belltown — 9 am sharp.

By the time we got to the game we’d been barhopping and tailgating for upwards of four hours.

That proved to be a little too much for one of us.

Jeff, Brent, me and Joel before the Seahawks-Ravens game. Only three of us made it through the first quarter.

We arrived at our seats just in time for kickoff. Everything seemed fine and we even had a good game of Pass the Rock going. But Jeff H. seemed a bit quiet. It appeared to me he was rocking in place, lost in some sort of keep thought, solving world peace between his ears. He went to get something to eat a few minutes later.

And we never saw him again.

Turns out all that Joel’s $150 whiskey didn’t mix too well with the Jager shots and free Coors Lights. I’ll leave the gory descriptions off my family blog but, suffice it to say, Jeff reported that he was “blowing” in Belltown by the second quarter. Not sure what happened to him next, but I didn’t hear that he was in King County Jail, so I assume he got home in one piece.

Oh, the Seahawks stunned the first-place Ravens 22-17, bringing them to 3-6 on the season. Jeff should learn about that sometime tomorrow morning.

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Gladiator Run 2011

Today the family Jenkins met up with the fam Bracken out in Kent. The occasion — Quinn and my running of the Gladiator Run. 3,000 or so participants in all, good fun had by all.

A few pics:

It's a safe bet that I was the only Georgetown Law alum who ran behind a big-wheeled truck this weekend.

Getting mentally prepared.

Jumping over fire -- literally.

Post-race family portrait with Quinn in the background.

UPDATE: Turns out I did quite well. I finished third among 205 males age 40-44; 58th place among males in the race; and 63rd place out of 3,071 participants overall. Won’t be in the Olympics anytime soon, but not bad, either.

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Dawg Dash 2011

Harald Becker and I after the race.

Today I joined Harald Becker for Dawg Dash 2011. It was a 10k minus — the folks who set up the course made it 5.77 miles instead of 6.25. I ran it in 43:52 — a 7:36 pace. That was good for 163rd place out of 635 male runners, 41st place out of 160 runners in the male 40-49 division. Not great, but not all that much of a drop off from my times ten years ago.

Nearing the finish line.

Next up: next week’s Warrior Dash.

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Seahawks 13, Cardinals 10

Today I joined Joel Aro, Mike Waldner and Joel’s buddy Frank (heck of a good guy) for an NFL day out in Seattle. We started at Buckley’s in Belltown at about 10 am — the place was packed with guys and gals clad in NFL jerseys. From there we hiked it down to FX McRory’s, the Elysian Brewing Co. and finally Century Link Field to watch the 0-2 Seahawks play their division-rival Arizona Cardinals.

GOOOOO, SEAHAWKS!!!!!!

The Seahawks' Tavaris Jackson-led offense was bad, but Kevin Kolb's Cardinals O was even worse.

Final score: Seahawks 13, Cardinals 10. I wish I could recount a few highlights here but, other than Larry Fitzgerald snagging a TD pass away from two Seahawks (technically a lowlight), there weren’t any. This is one snoozer of a team, particularly on offense. Tavaris Jackson and Marshawn Lynch will scare exactly no one — unless, of course, you meet Lynch and his gold teeth in a dark alley.

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The U2 Concert

Last night we joined Eli and Veronica and later Jayne and Otter for a night out at the U2 concert. I took too many great pics to post a sampling here, so here’s a link to them. To summarize the night, we

took the bus to Qwest Field, a journey that had us transferring smack dab in the middle of the hood.

We then stopped in a few bars ....

Upon making it to our seats, Jayne and Otter joined us, whereupon ....

we watched Lenny Kravitz and ...

U2 put on a heck of a show.

Out at 5 pm, home by midnight.

Only downside of the evening — the babysitter bill. At $70, it cost more than our two concert tickets ($60) combined.

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