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Reading good books is like talking with some of the greatest thinkers of our time, and centuries past.
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What productivity system can you not live without as an entrepreneur?
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I have been here six years and always call Columbus the Quiet Giant because people tend to scrunch up their face up when they ask where I live …”Columbus?….Columbus, OHIO??!!!” they ask. “That’s right. Columbus, Bitch!!” as I have printed on one of my t-shirts…
Moving on…
I LOVE spicy food and have found some really good things to eat that satiate my need to remove the lining of my mouth. Well, that’s not strictly true. The tasty morsels I’ve discovered are not real ring stingers but are hot enough to exclude most people from trying them. I’ve been all around Columbus as you’ll see, so you’ll need to hop in the car to try all of these bad boys.
Just a note. With some of these, I’m going to take you a little ways off the menu. You know, like ordering the Animal at In ‘n’ Out or the Seething Suckjaw at Starbucks?…well okay, I made the second one up, but I had you for a second right?
So here goes. My Top 5 Secret Spicy Treats in Columbus – In reverse order:
This spice is what I call a creeper; it starts off and you’re like “This ain’t so baaaaad” (Rocky style), but then sure enough, the heat cometh. BRING it, Sister!!
Really juicy wings cooked just right and perfectly coated with a zingy barbecue sauce I’ve yet to find elsewhere. One of those situations where you are just plain disappointed when you go somewhere else. You’ll see spicy barbecue on their menu but are sad when you taste it. I will drive from my home in German Village to order a stack of these. They bring a little sweat and they are worth every mile of the journey.
So, this one is not for the faint-hearted, but stick with me here. You have to ask for it specifically – i.e. its off the menu. But oh my lord, you’ll see what I mean. Now as I said, I’m not an asbestos mouth spicy type of guy. For me, it NEEDS to be just spicy enough that maybe I can’t handle it. This sauce is past that, but what you do is order the pierogi (which are ridiculous on their own) with a side of the “cock fight” (sorry, I have to tell you that I giggle every time I type that) sauce AND order a side of sour cream too. When the pierogis get there with your two dips of delight, alternate between the two and you will see what I mean. You then have the heat in control!!
Such a good snack, and who knew??
Tony, did you just say Einstein’s?? …Isn’t that a chain? You’ll probably even contort your face the same way outsiders do when they say “Columbus, OHIO??!!” Yes, my uninitiated ones, this is where we start to show you what Columbus is REALLY about. So, this is the curve ball. On a morning in the not too distant future, get in the car and take your behind over to an Einstein’s. I personally go to the one on South High but any location will do. Order yourself a bagel of choice. I order the everything bagel, toasted twice – and ask for the jalapeño salsa schmear. Now, go find yourself a seat -I normally grab a chocolate milk to go with it but that’s just me- open it up and just take a nice big bite. You…are….welcome!!!
I was blown away by this one. Talk about coming at me from the sidelines. Who’d've thought that this chain could pull out a spicy gem like that? The “spicy” at this eatery is the epitome of my level of spice. The term “Perfection” does not do this heat justice… and so early in the morning right?? So, let me tell you where my quest for morning spice came from. I used to live in San Francisco where they have Noah’s bagels, and I used to get what sounds disgusting, and my wife will cringe that I’m telling you this, but I used to get the jalapeño and cheddar bagel with lox schmear and a chocolate milk. Stomach turning it sounds I know, but don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. It was my kind of spicy, and I was sad there was nothing like it here. I’d go to places in the same way I do looking for spicy barbecue only to be disappointed, until Einstein Bros started with this jalapeño salsa schmear. You will thank me for this one.
Want another secret? Grab a tub of this stuff, take it home and leave it in the fridge for a couple of days and then when you are feeling a little masochistic – which to be honest, if you like spicy food you kinda are right? – spread it on a bagel and try it then. Oh my giddy Aunt, it will knock your flippin’ socks off.
