A day in the life

Or, at least, an email in the life.

From Rich:

Well anyway, here is the latest of the best (and worst really in a way) achewood:http://achewood.com/index.php?date=08232006(it's clickable as well)

-Rich

My response:

That is so apropos, really, seeing as how I recently watched the 1971 film Le Mans starring Steve McQueen -- not rally cars of course, the Le Mans was sports cars, but there are a couple of really gnarly crashes in it.

It reminds me of the end of the Italian Mille Miglia, when the Alfonsode Portago, a Portuguese nobleman, killed eleven spectators when his Ferrari careened out of control after a tire blowout. Tons of people have died racing automobiles, although we tend to think about that as a thing of the past.

Of course we enjoy the fruits of all those high-speed pursuits when we fire up our modern automobiles with airbags, disc brakes, and multivalve engines. Worth it?

That's the end of the email. And it's the end of August -- that means it's almost time to fire up the industrial machinery and start crushing the almost 9000 tons of grapes that will come through the 'wood. I've got to finish up my pre-harvest prep. Including hiring another lab tech -- know anyone?

I bought a bunch of espresso pods for the Solis -- so far results are mixed. Pretty poor really -- I can only get a decent shot maybe half the time, which is weird because you'd think they should be more consistent if anything? I dunno. Got some decaf pods too, which is cool.

I have to finish up cleaning and go home. Such is my glamorous life in wine country.

Dude --

Check this out. That's right, another blog with the same name, from the same place, with way more posts than mine. This can lead to only one conclusion: my blog name is totally weak. Oh well. It may be too late.

So I've started a new project: I'm going to try to make a chronological chart of my material obsessions over the past few years. After all, the impetus to change career and get into the wine business started off as an obsession with food and wine beginning in 2002-2003; since then I've been obsessed (as documented by purchases) with: handmade persian rugs, coffee and espresso equipment and autombobiles. There were also occasional flare-ups of some "background" obsessions: hi-fi audio, guitars, and computer gear.

The real difficulty of this is finding a good way to graph the intensity of the obsessions in addition to when they are active. I think we may also do a chart for Brett's obsessions: moving to Europe, Swedish handicrafts, being an artist, etc. I believe that this exercise will be most informative.

Long time no nothing

Hello, gentle reader. It has been too long since my last entry in this forum. A brief synopsis of what's been going on: Brett and I visited Richard in L.A. Richard, who has a diagnosed mental disorder, was institutionalized. At around the same time, Israel invaded Lebanon, quite possibly starting a larger conflict in the Middle East. Then, Brett and I moved. Also, my boss quit and I got a small promotion at work.

So...yeah, it's been busy and rather stressful. I will expand on some of these topics later if anyone is interested. Or if not!! That's the great thing about a blog. Anyway, toodles.