Teich.Net :: All In

There’s a small (20 people max) place in West LA that I’ve heard about for a few years. Referred to as “Secret Beef”, this is a Japanese style BBQ restaurant. 9 courses, prix fix, BYOB, and often hailed as the best beef in all the US. The catch? You can only get in if someone else who’s on the list brings you. Lucky for me, Chuck (his original post) just happened to be going there this past Tuesday with 4 of his friends, and he invited me to tag along!

If you want the gory details, I’d suggest this Chowhound post. Barring the crab legs on the starter, it’s exactly the same as our meal.

My verdict - to tell you the truth, and I’m almost afraid to post this - disappointing. The meat was good. The throat was tough for me, and a bit unique. The rest of the beef was amazingly tender, with the best marbling I’ve ever seen. Ultimately, I eat for the taste, and that’s where I was let down. There was little to no “beef” flavor, mostly it was succulent, tender, grilled meat stuff. It may just be the style. I am far from experienced with Japanese BBQ. I’m used to steaks, thick cut American or Argentinian. For the person who appreciates this style, I’d easily believe this is the best version of it in the western world.

It is BYOB, so BYOB we did. 6 bottles for 6 people, including the star of the evening, a 750ml 2000 D’Yquem (thanks Steve!). Wonderful wine, darn good food, great ambiance, and a great set of people. If you get a chance, go for it!

Check out the full gallery.

Explanation of ratings

Attire: Whatever. Really. It’s the least style conscious place you can imagine. Wear what you wear.

Having recently quit my job, I took two weeks off before starting the new one. Leaving promptly on my last day, we drove down to LA for a long weekend. Olivia was to fly back Monday, and I decided to stay a few extra days to visit friends and eat food.

When heading down to LA, there are the usual suspects: bomb down I-5, cruise down 101 (if you’re heading to SLO/Santa Barbara/Ventura), or the classic 1. For the outbound, we choose option A (making it from San Mateo to Westwood in 5:30 - with gnarly traffic in the bay area thank you). Easy, but perhaps not quite… engaging. Before we continue, if you’re not into driving for driving’s sake, leave now. If you don’t find California countryside entrancing, move along, the rest will bore you to tears.

For the return ride, I decided to go a little non-traditional. When I used to ride a motorcycle, I was turned on to this amazing web site pashnit.com. Both a forum and a write up on over 600 roades in CA, it was and is the Bible for rides. Although I’m a cager now, I still use the site for road suggestions all the time (shh, don’t tell anyone on the board!) Pashnit came through again. I came across the ultimate backroads ride: From Ojai, take 33 north to 58. 101N for ~9 miles, then G14 -> San Lucas Road -> 198 -> 25 which dumps you in Hollister. For the hardcore you can do the Santa Cruz mountain thing too.

I left at 8am from Westwood, hitting some gnarly traffic getting to Ojai. I gassed up and proceeded up 33. And discovered god, or at least the atheist, spiritually devoid version of god. The pavement was perfect. The twisties were ~30mph - 60mph, variable, constant, sweeping, tight, loose, and spaced like the flying spaghetti driving instructor himself had placed them. Traffic? None. I passed 7 cars (yes I counted) in the opposite direction, and not a soul in mine. The driving was SO good, I was literally stopping and shouting out loud, cackling to myself like a deranged malibu grand prix rider let free into the real world. To take the pictures, I would just stand in the middle of the road. Or crouch. Or whatever. No cars.

Eventually you reach a 5,000′ summit, with views I would NEVER have expected. I took some pictures, but as is often the case they don’t even come close to doing the scene justice. Continue on down the back side, for more of the same. Eventually there’s a left to turn onto 58, before the town of Mckittrick, and after Derby Acres. According to the map that is. There are no towns here. It’s 50+ miles of total emptiness.

58 is tighter, more wildflowers, starting to show some green. Roller coaster humps that had me whooping out loud. And more fun. It passes through Taft and a ton of oil pumps. Scene straight out of the movies, but I was having too much fun to document it. 58 hits 101, but if you’re looking for more about 3 miles before 101 there’s a right turn onto 229, which takes you through Creston and dumps you directly into Paso Robles.

The 33->58 combo is THE BEST DRIVING I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED. I honestly can’t even begin to explain how amazing, fantastic, fun, beautiful, and rewarding it is. From a driver experience, this is as good as it gets. Perfect road. Perfect corners. Beautiful. No traffic.

