Year: 2017

Vineyard Roots > 2017

The world has too much “busyness”

Posted on by admin

 

Hello friends,

 

I have been away from the vineyard roots blog for some time now. As many things/excuses in life, “life is too busy.” Ive heard that nonsense a lot in my life and online. Everyone is too busy and life is too complicated to get anything done. I disagree, as a short analysis of my day to day routine reveals this to be false.

(Remember this is a quick, short enlightenment of my daily routine – its not very scientific.)

5:45 AM wake up, shower for 17 minutes (20 is too long, 15 too short), then come back upstairs to change (yes, its sucks tremendously not having a bathroom on the same level as bedrooms).

6:05, downstairs to relieve the pup, make lunch, make breakfast, eat breakfast (spend 10 mins on that while reading on phone), brush teeth, shave, comb hair.

6:55, go back out with pup for a poop, play with pup for 10-15 mins outside in yard. This sounds like fun, and it is since I love my pupper but remember this is done every single work day in any weather condition. The only time we don’t play is when its pouring rain.

7:15-7:20, leave for work. 20 minute commute, sometimes 30 with all the morons in society.

7:45 all the way to 4:30, work. Yes my work time is 8 hours 45 minutes. That includes a 10 minute after lunch walk and a 30 minute lunch. So I work 5 minutes free everyday for the company.

4:30 PM to 5:00, or even till 5:10, commute home. Yep only 6 miles via road, but hey there is at least 20 stop lights and countless more morons, sorry humans.

5:00 – 10:00, this is my free time. Just because its free doesn’t mean it really is. I have to cook dinner with wifey, take out pup for a play or walk, cut grass at least once per week, do some of my garden stuff, other yard work, clean up house that never ever is fully neat, go on computer, do laundry, go food shopping, eat dinner, watch TV, read a book. And also other activities which will not be mentioned here, but those are always allowed to take my free time!

10:00 to next morning – bedtime.

As you can see, work and sleep take up a majority of my daily time. Logically, I would assume the same is true for you! Haha who would have thought?

I am blessed to have an average commute (35 minutes at most) which is still above the average American’s 22 minutes (I do not know how that in any way on God’s green earth this is possible – maybe all the part timers? Que est in tarnacion?). I know some folks have it good while others, myself included in the past, have it bad with long commutes.

That leaves the final 5ish hours to do what we want. To not be busy, to be free of the shackles of life. This is false AGAIN, since we need to LIVE and SURVIVE. That includes getting food and cooking it. The wife and I try to minimize our fast food and restaurant consumption, 1 because it saves a crap load of money eating at home and 2 our waist lines have leveled off. It also makes my three to four trips to the food store hurt a little less when I see the very -not-filled-cart and the bill of $100 per trip!

Back to time management and busyness, let’s say there are three solid hours of free time left. This is assuming a single person (folk [sub parenthesis: I know folk can be construed as plural as well as singular – take a grammatical break and bear/bare with me!]) or married couple (folks), as this scenario would not work if you have a family or someone to take care of. I can hear future kids complaining about not being considered after reading this long lost post. You have three hours, you can do chores or watch TV. I would say the overwhelming number of older Americans watch TV while the younger demographic chooses to split time between TV and internet. Further analysis (from reading online articles and not citing sources since I have no time- kind of contradictory to this post) reveals that most of the younger folks spend time simultaneously watching TV and the internet. This can only be accomplished by using a phone/smartphone or as my Grandfather likes to call “a TV” (that’s a story for another time).

As for busyness, yes, Americans are busy. We work too much, we commute too much. After a hard day at the office, we just want to come home and relax. We eat out because its fast and easy. We watch TV because it draws us in with its tantalizing programs. We are more and more becoming absorbed in our smartphones. My wife is constantly, every waking second of the day, playing “match three” games or “build a farm” games on her phone. Is this an addiction? Who knows but it sure looks like one to me. I feel like we need to stop being to darn busy! We need to chill out remember why we are here on this earth. We need to stop wasting our own precious free time drawn to screens and spend it with family, friends, or even alone doing something great.

