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a cool pop-up

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.

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Garmin Edge 500

Recommendation: Definite Buy

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.

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Apple products

iPhone

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…
  • iPod – Nano, Yes; Shuffle/Classic */Touch, No;
  • Peripherals – Keyboard*, maybe; Magic mouse, no; Cinema display*, maybe; Airport Express*/Time Capsule, No; Airport Extreme*, maybe
  • 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.

Belorussian Translation provided by PC.