My New Favorite Shoes Are Not Shoes
“These Are Not Shoes. They’re Sandals.” That’s the tagline for the Sanuk line of Sidewalk Surfers. If you love wearing sandals all-day like I do, go buy a pair of Sanuks immediately.
When I first saw them at REI last year, I thought they were great. The bottoms are like flip-flops, but they have a canvas upper to cover your feet. They’re shoes that feel like flip-flops. But even though they seemed great, I did not buy a pair until they made an important addition this year.
I saw them again a couple months ago at a Huntington Beach surf store, this time with a fuzzy liner to keep your feet warmed. Genius! Winter sandals!
I have worn my Sanuk Vagabond Chills for a couple months now. They are incredibly comfortable even after being on my feet for hours. They keep my feet warm even without socks. They look great with a pair of jeans.
In the summer, I wear flip-flops. In the winter, I wear Sanuks.
Nate’s Birthday Getaway to Dog Beach
Do you ever just need to get out of town? After the excitement of Christmas passed, Shannon and I began to get antsy. So, we decided at the last-minute to pack up the car and take the dog on a two-day trip to the beach for my birthday.
North of Huntington Beach, CA, there is the world-famous Dog Beach, one of the few places anywhere in the country where a dog is free to runaround leash-free on the beach and splash or swim in the waves. Maverick is a huge fan of swimming, so we wondered how he would like the ocean.
December 30, 2009: Nate’s Birthday
We found a room at the pet-friendly Balboa Inn in Newport Beach, notified everyone that my birthday plans had changed, and hit the road. Maverick slept in the back of the SUV for most of the way. When we stopped for a bathroom break and snack at In-n-Out, Maverick got out to run around and have a bathroom break of his own.
We arrived in Huntington Beach in time for an afternoon stroll along the beach (no dogs allowed on the pier?) and a late lunch at Wahoo’s. I picked up a new beanie and my first pair of Sanuks at the local surf shop before we loaded up again for the quick drive down to Newport Beach.
The Balboa Inn is right on the beach near the pier on the peninsula. Our room was beyond small but perfect for the three of us. It began to rain as we arrived, so we spent the rest of the afternoon reading in bed (and in Maverick’s case, napping on the floor).
As dinnertime neared, the rain let up, and we all got in the car for a quick trip south to dinner in Corona del Mar at Bandera. My dad, sister, and step-mom met up with us for my birthday dinner. We shared a couple bottles of merlot and plates of roasted chicken, ribs, pork tenderloin, lamb, skillet cornbread, and plenty of sides. Well, I never did get a bite of Thayer’s lamb sandwich…guess it was really good. Honestly, we were all beyond full, but I had heard the banana dessert was amazing, so we all shared one. And it was.
After dinner, everyone came to the car to meet Maverick before we said good-bye and drove back to the inn.
As we pulled in, the air was still and the moonlight cast a dim, silver light on the beach. Maverick, Shannon, and I enjoyed a peaceful night walk along the beach path and even ventured onto the sand for a bit where Maverick happily discovered a buried ping-pong ball. We slept with the window open that night and made sure not to set an alarm.
December 31, 2009
I awoke to a cold, foggy New Year’s eve morning and a dog happy to see someone else was up. After throwing on jeans and a hoodie, Maverick and I headed down to the beach for some frisbee in the fog. It took him awhile to realize he couldn’t run to catch the frisbee quite as quickly in the sand as he could at home on the grass.
After our morning game of frisbee, everyone was ready for breakfast, and on the last morning of 2009, that meant pastry and coffee.
When I was growing up in Corona del Mar, the neighborhood bakery was C’est Si Bon. My sisters, my parents, and I had all told Shannon about it, but she had never been. Sadly, the Corona del Mar location has long been closed, but the original store in Newport Beach is still going strong. Though they don’t have as extensive a menu as they did when I was a kid, I am happy to report C’est Si Bon still has great pastry. We shared croissants, cinnamon rolls, and an apple walnut roll. We took a couple more croissants to-go and picked up an almond croissant to take back to my mom in Las Vegas.
