Fall in the air

Already the wind is picking up and the leaves are all turning brown as they fly from the trees. The days are golden and rust colored and the hills absorb deep shadows as the season eases on into October. Tonight is a full harvest moon and the weather is cooler... a lot cooler. Business at the CIA is as brisk as the weather,and will continue to be right on through until just after the Worlds of Flavor Conference the first week in November.
Tonight I attended a going away party for a fine young man named Israel Ramirez, who is joining the Marines. He is doing this mainly for his education and the benefits. One can only wish him well, as
this country is still looking for Bin Laden, and the situations in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan continues to escalate. I know Israel is a serious young man, and this is a big step in his desire for a future. I gave him a bottle of good red wine that he can drink when he returns from active duty. His family I have known for over 15 years since I have lived in Calistoga. They are truly wonderful people and I wish them all well. I hope and pray that Israel comes home safely, and that God will protect him.

Prickly Pears

It's Wednesday, and after taking a nice hike around a part of Lake Hennessy I hadn't seen before was a new adventure. My friend Don and I walked about 2 miles out and 2 miles back and found a few delectable items along the way. He even brought some plastic bags to gather some Fennel seeds that were growing wild along the path. We spotted a few red tail hawks, some egrets, some deer and also a pelican. The sun beat down pretty hard and my arms were exposed. Don let me wear a long sleeve shirt because I had forgotten to bring one of my own. The day before, I had been to the dermatologist to have some pre-cancerous spots frozen with liquid nitrogen, so I needed to protect my arms. Towards the end of the hike, Don spotted some "Prickly Pears" and proceeded to cut one from a bush. I warned him not to do it because of the nettles, but he extracted one and handed it to me. Yikes !! The nettles got into my fingers and they are impossible to see with the naked eye. Nothing will get them out except time and patience.Don was as annoyed by the whole experience as I was; and yet it wasn't serious enough to put a damper on the beauty that surrounded us. I have already made plans to visit Lake Hennessy again next Tuesday with a new friend, Rebecca. Don't worry, I am going to avoid those cactus pears.

A Wild Child

This post is a special tribute to Chef Andrew and his wife Brenda on the occasion of the birth of their new baby boy, Porter Andrew Wild. So far, their is not much I know about him, but I know he arrived Monday at 3:30. Now I would not be suprised if this youngster follows in his father's footsteps. Both Andrew and Brenda have a strong background in both Wine and Food, and as the old saying goes, "Apples don't fall far from the tree." I would not be surprised if this youngster gets a full-on culinary education before he reaches third grade. Now about two weeks ago, I was invited to Andy and Brenda's house on Lake Street for a party. I was really impressed with how beautiful their home is. The kitchen had all modern, state-of-the-art equipment. The living and dining room are exquisitely decorated, and the outside patio and back yard are perfect for entertaining. During the party, Brenda showed us where the baby was going to stay. She had this room "tricked-out" from top to bottom. A beautiful mural painted by my co-worker Martha Leach depicted rabbits, birds, bugs, butterflies and trees that worked perfectly. Even their dog, "Bear" lent a yellow-painted paw print to the floor of the room in anticipation of the new arrival. I know that Brenda and Andrew will make great parents and a wonderful home for little Porter, as he gets to know this new and enchanting world.

Tech not Touch

The Beatles had it right... " Ah look at all the lonely people, where do they all come from?" and " Where do they all belong?" I was sitting at a table at the Napa Valley Coffee Roastery today, and everyone was pecking away at their keyboards fixated on their monitors, sipping thier fresh Latte's parked precariously next to their laptops. No one was talking with one another. An elderly lady came and sat down at the table next to me and remarked to her friend that people aren't making any effort to chat with one another in a casual fashion any more. I overheard this, and pulled the earbuds out of my ears and turned off my IPhone. I was embarrassed to be a part of this all too obvious picture of uban life in 2009.

From the corner of the room a young college age woman was answering her cell phone... " Hello ? Hello? " Yes, wait... I've got it here." She furiously scrambled to fish a flash drive out of her purse to plug into her laptop. " Yes, the file is in .pdf format, so I can read it on my Mac." Isn't it great to be so efficient and tech-saavy I thought.
All of this zippy equipment that is supposedly going simplify our lives; And all it seems to be doing is impressing little old ladies who seem oddly out of place and hopelessly out of the loop. No one even looks up from their screen to acknowledge anyone else at the nearby tables. It reminded me of the indifference exhibited in that scene from the movie "The Time Machine" where all these beautiful people were sitting around picnicking as someone falls into a river and drowns. No one even bothers to notice. We all may as well have been in separate cubicles. Occasional spurts of intense concentration was the order of the day.

