A new service is on a mission- can they out-geek LootCrate?

A few months ago I was contacted by a new Kickstarter project with a simple concept: to be a better and geekier box-a-month service than LootCrate.  The project was successful, reaching their funding goal in less than a week, and GEEKFUEL was born.

I just received their first ever box, along with a Kickstarter exclusive bonus box, and so far their method seems to be at least partially focused on enlisting popular artists from the DeviantArt community to add exclusive artwork to the mix.  Add exclusive comic books, limited edition Pop vinyl figures, caffeinated beverages and access codes for games and downloadable content on Steam and I think they have a chance to give the veterans a run for their money.

Instead of listing the contents I figured the best way to describe this product would be to take pictures as I was unpacking the box.  So here we go.  I give you GEEKFUEL:  

All told a pretty impressive showing for a first issue.  Subscriptions are available monthly, quarterly, every 6 months, or annually with price breaks and bonuses at each increased level.  I've been a big fan of LootCrate for a long time but GEEKFUEL is definitely making a name for themselves in Fat Boy Heaven.

Stop the woman from yelling...a Kickstarted relationship saver coming your way

I came across a simple yet elegant Kickstarter project today that is going to save a lot of relationships if we can all get on board and support it and get orders placed.

Adam Raby was brushing his teeth one day when he stabbed himself in the gums with a stray beard trimming that had fallen into his toothbrush.  It led him to launch this project.​  A specially coated cloth with suction cups at two corners which attach to your mirror to keep it above the items on your counter.

A simple easy solution and it will keep mama happy.  Not a bad plan, and it will keep us all living in Fat Boy Heaven.

The gift every one on your list needs this holiday season and doesn't know exists

In today's high tech world I am sure I am not the only geek who has a gear bag that goes everywhere I do.  Along with my iPhone, iPad, Bluetooth speaker, and headphones there were few things as critical to life as charging cables and power adapters.  Now added to that list are the technology accessory I buy for all of the non geeks in my life, portable power packs from Anker.  For an extremely limited time the great folks at Amazon are letting me give you this link for more than 50% off the normal price of their latest product, the 16000mAh Astro E5.  Fatboyheaven.com readers can buy it now for $39.99 instead of $89.99 by clicking this link right here.

The 1st gen devices were a revelation to me, carrying enough power to last a cross country train trip with my iPhone.  When I got this 2nd Gen model I was blown away.  It was less than 1/3 the volume while providing more than 2/3 the power.  That leap in battery technology is huge, and critical to keeping me out of the chiropractic office and in the field.

In this age where everyone has at least one piece of tech they can't be stranded without, this is the perfect gift you can be sure will be used and appreciated, even though most of the people you give it to will never have even known to ask for it.

Gizmodo has all the best CyberMonday deals in one place

As always, Gizmodo and Kinja have teamed up to put together a comprehensive list of CyberMonday deals for all things tech and geek, I'll post deals as I find them but their list is a good place to start today.

Our pick for best headphones less than half price today

Microsoft is selling the V-Moda LP2 CrossFade headphones that won our headphone comparison this summer for only $99 as a CyberMonday special while supplies last both online and in store for those of you who live near one of their Apple Store clones.  Run, don't walk to grab these while you can!

Here's one for the country music fans

Yesterday morning I opened me email to find a message from Mr. Garth Brooks talking about his new album, Man Against Machine which is set to be released in a few weeks.  He was excited about this great idea one of the guys at GhostTunes (the site he launched to sell digital versions of his music) came up with.  The concept was to record a quick description of the song over the preview sample so that we could hear Garth's own thoughts about each song on the album.

Since the website is called GhostTunes and it was already the end of October they decided to launch the preview on Halloween.  Head on over for a sneak peek, it sounds amazing.  I can't wait for the album and Garth finally touring again after all these years.

From Garth's email:

"...a friend of mine at GhostTunes asked if we would take a different look at sampling for this new record...he wanted to know if we would speak a little bit on each song as a snippet of the song was playing. Because he asked, we went into studio and tried it. We were all surprised to hear how cool it turned out. Because it was his idea and his ask, I felt it fair to keep this to GhostTunes. Because it is GhostTunes, Halloween seems like the perfect time. So, for 24 hours, starting at midnight Thursday night, October 30th and for the entire 24 hours of Halloween, 2014, a sneak-peek at the new album will be available..."

You can here the preview at https://www.ghosttunes.com/garth-brooks/

Kickstarter: PopcornBall,

One of the coolest projects to come along in awhile on Kickstarter is The PopcornBall, a simple and elegant product that was designed to solve one of snackings oldest problems: How do you get butter and salt on ALL the popcorn?

