Posted in Columbus, Photography, tagged Center of Sciene and Industry, Columbus, Columbus skyline, Downtown Columbus, Photography on June 16, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
We went to a lovely wedding at the Center of Science and Industry tonight. COSI, which occupies the old Central High School building and property, is a nice location for a wedding, just across the river from downtown. The wedding was outside and offered a great view of the Columbus skyline.
It’s not an awe-inspiring skyline, like you would find in New York City and Chicago and other big cities, but we love it just the same — especially when it is glowing with the light of the setting sun.
Posted in Columbus, tagged Columbus, Columbus Gay Community, Gay Rights, Gays, GLBT, Lesbian Rights, Lesbians, Parades, Pride Parade on June 16, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
When you go to the office in downtown Columbus on Saturdays, as I frequently do, you never know what you might find. Today, it was the Columbus Pride Parade, running on High Street from downtown Columbus to Goodale Park.
As I’ve mentioned before, Columbus is very proud of its gay community and its status as a gay-friendly city, and the GLBT community and its friends and supporters were out in force for today’s parade. It was a beautiful sunny day and large crowds lined both side of High Street as a long line of paraders marched and rolled past. There was lots of hooting and hollering and hugging, and some spectacular costumes and floats, all done with a dash of humor.
Events like the Pride Parade help to make Columbus an interesting, inclusive place to live.
Posted in Food, Science, tagged Blind testing, California, California Wine, Cheap Wine, Food, France, French Wine, New Jersey Wine, Science, Wine, Wine Snobs on June 16, 2012 | 1 Comment »
I’m not a wine snob. I can distinguish between outright swill, of the $3.99 a bottle variety, and better wines, but my palate’s capabilities end at about the $10 a bottle mark, and from there on up I can’t really appreciate the fine nuances and subtle distinctions that effete wine drinkers claim to enjoy. Now, a recent taste test suggests I’m not alone, and that wine snobs are faking it.
The taste test follows in the wake of famous blind taste tests of the 1970s, in which experts were unable to distinguish between esteemed French wines and upstarts from California — and indeed, twice selected Stag’s Leap wine over the finest wines of France. The latest blind taste test contest pitted wines from France against wines from, of all places, New Jersey. The French wines won, but only barely, against the New Jersey offerings that were 20 times less expensive.
As the New Yorker article linked above demonstrates, there’s lots of evidence that the supposedly educated palates of the wine snobs really are influenced mostly by labels, and that supposed experts will describe the same wine in diametrically different ways, depending on whether a high quality label or one indicating the cheap stuff is attached. The studies all point to the conclusion that most people really can’t distinguish the high-cost vino from the $10 bottle. I think that’s right, and that’s why I don’t spend more than $15 a bottle in stores and refuse to buy the outrageously priced bottles in restaurants.
Our friends the Cave-Dweller and his lovely wife soon will be taking a wine-tasting trip to the Napa Valley, to celebrate their 25th anniversary. Perhaps next year they should head to New Jersey?
