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Month: July 2010

Burgrz is Good

Published July 16, 2010

(Please excuse the crap photo, as it was taken under the fluorescent lights at my desk.)

For lunch today I ended up going by Burgrz, a new hamburger place on Walton in Rochester Hills, roughly in the same plaza / parking lot as Trader Joe’s. I was initially hesitant to go there thinking that it’d just be just like Five Guys (which I find a bit greasy and salty but otherwise dull), but after reading the menu and seeing a much more expansive selection (including veggie burgers) I decided to go on.

After looking over the menu I ordered a veggie burger (not sure how this is different from the BOCA Burger, which is also on the menu) topped with sautéed mushrooms and blue cheese with a regular size order of fries. After being told that the zip sauce is a home-made sauce with soy sauce, honey, and cayanne I asked for a bit of it on the side. What I received is as you see above, a nice looking not-squished burger (detail of the patty here), fries, and a small container of sauce.

The burger was good, and I ended up topping it with the zip sauce which went nicely with the mushrooms and blue cheese. At room temperature it was a little runny and didn’t stick well on the burger so I ended up mopping most of it up off the foil wrapper as I went, but it tasted good so I didn’t mind. The waffle-cut fries were crispy and properly salted, and I received a few more of them than I could eat. It would been nice to have fresh-cut fries instead, but properly cooked frozen ones (like these) aren’t anything to complain about.

All in all, I think that Burgrz was much nicer than Five Guys, and is a place that I actually want to go back to. Ordering was fast, food took about 5 minutes to receive, and the place looks nice inside.

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Cock ‘n Bull Ginger Beer

Published July 11, 2010

Here’s a bottle of Cock ‘n Bull Ginger Beer, purchased at the gas station at the corner of Grange Hall and Mackey Roads after Erik, Kristi, and I rode the East Loop (Gruber’s Grinder) at the Holly-Holdridge Mountain Bike Trails, which are more commonly known just as Holdridge. This was a quite challenging (but fun) trail, which took us 2:20 to complete the 15.5 mile route riding at a quite relaxed pace. It has everything from flowing sections of hard pack through the woods to 6′ high piles of field stones and reasonably high log piles. (Photo of Erik going over the biggest of the log piles.)

After the ride (and purchase of snacks) we headed over to Wildwood Lake in Holly Recreation Area and swam for a while to cool off (photo). Unfortunately while out swimming (and taking underwater photos) my supposedly waterproof to 10′ Olympus Stylus 850 SW sprung a leak. The camera started complaining that the memory card’s contacts needing cleaning, and after I opened the memory card / battery card compartment I found it to have water in it. It’s now sitting in a container of desiccant, so hopefully it’ll start working again soon and I can just put it to use as my standard travel point and shoot / bike jersey pocket camera.

Despite our snack of good soda and potato chips, having just biked for 2:20 and swam for 45 minutes we were getting a bit hungry, so the next stop was Union Woodshop in Clarkston, MI. This offshoot of Clarkston Union, one of my favorite America food restaurants, has a menu of great looking BBQ dishes and is some place I’d been wanting to try for a while.

With $0.87 glasses (mason jars, really) of Badass Beer (yes, the Kid Rock stuff, a passable lager) on special during the final game of the World Cup (which Spain won) we each ordered pulled pork with a variety of side items. I chose mac and cheese (ala Clarkston Union) and sweet potatoes (with roasted jalapeno and a hint of maple), which can be seen here along with some corn bread and sweet butter. Typcial of most midwestern restaurants portions were large enough to ensure leftovers. I’ll definitely want to go back there, but the typical 1.5 hour wait on most weeknights may make this difficult. I guess we’ll just have to plan for mid-afternoon on a Sunday again.

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Sun Tea

Published July 5, 2010

Having today off and feeling like rejecting a few more British conventions I decided to make some sun tea. Four tea bags, water, and sitting in the sun for a couple hours mostly did the trick, but I probably should have left it for longer. Oh well, I’ll just have to make another batch tomorrow or Wednesday.

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Shelby / Macomb Township Warzone

Published July 4, 2010

One of the few things (besides “free” music and movies) that will elicit civil disobedience in white, middle class families is the chance to use 1.4G (formerly Class C) explosives on the Fourth of July. I really enjoy seeing all the explosions around the area, so around dusk I set off on my bike to wander the local neighborhoods and watch people set off various glittering fires.

This ride ended up being roughly 12.3 miles, which was a nice cap on the day. Earlier Josh (my brother in law) and I had ridden Bald Mountain and Addison Oaks, but after a nice pile of picnic-type foods at my parents house and an unexpected nap I felt like getting back out and riding some more. A desire to watch people play with pyrotechnics provided the perfect reason to do so.

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The REI Garage Sale Is Great

Published July 3, 2010

Today after getting Danielle fit on her bike by Ernie up at Cycletherepy (which went very well and is highly recommended) we swung by REI to pick up some stuff and check out the remains of the Garage Sale†. While there I picked up a returned Cateye Velo 5 computer labeled “Computer is not working” for $1.93, marked down from the original $20. Looking it over, the only thing wrong with it was that the original buyer had pushed the rubber MODE switch on the back in so far that it was jammed, causing the computer to not function. A few quick pokes with a pin to move the rubber switch back to the hole and everything was back to normal.

I also grabbed a jacket for $29-ish which had been returned because part of the collar was beginning to pill. Marked down from $100, nice looking, and something that I’d considered purchasing at full price last winter I couldn’t pass it up. It should make a very nice early winter / springtime jacket, and maybe something nice for XC skiing.

† In case you haven’t been to one, garage sales at REI are periodic clearance sales where non-new returned items are sold at huge discounts as non-returnable. Everything is tagged with the reason for return and the age of the item, and prices are typically an order of magnitude below the original price.

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Fall Down Go Scrape

Published July 2, 2010

Today while out riding my bike at Addison Oaks I fell and scraped up my arm. I think I also banged my shin and hip a little bit, all while packing dirt into various parts of the handle bar. That’s part of the excitement of riding a bike in the woods, eh? Good thing the weather was perfect and there were far fewer bugs out than there have been in past days. The rest of the ride, which started at the Clarkston Road crossing of the Paint Creek Trail and went through Bald Mountain, was nice, fun, and generally uneventful.

Here is a photo of the place where I fell. For those of you that know the trail, it was on one of the curves right before the small bridge/boardwalk which has the sharp uphill, banked, right-hand turn after it. Yes, it’s a very basic spot. I just wasn’t paying enough attention and either washed out the tire or got too close to the edge of the trail and slipped into the soft/shrubby stuff.

Thinking back, it’s now been a bit (two weeks?) over a year since the last time I fell at Addison Oaks. The last time was when I washed out the front wheel and left a plug of skin on a screw hole of my other bike’s stem.

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