I worked my ass off this weekend.  I had a kitchen island built for the family cabin and I just spent two full days staining the body, frames and doors.  Monday night and Tuesday night will allot me enough time to add one coat of clear per evening and the damn thing shall be ready to ship out Friday morning.  I hope the weather holds for us.

I did manage to take Erin and the 'Babe' over to the lap swim event at California High School in San Ramon.  What a nice facility, with hours that actually accomodate the working class.  We each swam a mile, I'm pretty sure Erin was faster because with the 'Babe' she had four arms and four legs working in unison.  When we got done with our 1600m Erin said "Time to cool down," and pushed off into a relaxed 200m free.  I simply climbed out of the pool into the 54 degree sunshine.....brrrr.

All the nuts are cracked.  I think the top shelf of the refrigerator is due to fail any minute because it is so heavily laden with cartons of egg nog.

How to 'gift' wine......the editorial.

Don't do it.......don't you do it.  You shit.  You've bagged up that strange bottle of swill that you received as a gift from some other party or holiday and now your all buttoned up and poised to commit the biggest liquor gifting sin.....re-gifting the Jesus Juice!!


OK maybe that's a bit overly dramatic, perhaps the occupy movement is growing on me, but really? 

That's the worst; glad you could save a buck at my expense. 

I know my gut has been torpedoed by a few of these special gifts.  You see the 'Babe' is 20 weeks old in Erin's womb; so for roughly the last 5 months when we have a Sunday dinner at home I've attempted to consume the odd collection of gifted wines we have accumulated over the past couple of years.  It's not that I sit there and get drunk while Erin sips her milk,  I started out just thinking I might discover something good amongst the trendy, market researched labels and  wouldn't catch any grief from Erin for consuming her treasured swill stash. 

Yes, there have been a few pleasant surprises but the lions share has gone down the drain.  One night I opened 3 bottles before I found one that was technically still wine, one was an eleven year old vinegar Merlot (most Merlots fail by seven years of age).  All in all it's been humorous and fun for the both of us and best of all I don't think Erin has felt left out of one sip.


So the debacle got me thinking about the holidays which often come with gifts of wine at the holiday parties, events, so on, so forth and I came up with the following suggested methods of wine 'gifting'.....


You either are, or you are not and the receiver is, or is not a wine drinker.  Those are the variables.  Now, I find myself teetering on the edge of a chasm within which I will dazzle you with bar charts, probability tables, and glitter but for sanity's sake I will keep it simple...

If you aren't some aficionado, or if you don't know the receivers taste in wine; stop standing there in the wine aisle at Safeway wondering whether or not you are choosing the right wine for the host/event and is Duckpond Zin any good anyway!? Shit!  See the problem, you've never had it, you know nothing of it, you're not qualified to buy the stuff.....That's OK though, now take eleven steps around the corner to the booze bin and grab yourself a bottle of Grey Goose which happens to be on sale for $25.99 and 'boom' you show up like a muther f-ing hero to your soiree delivering a straight crowd pleaser that regardless of whether or not it gets opened on this particular night, fail me not it will be put to good use.  In addition the public perception of Grey Goose is that it is a top shelf spirit so you hand that over to the host whom has already received a handful of other wines he's never heard of and you are the savior.

That's one approach.

If you are 'gifting' wine and not sharing from your personal favorites, try and know what kind of varietal the drinker prefers and head that direction, if you don't, target a Pinot Noir from Sonoma county and spend your age or more (min $30).  This approach is fail safe.  Also, have one of those silver sharpies handy and write your gift note on the bottle, that way when the host opens the bottle months down the road, he will know from whom that good stuff came from.

Cheers to the holiday season......

I think there's a devil inside my dog.....

Jack went thisaway, Duchy went thataway.......

Somehow my chocolate lab Duchess entered a thicket and convinced Jack Rabbit to come my direction at full speed.  Ole' Jack nearly ran between my legs which gave me ample warning to throw my camera up and snap this shot of Duchy....she's pretty intent on turning Jack inside out......but alas Jack escaped again.


In this picture the right side of her face is a little dark but realize that she is blood drunk, running flat out; this condition would normally result in just a shit colored blur with most cameras.  I can say how pleased I am with my new Canon Eos Rebel T2i.  It is an amazing piece of equipment that has re-sparked my once strong interest in photography.  I think it is just an entry level DSLR, but it worked with my budget and offered the typical Canon user interface Erin and I are used to.  It's been a lot of fun so far, we'll see what happens when I finally figure out how to drive the thing.

T I M O T H Y  M C S W E E N E Y’ S

CAR HORN IS STUCK 

AND HE’S MOUTHED “I’M SORRY” 

THREE TIMES ALREADY.

Yeah......McSweeney's predicament is a solid metaphor for the week I had.......

Old Timey Words:

T H I S A W A Y   &  T H A T A W A Y

Perfectly acceptable southern english words, try and incorporate them into your vocabulary.

"They tried to use humor as the hook but I'd have done it thisaway....."
It's an epenthesis, the addition to a word of a vowel or consonant not part of the original word.