Barry's Life in Napa Blog

So you're running pretty good all in all, but one day something's not quite working right. You've got a drip, or a squeak, or a pinch. Something's bent. Front end out of line, or you're not hitting on all cylinders. You take yourself into the shop and the doctor seems a little too serious for your comfort. You get to take some unpleasant tests, and you worry that you're getting worried over nothing, but then the other shoe drops - you've got it bad, and that ain't good. Here's the big question - what would you do with yourself and your little life if you knew you were a short timer? Say they tell you you've got six months or a year to go - would you live your life differently if you knew you didn't have much of it left to live? It's a little like pondering what you would do if you won the lottery. (Granted scenario 1 is a little less joyful than scenario 2.) If you won the lottery, you'd have sudden wealth and you'd live a differe...

Nominee for the biggest lie of the modern era: "50 is the new 30." This whopper is right up there with "I am not a crook," "I did not have sex with that woman," and "Mission accomplished." I think there may be whole legions of writers working for fashion and lifestyle magazines who sit around all day coming up with "blank is the new blank" comparisons. They are the Typhoid Marys who spread the " is the new " virus. It may have all started when one of these savants came up with "pink is the new black." This appears to have been spawned in the 1980s, and ever since, we can't get enough of it. "Iraq is the new Vietnam" is an easy one. "Small is the new big" was a line to sell little cell phones. From Wikipedia, we get: Carson Kressley from Queer Eye once declared, "Gay is the new black." There's an entire chart of "is the new"-isms here . It includes even the painfull...

For a short time yesterday I became part of the holstered set. I have been issued a Blackberry at my work, and tried out the nifty clip on holster. Not wanting to look like yet another guy with Batman utility belt fantasies, I have heretofore resisted hanging anything from my belt, and have generally resisted using the word "heretofore," but hey, things change. (Future iconic image of the earlier 2000s: guy with two or three gadgets clipped on his belt and a headset permanently plugged into his ear. That look will be like dresses with big shoulder pads or parachute pants when we look back on it some day. Oh, how we will laugh. By that time we will all have something the size of a button that does everything with voice command, or some gizmo surgically implanted in our brains that just knows what we want and need and produces it. Like, I could use an order of chili cheese fries right now, and I would like that to just appear before me, but the technology isn't ready yet. S...

Atticus Finch taught his children well, that it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mocking bird." One thing I can't stand it's birds nesting in my corncrib. I have always been impressed by mockingbirds. They've got so much to say all the time, and they say it over and over in so many ways, and with such enthusiasm, even though it doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. It's kind of like listening to sports talk radio. We have a fairly regular mockingbird presence in our neighborhood. Some mornings it's that mockingbird talk that wakes me before the alarm. Not bad to lie there and listen to what the mockingbird has to say, knowing there's no chance he will go off on how Obama's middle name is Hussein, ...

I'm no fan of Pres. Bush. We all know he lacks skills, is a general daily embarrassment, and an example of the Peter Principle in action. Nonetheless, history will probably show that he was right about a few things, and one of them may be the thing he is most vilified for-namely, the war in Iraq. Thanks to my man Chris for passing along this item that I would otherwise have never seen. Terror On Wane,' 'Al-Qaida On Run' And Other Headlines You Won't See INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 5/22/2008 Mileposts: As President Bush's term winds down, signs are there that the war on terror is being won. The conflict in Iraq is ebbing, and worldwide terror attacks are down. When will someone call it what it is? VICTORY. Back from the front, Gen. David Petraeus called on Congress Thursday to begin considering a drawdown of U.S. troops after five years of war...

Let me be the first to admit that I am peevish. It's been a lifelong battle to avoid showing the world just how easily irritated I am. So it make sense that I have more than my fair share of pet peeves, in addition to my many peeves that remain feral. High on my list of peeves (and I do actually have a list, I keep it in my wallet) are people who forward emails with wild and false claims, never taking a moment to consider if the warning, amazement or indignation they're sharing has any ghost of validity. Being big on the whole truth thing, each time I get one these canards in my inbox I feel - you guessed it - peevish. It's not as if there aren't simple ways to check the reality of the latest outrageous news. There's snopes.com , for Pete's sake. How hard is that to use? Simply type in a few keywords from the latest lamebrain email you received, and chances are you'll know in 10 seconds whether to alert the nation or not. (But the more challenging question i...

I need a good book to read. I always feel out of sorts when I don't have a good book going, and right now I am in between reading gigs. I could feel this coming on as I finished Thirteen Moons . Really loved that one, and experience tells me that it's rare to find a great book to follow a great book. More likely you get a double-bogey after a birdie, which is something else I have experience with. Don't get me started. Thirteen Moons had everything I like in a novel - historical context, wisdom, a sense of humor, a character I could believe and care about, and just the right amount of sentimentality. (The New York Times review said this one by Frazier is a lot closer to Larry McMurtry than to Cormac McCarthy, which is just fine. Anything that falls on the spectrum between those two guys is going to be a good read for me.) I hated knowing that I would have to finish it. Now what? I periodically commit myself to the idea that I won't buy another book until I have read e...