Jun 2, 2008
I finally paid more than $4.00 per gallon for gasoline. It happened this weekend, yesterday actually, early in the morning on my way to the golf course. I didn’t see the price on the sign or the pump. I was just leaning against my car thinking what I needed to do later not to embarrass myself with my driver. Then I looked up and saw it: $4.11 for regular. Now, I knew this was coming. Everyone knew. And the fact…
May 29, 2008
Joan Acocella offers an observation in the latest issue of the New Yorker that is so fundamental and so critical to those of us who possess an over abundance of interest in wine, it’s hard to believe you don’t see it noted more often: "historically [the hangover] is not a subject that has captured scientists’ hearts." For those of us with that over abundance of interest in wine, the importance of this observation should be obvious. But Acocella, in her…
May 21, 2008
I spent three years in Humboldt County, that (way) Northern California county best know for its world class dope. (I have a good story about Humboldt dope that comes toward the end of this post). I was there in the mid 1980s studying History at Humboldt State University. It was where I lived when I discovered my passion for wine. Yet the entire time I never once tasted a wine from Humboldt County. Now, it seems, there are enough local…
May 16, 2008
Alice Feiring….You GO! I think it’s great that the San Francisco Chronicle and the LA Times would give Alice a fairly large stage to bitch and moan about California wine not being to her tastes and the contention that a single, Maryland-based Palate is the reason for her California Discontent. Alice is in the midst of promoting her new book that takes the art of bitching and moaning into a book length format. Feiring’s "The Battle for Wine and Love:…
May 12, 2008
My golf coach recently confirmed what I think I already knew: "Tom, you’ve got to get out of your head." Translation: my proclivity to live in my head and to think too much interrupts my need to execute really well a body-driven activity on the golf course. Thinking about my coach’s advice with regard to golfing, I realized that I’m going to have to work very hard to accommodate him, because I’ve always found much more pleasure in intellectualizing what…