Rain Wedge Man on Middle Coast!

Hello All,

Just coming off of a fun and fabulous weekend with RWM, a dear friend from Seattle, who was passing through on his travels across the country selling the phenomenol rain wedge for golfers. For more information about the product, check out the website at http://www.rainwedge.com/.

The photo gallery includes shots of my new winebrat friends and my visitor at various hotspots around town, including my dining room where we landed for the night to taste some Long Island wines that RWM bought from various tasting rooms in NY. He was pleasantly surprised at how good some of those wines were, having never seen any wines produced from the region before now. I also shared a new favorite from Vino 100, a Barossa Valley, Australia label called Fetish. It's one of the best values I've had the pleasure to enjoy. It's distinctive label sports a very sexy silhouette of a woman, styled like the ones you see on semi trucks, only she's still standing. It's an extremely lucious and bold red shiraz.

A memorable hilarious moment was when four of us inadvertently started shuffling three of our glasses of wine and couldn't figure out which was whose, with only one of us having a sharp enough olfactory to finally distinguish the one Lyeth Merlot from the two Alexander Valley Cabs, a sobering moment for the other 3 of us who have vowed to practice more sniffing and sipping to help build these important skills!

On Sunday, we hit the road with our bikes and headed toward the baseball stadium to watch my team lose by one point in the 10th innning. But in stark contrast to the stormy deluge on Friday night, it was sunny and dry, so we were still pretty happy in spite of the loss. Thanks again to RWM for putting my bike together and making it ride-worthy.

I hope this was easier to read--one of my friends asked me to please start using paragraphs...

Friends and Wine in Seattle

Taste Washington! The Ulitmate Wine Experience was spectacular!! 216 wineries were there, and Karen, Nancy and I tasted over 50 wines in under 3 hours. We were still standing at the end of the day because we were very good about spitting after sipping. We had dozens of excellent wines and lots of tasty food samples. JJ got to see *lots* of old friends from the wine industry and was even invited to apply for a job with one who recently started a new business as a distributor of NW wines. I hope he's in business for a while, because when I retire from libraries, that could be the next big thing--moving from the Midwest to the Southwest to take the job might also sweeten the pot a little. For now and the foreseeable future, I'm not budging from my current location--I'm loving it here on the Middle Coast! At any rate, back to the wine tasting--we had wines from all over the state, including Cave B Estate*, Syncline*, Andrew Will*, Cadence, Fall Line, McCrea*, O-S, Walter Dacon, Chandler Reach*, Terra Blanca*, Robert Karl, Goose Ridge Estate*, Powers, eMaurice, Canoe Ridge, Cougar Crest*, Gifford Hirlinger*, K Vintners, L'Ecole No. 41*, Nelms Road (Woodward Canyon), NxNW, SYZYGY*, Tamarack*, Wines of Substance, Woodward Canyon, Darby, Januik, JM, Novelty Hill, Agate Field, Alexandria Nicole, Sheridan, and Wilridge. The ones with an asterisk indicate my top choices. All wineries poured multiple choices and I tasted an average of 3 wines per table. I tasted all 6 of McCrea's offerings, which were quite superior to many of the other wines I tasted. McCrea specializes in Rhone style blends and varietals, so lot's of Syrah here blended with Grenache and Mouvedre. For the whites, he uses Rousanne and Viognier. He uses American oak for some wines and French for others. Other stand outs were Andrew Will's Bordeaux style blend called Two Blondes, SYZYGY's cabernet and syrah, Tamarack's Firehouse Red, Cougar Crest's, Dedicated 2, L'Ecole's Semillon and Perigee, and Goose Ridge's Vireo. Most of these are reds and red blends. Also, I highly recommend Syncline's Rose, which I believe is Grenache-based. Syncline also specializes in Rhone varietals and does a wonderful job. At the seminar the day before, I also had the pleasure of tasting DeLille Cellar's 2006 Doyenne Estate Rousasanne from the Red Mountain AVA--it was my favorite of the 4 whites, full-bodied and very fragrant.~Before the seminar on Saturday, Nancy and I went for a great urban hike featuring the Seattle Art Museum's recently opened Olympic Sculpture Park--the two photos were taken there. Lots more good stuff happened, making for a wonderful vacation and a much needed break from work.

Skiing in Spring!!

