10,000 Vinyasas

I got this from Amazon, using their 15% off discount for Subscribe and Save. It comes in small plastic bags, and looks somewhat like steel-cut oats. Anyway, I tried it this morning; here’s my first impressions: interesting texture. Reminds me of the Cream of Rice hot cereal I used to eat when I was a kid. Thick and hearty when prepared with 1% milk. Good flavor; easy to make. Highly recommend. Of course, this stuff isn’t cheap; as I’ve mentioned before, buying your own cereal ingredients from bulk bins is the cheapest way to go, and offers the most control. Still, it’s good to have some variety.

When it comes to beer, I’m a big hops fan. Big, hoppy IPAs make me smile and my taste buds applaud. There’s nothing better than visiting the Oregon Brewer’s Festival, a mecca for hops-loving beer nerds like me. I’ve liked Sierra Nevada’s Pale Ale, and their seasonal Celebration Ale is just about the best beer on the planet, in my totally subjective opinion, so this particular beer had some interest for me. I liked the coppery color, and the hops are plentiful. Nice big bitter taste. This is on par with Stone and Lagunitas, two California brewers who specialize in the American hoppy IPA style. Not quite the flavor and complexity of Celebration Ale, but still pretty darn good. The Sierra Nevada appellation suggests that one can find it on sale every so often, and so it was for the six pack I picked up the other day: $7.23. 7.2% ABV. Nice. Verdict: You could do a lot worse for this price. Of course, we do patronize local breweries who make their own fresh beer (see blogroll), but this is perfectly fine for store-bought beer.

I picked this item up the other day on clearance. I’ve enjoyed my previous Lululemon shirt, and this one might be even better. The fit is true to size (I’m a medium on top), and it’s quite comfortable, like all the Lululemon clothes I have. It’s stylish enough to wear outside of the yoga studio, but will stand up to fierce amounts of sweating (ahem) in intense yoga practices. The description claims that it has “anti-stink” technology, and if you’ve recently had Nike workout wear, you’ll know what they’re talking about. Thing is, whatever Lululemon has done to head this unfortunate effect off, it quite obviously works, because this shirt will absorb quite a bit of sweat without having a discernable odor of any kind. We’d all like to think that we wash our workout clothes after every practice, but in our overscheduled lives, this is not always possible, and so sometimes we might have to wear these clothes just a little bit more than once between washes. In this regard, this shirt fits right in. Perhaps the only possible knock I can come up with about this shirt is that, at its $58.00 regular price, it’s a little pricey. However, if you’ve ever shopped for men’s yoga clothes, you find that the pricing is actually comparable to a lot of lesser-known (and perhaps, lesser quality) clothes. This, combined with the complete useability of the apparel, makes the purchase worthwhile. Bottom line: a very nice shirt, with lots of possibilities for use.