John Beck
Bon vivant par excellence
Organizer of good things. Skeptical romantic. Needs pasta.
Equipment/Gear
Office:
Apple iPhone 16 plus (128GB)
Apple iMac (24″ M4 10 Core, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD, nano-texture glass)
Acer 22″ CB242Y LED monitor
Apple magic keyboard
Logitech Triton M720 wireless mouse
Bambu A1 mini 3D printer
Brother HL-2270DW USB laser printer
Brother MFC-J625SW USB inkjet printer/scanner
Minolta dImage Scan Dual 3 USB2 film scanner
Brother P-Touch PT-N25BT label maker
Seagate 2TB Backup Plus Slim portable USB3 external drive
UGreen Revodok Pro 314, 14 in 1 USB-C docking station
Logitech Z-5500 digital 5.1 speakers
Studio Gear:
Wacom Bamboo Fun (Medium) USB pen tablet
Nikon D70 digital SLR camera
Canon GL2 DV camera
Canon Ultura DV camera
Nikon FA manual 35mm camera
Graflex Super Graphic 4×5 camera
Fujifilm INSTAX 210 Instant Photo Camera
M-Audio Keystation 49e controller keyboard
M-Audio MobilePre USB pre-amp
Shure SM57 microphone
MXL ProCon USB conferencing microphone
Schriber Acoustic SA-568 shotgun microphone
Griffin Technology PowerMate USB multimedia controller
Media Room:
Hisense 50″ 4k Roku TV (50R6030N)
with Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite bias lighting
Govee Table Lamp 2 (two)
Vizio 5.1/Dolby Atmos sound bar (sv510x-0806)
Sony PlayStation 3 Slim (250GB)
GE VCR (VG4043)
Pioneer LaserDisc player (CLD-S104)
Sony DVD/SACD player (DVP-NS90V)
Technics turntable (SL-BD22)
with upgraded Audio Technca P-mount cartridge (AT85EP)
Sony dual-cassette player (TC-W435)
Sony stereo receiver (STR-D590)
JBL J2045 bookshelf speakers
Sony studio headphones (MDR-V600)
Govee indoor thermometer hydrometer (H5075)
Apple iPhone 11 (128GB)
Personal:
Apple Watch Ultra 4
Samsung 32″ LCD HD TV (LN-32B360)
Roku Streaming Stick+
General:
Beats Powerbeats Pro earphones
Beats Solo 4 headphones
UE Roll 2 portable bluetooth speaker
LOVELEDI 40000mAh USB battery pack
Rarely Used/Older Gear:
Garmin fenix 3 GPS watch
Garmin HRM-Pro Plus
Bitsjour SSD enclosure (for Apple MacBook Pro 256GB SSD)
LaCie 250GB Little Disk (Sam Hecht design) USB2 external drive
Logitech K380 wireless keyboard
Limefuel 20000mAh USB battery pack
Garmin nüvi 265WT GPS
Apple TV 3rd gen
Logitech MX 510 gaming mouse
Apple Airport Express
Apple Power Macintosh B&W (customized) G3 with G4/500Mhz (3 75GB HD(s), 1GB RAM)
Apple iMac (2007, 1GB RAM)
CablesToGo 7-port USB2 hub
LaCie 6 in 1 USB2 media card readerÂ
LaCie Portable DVD-RW with Lightscribe (Sam Hecht design) USB2 external DVD burner
Apple iPad Air 2 (16GB)
Apple AirPods
Western Digital 2TB Elements USB2 external drive
Canon LiDE 50 USB2 flatbed scanner
Pioneer DVD/SACD player (DV-563A)
Griffin Technology iMic USB audio connector
Crosley Nomad portable radio
Crosley CR249 USB record player
Retired shoes/cost per mile
There are many many running shoe reviews on the internet. A stat that I wish they would include were the number of miles and/or the cost per mile of ‘retired’ shoes. Shoes that have achieved their max mileage. Here are some of my retired shoes, I personally tend to run in them as long as I can. I’ll update this table as I retire my shoes.
