u/gummnutt

On a partly cloudy day nearly two years ago, crowds gathered outside of John’s Grill on Ellis Street for the decades-long tradition of Election Day lunch, hosted by former Mayor Willie Brown and his compatriots. As in years past, hundreds of passersby, political aides, businesspeople, and all the City Hall bigwigs stood underneath the restaurant’s neon sign and red-white-and-blue drapes, boozing it up while munching on chicken, ravioli, and Caesar salad.

Well, almost everyone. One person was conspicuously absent: the frontrunner in the race who was about to be elected mayor. “He won’t be attending,” Daniel Lurie’s campaign spokesperson at the time, Max Szabo, told The Standard outside the restaurant’s doors. “He’s not a City Hall insider.” The move was in line with how Lurie had campaigned. I’m not part of the so-called “City Family?”* which one writer compared to the Cosa Nostra or the oil cartel OPEC. *If you had to pick a restaurant to be the church of that family, it would be fair to say it was John’s.

San Francisco has had an ever-changing slate of go-to dining spots for mayors, working staff, and donors — places where martinis flow, chits are cashed, and the latest political gossip is whispered in hushed tones. But Nov. 5, 2024, marked a turning point: No longer would John’s Grill, a longtime Willie’s World haunt where one can get a filet mignon for $55.95, be at the center of the City Hall political culinary circuit. In the Lurie Age, the hot spots du jour would be of a fancier persuasion.

Read more here: https://sfstandard.com/2026/08/11/san-francisco-mayor-daniel-lurie-restaurant-politics/

We live in a two story house, we spend 90% of our time at home upstairs (the kitchen, living room etc are all upstairs).

One of our 3 cats has become obsessed with looking out the back sliding glass door downstairs and he only comes upstairs to quickly eat or use the litter box then he runs back down.

We have seen an animal of some kind in the backyard so I’m guessing that’s what’s motivating his obsession but we are not sure if he’s enjoying being down there looking at the animal or is worried it will get in the house. I’m leaning towards thinking he is worried because he seems generally more anxious than usual.

Have you all experienced something like this? Would it be better to close that room off for a while or would that be depriving him?

I was running over by the quarry today around 11 AM and someone was walking about 30 feet in front of their off leash dogs. I turned onto the little side trail and there was a coyote stalking one of the smaller dogs it ran off when it saw me. If you know anyone that walks their dogs over there please warn them.

Abstract

To run faster, distance runners need shoes that reduce their metabolic energy expenditure. Here, we studied how shoe heel-toedrop affects metabolic energy expenditure during running. To do so, we studied 20 runners as they ran at 3.5 m/s in customfootwear that varied in heel-toe drop: 0, 10, 20, and 30 mm. Shoe model and mass were fixed. Overall, increasing shoe heel-toedrop increased net metabolic power during running (g2p ¼ 0.12, P ¼ 0.016); where changing from a 20 to 0 mm heel-toe dropreduced net metabolic power by 1.6%. Higher heel-toe drop decreased stance average vertical ground reaction force (g2p ¼ 0.10,P ¼ 0.011) and increased average ankle effective mechanical advantage (g2p ¼ 0.28, P < 0.001). Higher heel-toe drop shoesincreased average ankle plantarflexion angle (g2p ¼ 0.75, P < 0.001), leading to shorter medial gastrocnemius fascicle operatinglengths at touch-down, toe-off, and on average during ground contact (g2p  0.14, P  0.026). In addition, higher heel-toe dropincreased peak and average knee moments during running (g2p  0.40, P < 0.001). Therefore, longer triceps surae muscle fasci-cle operating lengths and reduced knee extensor moments likely contribute to more economical running in shoes with a lowerheel-toe drop. Based on the metabolic and biomechanical findings, recreational and high-caliber distance runners who want torun faster should opt for shoes with a zero heel-toe drop.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY

By systematically varying shoe heel-toe drop between 0 and 30 mm, we discovered that a lower heel-toe drop elicits the best running economy. That is because a lower heel-toe drop enables medial gastrocnemius fascicles tooperate at longer, more economical lengths, and it reduces knee extension moments versus higher heel-toe drop conditions.Thus, heel-toe drop can be considered in running shoes to further improve running economy.

I live in California and a lot of our cities, streets etc. have Spanish names but few of them are pronounced like a Spanish speaker would pronounce them. I have only been speaking for a few months so my Spanish accent is definitely not good, but saying the Spanish names with an American accent feels really weird now and so now when I try to say these names I get weirdly self conscious about it and they don’t sound like either a Spanish or American pronunciation.

Have any of you dealt with this? Do you just try to keep to an American pronunciation if you’re speaking English?

I'm (early 30s) considering a move for work to San Diego, and I'm trying to get takes from people who've actually made it. Here's what I care about:

• How's the nature compared to SF? I see it doesn't have natural redwood forests but has nice hiking trails/viewpoints.
• Coming from NorCal, do you feel welcomed or you get looked down upon?

I suppose people are less ambitious or work-oriented than in the bay?

• Did you feel your quality of life was better in SF or in SD?

I work in tech. I know the job market is thinner in SD than SF. If it doesn't work out long-term, how hard is it to pivot back or find something else locally?

Appreciate any honest takes

I’m curious about people who have less balanced types of input, like a lot of gaming or nature documentaries. What type of input do you overindulge in and do you think it has negatively affected you?

I have been trying to run/jog for the past couple of months and think that I could benefit from regularly scheduled club runs. However, I’m afraid that I will either be too slow to keep up at all, or will be unable to converse with people if that’s an expectation during the run.
So, my main questions are whether the advertised pace range for most clubs are accurate and well-represented during most runs, and whether talking is expected throughout the run. I am terrible at conversations even when I’m not running, so I can’t imagine trying to make small talk while trying to run fast enough to not get left behind.

If anyone has recommendations for run clubs that don’t require a high level of running or social skills, please let me know!

My child (6) has always been either barefoot or in barefoot shoes. I kind of assumed that they would grow up naturally to mid strike when walking and forefoot strike when running. While their walking is what I’d expect, when they run/sprint they heel strike.

I kinda thought that they just wouldn’t heel strike in a run. I don’t really care as I just want them to grow up being barefoot/in minimalist shoes. However, I’m interested to know if anyone in the community has any thoughts on this?

I.e. is this even curious or is this just normal/any other thoughts or insights or things I’m ignorant of.

I have three two-year-old cats, all from the same litter, two females and one male. The male is about 50% bigger than his sisters and the sisters are about the same size.

All of the cats seem to like chasing and rough housing but one of the sisters always seems to lose any time they are wrestling and sometimes it feels like she is getting picked on and I step in to distract the other cats so she can have a break.

She seems to love to play with wands and springs but none of this physical activity translates to her winning the kitty kumites. Is there a way I can train her Karate Kid style to better defend herself without changing her sweet disposition?