"barbies, celcius, safety training"

Barossa Valley 

tank farm

112 year old v

            Last post was Sunday morning my time. So I’ll continue from there after this disclaimer that will hold true for the rest of the post.  It is hot here.  Were not talking Newport in the summer “hot”, but Oregon working in the vineyards and sun hot, or somehow existing in riverside in the summer hot.  This week has ranged between 34 and 37 Celsius. No, I do not know the conversion so I really have no concept of how hot it actually is. All I know is that mercury is just past that threshold where it’s comfortable to work outside.

 3 of our fellow interns are locals. We went to the house of one of them Sunday afternoon for a bbq. He lives up on a hill overlooking a good portion of the Barossa valley. Tough place to have a bbq, considering the date of said bbq here is equivalent to June 22^nd California-side.  We bbq’d, drank aussie beer and opened some wines made by our vineyard manager and the owners “parents” of the house. One of the things I cherish most about being in the wine industry as such is when you get to drink wine that someone has personally made. I’m not talking about being the winemaker at an established winery, but having some other means of gainful employment and making wine because you are generally interested in the craft. Describing what these wines tasted like would only bore you, however, neither wine was made from more than a barrels worth, both had righteously creative labels and the taste was far and away better than 90% of commercial wine.  (Side note me; they use ripe grapes. side note to you; throw away your doublewide syrah rose, its not worth opening)  I feel very privileged to be in a larger circle that has such pride and willingness to share their wine.  It is worth much much more to me than getting great wine at a drastic discount. 

Monday brought a new day at work, and a day in which we almost actually barely got to do some cellar work.  Not first without a VIP tour around the valley from our vineyard manager touring some of our vineyards sites. Topics ranged from soil types, elevation, microclimates, estates, meat pies, and which of the two valley microbrews is better (yet to try either).  Our tour guides were senior winery staff who had spent there whole lives farming in the valley some way or another. The information we got was solid practical knowledge; you could not buy it in a book. I also have a much better idea of the soils, microclimates, and areas, thus making some broad generalizations of what to expect from wines coming from the north end versus the south end. I prefer the north end.  One of the things that still surprises me is the age of the vines. One of the Shiraz vineyards (owned by the family of one of us interns) was planted in 1906.  The vines are almost 112 years old. That is why I applied to St. Hallett, to work with old vine grapes.  In the afternoon we CO2’d and sulfered wine tanks, nothing special but at least cellar work.

This winery is small in the grand scheme of wineries, but it’s much larger than either I’ve worked at before. Lots of hard lines connect the sections. Big 45 ton sweep fermenters situated to dump skins directly into a movable 12 ton press. 300,000 liter tanks, not tank. (Sorry everything here is in the superior system known as metric) For those of you who cannot conceptualize, lets just say it’s a 40 foot tall and 20 foot diameter tank, roughly of course. A tank farm (you will know what I mean by the picture) I may get the feel of a larger facility here without actually making a bagillion gallons of Marlborough sav blanc. Either way it’s somewhat nice to be able to use larger diameter hoses and powerful pumps.  Giggle if you must.  It does however take that much longer to get anywhere in the winery. Oh, and its essentially all outdoors save the barrel halls and one row of tanks which are indoors. I’ve turned the sunscreen knob up to 11. Again, I’ll be taking a many pictures throughout harvest to post into an album, but not yet.

Tuesday we spent the morning environmental training, a policy by the larger company that’s owns us. Jylli, this is your future job. There is actually a woman who works for the winery part as a vineyard consultant, part as a winery consultant, and part a liaison for the company. She basically gets the winery and vineyards to work towards sustainable, restorative, and more economically based goals all geared from better environmental policies.  From as large as collection rainwater and proper cleaning of our waste water to replacing old light bulbs with better alternatives. She also knew her shit, hello credibility.  Its cool to see that job exists and an industry which embraces it and really has been practicing it forever. Tuesday afternoon consisted of more cellar work. Specifically bulking up, or moving few smaller tanks into a larger one for blending.  It’s the exact same thing I’ve down many times in a smaller winery, just on a larger scale.

