Dogfish Head IPA comes to Sebastopol!!

Serious IPA lovers like Kay and me know good beer. And Dogfish Head 90 min IPA, quite possibly the country's best IPA has shown up, out of the blue, at two locations in town: The Hop Monk Tavern, the new beer garden in the old Powerhouse building; and in a restaurant not yet opened, potentially named "Petit Chou" but subject to change.

We first had the beer in Ashville, NC and then this year in GA and SC, tho mostly in bottles. I'm providing a link to their website if you want more info. We love this beer, especially when we can get it on tap.

http://www.dogfishalehouse.com

Media Must Raise, Not Lower The Bar For Palin For Thursday's Debate

Interesting take on MSM's handling of the Palin preparations for the debate.



She will probably be in a rush to show how much she has learned this week in those media training intensives she has been undergoing in Oak Creek, near Sedona. Maybe they are enlisting some of the energies from the many vortices that Sedona is known for.
About Presidential Debates
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Wall St. f0rces McCain's largest flip-flop yet.

Our boy John sure is singing a different tune these days. Check this video out to see the clearest evidence yet of his political desperation.
http://therealmccain.com/economy/

Bell'O TV stand finally assembled and in use!

Took several hours, working slowly to get it completely assembled. Instructions are competent but require careful reading. I recommend not using Phillips screw drivers except on the small stuff.
Smoked glass hides the components and speaker grill hides the center channel speaker. Well thought out unit. Now to catch up on movies that we had already seen on the small screen! The Panasonic plasma has lived up to its billing. Very sharp. Next step: real HDTV!!

The Eiffel Tower Comes to Sebastopol!

The lastest effort by Sebastopol artist Patrick Amiot, a French Canadian who creates "urban folk art" from discarded junk, places la Tour Eiffel along busy Hwy 116 heading N into town, perched upon a Citroen DS19 of unknown vintage.
Amiot's sculptures are well known in the area and are concentrated on Florence Ave, where the artist has his home and studio.

One of my fave's has disappeared. It was a huge Elvis in a jukebox, easily 9 ft. tall. All silver.

Jury Awards $23.9 Million in Reckless Ambulance Case

I had the opportunity to do the "Day in the Life" video of Mr. Del Barba at the hospital, a service I have provided the legal profession for over 20 years. Not all cases are this successful, but when video is played for the jury, as this one was, real human emotions are brought into play. Mr. Del Barba will now have the opportunity to spend his final days at home with the necessary care.

Plaintiff Del Barba represented by O'Reilly & Danko firm SAN MATEO, Calif., Sept. 29
SAN MATEO, Calif., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- On September 26, 2008, a jury
in Hayward awarded $23,903,434 to Louis Del Barba, 85, for paralyzing injuries
he suffered on April 16, 2007, in Oakley, California. Mr. Del Barba, a farmer
and life-long resident of Oakley, was attempting to make a left turn onto
Highway 4 when he was rammed by a speeding American Medical Response ambulance
driven by Teymour Amir Ansari. The ambulance's speed was measured at 65 mph in
a 35 mph zone. Experts agreed that such a speed, in rush hour conditions, was
reckless and unsafe.


The trial was held in Superior Court, Alameda County, with the Hon.
Deborah Miller presiding.


Mr. Del Barba had the right of way and was wearing a shoulder and lap seat
belt when the crash occurred. As a result of the accident, he received
numerous traumatic injuries and is paralyzed completely, save for some
movement of his head and left arm. He is constantly dependent on a ventilator.
Doctors believe that he can return to his 110-year-old family home if there
are funds to fit a room for medical care. The jury felt strongly that Mr. Del
Barba had a right to a dignified death at his own home, if he so chose.
Evidence was produced to show that American Medical Response had contributed
nothing to his care. Settlement offers were derisory.


"The dignity and patience of Louis Del Barba made this a deeply emotional
trial, very physically wearing," said veteran trial lawyer, Terry O'Reilly,
founding partner of O'Reilly & Danko, San Mateo. O'Reilly said, "I am pleased
that the jury understood the issues and responded to his suffering."



SOURCE  O'Reilly & Danko

Plasma TV and TV Stand Project Completed!

