Wine all the Time
My brother-in-law Scott has started a blog focused on his adventures in the wine industry up in the Okanagan. He’s gone through all of his winemaking courses, and is now a winemaker’s assistant. Right now he’s bottling after pulling some nasty hours during the crush. If you’re at all interested in wine and the art and science of wine making, check out Scott’s blog.
As a side note, I’ve never personally been much of a fan of wine, but Scott’s managed to help me find a few varieties that I quite like. Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc… good stuff. Speaking of Pinot Blanc, we had a bunch of it while setting up Scott’s blog, and let me tell you, working on a Mac (which I never do) and drinking wine does not make me at my most productive. But it sure was fun! 
Tags: wine, winemaking, Okanagan, Penticton, winery, wine tasting
Caffeine has a half-life?
Wow. According to How Stuff Works caffeine isn’t out of your system in 4 hours, as I’ve always heard. Instead, it has a half-life of 6 hours, meaning that if you ingest 200mg of caffeine at 9:00 AM, by 9:00 PM when you’re trying to wind down, you actually still have 50mg of caffeine left in your system from that morning java.
So now, if you look forward to 9:00 AM of the next day, you actually still have 12.5mg of caffeine in your system from the previous day. Then you have your typical 200mg more of caffeine, and by the time you’re winding down at 9:00 PM again, you’ve got 53mg of caffeine left in your system instead of just 50. Obviously this cycle gets worse as time goes on.
No wonder coming off of caffeine is so difficult and uncomfortable. But maybe it’s even more worth it than I previously thought.
Note that I’ve determined I’m a “slow caffeine metabolizer“, compared to some people I know. *Cough* Francesca… *Cough*
The Official Canucks Blog
Most people reading this will know that I’m a huge Vancouver Canucks fan.
This is the second year that the Canucks will have had an official team blog, and they seem to be taking it more seriously this year, with more frequent contributions from varied sources, including some “super fans”. Unfortunately, they just recently went from full RSS feeds to partial feeds.
Unsubscribed.
[Update] I just showed this post to my wife, and I think I should probably clarify my point.
The Canucks are doing a blog for the purpose of engaging their fans. They want us to think about the Canucks as much as possible. The only reason to turn off full-text RSS feeds is to force readers to come to their site and read the content there, rather than being able to read it in the news aggregator of their choice.
Since I read most of my feeds offline regularly, a feed that is not full-text offers me very little value, and basically just annoys me when I realize I’m actively being excluded from that content.
So, as a blogger (who gets paid for it) who’s words get given away in full-text feeds every day, I have a hard time stomaching the awful decision someone in the Canucks PR department has made. So I’ve unsubscribed.
I’m their prime demographic.
Their loss.
Tags: Canucks, Vancouver Canucks, VancouverCanucks, Canucks blog
Homemade Standup Bass
I’m not even sure what I think of this, but as an upright bass player, and incurable geek, it appeals to me on many levels. Of course, the musical purist in me also cringes every time I watch it, although I can’t stop watching it. Here’s the video:
From boingboing.
