Flip Truck

Last night Bobby put together some fittings for his new employee, Rudy, to pick up and take to the job site. He put them on the side yard so he wouldn't have to wake up early, and Rudy could just come pick them up.

But at 6:20am or so, the phone rang. It was Rudy. He'd been hit by another car, and had flipped his truck. Luckily, he's was fine (and isn't at fault), but his truck was still upside-down.

Happy Brithday Colette

To celebrate her birthday, my friend Colette rounded up her friends for a tour of Temecula wine country. Rented a limo, picked out the wineries they wanted to visit, and spent a few hours partying it up.

The last winery of the trip was Ponte Winery - where Bobby and I just happen to be wine club members. Unfortunately we couldn't join them for the whole tour, but we did meet up with them at Ponte for a bit of tasting and a beautiful lunch.



First we took advantage of the free tasting that is part of our membership - I tried all the sweeter white wines they had (I was feeling summery), while Bobby decided he just wanted all six of his "tastings" to be of their Supertuscan.

Lunch was very nice - sitting outside on a rather warm Saturday afternoon. The waiter brought out some bread for us to start along with a wonderful champagne vinaigrette that I have since been trying to re-create; the waiter said it has scallions and garlic and champagne vinegar...

Overall, a good time. I wish wine country were a little closer to home, and that we could spend afternoons relaxing and socializing more often. Hmm.... perhaps this spring we can host some wine tastings at the house...)

I Need a Vacation

This has been a difficult week. We had some rather extreme technical difficulties at work, and on top of that I had a LOT of work to do. Late nights almost every night. I wish I were on spring break with Emma. The other day I started doubting I would be able to take my pseudo-planned trip to Europe this August (Bobby and I are trying to work it out, but it's not set in stone yet), and I got a little depressed. But I'm really trying to make it work - I need the break...

Cranium

Bobby's friends Jon and Josh came over this evening. I didn't get home from work until around 7:30pm, and I immediately started making dinner (I was hungry). There was a left over cheese plate in the fridge - muenster, pepper jack, a Mediterranean style jack, garlic & spice Havarti, cheddar, edam, etc. - so I used it up making tuna melts. I think I had at least 3 kinds of cheese on each sandwich. Then I heated up some sweet onion soup to go with it.


Jon and Josh arrived just as I was finishing up dinner, so we sat around and ate and chatted. Then Jon spots the board games on the shelves and suggests we play Cranium. I am personally a big fan of board games, and the other eventually agreed to play too. We rolled for teams, with Bobby and Jon rolling the same number 3 times in a row, before we settled - Bobby and Josh v. Jon and me.


I can't draw very well at all, but apparently Jon can interpret my scribble when I draw w/ my eyes closed. Josh is a very good artist, but he often spent too much time or was too elaborate to get his point across. Bobby is excellent at acting out charades - he had to get Josh to guess bungee jumping, so he got up on the table, acted like he was tying his feet, and jumped off the table. When he had to do "saved by the bell" he grabbed some books off the shelf, ran and slid across the floor, and then banged on the symbols (yes, there is a drum set right there). It was a close game, but Jon and I eventually won.


Cranium isn't one of my favorite board games, but we had a good time. One of my favorites is Catch Phrase, and I also like Balderdash and Taboo. I love card games too - Rummy, Gin, Kanasta, Skip Bo...


We are thinking of having another Casino Night soon...

This Meeting is Called to Order

So as you know, Bobby is starting a business. What you may not know, is that as an incorporated business, it is required to have board meetings at least annually. He's the sole stockholder, so legally he doesn't need anyone on the board aside from himself, but outside input can be helpful, so his brother Brian and I are on the board as well. The first board meeting was last year, and was more about ratifying the Articles of Incorporation and all that. Tonight we had our first real board meeting.


But earlier today we started wondering about what we actually needed to do in a board meeting. Here Brian and I both have business degrees, and Bobby is working on one, but all we know about boards is that they are responsible for governance. So what does that mean?


We did some research online, and wound up ordering some books, but the whole thing became a learning experience. (Actually, drawing up the Articles of Incorporation last year was a learning experience - I started to wonder what I did learn in college.) Luckily we are all smart people, so we just started talking about some of the issues facing the company, and spent some time going over financial statements together to find where the business was weak. After an hour and a half, I think we all felt like it was a good experience not just for the business, but for ourselves.


Bobby and I later decided we'd like to have these more often. When the books we ordered arrived, we'll read through them and plan ahead a bit better, but this felt like a good start. I kind of wish we had done more practical, hands-on exercises like this in school. It seems so essential to running a business...

Beach Day

Too bad Lily couldn't have joined us today as well. We went to the beach.

It was a little cool, but it was a good time. We really want to get outside when we can, which lately hasn't been too often. We were only there a couple of hours before we had to eat and get Emma back to her great-grandparents' house (the girls are visiting them for spring break this week), but it was a nice, relaxing day.

Riley's 1st Birthday Party

One of my best high school friend's son turned one a few weeks ago, and today we went to his birthday party. We don't often attend anything with a bunch of kids around, but we knew Emma would love it - they were renting a jump house and doing a pinata and everything.