Okay, back to the list…
I love places that just say “Yeah, I’ll give it a go” when you ask them for something unconventional. Obviously not something too far fetched, but you know, a reasonable request. For example, when I go to Sidebar or TwoFish, I show the staff a recipe for a particular type of Manhattan I like and they reply “Sure! I can have a go at that.” Same thing when I went to Yellow Brick Pizza with a good friend of mine who I hadn’t seen for a long time. I noticed they have buffalo wings on the menu so asked if they would make me a Ham, Mushroom and Pepperoni Pizza but mix some of their buffalo sauce mixed in with the tomato base. Happily they agreed and off they went to make and bake my pizza. It came back and you know when you get an idea of something and you do it but it doesn’t turn out how you’d imagined? Well this was not one of those times. This thing was soooooooo good. So give it a try. Obviously you don’t have to use my toppings but all I would say is jalapeños and buffalo tomato sauce don’t sit right. As you can probably guess, I’ve tried the same thing at other places but it didn’t work so I stick with the formula I have at Yellow Brick.
One little nice tidbit: If its’ your first time in there, sit at the bar and order one of the great range of beers. Tell the staff it’s your first time in there and you will get a slice of cheese or pepperoni for free. I would suggest you just taste their pizza in-house style first before spicing it up because Yellow Brick Pizza is quite simply delicious.
Okay, so I am not going to mess around here. This place is SERIOUSLY good food. A couple of people told me about it. A friend Chas raves about it and once stood in line for TWO HOURS. Okay it was The Super Bowl but two hours for a food truck?…A FOOD TRUCK??!! Another friend works there and said I should stop by and she’ll put me together a sampler box.
I rocked up and there was a line and so I said I’ll be back. I came back later and there was a line and so I waited in line ever so patiently and was given a take away box of food. I got home, opened it up and took a bite of the meat….oh my lord. I cannot even begin to describe how good this stuff was. So there were sauces with it and I opened them up too. The first, Dogfish Ale sauce that I’m told goes with the grass fed organic brisket was good, like a meat sauce should be. Then I opened the second one and looked inside. It is a sweet habanero sauce, dark red, almost burgundy with visible flecks of black pepper. So I took a piece of meat and dipped it in (my mouth is literally drooling as I think about this to write it!). Mother of mine!!! It was the most perfectly spiced barbecue sauce I have EVER tasted in my life. Or as Yanni put it when I was explaining the experience to her, it felt like Christmas, Ray Ray was Santa, the truck was his sleigh and BBQ was his gift to everyone.
Now, I’m 42 and I’m from the UK and lived in Belgium for 8 years. I’ve swam with 200 dolphins, dived the Great Barrier Reef, jumped out of a plane over a Volcano without a parachute, hiked to Everest base Camp and climbed Mt Kilimanjaro. I’m just trying to illustrate that I have been literally all over the world but I have never tasted anything as good as that BBQ from Ray Ray’s Hog Pit. I could not believe it. I kept going back to the fridge and taking little pieces of the meat and dipping it in just to see if it was my imagination. I could not stop smiling. I was like a little kid stealing into the cupboard to take some more of the hidden chocolate. Every time I took a bite, it made me swear out loud and ask rhetorical questions. So I would eat it and shout “Ohhh F*ck me!! ..Are you f*ucking KIDDING me with this??!!”
If you’ve never heard of Ray Ray’s Hog Pit, they are a little truck at the corner of High and Pacemont. They are there only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday and are the BBQ place to go to in Columbus. They serve until they run out so get there early. Show starts at midday. You will not be disappointed.
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So there you have it. My favorite spicy treats in Columbus that you never knew about. Feel free to let me know about your faves and I will stop by and give them a try too.
Share and Enjoy
@tonywhelan
“Husband, Liverpool born Start-Up junkie, Nanotech Guy, Enabler, Vicious Karter, Pool Shark. Lover of Manners.”
Some Details for Ya:
The Lazy Chameleon
4028 Presidential Parkway Powell, OH 43065
Tel: (614) 792-8393
Gallos Tap Room
5019 Olentangy River Road ~ Columbus OH 43214
(Corner of Bethel – between K-Mart and Micro-Center)
Tel: (614) 457-2394
Twitter:@gallostaproom
Einsteins Bros Bagels
Locations across ohio
Tel: (800) BAGEL-ME
Twitter:@EinsteinBros
Yellow Brick Pizza
Olde Town East
892 Oak Street
Columbus, OH 43205
Tel:(614) 725 5482
Twitter:@YBPizza
Ray Ray’s Hog Pit
Corner of North High and Pacemont
Columbus, Ohio
Ingredients:
3 litres liquid nitrogen, 1 pint heavy cream, 1 pint milk, ¼ cup vanilla, fruit puree or other flavors of your choosing
Directions:
