zTimothyBz wrote:I was on Venice Beach the other day, and it's well known for street crazies. But this one had an aura, and almost glowing eyes. He intoned what sounded like "If RPM comes not to So Cal then Obama wins". Or it might have been something about bluffing while playing cards.

In any case, I can't disregard such a doubtfully divine message. I've put in for vacation on the week of the 24th, and if it's approved, I'd like to sign up for the veterans tour.

ABSOLUTELY - ARE YOU +1?

jhkey, I noticed you are flying through SMF. Not sure if you've already looked into it (though I'm thinking you probably have), but the last time when I flew home via SMF the SuperShuttle worked out pretty nicely. It was about 1 1/2 hr trip, and I think it was $40 for the cost. May have changed since 2010, but it's probably the best travel option for that airport.

HitAnyKey42 wrote:jhkey, I noticed you are flying through SMF. Not sure if you've already looked into it (though I'm thinking you probably have), but the last time when I flew home via SMF the SuperShuttle worked out pretty nicely. It was about 1 1/2 hr trip, and I think it was $40 for the cost. May have changed since 2010, but it's probably the best travel option for that airport.

Thanks HAK, I was looking into that. My main question was on the return and if I can get back for an 11:30am departure.

jhkey wrote:Thanks HAK, I was looking into that. My main question was on the return and if I can get back for an 11:30am departure.

Yes. My return flight in 2010 was an 11am departure from SMF.
Looking back at some info from then, I got a 7am shuttle from Meritage Resort (they don't pick up from SVI) which got me to the airport by 9:30am. The cost then was $45. I see in my posts that I was probably going to take a taxi from SVI to the Meritage, and that's probably what I did, but so far can't find any actual record of paying for a cab.

Speaking of transportation....

Sparky, are you going up days early or are you going up on Tuesday? If going up on Tuesday, any chance you'll be passing by OAK around 4pm?

If not Sparky, is there anyone driving that would be passing by OAK around 4pm?

And if not, I guess I should start checking SuperShuttle myself for booking transportation for Cat & myself.

HitAnyKey42 wrote:As an FYI, the GoogleDoc is updated with the current lists of attendees and I have your +1 on there. I've been maintaining that for rpm/woop since they're busy with the actual organizing of the tours.

If you don't yet have an invite for it, toss me a PM with your gmail address for access.

Sent you a pm with my email address.

CAGrl wrote:Sent you a pm with my email address.

And again, I somehow missed it amongst other PMs that had come in around the same time. Invite is now sent.

Made reservations for Morimoto's at 5pm, but am thinking we should go there for lunch instead, if things start at 6. Any chance we can get some more details about Sunday night? Will there be food? Should we eat beforehand?

Gettin' pretty excited after booking our flights! We'd be happy to have some suggestions for dinner on Saturday while in San Fran.

otolith wrote:Gettin' pretty excited after booking our flights! We'd be happy to have some suggestions for dinner on Saturday while in San Fran.

Lots of potential suggestions for you - let me know what sorts of food you're interested in.

Also, to keep rpm and woop up to date, my work situation is still entirely unclear at this point. It's becoming likely that I will need to be in NYC for client meetings that week. Unfortunately I will not know for sure until second week of July. Grumble. PM/email if you'd like to discuss more.

klezman wrote:Lots of potential suggestions for you - let me know what sorts of food you're interested in.

Also, to keep rpm and woop up to date, my work situation is still entirely unclear at this point. It's becoming likely that I will need to be in NYC for client meetings that week. Unfortunately I will not know for sure until second week of July. Grumble. PM/email if you'd like to discuss more.

I was thinking Saison or Michael Mina if that helps.

We're flying out 1 month from today! We'll be doing our own thing before we need to be up in Sonoma on Tuesday evening. Let the countdown begin!

rpm wrote:ABSOLUTELY - ARE YOU +1?

Not +1 - and still haven't had my vacation approved (boss out sick).

Does anyone have thoughts, positive or negative about having name tags for the tour participants, at least for a day or two, which would indicate screen name, given first name, home city, etc. This might really help many who are not necessarily active in the forums but are still involved. It might help put a face with a name. Flame away!

kttest wrote:We're flying out 1 month from today! We'll be doing our own thing before we need to be up in Sonoma on Tuesday evening. Let the countdown begin!

