excellence

Tea from Adagio!

For the past 15 years, I’ve been a loyal customer of Adagio Teas.

Adagio has enabled me to become somewhat of a tea connoisseur, in that they tell you not only what country your tea is from, but (usually) which estate, the time of year it was picked, how many leaves were picked from each branch, how it was processed, and more.

I also love how they share stories of the actual workers and farmers who harvest and process the tea and that they buy straight from the origin, not through middlemen.

Add that to outstanding customer service, and it’s a huge “win” all round.

Here is the formula for my own custom blend:

8 parts Darjeeling Rhapsody No. 22 (aka Darjeeling Sungma Summer)*

4 parts Assam Harmony*

2 parts Ceylon Sonata*

1 part Keemun Encore*

Brewed up in Adagio’s IngenuiTEA Pot, it’s DE-lish!

And even though my blend is made of top-quality gourmet tea, each cup costs only about 25 cents!

If you’re looking for a tea supplier, you can do no better than Adagio.

* (The lovely tea images above are from Adagio’s site!)

Sports Enthusiasm – 4 Leg Focus

This is the single best athletic performance I have ever witnessed.* (Get your tissues handy – you’ll need them.)

More noble than a Ryshadium.

He was truly The Horse God Built. There will never be another.

It is my personal hope that his Belmont Stakes record will stand until this world’s age ends and Christ brings in His Kingdom.

Run, Big Red, run!

* The awesome video, created almost 10 years ago by Ollie Tan,
has 230+K views and still gets new comments every month.

Sports Enthusiasm – Offshore Focus

Countdown: 95 days till the race begins!

That’s the Volvo Ocean Race: an extreme sailing competition that pits “one-design” boats against each other on a round-the-world course. The difference between the eventual champions and the rest of the fleet depends on the crews alone – it’s a contest of skill and endurance, not technology or equipment.

Most of the fleet from the 2014-15 race are back: Dong Feng, MAPFRE, Vestas Wind, and (yes!!!!) Brunel. An 8th boat has yet to be named/sponsored, but I fully expect it will be Abu Dhabi with Ian Walker returning as skipper (if not, he’ll have to give up his Twitter handle!).

I will once again be rooting for Team Brunel, of course, and skipper Bouwe Bekking. He SO deserves the win!

I’ll say this now, because once Oathbringer comes out, it may have a different connotation – – to me, Bekking’s leadership style is reminiscent of Dalinar Kholin as we see him in The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. Or maybe it’s just that I admire them both: heroes from the real-world and the cosmere.

At any rate, I encourage everyone to investigate the VOR. Pick a team to follow (cough, cough, Brunel, cough), cheer them on through social media, and learn a lot about our oceans in the process.

“See” you in Alicante in October!