Ever sit around as a adult wondering how does my life, work, belief system match up to classic Dungeons and Dragons architypes? Well, me niether, but hat tip to Paul who linked to this site where you answer a ga-zillion questions and it will determine who you would be if you were in D&D. This may be the geekiest thing I did all year, and that includes attending a web design conference for four days.

Here are my results, your friend Greg is a:

Lawful Good Human Sorcerer
(4th Level)

Ability Scores:
Strength-11
Dexterity-12
Constitution-13
Intelligence-16
Wisdom-12
Charisma-14

Alignment:
Lawful Good A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. However, lawful good can be a dangerous alignment because it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:
Sorcerers are arcane spellcasters who manipulate magic energy with imagination and talent rather than studious discipline. They have no books, no mentors, no theories just raw power that they direct at will. Sorcerers know fewer spells than wizards do and acquire them more slowly, but they can cast individual spells more often and have no need to prepare their incantations ahead of time. Also unlike wizards, sorcerers cannot specialize in a school of magic. Since sorcerers gain their powers without undergoing the years of rigorous study that wizards go through, they have more time to learn fighting skills and are proficient with simple weapons. Charisma is very important for sorcerers; the higher their value in this ability, the higher the spell level they can cast.

So, this is sort of like reading your horoscope and thinking it was meant for you. I realize these are mostly broad generalities, but I do see a bit of myself in the type that is intolerant of injustice, perfers to study less and is a human.

So, what’s your architype?

When I came up with the winery idea, Erich had been visiting, and he talked me out of a very expensive all-inclusive package plan, and broke down for me what I could recreate from that package at about half the cost. I ended up doing almost everything we discussed to a “T.” I couldn’t be happier with ohow things turned out, and I offer some pointers in case you may be considering doing this on your own. (Which you should!)

• DEFINITELY pack your own picnic. Every winery had a picnicking area. It was about half the cost, and we had enough to feed us all through the next day. And wineries a varied as far as food options are concerned.

• If you plan to stay overnight, make sure your hotel has a fridge in its amenities to save your food or new wines. We stayed at the English Inn. I loved this place! The breakfast alone was the best perk. We did UVA college town at night.

• The picnic: I put together a cooler and a basket. Bottled water was the savior, especially since we were driving through the wineries. Other things to consider: Cheese, crackers, wet naps, grapes and fruits, cookies or brownies (i.e. easy to eat dessert). The other thing I did which I thought worked well, was buy a nice chunky bread that would go well on its own, with wine, with cheese and as a sandwich bread for an egg salad (or, if desired, lunch meats, chicken salad, etc. etc.) I packed when we were ready for a heartier lunch.

• Research the hours beforehand of any wineries you really want to try. Most places only do tours on the weekend, but we got the impression that weekends were a madhouse. So we missed out on getting to see the actual process. Also, some places do not welcome large groups, so consider that if you are coming with a lot of people.

• One of the wine maps I got was totally inaccurate. Make sure you cross check the locations with google or something. It took us about 45 minutes to get from the first place to the second place, which turned out to be close. Not 10 minutes, like the VA wine map led your to believe.

Things I learned and my reviews:

Most VA wineries offered a Viognier (vee-yon-nay), which we learned is a grape that grows particularly well in VA. We did the central VA tour.

Barboursville: elegant, beautiful, friendly, yummy wines. Our man really took us through everything really well. He told us a food pairing for every single wine we tasted. There’s a B and B to stay at there, elegant Italian restaurant and there are historic ruins to walk around. So more stuff to do than just wine. We bought a really nice Reisling there and a really smooth dessert wine there. The owners are Italian, so all of their wines are intended to compliment meals and were not necessarily great sipping wines alone. There was a very full-bodied red that we tried here that sat like a meal in my stomach. $4 per person to taste which includes a souvenir glass, moderate to high priced wines.

Horton: The winery itself was impressive from the outside. The inside fell short of what we expected out of a winery. The people were very nice. But unless you like sweet and fruity wines, I think it’s skippable. This winery actually adds different fruit concentrates into their process. I bought two bottles here because I actually liked that for dessert cooking, like soaking a pound cake, which they recommended. The viognier here was reallly dry. Free to taste, inexpensive and convenient to get to.

Kings Family: We caught this on JMU hang out day. I loved our cute little gay wine pourer. He made the experience so fun. Some girl heard “Asian oak barrels” when he had explained it was “aged in oak barrels” and that became a launch pad for all sorts of inappropriate jokes. Really great wines, I liked them all, and beautiful landscape. Elegant, but definitely more relaxed feel compared to Barboursville or Veritas. Offers food for purchase and wines by the glass to enjoy on premises. Free to taste, moderate to high priced wines.

Veritas: This may have been my favorite. This was a really elegant place. Their viognier was the only viognier that we really, really enjoyed. The chardonnay and the savignon blanc were the only two wines on a list of 10-15 or so that I didn’t like. I wanted to buy a bottle of every wine. Plus, since it was a little off the beaten path, it seemed quieter and the landscape was gorgeous. We bought the viognier here, because we swore at this point we weren’t leaving VA without one. There was a merlot that we tried here that would have sucker punched me if it could. JLo’s impression “HELLO. I AM A MERLOT.” impression of a merlot went through my head. Free to taste main wine list, $5 to taste all wines off the reserve list. High priced wines.

I’m trying something unprecedented here, liveblogging on my iPhone while out enjoying my surprise birthday weekend getaway.

Selena planned a weekend for the two of us for my birthday. I still only know a very limited number of details, only that I had to get over this flu and dress comfortably. More to come.

9:45 - Selena gave me a gift as the drive began, I unwrapped this tin to find a well-designed piece of paper with a series of letters spelling a location: RYSDNAIEV.