Wednesday being today consisted of the last of our Lion mandated training. Again, St Hallett is owned by the lion wine group, a multinational wine corporation. Because of that we have a lot more sit down official training and safety discussions than you would at a smaller winery. That and Australia itself has a lot more safety protocols and checks than the United States. Almost to the point where they joke about the standard operating procedure to change a light bulb.  Who is the culprit for all these regulations you might ask. Well let me tell you my left leaning friends, its national health care.  Because the Australian government is “reinvesting” taxpayers own dollars back into their health, legislation for serious oversight and safety regulations has been enacted.  Don’t get hurt at the workplace, save some taxpayers dollars. A perfect example of this is you as a bicycle (pushbike) rider have to wear a helmet 100% of the time when riding your bike.  I’m not saying it’s a bad law, just an example. The healthcare almost makes sense to me for a country of 22 million people, not for a country of 375 million or whatever were up to in the United States. But that’s a different debate all together. That being said we had to go through confined space and fire hazard training all day today even though none of us will be getting into a confined space (most likely), and nobody should be getting into a confined space that would be deemed hazardous due to the atmospheric composition. (fermentation gives off lots and lots of CO2, which is heavier than oxygen, thus pushing the oxygen out of the tanks). We did however get to do some fun confined space rescue training and light a few things on fire only to use fire extinguishers to put them out.  Aussies to take all this training in stride and try to have as much fun with it as possible.  The 4 of us who are living in the hostel also changed into one smaller room. I think it will work out much better just not having other people come in later or me getting up early. For now we all have to get up at the same time, and have a mutual respect for the harvest even if we will be on split shifts. A lot of the other travelers at this hostel are looking for agricultural employment with grape picking. Apparently working 3 months in agriculture or like mining will get most Europeans and Canadians a 2^nd year on there working holiday visa.

Tomorrow is Australia Day. Australia day is their version of the 4^th of July.  Blog post and pictures are sure to follow.  Everyone is Australian on Australia day.  If you made it this far in this post, pat yourself on the back, crack a beer, or just be relieved you made it through. For your determination to finish you will be rewarded with two enjoyable Australian cultural episodes. First, I herd men at work “I come from a land down under” on the radio in Australia, pretty big deal.  And yes, I have herd an aussie use the sentence “we will just cook some kangaroo and shrimp on the barbie” in reference to Australia day. Enjoy. 

Sun jan 22nd. “Work”, wine tasting, and cricket.

Disclaimer: I will apologize right now that this post is informative as to what I’ve been doing, it lacks in any witty comments or profound statements. As the good blaming American I will blame the heat for the lack of brain power.

Started work on Thursday, thankfully. At least it’s the idea of getting paid without actually receiving a check, but its on the way.  The winery is big for what I’m used to, but medium size in the grand scheme of things.  The winery was purchased a few years ago by a larger winery group called lion, and as opposed to even Domaine Serene, A LOT of money has been pumped into this place. Most of the equipment is “automated”, and all I have to do is hook up the right lines and select what is going where when and for how long. Simple stuff really. Automatic barrel fillers, UV cleaners, a movable press, its going to seem so easy…yea right.  None of you care very much about that stuff though.

            Let me walk you through my first two days of work at St. Hallett.

            Day 1: meet everyone (2 Californians, 2 kiwi’s, 1 Portuguese, 1 Canadian, and 6 Aussies) introductions, training, tour, lunch, workplace training, blah blah blah. Boring but necessary. 

            Day 2: meet for a more official walkthrough safety tour. You know, don’t fall into a tank, don’t get hit by the forklift, don’t leap from one catwalk to the next, if you light yourself on fire go here.  Just general workplace hazards. That was about till ten or so. Then we tasted through the lineup of wines at St. Hallett. They have some very nice big reds. Again, Dad you would love every wine from the Barossa. After that most of the entire staff walked up for the main road with beer and bubbles and hung out for an hour and a half watching bike riders come by until the actual Tour down under road by. Side note, watching a bike race on television, awesomely entertaining, watching a bike race in real life; arguably the most anticlimactic sporting event in the world.  Bbq lunch after followed by a pseudo game of cricket.  I had a coupe of good hits and I wasn’t all that bad at balling (throwing). Cricket is slower than baseball, with a short match lasting 3 hours and a long match lasting for 5 days. I’m not going to go into the spark notes version of the game, which I believe I now possess, but it’s pretty simple. Did I mention that they paid all of us during these team-building exercises. All in all this is going to be a great winery to work for. 