Non-verbal, and mostly unconscious signals like these only serve to isolate ourselves from others. I am certain that this is how it looked from this elderly woman's point of view. Many mobile devices these days are such a bloody façade. A blue-tooth device that sticks in your oh-so-self-important ear seems to say, "Excuse me," I am in the middle of a conversation that is more important than anything you have to tell me. So,even if what you have to tell me is that my car is getting ticketed outside... buzz off !

These laptops, cell phones, Ipods and blackberries are creating barriers between us. If this scenario actually happened, I imagine it would be a wonderful lesson to those that were observed by that woman and her friend. People are missing the opportunity to make themselves available for friendly conversations with other human beings. Hmmm... perhaps this is because we are all just too busy getting ahead.

Friday on my mind

Today, I am hoping to hear from the Peanut Board. I have 2,425 Buddy McNutty hats sitting in the living room of my one bedroom apartment waiting to be shipped. Do they go 2nd Day or 3rd day ground. Decisions, decisions... as I wait patiently. Holding myself in quiet anticipation for the big push. I have been busy since last April putting together what was flippingly assumed could be turned around in a week's time ( yea, right ) Anyway, no more small token orders of less than a hundred hats sent off for a summer camp via Fed Ex overnight. This is the big one.Besides, a lot of TLC went into preparing this order. Aside from it being my first ( an admittedly a test run ). It will not be my last... but most likely not as large the next time. Each of these hats had to be fed through my fourth ( yep fourth ) Epson printer. Twenty- four ink cartridges, and around 40 crumpled and rejected hats later , I have reached the magic number of 2,425. Hopefully, I will hear from my client in the morning via phone or email. But for now... I will rest.

Losing Important people

This week has been a great shock in terms of two leaders that we have lost. The first one was Senator Edward Kennedy; Despite the cloud of controversy that hung over his political and personal life with regard to the incident at Chappaquiddick, He still championed the causes initiated by both his brothers, John and Robert. His life served as a testimony to valiant liberal causes. He was a very effective politician and spokesperson for liberal ideals like human rights and civil liberties. He, along with the other Kennedy brothers have left an unerring legacy in this country. The other leader that will be sorely missed is Deacon Bob Little of the St. Helena Catholic Church. He was killed in a motorcycle accident over in Sonoma county, not far from his home.This man was a great orator and inspirational person. He also was a great guide to people who weren't always forthcoming with their religious beliefs. He will be missed in the community, especially by Father Brinkle, who is getting older and was very dependent on Bob to assist him with a lot of the parish duties. We shall see very quickly how much the legacy of these to men will be carried out in the days to come.

A New Semester

Today a whole new crop of students checked into Vineyard lodge. And... a whole bunch more were moved off campus to Pacific Union College to stay in those dormitories temporarly, because Vineyard Lodge 2 has not been completed. Sure it is Leed (i.e. Green, sustainable ) Certified, but these students preferred making just one move in this semester. Thankfully, it is a good group and they all look eager and willing to do whatever it takes to have their experience at Greystone be one of the most valuable of their lives.Besides in a week or two they will be able to transition into the brand new dorm only a mile away from campus. A car pool was set up so even our shuttle system won't be taxed too heavily. The image above is called "Starborn" to signify the talent that comes from adverse conditions. It is my hope that there will be whole group of students that will shine as the new classes get underway.

Sunny Sunday

The drawing above is of a dagger that I reinterpreted from some clip art that I saw today. I am switching around to drawing objects for awhile, just to see how well I can embellish them. It is enjoyable to add a lot of "filigree" surrounding the outside of the object itself. The image was modified quite a bit in Photoshop as any seasoned user might be able to tell.Today I went to mass at O.L.P.H. which I haven't been to in awhile since they consolidated the 8am and 10am masses. I have been going to mass in St. Helena since that time, and I actually prefer St. Helena for Sunday services. The Calistoga church needs a more articulate orator to better serve the English speaking parishoners. Fr. Manuel means well, but cannot be heard past the first or second row of pews. Even with the microphone on, he does not get is message across.It was nice however, to connect with old friends from the men's club, even though I haven't attended meetings after stepping down as president. Also, the church needs the new energy efficient lightbulbs and to have ones that are burnt out, replaced. Okay, enough of my griping.