We then met up one last time with my dad, step-mom, and sister for coffee at Peet’s, and headed up the coast highway for the day’s main attraction: Dog Beach.
Suffice it to say, New Year’s Eve 2009 may have been the best day of Maverick’s life. Dog Beach is over a mile of beautiful, flat, sandy coastline where dogs happily run free chasing frisbees and tennis balls on the beach and in the water. For over an hour, Maverick raced other dogs to catch the balls Shannon through in the water. He and I swam together through the whitewash. And after a quick water break, he was ready to do it all over again.
As the day came to an end, we dropped Maverick off at Petsmart for some grooming while Shannon and I went to Wahoo’s a second time. On the drive back, we stopped at In-n-Out again for dinner, but this time Maverick was less interested in running around to stretch his legs and more interested in returning to the car to continue his nap. We arrive back home at 11 p.m., just enough time to unpack and watch the fireworks go off before falling asleep for the first time in 2010.
Dear iTunes: Please Add Album Gift Cards
Dear iTunes: Please let me mail cards like these as presents.
Last week, I bought a physical CD for the first time since high school. Now, high school wasn’t as long ago for me as it is for others, but it’s still been a long time.
I was an early convert to iTunes, ripping all my CDs and selling them at a garage sale when Hansen was still on the radio. I was ecstatic when the iTunes Music Store made it easier to buy music and amazed when the iTunes Store on iPhone debuted.
But last week, I wanted to buy the new Jack Johnson En Concert album for my step-mom’s birthday, and I’ve always had a problem with iTunes when it came to gift-giving.
Some of the best presents I ever received were a Winton Marsalis, Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Connick Jr., and Benny Goodman CDs from my parents, aunts, and uncles when I started listening to Jazz or the mix CD my sister made specifically for me. Though not that expensive, those presents had a lot of thought put into them and were very personal.
iTunes offers the convenience of emailing gift certificates, but I’ve never been a big fan for holidays. I e-mailed my cousins iTunes cards for Christmas, but the fun of opening presents disappears when there’s no box or envelope to open. So, I buy physical iTunes cards at the grocery store or Target instead, but they are very impersonal, only a step away from cash. Sometimes I’ve included a note to say the card is for a specific album, but that’s awkward.
Last year, iTunes added a Gift This feature to send specific albums, videos, or audiobooks, but you have to e-mail them or print them out. I want iTunes to mail them in a nice envelope for me like they do with gift cards.
What I’d like to see is something like the iTunes Album cards that Starbucks sells. I use Gift This to select an album. iTunes sends a nice envelope for me as a gift and inside is a heavy stock or plastic card with the album’s cover art and the code to redeem the gift. Even better would be if I could create a custom mix with cover art of my choosing.
The Five Best Things to Do in Summerlin
I’ve met a lot of people lately who are new to the Summerlin area in Las Vegas. Since I grew up here, I thought I’d share my favorite things to do. If you’re new to town, here’s a map and to-do list:
- Get a Capastrami from Capriotti’s. The Bobbie may look better, but even my step-dad from Brooklyn said the Capastrami is the best sandwich he’s ever had.
- Take the dog for a walk at Spring Mountain Ranch. It used to be Howard Hughes’ ranch and is one of the prettiest parts of Red Rock. There is outdoor theater here during Las Vegas’ warm summer nights.
- Lunch outside at Rachel’s Kitchen. Why aren’t there more places to eat with outdoor seating like this? My favorites: chinese chicken salad, burger, tuna sandwich, chicken salad sandwich, arugula salad with chicken…just go and get something.
- Late night drinks and appetizers by the fire at Agave. Normally overpriced, their happy hour and late night (after 10 p.m.) are awesome. Sit outside by one of the fireplaces with friends. Get some 25¢ tacos or an appetizer (fresh guacamole!). They have a ton of tequilas, thirteen specialty margaritas, and $1 coronitas.
