Nice when others notice your work - I think!

A part of my job as director of New Media at Wabash College is to keep an eye across our site every day. It's not that easy when you consider we have 5 major landing pages and literally thousands of pages inside those portals.

So imagine my surprise today when our Alumni Director Tom Runge wrote a bit on me! Very nice of a real nice guy!

You can see it here.

PS: I love the pic!

Wow -- that's a great inexpensive red wine!

I havent' been keeping up with the wines I've been drinking ... at least as far as blogging about them. Tonight I drank one of the best value reds I've had in a long, long time.

The wine is a Casillero del Diablo Carmenere 2005. Wow! This is a wine you can find in lots of wine stores under $15 bucks, or less ... that was a Wine Spectator 2006 "Best Buy" and has won a number of awards.

They advertise it with bottle neck tabs as the smooth, rich flavor of Merlot and the spicy flavor of Syrah. And - surprisingly - they are right!

Wine Spectator said: "Nice supple texture, with a mix of plum, cocoa, tobacco and vanilla. The smoky finish gains flesh as it opens. Drink now." I can't argue. My comment would be the smooth flavor of a big red wine without the price!

The winery also has the craziest website I've ever seen. And you might guess, I've seen a few. It's the only one I've ever seen with a built in video game!

Amd read about the winery's long history here: http://www.conchaytorousa.com/hist.html

They have a full line of wines from Cabernet Sauvignon to Reisling and Rose. I'm anxious to try the others. I've read about Casillero before with generally rave reviews of this Chilean winery!

Here is another site to read more about Casillero Del Diablo: http://www.conchaytorousa.com/wines/diablo.html

This is a great buy and a GREAT value wine! I found it at Village Bottle Shop in West Lafayette. But is is widely distributed. My previous experience with Carmenere was not a positive one. Now, I'm sold on the varietal.

Remembering 911 - and Understanding Why

I haven't posted in awhile, but seems like 9-11-07 is a good day to get back in swing of things. I remember 9-11 ... 01 ... like everyone else, in detail. I was in a newsroom in Noblesville, Ind., and noted to the boss some plane had flown into the World Trade Center. We all speculated it was a small aircraft.

You know the rest of the story.

We moved from that day and published stories related to 9-11 for more than 70 consecutive days. It was an interesting journalistic challenge and experience.

My time at Wabash College has really given me a different perspective on 9-11. It was a horrific event that could have been prevented. I don't believe for one second anyone in our government had put all the pieces together - but that's the problem. The "intelligence community" - an oxymoron if I've ever heard one - had all the pieces but was as dysfunctional as ever.

During my time at Wabash I've had the fortune to hear 3-4 very prominent experts on the Muslim world. When I read in news accounts, blogs, "they hate us and our way of life" I cringe.

Muslim people by and large, minus a few real whackos, do not hate us and our way of life. They hate our government and out bully attitude toward the rest of the world. We make no attempt to understand the Middle East and its people and assume we know what's best. If you think that's just left-wing babble, I challenge you to ask your Congressman to offer up an explanation of the difference between Sunni and Shite.

Good luck.

An update: I'm dieting, my doggy got neutered, I bought a new car!