deebeedee

Yesterday, my father-in-law and I drove up north to wine country. My wife and I wanted to treat him to a day in Napa Valley for his 60th birthday. The wife didn’t go with us since she had to watch the kids. Besides, she and a few moms from our son’s school had already gone there a couple of weeks ago. It was our turn, she said.

We first headed off to Calistoga, a city known for its hot-spring spas. We got there just in time for our massage appointments at Golden Haven Spa and Resort. We opted not to do the mud baths. Too icky.

The massage did such a marvelous job in relaxing our muscles that the rest of our day was like “a walk in the clouds” (he-he). We had lunch at the restaurant on the grounds of the Culinary Institute of America.

Next, we stopped at Grgich Hills Winery where we sampled their fine wines. The next winery down the road was the one owned by Francis Ford Coppola. We skipped it since we had to go home. It was a great day. Glad we went on a weekday. No waits. No traffic. Perfect.

More pictures here.

Excellent post about a believer’s attitude towards politics found here (via Creative Slips). Hugo says this in relation to a First Things article :

There will be times when this leads us into coalition with liberals. But there will be times when we are far, far apart. The Christian left must be faithful to Christ first, not secular dogma. Where our agendas and our understandings coincide, so much the better. But at times, we will stand with our Christian brethren on the right of the political spectrum, not out of sectarian loyalty but out of a sense that, as Carter said, “discerning God’s will and doing it is prior to everything else.”

I like how our political actions are not compelled by partisanship but by our duty to Christ.

It’s funny how Rhesa says, “Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell do not speak for me.” I’ve always felt the same way. I am reading political commentator Hugh Hewitt’s In But Not Of, a guide of sorts to young Christians seeking to make a mark in this world. In one chapter entitled “Either a Player or a Pastor Be - But You Can’t Be Both,” Jerry Falwell is used as an example of how mixing politics and religion has had ineffective results. I share Hewitt’s sentiment when he says, “I and most other evangelicals I know cringe when we see (Falwell) appear on any of the many television shows that gladly book him as a spokesman for the evangelical community.” It is because the American public has long turned off its ear to preachers “speaking on any issue of politics or public policy outside his own congregation.”

Hewitt advises those who are ordained to “leave the world to others, and tend to your flock.” In fairness, in subsequent chapters he sings the praises of Christians who dedicate their lives to winning souls for the kingdom. But according to him, the world should be left to believers who have positioned themselves to make a mark in the political arena by assembling the proper credentials, getting relevant jobs, and cultivating the right relationships.

I may have found Robert Tagorda’s female counterpart. Rachel Jurado is a Filipina, a Catholic, and a (gasp) Republican. She’s a dean’s lister at George Dubya U. in D.C. and is taking Early Modern European Studies. She’s also a long-time intern at The American Enterprise, a magazine whose initials would cause any Pinoy to snicker.

Steve Jobs’ weblog?

O’Reilly, the publisher of computer books, is known for depicting various fauna on their books’ covers. Being that I am interested in Mac computing, I noticed that the books pertaining to versions of Apple’s OS X, like Panther and Jaguar, do not feature big cats on their covers. Instead, they feature dogs. Now, why would O’Reilly do a seemingly illogical thing like that? Choosing a panther for a book on OS 10.3 would be the easiest thing to do. But no, they chose a beagle instead.

This year’s Macworld gave me the opportunity to ask someone at the O’Reilly booth the reason why cats aren’t being used on OS X books. The nice lady behind the counter told me that for Macintosh book covers, they’ve always used dogs. This is confirmed by a post at MacSlash by an O’Reilly employee:

We chose to use dogs on the covers of our Mac books long before Apple chose to release versions of Mac OS X with kitty names.

Our earliest Mac book, REALbasic: The Definitive Guide, sported a greyhound on the cover, so we decided to follow that motif and run dogs on the cover of all of the Mac books. There’s a bit more to this story, but that’s basically the gist of it.

I wonder whether O’Reilly’s decision to initally use a dog has something to do with Apple’s unofficial mascot back in the day, the dogcow. This was a system icon of a dog that was often mistaken for a cow. Now that’s one hoofed animal I don’t think you’ll ever see on O’Reilly’s covers.