Lazy morning around the house. Flight isn’t until almost 2PM so didn’t need to leave the house until 11 with my need to be to the airport at least two hours in advance.
Got the tsaPre line again – it does take one back to a different era:
Shoes stay on
Jackets stay on
Laptop stays in bag
Liquids (while still limited) stay in bag
Got an old plane to fly on today:
737-400 which you can recognize because of the lack of winglets (see plane on the right), but I’m up front so who cares:
BART from the airport to Berkeley.
Luckily even with a strike deadline passed they are running today – my worry is about tomorrow, hence I only bought a one-way ticket.
Oynx met me at the Ashby BART station and off to the Berkeley Bowl we went for dinner fixin’s. Rolled roast over a bed of root vegetables with a big salad.
Four of us for dinner tonight: Mark, Onyx, myself and Michael, a friend who used to live in Hong Kong (and I visited twice this spring) who now lives in Emeryville.
Wonderful evening, and as usual stayed up way too late.
It might be time for an intervention – just booked more travel. Filled in December.
But before I get to what I’ve booked, let me show you what I built this afternoon:
Four more rolling wine racks for the store. They still need to be sanded and I still need to build two more, but I’m making progress.
And now we return to travel plans:
First week of December – Hong Kong AGAIN. I realized that I was within striking distance of Platinum on United (75,000 flight miles). Better to do it this year because in January this boy will need to be looking for some work and I won’t have the time.
Second week of December – Santa Fe to visit the family pre-holiday. Fly down (GREAT use of 12,500 United miles as it’s a $275 one-way ticket). Guess I should email the relatives with my plan which is to fly down and take the train back from Albuquerque since Lamy (which is closer to Santa Fe) in in the next Amtrak Zone and I’m using 15,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points that I transferred my my Chase Ink card – saving $700 which is the fare with roomette
Third week of December – Taking the train to LA in a roomette with my buddy Dwight across the hall who is continuing south to Fullerton to visit his mother. That would have been about $375 if I hadn’t transferred more points over. Spending the night (as the train gets in late evening) hopefully with Craig, then flying back on Friday so I can work on Saturday.
So, between now and the end of the year the only weeks that I’m not going someplace are the weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Yes, it might be time for an intervention (but please wait until after the first of the year).
Usually Sundays are OK sales wish, a slow trickle of people through the store… not this Sunday. And all because of an Artist Reception. Normally our receptions bring in some people, but this was wall-to-wall people starting at 2 and then like magic disappeared at the appointed 4pm leaving me the final shop hour to clean up.
The artist brought a nice spread, people had a good time – and were buying wine like crazy. Basically doubled the typical Sunday sales.
Turned down an invitation by Jim for dinner – I needed some quite time after handling the masses by myself. Suzanne was there but Jim was crushing grapes as it is the season.
A little steak, a little salad, a little wine – life is good.
I couldn’t believe the turn out for the South African Tasting this afternoon. The Pinotage sold out in 50 minutes and the Shiraz was gone in an hour and a half, and we were taking orders for both. The Chenin Blanc got down to 4 and the Malbec, 2. The Meerlust was the slow performer, but at $30 it’s a bit of a stretch for our usual customers.
You would think all those people would translate to a great day of receipts – and while they were good, when four out of the five wines on the tasting menu for $10 each, takes a lot of sales to make big money. But it was also the First Monthly Madrona Art Walk which brought in people who hadn’t been in the store before – and snagged another wine club member for our monthly club (Madrona Wines Monthly) which is always a good thing.
Tonight’s meal was a lovely set of smallish veal chops with a big salad (Uncle needs his greens).
One small panic during the evening of verifying details for the next two trips:
Tuesday to San Francisco to have dinner with Mark, Onyx, and my buddy Michael formerly of Hong Kong, now of Oakland
The following Tuesday to Toronto then Tucson, then San Francisco, then home for the Star Alliance MegaDo
In putting away stuff from the Hong Kong trip and setting things aside for San Francisco I couldn’t find my passport – which I definitely will need for the Toronto.
Forty-five minutes of panic later I found it in my computer bag, just in the wrong pocket.
