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The Golden Age of Aviation

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So Google reminds us that today would have been Alexander Calder's 113th birthday. Which reminds me of the good old days of commercial aviation. Remember when they served meals on a plane? Remember when "stewardesses" were friendly? Remember when it was common to dress nicely for air travel? Remember when you could go to the gate to meet your visiting grandparents? 

As a youngster, I had the great fortune to spend days at airports around the country (and even one 3 day stint at Gatwick in London). My father worked for Texas International Airlines, which later purchased Continental. During the heyday of Texas International, based in Houston, we spent a lot of time flying around for free, and a whole lot more time sitting in airports waiting for seats to become available, as we were flying standby (as in free). 

My parents dreaded the long delays, but my sister and I had a blast roaming unfettered through the concourses and terminals collecting anything that had a logo on it, spotting exotic aircraft and marveling at the vast sea of costumes and funny accents.

I had a closet full of airline timetables, ticket folders and baggage claim checks. Plastic swizzle sticks, buttons and wings. When I left home, most all of that stuff got trashed. However, I managed to save a few of those things from the good old days. Including a lithograph signed by Alexander Calder in 1976 as Dallas-based Branniff Airlines was celebrating the bicentennial with the famous artists help. I got this from a friend whose mother was a travel agent. It'd be worth maybe $100 bucks today if it was in good condition, but it's stained and the corners are full of pin holes from various placements on walls.

Flying these days is not nearly as fun as it used to be. I don't know if it's because I'm a grumpy adult now, or if it's because the fun isn't free anymore…

Happy Birthday, Alex.

Up in Smoke

Fire and smoke are the predominant themes of the summer of 2011... and water (or lack therof) but that post is for another day. This one's just a visual display for those who aren't living under the smoke to get a sense of what we are living and breathing. The photo below is a NASA satellite image of the Las Conchas fire taken on June 30.

Here are some more local shots from the hills in and around Dixon from the past few days.

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Fire on the Embudo

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Fires burning out of control in Arizona... fires crossing the state line and a fire just up the hill. There was a far less terrifying fire just this past weekend as Holly's Follies wrapped up their 5 show run with a rockin' cast party. Simon hosted and the Pathetics provided the tunes. Joining them here is the inimitable, incomparable and yes, incorrigible Rita O'Connell with a little support from the incendiary Jeff Favorite...

 

 

and if that isn't enough, here's the Dixon Players Barbershop Quartet.

 

Thanks to all who came out (and came out again) for Hollys' Follies!

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Spring Theater in Dixon

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Holly's Follies premieres tonight in Dixon at the old Catholic school building (soon to be known as the Dixon Community Playhouse). Performances are Friday and Saturday, May 20th and 21st and Friday and Saturday, June 3rd and 4th. All performances at 7:30 PM. Tickets can be bought in advance at the Embudo Valley Library or by making reservations at 505.579.4545.

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May: Weird Wide Web

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Education, Comedy and Mind-Blowing Beauty are our themes for this month's round up of links. As you may note, a couple of these are quite OLD in internet terms. Oh well, perhaps some day Dixon will get real high speed internet.

 

First up; Education. Please make use of the scroll bar at the bottom of the page.

Learn the Solar System

 

Next is the Comedy. This may be bogus, but it's funny nonetheless.

 

Finally, this piece of film... created entirely on a computer. Kinda scary but still amazingly beautiful:

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

What's Happening at Our Community Winery?

It's that time again, Spring has come, the grass is turning green, (or in our case, the new cover crop) and HAPPY HOUR SATURDAYS are coming back! May 21st, our Happy Hour kicks off and once again we will be hosting live bands, drink specials & staying open until 7pm! We hope you will join us to enjoy our new list of wines and fun gift items in our Tasting Room!

Don't wait till Happy Hour starts to visit us, remember, Mother's Day is coming up and we have great gift items for mom, sister, wife or daughter! Pamper the women in your life!

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Another Blue Heron Gig

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The mighty Ken and I will be rippin' it up once again on Saturday, April 16th from 5-7 for the Blue Heron happy hour. We'll be joined once again by the lovely Lori and the jumpin' Johnny M. Come on down and enjoy the jam and a bit of brew too!
For a preview of what's in store, have a look at our latest video... featuring a bit of local flavor...



