rebron.org: Everyday Life, Work, Ironman Training

I wish we had a ramen shop in Oakland or in the Bay Area that was really good. I’ve always liked ramen but I guess at some point the ramen craze just went nuts and I guess it got started by Momofuku in New York City (I tried their ramen a couple years ago and it was pretty good).

My co-workers treated me to ramen in Tokyo when I visited there a couple years ago, actually tried “new style” ramen where the noodles are on the side and you dip the noodles into the broth. It was so good. I didn’t even get a chance to try some of the best ramen, which apparently is from Fukuoka (apparently Oakland’s sister city).

In Hawaii, I liked the saimin in Kauai. In Honolulu, I really loved the Tan Tan ramen from Goma Tei in the Ala Moana center and Gomaichi ramen too. The Tan Tan ramen is spicy, the soup broth is addictively good, and the pork tender and juicy.

In Los Angeles, my favorite (pictured above) is the Toroniku ramen from Santouka, this little shop in a Japanese mall/market. Daikokuya also has really good ramen and their fried rice is also very good.

I guess in the Bay Area we’ve got: Ken Ken Ramen (which I’ve yet to try but I’ve heard is really good), Hapa Ramen (which is pretty good), and Ramen Dojo in San Mateo.

Yum.

• hack away at the unessential
• nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect
• dial-in and make an impact

Finally looking to get out of hibernation mode and into Spring mode, shedding Winter fat (about 25lbs) and getting ready for the Summer.

New diet to include loads of steel cut oatmeal, lots of tea, no sugar, no sweets, more vegetables, little to no bread, more sweet potatoes, less meat, more rice, and more fish.

Training this year will probably pick up some time in June, a lot of running and maybe back to spin class.

If I were to buy a laptop in 2012 it would be one of these (in the following order):

• MacBook Air 13″
• Dell XPS 13″ Ultrabook
• Samsung Series 9
• Lenovo IdeaPad U300

Spec wise I guess you’re supposed to look for Core i5/i7 processors with 256GB SSD hard drives (I’d want 512GB) and 4 to 8GB of memory and 6-7 hours of battery life. SD card slot, back lit keyboards, high res screens, a couple USB slots pretty much rounds things out. Might want to wait for Ivy Bridge processors, “retina display” for the MacBook as well as Mac OS X Mountain Lion or Windows 8 due out later this year.

For tablets, there’s really only the iPad, no point in getting anything else at the moment unless you’re a developer or want a tablet to just watch movies. For smart phones, either the iPhone 4S or the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and probably the next generation of both, due out later this year, is the safer bet.

My current setup (and will be through 2012 and a good part of 2013/2014) is a 13″ MacBook Pro from a few years ago and a Nexus S that I upgraded with a better battery that can last me a day or two between charges. And no tablets yet.

I love learning about really cool Oakland based companies — Roy Denim has got to be one of the cooler ones.

Roy makes raw denim jeans for men (for now).  And he makes these jeans all by himself on vintage machines that he collected over several years.  From what I’ve read, he gets his denim from special mills in either Japan (Nihon Menpu) or North Carolina (Cone Mills) that take just as special care in making their denim as Roy does in putting it all together.

Cool video showing Roy making his jeans.

He has a philosophy page which reads “There is one” and I guess it’s meant to read that he does have ‘a’ philosophy.  I read it as ‘there is one… pair of jeans’ you should wear and that’s Roy’s.  Or it could also be, ‘there is one guy’ that made these jeans for you.  Anyway, easily my favorite pair of jeans in just a few wears, and even sweeter that Roy is from Oakland.  It’s going to be cool breaking these in.

**Update**

I learned some more about jeans… (more…)

I’m doing the SF marathon this Sunday.  It’s going to be my fourth time doing this race.  The highlight is running across the Golden Gate bridge.  The low light is all the time spent in Golden Gate Park, we see about every inch of Golden Gate park.  The other low light is that this race has gotten to be too expensive.

I prefer the Oakland marathon that I ran earlier this year.  I like the warts and all course through Oakland much better.  There’s more people cheering at the Oakland marathon and the runners seem a little more laid back and a little more entertaining.  Whatever.  Just being cranky/Oakland prideful.

Anyway, SF marathon should be pretty fun.  Weather is always great, overcast, not too cold and not too hot and not windy, perfect running conditions.  The hills are tough though.

This candy bar — jour et nuit by Bernachon –  my sister brought back from Paris was pretty darn great.  I need to figure out how to get more of this, might be the best chocolate bar I’ve ever had.

The other chocolates and pate de fruits from Patrick Roger were pretty good too.

Just goes to show that “caviar taste on a beer budget” is genetic.

This is our box for the week from Eatwell Farm.  We’ve got apples, oranges, lemons, strawberries, lemon balm, parsley, sugar snap peas, green garlic, spring onions, spinach, carrots, mixed greens.

We’re on the 12 week program (13th week is free) w/ a half dozen eggs, which comes to about $29 a box.  Considering we get our box next door, the fruits and vegetables are organic AND they’re picked the week of delivery, it’s a no brainer value — and ridiculous from a freshness standpoint.

You also get things you might not normally buy at the store like romanesco, daikon, rainbow chard, jerusalem artichokes, rutabagas, and watermelon radish.  And you learn to eat seasonally, which makes you realize we actually do have seasons in Northern California.

There are a few drawbacks.  It’s not always easy to eat everything in a week, and you do have to cook.  You might get weeks of weeks of something you might not like for example red cabbage or kale.  You might not have enough of something to finish a recipe — need one more eggplant or one more onion, so you’ll have to supplement that at the store.  You’ll also never get bananas (obviously) and probably some other “non-standard” vegetable.

Sign up with Eatwell if you’re in the Bay Area or I’d encourage signing up for another Community Support Agriculture (CSA) program like Eatwell Farm.  A lot of them are popping up all over California and the rest of the United States.

—

* Hard to say whether or not CSA is scalable, I’m sure less than 1% of the country subscribes to a CSA.  But it would be great to see because in practice we feel healthier and feel better knowing where our  food comes from and the knowing the people who farm it.

I’ve been making these Acai bowls for breakfast or lunch and they’re delicious.  First had these at Lanikai Juice in Kailua and then had them again when I was in Los Angeles at a couple places.

Really simple to make, just need to buy or order the frozen Acai pulp, I get mine from Berkeley Bowl but can also get from Amazon.com.  The fuzion is good but I like the original blend.

To make it, just two of the smoothie packets, some soy milk (or apple juice but I like soy milk) in the blender and blend away.  Put it in a bowl, add fruit like: blueberries, raspberries, bananas, strawberries, and then add some granola.  I’ve seen some with a little bit of yogurt too but maybe too much.  I like Cafe Fanny’s granola but also Blue Bottle’s granola.  It takes at most five minutes to put it all together, which is great too.

This bowl is maybe 300+ calories but if it’s breakfast or lunch it’s not bad.  I like eating it post workout too — just tastes good and looks pretty too.

Nice infographic from Transition Four

I’m #813, for this second year of Ironman St. George.  While I swore never again to do this race — it’s that hard and miserable, I ended up signing up again.

A few reasons:

• I really liked the finisher’s shirt and I want another one
• The coach we work with is doing the race, among other friends
• the Utah bike course is gorgeous
• this course kicked my butt last year and I didn’t like that
• it’s drivable although this year I’m breaking up the drive into two, first LA and then Las Vegas
• needed a race to stay in shape

We’ll see how it goes.  Last year I did this race in 15:42:17 (fifteen hours and 42 minutes).  I’m going to see if I can do it in under 14 hours, but I’ll be happy to just finish and get my t-shirt.