Weeks of Wine . . . and Beer!

The past few weeks have been hectic at work but I have not been using that as an excuse to neglect opportunities to socialize and enjoy myself. Two weeks ago I was honored to be asked to speak at the Petroleum Club of Houston's annual French-American wine dinner.

The PCH's wine dinners are always extraordinary affairs, very elegant and well coordinated. During my three years on the Wine Committee, I helped select the wines to pair with the themed menus for the dinners and usually presented at least one wine at each dinner. Presentations ranged from serious and informative to fun and entertaining--naturally I usually tried to combine the two.

Of the nine wine dinners each year, my favorite was always the Classic, a glorious black-tie affair at which every wine poured was rated "Classic" (95 points or greater). A very close second, though, was the French-American. At this dinner two wines are served with each course, one French and one American. They are of the same varietal/blend and are served blind. The presenters for each course then withhold the revelation of which is which until the very end, often only after teasing the attendees with evidence that could point in either direction. Needless to say, I was looking forward to my first PCH French-American wine dinner in three years.

As always the food was exquisite, many of the wines were superb, and the company was incomparable. I presented the dessert course wines with my co-conspirator and favorite wingman, Cox. Three years ago we co-presented the main course wines at this dinner. I dressed as Napoleon while he dressed as George Washington and we held a French-American debate that transcended the boundaries of just wine. We knew we needed to follow that up with another rousing debate but we wanted to do something a little different.

And so it was that we conducted this wine talk with . . . puppets. Cox played the role of Wine Monster (Cookie Monster's twin brother), representing the US, while I presented as Kermitage Le Frog, obviously representing France. Our talk was mostly on the silly side since, by the dessert course, most attendees have already had eight glasses (or more) of wine and attention spans for wine geek facts are low. This turned out to bite us in the butt as well, though; by the time we took the podium, Cox was so inebriated that he could barely read the words of our talk. No worries, though; I think that actually enhanced our presentation value. The talk was well received and we had a grand time.

Later that same weekend I co-hosted a wine event for the seniors of Lovett College at Rice University. This was a great event that brought students, faculty, staff, and alumni together, added five very nice wines for lubrication, and produced great conversations and new connections among all. I wish we had had such an event when I was a senior but I at least hope to participate in many more as an alum.

Last week Katie and I met up with some of her work colleagues for dinner at Rudi Lechner's for German cuisine. We departed from wine in favor dark German beer (Spaten Optimator) and feasted on spatzle, zucchini bread, and fresh baked pretzels with rich mustard. A two-man band with accordion, brass, and alphorns kept us entertained and even got us out on the make-shift dance floor for the chicken dance. Awesome!

Just last night we received an urgent call from friend and former Lovett president, Rizzo, who needed to fill out his trivia team for Seinfeld night at Little Woodrow's. As Katie and I are in the middle of watching every episode of Seinfeld, we couldn't resist. Actually, we tried to resist, but when I learned that they had Guinness on tap, I was sold! It was a great night even though we only took third place. If only Katie and I had finished all of the Seinfeld seasons, I'm sure we would have won it all!

Winter Olympics are Over

Last night marked the end of the Winter Olympics and we're sad to see them go. At least they ended with a bang, Canada's 3-2 overtime win over USA in men's hockey--a riveting game that unfortunately came out with the wrong victor. Next time!

The final weighted medal scores (Gold 5, Silver 3, Bronze 1) for the top countries were as follows:

USA 103

Germany and Canada 96

Norway 75

South Korea 50

Austria 44

Russia 37

China and Sweden 35

Switzerland 33

Well done to all the athletes; I look forward to the 2014 games!

Over the past two weeks Katie and I have become accustomed to having some TV on in the background while we cook. Now that the Olympics are over, we've begun making our way through all of the seasons of Seinfeld--chronologically, of course!

What a show! We're just getting started with it and it's amazing to see the early episodes--now 20 years old! Everything seems so . . . scripted. It's almost like watching a small ensemble play. The actors aren't comfortable in their characters yet so their acting seems very . . . intentional. Still, the comedy is good and we've had several laugh out loud moments already.