1. Buy the liquid nitrogen ($25) from an industrial gas supply Co..
2. Mix the sugar into the milk and cream.
3. Add the fruit, chocolate…whatever.
4. Pour the milk mixture into the bowl of a standard 6-quart mixer. Set on lowest speed.
5. Slowly add the liquid nitrogen.
6. Cackle or give off some Moo HA HA’s as huge clouds of cold-sublimating gas billow forth.
7. After about 5 mins, the mix will turn stiff, light and creamy looking.
8. Eat.
Share and Enjoy
So before you get into this blog, a word to the wise on what to expect (and also my writing style):
I swear, I get upset, I curse. This material comes from my experiences and some of them are not good. You will see me mad, depressed, happy and elated so it will swing all over but I am trying to let you see why I say it’s not for the faint hearted. Sometimes it sucks so bad that you want to curl up but for me, writing about it helps. I like writing about startups. Sometimes I don’t like the people I interact with and will dump it down onto here. I also have thoughts and other stuff I may want to share. I will be building a new site that sections stuff out better but in the meantime, it will all be on the same ‘page’ so to speak. You will hear about startup stuff for sure but you will also hear about Ninjas in New York (and why you shouldn’t upset them), or the different people you find in a bar, just general trivia that I find interesting to write about.
Just be prepared though because I don’t sugar coat it.
My ‘Writing Style:
I have a few close friends, one of them is Petersen and another is Richard. Without a shadow of a doubt, two of the brightest people on the planet. I asked them, because I am just getting into writing and so want to learn how to write, what I need to do to improve my writing. We started on the basics which for me were to pick great writers and see what they say about writing. I chose Hemingway from Petersen’s suggestion. I also chose a single book about writing. It was weird because as i was looking for a book in the book shop about Hemingway on Writing (which incidentally is what the book is called), the assistant there suggested a popular book called Bird by Bird. As I spoke to another friend, Melissa, she suggested this book too. I got home after talking to her and found that I had already bought it.
As I began to write, I had Petersen critique my articles and we hit upon it. “You have a way of talking that, if I didn’t know you so well, would lose me and will probably lose your readers” he said. You see, I think so fast, apparently, that half of the sentence is still in my head and I’ll blurt something out and so if you didn’t know me would not make much sense. I also jump around, again because there is a lot going on ‘up there’ and it sometimes comes out in tangents. I am getting better because nowadays, I will see the bewildered look on my friends’ faces and will, stop, back up and explain the part that I had left in my head.
- Oh My God, I just did it. I mean, I just did it in the first paragraph under ‘My Writing Style’. In between writing, I read back my paragraph and I did it right there. You have no idea that I’d decided to buy another book because I specifically said “I chose a single book about writing”. Yet there I am buying another book called Bird by Bird!! What happened?? Well, I was talking to the assistant in the book shop and asked her if there was another book I should buy because I thought that just one book might not be broad enough. And you would get through the paragraph thinking ‘Hold on, where did that other book come from’. What a great example. And I didn’t even mean to do it. -
So, it will be coarse, it will be emotional, it will not be that concise to begin with and you will have to put up with my ramblings with one part of the story still left inside my head. But I will get better, that I can promise you. I never realized what it takes to be great anything. I just thought that the true greats just sat down and whipped something up out of their head and put it onto a score, a canvas or a sheet of paper. It makes me feel much better that apart from Mozart, every one of the true greats and even the mediocre all chiseled, erased, rewrote and started over many many times before they showed the world their craft. This is by no means a craft of mine but I do like it.
As Hemingway put it “I write one page of masterpiece and ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket”
With me, you are going to see a high number of wastebasket-destined pages end up in my articles. But I promise you and myself that I will get that number down.
Still with me? Then press on.
“Ernest Hemingway on Writing” (Ernest; Phillips, Larry W. (ed.) Hemingway) (about $9.47 plus shipping)
“Throughout Ernest Hemingway’s career as a writer,” says Larry W. Phillips in his introduction to Ernest Hemingway on Writing, “he maintained that it was bad luck to talk about writing.” Hemingway seems to have courted bad luck. Phillips has amassed a slender book’s worth of Hemingway’s reflections on writing, culled from letters, books, interviews, speeches, and an unpublished manuscript.”
“Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life” (Anne Lamott) (about $15.00 plus shipping)
“Think you’ve got a book inside of you? Anne Lamott isn’t afraid to help you let it out. She’ll help you find your passion and your voice, beginning from the first really crummy draft to the peculiar letdown of publication. Readers will be reminded of the energizing books of writer Natalie Goldberg and will be seduced by Lamott’s witty take on the reality of a writer’s life, which has little to do with literary parties and a lot to do with jealousy, writer’s block and going for broke with each paragraph. Marvelously wise and best of all, great reading.”
Apple are wonderful.
You’ve had that feeling right? You are sitting there and thinking ‘now where was I on Friday July 4th 2008 at 6.13pm’. Well fret no more, for Apple have set you free (sic).
I mean, who would have thought that these joyful people would know that at some point, you, your girlfriend or wife or better still employer or even a Federal Agency of some sort would need to know exactly where you had been and could find this out by simply looking through a file in the backups that are done every time you sync your iPhone or iPad.
Yep, those angels of plausible deniability have very kindly been recording your coordinates and matching them up to a delightful timestamp and all without bothering you about it because they {again} rightfully assumed that you wouldn’t want to be hassled with this minutia.
So head on down folks, see what Apple have done for you. You will be surprised at how fastidious there little sync-cum-backup workers have been. There is an app called iPhone Tracker by Alasdair Allan & Pete Warden. This app will blow your mind. In full color on a map, you will see where you have been and I mean EXACTLY where you have been to the minute. It is detailed, it is scary and it is downright wrong (the data collected without your knowledge or permission, NOT the app I must point out).
It is scandalous how this type of tracking is being done without your knowledge or permission. And this isn’t even taken from GPS data.
There was a recent case in Germany where a customer of Deutsche Telekom subpoenaed the wireless carrier behemoth to unveil what information they have been tracking on his behalf. It transpired that Deutsche Telekom had recorded his GPS location coordinates over 35,000 time in one year.
It is obvious that the concept of privacy has fallen by the wayside.
Me on the other hand really likes being able to see where the car window I was vomiting out of 4 years ago in Austin was heading.
Just a side note: You know the Queen song we will rock you right? Well, I called up Apple support and recorded the hold music. I loaded it in to Audacity and played it back wards.
It says “We Will We Will Track You!!”
Not surprised.
@tonywhelan
Many thanks to the authors of iPhone Tracker
Alasdair Allan (alasdair@babilim.co.uk) @aallan on Twitter
Pete Warden (pete@petewarden.com) @petewarden on Twitter
I have a number of mentors, my wife being one of them, and a few quotes I refer to as mantras that work very well for me and are recalled when talking to budding starters or entrpreneurs. I actually do live by them on a daily basis.
The first one is from Sir Winston Churchill:
“Success is the ability to move seamlessly from one failure to another“
The reason I like this one is because to become an entrepreneur and survive in the startup arena, there are a few skills you need to either have or aquire. One of which is the unwavering belief that you will succeed. You see, building a startup is like no other job on the planet. It is hard, really hard and you will get down, nothing will seem to be working, your kids will hate you, the dog too but you have to press on and do what most people can’t – continue building this idea of yours despite all of the adversity. Let me illustrate. I invented a technology to get the internet onto a train using the electricty fed to the train or subway. We had an RFP submitted with a transit company in California and all seemed to be going well. My business partner and I received word that the transit company were shutting down the RFP. We had not been getting along too well and so he decided to leave at this point. I sulked off to my house and dropped into my chair depressed that we had lost the chance of our first customer after over a year and half of work and now I had lost my business partner. I didn’t think it could get worse. Just then, the doorbell rang. It was FedEx with a package. I signed for it and took it into my office. I opened it to find all of my company documents and a Dear John letter from my lawyer saying she had found a job with one of her clients she wasn’t going to be my lawyer anymore. Trust me, it can always get worse.
That unwavering belief is very similar to the unconditional faith that a priest has, almost. I say almost but there has to be a time when it really isn’t going well that you have to take stock and know when to stop. Stopping and starting something else seamlessly is the trick. Not to be bruised or tainted and to go after the new idea with the same venemous enthusiasm is something key to building your ideas. The way I explain it is a startup is 29 days a month of crap and one day of good. The difference between a startup person and a 9-5 person is the 9-5 person would have given up at day 28. As I say, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
The next one is from the Olsen Twins’ Father/Manager:
“When I work hard, sometimes I get lucky“
This one is great because it reminds me that luck or opportunity does not pay you a visit as you are sitting on your arse waiting for it. If you want something, you have to go out and get it and as with providence, the ‘luck’ will come if you work hard enough. Startups are a 27 hour a day, 9 days a week slog but I have to say, the juice is definitely worth the squeeze.
