We (me, aphrael, jared, mm, ucb) met fleece at an Ethiopian place in the Haight. Note I have never been to the Haight, but I'm finally getting a handle on the geography of the city (until the last year or so I only went rarely as it was a PITA to drive down from Marin. That and I hated parking). Stupidly I forgot to bring a jacket / sweater / jumper with me. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Luckily on the longish walk to the restaurant from the parking spot (aphrael drove the lot of us except fleece and ucb) I kept warm from the hiking up and down hills. Good for me, as I hadn't gotten much exercise that day.

Ethiopian is tasty -- I had never had it before. Bread was just slightly sour, but that was appealing and went well with the dishes. Also +1 spinach dish. Excepting palak paneer and salads, I don't really see spinach in restaurants much. And lentils. And potatoes. And okra. They hit a bunch of foods I like.

Everyone was pretty quiet at dinner. I mean we talked but it wasn't super-boisterous like some husimeets I can think of. Bunch of us were tired (my excuse was leftover flu symptoms including a cough and nose, blerch). Also, half the group wasn't really drinking, which tones things down a touch. But still interesting. We found a bar afterwords from some decisive leadership by Jared.

The walk back was shivery cold for me. But I was a bit tipsy by then and didn't care a whole lot until right when we got back when I really started noticing. Note to self: stop being a fricking tourist and forgetting a jacket when going to the city.

Biking & Exercise

Last week sucked for biking. I tried one day even though still a little sick, but I think it made me sicker again, so I decided against until I felt much better. This weekend however was busy time for biking and/or exercise plans (must continue Operation Smokin' Hot):

• Bought some panniers, including one that can hold the lappy so I can stop with this backpack shit which hurts. The Arkel Commuter pannier rocks.
• Bought a cycle computer so I can quit using gmap pedometer. Also it's fun to see my average speeds, etc. Turns out I can maintain 15mph on a flat on the single-speed (max is about 18 before the bike just can't be pedaled any faster). However, stop lights / stop signs kill average down to maybe 12 most of the time.
• Joined the Y (with Jared who greatly helped on the motivation) that is less than half a mile away (mostly plan to use for strength training, esp upper body, and maybe swimming, basketball or classes). See below for other interesting details.
• Went on a 15-ish mile ride Sunday to a bayfront park. Nifty! See random picture at end.
• Started biking to work again (this morning, used train, so it was 3 miles, then just less than 10 home). Yay!

The Y apparently is way high-tech these days. All the weight machines are hooked up to FitLinxx. Once the trainer sets you up (figuring out proper seat positions on each machine, figuring out range of motion, and a starting weight), you can then go in and just go to a machine, punch in a code, and it tells you how to set the various adjustable bits, how much weight, reps, etc. When you are actually doing the lift, it keeps track of whether you are pushing/pulling the correct distance, not too fast, and not clinking weights. Everything you do is recorded and uploaded to the local kiosk (and then up to their server). You can get to everything on a web page.

Aerobic activity you can enter manually at a kiosk in the Y or online (including cardio machines for specific machines the Y has or just general things like walking, jogging, etc.) It keeps track of everything up there. Excellent! Good place to record all the bike rides!

Random Pictures

The Menlo Park Bayfront Park has some (presumably commercial) salt flats around it. Strangely these ones didn't really smell. At first it was normal salt flat:

Then, in my reverie of biking, I almost didn't notice this:

Neat!