Happy Valentine's Day

I dug this out from my RPI journalist days... enjoy.

V-Day found not all hearts, candy, and roses
Posted 02-12-2003 at 2:47PM
Ryan Reichert Senior Reporter

With Valentine’s Day rearing its head yet again there are people worldwide complaining about how their significant others are inconsiderate because they don’t buy bunches of roses and pounds of chocolate to commemorate this special event. Little do people realize—unless you’re really into researching random stuff in your spare time—that when Valentine’s Day began it had little to do with flowers and love in the form of concentrated sugar. Instead, like some other holidays, such as Easter—to name one of the more serious holidays now devoted to chocolate and bunnies—Valentine’s Day had both a somewhat grim yet promiscuous beginning.

There are at least three saints named Valentine throughout history who are said to have been martyred for the sake of love. Of course, this is according to the people who wrote the Bible, so one can never be completely sure. Anyhow, two of the more famous Valentines were a Roman priest and a bishop of Interamna, two famous Italian cities. Both of these men were put to death somewhere around February 14, and later buried in Flominian Way, the ancient the road leading to the entrance of Rome.

As far as the story of Bishop Valentine goes, in 270 A.D. Claudius II was the ruler of the Roman Empire and ruled that soldiers were not to be married because he saw married men as inferior soldiers, weakened by love. Secretly Valentine had been performing secret ceremonies and wedding young couples, sort of an underground Vegas drive-thru with a little more class.

Well, Claudius found out about this, like Roman emperors did, and had Valentine captured and tortured. When he then refused to stop his practices and renounce Catholicism, he was clubbed, stoned, and finally beheaded. Ouch. Now that’s really not a pretty way to go.

So many years went by, like they do, and the world was a fun place. I’m sure you’re all starting to wonder where the promiscuity comes into play. Well sit back, because it’s the fifth century A.D., and the Pagans are abounding. In celebration to their god of agriculture and shepherds, Lupercus, the Pagans held a festival around mid-February. Conveniently coincidental? I think not.

The month of February had become a month symbolizing love and courtship, and so what better way to celebrate than to worship a god of corn and sheep? Well, the Pagans had it down, and every year held a lottery in which willing young women entered their names into the drawing, and then the more than willing young men drew one name each. The two were then paired together for their “mutual pleasure” for the remainder of the year. Just think, you might not be alive today if there were contraceptives in the fifth century A.D..

Needless to say, this celebration of young men’s rites of passage was much frowned upon by the Catholic Church. Who would have guessed? So most likely in an effort to rid the world of sin, the big C.C. came in and said “No, no, no! This will not do,” and changed things around.

In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius outlawed the Lupercian Festival. Gelasius wasn’t a stupid man though, and knew that the Roman people enjoyed their games. So in trying to make the whole lottery concept more pre-schooler friendly he devised a system where both men and women would draw names of saints, and then for the rest of the year imitate that saint’s life. Sounds like pre-PBS Mister Dress-Up to me, and you shouldn’t have to guess that the Romans much preferred the previous festivities.

In the end, the Pagans had their day, and reinstated the Festival of Lupercus, but instead geared it towards honoring Saint Valentine, and in courting their potential partners men wrote elaborate love letters and ballads expressing their sentiments. This, as you may have guessed, evolved into the modern day Hallmark Valentine card, and February 14 thus became Valentine’s Day.

So this V-Day be a good significant person, but don’t gorge on chocolates and die of pollen induced allergy attacks, but think about all the fun and excitement that went into making it a holiday. What better way to spend your time?! Additionally, I think the whole Pagan lottery idea is something the administration here at RPI should consider putting into effect. I’m sure it would go over wonderfully with a lot of people. So, the moral of this story: Be good. Be just. Hell, be romantic. Otherwise, like Claudius II said: “No head for you!”

Best bartending one-liner ever

So I'm working at the winery yesterday and I had one of those wonderful moments where the best reply comes right to you exactly when needed. I think it may be the best winery bartender line I've had every.

Scenario: Two women approach the bar to sample wine.
Setting: Grand River Cellars wine bar

Me: "Hi ladies - My name is Ryan. What will you be having today?"