Whew. The thought of having to replace my passport at the last minute makes me sick to my stomach.
And in the continuing SeasideBoy saga, apparently his latest “open relationship” allows occasional overnight stays (the Covington gig didn’t) so I’ve booked a studio at the WorldMark Birch Bay for next Thursday when I’m back from the Bay Area. It is one of their older units.
And did I mention I added a trip to Denver in November to my schedule – found it for $138 r/t, but booked it at $158 for the extra segment, travel whore that I am.
Before I get into my day, I got some interesting news from SeasideBoy – might as well just keep calling him that since he’s on the move again less and a week after our little tryst. Wondering if the “open relationship” this the triad of boys in Covington wasn’t as open as he thought. Current location: Birch Bay. At least he is picking places that have WorldMark resorts. Smile.
For those who haven’t been keeping track, here is the progression since I’ve been seeing him:
Grew up in Spokane, got adopted to a family on Hawaii, got thrown out at 18 to his birth mother, from there to Seaside, then Everett, then Covington, and now (for the moment) Birch Bay which is just south of the border town of Blaine. Hard (for me) to imagine that we have been seeing each other for over three years now. We met when he lived in Seaside which is a 3.5 hour drive. Birch Bay is only 2 hours, but still much more than the 35 minute commute to Covington. Let’s see – 2.5 years in Seaside, 5 months in Everett, 1 month in Covington. Any wagers on Birch Bay?
As for the aforementioned work, it was my monthly Friday to work the shop. A lackluster day of sales in my mind.
Went home and had a steak and salad for dinner.
I get to sleep in tomorrow as I’m the closer (as in the person who locks up the shop at the end of the day).
Up at 6 (me) and down in the dining room when they opened. One big buffet is what’s on offer:
Everything from western-style omelets to miso soup and sushi, or a green salad, or baked beans for the Brits.
TokyoDave all bright eyed and chipper:
A little after 7 we set out to find the bus stop for the cheap (under $2 US) city bus to the airport – beats the $40US cab ride – but don’t expect a seat half way through their pickups:
Lots of people standing. And my favorite highway sign that I failed to get a picture of on my last trip:
Both Hong Kong Disney and the airport (and the giant Buddha) are on Lantau Island.
Settled in on the plane next to a tiny Chinese woman, I have my reading stand all set up for the trip:
That should take me though the end of the first meal service when I wash down an Ambien with a glass of wine.
Flights on time or early – and had the luxury of having my SFO-SEA flight depart from the International Terminal which gave me a little more time in the lounge between flights. I have to say I love the speed and ease of Global Entry – it takes longer to walk there than it does to get through Immigration and Customs.
Got back to the house a little before 2pm – plenty of time to bake some bread for my dinner with Roxy tonight. The menu:
The plan was to east a little earlier at 6pm since Roxy goes to work at 4am. We succeeded in getting the dinner over, but then Roxy’s new boytoy showed up for after dinner drinks:
It turned into a whiskey sampling. I pity Roxy tomorrow – they didn’t get out of the house until 10:30!
When on the run to Hong Kong, when does one day end and the next start?
So far all the flights have been arriving early – sort of amazing for United. Half an hour early into SFO, 15 minutes early into Narita, 45 minutes early into Hong Kong.
So far, no upgrades on any of the segments, but the seats are OK. Little Asian woman next to me on SEA-NRT, was sitting next to people on the NRT-HKG run but I found an ENTIRE exit row open and after a little grief “you must pay extra for these seats” – and showing that I was already 7D which is economy plus, and showing my Gold Card, it was “I alert the rest of the attendants so that they know”. Gold does have its privileges:
That would be me, across three seats in an exit row.
Today’s humorous bathroom shot is from the Hong Kong airport in the transit section – the family bathroom within the men’s room:
Like father like son?
Like I said – got to Hong Kong 45 minutes early – and checked email (on the phone via free wi-fi at the airport) and found a note from TokyoDave, my now married to a Japanesse woman who he fathered two children with. I’d sent him a note yesterday saying I’d be in Tokyo for an hour and would wave as I flew out on my way to Kong Kong. He sent me back a note that he was IN HONG KONG until Saturday morning and wanted to know if I wanted to share his hotel room for the night.
