As a responsible, pragmatic, and patriotic wine, beer, and spirits drinker of more than 20 years, I urge you to OPPOSE HR 5034. HR 5034 serves only the interests of beer wholesalers and could overturn legal, regulated winery-to-consumer shipping working successfully in 37 states.
Just like many other wine consumers, I enjoy wine purchased from small family growers and vintners and shipped to me directly. If I and many others didn't have this option of direct shipment, then we wouldn't be able to purchase those wines, since smaller wineries often have production too low to interest major wholesaler distribution networks. HR 5034 could restrict the ability of small wineries to ship direct and therefore threatens the livelihood of small family growers and vintners, restricts consumer choice, and irresponsibly places state laws supporting wine, beer and spirits wholesaler middlemen beyond the reach of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Please let me know how you intend to vote on this important consumer rights issue.
Free the Grapes
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Memories of Pismo
Pismo Beach.
Beach dining.
Candy stores.
Wait. What's that sign say?
- Posted at great expense from my iPhone
Beach dining.
Candy stores.
Wait. What's that sign say?
- Posted at great expense from my iPhone
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Lavender Ridge and Laetitia
We attended a tasting at Lavender Ridge winery The cellar is built into the side of the hill.
It's in the Sierra foothills near Murphys, which I briefly blogged about earlier.
Later, we tasted at Laetitia, on the Central Coast. We enjoy their sparkling wines and they have a nice picnic area.
A vineyard shot of Laetitia.
- Posted at great expense from my iPhone
It's in the Sierra foothills near Murphys, which I briefly blogged about earlier.
Later, we tasted at Laetitia, on the Central Coast. We enjoy their sparkling wines and they have a nice picnic area.
A vineyard shot of Laetitia.
- Posted at great expense from my iPhone
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Murphys - Sperry hotel
Murphys has a fun historic district. I only have these two pictures which don't do it justice.
More OCR using Shoot'nPaste from a plaque nearby.
OLD SPERRY HOTEL
THIS HOSTELRY ORIGINALLY BUILT IN 1855 BY J.L. SPERRY OF SPERRY FLOUR FAME AND HIS PARTNER,
JOHN PERRY. AMONG EARLY
GUESTS WHOSE NAMES APPEAR ON OLD REGISTER ARE MARK TWAIN, HORATIO ALGER, THOMAS H. LIPTON,
HENRY WARD BEECHER, THE
ROTHCHILDS, GENERAL U. S. GRANT, AND C. E. BOLTON (BLACK BART).
THE QUAINT OLD HOTEL, ACCORDING TO TRADITION, IS THE ONE REFERRED TO IN BRET HARTE`S "A NIGHT IN WINGDAM".
MURPHYS CAMP FOUNDED IN EARLY 49 BY JOHN AND DANIEL MURPHY. MILLIONS OF GOLD TAKEN FROM CAMP AND VICINITY.
- Posted at great expense from my iPhone
More OCR using Shoot'nPaste from a plaque nearby.
OLD SPERRY HOTEL
THIS HOSTELRY ORIGINALLY BUILT IN 1855 BY J.L. SPERRY OF SPERRY FLOUR FAME AND HIS PARTNER,
JOHN PERRY. AMONG EARLY
GUESTS WHOSE NAMES APPEAR ON OLD REGISTER ARE MARK TWAIN, HORATIO ALGER, THOMAS H. LIPTON,
HENRY WARD BEECHER, THE
ROTHCHILDS, GENERAL U. S. GRANT, AND C. E. BOLTON (BLACK BART).
THE QUAINT OLD HOTEL, ACCORDING TO TRADITION, IS THE ONE REFERRED TO IN BRET HARTE`S "A NIGHT IN WINGDAM".
MURPHYS CAMP FOUNDED IN EARLY 49 BY JOHN AND DANIEL MURPHY. MILLIONS OF GOLD TAKEN FROM CAMP AND VICINITY.
- Posted at great expense from my iPhone
Columbia
I like Columbia State Park. It's an 1850's gold mining town. Visit it if you can.
Using my app Shoot'nPaste (which does OCR) I captured the following text from an informational sign on view nearby this Chinese apothecary. The OCR is sometimes very good. I edited a little.
"Chinese quickly came to Gum San (Gold Mountain), or California. Word spread rapidly
in war torn China that there was a "mountain of gold” waiting in California. At first Chinese, were
encouraged, even by the legislature to settle in California. As competition for dwindling gold increased, the Chinese were easily singled out
and laws were passed to discriminate against the Chinese."
"Chinese immigrants to California often were forced to live in specific areas in towns. Columbia’s Chinese would be confined to an area two blocks north of this store. The fire of 1857, was said to have started within the cramped Chinatown. This tragic event was used to ban the Chinese from living within City Limits. The Chinese never departed, they relocated to areas outside town.
More OCR from an informational plaque:
HAYNES MINING DITCH
As the mining vitality of the 1850s and 1860s diminished, most mining claims were exhausted. Attention turned to hydraulic mining of vacant lots
and untouched lots under buildings. The necessary
water for this operation came from a stone flume,
or ditch, constructed through the center of town in September garbled by Haynes & Co. With this ditch, water was brought to almost any lot in town."
The shops are "authentic" in the sense that the are in 1850's structures and sell themed merch. Here's a counter in a candy store:
The jail used to be the powder storage, relocated to the edge of town after an unfortunate explosion at it's former location closer to the center of town:
Prisoner contact through this little hole. Not much has changed, it appears.
- Posted at great expense from my iPhone
Using my app Shoot'nPaste (which does OCR) I captured the following text from an informational sign on view nearby this Chinese apothecary. The OCR is sometimes very good. I edited a little.
"Chinese quickly came to Gum San (Gold Mountain), or California. Word spread rapidly
in war torn China that there was a "mountain of gold” waiting in California. At first Chinese, were
encouraged, even by the legislature to settle in California. As competition for dwindling gold increased, the Chinese were easily singled out
and laws were passed to discriminate against the Chinese."
"Chinese immigrants to California often were forced to live in specific areas in towns. Columbia’s Chinese would be confined to an area two blocks north of this store. The fire of 1857, was said to have started within the cramped Chinatown. This tragic event was used to ban the Chinese from living within City Limits. The Chinese never departed, they relocated to areas outside town.
More OCR from an informational plaque:
HAYNES MINING DITCH
As the mining vitality of the 1850s and 1860s diminished, most mining claims were exhausted. Attention turned to hydraulic mining of vacant lots
and untouched lots under buildings. The necessary
water for this operation came from a stone flume,
or ditch, constructed through the center of town in September garbled by Haynes & Co. With this ditch, water was brought to almost any lot in town."
The shops are "authentic" in the sense that the are in 1850's structures and sell themed merch. Here's a counter in a candy store:
The jail used to be the powder storage, relocated to the edge of town after an unfortunate explosion at it's former location closer to the center of town:
Prisoner contact through this little hole. Not much has changed, it appears.
- Posted at great expense from my iPhone
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Steam donkey
From the nearby informational sign:
"Gold was discovered in California in 1848 and hordes of fortune hunters were soon digging up the Mother Lode. Needing a continuous supply of water to wash ore from the earth, enterprising miners formed small companies to bring water from the high Sierra. One of these was the Tuolumne County Water Company.
ln those early days Strawberry Flat was an extended meadow including a rock—strewn marshy
area that is today covered by Pinecrest Lake. A second meadow was just above this site where you are standing, and still another was three miles further up the Stanislaus River canyon.
This was to be the locations for three reservoirs built by the Tuolumne County Water Company between 1853 and 1856."
- Posted at great expense from my iPhone
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