12 November 2008

Begich takes lead over Stevens

According to 538:

The Alaska Board of Elections has finally
updated (pdf).
With 17,728 votes counted since the previous update,
Democrat
Mark Begich has the lead over Republican Ted Stevens, 132,196 to
131,382.More
votes to be counted tomorrow and possibly Friday.As we've pointed
out
and has been pointed out elsewhere,
the remaining votes come from Begich-friendly districts. Mark Begich is now
an
overwhelming favorite to win the Alaska Senate seat.


Taking the blog out of cold storage

Either I wasn't persistent enough or no one seemed to care much about my blog during our two years in London. I started it as a way to stay in touch primarily with family, but also friends. Family turned out to lack the tech savvy to follow a blog and friends probably didn't really care all that much. After all, aren't we really writing these blogs for our own self satisfaction? The chance to just say something or make a comment occasionally.

The origins of this blog were to write about one of my passions, wine. And, now that I'm back on my home wine turf, I hope to be doing that again. Not that European wines weren't wonderful and provided a big new adventure. But, I like the Oregon wine industry and I'm a lot more familiar with its characters. Already, I've put together a wine tasting for a friend on Nov. 22 at four of my favorite wineries -- Chehalem, Lange, Lemelson and Stoller. I've also been in touch with Scott Shull, the founder and winemaker at burgeoning Raport Ridge. In the two years I've been gone, RR has grown out of the facility next to his house in Scholls and into a proper winery in Carlton.

We've been back in the country two weeks now. We're still adjusting. A lot has changed beyond even the current economic crunch. But, America is a great country and you can only appreciate that after you've been gone for awhile. It is the land of opportunity even when times are tough as they are now.

So, I hope to be writing more regularly and commenting more broadly beyond the wine industry.