Dave's Beer

Rag O Rama - like ... why?

2010-03-10T21:53:00.002-05:00

I know my C'ville thrift stores pretty darn well. You can usually catch me wandering slowly through their aisles wearing headphones, listening to a book, staring thoughtfully at junk trying to find a purpose for it. I'm a Volunteers of America guy. I like kitchen gadgets best, but have been known to dabble a bit in clothing - sneakers mostly.

I've driven by Rag O Rama a million times and now I know why I never made it in the door. It rots. I gauged my opinion of the place with 3 reliable clothing items: the lightly used t-shirt, the lightly used athletic shoes and ... I left after these two items.

At the VOA, I've been lucky with athletic shoes. I've gotten spiffy Nikes and New Balance over the past year for not more than $3.93. The Rag had equivalent shoes for about 38 friggin' dollars. I priced quite a few pairs too, all about the same, it wasn't a mistake.

The t-shirts. I realize this is kind of gross for some of you. But, if they're expensive, I guess they aren't that gross. Right? Apparently, that was the marketing genius that went into the pricing (or price point as the business dudes say). At the VOA, I can usually score some weird - and new - usually promotional t-shirt for about $1.99. At the Rag, I can get a more grimy, oldnavyesque, bilious T for no less than 12 f**king dollars! I priced about 10 of these because I couldn't believe it.

So, kids, don't toss that underwear with the partially detached waistband, you too could find a thrifty way to subsidize your iPhone monthly pament.

It's March, Spring is in the air and racoons have been screwing like rabbits, here are the kids.

2010-03-01T21:28:00.002-05:00

I'm NOT a sports photographer

2010-02-28T15:46:00.001-05:00

Men's and Women's meet against Penn State yesterday afternoon. Free!

Not exactly snowbound, but a good workout.

2010-02-27T11:32:00.003-05:00

Just a light snow, but having eaten so much last night and this morning, decided to use the snow to get some exercise rather than going to the gym. I used my Omron Smartsync heart rate logger to gather this data. Not a bad workout. Average HR of 136 for 40 minutes and, as you can see, totally interval.

Graph Notes
1. ambitious start
2. chatting with neighbor
3. admiring my mini igloo
4. detailing mini igloo
5. looking at mini igloo and hoping it snows more

Peter, the csv is in the mail. I opted for a 10 second sampling rate to make the graph prettier.

Turning off Google Buzz

2010-02-22T17:09:00.000-05:00

It's not you Rosie, it's me.

And the award for most ambitious snow building exercise in Columbus ...

2010-02-21T13:50:00.002-05:00

DavesBeer.com traffic (almost) flying past Twitter

2010-02-18T19:24:00.000-05:00

I've been and always will be fascinated with website traffic. Ascertaining site stats is tough (if it's not your own website). Traffic dictates ad rates. Comscore is the big dog in this niche and they give nothing for free, but, for us amateur lurkers, Compete has a free membership that gives up just enough to wet one's whistle. It's kind of fun to play with. I found some blogspot.com subdomains undetectable, but for other sites I tried, I learned interesting information. Give it a try on your favorite sites.

The best seat in all of Columbus

2010-02-17T21:06:00.001-05:00

Last Sunday was one of the infamous Studio 35 beer tasting / movie events. A full tasting is 10 x 5 oz. cups, filled about 1/2 way and followed by a movie. I took some notes on the beers, but I can't read them beyond the first brew.

These beer tastings are nuts. Packed house, pizza delivered from down the street, popcorn, candy, a bunch of kids even attended, more than usual. Frankie came with us (we walked). The movies shown on these nights are pretty bad - dreadfully bad, but after a couple hours of beer tasting, a really bad movie is apt. Sunday's feature was the 1991 Clash of the Titans. Absolutely horrible flick, how does Harry Hamlin live with himself? My sincere thanks to the owners for organizing such a great time for the locals.

I hope I didn't shave a patch on my chest for nothing

2010-02-13T11:54:00.002-05:00

Screaming and kicking through middle age and all the glory that comes with it, I'm taking on the battle against declining metabolism by determining what constitutes a healthy day versus a sedentary-eat-and-ravage-vending-machines day, I've combined a few simple tools and will call on the generosity of friends for the data processing. My simple Polar T1 heart monitor strap (about $50 with wrist monitor) coupled to an Oregon Scientific SmartSync datalogger from Amazon for about $13 (incl shipping -deal!) makes for the perfect tool set with which to wrest the data.