What a great day!! I *finally* had a chance to go cross-country skiing during one of our many snowstorms this season. All the other storms happened on work days and then were immediately followed by near zero degree temperatures. I happened to be off today for Good Friday and the temperature was perfect for busting out the skis and breaking a few trails. I went to two different areas in the city with a break in between at my favorite coffeeshop. I am fortunate to live within five minutes of a number of beautiful parks and river parkways. Since it was still blizzarding when I went out, I also got soaked, but that was half the fun. It helped a lot to be wearing a good pair of goggles. Getting out and playing in the snow was the best way to keep my spirits up after a brief teaser of spring-like weather this week. We could actually see our yards again for the first time since early December--well, no longer. This has been a long, hard winter filled with many snowstorms, lots of dashed plans, and way too much shoveling...which is exactly how I will be starting my day tomorrow...shoveling out of at least 12 inches of snow, assuming it actually does stop snowing overnight...

Open That Bottle Night 2/23

I hosted my first wine tasting since leaving Seattle with my new winebrat friends here. A good time was had by all and wonderful wines were shared. The top wines of the evening were 2006 Foley Pinot Noir (Rancho Santa Rosa), 2005 Incognito (David Michael Phillips-Lodi), and 2003 Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe (Chateauneuf du Pape). All were pretty concentrated with dark fruit and spice (even the Pinot) on the nose and the palette, and had a nice, long finish. They all paired extremely well with food, esp. the Pinot and the roasted eggplant. I would buy more of all of them. The other wines were also very good, but there were too many of them, so unfortunately, my tasting notes are loosely scribbled and full of obvious redundacies. I was hoping to share more about all of the wines, but my notes are useless. I also recently attended tastings featuring all Syrah, and before that, a tasting with the winemaker from Korbel. We all fell in love with their 2004 Lake Sonoma Zinfandel (Russian River). It had a powerful bouquet, a silky mouth-feel, full of ripe, dark berry fruit, with vanilla notes, and a long finish. It was perfection. Time to sign out. Cheers.

Remember Howard Jones?

I was very inspired by an experience that was shared today at our World Peace Meeting this month. I'm still practicing the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin with the support of members in the lay organization, Soka Gakkai International (SGI). I learned from one of those members through her experience, that keyboardist Howard Jones, one of my favorite musicians of the 80's started practicing this Buddhism about 14 years ago. She's a huge fan of his and learned about Buddhism through his website at http://howardjones.com/about/buddhism.html. I was so impressed by this that I checked out his website to see for myself, and sure enough, his personal testimony is stated clearly with sincerity and conviction, and ends with links to more information about Buddhism, one of which I have also added to my page. In reading his page, I instantly felt a connection with him through our shared practice. I understood from my own personal experience exactly what he was saying. Howard's words reminded me to appreciate how fortunate I am to be practicing this Buddhism and to remember that the greatest gift I can share with anyone is knowledge and understanding about the ultimate law of life, of cause and effect, of the interconnectedness of all beings, and how chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, which is at the heart of this practice, can help you be in harmony with the law and experience the highest life condition, and the awesomeness of human revolution. My own personal human revolution started happening about 20 years ago and is still evolving, as I continue to create my virtuous future with each thought and action in the present. I'm grateful to those who inspired me today, and everyday. Thank you.

Celebrations!!

I'm happy to announce that my brother has just been selected as the new Executive Director of Friedens Community Ministries http://www.friedenspantry.org/. Their primary mission is to feed the hungry and they run a couple of food pantries in the city. We are all super happy for David and very proud of his accomplishments. I've included some recent pics of me hanging out with David at a birthday bash celebrating the city's 162nd year (in the beautiful lobby of one of our most historically significant hotels), and at dinner last night to celebrate David's new job along with our Dad and some of David's closest friends.

Second Story

Finally, we get to the second floor after nearly a week away from my computer. I've had lots of evenings packed with activities lately, Todd Rundgren concert last week, an all-city birthday party this week, and my favorite event, a Pinot Party the next night. We tasted three pinot cultivars including blanc, gris, and noir, mostly from Italy and the US West Coast. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't any Burgundy. My favorite was the Lucien Albrecht Pinot Gris from Alsace. It was actually pretty rich for a pinot, and off-dry with some really nice apricot notes. The Cloudline pinot noir (Oregon) was disappointing compared to previous vintages.

OK, back to the house. The first room, the den, the main attraction is the daybed, my favorite place to fall asleep reading. The next room, the study, is used more for working out now than as a study. I find myself wanting to move the laptop to the kitchen instead of using it at my desk. The studio is least developed--lots of potential there.