A ball with finger holds on two ends to make spinning easier and a wide opening with a secure latch on the top to facilitate filling and snacking, a quick spin once butter and popcorn are added allows butter to easily and fairly equally distribute according to it's inventor.

Follow the link for video and more details, and consider backing this great product if you like popcorn.  If this project succeeds you could see PopcornBalls at your local movie theater very soon.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/popcornball/the-popcorn-ball

Whiskey Review: Tap 357 Canadian Maple Rye Whisky

Another of the new whiskys I just received from Caskers.com is this new Maple Rye from Tap 357.  Canadian Rye is aged 3-7 years before being mixed with fresh maple syrup and being aged an additional 6-12 months.  The process leaves a wonderfully full bodied whisky that actually tastes like maple sugar instead of like someone mixed maple syrup into your shot glass as some other products on the market do.

Maple is the first and strongest note on the palate, followed quickly by a light spice from the Rye and notes of tobacco and leather.  The finish smoothes into the lingering feeling that you have just been drinking with the crew from a maple syrup farm.

Not my favorite drink but I'll hold onto the bottle for the holidays.

Whiskey Review : WhistlePig's "The Boss Hog"

In my latest delivery from the folks at Caskers.com I received a couple bottles of WhistlePig's newest single barrel release, the 2014 "The Boss Hog" Rye.  Bottled at 117.8 proof after 13 years from barrel number 3 this is an amazing bottle with amazingly deep flavor profile.

The first thing to hit your palate is sweet caramel followed quickly by the spice of Rye and the heat of a high test proofing.  It leaves with a smooth crisp finish that lingers  with hints of orange peel and leather.

If you are fortunate enough to find a bottle of this rare and elusive pig hold on tight.  They are sure to make any mud hole feel like fat boy heaven.

The Pantry at Rock Creek Church

I've posted before about how fortunate I feel to be able to work with the folks at Rock Creek Church in their Pantry, preparing meals once a month and now working as part of the distribution team that helps provide food for more than 125 families every week.

One of the jobs I have taken on is making the weekly run out to Unger Farms to pick up the produce they sho generously have donated this summer from their harvest.

Every Monday I have been going out to their farm store too pick up what has been left from their weekend visits to local farmers markets and their own stand.  So far that has been more than 1000lbs of fresh produce which we have been able to give to families all over Washington county this summer.

Local people giving back to the community is amazing to see, and even more amazing to be a part of. If you have the opportunity please find a way to give back to your community.

FeastPDX Oregon Bounty Grand Tasting

FeastPDX is the Northwest's premier food and beverage event.   Founded in 2012 by Mike Thelin and Carrie Welch, Feast Portland showcases local culinary talent and Pacific Northwest ingredients alongside internationally recognized chefs, culinary professionals and industry leaders. Feast Portland is also a festival with a mission, donating its net proceeds towards ending childhood hunger in Oregon and around the country through Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon and Share Our Strength.

The centerpiece of the festival is the Oregon Bounty Grand Tasting, a two day event in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon.  

This is the second year Fat Boy Heaven has attended this amazing event, and this year was even better than last year.  It is easy to see why everyone from Zagat to Forbes has lauded it as one of the nation's premiere food events, and while naming it one of America's top 15 food events Fodor's Travel said it was "done to such perfection you’d think one of the Pacific Coast’s biggest-catch food events was in its 30th year.”

I could write for days about the flavors and sights of this amazing event, but wiser men than I for generations have said a picture is worth a thousand words so I will give you- the sights of Feast Portland:

Bambuza was making fresh shrimp spring rolls that amazed even a meat and potatoes guy like me

BatchPDX specializes in handmade chocolates

Featuring sweet and savory baked goods Pacific Pie served an amazing sausage roll.

redDuck Foods brought some great sauces, but the most interesting was their Pumpkin Spice ketchup

Whole Foods, a featured sponsor of the event had a large tent set up on the upper level of the square featuring local products they were debuting in their styles from Portland vendors.

And there you have it, the sites and food of Feast Portland's Grand Tasting for 2014.  I'm already looking forward to next year's event. Up next, a new event for this year, the Tillamook Brunch Village.

The Makers Muse: Margie Samuels

From an email I recieved today from Rob Samuels, Ambassador in Chief at Makers Mark:

"You know the story of Maker’s Mark®, but maybe not the whole story. While my grandfather can take full credit for crafting the soft, full-flavored, distinctive taste of Maker’s Mark®, it was my grandmother, Margie Samuels, who named all of the children and the family whisky.

I am honored to announce that after nearly 60 years, my grandmother is getting some well-deserved credit. Margie Samuels has been selected as this year’s only inductee into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame, established by the Kentucky Distillers’ Association, in recognition of her role as a pioneer in the industry. Margie’s eye for design was truly visionary, although she’d never use words like that to describe her idea.

