rantlust

Posted by anupcs on December 05th 2006 in Books, Food & Wine, History, Travel
::  [Print This Post]

Recently, I read a fascinating book called “A Tale of Two Valleys: Wine, Wealth and the Battle for the Good Life in Napa and Sonoma” by Alan Deutschman. The book chronicles the author’s stay in Napa and Sonoma at the mansions of his rich Silicon Valley friends. There he engorges on the daily lives of the locals from cheese makers to cult winemakers such as Jean Philips of Screaming Eagle. The book offers a rare glimpse into the real life battle brewing between long-term locals and the fresh nouveau riche arrivals. It’s an easy read and highly recommended for those interested in wine and the quirky goings-on in the two valleys.

While we have often been to Napa, Mendocino, and some other wine regions in California, we hadn’t really visited Sonoma before. We had driven through the valley once without stopping at any of the wineries. Spurred on by the book, I thought the Thanksgiving weekend was a good time to head out to Sonoma. In the seven hours we spent there, we visited four wineries and learned a bit about this region.

(Read more…)

Comments(0)

Posted by tafkap on November 30th 2006 in Books, History, Language, Law, Politics, Raves
::  [Print This Post]

Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations. The title says it all. I haven’t finished reading the book. I have very little free time these days and the book is not exactly an easy read. But I can already tell you that it is a most excellent book. The kind of book that I will come back to in years to come.

The book is a reprinting of an earlier edition with some new updates. The author Michael Walzer among other things is a moral philosopher. He is particularly concerned with practical philosophizing and avoids the metaphysical. For example he presupposes the existence of a moral world about which rational people can reason about using a shared vocabulary. He does in the beginning expound a little bit about this, but moves on to the main topic of the book.
(Read more…)

Comments(2)

Posted by anupcs on November 23rd 2006 in History, Rants, Society, Television, USA
::  [Print This Post]

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States. A day when families and friends get together to eat a meal primarily consisting of a bird I really despise: turkey. Before last weekend, I knew only a bit of the history of this holiday. It was the captivating documentary “Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower” from The History Channel (premiered last weekend) that provided a full account. The documentary is a re-enacted version of the Pilgrims’ journey to North America interspersed with interviews of historians and surviving members of the Wampanoag tribe.

Thanksgiving is a holdover from the Harvest festival celebrated in Britain at the end of each year’s harvest (hærfest means autumn in old English). In the fall of 1621, almost a year after they had set foot on Plymouth in modern Massachusetts, 52 Pilgrims, and 90 Wampanoag Indians gathered for a three-day feast to celebrate a successful harvest. They had waterfowl and wild turkeys, bass, cod, mussels, corn, lobsters, grapes etc. The Wampanoag also presented the colonists with five deer that they had hunted and killed. If only venison was the food of choice on this holiday instead of turkey!
(Read more…)

Comments(4)

Posted by kinnum on July 01st 2006 in History, Society
::  [Print This Post]

??

Comments(4)

Posted by anupcs on June 30th 2006 in History, Life, Thoughts
::  [Print This Post]

A curious look at important events that happened on this day in history doesn’t reveal much of earth shattering significance. After some research on the big bad Internet, I came up with the following shortlist:

• In 1520, the Spanish retreat from the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan suffering huge losses
• In 1859, Emile Blondin, a French daredevil, crosses the Niagara Falls on a tightrope
• In 1936, Margaret Mitchell’s epic “Gone with the Wind” is published
• In 1950, the US enters the Korean War officially
• In 1953, the first Chevy Corvette, a white car with a red interior, is produced
• In 1971, the crew of the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 11 perishes on re-entry
• In 2002, Brazil beats Germany 2-0 in Japan to win their fifth World Cup title in Football

And oh, I was born on this day, one and a half scores and then some, years ago. Even as a child my mother made sure this day was special for me. She used to make me invite my friends and cook for them. I don’t celebrate XMAS, thanksgiving, or any other holiday with much enthusiasm. But birthdays are important to me; whether they are mine or those of close friends and family.

I more or less continued this tradition of big parties until about a few years ago when most of my friends decided to have progeny and settle down. Bummer. For I have had quite a few memorable birthday parties. The best of the crop was in my former apartment when about thirty people showed up and dunked me in the swimming pool. I was drunk and fully clothed. It was after midnight. I had only moved in a week before that day and the managers of the complex weren’t pleased. I was promptly served with an eviction notice the next day.

Comments(0)

Posted by anupcs on June 20th 2006 in Crime, History, USA
::  [Print This Post]

Conspiracy theories abound. Click here for an alternate version (flash plugin needed) of what hit the Pentagon on Sep 11, 2001.

[Thanks to harpoonflyby for the link]

Comments(2)

Posted by anupcs on May 02nd 2006 in History, Nature, Travel
::  [Print This Post]

A winery is an unusual location for displaying the largest specimen of crystalline gold in the world but there it was, in Ironstone Vineyards in Murphys, California. The 44 pound behemoth, known as “The Crown Jewel,” was displayed inside a glass case kept in a vault. The piece was mined on Christmas Day, 1992, in a mine near Jamestown in the heart of the California Gold country.

Between the onset of the California Gold rush in 1849 and 1880, several large masses of gold were found in California, none of which exists today. This makes the Crown Jewel the largest single piece of gold mined in North America since the 1880s. The above specimen, owned by the Kautz family (who also own the winery), is considered priceless in value.

Comments(0)

Posted by anupcs on April 18th 2006 in Disasters, History, Nature
::  [Print This Post]

Today marks the centennial of the Great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The 7.8 magnitude quake struck at 5:12 am along the San Andreas Fault and its tremors were felt as far away as Oregon and Nevada. The city of Santa Rosa was destroyed, the newly built campus of Stanford University was decimated, and San Francisco itself was damaged severely. Most people died in the fire that ravaged the city immediately afterwards than the actual quake. The fire was apparently started by an overturned stove inside a Chinese laundry. The firefighters couldn’t put it out because the underground water pipes had burst and there was no water coming out of the hydrants.
(Read more…)

Comments(0)