Sommlier? Who Would Have Guessed?

As I have mentioned a week or so ago when I started substituting for the world traveller Ed – I majored in college leading to a BS in chemistry and math. I then
went to work for 38 years as a product development chemist ending up as Director of Quality Assurance. Fun career! Never in the world have dreamed becoming a wine retailer and budding Sommlier but that is exactly what I am doing now.

I own a company called Winedog LLC. We offer over 350 wines for sale. I started in partnership with a chef and ran a bistro restaurant and wine retail shop in Blanchester, Ohio. My partner has gone away to another vocation and I have continued developing the business.

We ship anywhere in the continental USA. We offer wine tasting parties here locally that help people increase their knowledge about wines and how to expand their wine tastes. Typically we do a tasting with 7 or 8 wines, a mixture of dry, sweet red and white wines, and a sparkling wine. We match them (pair them in tasting lingo) with hors d’ouevres (appetizers) that the wines go well with. We go through each of the pairs, one at a time, describing the fragrance and taste notes that most people notice about the individual wines.

The participants end up knowing what they should look for in wines and how to respond to wine service in restaurants. This also gives them a better idea as to which types of wines they prefer. Some even realize that both sweet and dry wines taste great if the foods they are chosen for are compatible. For example most people when they choose a wine for salmon would go for a dry white when a better choice for most people would be a dry pinot noir. Try it next time you have salmon.

Almost 95% of our business comes in by phone or internet. This is good because we have the only “wet” address in an otherwise dry township in Clinton County. A parade of customers coming in to buy wine would really turn off the majority of Quakers in this community. Our community is rural for sure with homes a half mile or more between houses. We have a covered bridge, one of the few left in Ohio. It was rebuilt about 3 years ago to carry road maximum weight vehicles – another great feature of this area – easy truck access to receive wine deliveries.

If any of this blog’s readers like wine and want a great deal – we have it for you. We are located on the web at www.winedog.com. You are welcome anytime. Physically we are located on Martinsville Rd about 12 miles South of Wilmington, Ohio. Remind me that you are a Hymark reader and you’ll receive an extra 10% off your first order.
Hope the second half of your weekend is productive, restful and fulfilling. Remember this is Thanksgiving Week. We have much to be thankful for don’t we?

Talk again tomorrow!

Ralph Taylor
Blogging for my friend Ed Winkle

Shadow and Samantha

Shadow and Samantha

The 3rd favorite dog I dearly loved was Shadow – A dog I first met when asked to help a no kill shelter provide temporary homes for stray dogs. I felt really bad for Shadow since my wife, being terribly allergic to dog danger could not have Shadow stay in our space but had to stay in a cage in the basement. I made the mistake of going down to keep Shadow company. She would shut her eyes and enjoy my scratching her head and back breathing very heavy when I was around. We finally adopted Shadow because I was hooked on her. She followed me everywhere I went living up to her name.

As you can see from the picture the ties were very close between Shadow and me. She had to be put down year before last when we discovered a large tumor on her side and at age 17 she would not fare well in surgery. That was the most difficult thing I have ever had to do is hold her in my arms as our Vet gave her the lethal injection. Whew!

The fourth most favorite dog is our current dog Samantha. She has learned how to talk – that’s right talk! See for yourself:



One of my children commented on this video about how good a teacher Samantha was teaching Dad to talk like she did. Very funny!

We have two other younger dogs who will likely become 5 and 6 of the all-time most favorite dogs. We are going through a rough patch right now since Sir George does not seem to know what to do to get Lady Bella pregnant. The two of them have been through 9 heats and all we see is Sir George trying his best but never able to get to the right spot.

We consulted our vet who showed us what to do to facilitate conception. That is a whole other story and one that is not appropriate with this audience . Boy that is the weirdest an kinkiest thing we have ever considered doing in our entire life’s experiences with pets.

Hope you weekend if off to a great start!

Blogging for Ed Winkle
Who is at this hour cruising up to Prague in the Czech Republic

Ralph Taylor

Smiling Dog

Dogs really are man’s best friend! I’ve always had a dog in my life. There are four that really stand out for me, one of whom, Butch, I talked about yesterday.

The second very special dog I can remember was Sandy, an Irish setter. She was always at my side as I was going through puberty. She had such a beautiful smile – kind of like the picture to the left. Every time we would take a ride in the car she was with us smiling at anyone who came up to the car to admire her. Not sure what made her smile when other dogs could not but she was able to cause her upper lip to raise and her bottom lip to pull down and the resultant appearance was a dog who was smiling.