            I’m half looking for a place to live other than this hostel for no other reason than there are cheaper rooms for rent in town with amenities I don’t have to pay for. Unfortunately, the hostel is new and none of the policies are geared towards long term stay.  To me there is a clear line between those who are staying for a night or even a week as opposed to those staying long-term, and certain amenities need to be made available for a more reasonable cost.  Let’s just say I’ll be keeping my options open.

            Yesterday being Saturday we were good interns and sampled the local wines.   Big reds rein supreme, fortified’s are common but questionable, and Eden valley Riesling has been the biggest disappointment. The best wine so far has either been a giant high end Cabernet from Two Hands, or one of the big Shiraz’s from Torbreck, both wineries I think you can get at Hi-times. For this being Australia’s Napa valley, I expected there to be more wineries.  Then again there are more people in California than Australia, so not as high of a national demand. It’s also strange to be to be surrounded by some very large facilities; Jacobs Creek, Penfeilds, and Wolf blass (yellow tail) are all within biking distance.   Still some of the high-end wineries are very worth tasting making wine in a style unique to this area.  Before we wine tasted we went to the local farmers market. Parents be jealous, this farmers market was in a big barn on the outskirts of the next town up. A great farmers market, all good local produce including lots of local meats. I bought two lamb steaks that will be bbq’d this afternoon. Pushed to the back was a lot of really old winery equipment from big casks to old tanks. Saturday also had a hot rod show in downtown Taunda.  It was the closest I’ve felt to being in the central valley yet. How to speak Australian: Bogan is a redneck. I’m also putting together a picture album for facebook, but with primitive Internet I need to find more consumer friendly source to designate the time necessary. 

I got to pet a kangaroo.

Wed Jan 18^th:

the beautiful barossa valley

i'll post more pictures to a facebook album when i have enough pictures worth posting. 

best wine tasting ever 

            Yesterday, I got to pet a kangaroo.  I know, take a moment to register how awesome that is. I was wine tasting and Whistler wines, and they had an enclosure with 8 hand-raised kangaroos and you could go and hang out with.  On a hot day like it was, they just kicked it in the shade not giving a “you know what”, so I went up and pet one.  Apparently that’s one of the attractions to this cellar door, aside from the nice wine and very very laid back setting. Napa valley is my benchmark for comparison to the Barossa valley.  Same importance to the countries wine industry, most prestigious wine growing valley and home to some of the oldest and some of the best wines in all of Australia.  But the Barossa Valley is a complete opposite in feel. Napa valley sells the wine country state of mind as an image and material thing; Barossa Valley is the wine country state of mind. I like to think Napa valley was like this 40 years ago right before the famous 76’ tasting.  However that is an irrelevant piece of nostalgia, The Barossa Valley as a growing and wine-producing region is significantly older and more established than our Napa or Sonoma Valley. Their industry also did not suffer one of the worst legislative decisions in history, dreaded prohibition.  Napa valley and the surrounding area’s were always destined to be status symbol for those able to afford it. That same image driven arrogance does not really exist here. Tastings are free, not 15-25 dollars Stags leap district, bottle prices are more reasonable, the hospitality feels real not purchased, and the wine is damn good. Dad you would love he wine here, Mom, not so much. The Shiraz is still big and bold, but in a controlled and more refined way than I expected.  Basically this wine valley is awesome through and through. I’m sure I will enjoy my time here.

            I start work tomorrow, Thankfully, this country is expensive. The exchange rate is roughly 1:1, but that’s not what you can exchange the money for, and everything is just that much more expensive. Fifties are the new twenties in this country, work and the feeling of making money will bring my some relief, my US funds do not go as far here as I would have hoped. My bike was also essentially a deposit that I’ll get back in the end. Don’t worry mom, I’m being very good about my spending and keeping track of everything. I have a nice savings account set up here and a set amount I’m going to put into it every week.  Yay being a real adult and doing adult like things.  