We're flying out one month from yesterday and will be visiting with cousins in SoCal.

txmusicman49 wrote:Does anyone have thoughts, positive or negative about having name tags for the tour participants, at least for a day or two, which would indicate screen name, given first name, home city, etc. This might really help many who are not necessarily active in the forums but are still involved. It might help put a face with a name. Flame away!

If I recall, at the initial gathering of the 2008 Tour, we used name tags with a first name and woot moniker so everyone knew who was who.

txmusicman49 wrote:Does anyone have thoughts, positive or negative about having name tags for the tour participants, at least for a day or two, which would indicate screen name, given first name, home city, etc. This might really help many who are not necessarily active in the forums but are still involved. It might help put a face with a name. Flame away!

Almost a necessity. Even I learned names pretty fast, but you've formed some sense of personality based on screen names for many people, and now need a face to that name, and a real name to put it all together. People whose screen name is a nickname, like Sparky or Java, made things easy. Cesare would now be the easiest given his avatar.

rpm wrote:If I recall, at the initial gathering of the 2008 Tour, we used name tags with a first name and woot moniker so everyone knew who was who.

While I wasn't a participant in the 2008 tour, I don't think the 2010 tour had such name tags, which probably would have made things a bit easier in getting to know those you didn't already know.

txmusicman49 wrote:While I wasn't a participant in the 2008 tour, I don't think the 2010 tour had such name tags, which probably would have made things a bit easier in getting to know those you didn't already know.

I actually have 30 wine.woot name tags which I was going to use for an Ohio gathering that turned out to be smaller than anticipated. I am on the first tour and can bring them along. I also have additional blank name tags and can print up some more. Would 60 total suffice? 70? 75?

chipgreen wrote:I actually have 30 wine.woot name tags which I was going to use for an Ohio gathering that turned out to be smaller than anticipated. I am on the first tour and can bring them along. I also have additional blank name tags and can print up some more. Would 60 total suffice? 70? 75?

I think the second tour has fewer than 24 participants right now, so 30 should suffice just to have some extras.

chipgreen wrote:I actually have 30 wine.woot name tags which I was going to use for an Ohio gathering that turned out to be smaller than anticipated. I am on the first tour and can bring them along. I also have additional blank name tags and can print up some more. Would 60 total suffice? 70? 75?

Sure, bring 'em! Are they just stickers?

Also, can't seem to recall if there will be dinner at the Sunday night get-together, or if we should eat prior? Also, do people usually bring a nice/unique bottle of wine to this?

otolith wrote:Also, can't seem to recall if there will be dinner at the Sunday night get-together, or if we should eat prior? Also, do people usually bring a nice/unique bottle of wine to this?

Not necessary to bring wine - there should be a bottle or two

In the past there has also been food - not dinner, but heavy hors d'oeuvres. You could eat something in the Sonoma Plaza at the Farmers Market first, or perhaps afterwards.

otolith wrote:Sure, bring 'em! Are they just stickers?

Yes, they're stickers with the wine.woot logo on them. I paid to have them printed then realized I could (should) have just made them myself. Which I will, for the additional ones.

chipgreen wrote:Yes, they're stickers with the wine.woot logo on them. I paid to have them printed then realized I could (should) have just made them myself. Which I will, for the additional ones.

Thank you for bringing them.

rpm wrote:Thank you for bringing them.

My pleasure! I'm just glad that they will come in handy, after all.

I hinted earlier, but should probably make it official. I can't attend the entire tour this year, unfortunately. My new startup has more piles of work then time to get it done. I am very much hoping to join in for one of the evening events if I can make it to norcal during that week (and if allowed). If, by some miracle, we get client deliverables out the door soon enough I will do my best to get up there. I'm really going to miss it - the last tour was an amazing three days.

*sigh*

klezman wrote:I hinted earlier, but should probably make it official. I can't attend the entire tour this year, unfortunately. My new startup has more piles of work then time to get it done. I am very much hoping to join in for one of the evening events if I can make it to norcal during that week (and if allowed). If, by some miracle, we get client deliverables out the door soon enough I will do my best to get up there. I'm really going to miss it - the last tour was an amazing three days.

*sigh*

Sadness. I guess we can still blame you for everything that goes wrong on the tour.