Bobby and I often regret that we don't know many people with kids Emma's age. When she's with us, she's often by far the youngest person there (by at least 6 years), or she is significantly older than the other kids (again, around 6 years). She's a very sociable child, and though she handles it really well, we know how much she loves to play with kids near her age.

She often wishes her younger sister, Lily, could come with her when she visits with us, and we've told her that it's always okay with us - she just has to get permission from her mom. So occasionally Lily comes along as well. When I got home from Home Depot this morning with my new herbs et. al., I was pleasantly surprised to find that Lily had received permission to join us today.

We hadn't been at the party five minutes, and Emma and Lily were already making friends; shoes were off and they were in the jump house. Emma paired up with a boy that was just about her age, and they seemed stuck to one another the whole afternoon. He even went to get a peice of cake for her. (I started wondering if she was starting to develop an interest in boys, and if not, when that would be; she is already nine.) Lily, meanwhile, was off running around with another girl, just about her age (six) - mostly in the jump house.

Later, when the pinata was burst open (that was one of the sturdiest pinatas I've ever seen), Emma and Lily were both quick to scoop up as much candy as possible, but when they noticed some of the younger kids didn't get much, they quickly shared their loot.

Eventually, it was time to head home, and we'd promised to return Lily around 6pm. She was planning on asking if she could stay the night, but on the way back to Orange County, they both quickly passed out in the back seat. By the time we were arriving at their great-grandparents' house, she was ready to just crawl in bed. They'd really worn themselves out.

Herb Garden

When I woke up this morning, all I could think about was my need to plant an herb garden.

I have a few herbs left from last spring/summer - marjoram, oregano, sage, parsley, and my giant rosemary tree (it's taller than I am; needs to be cut back actually). But my thyme has been drowned out by the plant next to it, and my basil is long gone. Now that it's springtime, and everything is coming back to life, I thought it was time to plant some new stuff.

So as soon as I was up and presentable, I made my way over to Home Depot's garden center, and over to see the herbs. I picked up 4 basil, 2 thyme, 2 spearmint, 2 dill, an onion chive, and another italian flat leaf parsley. And a catnip plant. Did you know that only 2/3 of cats are affected by catnip? My cat is apparently one of the 1/3 that aren't.

While I was there, I also grabbed 2 different tomato plants, a Thompson seedless grapevine, and a pink jasmine. The grapevine and the jasmine are going in my courtyard off my bedroom - the gardners cleared away my passion fruit (I'm not sure if it just hadn't come back yet and they thought it was dead, or if it really was dead - it was just suddenly gone). Everything else is going in my little kitchen garden on the back patio.

Oh, and speaking of grapevines - they're alive! My little Pinot Gris and Cabernet Franc look like they are going to pull through. They looked a little pekid at first, but now they have little green shoots. Add that to the Merlot in my kitchen garden and my new Thomson seedless, and I should have grapes coming out my ears one day.

Bordeaux Intro

I've been taking online surveys lately, and each time I do I am rewarded with points I can spend on things like magazine subscriptions and airline miles, etc. A few months ago I used some points on a one year subscription to Wine Spectator.

Bobby and I get a little excited when the new issue arrives at the house, and we'll read through it and awe at some of the ridiculous prices of some things, but we are actually learning some things about wine and the industry as well. I only started drinking wine over the last five years or so, and I still have a tough time describing wines - I just know what I like and what I don't.

One of the recent issues focused on 2005 Bordeauxs. Apparently 2005 is one of the best years for the Bordeaux region since 1961, which was apparently one of the best years in recent decades - yes, I said decades. (So in Ratatouille, when Chef Skinner seduces Linguini with a 1961 Chateau Latour - I know he's talking about a very fine - and expensive - wine.)

Of course, I'm not going to go out and spend a ridiculous amount of money on a bottle of '05 Bordeaux they've recently rated. I'd never had a Bordeaux, would I even care for it? Though, I was a little interested to give some a taste.

Enter BevMo. Our usual strategy is to go in, and buy wines we've never heard of, that are either rated well, or won a medal or something, that are in our price range - we usually shoot for $10-$15. This way we get to try different producers and find ones we like. On Friday BevMo was having their $0.05 wine sale - buy a bottle for full price, second bottle is $0.05. And wouldn't you know - they had two kinds of 2005 Bordeaux (nothing we've heard of or that had been rated) that qualified for the sale. We decided to get both wines (two bottles of each) to try out. If we like them, we can buy more or branch out.

Last night we opened the first bottle: Cheval Quancard Reserve; Bordeaux 2005; Merlot - Cabernet Sauvignon. I really, really liked it. I'd like to see if BevMo has any more, and if not, I'm wondering if I should save the other, or if I should drink it. We would like to start cellaring wines, and we are learning about how to select wines that will age, but we really need to start practicing - it seems to be a skill that requires experience to develop. I'm really curious about the other producer we purchased - we'll have to try it out soon, so we can get more before they run out.

PictoBrowser

I was just looking at a new blog post, and the poster had use PictoBrowser to display them. It allows you to create little photo galleries from your Flickr pictures to post on your blog. It looks so nice, I almost want to switch to from Picasa Web Albums to Flickr so I can use it. I have to see if I can find a comparable service/tool for Picasa...