Successful Day :o)

Today was a successful day. We did our Strategic Projects and Sourcing meeting today, identifying four areas that we may be able to develop contracts that leverage the USA Alliance Fleet concept (fifteen single nuclear site utilities with 27 plants). Acting as a fleet gives us potential leverage to negotiate favorable contracts and/or rebates as members use vendor services. We finished up about 3:30 P.M., which allowed me to go to Balley's (free via the hotel) for a workout.



There are four of us that are not leaving until tomorrow, and we agreed to meet at 6:30 P.M. for dinner (my poor system, Beth and I rarely eat before 9:00 P.M., I fear my system will go into shock and shutdown - or worse yet, by 10 or 11, I will be ravenous :o). We all agreed that while in this Midwest area (Overland Park, Kansas), that we needed BEEF :o)


I was not aware that the call "New York" strips "Kansas City" strips down here, but that was the special tonight, and I had a 16 oz version that was so tender it melted in my mouth. I was good and substituted broccoli for potatoes, but I did have a salad with Blue Cheese (my favorite).

We got to talking about wine as we were deciding what to order, and I learned that the Northern CA and Central Coast wines are growing in prestige, and that a region (Paso Robles, central CA) that I had avoided is on par with French wines now. Turns out that there extreme temperatures, drip irrigation, and shale soil "stress" the vines and the grapes, which results in great flavor. So I will be looking for some new vintages to add to our cellar. Our vintage pleasure tonight was Earthquake, a Red Zinfadel from Lodi CA (north of Napa). It was a tad young, but an excellent match for the steaks.

Hope you are getting your shopping and wrapping completed, I know I have several hours of wrapping in my weekend future (assuming I can get home tomorrow through the winter storms).