I find myself, especially seeing how the last few months have had a void in posting to the blog, frustrated at my life and how fake busy I have been. I have been consciously trying since 2016 to live a simpler life, but getting married then trying to search for a home to live in adds a whole lot of complication to day to day living. Maybe it’s the millennial in me being a complainer right now, but I would like to think not. I am really not that busy, I just find myself being lazy and deciding to sit and watch TV along with my wife.

I am not that person, I am a creator! I want to do something with my life. I want to fix up my broken down car, I want to save a ton of my income and I want to pay off mine and my wife’s student loans. Furthermore, which is the whole reason for this blog, I want to grow grapes and create wine. So, I am asking you the reader, along with myself, to start up and get going. No more excuses for “I am too busy” because I am not, and neither are you. Take action in your life, and avoid the “busy trap”. Let the rest of the world run races with rats. You arn’t a rat!

Regards,

Victor

Trip to New York City

Posted on by admin

Hey all, I recently had a business trip to New York City. This wasn’t a vineyard-building related trip, but a day job related trip. The trip was a week long and it entitled spending time in a class discussing work-related things from 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM. It was a difficult week.

The week started out with an omen of things to come. My boss booked a hotel under his name outside of Manhattan in Newark NJ. The hotel was right nearby the airport, so I assume it was much cheaper than staying in Lower Manhattan (turns out it was the same price). When I arrived at the hotel, I couldn’t check in since my identity wasn’t my boss’s. So after an awkward 7:00 PM Sunday night phone call to my boss, it was sorted out and I was allowed to stay.

The next morning, I was required to take an airport shuttle, an airport elevated people mover train, a regional commuter train and finally a subway to get to the city. The price (which was of course reimbursed) = $24 round trip! What was more amazing to me was not the price but the travel time. It took 1:45 minutes to get there one way! I was only staying 5 miles as the crow flies. I knew it would take at least 30-45 minutes due to numerous rivers and highways to cross, but I never expected the trip to take that long.

After a hard day in classes, I trekked the same brain numbing 1:45 minutes back to the hotel. It was 7:15 PM and I was exhausted and starving. Because of an impending snow storm hitting the next day, I drove out to a convenience store to pick up dinner and food supplies. I eventually ate around 8:00 PM.

The next day, the storm hit, causing a complete shut down of all movement throughout the region. I spent the day wandering around the hotel, reading in my room and enjoying no free wifi. I don’t understand how if you stay at a “nicer” hotel, the wifi becomes a paid service? The wifi was free for Hilton members, which I am one, but my information would not work because my account was not associated with the room. My bosses information was. Alas, a week away becomes a week without internet.

On Wednesday, I proceeded as usual to the class, albeit an hour early and staying an hour later to make up time. We did the early/later routine for Thursday and Friday morning too. For my commute, I did some research and drove to a parking garage two miles away. I then hopped on the subway, saving my company $8 in train tickets and me over 1 hour of time wasted. It was a good day in the commuting department.

On Thursday, my car broke down in the parking garage. I have an 18 year old car that is very reliable, only if you keep up on the routine maintenance. My car’s timing belt was due for a replacement-it had almost 10,000 miles over its recommended replacement interval. After a terrible grinding noise, burning smell and smoke coming out of my engine, I pulled into the subway parking garage. I later found out after having it towed with the help of some family, that the timing belt was failing, but it did not actually fail yet. After the belt cover was removed, I found the interior portion of the belt was frayed and ripping apart, while the two outer edges remained intact. Thank the Lord the belt did not snap! If it did, I would be stranded and my car’s engine would be destroyed. For who ever thought it was smart to have a machine with moving parts occupy the same exact space at different times, I have a common sense question for you!