Of course by the time I got the second note about details (he was in meetings) I was already through the transit lounge and in the United Club boozing it up. My ORIGINAL plan was, United Club until midnight, LoungeClub until 6am, then United Club until my flight tomorrow at 11:30am.
Now I’m in a bit of a pickle – I’m on the departures level and I need to be on the immigration level if I’m to leave the airport.
United Club Front Desk is obviously not pleased – it’s later in the evening and there is no staff to escort me so they give me a slip of paper and say “take the Staff Elevator” at Gate 35 down one floor. Did that and SECURITY wasn’t happy and sent me to the Service Desks between gates 20 and 21 – problem is United doesn’t have a service desk so the Thai Airlines folks sent me BACK to the United Club. For reference – the distance between gates 20 and 60 where the club is is approximately ½ mile. I’m getting a workout and sweating like a pig – there isn’t enough air-conditioning in the world to keep the humidity out of the Hong Kong air.
After another 15-20 minutes of wrangling they find a gate agent (at gate 20!) that will meet me at the elevator near gate 35 and escort me. After almost an hour of marching to and fro – I’m headed to Immigration and Customs (which goes smoothly). The upside is that the gate agent was in his mid-20s and cute. The downside is that I’ve lost an hour that I could have spent with TokyoDave.
Next up catching a Red Cab (regional) to the Royal Park Hotel in Sha Tain. Of course I get to the cab line and ask about credit cards and its cash only – off to find an ATM machine for the $40 cab ride.
Finally in the cab, and get to where TokyoDave’s text message said in Chinese characters I was supposed to go. No Dave registered at the hotel – finally broke down and called him.
Here is a shot of a traffic jam caused by all the deliveries at the major fruit market in Hong Kong:
Turns out I got sent to the Royal PLAZA hotel in Kowloon, not the Royal PARK Hotel in Sha Tain. None of the cab drivers speak any English so it’s the door man/taxi agent who tells them in Cantonese where to go. In my case, to the wrong place. In my sad/tired/whiney voice I ask him to come fetch me as I’m now out of HKD (Hong Kong dollars). It’s now midnight – I got into Hong Kong at 9pm, and I have an 11:30am flight tomorrow.
He arrives after 20 minutes are so and we are off. As for me at this point, I’m probably smelling like a farm animal – and the first this after getting up to his room is to drink half a mini of Cognac he has left over and hit the showers and get cleaned up. It just feels great to get out of clothes.
As it turns out — had everything gone smoothly and I would have gotten there at 10pm — TokyoDave would have still been tied up in a meeting that was supposed to run from 4-5pm (in Kowloon oddly enough) ran until almost 11:30pm. TD had just gotten to his room when the call from me came in.
While I’m showering TokyoDave goes down to the bar and grabs two large glasses of wine before they close at 1am.
The alarm is set for 5:15 (TokyoDave) and 6:00 (me) and yet it’s after 2 before we stop chatting and turn out the lights – this will make TWICE in the last 30 days that we’ve had an overnight – both less than 18 hours each.
Oh well – four hours of sleep in a REAL bed is better than 8 hours in a recliner in a lounge.
[? ? ?] Between the carbs and all the walking, who knows what Friday’s numbers will look like.
Six hours at the shop. Receipts less than I’d like, but it didn’t suck marbles.
Got an invite from Jim for a bratwurst dinner after he and the other Turkeys (Tres Dindons in French) finish crushing the several hundred pounds of grapes they got in today.
What do crushed grapes look like?
This was from a 200+ pounds of Pinot that arrived pre-crushed. They didn’t think they were going to get any Pinot this year as a freak heavy rainstorm in Eastern Washington nailed about of grapes… the Turkeys only got some because of the government shutdown – apparently several hundred pounds were reserved by Federal Employee home vintners. Who thought there would be a silver lining to the debacle in DC.
Wonderful wieners off the grill, great sides, great wine, great company.
