Today is a special Sunday since it’s Rhonda’s birthday. She’s the big 5-3, which means the big 5-1 is just around the corner for yours truly. We went out to the Franklinville Inn last night for dinner, just the two of us, since Aaron’s away at school and Joe was working. Joe did try to switch hours but there were not takers. I’m writing this while draining a spritz after hitting the squat rack. I did 80 kettlebell swings too, and a 10-minute super-easy row to warm up before the weights.
Coda Rosa Winery
Rhonda and I were thinking about having a spritz before leaving for the restaurant, but I remembered that there was a winery near the Franklinville Inn, in Monroeville. Alas, the joint has closed down, but I found Coda Rosa on the map, and that was actually more on the way to the restaurant than Monroeville would have been.
One of the things I enjoy most about visiting the different wineries here in South Jersey are the small differences. All of them are situated on bucolic grounds, with long, straight rows of grapes surrounding the property. Sharrott, though, is more of a restaurant: there’s a kitchen, reservations are recommended, and there’s table service. Bellview is a more casual affair, with a staffed counter, some app-style things to eat, and a grand expanse of lush green grass adjoining the winery proper for casual seating. You can bring camping gear and set up a tent and chairs if you want. And of all the places we’ve visited, Bellview is the only place with wine on tap. Maybe it’s a holdover from my early forays into the then-nascent brewery scene, but I usually prefer something on tap to something bottled.
Coda Rosa is perhaps the simplest of the wineries we’ve visited: the winery and tasting room are housed in a small rectangular building, and there’s a small patio for seating outside. The host/manager, Tanya, is a vibrant soul. We ate grapes straight out of the vineyard (Chambourcin) and petted the two “security” dogs who traipsed about. We split a Pinot Grigio and it was excellent.
TT Artisans 18mm f/6.3 UFO Lens
After upgrading my micro 4/3 camera to the E-M10 Mark IV, I kept thinking that it would be fun to get a tiny lens for my EPL-5. It’s such a tiny little camera and would still be fun to tote along for taking pics. Unlike cell phones, cameras have a long shelf life, and there’s a thriving market for used cameras due to their usability well after newer models have replaced venerable models.
Poking around on B&H led me to find this super-cheap lens. I’ve usually browsed fast prime lenses, but farting around with my iPhone 16 Pro’s Camera Control button, and taking a lot of heavily bokeh’d pictures, I realized the sweet spot is probably in the 2+ aperture range. I asked Copilot about a few lenses that I was ogling, wondering which would be a stark departure from my Panasonic f/1.7 prime.
This lens takes up almost no extra space; it’s about the same size as a lens cap. It needs a lot of light to take good pics, and I’m finding it a challenge, in a welcome way, to capture pictures worth keeping. So it’s been fun. I’ll probably write up something more in depth with more picture samples. The spritz pic up top was taken using the UFO, as was the picture of Coda Rosa’s building and the chalk wall.
Gina Trapani ’s Note to Self
Internet celebrity Gina Trapani (who I read daily at Lifehacker back in the day) has returned to blogging on her own site.
Diablo III
I rarely game, and I hope I’m able to retire early enough in my life before the curtains come down so that I can while away a few hours playing some games. I purchase Warcraft 3 at an Apple Store back in 2002 on CD-ROM but have never played it through. I have installed Battle.net on my Mac many times over and have Warcraft 3, StarCraft, and Diablo III waiting for me to dive in. I finally tried Diablo III on my desktop Mac last weekend and had an absolute blast playing it. Dead-simple controls, that familiar Blizzard sheen, and good (if obviously dated) graphics all conspired to keep me thinking about playing again all week.
