Rose HillAs you drive into old town Fredericksburg you will pass this house. By the way, one block over and you will pass my house. The main section of the house was built prior to the Civil War. The family who owns it are a bit reclusive but I have…

Not Quite “The Field of Dreams”On a back road in the Northern Neck. No baseball diamond here but there is an electrical post for some lighting. My guess is that, while abandoned, no one wanted to tear down a perfectly good house. It’s like that wierd …

Stephen King Are You in There?On a back road in King William County. This reminds me of the Crypt Keeper episode (Old TV show for the youngsters in the audience. Could only watch it when my parents were not home) where Stephen King plays a farmer who …

Off the Beaten PathTravel all the way to the end of Lee Drive in Fredericksburg you will see Meade’s Pyramid. And see is all you can do–Big NO NO to cross the train tracks. CSX doesn’t like you playing on their tracks.?”The 30-foot square, 23-foot …

Red Sky in the Morning Sailors Take WarningSailors may look upon this scene with some trepidation but Frederickburg hasn’t been a port for over a century. Dawn over the famous Purina Tower in downtown. By the way it did start to rain about an hour or …

Coming into a New DayComing into the Fredericksburg train station at the dawning of a new day. The metaphors here are endless.

The winners at the Great American Beer Festival were announced today. Congratulations to the Virginia winners!Devils Backbone Brewing Co. : Gold Leaf Lager : Gold : International-Style PilsenerDevils Backbone Brewing Co. : Natural Born Keller : Silver …

I e-mailed the Stafford and Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors candidates (except for Mr. Goss for whom I did not have an e-mail) providing them the opportunity to submit a piece of 800 words or less on any topic they felt was important for the voters t…

Here’s a good article by our favorite wine critic, Eric Asimov, about the wines of Jura in France. For those who are curious we actually have a Savagnin of the type described in the article – oxidized and sherry-like. Here’s a description on our website. I love this wine but as the article points out it’s not for neophytes. We actually tasted this wine in a seminar about a year ago and most people there said they did not like it. Interestingly though, when the person leading the seminar (Nicolas from Willliams Corner Wine) encouraged people to take a bite of cheese and crackers and try it again, most people said it tasted much better. That makes sense because in Jura these wines are nearly always consumed with food.

Easier to like is our Cremant de Jura, or sparkling wine from Jura. Here’s the website description. Very similar to Champagne, I often recommend it to people looking for something fancy but don’t want to pay Champagne prices. It’s as good as Champagnes that cost twice as much.

I truly believe the most important reason that any individual, regardless of party affiliation, would want to run for public office is the desire to see something better come when he/she is elected. With my experience and track record of success, I wil…