>A Whirlwind Tour

>If I were smart, I’d probably just announce right now that I’m going to be taking a little bit of time off, as far as this blog is concerned.

I’m going to be out of town for three consecutive weeks on three separate trips (culiminating in BlogHer 10 in New York!), so I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to get as much writing work done in advance as possible.

I feel exactly like I’ve been studying for exams!

This blog, unfortunately, has had to be last on my list of important things to do. Paid work, obviously, has to come before pleasure. But even though this is supposed to be a place where I write when I feel like it, I still feel incredible guilt when I go several days without checking in. This may be my story, but many of you out there still have a vested interest in what happens next. I know how I’ve felt when a blogger I love just sort of quits for a while, with no explanation. I feel jilted.

Jilted!

I don’t want to jilt you– so rest assured that I will try to check in as often as I can, and I’m sure I’ll have many adventures to tell you about when this whirlwind three weeks is over. School starts the week after I get back (!!!!!!) and while summer has gone by WAY too fast and I didn’t get half the things accomplished that I had planned, I’m ready for the routine of the school year. I’m ready to have a little more time to myself.

That said, I do have to share this story with you right now.

Hubs and I went on a date night recently and decided to stop by a funky little downtown beignet shop that also contains a room with an elaborate wine pouring machine.

It looks like this:

And the wine bottles go all the way around the room.

You load up a card with $20, $50, or $100 and insert it to taste either 1 oz, 3 oz, or 5 oz of your choice of wine.

It’s an electronic wine tasting!

Doesn’t that sound fun? I couldn’t wait to try it.

We bought a $20 card, chose the most moderately priced wines we could find, and each got three ounces for our first pour.

That’s not much wine– about three sips, really.

Here’s what we had left on our card after ONE POUR EACH.

And here’s how much wine I got for roughly $7.50.

I took a sip and realized the wine was corked– so we headed down to the shop to tell the guy behind the counter.

“Corked?!” he said scornfully. “What do you mean by that?”

I sheepishly tried to explain what ‘corked’ wine was, while he eyed me with deep skepticism. Did this guy really think I was trying to con him over a few sips of wine? It wasn’t even nice wine- We’d had some of the bottles on display before and they were all around $10-$15 each.

Two words for this random experience: NEVER AGAIN.

More soon…