Friday was a good day. The class started early, there were no transit delays, breakfast was provided for us and I passed the class test. I got to leave Manhattan and North Jersey around 3:00 PM and was home by 6:00 PM.

The week was tough. I don’t want to sound like I am complaining, but I am a little. Some things were out of my control but I like to think I handled them effectively. The moral of the story that I like to take from my experience is that life may throw many hard obstacles in your path. You just have to break them down into pieces to get past them.

A Warm Wind is A’ blowing

Posted on by admin

Have you noticed the warm weather? If you live in Maine, or some areas in the Pacific Northwest, you may have not (sorry Alaska, you are excluded from these regions based on distance). For the rest of the 48 United States, there has been significant warmth for the month of February.

I live in Southeastern Pensyltucky as I like to say. For the non-geographical folks, that means outside of Philadelphia. This past weekend, there was three days of warm temperatures above 60 degrees with highs into the 70s. For Thursday – Sunday of this week, there will also be highs into the 70s. This weather and prolonged warmth is unusual for our area. I have noticed that the Philadelphia region has some of the most boring and standard weather around. There will be days of cold, then days of mild temps, then back to cold-in the winter at least. This regular ho-hum weather temperatures are not heard of elsewhere. In other areas of the country, the temperatures change day to day. My friend in Dallas Texas reports days of 75 degrees and sunny with the following day cold and 33!

Being interested in viticulture, or the growing of grape vines, I tend to monitor the temperatures around the year. Some winters, I look out for extended cold temperatures, since I don’t want the raw cold to destroy my vines.  Other times, like this past winter, I watched for these extended warm periods similar to the one we are having this week. I am worried that the April temperatures that we are experiencing in February are going to really screw with my grape vines. Most plants need so many thousand hours of “chilling” before they are cued to regrow in the spring. Some plants’ chilling hours are satisfied by being below 50 degrees. Others, such as grapes, are satisfied being chilled below 40 to 35 degrees. This doesn’t mean that the vines are destroyed from lower temperatures, as all it means is that after so many hours below the chilling temperature, the vines are ready to break their dormancy and emerge for spring time.

In southeast Pennsylvania, we have a moderate type of winter. The winter is long enough to easily satisfy grape vine chilling but not too short or either too long. It is just the right length. In fact, since similar grape varieties grow in Virginia and North Carolina, one can deduce that the required number of chilling hours for the same vine in Pennsylvania will probably be satisfied around late January to mid-February. Hence my concern for this early warming period we are feeling now. The vines in my area have already satisfied their needed chill requirement. With the continued warm temperatures, they may eventually emerge with new leaves. This is a concern because March weather is erratic and wild, with some late freezes and at other times mild wet and rainy days. If a late freeze occurs, small grape flowers will be ruined, forcing the vine to use its secondary, later flush of flowers. Those secondary flowers are not as numerous as the first flowers, which limits the number of potential grapes to grow.

For many folks, the warming time is the beginning of spring fever. It is a needed relief from a cold and raw winter. In fact, I don’t mind it either! I even wore shorts and a tee shirt today when taking my dog for a walk. The weather was pleasant, the air smelled fresh and the birds were singing/tweeting ferociously. On Wednesday I saw a few forsythias and flowering pears with the beginnings of flowers. I really do enjoy this break in the weather, but as a grape grower I enjoy it with a side of noted caution. Happy early Spring.

Thoughts on Politics and News

Posted on by admin

Recently, my Wife has been troubled by current events. This past Sunday, while driving home from Church, she told me she further believes the world is ending, and very soon. Now, to let you have some background, she has always been a pessimist, so I can’t hold it against her for having such “world ending” thoughts. But, the Church service we were just at had messages that said us Christians should be wary, since President Trump recently announced restrictions to USA entry for certain countries. It seems to me that the Church pastor wants to preach about possible similar prejudice situations for Christians. There are some reasons why this may be true, but in the end, there really should not be much to fret about.