Back from an extended weekend in Mendocino and Ft. Bragg celebrating an anniversary. Great weather so I have tons of photos to send out... will take most of today to sort them.
Before leaving Saturday, I was able to get the Bello TV stand assembled, not without a few set backs and profanity inspiring mishaps, and the old armoire moved out. Look for it on Craig's list very shortly.
Still doing research on 720i and 1080p resolutions, since I don't think the Panasonic Viera's image is as sharp as it could be. I will be doing some tests, but I think we will have to contact Dish Network to get an upgraded receiver.
Several new wines to pass along, all from Mendocino county and most from the Anderson Valley where we visited the new Anderson Valley Brewing Company's facility in Boonville!
But first, I gotta go have my Tailor Maid coffee and some breakfast. Stay tuned.

Pirate Music Gives Way to Swing!

A friend sent me this link to a fave jazz standard, with an Obama twist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJW67YfLWgs

Yaaarrrrhhhh, mates, Talk Like A Pirate Day is here!

Avast you scurvy poopdeck bilge drinkers....

Or as Tom Waits has written, " Shiver me timbers, I'm sailing away."

September 19th is Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Heads up for tomorrow, Friday the 19th.

Yarrrhhh, my maties, tis the day to keelhaul your grammar and use yer finest pirate lingo.
At least for one day.
Need more help? This video will increase your vocabulary considerably:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cKCkbWDGwE

In case you're too sotted to see him clearly, that gent over there is John "Ol Chumbucket" Baur, the cute one in the video!
Now, where's me rum???

Cruise West and Sonoma Plaza Walking Tours together again.

Another of my businesses consists of doing walking tours in Sonoma plaza. I've been doing this for over 10 years, with a wide variety of clients. One success story is the ongoing relationship I have is with Cruise West in Seattle, WA, a tour company that offers their Wine Country Cruise boat passengers a trip to Sonoma plaza before heading on to taste wines in Sonoma Valley.
Today was the first day of the new season (our 8th together) so I met the eager participants from the Spirit of Yorktown as they got off the bus from the dock on the Napa river and led them into Sonoma plaza for a half hour tour. Most were first time visitors and all really liked the little town with the most beautiful plaza in CA, and that is not just my opinion. There will be a tour a week for the next month and I will put up some more pictures as I take them.
I continue to do tours on a by appointment basis, so if you get the opportunity to suggest entertainment options for a company or family function, please keep me in mind.

A Tango Party with Camille

My friend and fellow Italian food lover, Camille Cusumano is celebrating the release of her latest novel, "Tango- An Argentine Love Story" at some upcoming events. Her web page gives more details: www.camillecusumano.com/events.
Thanks to our long time friendship (and my cheap price) I had the opportunity to do the author's photo for the back cover. All discussions about Photoshop activities are discouraged.

I will be at the party on Oct 12, at the Italian museum (or museo I should say), in San Francisco's Ft. Mason, so if anyone wants to have their pic taken with Camille, I will be happy to accommodate - if you donate to the MUSEO ITALOAMERICANO.
Ciao for now, y'all.

Obama Lays Out Plans To Woo Women Voters: Forget Palin, Focus On Equal Pay

My thoughts exactly. Ignore Palin, get back to the issues. The media circus will continue to deal with the frivolous, Obama's campaign must attack McCain and Bush exclusively. Palin's approval numbers are falling drastically according to a poll featured on DailyKos this morning. The public is going to tire of her, especially with all the negatives accumulating around her.

Obama is right to connect this growing economic meltdown with Conservative failures with Bush at the front of the mess and li'l Johnnie McSame right beside him, or one pace to the rear.



Again, ignore Palin, go get McBush!!!
About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Plasma TV - Making the Connection


So, while waiting for the TV stand to arrive, I finally got up the nerve to connect the Panasonic to my home theater system. After much thought and foreboding, chose the S-VHS video connector, sometimes known as S-Y, which is a 4 pin cable that vastly improves the signal quality. You might recall that in '82-83, S-VHS came out to upgrade VHS, which was crap, and to replace U-Matic, the 3/4" format that at one time was broadcast quality, long before Sony Beta-SP came out. Anyway, high end components all have that connector and since I am not using the HDMI connectors yet, that seemed the best choice for the time being.
And it turned out to be the correct choice!! The picture quality is amazing. Especially off DVDs. We don't have a HD Dish receiver yet, so we are looking at analog broadcast most of the time, even if it is in the 16/9 format. But the DVD images are very, very sharp. Can't imagine what the Blu-Rays will be like!




Zone Music in Cotati Honors Bill Bowker of KRSH radio!


Seems Bill has been on the air in and around Sonoma county for 30 years. That's a lot of hot air!
And good music choices.