Keeping up the drawing

Stardate: Friday, August 14th, 2009. Today I stayed at home most of the day. I drew the picture you see above. I got the image from an old book which had a poster that i wanted to re-create in my own style. I enjoy the "tooth" of the Canson paper that I used to color this picture. The prismacolor pencils are one of my favorite mediums for coloring and drawing. The paper destroys fine lines and makes everything more uniform whether you like it or not.I am still exploring doing landscapes. I am not drawing from life lately, even though I will sometimes do that just for practise. Even when I am drawing from life, I am also drawing from my interpretation. This style is more illustrative and something I am not sure I will stick with... we shall see.

In too deep

Today I went to purchase a DVI to VGA adapter plug to enable my monitor to be used on my new Mac Mini. Now I find out that I need a USB 2 Firewire cable to transport all my files and folders from the old Mac to the new computer. You would think one of the Apple Genius'at the Apple Store would have thought of asking me if I needed any of this stuff before I travelled forty miles over the hill to downtown Santa Rosa from Calistoga, three times! This whole digital world has gotten out of control. I have been a Mac user since 1998 and have owned a Powercomputer,Powercenter 132 (a Mac Clone),a Performa, An Emac, a Titanium Powerbook, a MacBook, a Power PC Mac Mini and now an Intel Mac Mini with a whole assortment of Epson Printers, Scanners, External hard- drives,Flash drives, Digital cameras, Video cams, Speakers, Mics, DVD/CD burners, FIVE IPods a Cell Phone and now an IPhone. I have had accounts with ATT,COVAD,METRONET,AOL,EARTHLINK and now COMCAST. I have purchased heaps of software from all the big companies and I am not really happy being chained to all this crapola. I know a woman who doesn't own a digital thermometer and doesn't really want to go this route ...who can blame her?

Have you been to the local coffee shop lately? It should be sectioned off into cubicles there are so many laptops, blackberries, cell phones and Iphones. It is sad how these things have dramatically affected our lives... and unfortunately people like my friend is getting steam rolled. Where have all the public phones gone? The fine art of letter writing? Penmanship...ahem! Too bad for her though, for not jumping on board with Online Banking, Blogging, Facebook and Twitter, and me for being unable to shun all this supposed wonderful digital "inovation". I want to walk away from all this crap but I can't now... I am in too deep and it has destroyed my ability to have sustainable relationships with family and friends because I am interacting with MACHINES and not people. This society is just becoming a swarm of technological servo-mechanics. Our minds have been molded to offer endless opinions and observations about pretty much anything and everything. This practise alone has trained us also to become editors in our own right, who would'nt dare utter a word of discouragement lest we be read, and brought to task by landlords, employers, ministers, family doctors, therapists and love interests and co-workers! Thanks a load for this grandiose Internet Tower of Babel and this digital groupthink monstrosity called "Social Networking", (damn you, Facebook, Twitter and every digital camera anyone has ever used to post images to the Net !)But hey, isn't this a nice little logo I designed in Adobe Illustrator, for the Bakery dream of one of our CIA Baking and Pastry graduates? I just HAD to post it to my blog, dontchaknow? ;-}

Another "Stay-cation"

I enjoy staying close to home. When you live in the Napa Valley, why go anywhere ( except perhaps the south of France ) to enjoy the cool mornings and warm halcyon days somewhere else. This is why I live here. I do miss San Francisco, however and perhaps will return there sometime in the future.

Vacation TIme

Yep, I am off until the 19th of August. I left a note on the Concierge desk for my co-worker who comes in on my days off, so she doesn't get the idea that I got the axe. On this note I wished her well and made menton that I would be off until August 12th. ( WRONG ! What was I thinking? ) After five years of employment at the CIA, you get three weeks of paid vacation ... not two !! and I am going on SEVEN Years ( I can hardly believe it myself, considering I usually start looking out the back door around four years ). The truth is, I love my job and I am learning to respect those people I have held grudges against. Admittedly, I do get upset from time to time, but other staff knows that it is only because I don't want to disappoint anyone. In the business of Hospitality , It is all about having a "Sense of Urgency" that Thomas Keller refers to at his establishment, The French Laundry ( The sign is posted above the kitchen door ). It strikes me that without this presence of mind, the ball gets dropped and things don't get done in an efficient and timely manner. It has also been said that the "Devil is in the details" . Don't I know this... when a guest needs a recipe at the cooking demo and I am short a few, I have to get a fresh batch printed out and brought to the Theater before the demo progresses too far. This happened on Saturday and I freaked out because my co-worker wasn't getting these copies to me fast enough. I stopped what I was doing,and ran out of the theater, 50 yards toward the place in the building where the copier is located. I met her half way as she was coming towards me explaining how slammed she was at the Concierge desk. I just wanted the recipes without any time to spare. I was completely out of breath when I got back to the theater and in the heat of a tense moment, I broke down. Luckily, is was not in front of guests... but my team... Patricia and Andy. They were both very supportive until I could bring myself into some semblance of composure. It was clear to me, then and there, that a vacation was eminent.

