So being the Wine Predator that I am, I acquired numerous bottles of open and closed wine during and after the Wine Bloggers Conference that I either tasted before I left (nothing like a 3am taste and dump session to break your heart!) or I snaked across the border.
Somehow, I was blessed to bring home three bottles of Okanagan merlot (pictured). One bottle of these bottles that made it home open was
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Some OK Falls & A Spectacular Painted Rock
What an adventure I am on here in the Okanagan, British Columbia!
amazing afternoon hiking @paintedrockwine to rock art then rambling construction site & vines then tasting! #WBC13twitter.com/ArtPredator/st…
— Gwendolyn Alley, MA (@ArtPredator) June 10, 2013
For the first time, the Wine Bloggers Conference ended on Saturday night instead of Sunday (after announcing that 2014’s gathering will be in Santa Barbara which is practically in my backyard! So excited about that!!)
This left bloggers up to their own devices, and while many of them headed to flights from Kelowna or drives West to Vancouver or South and West toward Seattle and Portland, others stuck around for a day or two to learn more about wine in BC.
Personally, I knew I wanted to spend time at Tinhorn Creek. I’d met winemaker/CEO Sandra Oldfield in 2011 through Twitter where I also connected with her husband Kenn. I wanted to learn more about what it’s been like for her as a…
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#WBC13 Penticton, BC Gets Going: A Few Highlights
What a great trip! I’m loving British Columbia! The landscape is beautiful and the wines are too!
So after a great adventure from Seattle via Lake Chelan that included a flight on a seaplane (where poor 1000 Corks got sick!) and lots of delicious wine (a blog post is brewing on that!), I made it to Penticton, British Columbia to the 6th annual Wine Bloggers Conference!
Because our bus was several hours late and delayed at the border for an hour, we missed the first event featuring the sponsors and so the conference proper kicked off for me last night at scenic See Ya Later Ranch high above the north end of Lake Chelan for the Constellations tasting of wines of Okanagan.
No, this isn’t my suitcase and I didn’t pack radishes! But isn’t this salad cute? The dirt was a ground nuts, herbs, and spices with a feta yoghurt dressing! Catered by Okanagan culinary darlings, Cam Smith and Dana Ewart from renowned Joy Road Catering…
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From SeaTac to Lake Chelan: it’s time for WBC13!
I’m leaving on a seaplane!
And then I’m going to taste Lake Chelan wine again!
(I’m very excited about today’s events on my Wine Blogger’s pre- Conference Excursion from Seattle to the Lake Chelan AVA! Read on to read why!)
On the bus, there will be box lunches and beverages for everyone from Blueacre Seafood in Seattle…
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Kant: The hand is the window on to the mind.
Part of a series of blog posts about the 3:15 Experiment events in Seattle June 2, 2013.
Two centuries ago, Immanuel Kant casually remarked: “The hand is the window on to the mind.”
Modern science has sought to make good on this observation. Of all our limbs, the hands make the most varied movements, movements that can be controlled at will. Science has sought to show how these motions, plus the hand’s different ways of gripping and the sense of touch, affect the ways we think.
–Richard Sennet, author of The Craftsman
from “Labors of Love” an article in The Guardian Feb. 1, 2008
I’m in Seattle right now, working on a paper about the 3:15 Experiment as part of my doctoral field work. Danika Dinsmore and Bernadette Meyer started the Experiment in 1993 as a way to write in non-drug induced altered states of consciousness and to discover what it would be like to write collectively (at the same time) but individually (alone) to join in…
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Join an epic conversation… an experiment in writing in altered states of consciousness!
By exploring hypnogogic and hypnopompic states (between sleeping and waking), The 3:15 Experiment challenges writers, provides insight into the collective sleeping/dreaming mind, and creates a conversation through an unusual ritual that is individual yet collaborative, disciplined yet open. Wherever you are on the globe, join this menagerie of poets in the experiment June 2 at 3:15am and 3:15pm Pacific Standard Time. Or join us in Seattle for these special 20th Anniversary 3:15 Experiment Events! Read more…
Happy Vesak 2013!
Happy Vesak! If you’re around Ventura CA, come check out the new Peace Garden at the An Lac Temple!
Guess Who Has A Birthday Celebration This Weekend?
After yoga from 8:15-930am today, a group of Sally McNally’s students, led by Bhante, moved the replica of the Jade Buddha from his resting spot to his place on the ceremonial stage for this weekend’s festivities at the An Lac Buddhist Temple in Ventura CA.
The May Full Moon is ‘Vesak Day’ –a celebration of the Birth of the Buddha (or in some Buddhist traditions, to honor the Birth, Enlightenment, and Passing Away).
From Friday, May 31 to Sunday, June 2, An Lac will offer different activities to celebrate the Birthday of the Buddha.
On Friday, May 31st At 7:30pm you are invited to enjoy the beauty of the garden which emerged from dirt and dust to a beautiful Peace Garden.
Candle light meditation for Vesak in the brand new, beautiful peace garden of An Lac Mission. Please join sitting and walking…
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Wine Predator: 50,000 views!
My Wine Predator blog hits a major milestone!
Between preparing for my doctoral classes in ecopsychology and grading my students’ finals, I just had to go into hiding the past two weeks which meant while I participated in a few twitter tastings, I didn’t get any blogging done on this site and very little on my other sites (including Art Predator, Compassionate Rebel, Whisper Down The Write Alley). And yes. pictured with the Don and Sons Pinot Noir vertical from last Thursday’s twitter tasting are just a portion of the research papers and finals I was reading in order to get my grades in!
Even though I am still not completely done with my grading (and there’s another twitter tasting tonight!), today I was doing a little blogging on Art Predator and ended up checking my stats over here to discover that about midnight last night, my blog hit 50,000 page views! Which, for a wine…
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Earth’s CO2 Hits 400ppm
James Hillman (1998: 101): “The anima mundi indicates the animated possibilities presented by each event as it is, its sensuous presentation as a face.”
On Thursday, May 9, two weeks after Earth Day, on the same day as the eclipse pictured, we hit 400ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere.
“If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385ppm to at most 350ppm,” writes NASA’s James Hansen (2008).
According Pieter Tans of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as reported to AP, the last time we hit 400ppm was 2 million years ago, during the Pleistocene Era when “It was much warmer than it is today.” Back then, forests grew in Greenland, converting the carbon in the air into trees, and sea level was 33 to 66 feet higher than it is today. Other scientists say it may have been as long ago as 10 million years that we had this much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
And modern humans have only been around for 100,000 years.
In 1958, it was 315ppm. Before the Industrial Revolution, it was 280ppm, and following the Ice Age, it was 200ppm. These days, we are adding 2 ppm PER YEAR. Read more…
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