Tool of the Month Award - Dick Cheney

Yeah, I know. Two posts in one day. What can I say? All the partners are in Seattle for their annual kvetchfest, so I've got some time on my hands. Gotta love this:

Vice President Dick Cheney raised eyebrows on Friday for wearing an olive-drab parka, hiking boots and knit ski cap to represent the United States at a solemn ceremony remembering the liberation of Auschwitz. Other leaders at the event in Poland on Thursday marking the 60th anniversary of the death camp's liberation, such as French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin, wore dark, formal overcoats and dress shoes or boots.
"The vice president, however, was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower," Robin Givhan, The Washington Post's fashion writer, wrote in the newspaper's Friday editions.

Things like this are an easy home run. Even if you're a complete ass clown, all you have to do is show up, nod your head a couple of times, shake a few hands and leave. 6 million people dead and Cheney looks like he's going to a football game. I didn't think it was possible for the US to slide any lower on the international opinion poll, but it appears I was wrong. So, Dick Cheney gets my first ever "Tool of the Month" award.

Portland or Bust - Why I fled the Bay Area

Friday afternoon, I was down in San Diego for a conference and swung by the beach on the way back to the airport. In typical Andrew fashion, I took my socks and loafers off, walked in the sand and proceeded to call every single person I knew and/or worked with in the NW and told them I was at the beach. As I was standing there in the 75 degree weather watching the waves come in, I asked myself why in the HELL I moved from California to Oregon.

It's a good question. Weekend before last, there was half an inch of ice on EVERYTHING here. The wife and I stayed home and watched people crashing into things on T.V. And when Oregonians are driving well, they're not driving fast - good luck hitting speeds over 60 in the fast lane. Foodwise, I can't even think of the last time I had good Mexican food here. They've got a lot of trendy, nouveau "Mexican" restaurants, but newsflash to Portlanders - if you see foie gras, seared duck breast or lobster on the menu, I don't care if it's followed by chimichanga, you are not in a Mexican restaurant. So why leave the Bay Area?

Traffic. 50 mile commute from Hollister to San Jose was 60 minutes on a good day, and that was leaving my house at 9:00. Bad days, it could hit 2.5 hours. While I can proudly say that I became adept at eating, shaving, talking on the phone and changing gears while driving, I'd sooner watch a 3 day Lifetime Channel The View marathon before signing up for that commute again. Can you even imagine what my cell bill was like? Even still, it's more than just freeway time. Try driving 5 miles to Fry's some time. 30 minutes. And that's just to get there. Once you get inside, it's like a safari into the heart of idiotland. Typical conversation:

Me. "Hi, I need to pick up a USB drive. Where to?"

Raji Moustaffa Habib. "I am very sorry. We are only using FedEx."

Me. "No, not UPS. USB. Where are the drives?"

Raji Moustaffa Habib. "Drives? Oooh. I'm sorry. Floppy drives are in aisle 1."

Me. "I don't think they even make floppy drives any more."

Raji Moustaffa Habib. "Oh. I was not aware. How may I provide excellent service to you?"

Me. "Never mind. I'll find it."

Foreign Country. The Bay Area feels like a foreign country. If I hear Spanish in Portland, it's because I took a wrong turn while looking for the bathroom in a restaurant. If I'm in San Jose, it's because my kid is coming home and speaks better Spanish than English, because that's what they're learning in school. Ron Unz be damned, the school systems are still pushing bilingual education. Even worse, I read somewhere that the DMV gives driver tests in 30+ languages now. When was the last time you saw a stop sign that said "Haltenze, Bitte"? California also publishes voter guides in multiple languages. If you don't understand wtf a candidate is saying, you shouldn't be able to vote. How do you understand the issues? Sure, it's funny to listen to W say "Yo likey NAFTA, muy bien" but that's about all the Spanish you'll catch in the State of the Union coming up in Feb. If I want a foreign adventure, I'll rent a movie with subtitles. When I go to the store, I want to buy my stuff from someone I can understand.

People. There are just too many people in the Bay Area. It's irritating. I don't like waiting in line for 45 minutes to eat in a cool restaurant. What blows me away is that people will wait in line at the Cheesecake Factory, a decidedly mediocre restaurant, for 2 hours. P.F. Cheng's? Same thing. It's virtually impossible to go somewhere on a Friday night, without a wait, unless you've had reservations for 2 months. If you think eating is bad, try going to the mall. I truly believe that Valley Fair at Christmas time was foreshadowed as one of the levels of hell in Dante's Inferno. You wonder why ecommerce took off in the Bay Area? It's because noone wants to deal with all the damn people at the mall.