G14 out of Paso Robles is great. The problem is, after the 33/58 combo punch, it felt downright boring. Maybe I was lagging, but it just didn’t leave any impression on me. As I crossed back under 101 (for the 3rd time I think), I turned on 198, and then 25. 25 IS the quintessential central California backroad. It’s got the pavement, it’s got the twisties, it’s got straights, it’s got dips. Add on green hills and wildflowers for a knock out punch.

Overall, I’d say that 33 is a MUST do. Find the time, and just go. 58 is very close behind. Just do the two together, north or south, and rediscover how good driving can be. If you’ve got the chance, 25 is totally worthwhile as well. The scenery alone merits it, especially the wildflowers right now. G14, I’m afraid I’m just going to say thank, and move along.

Check out both a static and interactive map of the drive. Color represents speed in MPH.

As I (Oren) have started to blog more, this blog has been overrun with off-topic shlock.  Although all in (as in everything, not poker), a bit more focus couldn’t hurt.  So, I’m moving my stuff, plus aggregating my work and personal postings, to a new site.  See you over there.

Great, you’ve got a bunch of photos. I’ve got 15,790 (who’s counting?). What do you do with them?

For years I’ve posted them to the web. Works great, but darn if people aren’t analog junkies.

After coming home from the most recent wedding, Olivia and I decided to give the bride and groom a photo book as part of the wedding gift. There are a ton of different sites for doing POD (print-on-demand) photo books. Overwhelming really. I decided on SharedInk.com after researching, and especially after this article at Nikonians.org. Requested access to the pro-program, and away we go.

In the process of creating our first book, I ran into a few various “learning experiences”.  I can’t escape without a mini-review however. Sharedink is for people who know what they are doing. It is not a replacement for iPhoto. If you can’t use photoshop, stay away. They tell you how many pixels the page is, the gutter size, and that’s it. You’re on your own. All the rope in the world to hang yourself. You upload (preferably via FTP) a ZIP of JPGs. Their website is almost a joke - it’s Web 1.0 old skool, but not in the cool way. It’s fast enough, and it works. The book, is awesome.

First, I want to call out the cover and binding. It’s a thing of beauty. Beautiful linen, a real hardcover book binding. It’s basically perfect, there’s not at thing more I would ask for. I read online all the time that people find this the #1 issue in books. I wouldn’t know - this is the only book I’ve ordered so far, and it’s ideal.

The interior quality is wonderful as well. The paper is thick (so thick the book won’t lie open. Check out the photo below - I had to bend the book >180 degrees to get it to stay for a few seconds). The printing is really nice - sometimes a bit dark, sometimes a bit light, never as good as a inkjet, but good enough that I’m ordering many more!

What did we learn?

• You must consider the righ/left page interaction. On a few pages, I have one photo on each, with one slightly taller or shorter than the other. It looks dumb.
• A corollary: on my 8″ (tall) x 11″ (wide) book, the vertical dimension is MUCH more noticible. Play with the width, but make sure the vertical stuff aligns.
• Second corollary: Careful how you bleed. Many of my pictures were wider than the page, so I bled off the left and right, and left a bit of white on the top and bottom. If there’s <0.5″ on the top or bottom of the page, it just looks like I made a mistake in printing. Interestingly, the same is NOT true for the vertical pictures, probably because they have more whitespace on the sides than the horizontals do on the top and bottom.
• 20 pages = 40 sides. As you go through and lay things out, you begin to feel like maybe it’s all repettive, and try and come up with new designs. Don’t. Pick a few, and use them. It’s OK to repeat. By all means, be creative. Go crazy (some of those worked out great!) But don’t do it because you think the book will be boring, it won’t be.
• That linen picks up dirt! I ruined this first book in <10 min. Water, a touch of grease, anything, the Linen seems to suck it up. This spot is after we tried to clean it up. The cover has a few spots too now. Just be careful.
• I love how the dual-page spreads work out! Full bleed really works well, and being slightly asymmetrical really pays off. As with anything, don’t overuse it. And be aware that the middle part will dissapear. In this picture, there are 5 bridesmaids, but only 4 show up in the spread!

Good luck! This was super fun, the results are great, the costs not unreasonable. Maybe after 5 years I’ll finally do something about my own wedding photos!

Installed the latest leopard update - 10.5.2 today. NOT a good idea.

Neither of my computers can now connect to my DLINK DIR-635 over wifi. Or at least, they connect, get an IP address, etc, but I can’t actually send any data. In fact, it’s really weird. At one point, I could ping external IP addresses just fine, but I couldn’t ping my router. Which is the default route. WTF?