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Weird Wide Web

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Lots of video this month. Here's three pulled from the wreckage:

The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

 

Ted Said

 

Weird Animation

"Friends of Vivác"

New to Vivác Tasting Room, sweet wines, sparkling wines & wines under $10! We are proud to offer the styles of wine you may be looking for that we at Vivác do not produce. We have hand selected the best of these styles that our respected wine maker friends make in New Mexico. They are:

GRUET WINERY:
"United States Wine Producer of the Year" by The International Wine & Sprits Competition for 2010, the Gruet family has helped our Vivác Winery wine-makers with invaluable advice as we started our own winery & we continue to call them friends today. Gruet Winery makes some of the best sparklers in the world. They stem from "Gruet et Fils" Champagne house in France & all of their sparklers are Methode Champenoise.

BRUT: notes of buttered popcorn & green apple, this wine has great acidity & fine mousse. Serve chilled.
ROSE: notes of Strawberry & toasted almonds, this wine has round acidity & fine mousse. Serve chilled.

RED HOT MAMA WINES
Created by Vivác's team of certified Sommeliers & designed in a 1950's Rock-a-Billy style who's art is by  the famous Nelson Rhodes (Disney animator & inventor of the 'Tasmanian Devil'), Red Hot Mama Wines are fun, flirty & a bit risqué but always a great value! These wines are not made by Vivác, but the blend is produced & marketed by the owners.
RED HOT MAMA: If you are looking for a great wine with lots of "character and Sass", this wine shows full fruit, round acidity & light tannin. This Cabernet Sauvignon heavy blend is great with Pizza & BBQ
BUXOM BLONDE: A Sauvignon Blanc blend showing mellon flavors, nice acidity & fruity over tones, fun & flirty with full figured fruit & easy to drink! Serve Chilled. Great with Cheeses & lighter meats.

LUNA ROSSA
Paolo  D'Andrea is a 4th generation wine-maker from Friuli, Italy with a degree in Viticulture. Paolo has worked the vineyards of  Deming's "NM Vineyards Inc" since 1986 selling us our grapes, working closely with us to find interesting varietals to work with & picking at our specified levels of acid & sugar, this is a relationship that is very important & personal. Luna Rossa is his personal winery.
GEWURZTRAMINER: notes of honey & blossoms, this semi-sweet wine has round palate & low acid.
PRIMO DULCE: This red blend has notes of dark ripe fruit & floral hints. A semi-sweet wine with round acidity & light tannins.

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Chicks in Dixon

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Baby chicks fresh from the post office

Are your egg yolks pale and sickly looking? Do you wonder about the nutritional deficiencies of pallid eggs? Well, look no further, neighbors!  Your egg needs can now be fulfilled! Yes, I've got eggs with yolks that will blow your socks off!

 

The chicks featured in these photos were delivered to Dixon in August, fed a strict organic diet and are now beginning to lay gorgeous and hearty eggs with rich yolks the color of pumpkins.

 These eggs are colorful both inside and out!

I'm offering these eggs to a few discerning neighbors via a subscription plan. $25 gets you a punch card good for 6 dozen eggs. Fill up 2 punch cards your card and you'll get a dozen free. I'll be packaging the eggs by weight, so they'll be available in Small, Medium and Large batches. I'll try to fill subscriptions with the largest size available, but production can be random, so you may occasionally get some smalls.

 A plump hen ponders whatever a chicken might ponder

If you want to get on the list, just click here to send me an email!

 

-awk!

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The Dixon Pub Scene

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There's a new act in town and I caught them in action Saturday night at the Blue Heron.

The handsome and multi-talented duo, Ken Clark and Jeff Spicer, have joined forces with various combinations of upright bass, mandolin, guitar and banjo for some real down to earth, knee-slappin' sounds of bluegrass, country, and Irish pub songs (why not throw in a little Led Zeppelin to show off Jeff's amazing musical screaming abilities?) Lori, Ken’s wife, joined in with lovely guitar strumming and added some sweet leading vocals and gorgeous harmony before running off to take her three squirming kids home.

