We ate at True Burger, in Oakland, last weekend and have to say that True Burger is now my new burger place — post workout reward, post Tahoe/road trip meal. It’s a small restaurant and they do burgers, fries, milkshakes, and that’s about it and they do it really well.
In comparison to In N’ Out, True Burger’s burgers have much better flavor, better bun, slightly larger, and less greasy. In N’ Out’s fries aren’t very good, True Burger fries are crispy and tasty. The milk shakes are tastier too, it’s vanilla or chocolate or with fill-ins like vanilla with strawberry, peanut butter, coffee, etc. You could say that True Burger is looking to create reference, by the book best versions of the American burger, fries, and milk shake and they do a ridiculously great job. Here’s a much better review but essentially, no more trips to In N’ Out.
red velvet cup cake, from Cupkates Bakery
Cupkates Bakery
The other “best thing I’ve eaten” moment was a week or so ago when I was gifted with a Key Lime pie cupcake from Cupkates Bakery. If you see the Cupkates cupcake truck, wave them down and buy the $3 Key Lime pie cupcake. It’s just crazy good. I guess they drive around Oakland and San Francisco.
Key Lime Pie $3/ea A graham cracker crust, key lime cake, curd filled, and topped with meringue frosting. Available with or without toasted coconut.
pop-up general store (OPEN TODAY 6/30/2010 at 5pm – 7pm at Grace Street Catering) is part of this interesting food movement that’s happening in the Bay Area along with Jon’s Street Eats, Eatwell Farm, any Bay Area farmer’s market — where there’s this mix of food reverence, technology, and a bit of grunge.
Anyway, here’s pop-up general’s store description:
is a group of professional cooks {nearly all of us current or former Chez Panisse cooks} making the foods we love to eat. We Pop-Up every two or three weeks so that you can get your hands on some.
pop-up general store is effectively in Ghost town. Whatever. Will check it out. One of our favorite restaurants that closed, Cafe Jojo’s in Oakland (which had the best steak frites), is now doing catering and offering products through the store so it’s pretty cool to see them back in action.
This is the Garmin Edge 500 and I’m super attached to this thing mostly because it works. I bought this in December last year and it’s reasonably priced. DC Rainmaker has this crazy long review.
I use this computer for cycling and running though it’s optimized for cycling. I have a heart rate monitor for my heart rate and it comes with a cadence monitor to monitor rotations per minute (RPMs) or my legs around the bike crank. It’s a Garmin so there’s a GPS so it measures distance and elevation. It’s also an ANT+ product and so it works with other ANT+ products like power meters and such.
The computer also comes with Garmin training center software so I can download all the information from the Edge 500 onto my computer (Mac OS X but works on Windows too). From there, I upload the data to WorkoutLog.com which records all my workouts.
From a technology standpoint, it’s pretty freaking cool — a total home run product. It works, it’s minimalist by default, configurable to your needs, easy to get data in and out. Even the battery power is pretty good, lasted me a whole Ironman race (well the bike and the run part…and I took a long time).
It’s a piece of technology that will actually tell you about yourself, what you did, and could actually make you faster, stronger, better because you have data to measure against.
Some personal yes/no/maybe recommendations on Apple Products:
Apple iPhone 4 – Yes (our first iPhone purchase and will be buying for wifey to replace an old Treo…my phone is a Nexus One)
Apple MacBook Pro 13″*, other MacBooks – Yes
MacBook Air – No
Mac Mini* – Yes
Apple TV – No
iMac – No, better off with a mini or an iPad
iPad – Not yet, waiting for the next version w/ Retina display and front facing camera, printing support, and general tweaks, and generally an actual need for one given that I own a MacBook Pro already…
Software – iLife*, Yes; iWork*, if you have to; Aperture, No; MobileMe*, No
*products I own
I think a pretty good Mac setup would be a Mac Mini for “home” stuff/home server type of deal. A MacBook Pro for work, iPads as the “secondary” computer. iPods for on the go, exercising, and for the car.
From a PC side, probably harder to cobble up a similar setup.
The Devil’s Key
Corporate e-mail can be a vast wasteland, but there’s one email function that Jamie Barnett calls the devil’s key — the dreaded ‘reply all.’