While there I ran into another long time DJ, the iconic and original Dallas Dobro, of KFAT, Gilroy, fame!!
He also has been part of the success of stations KHIP and KPIG in the Monterey-Watsonville area (tho now San Francisco residents can now get KPIG on am radio, 1510, I believe). Now doing weekends on KRSH, it's a joy to listen to him and to remember what quality radio used to be like (and occasionally can be now).
We are very fortunate to have KRSH in our neighborhood and if you want to find out for yourself, it's streamed at KRSH.com.
In the photo, with Dallas in the middle, is also Big Dave, from the Saturday morning "Rockabilly Roadhouse" also on the KRSH. Fun music, makes me want to grab the Gibson and play along. Got sore fingertips at the moment from practicing that Hayes Carll song.

And speaking of good music, the Hellhounds were performing at the Zone when we got there. Great blues group, all local boys and an excellent lead guitar. Worth seeing if they come to your neighborhood!

And since it would not be Sonoma County without an excellent lunch, Kay and I headed to Willi's Wine Bar in Windsor. One of our all time favorite restaurants for small plates and wine flights, we were not disappointed in our choices:
Tunisian carrots,












seared scallops, pork pot stickers and flat bread with figs, arugula, and prosciutto. Can you say "Yum?"

What a rough life! Later, y'all.......

Plasma TV Works! Huge Image.

Finally connected the Viera today just so we could see what it is like. It is huge! Like sitting at a drive in movie, cept for no steering wheel in the way. Will watch our first DVD tonight, non Blu-Ray cause don't have the player yet. Sure makes football look good! Watched a little of the Cal game while reading the manual.

Off to Zone Music

We're off to listen to some free music at Zone Music in Cotati, part of a celebration for Bill Bowker's 30 years of working in radio and supporting the blues. He is on KRSH and does Blues with Bowker as well as 501 blues every afternoon at 5:01 pm. Catchy, huh. I'll check back in later with some photos and reviews of the bar-b-que that is being offered.

The picture up there is of some excellent bar-b-que we had in Beaufort, SC. Place called Macpherson's Serious Barbque, which is actually in Port Royal, couple miles west of downtown Beaufort.

Was not impressed with the corn bread (see video at side) tho, too sweet and the piece was tiny!!!!

My friend Chuck in Kansas City, apparently the city's only liberal, has introduced a new effort to highlight the failures of the Bush admin  for the past 8 years and to call attention to the efforts of McSame to distance himself from Bush (a foolish actions since his voting record is public knowledge). Here's a very current example of one of his outreach emails.

BTW, he's a veteran magazine production manager, which accounts for the quality of his graphics. Spent many years making Via magazine, the AAA publication for members in Northern CA, Utah, and Nevada, an award winner.

If you want to get on his mailing list, contact me and I will forward your email.

Friday Rants! Or, My $.02

McSame and Palin fighting each other now. Check this story out on Daily Kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/12/12533/9165

I'm annoyed at Apple today. I have been a Mac user from the beginning; Mac Plus, the SE, all the way thru a Tangerine iMac to now, an intel iMac which I use as a video editing tool for my Web Video clients' videos. I now have 3 iPods (don't ask why) including the new 5G iPod classic, which is where the complaint comes in. Once upon a time, back when Apple included all the accessories you needed with the iPod purchase, it was very easy to connect my iPods to either my camera for downloading pictures for storage (works great while traveling, frees up the memory card each night) or displaying all my fascinating photography efforts (who laughed?) on a local tv set. No problemo as we like to say in Sebastopol. However....
With the new changes and the iPod classic, the old ways don't work. Now a new cable must be purchased which now connects with the multi-pin slot on the iPod as opposed to the former mini jack. Here's why I am annoyed (remember back there at the beginning of this rant?):
Apple charges $49.99 for that cable, calling it an AV Composite device. It's a freakin' cable, made in china for $.40 if that, and includes a power adaptor, which used to be free. Fifty bucks to connect to a tv/home theater. I am currently investigating similar items on eBay that sell for less than $15. Some for as little as five bucks. I'll let you know, just in case you have the same issue.

I have not made the decision yet where to move to the iPod Touch. Not as much storage, tho it is fun to play with. The new interface, touch screen, really is nice. And my friend Perry Madison is thinking of dumping his Palm pda to get one. I'll wait until I find out what kind of av cable IT requires to connect to my new Panasonic Plasma TV.... which we can't use at the moment cause we are still waiting for the TV stand to arrive from StandsandMounts.com. Someone mentioned to me that the name sounded like a porno site. Hee, hee.