A Blogs (Bugs?) Life

If you are going to keep a blog, It is important to have a life. Today I went and cleaned out my closet of a bunch of old clothes and donated them to the Salvation Army over in Santa Rosa, CA. ( okay, so I missed Spring cleaning, so this is Summer cleaning ).Then I went shopping for groceries at the Grocery Outlet. Later this morning, I went over to my friend Reid's house and saw the swing set he put up for his kids.( Good Job I might add, but initially the plan was that we were going to hike up Channel Drive but canned that idea because he had to go pick up his son, William ) After that, I left Reid's place and went to meet my friend Dieter for coffee at Pete's in downtown Santa Rosa. I paid for my parking using my debit card in this new system that has replaced the meters on Fourth Street for the first time. I took the ticket that was issued with me and was reminded while meeting with Dieter to return it to my car and place is above the dashboard near the steering wheel otherwise, how would the meter person know that I wasn't parking there illegally...duh ! Then he and I went to Best Buy to see about a new battery for his mobile phone. It turned out that he did not need a new one because he had inserted the old one the WRONG way and it caused the phone to lose power ( back atcha Dieter ! )Then we went to Trader Joes for some items that I couldn't find at the Grocery Outlet... things like Irish Cheddar Cheese, Golden Flax Seed Cereal and dehydrated blueberries. Then it was time for a late lunch, so we went to have some Sushi at Yao Kiku on Yalupa street only to discover that they were not open until 5pm. which sucked because I was hankering for some Yellow Tail Himachi. Our Plan B for lunch turned out to be a Mexican Restaurant where Dieter ordered three carnita tacos with salsa and a horchata drink. I ordered a combination platter of a Chile Rellano and a Chicken Enchilada with Lemonade to wash it all down. I made a pig of myself. Then I drove back to Calistoga and Dieter drove back to St. Helena where he lives. Like I said in the beginning of this submission journal submission, you have to have a life to blog.

Fishing for a faster connection

I am being placed on hold as the Comcast agent Alea restarts her computer which apparently is giving her some trouble. I want to get cable so that my internet connection will be a little faster than it is now. DSL has been rather underwhelming and expensive. I really feel that I have ridden the crest of a wave as the internet has grown over the years. Starting out with a 14.4 modem for dialup back in 1996 and eventually upgrading to a 56K modem in 2000, made me feel like I was in hog heaven... for about 3 weeks. Then DSL became all the rage because of the download times. Initially I signed up with COVAD because they were the only carriers available in my area. I have been with Earthlink now since 2001; and although Earthlink has been very helpful when I have called, their tech support calls are farmed out to India and a few months back my cell phone bill was outrageous! The problem involving my airport wireless connection was more an Apple issue than an Earthlink one, but the Earthlink server still drops out over my DSL connection even though I am able to retrieve it when needed. Hopefully cable will be simple, fast and trouble free when I get it installed. One can only hope. The image above was done with household bleach on black construction paper and highlighted with color pencils. Then I scanned the work and brought it into Photoshop for some tweaking. Pretty cool, huh? It sort of looks like a dangerous fish that would sit at the bottom of the river ,waiting to gobble up some unsuspecting creature that saunters along.

Fireworks Finale

Watch this video until the end. It will only take a minute. The kids next door let out a big Scream at the very end. Well, today is Tuesday, July 7th. I've ordered a Cable Internet connection because my DSL connection kinda sucks. Hey, If I am gonna blog and upload videos like this one, I'd better have a high speed, high bandwidth connection. Lately I've been enjoying my summer even though I haven't taken a vacation. I am not even sure that I will get one this year because of my suspension from work back in February. We shall see. I was called for Jury duty on the 20th and won't know how long that will take until I call on Sunday the 19th. Yesterday, I went for a swim and movie. I saw the movie "Heist" with Gene Hackman and Danny De Vito. It was okay. I fell asleep so It couldn't have been that riveting. My Great Nephew Mika, was baptized on Sunday. I worked that day,so I missed it (damn). It seems like the only social events I get invited to these days are either class reunions, baptisms or birthdays. Admittedly, I haven't felt very socialable lately. It's weird, I work all week for a couple days off and all I want to do is sit around and draw or post stuff on the puter. Exercise has NOT been on the agenda lately, either. The fireworks were fun to watch. The kids next door sat on thier dad's pickup truck as they OOOoooooOOOo'd and AhhhhhHHHhhhh away the evening

That takes the cake!