San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Oakland and Berkeley. Wow. I really don't know where to start. As somebody who was moderately involved in politics, it scares me to think of what goes on at the local government level in these cities. It's like the hamster died years ago, but the wheel is still spinning. The Board of Supervisor's latest brilliant idea is a $.17 tax on plastic bags - an attempt to cut down on litter in the city. WHY DON'T YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT ALL THE DAMN HOMELESS PEOPLE, INSTEAD? I could go on and on about this one for a while; hell, I could spend a week writing about Amiano running against Willy Brown in the mayoral election. I'll leave you with my all-time classic - Oakland recognizing Ebonics as a separate language and encouraging teachers to incorporate it into their lesson plans. http://www.cnn.com/US/9701/16/black.english/ Newsflash: if you're defending a racial position and Jesse Jackson comes out against your cause, you're in uncharted territory.

I'm tired of writing. Maybe I'll post a part II talking about housing prices, suburban sprawl and being THAT close to Napa, but never going. Until then, enjoy the weekend.

Censored!

Today's post will not appear, as a courtesy to the wife. Apparently, multiple references to our former community as "Tijuana North" were considered a bit over-the-top. Furthermore, she felt I was a bit too sarcastic/mean/racist when discussing our neighbor with 7 cars (he DID park 2 of them around the corner, partly out of consideration for us, partly out of a lack of additional lawn space) and his 10 relatives that lived in the house with him. So, lesson for the day: when blogging, if the wife says "honey, what are you doing?", respond with the safe answer - "Oh nothing dear, just looking at gigantic boobies while surfing internet pornography. Can you make me a cup of coffee?"

Allocations? I just want a bottle of wine...

I think the most amazing discovery I made, once I became a wine snob, was the concept of wine allocations. For those of you that are new to this, the idea works like this. For any given winery that has a following and established demand (Turley, Rafanelli, Kistler, Rochioli, etc.), you are given the "privilege" of buying a small quantity of their wine. This privilege is usually obtained after waiting anywhere from 18 months (in Turley's case) to 6 years (Rochioli) to "I joined the list so my grandkids could order" (Marcassin). Once you move from the wait list to the order list, you are then able to purchase the lowest end of whatever the winery has available. Then, after spending 5 years establishing a purchase record, you get the opportunity to buy the good stuff and the number of bottles you can order increases (again, all dependent on the winery size, offerings, etc. Rafanelli offers cab and zin, as opposed to a Turley with 30+ labels).

Here's what I find amazing. Take a winery like Kistler. I LOVE Kistler wines. Their chards are, imho, some of the best in the world. The pinots are phenomenal. And hey, the wait list to order is non-existent. HOWEVER. The bottles are $60+ a piece. Fundamentally, I have an issue paying $60 for a bottle of chard. I'd rather drop $15 for a bottle of Chateau St. Michelle and blow the other $45 on toffee nut lattes during the week, but that's a story for another blog. What blows me away about Kistler is that they know you want their pinot. So they allocate you 60 bottles of chard, along with 6 of pinot, and then make you order 12 bottles minimum. Because I have the misfortune of living somewhere != California, shipping is $5.25 a bottle, to boot. That means that on any given mailer, I need to spend ~$790 for 6 entry level bottles of pinot and some white stuff that I'll try and sell through my friends. Did I mention that I'm supposed to do this for at least 3-4 years before I can buy the 1 bottle of the cuvees that I'm dying to try? ARRGGGHHHH. I almost fell out of the chair laughing when I saw that one guy had to buy 4 cases of wine to get the cuvees. We're talking $4,000 (remember, $60 is the cheap side for Kistler) here. As expected, the majority goes to WineBid or WineCommune.

So, here's the end result. I end up becoming the distributor for Kistler in the greater Portland metro area, with other secondary buyers in San Jose. I have to chase people down and sell enough bottles to let me get what I want (3 or 4 bottles of pinot - HELLO I'M ON A BUDGET) and then run the bottles all over kingdom come when they finally get here. Slip up with one mailer and you're back to square one.

The question I'd like to ask is "how do you determine who gets what?" Bob Bressler, of growing Bressler fame, posted his thoughts on how he worked through the process over at vinocellar.com, but other than that, it's like this huge Wizard of Oz behind the curtains process. Take Turley, for example.