The world is an ever changing place

I tried telling my wife that she should have no fear, since the world is currently ending and it always will be ending. No one knows when it will end. The world is an ever changing place, there will always be something to worry about. Personally, I am not worried about that fact. I told her my conclusion and she dismissed it. Hopefully the dismissal is just her pessimistic outlook on life. I have since come to think that her opinion may be a product of what she hears around her. Let me explain.

My wife does not watch the news or read the news (be it online or in print from). She gets most of her news through Facebook or what I tell her. Because of this, I have an opinion that most Americans are similar to my wife-they get their news from social media or second hand conversation. To me, social media is an echo chamber of nonsense. People complain, rant and yell all the time, “lets protest this” or “boycott that”. To a social media user, ever single thing they consume (newsworthy, that is) is most likely polarized and opinionated. There have even been examples of social media having polarization and/or “news” that was deemed important or less important to be shared. Some news was made to be popular while other popular news was hidden by social media companies. I have concerns that there could be an agenda or a process where certain news that the social media company likes is pushed to the masses. Some may find that hidden agendas are sinister, but I see them as a more common occurrence in our society where most people believe what they hear on social media. There is a powerful and large audience with social media, so the desire to send hidden messages to everyone disguised as news can be too tempting to pass up. I don’t know why the current news seems to be all about the world ending, or a disaster here and there. All I know is that sensational news with subjects as such sell advertisements an keep eyes and ears close by. Therefore, it is right for my wife and others to have a grim view of their world since they define their world by what is found on Twitter or Facebook.

Another way I find people tend to have world ending paranoia is through the 24-hour news cycle. Yes, it seems like I am going off into another rant about how the masses are fixated on their computer screens and not paying attention to anything…well I may be, haha. I am mentioning that there is a continued polarization in television news media. I see, especially during and after the election, an incessant drum pounding of news media whom are for or against Trump/Hillary. Everyone knows the age old joke about Fox News and how they are a stand in for the GOP. Yes, there is definitely a slant to the right for Fox. There is also a definite slant for MSNBC. Most people agree with this. What I am trying to tell people is that there are other hidden motives behind news media, besides the obvious one of political persuasion. Do a Google search for “6 media companies.” The results that you see are true, most American consumer media is founded under the wide umbrella of 6 large corporations. Now, the job of a business is to make money, everyone knows and respects that. However, when you get to be one of the 6 mega-companies who controls a machine that most Americans look at least 4 hours a day at, money becomes an afterthought. What becomes more lucrative, is power.

Think of any old bad guy/good guy tale. The antagonist has motives that usually sound something like they want/need/have power. For some men, power is far greater than money or fame. There are plenty of individuals that I am sure most folks have never heard of, who have a tremendous power in the behind-the-scenes America. Some of these individuals work in media. Their philosophy, their beliefs, their…agenda, flows from top down to the stations and tells them what to show. Since the TV is on at least 4 hours a day in every home, now you may realize why they call a show lineup “programming”. Its programming because the news media companies are programming the viewer to associate with the beliefs of the station and the owners at the top. Again, people may consider this to be sinister, even treacherous realization. Some may consider it to be un-American or completely ludicrous. I consider it normal, since the only logical step after maximizing profits is to further take advantage of every opportunity to lock in those potential, future profits. By wielding such power over many people, people see the world the way the media wants them to see. A dumb population who doesn’t want to do their diligence on story gathering and news reading is a population who believes everything they hear on TV. This is exactly what the media companies want-and by effect, is exactly why so many people, such as my Pastor and my wife, believe the world is ending. Its ending because its what powerful folks want you to think! Fear sells, and that means more eyes and ears to accept advertisements. Once people get their heads out of their TV and computer screens and relax, they will enjoy their life and find the world is not a place that is ending any time soon.

Enjoy your life! See this beautiful cardinal outside in the snow.