The word never gets old

Don't have too much to say. Been working 12+ hours a day everyday this week. Going on our 9th day straight. Everyone is feeling it. Looking forward to a possible day off this weekend or early next week. The last of the grapes are coming in this week then we are done sorting and pressing. It's mostly barrel work and tank draining after that for a month. Looking forward to maybe getting a weekend off this month. I will leave you with this gem of a notice I found posted in literally the darkest corner of the barrel room. I was avoiding work then I started reading this. Look at the last line:



Bung hole. Ha. Whoever came up with that was a saint.

This is not pimp my ride

So this week has been pretty crappy in a non-work related way. Work has been going shockingly well in fact with the exception of my continued difficulty with hoses. We are gearing up for a long weekend full of sorting grapes, pump overs, and punch downs, not to mention pressing. But today Cory and I were lucky enough to end our day with a trip to two of our main vineyards, Robert Thomas and Nicole. Holace was nice enough to take us on a tour and answer some of our questions about how this all goes down. Each of these vineyards are within ten miles of the winery and are extremely beautiful. I snapped a few pictures as I was wandering through. Cory drove us out in his sweet ass jeep since the PT Cruiser doesn't have its off road tires on at the moment. Check em out:

Things I suck at

I'd like to take a moment to point out the few things that I generally suck at doing at work. First, is rewinding hoses back up. There's a trick to it. I tried the tricks. Still no luck. I've probably folded up these things 100 times now and I still screw it up somehow, every time. Cory thinks this is pretty funny and I think he's a dick. But alas, what can I do? My inability to wind these damn hoses tests my manhood. I must conquer them before I leave this place.

Next is punch downs. I should just be honest and say I have no upper body strength. Combined with a bum left arm from braking it too much, and basically I can't handle it. I don't mind them terribly anymore. But after about a half hour my hands hurt bad. But you just have to tough that one out.

Watching out for forklifts is also a bit shady. I suck at walking in giant rubber boots as is, but combine that with dodging forklifts that roll around everywhere all day and you're just asking for disaster. I may be the only person to get hit by one in the winery's history.

Putting the destemmer back together is also a royal pain in the arse. I don't think I'm strong enough (once again) to pull the giant plastic part out. And I'm definitely not able to put it back. So I just have to make other people do it. I'm getting good at manipulation I guess, which should help me in the business world. Maybe?

That's all I can think about right now. I'm done complaining. Hopefully by the end of this I will have overcome my puniness. Until then, just gotta keep grinding it out.

Now here is a lovely picture I took on my bike ride to Lake Sonoma today. Days off rule:

It's getting ruff

I previously wrote about how awesome I thought punch down's were which is unfortunate because I think I found a new thing to hate at work. They start off nice. You're using heavy machinery to punch down fermenting grapes so the juice comes out and the yeast can throw a party on their tab. But then you realize you've got 2 more hours to go and it's only been 5 minutes. Roughly 30 minutes into it your hands start to ache. But you just have to keep going. There's no other option. And these have to be done 4 times a day for as much as 30 minutes a day, and there's 9 of these tanks. Rubbish. Here's a pic so you don't have to read for a second:

On the upside to today, I learned that the plastic gas death trap below is called an S type something. I forgot what Dennis told me. But to go along with the whole fermentation "theme" I've got going in this post, I figured I'd show you these buggers. The funny thing is, like most things where I work, I have no idea what they do. But the winemakers love 'em and I just can't take away what immense joy they get from using them. So, fermenting grapes create CO2 from the burping yeast who eat everything insight and then these things bubble. And winemakers, I am led to believe, absolutely love bubbles. Must be a childhood thing. I don't know. It's going to be a busy weekend though. I think the Char-done-a is coming in. I'm giddy like a school girl.

Bottle Rat

Got tomorrow off. Bonza.
Spent most of the day sorting.
Spent the rest helping out production. I quite enjoy the break from sorting. It's good to get rowdy with the production crew. Here's a little snipit of what the line looks like via my new iphone app:



Considering moving to Culver City to work PR for the industry. Random thought.

Morning Conversation:

Syliva: Dane, what size fleece jacket are you?
Me: I don't know. Is it synthetic or natural?
Syliva: I don't know. What's the difference?
Me: I don't know. I've never worn fleece.
Syliva: Well what size are you?
Me: Medium
Syliva: We only have Large
Me: Then why did you even ask?
Syliva: (storms away)

War all the time

Today on the sorting line I pitted a lady bug against a pincher bug. But the pincher bug jumped off the table committed suicide. I can only assume he was a pacifist, possibly the only one of his kind seeing as how he has a giant pincher for a tale. Poor guy would rather die than be faced with killing another species. Either that, or he knew how tough the lady bug really was. Guess we'll never know.

Like I said, some hardcore pornduction went down today. My arms are dead from lifting cases of sparkling wine and stacking them all day. Then there was the spinning around with the shipping wrap which gave me vertigo. Freaking hilarious though. Closest to being drunk at work so far. This is my handy work:

And this is a very unexciting video:

Putisa from Dane Gaffney on Vimeo.