That same feature used to get me in trouble with my Mom when she was scolding me. Sandy used to sit by her side when she was yelling at me. Invariably Sandy would sit there looking at me and give me one of her smiles. I tried my best not to look at Sandy while taking the scolding because I could not keep from laughing out loud at this dog who seemed to like to get me in trouble. Needless to say my Mom got furious with the insolence this son of hers was showing cracking up while she was yelling at me.

When I was in my 20’s married and away from home, my Mom and I used to laugh about the trouble Sandy used to get me in with her smile.

Ralph Taylor – Substitute Blogger
For Ed Winkle – Who was in Nuremburg Germany today

Behavior Modification

A very useful skill to learn before you have children. It was one that I learned how to do when age 10.

I’ve always had a dog in my life. My very first dog was a beagle hound named Butch. He was the self-proclaimed neighborhood watch dog. Anyone who dared drive their vehicle down the 4 blocks of Utopia Place in Hyde Park in Cincinnati used to be challenged by Butch. We lived in the 2nd house from the entrance so he had the perfect vantage point to challenge any vehicle. Heaven forbid it was a truck! He had this very bad habit of chasing the trucks that brought us milk and eggs or that delivered the newspaper or picked up the garbage.

The people who drove these trucks had to, at some point, get out to deliver their goods. There would be Butch waiting to get his treat with his tail wagging furiously. The regulars all knew Butch and why he was chasing their vehicle. If this was your first time and didn’t know him and how harmless he was, you’d swear that your life was in jeopardy, especially after witnessing him chasing alongside your car or truck with teeth snarling.

We tried to make Butch stop chasing cars and trucks because he might get hit or we might be sued if someone had a heart seizure or stroke due out of fear. Luckily most of the people who ventured down Utopia Place were regulars. One of the garbage men, however, was taking no chances. When he witnessed the viscous assault on his truck as he approached our house he got out his claw hook that he used to grab and drag the trash cans to the back of the truck to empty it. He used this hook to defend himself not knowing that all he needed was a dog treat. One swipe of that hook was all that was needed to puncture Butch’s back beneath the scruff of his neck and he was down and out bleeding all over the place. The garbage man thought he had killed Butch and rushed down the rest of the street, completed his tasks and left our community. After the vet put several stitches to close the wound it was obvious that Butch would live to welcome next week’s trucks and beyond.

It was clear that we had to do something to make Butch stop chasing cars and trucks so we developed a plan. We talked to the milk man and he agreed to pick me up before he drove into our street. Butch hated to get a bath and to be wet. So I filled 4 large buckets with cold water and took them to the pickup point. The milk truck came to the agreed upon loading spot and I loaded up the buckets of water near the right hand open door. Butch always chased along the right hand side of the vehicles. The milk truck pulled into Utopia Place like usual and true to form Butch took out to chase it like he always did dreaming of the great treats this guy usually had for him when he stopped to bring us milk. The treat that was waiting for Butch was one he never forgot!

I waited until Butch pulled alongside the back tire and poured the water on Butch. He momentarily broke his stride but recovered catching up to the middle of the truck to see who had doused him. He and I made eye contact when he received his second bucket full of water this time realizing that today’s chase was different he let out a couple of yelps but persevered then got another bucket full and tried once more to catch up to the front tire when hit with the 4th bucket full of water. It was at that point he gave up the chase and went back home with a puzzled and dismayed look on his face. He laid down waiting for the truck to return as he was leaving. No move to chase it again. I got off the truck once out of sight of the miserable hound, He saw me coming back home and gave me a halfhearted welcome. He did not realize that it was his master who almost drown him.

In fact Butch wisely decided that it was no longer much fun to chase the cars and trucks if he had to chance another encountering another waterfall. From that moment on Butch realized that all of the people who drove the trucks and gave him snacks still stopped to give him the treat only now he could drop the exhausting chase and still get the treat and not have to experience another flood.

Behavior Modified!!

Little did I know at age 10 that this technique would be come in very handy when redeployed with teenagers. No I never used the “water boarding technique” on my children but the process worked well when redeployed as the kids grew up.