Clark made a special appearance just in time to lead us all in the crowd pleasing “Ballad of Jed Clampett”:

It was standing room only at the cozy brewpub with great company and lively sing-a-longs – definitely one of those "I'm so glad I live in Dixon!" moments. Thanks Blue Heron for creating such a space. And, of course, we love the beer!

Blue Heron Brewing Co. in Rinconada has Happy Hour with live music every Saturday evening from 5-7. No need to feel disappointed if you missed out on Ken and Jeff's gig. They'll be playing again on March 5 with a few new tunes. Cheers!

 

 

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I Surf the Web

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For the past year or so I've been sending a trio of web links out to a few folks on my email roster that I'd found to be entertaining in one way or another. Usually these are not of the "cute cat" or "funny baby" variety, but amusing or interesting in a different, perhaps more subtle way. Of course, I love a good "cute kitty" video, but those are readily available elsewhere. 

I am moving this monthly ritual to the Dallies. There is an awesome amount of creativity happening out in the webosphere, and it has proven to be a tremendous source of inspiration for me, hopefully these will inspire or amuse you as well. We'll start with these three.

Cleveland Browns Comedy

Lyndon B. Johnson: A Man who knows slacks

This one sucked up way more time than it should have.

Here are a couple of samples of this link's results:

 

Wine 101

How is wine made?

It starts with the grapes in the vineyard, this can get very detailed, but for simplicity sake, lets leave that to: when the acid levels and the sugar levels are right, you pick the grapes. The grapes are taken to the winery, and in Vivác's winery, hand sorted (removing any poor grapes and leaves). The grapes are then sent through the crusher/destemmer (which breaks open the berries and separates it from the stem) and, if they are white grapes, sent to the presses. At Vivác, these are 2 traditional basket, hand presses. The pulp is removed from the juice and white wines sit in temperature controlled stainless steel tanks immediately to ferment. Red wines ferment with the skins and seeds in temperature controlled stainless steel tanks for 9-12 days (depending on the varietal). During fermentation the "cap" of skins and seeds is "punched down" in an effort to keep the juice in contact with the skins and seeds, drawing color and tannin from them. The red wine is then pressed and sent to oak barrels, we believe in 100% French Oak barriques at Vivác because of the sweet spices they release into the wine, think aromas of caramel, vanilla, cinnamon or butterscotch. Wines spend time in both new and old oak barrels prior to bottling. The bottle aging is important so that the wine can again become an integrated experience when you drink it. It is the details and the science behind each of these steps that differentiate one winery from another, imagine a city or town of restaurants with excellent chefs, each one might be serving a chicken dish and a stake dish, but none of them will taste the exact same. Your job as the consumer is to find the wine-maker or "chef" that suits your palate.

Have a wine questions? Ask away, Cheers!

Your Community Winery

In a time where many children grow up and try to get away from their small town up-bringing, Jesse and Chris Padberg chose to come home to Dixon and anchor their roots, literally. Jesse and Chris, born 18 months apart, grew up on a farm in Dixon and watched 2 other brothers  in town form a Winery and make it work. With inspiration and schooling underway, Jesse and Chris worked construction jobs to fund their budding dream, the dream of returning to Dixon to open their own winery, Vivac Winery. With a great deal of work ahead of them, Chris transferred from college in New Orleans to UNM. Jesse, having finished school in Boulder settled in Dixon and the pair set the ground work for their future. Continued construction work funded the foundation of wine equipment and grape root stock. Chris' graduation from UNM brought him to Dixon full time and the brothers worked their new vineyard, took out loans and built the Tasting Room themselves. Hard work, determination and more loans, brought the winery dream to fruition. This dream has not been a gift from parents or funded by parents or investors, this winery has been built on the callused hands of 2 brothers bound by determination. Even now as the vineyards expand, the 2 gave up what little time at home they had, for a second job, again in construction to fund the massive under taking. It is with the full time help of their wives and around the clock dedication that the 4 owners have pushed this business through hard times and are now receiving National fan fare.

