Stand by Me

Birthday Bash

So my son recently entered teenagerhood with big ole #13. Since he loves hibachi we went to the original (?) Gasho in Central Valley. I'm not sure if it really is the original but I remember going there as a kid so at least I know it's old.

Ahem, anyway they do a birthday song for the honoree and the kimono-ed waitress comes out with a large pink hammer and bops you on the head while everyone sings. Some sort of good luck eastern thing I guess.


I was tempted to sneak the hammer out under my coat but I restrained myself.

The Airborne Toxic Event Encore, 3-8-09

So during the encore of Sunday's show Anna, the violinist, got people from the audience up onstage. What a hoot. Here's an amateur video from the night.
The kareoke guy was hilarious. Viva la iPhone!

If you don't take the subway and walk from the 1, 2 or 3 into Port Authority you may have missed this ingenious billboard display. Its an ad for Big Love the HBO series. The ads, light from behind like many nowadays, actually has small ports so passersby could plug in their iPod ear buds and listen to the "thoughts" of the people in the ads. Absolutely brilliant. And yes, I did see people listening in!

Need I Say More?

Whole Lot of Wining Going On

So it can be very dangerous to leave a husband at home alone. Yesterday he drove down to Corrado's and dropped some dinero on malolactic bacteria, demijohns, 20 gallons or so of new juice and other assorted wine making equipment.

This was brought on by the wine test we conducted a few days ago.


We had 18 gallons of semi fermented juice that we needed to rack and 5 gallons we needed to bottle. So Bruce labeled each type and we compared colors, clarity, taste and then he went on to combine different amounts of each until he got what he wanted. Oy! He got two 23 liter demijohns so I guess we'll have to invite a large group of friends over when we open it.


So here Bruce is mixing his wines. Who knew you could get a syphon attachment for a hand drill? Really, who thinks of these things? We topped off the bucket of Carignane with some finished Valdespina and then bottled the rest. Another 19 bottles for the wine cellar (a cement basement closet).

His next project is to make some wine storage racks, we are in serious need of legitimate bottle storage.

A hike recently in the Catskills. They had several weeks of below zero temps so the High Falls are very frozen over. Spectacular!