Tilted a New Way

Lined up
Originally uploaded by R Stanek

It's been raining here for the past week, so time to dig into the archives again. I love the Santa Barbara Harbor (Marina? Does it have an official name?), and yet for all the happy times I've wandered around there with my camera, I've only uploaded about half a dozen pictures. At the same time, three weeks into my Project 52, and I noticed that a lot of my pictures rely on diagonal lines. Too many of them, perhaps.

So here's a picture from the harbor that's nothing but horizontal and vertical lines! I really love the parallel lines here, but I'm not crazy about this picture. I can't quite put my finger on how it could have been better. Different focal length, maybe?

Wine Tasting with Aunt Amanda!

Eli's sister Amanda visited for a few days, so what did we do, as we do with all our guests when I'm not pregnant? Wine tasting! It was a gorgeous day on the central coast for some wine tasting.

We started at Zaca Mesa, whose viognier we really love. The wines, and my brief comments on them:

• 2008 Estage Z Gris. I'm generally not a fan of rosé, but this was the driest I'd ever had. It wouldn't be bad with cheese and crackers on a summer afternoon.
  
• 2008 Estate Viognier. Love!
  
• 2006 Estate Roussanne. I didn't think I liked this -- it tasted kind of strong to me -- but it had a really nice finish.
  
• 2006 Estate Grenache. I was surprised by how much I liked this, since I don't tend to like the light, sweet reds.
  
• 2006 Estate Z-Cuvee. Unmemorable.
  
• 2005 Estate Syrah. Extremely disappointing. But when an employee overheard us complaining about it, she then poured the 2006 Estate Syrah, which was amazing -- best wine of the day. Crazy! It's only become available in the last few weeks, and that's just in their tasting room -- it won't be available elsewhere for a while yet. What an astounding difference between the two years.
  
• 2005 Estate Z Three. Eh. I'm not big on blends.
  

After lunch in Los Olivos, we headed to the Qupe tasting room, as we are big fans of their syrah. They were also pouring tastings of Verdad and Ethan wines. I didn't like any of the whites, but the three syrahs we tried were all very nice:

• Qupe Syrah - "Santa Barbara County". Only available in the tasting room. It was my least favorite of the three syrahs, but still good.
  
• Ethan Syrah "Rancho Santa Rosa Vineyard". This was fantastic. Only 100 cases of it were made, and the guy claimed that only 11 bottles are left.
  
• Qupe Syrah "Alisos Vineyard". Nearly as good as the Ethan syrah, but a much higher alcohol content. Whoa. I've never been able to hit more than two wineries or tasting rooms in a trip to wine country, so things always kind of blend together by the end of the day.
  

We had a lovely, lovely time, and it was no problem taking Sam. We're learning that when going out, we need to budget an extra 45 minutes every 2.5 hours for feeding Sam, etc. But on a lovely day like yesterday, there are far worse things I could be doing than sitting in the sunshine at a winery and nursing Sam. What a wonderful day.

(Picture: Eli, Sam, and Aunt Amanda, on the Zaca Mesa grounds.)

No news, so here is some bad press!

The Santa Barbara Independent has had excellent coverage of the Gap Fire, but I decided to look for more information elsewhere. A lot of shit went down with the Santa Barbara News-Press before we moved to town, but I thought I should given them one chance. Although the News-Press has an extensive online section for fire coverage, what happens when you actually try to read one of those articles?

This current article requires registration and login to view. You may also purchase the article without a general registration. Click here to proceed to the login, registration or article purchase page.

I emailed them to complain about the lack of free online information they had about the natural disaster in our backyard, and to be fair, I was a little sarcastic, concluding:

We have a wildfire in our backyard, and you can't manage to provide updates on your website? For free? To everyone?

It's 2008, and every other paper in the U.S. has managed to figure out how to put free content online. Get with the program.

To my surprise, I did get an email in response:

Dear website user.

Certain sections of the website currently require login (user needs to be a subscriber in order to access). Please note that a number of sections in the site are FREE of charge such as: News Video coverage on www.newspress.tv, AM1290 Radio station, Classifieds, Special Sections, USA Weekend, House & Home, Our Home, El Mexicano, Goleta Valley Voice, Smart Clips, Photo Galleries, etc, etc.

Okay, I love the "etc, etc." at the end. That is genius. But I was procrastinating, so I decided to email them back:

Thank you for your prompt response. I am very glad to know that the next time there is a natural disaster in Santa Barbara County, I will still be able to peruse the real estate listings in the News-Press. In the meantime, I will get my local news from the Santa Barbara Independent.

I'm very proud that I refrained from complaining about their webpage resizing my browser window. But why bother complaining when I'm never going back to the site again?

Smoke before fire, but both before information

We were visiting family this weekend, and spent a fair amount of time assuring them that we weren't affected by any of the California wildfires, as they were hundreds of miles north of us. And then last night, a fire broke out maybe ten miles from where we live.

The Santa Barbara Independent -- a free, weekly paper -- has had excellent coverage of the fire, with lots of updates on the fire and the status of the evacuations. Their only flaw has been in saying, "For more information, visit the county Fire Department’s website."

I have visited said website, and nowhere is there a mention of the current fire. BlogaBarbara pointed to the Google Group for alerts. A Google Group. In 2008. Please. Nevermind the fact that the only post yesterday is a freaking test of their red alert system, and not an actual post about the actual fire that is burning in the county. I'm sure right now they're a little too busy to set up a blog, or some alert system on their homepage, but maybe they should get it ready for next time. The Independent coverage is good, but it would be nice to have a direct source for the status of the fire and the evacuations.