Michael Jackson, Farah Fawcett and Ed McMahon all passed on this week. It was difficult to imagine the first two people ever getting old, but Ed McMahon seemed almost as if he was born into the persona of the eternal uncle or something. It's all pretty sad nonetheless, to have these icons of our era pass on in so quickly. It has been said by many people I have talked with; That celebrities leave the planet in three's. Well there may be something to that... I wonder if a serious study has been done about that Last night I sat up drawing the cake shown above using colored pencils. The whole time I was drawing I was watching videonews podcasts about Michael Jackson. All in all, I think I saw the video, "Thriller" and "Beat it" about two dozen times !

Summer 09' Commences

It is early morning and I just went out on my deck to look at my tomato plants. I have two of them. They both are doing well.What is it about tomato plants that make you feel like you are getting something accomplished in life? Whatever it is, I like it. The sun is just coming up and a new day is dawning. My breakfast this morning is a bowl of Special K with strawberries. One could survive for years just eating cereal .Maybe that and a Heckle and Jeckle cartoon.I have cut back on dairy using this Silk stuff instead. It's not bad and seems to go well with the cereal. At least it hydrates the dehydrated strawberries enough to make them edible. Otherwise, these things taste like those red strips that they used to put inside of flavor straws that turned your milk pink. Remember those? If you do, than you are surely dating yourself. But hey, at least you are dating someone !

Trade offs

Me and my big mouth. Here I go telling everyone about my quest to loose thirty pounds by exercising every day. Well, one little distraction and my inner slob takes over. The good news is that when I get a little depressed I do my best art work. The drawing i did above is from a picture I found in an old lettering book by Speedball. I just loved the color, and the idea of taking color pencils to Canson™ paper was more than I could resist. Lately, landscapes have a lot of appeal. Anyway, the tradeoff to not exercising and indulging my artistic ability is that I can feel good about both or either. One will actually compliment the other. When I am running or swimming, I think about creative stuff. When I am drawing or painting I think about getting out and going running ! So go figure...

A Short Trip

Monday I went to S.F. to participate in a focus group. I got paid $75.00 for determining if "Skype" was a viable alternative provider for making wireless calls internationally and/or domestically.Not bad, huh? Well I arrived early in the day and went by Cliff's Variety Store to visit my sisters and my niece. Martha was about to take her lunch break so we went next door to fetch a few Turkey Sliders and some drinks. All in all in was a great visiting family. My sister Rita said that she was getting off at three and if I thought about it, I would have invited her to go see the movie "UP" at the Castro Theater at 2 PM. I am sure Martha would have let her cut out early. I went off to see it myself from 2- to 4 PM .The movie was a family film and a bit of a tear jerker.The movie was and animation story, that required 3-D glasses to get the full effect of the graphics. After the movie, I had time to visit the Apple Store on Stockton street to pick up an adapter device for my Apple TV.The focus group lasted about an hour and a half. Afterwards, I visited the Hyatt Hotel where I used to work when I first got involved in the Hospitality field. The place has a new look at the top in the restaurant but the view is still one of the best in the city. All in all, it was a great getaway for the day.

Opening Day!

This is a picture of Dianne Martinez who is the Vice-President of the Calistoga Community Pool Project. She is also the landscaper/gardener at the Culinary Institute of America where I work. Today I took the day off to attend the ribbon cutting of the new pool(s) that were constructed for the families and Community of Calistoga. Being that I was the first place winner in the logo design contest, I received special recognition and several pool passes along with some swimming lessons thrown in! I was introduced by the mayor of Calistoga, Mr. Jack Gingles and received applause, as I went up to stand next to the committee that was responsible for bringing the project to fruition. Everyone there was thrilled to see this long time dream of local visionary Sylvia Scott come to life. The pools are absolutely gorgeous and I plan to take movies/pictures throughout the summer when I visit this place with my family and friends. This is going to be a great summer!