Then I stumbled upon this machine. I've always wanted to use one. All it is is a overgrown trash compactor. But still, watch how awesome this video is. Its also boring as hell. But it's awesome boring:

Greatest machine ever from Dane Gaffney on Vimeo.

And putisa is slang for working hard around these parts. We say it about 40 times a day. Great word.

Mini Gummi Bears if you must know

I might have had this post up sooner but the following events have transpired:

1. My pops is in town. We headed down to Graton to eat at a cool place called Underwood. Great food, wine country prices, and cool peeps. Life's too short not to eat food this good. Also, the bar looks pretty sweet. Going to have to hit it up sometime during the week.
2. Stopped by Yogurt Time on the way home. I'm slowly and subliminally working my way into the mind of the girl who works behind the counter. She couldn't understand how I knew she had philosophy class at 7 today. I remember the oddest things about life.
3. Pops brought my bass up. She's my baby and I missed her. Played for 20 minutes then stopped to write this. Gonna keep going. Here she is:

As for the work day today, I spent it all day working the production line boxing chardonnay. But Cory got to do punch downs which can only be described as a real life video game. He uses a monster hydrolic hand-held press of sorts to punch down the grapes. If you could take this thing to a party I can personally guarantee it would get you laid. Here's Cory wielding the awesome power that is the punch down:

Tomorrow's more production. Then the weekend will be full of grapes. And Pabst Blue Ribbon. This is where you'll find me tomorrow if you need me:

Im on a Boat

This thing has some French-ass name, like Fringe or Fangs or Frumps or Fruges. But I'm just going to call it a giant wine barrel. And I'm standing on it. Mostly because I can. Also because its some serious James Bond business being up there. Thanks to Cory for taking the pic in between us sorting the heck out of grapes.

Captain Secret Face

Let me begin with my friend the fly. Late last evening when I was crawling into bed I heard a faint buzzing noise. I turned on the light to find I was in fact not alone. A fly had snuck into my room, I assume by accident, because if he had heard anything about me by this time he would have known I am an exceptional fly slaughterer. I spent the next 20 minutes hunting my new friend until eventually one of us had to win. Well the fly did. But when I woke up this morning, he was laying next to my shoe, deceased. In the end, it would appear I was the actual winner of this duel. Thus, I salute you, Crispin (I named the fly), for out maneuvering me. You will be missed.

Crispin RIP:

As for the rest of my day, it was spent staring at shaking grates for 11 hours. Here is a pic of Cory right before we started for the day. He had just listened to Pantera so he was in a marvelous mood.

If you notice he's sort of smiling a this point. By about 4 today we started to lose our minds. Mostly laughing uncontrollably over nothing, or at Dennis' stories. Speaking of Dennis, here is a video of his middle finger:

Dennis and his finger from Dane Gaffney on Vimeo.

So yes, Cory and I lost our minds. Conversation ranged from drinking breast milk to health insurance, then Vegas. Oh god Vegas. I think we have to sort another 45 tons tomorrow which will take most of the day. Can't wait to see where the convo leads tomorrow. I just honestly can't imagine it getting any weirder.

Most of my days are spent doing roughly the same things right now just in different order. I started the morning cleaning the bins that were coming in. There were about 120 tons total, and those are quarter ton bins. 4x120=boatload of bins. Check it:

They come flying down this thing then we go ahead and hose em down and stack em:

Then the rest of the morning was spent talking with Cory while we sorted some amazing grapes. We had some pretty heated debates over tattoos. But the grapes. Ah yes. These came from Nicole's Vineyard and this stuff was primo. Hardly any under ripe green grapes or debris. We took extra time and care since this is the first time we've gotten this caliber of grapes in this harvest. The blue machine in the pic below is the de-stemmer and I usually work just to the left of it where the bucket is.

Then we put the grapes (gently) into our brand new tanks. These things are state of the art as far as winemaking goes. Everything is automatic on them so it was a pretty big deal to finally put our first vintage in them via forklift.

As for the weekend, it looks like I have it off. I got work on Labor day, but im getting off by 5 because Hall and Oates is playing next door to my house. Like 300 feet from it. And I'm not missing that for the world. I'm going to sneak in with a walky talky strapped on so I look like security. Wish me luck!

Kevin just told me he popped my harvest cherry. Not cool.

Today was the first real brutal day of harvest. I clocked in 10 hours of solid work. We had about 100 tons of grapes come in today. I don't have any pics and I'm sorry, but imagine half-ton bins stacked 3 stories high, roughly 400 of them. And I spent half the day cleaning them. In 85 degree sun. Bitchin. Then there was the usual sorting in the cellar which is at least air conditioned.

Then it was back out to the press pad to clean clean clean. Future heads up, if Kevin ever asked you fi you've seen the Karate kid movie, then asks if you want to "rake the truck," politely decline his request. My whole body feels dead. I'm too old for this. And it's only the first day. My back kills and my dumb left arm that I broke when I was 4 is flaring up like crazy. Probably should have had surgery on that a few years ago. Oh well. I need to make all this work worthwhile. I need a drink.

Oink

Harvest has begun. Things are going to start getting hectic. My whole body hurts. Also may be getting the swine flu but won't know until I wake up tomorrow. I do not look forward to going to bed tonight.