Dinosaurs. Big Ones.

On Friday we had the opportunity to head down to the Sprint Center to see "Walking With Dinosaurs" a "live" experience brought to us courtesy of The Creature Production Company and the BBC. It has to have been one of the wildest things I have ever seen. Incredibly animated, life-sized dinosaurs roaming around the arena. Roaring, running, hunting and eating. If you have a chance to check it out, I highly recommend it. Even if you're not necessarily into dinos, go to see the mechanics of these giant lizards and how the artists who created them managed to capture life that existed hundreds of millions of years ago. I could have sworn the T-Rex was breathing. There's a moment where you have to remind your instincts that you are looking at sculptures of foam rubber and not a giant Allosaurus who will rip you limb from limb. Our other favorite part was the inflatable plants. They would pop up during specific moments in the show and made for the coolest effect. Unfortunately the photos were shot with my phone because we were told that "flash photography makes the dinos angry", but you can still get the idea.

Pink is the new...pink

Over the weekend, one of my favorite Spanish cyclists Alberto "Conquista" Contador (my own unofficial nickname for him) won the Giro di Italia (Tour of Italy) cycling race. Originally his Astana team was not invited to participate so he took a lovely vacation with his girlfriend to the beaches of Spain. Next thing you know he receives a phone call from his Team Director and hops on a plane to Italy. I don't know about you, but to go from, "Gosh these beaches are lovely and this Pina Colada is splendid", to "I'm riding 3,424 km over the next 23 days over some of the most insane mountain climbs in all of Italy while wearing a pink spandex suit"... yikes. That's a little bit of "crazy". The man has some ridiculous skills. And some serious making up to do with his girlfriend for ditching her during their vacation. The 90,000 euros he won could help.

A bit of perspective

Brother Josh here again with a dose from Oz:
Tonight in WSET Level 3 Class, we were starting to tie up the loose ends, pick up the parts of the world we hadn't gotten to and be ready for our final test coming up in 3 weeks. Tonight focused on the minor wine "high quality" regions such as Greece, Israel, Jordan, and the US. Yup, we summarized the entire wine production of the US in half of a two-hour class. Grouped with such heavy hitters as kosher wine from Israel, it really made for some strange tasting notes.

In this class we've seen detailed maps of Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Greece all showing multiple wine regions, areas, climates, and cities. For the US, we got a broad view of the country, and then a detail of California - mainly focused on the bulk wine area of the Central Valley (think Paul Mason, old Earnest and Julio Gallo). Luckily the wines really proved themselves when up against the big wines of Greece. A great Chardonnay from Russian River, an absolutely MASSIVE Pinot Noir from Oregon, a Merlot and a fairly understated Zin (surprised me actually). Most of the class was impressed and surprised but I think it'll be a long time before they'd put some of the wines on the same par as first growth chateau from Bordeaux.

Somehow though, my formative wine years (aka - first years in a "real" job) were spent mainly in California and US wine and its my basis of comparison. I appreciate the structure of the "old world" wines, but there is something nice about the fruit and approachability of the US wines. Tonight it was a reminder of home and how there are so many wines available and many are quite good. It was also a reminder that to the rest of the world (ok, maybe just the UK), the US still has a ways to go before we get our own 2hr section of the WSET course.