Blog Master G

On Saturday, the tradition continued at Alex and Cati‘s pad with a blind wine tasting — this time with Sauvignon Blanc. It was a picture-perfect day in the sun to enjoy with friends old and new.

We first experienced this type of wine tasting event when we were living in San Francisco and attended a handful hosted by Jane and Sarah. The torch was passed to us when we hosted one (Pinot Noir) for Jen’s 30th birthday party.

Though our wine — a 2006 Kim Crawford from Marlborough, ranked #40 on the 2006 Wine Spectator Top 100 Wines (PDF) with a score of 92 — didn’t win, it scored quite well. Jen and I confidently (and correctly) identified our wine as #6. There were many excellent wines, the majority of which were also from New Zealand, and those that scored higher than ours seemed to be more on the sweet side and less robust than ours, which makes sense, given that those are more Chardonnay-esque qualities and Chardonnay is a more popular wine than Sauvignon Blanc.

Jen and I seemed to be among the only seasoned Sauvignon Blanc drinkers at the party, so hopefully others are now turned on to what’s got to be our favorite varietal. I’m sure Alex, master of the spreadsheet, will post detailed results to his own blog — along with some photographic highlights Jen and I captured on his camera, too.

Thanks to Alex and Cati for hosting a great event! You guys rock!

(Jen’s score sheet photo courtesy of Renée)

View all 92 wine tasting party photos | View more photos from Almost Foodies

We’re fortunate that Saratoga Springs is a very safe place. Last week’s bank robbery — the first in 6 years — proves that yet again. The robber was quickly surrounded by “city police, state troopers, Saratoga County Sheriff’s deputies and State Park Police.” Here’s my favorite quote from the story:

“The bad thing about being a robber in Saratoga Springs is that there is going to be a cop on your doorstep in about two minutes,” Moore said. “I would say that within 15 minutes we had this area locked down.”

The robber, Michael G. Suprenant, who happens to live right across the street from the bank, was caught, and he plead not guilty.

By the way, if you’re ever going to rob a bank, don’t make your getaway via a cab you hail across the street.

If you haven’t yet seen the latest feature of Google Maps – Street View – do check it out in select major cities on a computer near you.

You can see fun things like this guy, scaling a fence and caught red-handed by the Google Street View van trying to break into someone’s house. You can also see a woman who apparently has Spider-Woman abilities. And, of course, you can see some thong action here and here.

Now I didn’t take a virtual drive around San Francisco, mind you, to find these amusing sites (though any of us now can). No, I just found the links in Mark Morford’s column, I Can See Your Thong From Here.

There are no doubt links to plenty of other revealing, funny, astonishing sites in cities where the Google cam has been unleashed.

Welcome to the new age of Internet spying on your neighbors – and hoping you’re not the guy who gets caught with his pants down for all the world to see!

To consolidate the previous series of posts, here’s a convenient list to click through each of the days of our awesome Memorial Day weekend 2007 superfecta:

• Friday: Happy Hour
• Saturday: Williamstown & BBQ @ Tom & Anne’s
• Sunday: Larry & Joan’s Wedding
• Monday: Seth & Niki’s Memorial Day BBQ

Having a non-stop itinerary really made the weekend feel more like a week.

And here’s the bonus post from Jen’s post-GRE party a couple weeks ago.

Memorial Day weekend 2006 was as equally packed and full of fun!

Wrapping up our Memorial Day weekend superfecta this year was another beautiful day in the sun for a chill backyard BBQ at Seth and Niki’s place. Good friends, sunshine, a husky, badminton, beers, and ping-pong. What more do you need, really?

View more photos.

Day 3 of Memorial Day weekend brought us to southern New Jersey, outside Philadelphia, for the wedding of Larry and Joan (the natural follow-up to the Vegas bachelor party). We had a great time rockin’ the night away with Larry, Joan, Shrey, Andrew, Philip, and others. I loved the party hat element of the reception, something more weddings should really have.

Congrats, Larry and Joan!

View more of our photos, or view Shrey’s photos.

On Day 2 of Memorial Day weekend we made the most of the beautiful sunshine with a road trip to Williamstown, MA, home of Williams College (watch out, Williams, for we, #12 Vassar, are gaining on your #1 spot!).

We met up with Alex and Cati there, enjoying the college’s Riverfest, meeting an owl, a hawk, and a falcon, before heading to Mass MoCa to take in some modern art, including a roomful of stereotypical white canvases that made me really mad. (Read Alex’s more detailed recap in this post.)

Upon returning to Saratoga, we headed to Tom and Anne’s for an evening BBQ, which would be the first of two that weekend.

View more photos.

Just another fun-filled Friday happy hour (May 25, 2007) to kick off an awesome and non-stop Memorial Day weekend:

Get ready for a blitz of catch-up posts featuring photos from the past couple weeks of early summer fun! Here we go…

A couple weeks ago Jen passed a major milestone on the path to earning her Master’s in library science: The GRE, whose ass she kicked. Congrats, my soon-to-be librarian wife! It seemed like as good an excuse as any to throw a little impromptu Monday night celebration:

I’ve always wanted to map out my family tree, but have never found a good way to do it. Until yesterday when I read about Geni on TechCrunch.

Geni rules. I signed up yesterday and added my wife, my immediate family, a good part of my extended family, and my in-laws. And this morning, my family tree has already grown to include 31 people.

Aside from the elegant simplicity of the site and the Flash-based, super easy-to-use interface, the beauty of the site is that you invite your family members via email (there’s a no-spam guarantee), then they can build out their family tree, which, of course, only helps to extend your family tree. Already my mom, my father-in-law, and my uncle Bruce have added people to extend our tree.

This site is fantastic. I’m looking forward to seeing my family tree grow with a little help from family and great technology.