Above is a sample of my heart rate log from about noon to about 3 hours later yesterday; I became obsessed with this (surprise) and took a half day. Obviously, I started out at the gym. I did an interval cardio workout (high heart rate / low heart rate intermittently for about 35 minutes and then a bit of resistance training (to impress the babes) - all about an hour. Then, I took a leisurely remaining couple hours window shopping in thrift stores and then home, where I lost my wireless connection (some logistics to work out).

This was a trial period to see if the logger works. What I plan to do is: assuming my baseline to be about 60-64 beats per minute, I'll make measurments during the middle of the day, 6-8 hours worth, while sedentary (elevator, deskwork, mid-day narcoleptic fits, etc.) followed by several days of taking stairs, parking way far away in parking lots, brisk walks, etc.; simply going out of my way to keep up my heartrate during daily activities and compare the two trials average beats per minute to see how much benefit there is to the daily grind in differnt forms. Weekend mania will always be an outlier and won't be measured.

For data-supported conclusions, I will be calling on my more mathematically inclined better half who laughs at such trivial manipulation of the *.csv files to deliver the numbers.

Should be fun. My chest looks really odd. Thank goodness males do not speak to each other in gym locker rooms.

Bad day

2010-02-11T20:06:00.001-05:00

Saw this on Olentangy in front of Kroger. Off to the side was a small Ford Focus with a mushed in front. I couldn't figure out how this thing (Liberty, Escape?) ended up like this.

2010-02-10T19:56:00.001-05:00

Suze (Suzi q)
1996 to February 8, 2010

We'll miss her.

Glen Echo Ravine

2010-02-06T12:58:00.006-05:00

Sledding's great at Glen Echo. It'll be better after a few thaw-freeze cycles.

Tax time

2010-02-05T17:27:00.003-05:00

The person in this suit is my idol. Shows up for work every day.

Next month some subtle changes

2010-02-05T10:47:00.000-05:00

For some time now, Frankie's site has stopped being updated. I didn't want to continue it for many reasons. However, due to some Google upcoming changes (no ftp support), I have to restructure some things. Frankie's site will be reconstructed into annual slideshows. These should be nice and easy to navigate. The captions will be pulled verbatim from her blog and links to them posted on DavesBeer.com. Changes will be subtle if noticed at all.

Miami here we come

2010-02-01T18:08:00.002-05:00

I punched in Miami Beach, FL this morning at about 7:30 am after dropping Frankie off at school. Using highways, it's only a 19 hr drive.

Counting calories

2010-01-30T21:01:00.004-05:00

I would prefer to die than not eat what I want. However, I recently upped my visits to the gym and much to my dismay, started increasing in weight. I was working out pretty vigorously cardio and resistance, but continued to gradually increase in weight. Frustrated, I decided to do what I vowed never to - count calories. I decided to keep a calorie log. I'm using tools at SparkPeople.com to tablulate them. The site permits one to add food per day and its tools sort it into fat, carbs and protein and gives spiffy summaries of the whole affair.

Targeting a calorie value for maintenance of my desired weight (after wading through countless sites) of 1800 +/- 200 calories per day, I've been keeping a tally for about a couple weeks. Low and behold, my gradual weight gain accompanying my increased frequency of visiting the gym was from eating too much. Sounds obvious, but I didn't realize how significant seemingly harmless foods were. I'm now on track for a gradual change to the weight I'd like to be, but the exercise of counting the cals was great. Reducing calories wasn't nearly as painful as I thought, it just takes a bit of thought to make the calories you do eat, satisfying ones. Here's some of my observations:

