Sunday, May 15, 2011

International 20 point grading scale for wine

This is my first attempt at this online database application.  I'm curious to see how or if the results appear.

Online wine scoresheet

Later on, I'll add a search feature to query submitted scores. 

Sunday, April 10, 2011

The Historical Significance of My Best Photo

At the Texas Relays in 1985, I was on the infield of the stadium at UT.  I took this picture of Freddie Williams (ACU) with my old Canon AV-1 (aperture controlled SLR, iso 400 film).  I have long said it was one of the best pictures I ever took.



On the 4x400 meter relay, the first leg runs in their own lane.  The second leg runs the first curve in their lane and then breaks to the inside as soon as they come out of the curve.  This is where I was standing and this is what they were doing.  I like the picture because Freddie is in perfect focus and perfect pose in the center, the background is blurred, the other runners are slightly out of focus, and everyone's school name is hidden.  (You can just barely make out Texas A&M on the right.)  It's almost like it was staged, but I actually took this live action shot.

Baylor won that year in a meet record time of 3:00.88.  That record stood for 26 years.  It got broken this year by Texas A&M.



Saturday, April 09, 2011

Memories of Texas Relays

On my first trip to Texas Relays, I watched a teammate run in the finals of the University Women's 400m hurdles. Lisa Owens was the only white girl in the race and, at 5'4" was the shortest. I remember she got 5th but as soon as the race was over, she walked to the infield, pulled her long blond hair to one side and threw up into a drain on the field. I told her later that I had wanted to go down there with some water, but couldn't cross the track. She replied in that honey-sweet southern accent, "oh that's alright. I always throw up."

On my second trip to Texas Relays, we were scheduled to run the University Distance Medley Relay. It was hot, so we stayed under the stadium as long as possible. There's some debate about who was misinformed, but I remember Coach Groll telling Greg and me that the meet was 20 minutes behind schedule, so we should avoid going down to the track too soon. In any case, as we were walking down the steps to the track, the gun for our race went off. We had missed it. Doug Glover said he had thought about running the first leg anyway and see if anyone else showed up. As I stood there watching them finish the first lap, I looked over and saw the Martin twins from New Orleans in the stands. I sat with them and, maybe because of the mixed emotions of pre-race anxiety and shame, I started crying. Suddenly, Greg came to find me and told me that Coach Groseclose wanted to see me. Grose told me in that raspy drawl of his, "the meet director's a personal friend of mine and I've got you into the invitational mile. I told him you wouldn't let us down. So, you're with the big boys now - but you're one of them." I did OK, but had been warming up for almost 2 hours and had lost most of my kick. I finished 5th in 4:04.

On my third trip to Texas Relays, I learned one of the most valuable lessons of my life. I was anchoring the Distance Medley Relay, which meant I had to wait for the 1200, 400, and 800 meter legs to finish. During the time we were milling around waiting to run, I had a chance to size up the competition. Running for Arkansas was Doug Consiglio, who had won NCAA 1500 indoors that year. Running for Rice was Gawain Guy, who was on the Jamacain Olympic team the year before for 1500m. Running for Stanford was Jeff Atkinson, who would end up winning the U.S. Olympic Trials in the 1500m in 1988. I managed to convince myself that there was no way I could beat these three. None of the others I recognized. Sure enough, we got 4th place. Well, actually, we got 3rd place because Arkansas got disqualified for a lane violation, but those three were the only ones to finish ahead of me. The lesson was this: if you believe you can't do something, your brain will work to prove you right.

Warming down after that race, I caught up with Atkinson on the side track that used to be there. He was warming down, too, so we had at least something to talk about. As we were running along, his teammate Ceci Hopp came bounding up. Ceci was the beauty darling of the running world (Lauri Young had the same distinction in the high jump and the heptathlon).

On my last trip to Texas Relays, I ran, among other things, the 1500m and got out-kicked by perhaps the ugliest dude in track. I won't say where he was from (German Fernandez goes there) - this guy had a head too big for his distrance runner's body, had white white skin but really bad acne on his face, back, and head. You knew he had it on his head because he had a wide mohawk. Whew.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Xiamen Teas

When I went to China in 2009, I found a type of tea that I and everyone I served it to loves. Someone had told me the name of it was (loosely translated) Drunken Susie. So, on my trip back last week, it was imperative that I find some more.

There are, of course, many types of tea there. I learned more about tea this time than I ever knew before. For your edification, here is a rough list of the factors involved in the various classifications.
  • The tree variety
  • The soil, altitude, and cultivation
  • The leaf selection
  • Fermentation
  • Roasting or drying
  • Aging
  • Water temperature
  • Brewing time
Beyond the first 3 factors, there are essentially three types of tea - black, green & Oolong. These three varieties of tea are distinguished by the amount of fermentation that takes place in processing them.
  • Black Tea is fermented, then roasted to produce a dark reddish-brown brew.
  • Green Tea is unfermented to leave a greenish, slightly bitter taste.
  • Oolong Tea is semi-fermented and produces a milder brew with characteristics of both black and green tea.
Fermentation changes the chemical structure of the tea leaf, allowing key flavor characteristics to emerge. The tea leaves are first withered to remove about 1/3 of their weight through evaporation. They are then rolled and spread on cement or tile floors and tables in a cool, humid room to ferment from 1 to 5 hours. The leaves are then roasted in hot pans or modern dryers to remove almost all of their moisture and stop the fermentation process. They are then rolled and fired. Oolong is withered and fermented in one shorter stage then fired which halts the fermentation when it is about half complete. It is the extent of both the fermentation and the roasting that produce the wide variety of Oolong.  There is also a kind of tea that is intended to be aged - Pu'erh tea.  It is fully fermented, fully roasted, then compacted into a ball or brick and kept in stable condition for years.  (I got to drink a 17-year old Pu-erh tea.  The aroma is much more powerful than the taste).

 
My favorite is a modern style of a semi-fermented, lightly roasted Oolong known as (no joke) Om Bhuddism. As it turns out, Drunken Susie is actually a brand name of a Xiamen tea company - Cha Shway Tsee Tsuh (Cha being the Chinese word for tea and the rest being the company name). So, I was able to score some more of my favorite tea (Om Bhuddism), this time from a Xiamen company called Sea Dyke (Hi-Dee in Chinese). I also bought a box of Cheng Bay Woda, which is the traditional preparation of the semi-fermented, lightly roasted Oolong.