Great stuff! So thank you, NBC, for both the Olympics and Seinfeld! And 30 Rock! And The Office! Now if only you had football . . .

Valentine's Day

Katie and I aren't huge fans of overhyped, overcommercialized Valentine's Day but we never turn down an opportunity for a special date night. Instead of going out to a restaurant, we always stay in and cook a special meal for Valentine's Day. Usually we choose a specific culinary ingredient or theme and we alternate who takes the lead each year. This year it was my turn and I chose ginger as the common ingredient since Katie is a little--OK, a LOT--crazy about ginger.

Katie had been gone much of the day Saturday, giving me ample opportunity to prepare dishes in advance in secret. When Sunday rolled around, the day shaped up to be so beautiful that we decided to forgo dinner in lieu of an all-afternoon late lunch outdoors on our patio. The weather was in the mid-60s and very sunny, great for sitting out on our deck chairs and enjoying some Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc 2008.

The first course was just as light and refreshing as the sauv blanc: cold lychees marinated in fresh lime juice and ginger. Zesty and delicious! Next up was the first of two soups: pear and ginger bisque. This was a carrot and sweet potato soup base with big chunks of Bosc pear and butternut squash for texture. It was delicious hot but, as we later found out, even better cold.

The next soup was similar in that it too had a base of carrot and sweet potato. However, its flavor profile was very different: Indian-spiced carrot-ginger soup. This had a very smooth texture and spicy overtones. I served it hot with a dollop of plain yogurt to complement the spice.

That was enough soup for a while so the next course was stir fried broccoli, tofu, and butternut squash in a light ginger-garlic butter. Technically the recipe only called for me to produce ginger butter, but who would go for ginger only when you have the option to add garlic?!

Last but not least was the piece de resistance. With the wine finished and the temperature cooling outside, we headed into the warm indoors for . . . homemade dark chocolate and ginger ice cream! So good! Most of the meal made for days and days of leftovers, but the ice cream was gone before that evening's Olympics broadcast had ended.

This was the our first Valentine's Day together in three years and I think it's safe to say that we both enjoyed it tremendously.

Pics are in my facebook album.

Sports Season Transition

There were two reasons to be depressed following the Super Bowl this year. The first was that Peyton Manning failed to win a second league championship. Colts special teams were poor and Manning couldn't get any help at all from his receivers. Kudos to New Orleans, which played a great game of ballsy calls and good execution.

The second reason to be depressed is simply that the football season is now over. Sure there will be some buzz around scouting combines, spring training, and the NFL draft, but things really won't pick back up again until August. This makes Bryan sad--probably more productive, but sad.

Fortunately there are some silver linings. For instance, the end of football always marks the beginning of college baseball. The mighty Rice Owls opened the season poorly, being swept this weekend by Stanford, but it's better to stumble at this point of the season than in the post-season!

Another silver lining is the start of the beach volleyball season. In colder climates, beach volleyball might not be possible for months, but here in Houston this weekend offered the perfect opportunity for it. Saturday was sunny with a high in the low 70s. Several of us met early in the morning and played for hours. Some rust had to be shaken off--and it didn't help that some of us had been out until 4 AM the night before--but it was a lot of fun. Welcome back, Spring weather!

In the meantime I'm continuing to enjoy the Winter Olympics. I've never cheered so hard for sports I understand so little! Saturday night, at a friend's birthday party, we all found ourself huddled around the TV and cheering on the US Curling team, not to mention our speed skaters. The USA is still in first place according to my weighted medal scoring system, with a score of 66, but Germany is breathing down our neck with 56. Here's hoping for an exciting final week!

Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympics have begun and I once again find myself captivated by numerous sports that I don't understand at all. There's just something so fundamentally interesting about assembling the best in the world for fair competition, no matter the sport or event.