| Shoe | MSRP | Miles | Cost Per Mile |
| Altra Lone Peak 2.5 | $120 | 350.9 | $0.34 |
| Altra Lone Peak 3.5 | $120 | 299.1 | $0.40 |
| Altra Olympus 2 | $150 | 319.3 | $0.47 |
| Altra Olympus 2.5 | $150 | 450.7 | $0.33 |
| Altra One 2.5 | $105 | 334.1 | $0.31 |
| Altra Paradigm 2 | $130 | 579.5 | $0.22 |
| Altra Torin 2 | $125 | 542.5 | $0.23 |
| Altra Torin 3 | $125 | 638.4 | $0.20 |
| Altra Torin 3.5 | $125 | 609 | $0.21 |
| Altra Torin 3.5 (2nd pair) | $125 | 610 | $0.21 |
| Altra Torin 4.5 | $140 | 728.6 | $0.19 |
| Hoka One One Bondi 6 | $150 | 709.3 | $0.21 |
| Hoka One One Bondi 7 | $155 | 764.8 | $0.20 |
| Hoka One One Clifton 3 | $130 | 512.1 | $0.25 |
| Hoka One One Clifton 5 | $130 | 709.2 | $0.18 |
| Hoka One One Napali | $100 | 582.2 | $0.17 |
| Salming Greyhound 2019 | $155 | 952 | $0.16 |
| Salming Greyhound 2020 | $155 | 834.1 | $0.18 |
| Salming Trail 5 | $130 | 547.8 | $0.24 |
| Saucony Kinvara 4 | $100 | 502 | $0.20 |
| Saucony Kinvara 5 | $100 | 480 | $0.21 |
| Saucony Kinvara 6 | $100 | 530.3 | $0.19 |
| Saucony Kinvara 9 | $110 | 528.9 | $0.21 |
| Saucony Peregrine 4 | $110 | 404.9 | $0.27 |
Radiatori Sunday Dinner – Turning on the Heat in Roebling
Last month, the weather finally dropped enough in Roebling that we had to turn on the heat at the One Horse House. If you live around here, you know what that means: the old cast-iron radiators wake up again. There’s this very specific warmth they give off — slow, heavy, kind of nostalgic — and it always feels like the real start of winter.
It seemed like the perfect excuse to have people over for a proper Sunday dinner. And since radiators were the whole theme, I went with the most obvious pasta shape possible:Â radiatori. The unofficial pasta of Roebling.
I made everything fresh and kept the menu simple but good. We started with burrata and roasted red peppers, with a big tray of crostini. I roasted the peppers the day before, peeled them, sliced them up, and tossed them in olive oil, garlic, salt, and basil. Easy, but everyone loved it.
The main dish was the big one: Radiatori with hot and sweet Italian sausage and broccoli rabe. Total comfort food. The radiatori held onto the sauce perfectly — all those little grooves catching the sausage and greens. I made a ton of it, and somehow we still finished almost all of it.
For dessert I went with lemon sorbet, homemade, nothing fancy. Just something bright and cold after a pretty hearty plate of pasta.
It ended up being one of the nicest Sunday dinners I’ve had in a while — a full table, good conversation, and the radiators quietly ticking in the background. Very Roebling. A perfect way to kick off the cold season.
Discographic
I used this neat little iOS app, Discographic, to create these images based on my Discogs collection.
Something Other Than Pasta…
Pasta gets most of the attention, but I make plenty of other things too — like stuffed Italian peppers, quiches, and my ongoing quest for the perfect gourmet cheeseburger.
Golden Threads 50th Birthday Pasta Gifts
I turned 50 over the summer and had a small party to celebrate this significant milestone with my closest friends and family. In preparation for the gathering, I wanted to create something special and memorable for my guests, so I decided to gift everyone in attendance some homemade pasta, which I meticulously experimented with and dried just for them. It took me weeks of trial and error to perfect the recipe and create a total of 30 bags of pasta, each uniquely crafted with various flavors and shapes.
Below are a few dishes my friends made with the pasta that I gifted them.
