The adventure begins

Diane’s aunt is celebrating her 90th birthday this weekend, and we’re on our way to join the party.

The timing was almost perfect; both Diane and I have to use up our vacation this year, and this afternoon marked the point at which we were going to run out of year if we didn’t start taking it. But Jeff still has a day of school left; fortunately, it’s a day when he only has three classes, so missing it won’t be a disaster (and he’s going to phone in for one of the classes to participate in some sort of role-play). It was a shame to ruin his perfect attendance record at Kehillah, though — it’s been nice to be at a school which closes for all the Jewish holidays!

We left our house right at 5pm; traffic on 85 was moderately heavy for the first few miles, but then it opened up, and we were able to drive as fast as we wanted until we reached Gilroy and Pacheco Pass Road. I had thought about driving down 101 a bit further and taking 25 through Hollister to avoid Pacheco Pass, but XM traffic said there’d been an accident and traffic was slow. Traffic on Pacheco Pass was slow until we got past the shopping centers (I remember when there was nothing there!), and then it moved at about 45 through the nasty part of the road. And there was no backup at 152 and 156 (that probably won’t be the case tomorrow afternoon!), so we reached Casa de Fruta in just about an hour from the time we left the house.

We made our usual quick stop there, then got back on the road for what I expected would be the easier part of tonight’s journey. There were a couple of patches of fog — nothing really bad, but startling nonetheless. But that was the only thing which slowed us down, and we reached Harris Ranch at 7:30, having enjoyed XM Classics as we zipped down I-5.

Dinner was excellent, as always; now we’re ensconced in our suite (well, that’s what they call it) for the evening. My laptop sees WiFi, but I wasn’t able to get an IP address, so I guess it’s not for guests — I had to fall back to the slow Verizon wide-area service. Good thing I’m not trying to upload any pictures tonight.

Tomorrow is going to have to be an early day, because we have a long drive ahead of us. Including a trip through the LA area on a getaway day. Oy!

A couple of nice red wines

This afternoon was the annual Almaden Holiday Party (this year featuring the song stylings of The Gumbas and Gumbet). As always, there were good things to munch, and this year, there were also good things to drink. I had a little bit of the 2000 Valley of the Moon Cabernet Sauvignon; unfortunately, I didn’t win a bottle (or anything else!) in the raffle.

At home, we’ve been drinking the 2003 7 Deadly Zins, and have quite enjoyed it. I discovered this wine at Almaden, too, when it was served at the 2005 Almaden Institute.

I remember the old days, when alcohol was strictly forbidden at IBM. It’s still fairly unusual to have it served during the day (and you’re not supposed to go back and do work after quaffing), but it’s nice to be less rigid. And, of course, the cafeteria at the IBM HQ location in Paris serves wine every day — but that is a different culture.