- Brunch at Marché Bacchus. Just outside the borders of Summerlin, this little-known French bistro and wine shop overlooks the artificial lake in Desert Shores. They have misters and heaters, so you can enjoy sitting outside any time of year.
[Bonus for East Coast transplants: IN-N-OUT. If you have never been to In-n-Out Burger, go right now. This west-coast-only legend is a favorite of Bob Hope, Thomas Keller, and Phil Mickelson to name a few. Order a #1 animal-style with a vanilla shake.]
5 Tips to Fix Your Business Card
Business cards are overrated.
Rolodex: Does anyone still use these?
A lot of people stress over their business cards. They try to make them creative. But that never matters (unless you’re a designer).
I may politely say, “Wow, that’s a great card,” but in reality, I don’t care if the card is unique. I make a snap judgment about whether the card looks professional, and then all I care about is whether I can read the person’s contact information.
If you want to make your card creative, that’s great, but don’t do it at the expense of the card’s main purpose: giving me your contact information.
I get a lot of business cards, and the only thing I do with them is enter them into my computer address book. What impresses me is when someone’s card makes it easy for me to transfer the information to my address book. It has the information I need, doesn’t have extraneous information, and is easy to read and input.
Here are some ideas for your business card based on all the cards I’ve seen:
- Include your email address. I can’t believe it, but I have received two business cards in the last month without an email address. And both people worked at technology companies.
- Don’t include your fax number. There was a time when this was useful information but no longer. When was the last time you sent a fax? If I really want to send you a fax, I’ll just call you for the number.
- Put your contact information in the right order. Most people enter a business card into Outlook or another address book. So, why is your mailing address listed above your phone and email? Put your information on your card in the same order it is on the computer. Make it easy for me to keep your information.
- Pick one: office or direct. I keep your card to reach you. If you are willing to put your direct line on your card, don’t give me your office number.
- Learn how to send a vCard. If you forget your card, you can always just email me one, saving me the trouble of typing in your info.
Bonus Tip: The population is aging, so you probably want to increase the font size on your card…which means you have even less room for extraneous information.
My New Favorite Breakfast
Turkey Sausage and Egg Sandwich.
Half-yoke eggs with spike scrambled in unsalted butter. Turkey sausage patty. Toasted English muffin. Try it.
A Bright Idea for the Las Vegas Sun
Filed under: Marketing, Newspaper Industry | Tags: lasvegassun, microlocal, newspapers, targeted advertising
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The Las Vegas Sun has perhaps the most innovative newspaper website in the country.
Historically, the Sun has been the much smaller competitor to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, but as newspapers move online, the Sun is threatening to surpass its larger rival (for a history of newspapers in Las Vegas, see ”A Century of Journalism“). Over the last twelve months, lasvegassun.com has grown 112% while lvrj.com has grown only 20%. And in January, lasvegassun.com almost passed lvrj.com for most unique visitors.
Brian Greenspun went out a couple years ago and hired a team of leading innovators in online journalism. Dave Toplikar relaunched the Sun’s website on January 10, 2008 with a number of unique features, and Rob Curley joined as President and Executive Editor of Greenspun Interactive last summer. They built an all-star staff of online journalism’s chief innovators. Month-by-month, the site has integrated content from Greenspun Media’s weekly and monthly publications, and the Interactive team has added photography, blogs, video, and other content unique to the website.
The whiz kids at Greenspun Interactive probably already know what they want to do next, but here is one idea from a fan and reader to improve the reader experience and generate revenue.
Target to My Neighborhood
The local newspaper is one of the best ways residents can connect to their neighborhoods and the larger community. And the Internet allows people to connect to their neighborhoods in ways they never could with a print newspaper.
LasVegasSun.com is starting to pull together the right editorial components. They already have some local content on their site for different parts of town, including articles from the Home News, an Event Calendar, and a Crime Map (if anyone from Greenspun Interactive is reading, the RSS feed for Summerlin is listed incorrectly and the auto-discover RSS feed on the Summerlin section is the main news feed, not the one for Summerlin). They’ve started building a restaurant listings database (please simplify the ratings to be as simple as Yelp). And I can see photos and videos from both journalists and readers from my part of town. But I have to go find all this content.