            Aside from being able to make money, everyone I’ve talked to has said that St Halletts is going to be an awesome experience. I met one of my fellow interns at a tasting room who was going back to St Halletts after working his first harvest there like 5 years ago. It has some nice respect throughout the valley and the wines rank high.  What I’m looking to get out of this harvest is how winemaking works on a slightly larger scale, its by no means big (Jacobs creek refinery and Penfield’s with there like 14 presses are just down the road), but it will be big enough that some logistical changes will be different. Either way I’m looking forward to it.  I’ll post in a day or so after working. 

thoughts on why you should travel alone

I sit here, 8000 miles or 30 hours of travel time away from home sitting in the Adelaide central bus station contemplating the events over the last 96 hours or so. Thinking about our/my position in life, why I have yet to meet another American? Why travel? Why spend the resources to get all the way out here, when the differences are few and not really cultural, but unimportant bureaucratic societal logistics. What is to follow are some of my preliminary thoughts and experiences on why it is imperative as your growth as a human being to travel alone.   All of this stemmed from thinking about why I had not met any other Americans, and why none of the people I had meet had interacted with any Americans.  A very brief but vulgar descriptor of US impressions from the internationals I wrote down to maybe be posted later. Lets just say for the time being it’s a work in progress and aside from the occasional curse word I’ll keep this blog within acceptable Parental Guidance.  I’m still searching for the root of American void, perhaps Adelaide is just not high on the travel list, and maybe mine and their paths just did not cross. (I know of some adults who travel here for work) My only real thought on explaining it is that many American youths backpack (or say they plan to backpack) through Europe instead. Where do Europeans go when they want to take a sabbatical year? The US, some, but I think a lot choose the beaches and deserts of Australia.  This somewhat led me to a simple but non-obvious epiphany as to why travel alone.  Sitting here, in a typically government funded bus station, 8000 miles away from friends and family In California, 1.5 hours from the nearest major airport, A 2 hour plane ride not to mention all the other travel arrangements in-between from the nearest people I would consider friends, I am truly independently alone.

Epiphany #1: “I can be whomever I want be.” Nobody knows who I am, nobody knows what my personality is, where I came from or even why I’m in this place.  The only thing obviously in common with the people around me are our current longitude and latitude and hopefully the English language.  We in the United States of America hold going off to college most often on someone else’s dollar to be our right of passage.  But how many of us really went off, we all went with friends, people we knew, social connections to back home.  Im not saying that’s a bad thing at all, I have one of the best groups of friends and family anyone can ask for, I wouldn’t trade that for anything. What I’m getting at is that when you truly get out of any connection to your normal and accepted society, small and large, the person you are then is the person you truly are. There is no way to fake who you are with people you just met void of your previous social life, why would you. Simply “faking it” is proof enough that fake you is the real you.  A haunting thought for some.  Epiphany #2: “Nothing exposes your flaws more than putting your communicable personality to the test by meeting (or attempting to meet) foreign people in a foreign country”.  This ties directly into Epiphany #3: “Those family and friends closest to you can be the worst enablers of your personality flaws”.  Think about it. They are your biggest support system, but is that always a good thing. Both of my immediate communities (family and friends) show traits of being relatively balanced. (note: I am by no means calling any of you individually balanced, that would be offensive to you)  The direction, likes, and dislikes of both groups are going in their respective direction. But you may possess certain strong traits that I lack, thus I deferring to you in those situations further engraining my flaws.  Its not a conscious thing, but accepted over time when people cement their rolls within there community. When you Travel all alone, only you and your skills to get by, those small cracks appear much bigger. 

If you read all the way to the bottom of both posts, congratulations, this is the most I’ve written/expected any of you to read in a while. It would be nice to hear some sort of of response. However, hold back from correcting grammar error