Ralph Taylor - Guest Blogger
For Ed Winkle who today is sailing
on the Danube through Germany

German

Editorial Comment:This is for Wednesday November 17th and is written by the real Ed Winkle himself
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It has taken me 18 years to get back to the Fatherland. 18 years! I don't know why it took me so long. I guess I never had a good reason to come back before today.

I was accepted into LEAD Class IV at Ohio State in 1991. The 60 day intensive agricultural study over two years with 29 classmates culminated in a 3 week trip to Europe in 1993. We were here in February 1992 or 3, I cannot remember which at this moment and it was the greatest thing that had happened to me at that point in my life.

I love Germany and I love Europe, the roots of my ancestors. I am Celt and German with some Dutch thrown in for good measure. I woke up early this morning anticipating taking LuAnn to my Fatherland later this morning.

I am German through and through. The words and pronunciation is coming back to me. It is a shame my high school did not offer German as it was the only language that interested me when I was told I needed two years of foreign language to attend college back in 1963. My school only offered French and Spanish so I chose French which helped me greatly in our tour of Paris and the Paris Agricultural Show a few years ago.

At this point in our River Danube Oddesey cruise I can say the Abbey at Melk, Austria has been most impressive. Everything has been wonderful, though, and I can highly recommend Vantage Travel to you for your European exploration. They are Europeans who speak English and know their continent very well.

The 160 people on the cruise are well educated and well travelled and in my age group. We have met several new friends we will see again in the future. One is Doug and Mary Bocksteigel from West Bend, Wisconsin, originally from Oak Hills of Cincinnati. We have a lot in common and they are delightful people.

If you mention my name when you sign up for one of Vantage's trips, we both receive a nice little discount. I will share more about that later but this morning I am enjoying telling you about our trip up the Danube from Budapest to almost Germany today.

We will spend the day around Passau, Germany before travelling on up the river.

It has taken me 18 years to get back to this country but I am almost there.

I can't wait to get off the ship and look around.

Ralph, you are doing a great job, just like I imagined and even better. It will take me awhile to digest your well written posts when we return home.

Ed and LuAnn

The Challenges Of Being A Responsible Father

My first wife and I raised 3 children – all girls who are now fully grown and have families of their own. I was very idealistic as a young father. I firmly believed in a tough love approach to handling problems the girls encountered along the way. Our oldest girl, Kim, was pretty savvy in the way she handled her relationship with her parents. She seemed to know how much to tell us and not. Her sister, Pam, the middle child, always seemed to be telling us more than she should which resulted in us working much harder to stay ahead of her escapades. The 3rd girl, Karen, didn’t seem to worry much about what we thought about her activities. From what I hear this is pretty typical of a family with 3 children.

One of the areas that we watched carefully was the choice of friends that I daughters hung around with. The other was the type of music they listened to. Everything was great as they progressed from infancy into the preteen age. All 3 were intelligent – how could they not be with the genes they inherited from their parents? They seemed to socialize well and interacted well with other children and adults. Very respectful and well behaved in public settings.

Then came the teen years! Day to day life changed for our family much like it does for most. Our first born seemed to know how to handle her heightened hormonal levels – picked great companions, excelled in academics everything progressed smoothly. The story for our middle girl was another matter. Don’t get me wrong – she wasn’t a bad kid – she just got into more trouble than her older sister and, without exception, always got caught. She used to often say that if she did something wrong that I somehow would find out about it and she would get grounded.

She spent ¾’s or her teen years grounded! For example – At fourteen she was “madly in love” with boy 3 years older than her. We thought that was not a good idea and forbid her to see this boy at home. Well you can guess how well that worked. She figured out many ways of making contact with him as close to home as possible. He was determined to see her whether we allowed it or not! One of our neighbors who also had teen daughters informed us that our middle daughter’s boyfriend was climbing the tree in front of the house and sitting outside her bedroom window to smoke and talk with her through the screen.

I thought to myself “How dare she and he defy our rule that Pam could not see this boy”. I announced at dinner one night that I would be leaving for a meeting at church around 8 PM or so. Around that time I got our baseball bat out of the closet and hid in the backyard waiting for Pam’s true love to climb the tree at the front porch. About 8:45 or so I felt sure that he was a no show but decided to wait a little longer since her quiet time before lights out began at 8:15. Sure enough he arrived around 9 PM and climbed the tree. I snuck around to the front underneath his only escape route. I listened for a minute or so to the chatter going on from the roof outside her window. I then called out that the jig was up and that I was coming up the tree for a little talk. About halfway up he sped past me knocking me to the ground atop my bat knocking all the air out of my lungs. Great plan but poor execution!

