Sage Holiday Advice

n The holidays are upon us; that means the unforeseen and unexpected need for gifts for people who you wouldn’t normally give anything to much less hang out with–as in your boss, a just-paroled relative, or your ex. With that in mind, I’d like to make a blanket...

Great Wine from Unexpected Places

n Wine is now produced in all 50 states. That’s right; wine is now commercially made in every state in the union. Though I’m tempted to cringe when thinking about potential exotic vinous offerings from places like Florida and Alaska, I’ve decided come up with a new...

My Elvis Bathroom

n My friends and family all know about it. To students who visit our house for coaching, it’s become a sort of “B” movie legend. Carla, the kids, and I live with it every day so we barely think about it. I’m referring to our downstairs bathroom just off the...

Deductive Tasting: a Decision Matrix

n “Baseball is 90% mental — the other half is physical.”                                                              Yogi BerraTo a linguistics specialist, life is filled with conditional sentences, or “if – then” clauses. For the rest of us...

Giants! – Champagne Reminder – Vitamin P and More …

n Giants!First off, congratulations to the Giants for sweeping the Tigers in the World Series. I will be the first to admit I didn’t see it coming especially after counting them out twice during the divisional and league championship series. Being a long-time...

Why Mozart Matters

n The classical music industry is in the tank. It’s been there for a while. As of this writing, the orchestras in Minneapolis and Indianapolis are both on strike. Last year the Philadelphia Orchestra, one of the country’s finest and most venerated musical arts...