To make it all easier to find, I would like to tell LasVegasSun.com which part of town I live in, so they can tell me about what is going on in my neighborhood. ZIP code is too broad (at least in Las Vegas) and giving them my address seems creepy…sub-ZIP seems perfect. But I don’t know my sub-zip, so show me a map of Las Vegas with hotspots for each sub-ZIP.
Then, give me news and events for my neighborhood, restaurant and business ratings in my area. If I tell you which neighborhood I live in, you can provide the relevant local news, coupons, and ads I want while simultaneously giving advertisers the local targeting they desire.
If you want, you can take it even further, and let me tell you even more about myself in exchange for more personalized information. If I have kids, let me tell you which school they go to or which sports leagues they play in to get me news, schedules, scores, and announcements. Let me tell you my housing development in exchange for news from my HOA. By providing news and information targeted toward me, you get permission to show me ads targeted to me.
Readers Want Local Advertising…If It’s Done Right
Most of the Sun’s innovations have been on the editorial side, but I would like to see them also innovate on the advertising side. Some people think advertising is just a nuisance that pays the bills and distracts from the editorial content, but advertising can be valuable when it’s anticipated, personal, and relevant (See Seth Godin’s talk on permission marketing). My wife loves to look at the Sunday paper just for the insert ads of her favorite stores. I love getting a coupon to try the new restaurant down the street. We use chose our dry cleaners because they were close and they sent us some coupons. In fact, we bought an Entertainment book because it’s full of Regal movie coupons, and we find a few coupons for restaurants we already love or want to try.
So offer a coupon directory in exchange for my sub-ZIP. I want two-for-ones and 10% off coupons from businesses nearby: Fabulous Freddy’s, Fazio Cleaners, Papa John’s, Regal Cinemas, Original Pancake House, etc. Plus, now that you know my sub-ZIP, advertisers can target their banner ads on the site just like they target direct mail. Instead of showing a general ad from Station Casinos that I don’t care about, you can show a specific ad for the bowling alley that just opened or the upcoming concert at the Station near me.
Of course, this idea might work for other newspapers as well. Readers get ads they want to see along with the editorial they want just by giving the local newspaper a little information about which neighborhood they live in. And advertisers can target based on that information to give the newspaper the revenue it needs to keep doing journalism.
Bonus Marketing Idea: When I move to Las Vegas, send me a Neighborhood Guide packet (you could even put an illustration of the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign on the envelope. Include some printed information on my neighborhood and a couple printed coupons with a “Get Your Neighborhood News and More Discounts at LasVegasSun.com”).
Something Amazing Happened Today
Something amazing happened today. My online life connected with my real life for the first time.
Shannon and I went to Crazy Pita for lunch. When we walked up to the counter, the owner recognized me and thanked me for writing a review on my blog. It’s the first time someone recognized me from my blog!
(P.S. He mentioned that he is looking at possibly opening a second location in the Summerlin area…woohoo!)
Crazy Pita – My New Favorite Lunch Spot
Thanks to John Curtas for recommending Crazy Pita. With light, healthy, delicious food, it’s my new favorite lunch spot. Rotisserie chicken, delicious hummus, and light, fluffy pita bread. All for about $10 per person.
Located in the District next to Ben & Jerry’s, Crazy Pita has a full menu of rotisserie chicken, salads, pita sandwiches, and skewers. After ordering at the counter, Shannon and I sat at a table outside underneath an umbrella. Las Vegas has over 300 days of sunshine a year; why don’t more restaurants have outdoor patio seating?
In just a few minutes, they brought out Shannon’s quarter white chicken and my tenderloin skewer. Both were served with a greek salad, pita, and hummus. The skewer also came with some couscous and roasted veggies.