• I have come to appreciate the sweet potato as one of the best foods on earth.
• Kroger brand saltines are only 10 cal / cracker. This is cool.
• I love tuna, sardines and any other helpless canned fish, but too much protein is not satisfying.
• Breakfast food is the most calorically dense food ever. Breakfast can give you 60% of your calories by 8 am. We're doing lots of grain cereals for breakfasts these days.
• Why are vending machine treats all TWO onces these days? A slip or two to the vending machine in the afternoon can push anyone into a few pounds per month. Vending machines are expensive and deadly.
• Bread is still a great food, just gotta budget for it.
• I have a care free meal once in a while. No counting.
• Knowing calorie counts hasn't ruined my enjoyment of eating at all.
• I actually make my own popcorn for the movies and smuggle it in because:
    a. the movie chains extort money,
    b. I'm cheap,
    c. my popcorn is good enough for the gods,
    d. I'm cheap, and
    e. see c.
• Beer and wine are calorie bargains at 150/12 oz and 100/5 oz respectively. Woohoo!
• Legumes are perfect proteins; ethnic markets have so many more to choose from than Bush's sells. La Preferida "small red beans" are my new favorite.
• I still make lots of bbq; I'm counting, I'm not ending my life.

she's in tough shape ...

2010-01-22T21:45:00.009-05:00

Beginning of kidney failure I'm afraid. Food challenges, incontinence just some of the complications, fluid therapy has started. She's not enjoying it so far.

Your bias doesn't matter

2010-01-16T12:06:00.002-05:00

Bush Clinton Haiti Fund . org

directs to the same site as

Clinton Bush Haiti Fund . org.

Good thinking.

first tooth out

2010-01-12T11:02:00.001-05:00

Desires for a new year

2010-01-03T08:50:00.000-05:00

Installments will continue until Jan 5

13. Find a boys' 20" bike at a thrift store for myself.
12. Make a nice wispy light baguette and sketch out a design for a real bread machine. Get investors perhaps.
11. Start dating my wife again.
10. Help Frankie focus her energy using a kinder (but still loud) tone.
9. Vacation in a hotel on a coast and do nothing but go between the hotel room and beach (and eat).
8. Lose 4-5 lbs.
7. Feed more friends using my slightly modified Firedome.
6. Refine my get rich schemes so they actually work.
5. Vacuum the house more often.
4. Figure out when to capitalize.
3. Work on my point n shoot images.
2. Make my lists more realistic.
1. Surf less, think more.

Fear him!

2009-12-29T08:59:00.001-05:00

Baby Jesus thefts on the rise

2009-12-21T13:09:00.002-05:00

'tis the season ...

Update: Stolen baby Jesus is actually a cliche.

The script from today's lesson

2009-12-16T12:42:00.003-05:00

Today's lesson for first graders was about freezing a liquid to a solid using sodium acetate trihydrate. These 30 minute lessons are tough. One word used out of their vocabulary can initiate a deviation in their attention that turns into a small riot. The teachers are especially good at keeping the class in control and on task; their years of experience are evident in managing these gangs. The only tool I use to prevent me from babbling is a script card. I use very few words outside of this little index card. I don't want to babble and I have little time to think. Things heat up fast - and I can prove it.

Today, I wore my heart rate monitor. For the 10 minutes prior to the first demo, through to the end, 40 minutes total, here are my observations: My basal heart rate = 64 beats per minute. My average for the 40 minutes = 108 and maximum was = 147! Yes, it's nuts. Depicted is the message I like to enforce on the other side of my recipe card. Fortunately, no one ate anything today. Go hug your kid's teachers, and give them help.

Not my child

2009-12-13T11:27:00.002-05:00

[Image by Occidental College on Flickr, click on image to visit Flickr page]

Fast forward about 11 years. We're dropping the kid off at school for her first year in college. We drive home, crying most of the way, eat a couple uninterrupted meals to get back to our senses, frolic a few days naked in our home. After a couple weeks, we decide to take a ride back and see if she's starving; take her and a couple friends out for lunch (and dinner and breakfast). We're a few miles away and suddenly we panic: is she studying ... drunk ... introducing Michelle Malkin for the visit to the campus young Republicans club?!

It's worse. She's participating in a coed exercise with sticks ... down there. I knew Harry Potter was evil.

I never knew that ...

2009-12-09T09:11:00.000-05:00

The search operator on Google "or" must be in caps or it is disregarded in search.

E.g., "jesus OR santa OR bigfoot" is a really interesting search and retrieves lots of results (and now including Facebook and Tweets).

"jesus or sant or bigfoot" retrieves way fewer, but, more bizarre results.