Lady 1: "We're not sure, but we like sweet-ish."

Me: "Well...... I'm German."

END

A thoughtful quotation

Here's something a friend sent me today:

Be mindful of the link between present action and desired future outcome. Ask yourself: if I repeat today’s actions 365 times, will I be where I want to be in a year?

As if my world doesn't revolve around wine enough

Griffin Technologies has allowed my love of wine to expand to new parts of my life. Yesterday I received my new iPhone Elanform via UPS.

The case is a polycarbon (or some kind of plastic!) shell with an exterior made of actual cork. Now how about that for a wine lover? It makes my phone a little thicker, and prevents me from using the dock that it came with, but more importantly it will hopefully protect my phone from getting banged and scratched up should I - forbid - drop it at any point.

So I know some might squawk about how this takes away from the aesthetic of the iPhone, the silvery, streamlined, shiny state that Apple has become so good at producing and marketing. I'm not really bothered though because this reflects something more about me Where some other leather or latex case might take away from the product, I think this is an acceptable addition.

I'd love to know what you all think.

My bean pole nephew

I'm sure I've talked about him, but I don't think I've ever posted any pictures. This is my little one year old nephew, Joey. At Christmas there was a picture of him wearing a Santa hat in front of the tree with a gift wrapped in red paper. I Photoshop'd it so it was B&W with the red accents. Mom hung it in her living room, and decided she wanted to rotate different pictures with the same editing, so this is the one I just finished for her yesterday.

I just like showing him off - he's pretty adorable.

That's all I've got.

Soups!

So I got my hands on a stick blender, and made some soups. Here's what I ended up with:

Soup 1
Chicken base
Potato
Turnip
Cabbage
Onion
Peas
Celery
Garlic
Seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, and a little lemon pepper.

Soup 2
Chicken base
Butternut squash
Carrot
Potato
Onion
Seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, chili powder, and a little cajun seasoning.

Yumalicious.

Welcome to 2008

Happy New Year to everyone!

Sorry I've not made any updates in so long. My resolve to write continuously in a journal always fades with time. I guess I should just accept that I'm not a consistent blogger and be happy with that! All in all I have a hard time forming habits – which is good and bad depending on what you're considering.

My holidays went really well and it was great to get to spend time with my family and friends. Our trip to Toronto got put on hold (indefinitely – maybe next year?), so I just passed the weekend with Lindsay and Danielle in Toledo. It was still a good time, and most importantly I got to see them and Libby, just fresh from Spain and looking mighty fine. I'm very proud of her. She too found that the Camino can really make you think about life and see that perhaps your immediate future decisions aren't necessarily the best or only options. She'll do just as well I'm sure.

Christmas was a joy. Mom bought me an iPhone which I'd been coveting since returning home, and now all I have to do is pay the $70/month phone bill. No matter – it's well worth having the little device. A Phone, music, e-mail, web access, weather, stocks, text messaging, a camera, and more. That's a lot for something that's not much bigger than a deck of playing cards.

The rest of my family and my friends got me some great and in many cases very useful gifts as well. A huge box of household goods/cleaning supplies from my grandparents – who also have re-stocked my supply of socks and underwear much to my pleasure – an espresso machine, books, bar stuff, fantastic J. Crew boxers from Hannah, and gift cards. I'm very grateful for everything.

I saw Charlie Wilson's War on Monday with Dan and thought it a very good movie. I like Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman even more so. Julia Roberts took on an interesting religiously driven fundraiser from Texas with an up-do. Very interesting indeed.

I really love our neighborhood and the surrounding area. Shaker Square is less than 5 minutes away and they have a cinema, shopping, and food there. In Coventry there's always something going on, but the streets are generally quiet at night. I'm really pleased with the apartment we moved into, and though we'll look for something in the spring before our lease is up, if nothing presents itself I won't mind staying one bit. If feasible I'm going to look at purchasing something.

Politics have also been relatively exciting lately. The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries are over, and still there is no clear leader in either party. I'm really interested to see how this continues to unfold for everyone, especially people like Gulianni who has taken the approach of winning over larger states rather than the initial more influential ones. Good idea? Bad idea? I suppose we'll see.

That's all I've got for the time being.

R