Also, discovered a new singer-songwriter, thanks to KRSH radio in Santa Rosa. Name is Hayes Carll and is best known at the moment for a song titled "She Left Me For Jesus" which Don Imus called the best country song ever. Check his website for music, his entire cd plays for audition purposes. http://www.hayescarll.com. The sound you might hear in the background is me learning his song "beaumont" on my Gibson and trying to get my calouses back.

Sarah wants war with Russia!

I say send her to Russia as a hostage and we'll get back to them when we decide exactly what for....

Corporate media are whoring themselves like never before. Someone over at DailyKos is keeping a lies record, recording the number of days in a row that she has told the same lie about not supporting her buddy, indicted Republican Sen. Steven's bridge to nowhere.... I'm gonna find and post the video of Stevens endorsing her for her governor's run.

Solve Real Problems should be the Dems new campaign focus and slogan. Read that on Huff Po by a blogger named Jeffrey and I agree that it sets a winning frame, a message that the Dems can stay on and hammer McWalnut's slime campaign.
As a Viet Nam vet myself, I am ashamed of McSame and I have long since stopped honoring his service, since he drug it into the gutter with his mentor Rove. Too bad he feels no shame knowing that thousands died to make it possible for him to run for office and now dishonors those dead with his sleazy desperation to be president. Send that dried up old fool back to AZ and Oak Creek Canyon.

TV Stand Chosen and Ordered!

While dealing with the newly purchased TV Stand, Bell'o brand from a website dedicated to these products, StandsandMounts.com, I ran across the following story about Alaska natural gas being sold to Japan, thanks to the efforts of the "Babe of the North" Palin and fellow "country last" Republicans.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/10/105137/798

A thank you to the Oregon senator for exposing this is in order.
Interesting reading, under the heading of hypocrisy I believe.

Now, back to getting the Panasonic Plasma ready for connection to Dish Network and to discover how the 16-9 screen ratio is going work with non HDTV programming and older dvds that aren't widescreen.

While on the subject of TV stands, let me emphasize the importance of ventilation access. Most brands that I researched never even considered ventilation as an issue nor was the issue of cable access thru the back to the various shelves. I am pleased that the Brand and model we chose takes both into consideration and provides a cable management system to hopefully reduce the usual site of cables all over the place.
One thing missing from all the models we inspected was a power strip. In my opinion if the unit is specifically for AV purposes and not just a piece of furniture, it would benefit from having one source which could handle all the electrical connections from the various components. I may have to install one myself. One with a surge protector in it.

So now it's back to waiting for the promised delivery and supposedly "easy to install efforts" to finalize this process.

In the interim, I continue to study the advantages of 1080p and Blu-Ray DVDs which seems to be the viewing future.

Plasma TV forces tv stand upgrade, or, highlights of how I spent my weekend.

Based on this weekend's experience, there is a thriving market for TV stands and the like, now that so many people, like me, are switching to flat screen LCD or Plasma TVs. The wife and I finally made the decision to upgrade from our perfectly good SONY 25" Trinitron connected to the Dish Satellite and a perfectly good Sony DVD player, all happily ensconced in a custom made ash wood armoire.
After visiting the local Best Buy and Magnolia stores (where prices were much higher than I expected) we opted for Costco's deal on a Panasonic Viera 42" Plasma 1080p beauty. There goes the armoire... no way a 42" screen is gonna fit. So, back we go looking for something that looks good but also has AV requirements in mind; ventilation holes are good, openings for cables are nice.
So many new names: Sanus, Bush Furniture, Bello, Tech Craft, BDI, JSP and all sorts of other initials!! Kathy Ireland even has some models (pun intended). Whoa, who knew there were so many makers of this stuff. Prices all over the map.
Choosing is gonna be slow, I can tell, since there are several criteria that have to be satisfied, from the female and male view points.
Speaker cloth and glass doors are suddenly critical. Gotta find the spot to place the center channel speaker, very important in the home theater, surround sound environment. Just throwing it up on top of the armoire is not gonna get it anymore.

I'll be glad when this part is all over with. Then we can start the search for the perfect Blu-Ray dvd player.
Next installment on this blog: A discussion on the advantages of Plasma and 1080p. Just as soon as I learn what they are!!

And remember: No McCain; No Palin; No Way!!!

Trying to stay ahead of the crumbling main stream media's journalistic integrity as NBC bends over and takes it up the ol wazoo for the Repugs...