It is with great appreciation to all of Dixon, that we continue to keep our doors open and the dream alive. Thank you!

http://www.vivacwinery.com/

A Punny Situation (and contest)

A friend of mine claims to be a champion of the ill-advised pun. He has a scheme to publish a little book with hundreds of these little gems. He's asked me to do some initial sketches for a mock-up of the book. I'm posting 4 of these cute little fellas and I'm hoping you guys can guess their appropriate titles. As these are kinda from left field, I'll spot you the first one. Write your guesses down in the comments section and the first person to get the other three correct answers will win a case of Tio Jeffe's Holiday Cider!  

Only the first one has a name reference, the remaining three are phrases.

Good luck and Cheers!

Military Flyovers

Dear Friends,

The link below takes you to a Wall Street Journal article about the military operations area proposed over Dixon, Crestone, and the entire Santa Fe/Taos/ southern Colorado area for nightly low altitude war practice. Embedded in this article is a yes or no opinion poll about whether the LATN program should happen here or not. Please take the time to vote in the poll.  Open the link to the article,a couple of paragraphs down, there is a box called Community Forum, which is where you make your vote known.  Seems like we're needing to stand up for our right to this quiet pristine environment, on many fronts, our airspace being one of them.

 Wall Street Journal Article

 Please activate your mailing lists and encourage people you know who are concerned for our skies to vote in this poll.  It could easily be used as support for the project if the split continues as it is currently.

In the article it mentions that the noise from one of these aircraft at 500 feet above the earth is like a nearby chain saw or power mower.  But they will fly 200 feet overhead.  200 feet!  In city terms, that is less than a short city block overhead! 

There are other, much more empty mountainous areas in New Mexico that do not have the population of this corridor.  This area is a major tourist destination, has a concentration of wildlife reserves, national parks, and an abundance of retreat centers established solely for the peace and quiet the area naturally affords.

Please take the poll in the article. Feel free to leave comments below as well.

Thanks,

All the Best -

Candace

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Dixon Dallies 2.0

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Well, with the Studio Tour done and gone, winter creeping in and life slowing a bit, it seems a good time to sit down and reassess.

DixonDallies began as an attempt to showcase a little bit of the creativity that takes place here, in and around our little corner of the world. While it does this, it hasn't yet lived up to its full potential. The reasons for this are not entirely clear to me. It could be the cost associated with participation, it could be that the technical side of blogging is too taxing to fool with, or it could just be that blogging isn't something that most people feel compelled to do. In its initial outing, we had about 10 participants, with just 4 or 5 of us contributing to the blog and now it has sat mostly silent waiting for new material since late August. However, we still get visitors! Lots of them. Folks want to see what, if anything is going on. So before I close the curtain on the experiment, I want to shift the focus a bit and alter the way we locals interact with the site. Hopefully, these changes will liven things up a bit and in turn, allow the Dixon curious a better online view of the creative and commercial life here in the Embudo Valley.

 

So what will be different?

First of all, to pay for the site, we will feature sponsorships by local businesses, entrepreneurs and artists. We'll have a section specifically for local vacation rentals and possibly for long-term rental properties. The fees for these ads will start at $5 a month, with discounts for yearly subscriptions. Bloggers will get free access now. If you want to blog, but are intimidated by the process, we'll set up instructional classes if there's sufficient interest. We're also toying with the idea of doing an artist of the month type feature where we'll come around to your studio or workspace with a video camera to create a multimedia presentation to put up on the website. If you are interested in participating in this process (as a reporter, photographer or videographer) let us know!

 

What will remain the same?

The site will remain blog-centric, which means the creativity in our area will still be the focus of the daily posts. The idea is still to give curious outsiders a look at what is going on in town as well as to keep all of us abreast of what our neighbors are up to... creatively and commercially speaking.

If you are a business owner or a vacation rental owner, you'll be hearing from us within the next few days. If you want to advertise here on the Dallies, and you don't hear from us by Thanksgiving, click on the ADVERTISE ON THE DALLIES! link over on the side, fill out the form and we'll get you signed up.

Winter is certainly the best time to dally anyway, so let's see where this wind blows us. Happy Holidays,

Jeff