Relative to the Winter Olympics of 2006, these games have more meaning for me. Of course I cheer for the USA, as I always have, and for Italy, as I always have. But now I also cheer for Switzerland and a host of other countries where I now have dear friends, classmates, and colleagues. For example, when the Czech Republic won gold, I smiled broadly as I knew my Czech friends would be celebrating intensely--especially as seriously as they take winter sports!

As there is still debate among countries about the proper way to "score" Olympic medal counts (See my post from the Summer Olympics of 2008.), I continue to use my weighted medal system (See my follow-up post from the Summer Olympics of 2008.) in which golds receive 5 points, silvers 3 points, and bronzes 1 point. By this account, the current standings are:

USA and Germany tied for first (14 points), France (11), South Korea (8), Canada (6), Czech Republic, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Slovakia tied (5), Italy (2)

Note that if the Czech Republic and Slovakia are combined (as I know my good friend, Martin Najzr, would want), they're in fourth place, just behind France. Russia is conspicuously missing from the list so far, but I know our comrades will pick up the pace soon.

Let the Games begin; I look forward to following the events over the next two weeks!

Running

A good friend of mine, fitness/nutrition enthusiast, and national champion Division I-A college athlete runs an awesome blog called The SHOP. I encourage anyone interested in fitness and/or nutrition to check it out. Occasionally he allows guest columnists. After a mutual acquaintance posted a recap of his half marathon experience, I was compelled to post a more detailed recap of my own competitive running experience--the Texas Med Center 5k of two weekends ago.

What began as a simple recap, though, quickly became more of a complete history of my involvement in running for training and competition purposes. You can see the full post on The Shop's most recent blog entry:

HERE

2010 Goal Progress

With January behind us, it's time to reflect on my progress toward meeting this year's new year's resolutions.

So far my weekly relationship goals have been met; I'm connecting with Katie, friends, family, mentors, and mentees (manatees?) as much as I set out to. My exercise and activity goals have largely been met, although my progress toward body composition goals isn't advancing as quickly as I would like. This may be related to my caloric intake, which is still too high.

Professionally things are moving along. Although I've only closed 25% of our seed round of financing, many additional parties have expressed interest and I am confident that we'll get it done by the end of March. In the meantime we're also progressing toward our Series A financing, which is exciting, and our first pilot installations have been a huge success. By now we have reduced CO2 emissions by only 0.01 tons, but it's a start!

One major goal checked off this month actually occurred on Saturday. I set a new year's resolution to run a 5k race in under 22:00. This time was chosen somewhat arbitrarily. I've only run one 5k race before, almost three years ago, and I came in at 24:28. 22:00 therefore seemed like a stretch goal worth training for.

I haven't done any 5k-specific training other than running a timed 5k a few times a year but I do run greater distances at lower speeds with more frequency. This seems to have helped as I ran a timed 5k last week as a warm-up for this weekend's race and I came in at 22:35. I'm about 15 pounds lighter than I was at my last race and I'm sure that helps!

Saturday Katie and I entered the Texas Med 5k, which kicked off at 8:30 AM. The race route wound its way through the [very flat] Texas Medical Center and proceeds went to the Harris County Hospital District. I had been very excited about this race as it would be my first race running barefoot. My confidence wavered, though, when we woke up to a rainy 35 degrees F! Was this really the environment in which I wanted to debut my barefoot running? Maybe I should wear shoes and save the Vibrams for the next race . . .

I steeled myself, though, donned my Swiss cold weather running gear, put on my Vibrams, and headed to the race. To make a long story short, I blew through my 22:00 goal and finished at 21:43, #46 of 1,000+ runners. #1 came in at 15:21 so I still have quite a ways to go if I want to place! It took a lot out of me as I dry heaved at the finish line, but it felt great to nail one of my 2010 goals so early. I'll run at least one more 5k this year and will see how much I can improve on that time--it would be great to get down into the teens!

Katie also came in significantly under her goal time so we celebrated together at the finish line. They had hot food, cold beer, and live blues for us at the after-race party, but we didn't stick around long--too cold!

Now, with one goal checked off, it's time to redouble efforts in pursuit of the others!