Aside from relinquishing her kitchen for use as my grandfather’s test lab, Margie was the one who came up with the distinctive design of the Maker’s Mark package – from the unique bottle shape to the name. Inspired by a pewterer’s mark, Margie suggested Maker’s Mark. She even came up with the original design for the label. She liked things simple and chose black hand-lettering on cream-colored paper, putting her calligraphy skills to good use.

Margie crafted the “maker’s mark,” beginning with Star Hill Farm, the family property, and then adding the S for Samuels and the IV that symbolizes the generations of our family’s distillers. She also insisted the trademarked symbol be molded into the glass of each bottle of Maker’s Mark. Inspired by her collection of 19th-century bottles of cognac, she got out the family deep fryer, filled it with wax and dipped the first bottles right in the kitchen. The family deep fryer would never be the same!

Margie will officially be inducted into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame on Wednesday, September 17, and, in celebration, we will host complimentary distillery tours that day for all visitors who wear red shirts and mention Margie’s name. We raise our glass to her as we celebrate National Bourbon Heritage Month."

We at Fat Boy Heaven also raise our glasses to Margie and all the other women who have made Bourbon America's official spirit.

Fatboy Challenge: Juicing(?)

I really should never let old friends meet my wife.  When I do crap like this happens.  When Coop and I ended our Fat Boy Summer Road Trip a couple of weeks ago it gave my lovely wife a chance to get to know him.  That led to him talking about healthy living, the polar opposite of the Fat Boy lifestyle.  He encouraged her to watch a documentary made by a man named Joe Cross entitled "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead".

In the movie he details his incredible weight loss achieved by going on a juice only diet.  The success of the film caused him to write a book of recipes, sign a deal with a juicer manufacturing company, and exploit his success.  Suddenly my darling wife wants me to order her a juicer, and a new series for Fat Boy Heaven is born.​

Over the next week I will compare two popular juice based cleansing diets, the "Reboot with Joe" made famous by Joe Cross, and The BluePrint Juice Cleanse, ​a very popular brand of pre-made cold pressed juices that sell for a huge amount ($7-11/each) and whose recipes have been widely copied and published via the web as a result.

Each plan is a three day cleanse, and we will compare taste, variety, cost of ingredients, and weight loss/health changes to determine which plan works out best for me and proves most time and cost effective.​

All of this for just 3 days of juice?  This is more vegetables and fruit than I ate last year!

First up starting tomorrow will be a DIY version of the BluePrint Renovation Cleanse, their most varied and flavorful package intended for those of us new to Juicing.​

BluePrint has an iOS app to help you track your cleanse

The Fat Boy Summer Road Trip 2014 Part 2: On the Road Day 6

My view for 4 hours while waiting for Coop to finish getting his Jeep inspected for shipping.

Today started of OK, then got bogged down for hours before a great finish.  We got moving this morning, checked out of our hotel in Towson, MD and planned to get to the Port of Baltimore around 1300 for Coop's appointment to ship his Jeep before a six hour drive to Raleigh, NC.  Unfortunately, what we hoped was going to be a quick process dropping off the Jeep ended up keeping us there until after 1800, making getting to the Raleigh area and Ft. Bragg impossible.

what it did do was have us ending the night just south of Richmond, VA after a great meal and evenin catching up with an old friend for Coop and meeting a new friend for me when we met Art at Honey Whyte's. 

When Art found out we were coming through late hetold us he had just the place for us to get the best burger in Richmond, and he was underselling what we found.

Located on Historic Tobacco Row in the Shockoe Bottom area of Richmond, VA Honey Whyte's boldly proclaims on assign out front "best burger", and they back it up convincingly.  The only entrees on the menu are burgers.  They have turkey burgers for the healthy eaters and even a black bean patty for the vegetarians in the crowd but what they really do is beef.  You start by choosing either a 1/4 pound or 1/2 pound patty and then the type of burger.

Fried pickles, the perfect appetizer

We started with an order of fried pickles, and they were perfect.  Thickly battered and evenly coated, they were crispy and delicious.  Back home fried pickles often are cooked at too low a tempature and end up a soggy mess, it's good to be in The South again.

Honey Whyte's "1/2lb Heart Attack" stands by itself, no sides needed!

The signature burger at Honey Whyte's is the 1/2 pound Heart Attack.  A 1/2 pound fresh beef patty between two grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches.  Presentation was simple, a giant burger in the center of a clean white plate with a knife stuck in the center.  No sides like fries to detract from the mountainous burger.  The individual sandwiches were grilled crispy and perfectly browned, and the beef was one of the best burgers I've ever eaten.  This goes in my top 5 list along with burgers like The Boncat Bite's Green Chile Burger in Sante Fe, NM and the Hot Brown Burger from Wallace Station in Versailles, KY.

