Just Opened

Vineyard: Lindemans
Type: Cabernet Sauvignon (Bin 45)
Country: Australia
Region:South Eastern (?,that's all I got)
Year: 2005
Price: $6.45 (yep, I'm cheap)
My Rating: 78

I must preface this by saying that I love wine, but have never written about it before, hence I have no idea why I am starting now, it just struck me as a good idea. So, it will be interesting, it will be fun, and you may even take something away (read: hangover).

Overall, not a bad wine by any stretch, but not a great one either. I started off by judging the feel of the bottle. It has a nice weight, but the balance was off, it just seemed to list to the left. And come on Henry, this is a bottle of wine, not a bottle of grape juice... get creative with the label! You are selling it for less than $7, Donald Trump will never get within 5 feet of this wine, I am your target market; young, fun, and cheap.

Uncorked...

Now to the fun part, opening the bottle and draining the contents (never in one sitting, of course). Mr. Lindeman has found the worlds thickest foil. I had to cut twice (and with these guns, that's saying something). Then to the cork, or lack thereof; another sell-out to the man-made crap. I will admit that is came out effortlessly (once again, may be the guns), but it seemed too easy...

Another note on my testing methods; how can you taste the wine if you only have a few drops in your glass, I do the full pour right away (its more fun). Being a cab, the color was; well, red. After the requisite connoisseur swirling; the deep inhale, the cough, and a less deep inhale. There is slightly overwhelming smell of alcohol, but it is wine. Flowers emerge (as a guy, I don't know what kind), bright flowers. From the smell, it is obvious that the flavors will be tight. They are, not quite as opened and flowing as you would hope, but it is a 2005 and has not had much time to mellow. It has a fruity flavor, distinctly cherry.

For an everyday wine, it is good, and at under $7 it is a bargain. Don't expect too much, but it is on par with the $10-12 bottles.

Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

jp

New Holga Pics

Last Sunday I holed up at my parents again and scanned some more Holga pics. Here is a sneak peak, the rest can be viewed at my Flicker page:

These are from last years July 4th party, graciously hosted by the Pfieffers.

Ahh, fun in the sand.

Where's the bathroom?

The men observing and reminicsing.

I kind of messed up the frame overlap, but I still like it.

Matt, Brenden, and I on our last minute roadtrip to Lake Charles for some poker fun:

My foiled attempt at flashing Matt the bird.

Matt in his "I don't give a damn" pose.

Brended waiting for our table at Cracker Barrel. Mmm... hashbrown casserole.

Hope you enjoy,

jp

Gaps in History : My Muddy Name

To fill you in on the backbeat; during high-school I recieved the nickname Mudboy due to my immaculate cleanliness.

Yeah right, the real story... My group of friends and I would congregate at least three times a week at my place to play poker (...addicted much?). Well, one day I was helping my dad in the front pasture, feeding cows, mending fence or something. With this my series of unfortunate events began.

First, it started to rain. For most, this means time to head in and clean up; not my dad, and therefore not me. We toiled and toiled, he worked me raw, water in the boots and mud in the hair (dont ask, I have no idea how that happened). Then, to add to my agony, a line of cars started up our driveway, apparently an emergency poker game had been called to ease the oncoming withdrawals. Watching them in their dry comfy cars, lit a fire under my ass. Five minutes later I was sitting at the poker table changing chips. Then it happened.

"Geez Josh, your like a mudboy or something."

Immediately "Josh" was a distant memory, hello Mudboy. I hated it, but after a few years it started to grow on me. Now it is a part of me, and fitting; not in the dirt and grime way, but in the way I have come to see the interconnectedness of the world and its events.

jp

Photoshop Phun

As you may have noticed, I have veered away from the default header and added my own twist. First, thanks to Jason Gaylor for the wonderful floral brushes. Also, the picture is from SXC, an excelent resource for stock photography.

I have been thinking what to do for a while. I wanted something organic. I have a beautiful shot of a spring meadow I took in New Mexico, but decided it wouldn't do.



That is when I ran upon Jason's brushes. I found his work at Screen Grab Confab, v.5 (hosted on Flickr), from a link at Stylegala. Check both sites out, they are great (stylegala is my digital crack).

A brief time in photoshop and waalla!

jp

Diamond in the Rough

This morning I was searching google for some insight into CS Lewis' thoughts on the redemption of the "unsaved". I ran across this site and have to share it, rather entertaining.

CS Lewis Exposed

I'm scared.

jp

Slap Me... Now

Matt and I have had the Olympics on the tube while lounging around. We were watching downhill, absolutely amazed at the speed and agility of the athletes. The problem is that they kept switching to figure skating (maybe agile, but who cares?). What the hell?

Anywho, after mocking for a while, and mimicing the announcers "Ohh, what a marvelous triple-toe-tappidy-tap-thingy" (anything that can be commented on with "ohh" is not a sport), I actually started commenting myself, in an unfortunately non-mocking manner. "She's right, he really did use up all his energy on stupid stuff." Luckily I caught myself.

"Matt, slap me."

Need Sleepy...

Man, I am becoming an unintentional work-aholic. This season of my life is acutely defined by that four letter word. While it has been rediculous hours, I cannot say it is all bad. I am actually really enjoying being busy, I have been very productive and feel that a sense of accomplishment at the success we are achieving.

It is a trade-off, though. Work, while great and enjoyable in its own way, has definitely cut into my usual social activities. For instance, right now it is 11:30 at night; I got home at 10:15 and had drawings to revise, so I actually was on my own time at about 11:00. And all of that is after getting 4.5 hours of sleep last night. And, yes, I am aware that I must be psycotic, why the hell am I not in bed? Well, I really wanted a glass of wine, so what else to do while I emerse myself in its ruby goodness?

I have been having fun on the side. Sunday I treked up to Tomball and bummed at the padres for a while. I used my dad's new scanner to scan in some of my medium format negatives. That was relaxing, and fun. It inspired me to knock the dust off my Holga and start shooting again. I figure that if I can learn to process my own negatives, I can just scan and print; later processing fees. Plus, this should open the door for all sorts of creativity. Enough talk, here are some of my favorite scans below;


This is a house on Montrose owned by some art foundation, unfortunately it is now demolished (even more so) and it looks like a commercial building is taking its stead.


A picture I took on the way home from Albuquerque.


This is not my Holga, it was taken with an old Minolta Autocord (twin lens). A long(ish) exposure of a stream in Colorado.


This was on a missions trip to Honduras through Living Water International. This was also the first drilling rig I was exposed to, who knew?


Ok, seriously, I have to go to bed, you've kept me up long enough.