The big surprise: Shannon and I both liked the Greek salad! It’s delicious. Usually, I don’t like the tofu-like consistency of feta or it’s salty taste, but this feta was more like a smooth, creamy goat cheese. And while some greek salads can been incredibly briny, this one was perfectly balanced.
The skewers, pita, and hummus were great while the rotisserie chicken was just okay. The best part: the whole meal with drinks for the two of us was only $22.
Bouchon Bistro Brings Best Brunch
Some restaurants are great because they make delicious recipes you’ve never had before. Bouchon Bistro Las Vegas is great because they do an extraordinarily good job making classic brunch food better than you’ve ever had it. It was one of the best brunches of my life.
The morning after Valentine’s Day, we drove down to the Venetian and took the elevators up to the Venezia Tower. Bouchon does not take reservations, so I was surprised we were seated almost immediately. But if we had had to wait, there was a comfortably furnished waiting area with comfy chairs and newspapers to read.
When they seated us at our table, they handed us the menus, and I got excited. Croissants, sourdough waffles, sticky buns, corned beef hash, oysters, cappuccinos, parfait, steak frites, orange juice, mussels, brioche bread pudding french toast. Nothing out of the ordinary, just all the best brunch foods. When I go to an expensive restaurant and I see classic dishes, I get very excited because it usually means that they are going to be really good.
Appetizer: Cappuccino and Pan au Chocolat
I had known the first thing I wanted since the night before: pain au chocolat (chocolate croissant) and cappuccino. If you have never tried it before, the chocolate in a chocolate croissant makes the cappuccino taste better in the same way a perfectly paired red wine makes a steak taste better.
I am always looking for a great croissant. The one I had at Bouchon was the first great croissant I’ve had in Las Vegas (surprisingly better than the ones from the Bouchon Bakery downstairs). Flaky, airy, and buttery with a delicious piece of chocolate in the center. It was a little big (a little too much croissant to chocolate), but tasted fantastic and awakened hidden flavors in my cappuccino.
Croque Madame
At the top of the Bouchon menu is a very basic offering: Breakfast Américaine. I am a sucker for really good bacon and eggs, but I decided to get the Croque Madame, a play on the classic Croque Monsieur (ham and grilled cheese sandwich) with a fried egg. Layers of brioche, ham, a perfectly cook fried egg, and mornay sauce. Mmmmmm. Served with a side of french fries. Oh the french fries! Some of the best french fries of my life.
Orange Juice
I love a good glass of orange juice. It’s one of my favorite things in life. One of my pet peeves is the new trend of calling orange juice from concentrate “fresh orange juice.” It sounds like “fresh-squeezed,” but it’s not. So, when I asked the waiter if the O.J. on the menu was fresh-squeezed, and he said, “No, it’s Naked Juice,” I was blown away. Even I would consider Naked Juice fresh-squeezed compared to the stuff from concentrate, but the fact is it was not squeezed that day. I got a glass, and it tasted pretty great.
Service
If there was one thing, I would criticize, it was the service. I wish I was making this up. Shannon ordered one of the specials as an appetizer: raspberry benets. Shannon has never had benets, so when she heard that they were like donut holes, only better, she got excited. She ordered the benets but a few minutes later, our waiter came back to apologize, to say they were out. And as he’s saying this (I swear he had just finished telling us they were out, when…) another waiter slid past him to put Shannon’s benets down in front of her.
And then there was the O.J. It tasted great, but it was near impossible to get. When we first ordered, I asked for a cappuccino and an orange juice. Only the cappuccino came. So, I asked the waiter again for an orange juice. It never came. We were half-way through the main course, and the busboy came by to fill our water glasses. I asked him for an orange juice, and it came out almost immediately. Fire the waiter and promote the busboy!
One of the best brunches of my life
All in all, it was one of the best brunches of my life. Everything was so well done. We spent about $70, so it’s definitely a once in awhile thing, but I would recommend a morning at Bouchon to anyone who finds themself in Las Vegas.
