Author Archives: John E.

Why GPS Watches Always Measure Race Distances Longer

In this past year I’ve had a Garmin GPS watch, I’ve run about a dozen races while wearing it.  In every race, without fail, it’s always the same: the end distance on the watch is always longer than the race distance.  The Broad Street Run 10 Miler may end up as 10.12 miles, and a marathon may show up as 26.44 miles.  The additional one or two tenths of a mile may not seem like much, but they matter when you’re trying for a particular time goal or if you’re saving your energy for what you believe is the final distance only to find out that the race is not over.  And, of course, the GPS watch never measures the distance as less than the race distance.

Is it the watch, the course or something else?  After being stumped, it turns out that the answer is it’s the way the course is measured combined with slightly less than completely efficient running.

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Getting Started in Home Brewing in Philly

Brewing your own beer is not as daunting as one may think.  Sure, there may be confusion and frustration during the initial steps as well as some impatience during waiting periods.  Still, when you are fortunate enough to make a good batch of beer, the end result, as well as the whole process to get there, can be quite rewarding.

The first step, of course, is to obtain the right equipment and basic ingredients for brewing.  Fortunately, Philadelphia has a couple of great spots specialing in home brewing: Home Sweet Homebrew in Center City and Barry’s Homebrew Outlet in Olde Kensington.  Home Sweet Homebrew’s owner, George Hummel, is extremely helpful in ensuring you purchase the right equipment, suggesting ingredients based on your personal taste preferences.  There are beginner’s beer kits, which contain all the ingredients you need for a set recipe, or you can buy individual ingredients for your own personalized mix.

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Philadelphia Pizza Crawl of December 2012: Mission Accomplished

FrancoLuigi's Display

Native New Yorker Jennifer had enough.  Another serving of mediocre pizza from West Philly was driving her crazy, and she broadcast, via Facebook, her pronouncement: Philly pizza was crap (except she used a more colorful adjective).

I, for one, will not tolerate anyone disparaging Philadelphia’s pizza scene. Immediately, I touted the city’s great pizza tradition and diverse pizzerias.  Other folks piped in that they wanted to try a lot of these places in town, particularly in a group outing.  One thing led to another, and the Philadelphia Pizza Crawl of December 2012 was organized.

  • Basics – Hit up six Philadelphia pizza spots on a Saturday in December.
  • Objective – Convince a native New Yorker that Philly does have good pizza.
  • Specific stops –  FrancoLuigi’s Pizzeria, Santucci’s Original Square Pizza, Nomad Pizzeria, Rustica Pizza, Pizza Brain, Tacconelli’s Pizzeria.  They may or may not be the six best pizza places in town, but they’ve all been recognized for their excellence and also offer a variety of pizza styles and settings.  Pizzeria Stella, Zavino, Slice, Dock Street and Osteria also were strongly considered but were either considered duplicative or too far out of the way to work with the other spots.
  • Logistics – Every food crawl must account for logistics, such as transportation, payment, food ordering.  The plan was to travel from place to place by walking, public transportation and perhaps cabs.  There was discussion of a bus, which would protect us in case of adverse weather, but it would have been too costly.  With 20-30 people expected to attend, we also decided to collect $20 up front for costs of pizza, water and drinks.  Calls were placed well in advance to each location to ensure they could accommodate us and were prepared for our arrival.  At each stop, we’d order enough for about a slice or more per person, cutting full slices into smaller portions with our own pizza cutters to allow participants to try different pies.  Also, to allow for comparison, we were to keep the pizza selections to plain, pepperoni and perhaps one specialty pie.  We’d also budget about an hour for each spot to allow us to be at Tacconelli’s for our reservation at 5 p.m.
  • Scoring – We thought about a scoring sheet to determine the best pizza, but eating pizza is really a subjective experience.  There’s not one right way to make a crust or use a sauce.  People could decide on their own about what slices and spots they liked best. Continue reading →