The cross section of the 1/2lb Heart Attack shows off the bacon and cheese in those great sandwiches it uses as buns

It was great to meet Art and a great chance for he and Coop to catch up, but it was also an amazing burger experience.  Serendipity to be sure on this Fat Boy Summer Road Trip.

Coop and Art at the end of the night as we headed out to find our hotel.

The Fat Boy Summer Road Trip 2014 - Day 2

Breakfast is the one meal with little chance for variety on board a train.  I started my morning just outside of Shelby, MT with pancakes and pork sausage.  The pancakes were cooked through and not undercooked as sometimes can be the case with quick prepared breakfasts, and the sausage while obviously coming from under a heat lamp was still juicy and flavorful.  

Service was quick and easy as you would expect in a small space with many passengers to feed quickly.  A good breakfast and great start to the day.

Today's Lunch Market special was a stir fry chicken but had way more sauce than I consider normal for a stir fry.

Very spicy, with big chunks of peppers and broccoli.  Served over a rice pilaf.  I should have gone with something else, as this was not a good meal.

Service was slow.  Painfully slow, and even more so given how quick it normally is.  A couple who was seated at my table after I had ordered my drink was finished with lunch and ordering dessert by the time my entree arrived.  Hopefully it was an anomaly and service will be up to par for the rest of the trip.

Dinner I decided on the Catch of the Day, which was catfish tonight.  It could have been seasoned better, and while others said it was great mine was a little muddy.  The seasoning is just personal preference and the muddiness is dumb luck with catfish.  I should have had the steak I guess.  Dinner was served with a rice pilaf and green beans, both of which were great.  In all a good but not great day dining aboard the Empire builder.  The service anomaly from lunch thankfully proved itself just that, and dinner was a great time once again meeting new people and harassing the staff.

For my whiskey selection tonight I opened the first of two interesting new whiskeys made from already brewed and DRINKABLE beer.  

Tonight's selection is Pine Barrens Single Malt, distilled from a single malted traditional barley wine by the folks at Long Island Spirits in Baiting Hollow, NY.  They start by brewing from scratch a traditional English Style Barley Wine Ale and then double pot distill the conditioned Ale.

The result is very aromatic, with hints of nutmeg and allspice on the nose.  The first taste gives Pine Barrens it's name, as the very floral note has a pine tar hint that quickly faded to cinnamon and nutmeg giving it a very smooth and sweet finish.  The sharp floral notes make this feel almost more like a cordial or digestif than a whiskey, but from ingredients to process a whiskey it is.  A very nice taste that goes perfect after a meal.

The Fat Boy Summer Road Trip 2014 - Day 1

Day one of the trip had me leaving Portland behind on the train via Amtrak's Empire Builder on route to Chicago where I will have a wait before changing trains.  I love train travel, and have since I discovered it in college.

Crossing the Columbia River Draw Bridge

The train leaving Portland crosses the Columbia river into Vancouver, WA before heading East up the Columbia River Gorge on the Washington side of the river.  There are some great views on this section of the trip, and the first afternoon and evening is one of the most scenic on Amtrak's route.

The Bistro Box served for dinner out of Portland was ok, but needed a little help.

Leaving Portland the Empire builder has a viewing car with a cafe downstairs but no dining car, so dinner the first night was a boxed affair.  The choices available were limited to shrimp or beef, so I selected the Burgandy Beef Tri-tip.  The beef was flavorful and tender, cooked a little farther towards well than I would prefer but when trying to serve a variety of people and keep under refrigeration that is often the case.  The fruit was fresh and tasty, not over ripe as sometimes can be the case with this type of meal, and the dessert was creamy and delightful.  The only thing that didn't really work for me was the veggie selection.  A mushroom and broccoli combination that might have been good warm was decidedly not when served cold and tossed in some type of vinaigrette.

After dinner I decided to open the bottle of Teeling Irish Whiskey the folks at Caskers sent me to review for a first tasting.  Made in Dublin since 1782 The Teeling hasn't been available in the United States since the revolution.  With whiskey making such a resurgence in the Americas they decided to begin export in January of this year.

This is a smooth whiskey for a type normally known as a shot not for sipping.  As a shot it was so smooth with great sweetness and depth on the finish that I decided to try it on the rocks as well.  Over ice it loses what little bite it had on the nose and leaves the sweet aromas derived from its rum cask finish.  The sweet malts hit the palate first, followed by a little spice before a slightly fruity finish.

 In all a very nice close to my first night aboard my favorite train.