final thoughts on adelaide

                                                                                    I have yet to meet another American since arriving 

new bike

the barossa valley

in Australia. Surprising? A little, however I had prepared myself to run into someone group of tools from god knows where doing a victory lap partying their way through Australia. Luck was on my side as that group did not exist within my small sample.  I’ve been staying in Adelaide for the last 3 days nights at a hostel called Annie’s Place.  Adelaide is Australia’s fifth biggest city of just over a million people. It’s a brilliantly designed grid city one mile by one mile surrounded on all sides by parks, creating a very clear strip of green separating expansive suburbia from and city. Adelaide’s real claim to fame is being the festival capital of Australia. There is some sort of festival always going on.  The start of the Tour down under and a lesser version of Oktoberfest known as (insert German word starting with sch, a few more letters and ending with fest) were both cause for celebration. I went to the tour fest, the German booze fest charged admission only to then charged for beer, blasphemy.  The hostel, my first to have stayed at, was something else. The only way to describe this place is if an equally diverse but much lesser athletic version of Olympic village (ie: coaches, trainers, rifleman, cooks, and shot putters) all lived in a Berkeley coop.  It was an awesome old building from the late 1800’s, high ceilings, a courtyard out back and was the only dinning room (no complaints).  Centrally located, I walked around Adelaide a lot. My favorite place was as you could expect, the Central market.  Lots of local produce, and because it’s truly summer here, everything is ripe. The other part of the market that interested me was all the local fish and local meats. You want some pheasant, lamb, the best bacon I’ve ever had (sorry whole foods) you can find it here.  A short list of the people I’ve hung out with in the hostel: 2 Welsh, 3 Germans, 2 Swiss, 2 Dutch, 1 from Belgium, 1 English, and a handful of aussies. Take a guess who was the hardest to understand.  If you guessed the two Welsh boys then you were right. Its like a faster slurred version on proper England English.  The other Europeans like talking to Americans because of our slow drawn out version of English.  My last night in Adelaide (1/14/12- Im a few days behind due to internet access) I did an organized pub crawl set up by a few of the local hostels. You paid 13 dollars for them to take you around to 4 pubs throughout the night with a free drink at each pub.  Nothing like rolling from bar to bar with around 75 people representing at least 15 countries.  Our pub-going-experience is exactly how every session of the U.N. (and congress) should end, international diplomacy would greatly benefit. The Pub-crawl focused around a street called hindley street, where every stop along the 3 or 4 blocks is either a nightclub, pub, pokies (sort of like slots), or a grease pit.  Having never stumbled down Bourbon Street closer to dawn than dusk I can only imagine this was akin.  The drinking age is 18 (when enforced), no last call, and a heavy dose of English and Irish internationals ready to fight, 2 am on Hindley street lies somewhere between a shit show and anarchy. No complaints there. I had a great time hanging out with the English man and Two Dutch girls from my hostel.   Don’t come to Australia if you want to just drink.  The average beer has an alcohol content of coors with twice the cost (however you don’t tip here) and a standard drink is about 2/3 the size it is stateside.  That means 2/3 of what we count is a shot is a shot here.   I have yet to wrap my head around paying about 10 times for a beer that is worse than my Ipa.  165 lbs here I come.  I finally found a bike. I wanted an older road bike with gears to really be able to cover some ground out here in wine country without the drawbacks of shocks and big tires.  This task turned out to be harder than I thought.  Single speed conversions and shitty plastic mountain bikes seemed all the rage on gumtree (craigslist). I eventually found a hipster sled for the right price and will fulfill my needs, those being rolling hills and commuting to work.  A gold Super Elliot (Australian made) single-speed rebuild.  The beauty of it is I will be able to sell it for the same price if not more when I’m done, Old bikes like that do not loose there value nearly as quick.  I purchased the bike from a Guy named Guy who has two young kids.  He helped me fix something that broke on the bike within the first km and we hung out for a while, he has offered me a place to stay if im ever back in Adelaide and his help if I ever really need it. So breath easy mom. I’m now out in the town of tanunda, a German influenced version of Calistoga right in the heart of the Barossa valley (Australia’s Napa valley).  4000 people, 3 pubs, 4.5 km from St Halletts, 30 cellar doors within 5 km, a market, a farmers market, and a branch of my bank.  What more do I need aside from a few friends and surf (I will surf Bells).  I just got into this town, spent the day relaxing and sleeping, tomorrow some wine tasting with a guy from Sweden working his first vintage and two aussies who know the area.  Also meet a Japanese guy who is studying to get his 4th sommelier level.  Ideally I’ll do some tasting with him.  Internet at this hostel is primitive in that it costs money, perhaps after 3 weeks of living here I’ll be able to talk my way into getting it always.  Unfortunately only 3 of the St halletts interns are going to be living here out of 11 (two unfortunately didn’t get visas). The verdict is still out on how that will all play out.  The hostel on the other hand is beautiful and about as close to mainstream as you would want to be.   I’ll post another post in two days or especially upon finding cheap internet.