Oh, and RPM ... AndyDuncan also dropped out in an earlier post. So if zTimBz can get approval, I think that still leaves us at 15 vets.

MarkDaSpark wrote:Sadness. I guess we can still blame you for everything that goes wrong on the tour.

You just want to blame Canada Anyway, we all know it's Richard's fault...

MarkDaSpark wrote:So if zTimBz can get approval, I think that still leaves us at 15 vets.

And I think RPM was trying to convince Mother to fly in on Wednesday

klezman wrote:You just want to blame Canada Anyway, we all know it's Richard's fault...

Ooh, yeah!! Blame Canada!!

klezman wrote:You just want to blame Canada Anyway, we all know it's Richard's fault...

Whoaaa, didn't this say Corrado earlier????? Don't mess with my brain! I'm still decompressing after a looonnnggg year.

The Blinks are now somewhat officially in. Got flights and accommodations booked. However, everything other than tour deposit is refundable as there are a pair of new grandBlinks expected between now and then that could change plans. But the lovely Mrs. Blink insisted she didn't want to miss it so we expect to see everyone there on the veteran tour. Prepare to be bored to death with baby pix.

UBlink wrote:The Blinks are now somewhat officially in. Got flights and accommodations booked. However, everything other than tour deposit is refundable as there are a pair of new grandBlinks expected between now and then that could change plans. But the lovely Mrs. Blink insisted she didn't want to miss it so we expect to see everyone there on the veteran tour. Prepare to be bored to death with baby pix.

The lovely Mrs. Blink can bore me all she wants with baby pics. New grandBlinks will be OK without you for a few days. We'll look forward to seeing pics of them on the next tour.

zTimothyBz wrote:I was on Venice Beach the other day, and it's well known for street crazies. But this one had an aura, and almost glowing eyes. He intoned what sounded like "If RPM comes not to So Cal then Obama wins". Or it might have been something about bluffing while playing cards.

In any case, I can't disregard such a doubtfully divine message. I've put in for vacation on the week of the 24th, and if it's approved, I'd like to sign up for the veterans tour.

I've been so busy spending Sparky's money getting DD ready for college, that I haven't had a chance to even look at wine.woot lately. Now that we've kept South Carolina's economy afloat with our purchases at Bed, Bath and Beyond and Wal Mart, I am catching back up. Wasn't going to post until I read this post from Tim Byrd. I can't WAIT to see you all in July. We are going to have soooooooo much fun! I miss you all and hope you don't abandon wine.woot after all the formatting changes. After all, we do have another child to put through college.

winefarm wrote:I've been so busy spending Sparky's money getting DD ready for college, that I haven't had a chance to even look at wine.woot lately. Now that we've kept South Carolina's economy afloat with our purchases at Bed, Bath and Beyond and Wal Mart, I am catching back up. Wasn't going to post until I read this post from Tim Byrd. I can't WAIT to see you all in July. We are going to have soooooooo much fun! I miss you all and hope you don't abandon wine.woot after all the formatting changes. After all, we do have another child to put through college.

And we too, are looking forward to seeing WineDavid's better (spelling) half!

MarkDaSpark wrote:And we too, are looking forward to seeing WineDavid's better (looking) half!

IFTFY.

ddeuddeg wrote:IFTFY.

You didn't need to ... it went without saying.

** edit: this rate appears to go in and out of availability, so check a few times **

Travelocity is running a good deal on this hotel right now. They've got the standard rooms for $152.99 a night and you can enter the code SUMMER10 at checkout to save an additional 10%. I ended up saving another $100 off my total reservation cost from the Costco price.

I only checked the dates for the newbie tour, not sure if these prices will work for the veterans tour.

redwinefan wrote:Travelocity is running a good deal on this hotel right now. They've got the standard rooms for $152.99 a night and you can enter the code SUMMER10 at checkout to save an additional 10%. I ended up saving another $100 off my total reservation cost from the Costco price.

I only checked the dates for the newbie tour, not sure if these prices will work for the veterans tour.

it's only giving me the $179 rate. do you still see the $152 rate?

jhkey wrote:it's only giving me the $179 rate. do you still see the $152 rate?

Yeah, it looks like the prices have gone back up. The SUMMER10 code should work for the next couple of days in case they drop them again.