Disclaimer #1 I LOVE Turley wines.
Disclaimer #2 I have called the winery a couple of times and the people have bent over backwards to help me out - I think I talked to Sarah, who was an incredible sweetie.
Disclaimer #3 If I'm on 2 last mailers, they'll be Turley and A.P. Vin (Andrew is cool)

That said, the logic behind how they do their allocations is mind boggling. It's like clockwork. I read posts at VinoCellar saying the mailer is out. I'm in Oregon and my mailman is more apt to skip my house to take an early lunch at Taco Bell, so wait 3 more days. In the mean time, I'm watching everyone else post their allocations get posted - newsflash to the wineries - lots and lots and lots of people do this. Then the envelope arrives and I always think "who got drunk in the tasting room and spilled the wine on my DAMN TURLEY MAILER" until I remember that's their idea of graphic design. Alright, it IS cool. So I rip apart my mailer and separate the wine information and pseudo order form from the actual order form. Sure enough, I'm 3-6 bottles behind everyone else posting, even though I've maxed out every mailer (and I've piggybacked off of someone else for a couple of years as well, but they don't know that). If you know me at all, you understand that my fingers are now bleeding from pushing the little metal prongs in the keyboard because I've hit it enough times that the letters are strewn across the room... "Pat, I'll take a W! I'd like to solve. WHERE'S THE REST OF MY WINE. DAMNIT?" And then the big dogs start posting. "I've got 84 bottles this time, but there are only 200 spots left in my 40,000 bottle wine cellar and I must save them for my 200 Marcassin allocation, so feel free to contact me if you want to buy from me, or just find my stuff on WineBid." Not only do you have a ridiculously disproportionate amount of bottles, you're financing your list by flipping stuff on the secondary market. All this, while I'm one step short of dressing up like a hooker and auditioning for "Oenophiles Gone Wild" to get an extra bottle or two for myself. Mr. 84 bottles, I hope you choke on a cork and die while you're preparing an amicus brief. Yeah, and I hope it's a synthetic cork, to boot!

This leads back to the original question. How in the world do you determine allocations? My buying habits and list time have been identical to other people, yet my numbers are lower than most, albeit higher than a couple of other more unfortunate saps. Also, how do you get to the point where you have 84 bottles in a year where an earthquake wiped out quite a bit of inventory? Just confusing. Thankfully, I tend to forget about these things as I pop a cork and slip away...

The world is spinning...

Just having one of those days.

http://www.wagenschenke.ch

I hit 57 meters!

The world is spinning at my firm; half of the attorneys bailed out last week and decided to start their own office. Try returning on a Monday morning and dealing with that news. I feel like the guy in the link above... Trying to convince myself that I care enough to give a rat's ass at this point, given my future plans at (school). Day just got a little better though. Chino called with free dinner and TrailBlazer tix for tonight, so I'll have to post later on wine allocations - I've got a rant and a half on it.

Will Blog For Wine

I'm sitting here watching the Atlanta/Philly game (thank God for TiVo) and decided it was time to start up a blog. My buddy the Indian Princess got a job at Google, so I guess I'm going with blogger.com! Thoughts for the day -

I haven't opened up a bottle of wine for a while, so I uncorked a bottle of 2003 A.P. Vin Gary's Vineyard. Yummy. Kind of an understatement, but I'm not as sophisticated a critic as some of my counterparts at VinoCellar.com. It's much easier for me to say a wine is "yummy" vs. prattling on about barnyard smells (how can that ever be a sign of a great wine?) and hints of cherry, tacos and a wafting of spring lavender on a cooling breeze. So, my cro-magnon man tasting notes shall be summarized as "way to go Andrew, your wine is Yummy."

Got me to thinking about church; it is Sunday after all. I used to go to a church where they referred to members who drank as "sipping saints." I sat through one service where I was told that people who drank alcohol didn't have a close "walk with God" and were "shackled by the dependencies of this world." Are you kidding me? Throw away the key and give me another glass. Really.

This leads me to an argument that I've been having with ultra-evangelical bible thumpers for years. What's the deal with drinking wine? Did you miss the gospel passage where Jesus passes THE WINE around the table and says "drink this in memory of me"? He's not drinking Gatorade, guys. Even better - what about his first miracle in the Gospel according to John? Jesus turns the water into wine, so everyone can drink. Go read the passage again! Then, after people start guzzling Chateau de Christeau, someone comes up to him and says "normally, people serve the best wine first and then (when everyone gets plowed), they serve cheap stuff. You've done the opposite." The implication is that people are already plowed and Jesus is serving the better wine, contrary to tradition. So let's get this straight. A bunch of Jews are whooping it up and drain all the good AND bad wine, and Jesus comes along and makes more for them, at the request of the Virgin Mary, no less. And you're giving me grief for enjoying a bottle of pinot? Come on, now.

Praise the lord, pass the pinot.
DREW