"catchy title"

St. Hallett GST

obligatory tourist photo

Log #4: friday, jan 13, the year 2012. Location, Adelaide southern australia.  I spent the day pretending to be a real grown up. I set up a bank account at ANZ bank parents. surprise, Death and taxes is an guarantee in australia as well, as I will be receiving a brand new tax code number from the australia government, thanks guys.  I also finally got my australian mobile number for 15 cents a min to call international and 20 cents to txt international, so just facebook me.  For all you budding hipsters still in denial, calling your phone a mobile is now worth 2 hipster points. I'm sure many of you have been think to yourself, maybe even out-loud in the last day or so, "I wonder what its like in Southern Australia". I'll tell you, If Great Britain and Southern California had a lovechild, its name would be Southern Australia, or probably just australia as a whole, my sample size is small.  However, its a more beach centric outdoor type english country. the weather is in the 80's, some humidity and a lot of sun. The ppl are all very friendly even if they drive on the wrong side of the road. other than that the only real difference is that in Australia they use a 1 and 2 dollar coin (no bills). My wallet quickly started to weigh me down, physically, not figuratively. I went by Adelaide university(dad, you will get a shirt later, the bookstore was elusive), spectacular looking place, lots of middle 19th century lecture halls near what seems to be the heart of adelaide, Rundle street. Rundle Street is a mall/street market/bar scene. You want a thneed, you can find it there. I found coopers alehouse. For those of you uncultured in Southern Australia things, Coopers is the beer of Southern Australia.  Its brewed here in town.  The beer was excellent, if your beer scale rangers somewhere from Miller/Fosters-Coors (Smith, J. A , And Fearless Friends, dec 2011, shitty beer tasting, the journey, Smith house, Costa Mesa, CA)  I did finally get to taste the wine from the winery in which i will be working. St Hallett. It was delicious, the one i tasted was an 07 and it was like a GSM blend dad but it was a GST, the movedre was replaced with a Touriga (one of the main port varietals). This was at the Australian national wine center, which is where they recently sequenced the brettanomyces genome, a big deal for wine.  We will see what the nightlife is like tonight, jet-lag caused that not to be a reality last night. and tomorrow who knows. The only last thing on my to do list is to find a bicycle, which is proving to be a little harder than I want it to be. Wish me luck.

the art of travel

The idea of traveling is an addictive obbsession to some to seek new unique places and experiences. the actual act of traveling sucks.  Whomever coined the phrase "its not the destination but the journey" clearly did not spend time on intercontinental flights.  I watched contagion, horrible bosses, king fu panda 2, funny people, and seven 22 min episodes of How I meet your mother. nothing like a good flight across the pacific to catch you up on lots of movies.   That being said it could have been much worse. Virgin australia takes good care of you.  Im currently in sydney where I set up an aussie phone, but sorry, you all don't get the number because its still not cheap, and i know how often you would want to communicate. Joshua.alexander.smith is my skype name, so i'll work that out. I'm on my way to adelaide to then find my hostel.  Adelaide is the final destination, which upon arrival I'm going to seek out a sandwich that can live up to a first real meal (lamb) for those of you who care. there are a LOT of big airplanes at this airport. i've seen two A380's in twenty min of sitting here and another six 747's.   Enjoy two pictures. mid-flight with meal with matt, and some big ass plans at LAX.

Traveling nostalgia

Im leaving within the next hour for australia.  just finishing up some last minute packing then heading to the airport.  The over/under for total travel time from door to door is 30 hours with a guarantee of 18 of them being in a plane.  That being said, southern australia is pretty well on the other side of the world. I do not have much to write about, except to thank all of you who make these opportunities possible. My family for helping me get there and supporting me. My friends for making it worthwhile to come home.  There is a piece of art hanging in out house and says "go out for adventure, come home for love".   that quote most accurately represents my point in life.  Thank you all. i'll probably try to post once i reach sydney, but who knows. I'll take lots of pictures.  come by the house and pick up some of the beer that i brewed, Its not bad and there is a lot of it.  Im very excited to go, and i know i'll be ready to come home whenever that is.

welcome to my blog

fermenting red wine

Welcome to the blog of joshua alexander smith. No this blog does not come with free wine.I will post info and pictures here about my travels/winemaking/and adventures. besides, we all need to put more of our lives on the internet, right?  I figured i'd hop on the blog train. I also may give shout out to very cool places or wineries that you should check out next time your in the area. that brings me to another point, this will not just be about australia. I get a lot of questions about where I'm going next or where i have been. Here it will all be, so next time your wondering, bragging, or just thinking about your friend Josh Smith, all the primary literature will be right here.  So enjoy reading about my whereabouts. i'll figure out how to post relevant pictures when they become more relevant.  I'll leave you with a quote that i got from a fellow wine intern who lives this quote more than I do. But i'm trying.

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.” -james A. Michener