What more can you ask (other than getting home safely).
Opened the shop this morning. Means I can get home in time to cook dinner for DB.
Good sales day at the shop – big crowds, sold out of a couple of things including this really good olive oil. Might have to by some for myself once it comes back in.
Wonderfully rare sunny day for the commute home with the top down.
That would be me stuck in traffic waiting for the bridge to come back down.
DancingBear showed up at 6pm for a dinner of:
Salad
Roasted tri-color potatoes
Homemade bread (from last night)
Pound rib eye steaks
Bonny Doon Syrah
Here is a great shot of DB making a rib eye sandwich:
After DB headed back to his husbear who was doing math homework I stopped by to see how the bridge is coming:
Time to start tackling the to-do list from Jim and I’s business meeting a while back. Today will be the second attempt to make a rolling wine rack for the shop. We will eventually need seven of time. The prototype I hacked together last week was too tall and didn’t offer enough storage — so much for the easy way. Looks like almost from scratch.
Picked up a ½” 4×4 sheet of plywood at Home Depot to go with the casters I picked up last week at Lowes. A couple of cuts, a lot of glue and nail gun work, and this is the result of a couple of hours of work:
The space below the bottles it turns out with hold two cases side to side.
On the way aback from working in the garage I noticed that my quince tree had all this downed fruit:
Normally I get like two quince in a season – must have been the warm weather this summer. They are still tiny, but I was thinking about making a quince infused moonshine. Thoughts?
After that was built and the glue drying it was off to see how the bridge work is coming – they announced that the other leaf of the bridge would be mounted today:
And before you knew it was time to start working on dinner. Dinner with Dwight tonight – and a fancy dinner it is. Seattle restaurateur Tom Douglas’ Braised Lamb Shank recipe that he modified for Amtrak to use on the Coast Starlight. I thought I’d shared the recipe before but couldn’t find it on the blog so here it is:
Amtrak’s braised lamb shanks with Portobello mushroom, tomatoes and oregano
Total time: 3 hours
Servings: 4
Note: Amtrak serves the lamb shanks with garlic mashed potatoes and an array of vegetables.
1 1/2 cups (8 ounces) diced plum tomatoes in tomato juice
3 cups beef demi-glace (or 3 cups beef broth thickened with a slurry of 2 tablespoons each cornstarch and cold water)
2 bay leaves
1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, toss the lamb shanks with 1 tablespoon oil, one-half teaspoon salt and one-fourth teaspoon pepper.
3. Pour off and discard any excess fat, leaving only 1 to 2 tablespoons in the pan. Add the onion and mushroom and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 4 to 5 minutes, then stir in the garlic. Cook another minute, stirring, so that the garlic does not burn. Add the red wine, bring to a near boil, and reduce the liquid by two-thirds. Stir in the oregano, tomatoes with juice and the demi-glace. Bring the mixture to a boil, remove from the heat and pour over the lamb shanks. Add the bay leaves and cover the lamb tightly with the lid.
4. Transfer the lamb to the oven and cook for 1 hour, then reduce the heat to 300 degrees and continue to cook the lamb until it is fork tender but not falling off the bone, about 1 additional hour.
5. Remove the casserole and allow the lamb to cool , uncovered, for 15 minutes. Remove each shank to a serving dish and cover with foil. Remove the bay leaves from the casserole and discard.
6. Skim any fat from the top of the sauce. Check the consistency of the sauce (it should be the consistency of heavy cream). If the sauce is too thin, reduce it on the stove-top until it is the proper consistency. This makes about 2½ cups sauce. Taste the sauce, adjusting the seasoning as desired, then pour over the lamb shanks and serve.
Mind you on Amtrak it’s done using sous-vide cooking (“20 hours at a precise 160 degrees”).
Between doing the lamb shanks (three hours) and the fresh baked bread (two hours, though with overlap with the lamb), it’s a more involved meal than I normally do. Add a salad and a nice bottle of wine and you have a fine meal – and with Dwight staying in the guest room tonight, no worries about driving.
Nice to be back in my own bed. Boston was fun, but that was then, and here we are again.
