It’s been a while since I have written on this blog. I have been focused on work and not had time or inclination to make some personal commentary.
Right now it is 1:48 a.m., I am listening to Earth Wind and Fire (on Grooveshark) blast out ‘Reasons’ as I write.
I didn’t run this morning as [...]
My darling wife and I celebrated our 16th wedding at the Harris Arms ‘California Dreaming’ party. It was great. It opened my eyes and taste buds to a Californian take on Côtes du Rhône.
The evening started with a Mumm Napa Brut Prestige: a bright refreshing opening gambit, with a lingering strawberry after-taste.
With our starter of [...]
On Wednesday I went out with some colleagues to Betelnut This is a Asian fusion restaurant in the Marina district, a short but intersting taxi ride from downtown San Francisco. [More on this later] . The waiter was helped us order an very enjoyable selection of starters, firecracker shrimp, glazed pork short ribs with thai [...]
Last Tuesday night in SF, managed to win a pairs Pool tournament. First prize way an Apple IPOD shuffle, one of greatest achievements of the human race to date, 2cm by 3 cm and so much pleasure! I have downloaded a heavily restricted subset of my music, but hey, every track is a winner! A [...]
I am thoroughly enjoying Virgin Atlantic’s upper class experience. From the limo that arrived this morning on time at 0800, the politeness and informative conversation of my chauffeur, Stephen, as we drove past the sights of London, through to the 10 minute transit from the leaving the limo to arriving in the Virgin Clubhouse, the [...]
Last weekend I was fingerprinted twice, once on entering the USA at Miami Airport on Friday and the second time on visiting Disney World. On querying the rationale for the second fingerprinting I was told by the Disney employee that ‘everything changed after 9/11″. Yes, after 9/11 Americans lost the ability to protect their freedom [...]
This was a surprising interesting tour which described how the Muga family continue to make wine following traditional techniques, eschewing modern apparatus and chemicals. For example, they use 350 egg whites to clear the contents of a 3 metres wine vat. This process takes a month.
The attached slideshow follows the grape from vat to barrel to bottle to glass. Well [...]
On Monday morning we skipped breakfast and headed to the bodega quarter of town. My spanish housemate had given me a wine shopping list: Berceo, CVNE, Muga, Cubillo, Tondonia, Ardanza, Alberdi with a recommended 3 :1 split of crianza to reserva.
Muga was the first to open at 08:30 so we booked on the English tour starting at 10:00. They [...]
I am spending the night at the Los Agustinos Hotel in Haro, in La Rioja Country. http://www.hotellosagustinos.com. We checked in around 7pm having driven around the beautiful old town centre three times. It reminds me of Sicily, with its heat, noisy bars and restaurants, the inhabitants strolling around the squares, the narrow streets, with bedsheets [...]
It was a long day, it started somewhere in the Bay of Biscay in thick fog and ended up with the chirping of crickets of 02:30 in the morning when we finally finished unloading the van. I think I might stay. The drive was arduous, stopping once at about an hour outside Santander, again an [...]