I tried pinging my router - that didn’t work well:

PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=14 ttl=64 time=544.516 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=15 ttl=64 time=0.485 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=16 ttl=64 time=0.483 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=22 ttl=64 time=543.981 ms
^C
--- 192.168.1.1 ping statistics ---
28 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 85% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.483/272.366/544.516/271.882 ms

I changed my SSID, turned on WPA2 (really bad idea, now I get no route to host) turned it off, rebooted everything. No go.

In the middle of writing this, I even just lost ALL connectivity via Ethernet. I had to reboot my iMac just go get connected again. Something very very odd is going on here.

A warning and complaint to all:

Offline support in Mail.app in 10.5.1 (and 10.5.0) is a DISASTER!  Actions performed offline (filing) DO NOT get synced when you connect back up.  Further, every time you send a message it warns you that you’re not connected!  I lost 2 hours of email work on the plane.  Apparently only 50% of the 40 emails I sent actually found their way out, I can’t tell what is what, and who has seen whom.  It’s a disaster.  DO NOT USE mail.app for offline.

darn it.

Yes, it appears to be a bad deal for the developer. It’s a great deal for the user though.

The MacHeist software bundle takes 14 apps and sells them for 90% off - $49 total. And that’s a real discount - not some ginzu knife discount. I personally had purchased 1passwd in the past for the indicated price. I’ve already received my money’s worth - Snapz Pro X is a great way to do screencasts, and costs $69 alone.

Ensuring they are buzzword compliant, they also have a viral marketing aspect - refer people to receive additional software. Clearly they’re roped me in to it. Finally, it’s marketing genius that they give 25% of the order to charity - help you assuge your guilt somehow? Turn buying into a community action? Either way, it’s really worth checking out, and taking advantage of. The deal ends Wednesday.

Referral link - MacHeist

Direct link - MacHeist

I got a Kindle when it came out, and love it. Yes, the ID is terrible. And WTF is up with the back button? But it’s changed reading for me. I’ve been tearing through books again, and enjoying it all the time.

Being a geek, it’s not enough to just read, I’ve got to share too! So, I’ve added a goodreads widget over there on the right side. Take a look at the books I’m reading, and suggest some more! I’m running out of ideas - there are too many out there, I get overwhelmed.

Part of why I like traveling so much is the perspective you gain on yourself. 5 days in Buenos Aires, 4 nights in Mendoza were fantastic overall, with high points, low points, and some interesting perspective. This post is for BA, more to follow on Mendoza and wine!

First off, for personal travel cities aren’t O and my first choice. Second, if you’re going primarily becuase ” X is the Y version of Z” (BA is the Paris of Latin America), chances are I’d prefer to just go to Y.

In this case, Buenos Aires is a fun and beautiful town. We really enjoyed walking around, hanging out at the cafe’s, seeing some shops, but weren’t blown away. Various thoughts include:

• The walking tours from MPtours are FANTASTIC. These unequivocally were one of the highlights of the trip. We bought all three, put them on two ipods, and walked around together. They are expertly done, perfectly timed, informative, and just plain fun. 1:30 or maybe 2:00 each. Don’t think about it, pay the $45 and just get them. I really hope they do more cities.
• Just take a taxi. It’s cheap. Getting cross town is < $15 US. We took the subway a few times. It’s clean, but hot. Just wasn’t any point really.
• La Boca is as turisty as everyone says. Good for photos, good for 20 min, then keep going.
• La Cabrera was the best we ate. Really the only must go place we went to.
• Went to a fancy Tango show. The dancing was good and showy. The food and wine was really really really bad. We did the VIP package. Food looked the same, the wine was possibly better, but the real difference was you get a private transport to/from, and you get some elbow room. Lots more elbow room. The standard seats are packed like sardines, the VIP gives you plenty of space. It was worth it for us, but we’re antisocial.
• Food was good, not great. Look for follow up posts.

BA is clearly a place to go if you like late night partying. Which we don’t really, we’re old. People do eat late - 9:30 or 10:00. Good for staying out till breakfast.

Overall, I’m very glad we went, though 5 night was too long for us. 3 would have been perfect. I’m also very happy with the way that the photos turned out.

I’m having some very weird issues with leopard. The dock seems to have rendering issues - the hover text boxes don’t always have their border, and the spring folders are totally messed up. Those gray round bars are supposed to be the files. No text, and no icons for the files.  Anyone have any idea what’s going on?