Wine, Women and Song!

Hey all!

Wow! What a weekend! Where to begin?

I had a lovely time with M'Lady Friday evening, though it did get rather cold. Heavier jackets next time!

Saturday morning, I get up at 8am, shower and meet up with Toes to go to Cuarto. We met up with Tim and soon Preston's parents and the SLO folk. As what was appearing to be a trend, Preston was still sawin' logs when the prescribed time arrived. When he finally did get up, he was so surprised and out of it that he was bidding a happy birthday to everyone he met for lack of attention. What a way to begin a 21st B-day. It was all good.

We drove up to Napa/Sonoma and visited first the Buena Vista Winery. Very cool, quaint place in a glen with most of the old buildings intact. Had a very informative tour guide named Doug, who as Patrick pointed out, "Would probably still give tours even if they didn't pay him." Doug loved what he was doing and loved the entire subject. He studied Enology and Vitrinology (The former a branch of Chem. the latter one of Bio.) and was neck deep in information. Two things stuck with us, as he urged us to remember. One: There are two types of wine, good wine and bad wine. It's all about what you like. Nobody is wrong when it comes to judging it. Two: in most cases of wine merchants hawking their wares, you can always add an "..., or not" to anything sounding too much in one direction or the other. Once again, no-one is wrong when it comes to judging wine. Consequently, if you hear a "This vintage has a great, buttery after-taste and really tickles your tastebuds" (or other, better wine lingo, I didn't exactly memorize the wine adjectives) or something in the negative direction, chances are a ".., or not" can also clarify it. Good stuff.

We also got a great amount of tips for how to taste wine, ones that I'm not going to soon forget, far away though my 21st is. The whole swirling of the wine in the glass and the smelling of it isn't just visual bravado. First off, bad wine will smell different if swirled. That's point one. If you smell it, swirl it, smell it again and find a different smell, warning! Oh, and on an initial note, if you go wine tasting, if you drink a proportion of (2-1? 3-2?) water to wine, you can avoid much of the adverse effects of it. Also, when switching from one wine to another, 3 sips are needed to accurately judge the taste of the new sample. Rinse, calibrate and test. Back to the immediate tests, though.

Color plays a role. If you let light go through the glass and cast a colored shadow on, say, a napkin, you can tell quality by color. Generally, Doug said, good wines are Brick to Burgundy, however the heck you judge that. Or not! He also said he's had good wines darker/lighter than he mentioned, but it was a generality that was usually true. We left Buena Vista in high spirits.

We had lunch in Sonoma proper in the small central park. There was some errand Patrick had to go on, so we walked all around the surrounding shop fronts. There were numerous back allys with some great shops to be had. We found one that had not only an Irish store, but an Irish pub as well. We went down it for kicks and those who knew the words started singing "Johnny Jump Up." Patrick and some of his SLO buddies have received and really like all of the Gaelic Storm stuff that I initially sent to Preston, and we've got quite a group of people who just like to sing for fun. We kinda died down as we entered the store and looked around. We found some great merchandise, though didn't get anything. Here's the great part. As we were exiting the store and making our way back up the ally, we heard someone say "Can you sing again?" There was this group of what looked like semi-goths, all decked out with black hair and designer sunglasses, all of whom were looking intensely interested in us. Every obliging, we immediately broke out again into a spirited round of "Johnny Jump Up" and sung our way out of the ally and up the street. We might have gotten some odd looks, but man did it feel good!

I won't waste too much time on our other trip to Benzinger Winery afterward. The tour was nice, and the guide was knowledgeable but ehh. As a corollary, Patrick said "This guy would probably not be giving tours if he wasn't getting paid." What was different was we got a tour through the fields and into the caves. Very neat visually.

Part two of the birthday was an evening of food, fun, and a sleepover. Made a quick stop back at Davis to grab some overnight junk and my Viola. Boy, I hadn't had a sleepover in ages! We were very fortunate to have Preston and Patrick's family as our gracious hosts. In addition to owing a roomy and beautiful house in Roseville, they made sure we were well taken care of. Food a-plenty, lots of sleeping space (and cushions) and even toiletries offered if needed. Fun Stuff!

Had a great big barbecue and played with Stripe, an old but rambunctious pup that liked his tennis balls. Started a round of Name that Tune (finally was on a winning team!), opened presents and socialized. Both Preston and Patrick received numerous wine bottle openers. Patrick even got a wine rack and an entire carton of different wines from the SLO crew. Preston got a fencing jacket and a sabre, and man is he ready for it! I promised Patrick I'd try to turn Preston from the Dark side, but it's not gonna be easy. How many saberists does it take to screw in a light bulb? Eight. Two to run screaming at each other, one to call halt, four to abstain from making any claims, and one to go get someone else to change the light bulb. (For those who want a more raunchier light bulb joke of that evening, How many Liberal Arts Majors does it take to screw in a light bulb? They don't screw in light bulbs, they screw in hot tubs!).

We played Name that Tune until Midnight, I unfortunately didn't get to string along on me instrument. We all pretty much were told "Here are some places to sleep. 'Night!" and left to our own devices, though there was definitely a strong suggestion to the "Goodnight!" that left no room for bunkum. We got ready for bed and crashed around 1.

I woke up around 9ish and took my shower, went downstairs and ate a hearty breakfast. We chatted and socialized a bit more before heading off to our respective universities. Not much of note there.

The only other point of conversation was our second IM Ultimate Frisbee game. We managed to improve: we lost only 9-5, which was darn good considering that we lost the first game 13-3. Now, you're probably wondering why the game stopped at 9, and funny about that. Evidently the teams aren't segregated by dorms (or even years) because we got some additions to our team, V from Nova, John from Malcom and our very own RA Gus. Man, did those guys earn their keep! Had an amazing dive catch from V that netted us a point, John was all over the place tossin' and catchin' with verve, and Gus proved himself a valuable asset even though he proclaimed that he "wasn't a very good thrower."

Here was the crux, however. There was a pretty tall dude from the other team that always went long, and I guess he was a little uptight, but Gus was covering him in defense. The both were running to catch a wayward toss, and both jumped to get it. There was a little jostling, as often happens in these games, but right afterward, the guy said something along the lines of "You fucking touch me again, I'll fucking (something or other, but not an idle threat)" to Gus, who immediately called for Time out. "Time out! This man threatened me!" I was far off, didn't hear the full exchange, and at first didn't think much of it. "Threatened? What the? What could have been so bad as to give Gus pause?"

After I heard about it, however, I instantly revised my opinion of the guy. The game was stopped as soon as the Ref. heard the story, and although they still won point-wise (viz the game), they got a Sportsmanship demerit, which carries more weight. So, say there were on the cusp of getting in the playoffs, 2-2. With the demerit, they stand little to no chance of making it against any other team that's 2-2 as well. While they may have won the fight, we shook them up point-wise, which may or may not have caused that guy to shoot himself in the foot. It was a moral victory if nothing else.

Thus my weekend has been. If Julia gets her rear in gear, I might watch a movie with her and Ikhlas. If not, I'll probably turn in early. I wouldn't mind the sleep to recover from this full weekend. And with No Latin tomorrow, I can sleep in for a long time. Wow! What a ride!

Enough. More Later.
- James