Category: Hobbies and Projects

David quivered with thrill a month or so ago, when he happened upon a returned Oregon Scientific base station on eBay.

“Weather station! Weather station! Weather!” I heard David shout from his office down the hall. His excited cries devolved into nonverbal coos of glee.

“Why was it returned? What’s wrong with it?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Who cares? Weather!”

First steps toward Wine Goal 2010: Learning about Italy. I talked to Travis, owner of our neighborhood wine store, Garrison’s Fine Wines. I told him I needed teaching. Start me with the basics, I said. Help me fix the problem I have with the all of the things that start with B.

Photo by Ludovico Caldara

Feeling festive? Had a hard day at the ol’ office? In the mood to abuse a substance?

Here are some things that I started mixing together in the past six months or so. I found that many of them taste surprisingly good, and thought I would share. Fair warning: all involve alcohol. Bottoms up, kids!

For too many years I have let myself get away with something that bugs me in others: ignorance, tinged with the incurious: I don’t understand Italian wine. This is the year I hope to fix this. First you have to hear my excuses and complaints, though.

It’s been over a year in the making, and the most comprehensive Pencilhaven house project to date (and I happen to think we’ve done tons of house projects!). It all started last year when David started framing out the north section of our basement, a roughly half-octagonal space that had, until then, been used for storage of stuff and our tortoise, Chopper. We pull back the curtain on our new wine cellar!

The Internets + Relatively firm knowledge of Shakespeare + Time + Geek Proclivities = TWO GENTLEMEN OF LEBOWKSI

THE KNAVE: Good sir, speak plain. I know not these villains, surely would I ne’er traffic with this man of Orient birth who so abused my rug. I have not the facility to present him with the rate of usance and demand money in kind for that which he has spent upon’t; so I entreat you, speak plain.

Image by Sleeper Cell on Flickr

Here’s where I try to identify a list of pursuits going on at Pencilhaven at the beginning of 2010. Distilling, wine cellar population, and weather equipment top the list.

It’s harvest time at Pencilhaven. The air is full of excitement; our back deck a hive of industrious activity. For at least three to five minutes. This year we are going to make wine again! Our Pinot gris vine is in its third leaf (probably) and has matured its first crop. Our low-yield viticultural goals [...]

In the quotidian tides that struggle against balance, one sad item washed out to sea is my time to pause and record the things I have read and seen and done. A summary will have to suffice, playing here the part of ersatz analysis. Yesterday I was at a conference in which I played a [...]

Jim’s comment on my last post reminded me of something I haven’t covered here–and I like to cover the crap out of things. That is, what I eat and drink. And the whole interaction with my little Crohn’s problem. We’ll start here. Curiously and counter-intuitively, there has not ever been any direct or observable correlation [...]