Corporate e-mail is a funny thing. Sure, it’s the stuff of great ideas delivered with speed, but it’s also the domain of hopeless misunderstandings, shots across the bow, and somehow absolves us of the decorum required in face-to-face communications.
While volume and grammar are oft-cited grievances, my grumble is about ‘reply all.’ ‘Reply all’ is the devil’s key.
I ran the Oakland 1/2 Marathon yesterday, the inaugural Oakland running festival which had other running events like a relay, 5k, and of course the full marathon.
I had a lot of fun, the course is super fast and flat, folks were great/happy/excited, the running shirt was nice. The support was awesome, no shortage of volunteers and spectators. I was surprised by the number of people that were out and about cheering (moreso than the San Francisco marathon).
Ran into a few folks Derrick and Dr. Bean from IronTeam. Ben was at the finish line volunteering.
The other day, I encountered eight (eight!) people who had come to town just for the marathon. All of them made a point of saying how surprised they were to discover what a beautiful city Oakland is. It was totally heartwarming.
For whatever reason, my dream car as a kid was a candy apple Porsche 911. I’ll have to say that this Porsche Spyder hybrid in whatever color for my 50th birthday (still along time away) would be pretty nice. I suspect that by the time I’m 50 there’ll be an even better car. I like the Cayman S too, and the 911 Carrera 4S is not too shabby.
The 918 Spyder prototype combines high-tech racing features and electro-mobility to offer a fascinating range of qualities: An emission level of just 70 grams CO2 per kilometre on fuel consumption of three litres/100 kilometres (equal to 94 mpg imp) truly outstanding even for an ultra-compact city car, on the one hand, combined with the performance of a super sports car and acceleration from a standstill to 100 km/h in just under 3.2 seconds, top speed of 320 km/h (198 mph) plus, and a lap time on the Nordschleife of Nürburgring in less than 7:30 minutes, faster than even the Porsche Carrera GT, on the other.
A friend of mine was telling me that the prettiest money she ever saw was the Dutch guilder. I had to look it up and I now have to agree. Wouldn’t be a bad collection to framed up on a wall somewhere.
We’re over at the Berkeley Bowl and I’m about to go grab some Nutella. Nutella has a low glycemic index and therefore ok to eat? That’s what I told myself anyway.
Next to Nutella on the shelf is Nocciolata and instead of grabbing Nutella, I grabbed it instead. Glad I did because Nocciolata is ridiculously delicious, tons better than Nutella — game over. It’s available on Amazon and it’s worth seeking out.
Anyway, make sure you’re on a workout program before you buy a jar.
Training for Ironman St George and Ironman Canada started in earnest for me in October last year. I have this training log that I use to record my workouts. It’s a pretty neat tool but could be a little faster and little more slick on the user interface side. I upload my workouts from a Garmin Forerunner which I’ll talk about in another post.
What’s new this time around is that I’m working with a coach, Chris Hauth (a genuinely nice guy, an ’92 and ’96 Olympian representing Germany, and he’s *won* a few Ironman races). He’s coaching a few of my friends as well.
The workouts have been/are super efficient in terms of time and effort, and I’m also working out strictly on heart rate and also interval training. I just don’t have time for any bad workouts, and his philosophy of doing something every day and getting enough rest and recovery to move on to the next level is proving to be right.
I’m also doing a bunch of (cycling) spin classes but the spin classes are based on wattage. We use a CompuTrainer in class which you attach to the rear wheel of your bike, and it adjusts the resistance on your wheel based on what watt resistance level you give it. Training by watts and high cadence and going to a ton of spin classes is also new this year.
In any case, St George is coming up, May 1 and Canada is right around the corner at the end of August.
*Updated for Mike, (removing thingie which was just the CompuTrainer)*
Also, adding below, the difference in training with Chris vs IronTeam.
The differences:
I’m training using time versus distance e.g. 2 hour run vs 10 mile run
I’m doing lactate threshold tests to determine my workout zones and bike wattage
I’m training on strict heart rate, at a “Zone 2″ primarily using a heart rate monitor
I’m training on the bike using watts/power
I’m training on bike focusing on cadence, less hill work, and sustained effort
I’ve got a good bike fit
We’ll see if it translates into a better time. It is translating into far easier and manageable (even pleasurable) workouts.