A couple of gas and grocery runs – both cars were low and I’ll be needing them both over the next couple of days. The wagon for a run to Home Depot for plywood to make new rolling racks for the shop, and today’s run to drop off a computer at Jim’s since his died last week during the storm – and not having your business partner on email is a pain. Luckily I had an old Windows XP box that I’d removed from service a couple of months ago.
So, a couple of runs up to White Center, then the Central District, and then down south to Covington to grab the Seaside boy for dinner – wish he could spend the night but part of the deal where he is now living is a midnight curfew.
Half an hour down there, half an hour back, dinner and hanging out, then back down south again.
Had a great dinner of chicken breasts and a big green salad – true to form SB was drinking any wine. How did I come to date a non-wine drinker?
Forgot to get a picture of us together, maybe next time.
My quick trip to Boston is over – a mileage run with lots of fun added.
About 12:30 Fernando and I headed off on the Red Line – him to work and me to connect to the Silver Line and back to the airport for lunch and then a flight. No first on the Dinner flight Boston to Houston leg, but First on the Snack flight Houston to Seattle so food is in order… and there is a Legal Seafoods Test Kitchen in the airport:
Oysters on the half shell with an Old Fashion (in honor of DancingBear) in the background, and the lump crab cake with seasonal greens salad.
Food was good but the service was spotty – think I had several different servers, some of which appeared to be not very well seasoned.
Got home around 12:30 in the morning and a little wound up – used the time to update the wine shops website.
An 8:30am flight to Houston, continuing onto Boston. All is on-time and I used miles to upgrade to First so at least I’m comfortable for the two four hour flights.
Breakfast (Seattle-Houston):
Dinner (Houston-Boston):
Fernando met me at the airport and we took the Silver Line to the Red Line to his place in Sommerville. Didn’t get in until 9, stayed up talking until well after midnight.
Jim spent a good portion of today getting the wine club shipments ready — my how the club has grown!
It’s gotten so big that we had to rearrange the back room. There could be worse problems.
After work it’s dinner with Swanda and DamonTheCaveman – a day late (be still appreciated). With the rains the salmon was done stove top rather than BBQ’d – apparently he isn’t from the Midwest were we grill even in the snow.
Birthday day. The big 57 – still years away from being able to start collecting retirement money.
After the sun of the cruise (well, some rain, too) the return to Seattle has been soggy.
Here is a shot from the shop today:
As they say in Canada, “It’s pouring mooses and mounties.” Actually I doubt they say that but I love the expression.
And storm it did all day – at 5pm we lost power:
Selling wine by candlelight – very romantic. Luckily we have one of the old fashioned credit card imprinters and there is a way (that I didn’t know about) to manually release the cash drawer if it isn’t locked.
Power came on an hour later – we continued pouring wine throughout the blackout – luckily it was still daylight so there was some light coming in the front windows.
Considering all the rain, I was surprised we did as well as we did with wine sales.
I closed up at 7pm and headed home for my solitary steak birthday dinner. Having been around people for a week, some quiet time is needed.
Skipped breakfast – or shall I say, I had coffee and the cheesecake left over from yesterday’s lunch. It felt better to sleep than eat a heavy breakfast.
I’m here to report that at least when we are in cell phone range, the wi-fi in the Parlour Car seems to be keeping up with everyone. Occasionally I can get a couple of bars in our downstairs room one car back.
Here is a little scenery from said Parlour Car:
And from the wine tasting that oddly enough started during our half hour layover in Portland…
Though as you can tell, we were moving again by the time I took this shot. Speaking of the Portland station – I’ve never had to walk so far to get to the Metropolitan Lounge (for sleeping car passengers) as I did this time – we were on the second to the last tracks away from the station so had to walk the length of the train to cross over:
We were about a half an hour early into Seattle, meaning that by 9PM I was home after catching a cab to Mags house where my car was parked.
Gone for a week? Look at the mail:
And what went into the recycle bin:
Had to make a taco truck run as the early dinner on the train was fading fast.
[? ? ?] we will see how much I’ve gained after 6 days of being fed three squares
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