The American Way

Julio Iglesias ?

So last night was a blast - about a month ago, we heard that Julio Iglesias was coming to town - and Max said... "We have to go". I myself was never a huge fan of Julio, but I'll be the first to admit that the guy has a voice, and definitely worked a charm on the ladies. So we booked our tickets via the Saratoga Mountain Wineries website. The venue is absolutely gorgeous; the SMW is set on top of the hills overlooking the Silicon Valley and the view is stunning. We had prepared a wonderful picnic for the evening:

• Garlic & Chilli stuffed Olives with caramelized onions !
• Chilled Cantaloupe Soup with Fresh Mint
• Salmon Tartare
• "Gehakt Balletjes !"
• Polenta, Spinach and Parmesan "wedges"
• Brie
• and a nice, chilled bottle of Australian Chardonnay

After the picnic, we headed over to the "Concert Bowl". I had to leave my camera behind, unfortunately. The grounds date from 1852 - Max and I decided that we would come back here for dinner.

Julio was amazing - his voice was the same as I remembered it watching him on French TV growing up. He was hilarious... between every song, he would make jokes about how "when he was young", he would "make the love" to "every girl"... but that now he needs a pill. No, seriously, more funny coming from him than from me ! ;-)

In any case, will definitely come back to the Saratoga Mountain Winery - it's a wonderful venue. Charles Aznavour is coming here in September - we're thinkin' about going, but we heard from Max's parents that he wasn't that great anymore (too old). But I'm thinking - wtf - it's now or never.

Cheers
Shy

Travel Plans...

So I'm going to be off again soon. My next travel plans are the following:

August 14 - 26: Melbourne, Australia (Business)
September 2 - 4: Camping/Hiking trip in the Sierras
September 14-19: Toronto, Canada (Karson's wedding)

What the hell are those "Technorati" hyperlinks anyway???

You may have noticed that the last few posts have started incorporating "Technorati Tags" at the bottom of every post... you may have clicked on some of these hyperlinks and they may have led you nowhere... (although those who clicked on the "Garlic" hyperlink of my Gilroy post may have seen some interesting results)...

So what the hell is technorati??? Technorati is basically a blog search engine, and currently tracks over 50 million blogs on the internet. Technorati is the recognized authority on what's going on in the world of     weblogs. According to Technorati, (and this is also a general opinion on Web 2.0 and Social Networking), "the power of weblogs is that they allow millions of people to easily publish     their ideas, and millions more to comment on them. Blogs are a fluid, dynamic     medium, more akin to a 'conversation' than to a library — which is how the     Web has often been described in the past". With an increasing number of people     reading, writing, and commenting on blogs, the way we use the Web is shifting     in a fundamental way. Instead of being passive consumers of information, more     and more Internet users are becoming active participants.

So if you click on "Garlic" on the Gilroy post... watch what happens. It'll tell you who posted on garlic recently... and the interesting thing is... most of the posts will probably related to the festival... :-)

So, say you're interested in something I've had to say... maybe if you click on the tag... you may find similar posts or posts on the same subject. That's the power of technorati. So if the links don't work, don't fret... they're only there for my own fun and curiousity.

Cheers
Shayan