My favourite, and is something I love because it actually works, is a rather long quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe regarding something called Providence:
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Begin it now.”
There is something so inspiring about this quote. Doesn’t it just get you fired up? (I am aware there is the contention that Goethe never said it as seen here. Personally I couldn’t give a shit. It is a rock star quote no matter who said it)
But it is also true. I was only talking about this with the two scientists in a new startup I recently joined the other day. It amazed me that one of the scientists was aware of the concept of providence. I actually put that passage onto a background to be used as a wallpaper on my computer, thats how much I thought of it (you can donwload it for yourself here (just right click and save as..). You see, another of the skills a starter posseses is the ability to jump without looking, almost with an ESP air to the blatent conviction that it will work out. It is hard to explain but I was trying to explain this particular puzzling skill from an outsiders perspective to my assistant, Nova. She is a hard core console game nerd and so in real life, applies her gaming logic to situations. She will assess, weigh up, analyze and disect everything to a point that sometimes drives me crazy. “Just do it!!” I shouted one day.
I realized that she doesn’t have that leap before you look mentality and had never encountered it before. I made an analogy of us both standing on a not too high cliff with water below us. I explained that whereas she would want to get down there, check out how warm the water was, make sure that it was deep enough and that there were no obstacles just under the surface that may cause damage, I would simply jump and figure it out when I got there. She was amazed that people would do that. Please don’t misunderstand me. There are obviously times where close scrutiny and a well thought out plan of attack are called for and I do execute them on regular occasions but sometimes, you just have to close your eyes tight and jump. (It is fun like that too). As I tell people, you don’t want to be sitting at a bar with your friends 2 years from now talking about that really great idea you did nothing about.
As Goethe says, Begin It Now!
One final note. I was very happy that I actually do do what I say I do. You know sometimes you have an ideal in your head of what you would do in a situation but its not strictly what you would do? We were in the Bahamas at the Atlantis Resort and there are water slides there. One in particluar is called the Leap of Faith – This is a 60 foot, almost vertical drop of a slide under sharks and into a pool below. I am scared of heights (Ask me about jumping out of a perfectly good plane at 12,000 without a parachute btw) and not a huge fan of water but I really wanted to go on this because I get quite a kick out of scareing the crap out of myself for some reason. My wife came up with me and so did my Brother-in-Law. My wife took a good long look at the front, back, sides, the underneath and the launch drop of this slide before she decided not to do it. (she did it later that day I must point out. My wife is no wimp)
Me, I sat down looking up so I couldn’t see the drop at all and launched myself off the ramp onto the drop. Scared the living heck out of myself but I LOVED it. Towelling myself off I was really proud of me that I actually did leap without looking (I know this says dubai, it is but the slide in the Bahamas is exactly the same and the footage is great).
(It felt really good)
Out of everything I write about, this is probably the most important piece of advice I am ever going to hand out. I have a pretty good way to keep you sane….Ockham’s Razor.
Ockham’s Razor or Occam’s Razor is the premise that with all things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the right one. I have beat myself up so many times after I have met with someone and they don’t return my calls or don’t answer my emails. It drives you crazy thinking about all the things that could have happened; maybe I fluffed the presentation, maybe he didn’t like the handshake, maybe she has found a better deal; maybe my idea really isn’t that good; maybe maybe MAYBE …you get the idea.
Sometimes, they may just not have gotten round to you yet or they are on vacation or are traveling right now or are ill or one of their children is ill. There are a million and one simple yet highly plausible reasons besides all of the mad ones you conjure up in your mind why they haven’t got back to you.
Point here is this.
When you did everything right, you got good rapport, the information exchange was great, the handoff and follow up promise was in place, the calls are put in along with the ‘so good to meet you email’ and you hear nothing back, follow these three simple steps:
You will be surprised at how many times the reason is nothing to do with you. I have had people actually happy that I didn’t let the connection go and have been apologetic about not getting back to me.
There are caveats of course. You may have been grin fucked (see the post about Grin F*cking).
I can honestly say that applying Okham’s Razor to my encounters has saved me sleepless nights and lots and lots of stress.
Want less stress? Try using the Razor.