10:12 - The anagram does not spell Sad Vinery, Ansy Drive or SDN Aviery.

10:43 - We’ve been travelling deep into central Virginia, it looks like we are heading to Montpelier.

10:54. - No Montpelier, still can’t get this anagram.

11:12 - It’s VINEYARDS! We’re going on a wine tasting tour.

12:00 - First stop was Barboursville. This place was everything I would expect a winery to be. Tried 13 wines, bought two bottles.

12:43 - Selena packed a wonderful picnic lunch of cheeses, crackers, fruit and bread. Had our first picnic on the grass by the Barboursville ruins.

1:20 - Doubled back to Horton’s because they were known for great fruit wines.

1:34 - People very friendly, but facility disappointing. Bought two fruit wines. Heading down towards Charlottesville.

Had to switch iPhones, minedied, using Selena’s now. BTW typos are result of iPhone miscorrecting, not too much wine.

3:00 - Arrived at Oakencroft near Charlotteville only to find it closed on weekdays. Boo! It took a lot of time to get here.

3:39 - Arrived at Kings Family Winery, wow is this area of the country beautiful.

3:58 - Having a post-tasting picnic on the open patio at King Family. Bought a bottle. There is a large group of JMU students sharing a few bottles put here and playing frisbee. Why didn’t we have classy places to go like this around our college?

4:13 - Ear infection been plauged with all week starting to irritate as we go up and down the mountain road to Veritas winery.

4:24 - Veritas is gorgeous too. This was on our list of potential wedding destinations last year. It could have worked for sure (still like where we were more). Bought two bottles.

5:12 - Thanking Selena for a wonderful day of wine tasting.

Greg called me and told me, you know how I complain about Gossip Girl being utterly bizarre with their constant texting and keeping up anywhere at all times with Gossip Girl’s website? I think I’ve entered that world. In the span of two days, I’ve sent over 100 text messages. I’m living Gossip Girl right now.

Except much geekier.

Greg has been away at South by Southwest (SXSW), a music, film and interactive festival, this week. Read: This is where you go to drink six days straight in a row and (for Greg) to see what the latest is in interactive technology. Check out Gossip Greg’s twitter* page to keep up with his upper geek-sider friends. It is indeed, frighteningly similar to GG’s world.

P.S. I’m totally jealous!

* Click here to read what twitter is.

UPDATE FROM GREG: Sad to say that the Twitter page Selena linked to is not publicly available. Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like, (at this moment).

To see the full feed, you would need to join Twitter (which you should) and request to add @robleto as a friend.

Never to late than never, but boy did Greg just out-do himself for Valentine’s day. He’s not typically the most proficient cook and decided that for this day, he would shoot for the moon and cook this. Greg’s Valentine’s Day dinner menu consisted of stuff I’ve never even heard of, coming home two hours earlier, four courses with appropriate wine pairings for each course and an expresso/Ghiradelli dessert. The last dinner Greg made before this was “Chicken Bakes” by Campbells.

I was floored.

On top of figuring out the painstaking process of the perfect risotto and what a fennel bulb looks like, he told me that there were times when he needed to call for help. One conversation with his mom went, “Mom, where do you get four to five chicken carcasses?” “For what?” “Homemade chicken stock.” Pause. “From the soup aisle in the grocery store out of a box labeled Swanson’s.”

I am in Austin, TX right now for the South by Southwest Music, Film and Web conference. I was in line for a drink at a happy hour, wearing my name badge and somebody said to me “Hey, this guy has your last name”. I assumed they were not talking to me, because nobody has my last name; but to my shock and surprise standing next to me was one Christopher Robleto from El Paso, TX. We did a quick family tree once over, and determined we weren’t related (he’s second generation directly from Nicaragua). I know there are other Robletos out there, but I never face-to-face met one I wasn’t related to. That was so wild.

Because it’s a conference, we typically exchange business cards, so I was excited to give Christopher my personal card that includes my site www.robleto.com on it. He quickly glanced and it, and then replied “So, that’s you!”

Many a night, I come home from work and Selena is like:

Honey, did you get my email?

And I am like:

Um… No.

And then she gets all:

HONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I SENT YOU AN EMAIL!!!!!!!!!!!

Which leaves me like:

???

Because I am pretty good at checking my email, but I will have no idea what she’s talking about. In these situations, I just apologize because that’s what you do when your wife is yelling at you.

But today, I couldn’t find an email from a co-worker that I knew to look for, so I started exploring my Outlook a bit more to see if it got moved on me, and that’s when I found the Junk Mail folder, and look what was inside:

It’s the Folder of Lost Emails. Everything that Selena has been trying to send for months now was waiting here for me to find it. Sadly, none of its relevant any more, expect to prove that I wasn’t losing it, that I did indeed never see these emails before. And now I know where to look

When you put yourself out there, like we do on this blog, you cannot always control or predict what will happen with your web content. Two interesting things I stumbled upon today:

1. The article about New Year’s in Canada that I wrote last year is now the #5 result for the terms “Quebec New Years” on canfind.ca (the search engine for the Best of Canada online). It follows two travel agents and two event planners.

2. Remember the YouTube video of the proposal at the Delaware Shakespeare Festival? Here’s a snapshot from it:

Take a look at the area labeled “Views”. This video has now been viewed 1,604 times. I can not fathom who all is watching this, but I do know it’s possible, because for whatever reason, this video is now in wide distribution. The video was picked up by:

• grind.com,
• cienconstruccion.com,
• searchthetube.com,
• spone.com,
• hq-cars.com, and
• videolar.biz.

I’m not going to link to these sites, because I don’t want to promote them. I suspect few if any of them have legitimate deals with YouTube to repurpose content, and most likely they just rip off the feed of new videos and claim it as their own.