Today is my Dad’s birthday. Last year I had a chance to be in Minnesota for his birthday. That was for the big six, oh! One year later and I’m stuck on this side of the big pond unable to spend the day with him. This is the worst part of living abroad, but thanks to skype I get to talk to him weekly. My dad is a pretty darn amazing guy. He’s always available to talk, and he has gone farther than is necessary in helping Gabriella and my dream to live abroad come true. Both my parents are pretty special. I’m lucky to have them. Thanks to both of you.

So have a great day today, enjoy a cigar and some good scotch! I’ll be in Spain toasting you with a glass of bourbon, sadly without the cigar. We’ll see you in a few more months.

Love, Ryan

The past few weeks have been a blur. First I was in Madrid and at FENAVIN, and then after a quick night or two in Terrassa, I’m back in London for the London International Wine Fair. This trip includes a dinner the night before the fair with the Circle of Wine Writers, a group that includes Steven Spurrier, Jancis Robinson, Oz Clarke, Charles Metcalf, and many more “names”. The odd part is we’re there as “equals” if you will. In no way am I saying we’re as important in the wine world, yet, but we are writers, who do our best to educate others. Hopefully with some good results.

And while we don’t agree with them all the time, we do appreciate what they have done and who they are, and it will be an honor to have the chance to hang out with them.

We’ll be having dinner at a restuarant here in London and all I have to say is that I would not want to be the sommelier on duty that night!  

Cheers, 

Ryan Opaz

Not sure I have many people reading this, but I figure publish and see what happens. I need a first class wordpress designer who wants to do something different. Project needs to be done before July, be full of pretty sliding things, and basically make a flash based presentation with ajax, just to prove it can be done. Clean, simple and the subject, well if you read this site, you’ll know the client type. If you know someone who is A-One or wants a challenge and is a Wordpress ninja contact me. ryan at catavino on the .net 

This is a serious offer, so don’t bother emailing me unless you kick ass, or know someone who does.

Stay tuned to Catavino, to see how dinner went…for now though here’s a post dinner smile!

I used to podcast at Catavino, and while I don’t anymore I do hope I return to it at some point. It was fun, but I’m not an audio geek, so the editing and compressing of the sound was always a bore.

Anyways, my friend Robert and I tend to talk a lot about big ideas. Some are good, some rubbish, eitherway we’re recording them now. Feel free to listen, or not. Our goal is once a week. You know how goals go! 

Spit ‘n’ Swallow » Blog Archive » #3 Our Plastic Bull

This is our third episode, and might be fun to listen too. We tend to talk a lot about twitter, social networks, and other web/wine topics. The show is still rough around the edges, but with time we’ll refine it. Hope you stick around long enough to hear it when we get it right! 

Cheers,

Ryan

PS: The site is only a publishing tool, and show notes area…we have to many other things to worry about how it looks…rather worry about how it sounds.

PSS: Might be worth noting not even my wife is listening to these…for what that’s worth! But then again she has to hear us droning on about the internet all the time.