Starry Wisdom

I received a box of wine at work today. No, not Franzia, and it wasn’t given to me either. I ordered some wine from a winery that I like in Oregon/Washington last month, and the bottles arrived today.

Now, I don’t often drink wine at home, because I can’t finish a bottle and not feel like I’m going to die. And, it’s kind of a waste after the first half of the bottle. But I do like to have a few good bottles around, for when people are over, or to bring elsewhere.

Anyway, I got two types of wine from Owen Roe. First off is the Sinister Hand.

This is a Rhone Blend, and it’s been quite good the past couple of years. As you can see the label is quite fantastic, and it’s how I found this winery. The label is a version of the coat of arms of the winemaker, which relates to the story of an Irish warrior claiming an island by throwing his severed hand over to it before anyone else could reach it. Nice and gruesome.

The second is their Sharecropper’s Pinot Noir

The label on this one isn’t quite as good, but it’s still rather nice. The winery has two Pinots, and this is the less expensive of the two, but it was still quite nice last year, so I have decent hopes for it this year.

Anyway, if nothing else, I hope you enjoyed the labels.

Every Wednesday we get donuts from Krispy Kreme at work. Normally it’s just a regular variety, with a ton of original glazed, some filled, and some of the chocolate cakeish donuts that I actually like. However, near holidays and such, they often produce some interesting, special use, donuts. For instance, around Christmas we got cute snow men:

And around valentines, hearts. For July 4, there were donuts that had red white and blue “flags” glazed on them.

This is all well and good, but things have gone odd lately. For instance, last week we had these monstrosities:

I can only speculate this was related to national dog poop day. And then this week we had:

This is more appetizing, but I am not sure it is timed right. Aren’t there a couple of weeks still before football starts.

I am afraid of what will be there next Wednesday!

P.S.

As a bonus, here are some bunnies I saw on the way to work this morning:

My cousin Allan Goldberg passed away in June at age 40, from cancer. He survived cancer as a teen, against almost all the odds, and pretty much dedicated his life to living it to the fullest since then. Soon after graduating college and moving out to San Francisco he joined the non-profit world, and started to work for Camp Okizu, a summer camp for children with cancer and their siblings. It is designed to help them enjoy a more normal life. As their director of financial development he raised money for them at crucial times. Al had the ability to make things work, despite the long odds.

Eventually he decided that he wanted to go back to school, and got a Masters from Harvard. He then went on to work for the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and from there to become a director at First Descents, an organization for people in their 20s and 30s with cancer to experience outdoor adventures.

Through his work at these various foundations Al touched many lives in ways that I can’t even being to imagine. Yesterday there was a memorial for him at Crissy Field, attended by well over 100 people. My aunt and uncle and his one of his sisters and her husband came to town from the East Coast to attend, and I went to the memorial with them. Listening to a wide variety of people speak about him was very sad, and also very uplifting, because he made so many lives better.

The saddest part, for me, was that even though i had known him my entire life, and was a blood relative, people who had only known him for a couple of years knew him better than me. Obviously I can’t take all the blame for this, but I do feel sad about it. His death was tragic, but it was great to see the immense amount of good that came out of his life. I had last seen my aunt and uncle exactly one year ago for a memorial for my Grandmother, and my cousin, well, I don’t think I had seen her over 15 years, and I had never met her husband. It’s sad that it takes a tragedy for me to see my family.

Some articles about Al below, and a web search will reveal a lot more, including many blog tributes to him:

New story on his stretchathon
Chronicle tory about the memorial
Washington Post obituary

Yesterday work took us to California’s Great America. This was actually a “get to know everyone between us and the rest of our business unit at our Corporate Overlords. Except I didn’t meet anyone from them, but I did meet a few new people from my “company”. Funny how that is.

It was really hot out, so after some lunch and beer, and riding all the open roller coasters at least once, I decided to call it a day around 3pm. I went over to google to beg a free beverage off of Erin, and then I went and read for a while.

Later, when she was done with work, I went over to her house, and I met her two kittens, Tig and Colby:

Colby is the black and white one, Tig is the gray one. They are adorable and full of energy. I played with them a lot, throwing little toys on their big climbing tree for them to go up and retrieve seemed to be a favorite of theirs. They also love wrestling with each other. And they seem to be incredibly friendly, and took to me right away, following me around Erin’s house.

Strangely, I am the first one awake my parent’s house this morning. I am not sure why I woke up at 8:30 (although I woke up first at 6, 7 and 8 before this), but I could tell I was done sleeping. Oh well, at least my mom bought some good tea that I am drinking.

I made another longer post on my travel blog. I have to decide if I want to coalesce them together or not at some point.

Tomorrow I am going to Chicago for 10 days. Long trip, I know. And it’s likely to be very hot and humid in August. Well, the time is because it’s my dad 60th birthday – er, yesterday. But we’re celebrating it on Saturday, so my timing is ok. As for the duration, well, I know a lot of people there, and if I go for a short period of time I have to either dis a lot of people, or run around like a mad man. So, a week and a half in August it is. At least my parents and central air, and my brother has a window unit in his spare bedroom, plus  gigantic one that covers most of his house that I helped him put in last year.

Really, is there any better way to celebrate the 4th of July than Rock Band with friends? Especially when it is foggy as crud in SF so the fireworks would be just lighted fog.

Last night I saw Dethklok at the historic Fillmore in San Francisco. I made a point of the venue because I was supposed to see them there last Thursday but:

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/06/cartoon-meets-r.html

Anyway, they are really really really amazing live. Awesome musicianship, and it’s surreal to see 4 normal guys playing Death Metal – and especially to hear Nathan Explosions voice coming out of Brendon Small. Of course, they have a great video show in the background, including bits of Nathan singing parts of the song. All in all a great effect.

Fans of Metalocalypse should do whatever they can to see them live

I did a lot of cooking/baking this weekend.

1) Friday night I made rugelach, which I owed to a friend. They are ugly, but tasty.

2) Saturday afternoon I made hummus, from a Cook’s Illustrated Recipe. Delicious:

3) Saturday evening I did beer can chicken from America’s Test Kitchen. Look at this lovely fellow:

It came out remarkably moist and smokey. I just need to be better at carving.

Three things:

1) I had this coworker who had a big chunk of silly putty in his cube. I’m guessing it is nearly half a cup by volume. He moved back to Houston last month, and I’ve been playing with the stuff quite often. I discovered that if you stick it to a wall, it slowly climbs down the side. I decided it would be fun to do a time lapse movie of it.

This morning I grabbed my tripod, and my point and shoot camera which has a time lapse more, and I am currently filming its slow and slimey descent at 1 frame per 2 seconds. This is a bit faster than ideal, but it’s better than nothing – I can pull out some frames later. Stay tuned for the results.

2) stega‘s closet now has a light in it, thanks to her friend Chris.

3) Anyone in the SF area want to collaborate in a group yard/garage sale? We’re gathering names and have a lead on a really good location!