The boy wisely cut off his visits to the front porch and I began creating alternative plans if some other suitor came calling. Their mother suggested that there was a better way to handle the situation and that was for me to simply tell our daughter how neat her boyfriend was that she brought to meet us. Do that and we'll not see him again.

“What? Are you nuts?” I exclaimed! She convinced me to give it a try. Pam brought her new beau home to meet us. He had a leather vest on but no shirt and razor blade earrings and a stud in his tongue. I was cordial with him with him. Pam suspected that I must not have looked closely at him when he came in. After he left Pam asked what I thought about him. “He seemed like a pretty neat kid” was all I could manage to come out of my mouth. Much to my surprise – that kid never entered our house again. My wife was right! Much easier than physical confrontation!

Live and learn! Later this week I’ll share how to handle a runaway kid. You’ll enjoy it! One of my better moments as a stern disciplinarian 

Have a great Tuesday!

Ralph Taylor
Blogging for Ed Winkle who is on vacation in middle Europe.

Home Heating Miracle

Ever think back about how home heating has improved over the years? I did this morning as I opened my eyes and stepped out of bed to a warm home without having to go down to the basement and stoke the furnace. Everything is on automatic today whereas in my childhood it took considerable time and effort to heat the house. We heated our home in 1940’s and 50’s with a coal burning furnace – a huge monster sitting in the middle of our basement with 30 foot 5 inch galvanized arms going out in all directions to each of the registers – looked like a giant octopus! There was little room for anything else in our basement because the furnace took up all of the available space. This setup was pretty modern compared to many of our neighbors who had wood burning furnaces that required a lot more work to be comfortable in the winter.

The fuel for our furnace was coal. It was delivered once or twice each winter to our driveway by a huge dump truck – Guess everything when I was young seemed huge. My job was to shovel each truck full of coal into our coal room next to the furnace. What a job! Not only was there a lot of coal in every truck load but it was dirty!

Stoking the furnace was also dirty job – seems a wonder to me that I didn’t contract black lung disease or the like. We had to shake down all of the burnt embers and ashes to the bottom reservoir. The fresh coal was shoveled from the coal room into a feeder box on the side of the furnace. Most houses had a furnace that had to have someone shovel coal in a door in the front every few hours or so. Not ours – it had an automatic feeder. Somehow it knew when to add more and it magically dumped more in the main chamber.

Another job I was assigned was to shovel out the ashes from the bottom of this monster. I’d shovel it into “ash cans” the size of today’s garbage cans which I struggled to the front curb on garbage day each week.
Another neat feature was the thermostat on ours was a series of chains hooked to a thermometer. When the temperature hit a certain minimum set point, it pulled a chain which in turn pulled on several other chains which caused more coal to be fed to the furnace and louvers to be opened allowing the gravity fed hot air to be dispersed into the rooms. We were fortunate because my Grandpa Ralph was an engineer who designed these automatic features into the heating system. Most people did not have much of this and therefor had more to do to get the house warm in the mornings.

We eventually graduated to natural gas fed furnaces and then to forced air propane hot water in floor heating that we have in our country home today. In fact we just upgraded to geothermal system for both heating and cooling. All of the heat is extracted from the water circulating through tubes under the ground that is pumped through the heat pump in our basement. This heat pump occupies a 4 foot by 3 foot by 4 foot area in our basement. It sounds much like a dehumidifier - super quiet! . This small unit heats the water that flows through tubing buried in the floors in 4 different zones on the first floor, second floor, basement and garage – each separately thermostatically controlled. The heat pump is quiet, clean, 40% as costly to operate as the propane boiler that it replaced and has a dramatically smaller carbon footprint to boot. This same heat pump heats our tap water to 135 degrees, heats our hot tub and cools the water to 42 degrees for air conditioner in the Spring and Summer.

When I stepped out of bed this morning it was to a warm floor heated with geothermally heated water. What a change over the “good old days” with no smoke billowing out the chimney, no coal dust in the basement no ashes to put out to the garbage trucks – just warmth, comfort and quiet.

Good to be living in the 21st century!

Here is wishing you a wonderful, productive week!

Ralph Taylor Guest Blogger for Ed Winkle

Ed and his wife LuAnn are in Middle Europe on a much deserved cruise vacation. He’ll be back in the saddle sometime next week before Thanksgiving.