Be sure to pour a bottle for the homies we lost in the wine game.

Story via Associated Press.

Robert Mondavi, the pioneering vintner who helped put California wine country on the map, died at his Napa Valley home Friday. He was 94. Mondavi died peacefully at his home in Yountville, Robert Mondavi Winery spokeswoman Mia Malm said.

He was 52 and a winemaking veteran in 1966, when he opened the winery that would help turn the Napa Valley into a world center of the industry. Clashes with a brother that included a fistfight led him to break from the family business to carry out his ambitious plans with borrowed money.

At the time, California was still primarily known for cheap jug wines. But he set out to change that, championing use of cold fermentation, stainless steel tanks and French oak barrels, all commonplace in the industry today. He introduced blind tastings in Napa Valley, putting his wines up against French vintages, a bold move.

Always convinced that California wines could compete with the European greats, Mondavi engaged in the first French-American wine venture when he formed a limited partnership with the legendary French vintner Baron Philippe de Rothschild to grow and make the ultra-premium Opus One at Oakville. The venture’s first vintage was in 1979.

The success of the Mondavi winery allowed him to donate tens of millions of dollars to charity, but a wine glut and intense competition gradually cost his family control of the business. In 2004, the company accepted a buyout worth $1.3 billion from Fairport, N.Y.-based Constellation Brands.

Mondavi was an enthusiastic ambassador for wine — especially California wine — and traveled the world into his 90s promoting the health, cultural and social benefits of its moderate consumption.

Born in Virginia, Minn., Mondavi got an economics degree from Stanford University in the 1930s and went to work at the Charles Krug Winery, which his Italian-born parents had bought after moving to California from Minnesota.

He married his high school sweetheart, Marjorie Declusin, in 1937, and they had three children, Michael, Marcia and Tim.

For 20 years, the winery was a family business. But Robert clashed frequently with his younger brother, Peter, who had a more conservative approach the business. According to Robert Mondavi’s autobiography “Harvests of Joy,” matters came to a head with a November 1965 fistfight.

“When it was all over, there were no apologies and no handshake,” wrote Robert Mondavi.

In the late 1970s, Mondavi’s first marriage ended; in his autobiography he wrote that his single-minded pursuit of the wine business was partly to blame. In 1980, he married a second time, to Margrit Biever, a native of Switzerland who had worked at the Mondavi winery since the late ’60s.

By the mid-1990s, Mondavi had turned over operation of the company to his sons. But like their father and uncle before them, Tim and Michael clashed over management styles.

More troubles emerged as a grape glut soured the wine market in 2002 and lower-priced wines in the Mondavi portfolio faced tough competition from cheaper Australian imports and domestic brands like California’s Two Buck Chuck.

Also a problem were the millions in charitable donations Mondavi and Margrit had pledged, including helping found Copia, The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, in Napa and giving $35 million to the University of California, Davis.

In her 2007 book, “The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty,” author Julia Flynn Siler wrote that declining stock prices later left Mondavi in danger of not being able to cover the millions in gifts he and Margrit had promised.

A corporate restructuring in August 2004 boosted the stock price, but undercut the family’s control of the company. By time it was bought out, Michael Mondavi, who disagreed with the board strategy, had already left the company, and Tim Mondavi had loosened ties.

Later there was a bittersweet family moment when Robert and Peter Mondavi, aided by members of the younger generation, made wine together for the first time in 40 years. Using a 50-50 split of grapes from Robert Mondavi and Peter Mondavi family vineyards, the brothers made one barrel of a cabernet blend that sold for $401,000 at the 2005 Napa Valley wine auction.

The auction lot was called “Ancora Una Volta,” or “Once Again.”

A poster from a message board I frequent had this experience to tell…

I spoke to a builder friend from there that had all his construction loans there at ANB. He had to get an appointment to get into the bank yesterday to see if funds would be available to keep his projects going. People are only allowed in the bank if they have a scheduled appointment. They are escorted through the building and then back out of the building by armed guard. All builder’s accounts are frozen, meaning the five homes he has coming out of the ground are effectively stopped until further notice, bc no funds available. Was told that loans may not be purchased by another bank for up to six months. This means those houses will deteriorate and will be worth a lot less by the time funds are made available to him. This means more people (his crews) now out of work.

He also told me while in the bank, he saw a grown man with his head in his hands crying, bc he had lost $1 million dollars.

Hopefully Great Southern can keep the ship righted. I would think they could sustain this blow just based on the overdraft fees I gave them during my time in Springtown. However if the example below is a happening that occurs regularly at some point you have to wonder who the ringmaster of that circus is.

How I Made 21 Million Dollars (Via ZachIsHere.com Archives March ‘06)

The other night I was driving late and I stopped into an ATM to double check my balance. The little receipt printed out of the machine and what I saw on the small paper shocked me. My listed available balance was 21 million dollars. Go ahead, put these drinks on my tab.

Great Southern has been good to me as a bank. I got a kick out of this though.

- Chris thinks through ROI strategies.

- Not sure how long it has been around but it is new to me. FontStruct is a service that lets you design your own fonts in a simple and intuitive manner. Now if I only I had the talent to pull something cool off.

- Pitchfork reports Ratatat will be releasing their new album LP3 on July 8th.

- Blue Springs Examiner website gets a slick redesign. The thing is still too cluttered and I am not a big fan of the David Cook worship but it is an improvement overall to a great regional news source especially when it comes to local sports.

- The New Yoker gives its list of 100 essential Jazz Albums.

Met some great people including Jeff who did a lot of blogging, Tim who seemed to be quite the Google Maps guru, team Geekvolution, and Pete who did a great job pulling the strings doing everything to get this together. There was even this guy playing music. Check out his MySpace page…the sound is unique and kicks some serious ass.

I took the most from Sean’s talk enlightening everyone on Radiant. Anyone who makes a WordPress user that is militant as I am rethink how CMSs should work at their core is impressive. I came away feeling like the user was given a great amount of power making some things that can be a chore in WP quite easy. The layout\structure was what stood out the most. I look forward to keeping up with the progress of this project.

There were times when the code talk got so heavy I felt like I was listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher but I love being around people who have passion for what they do. Learned a lot of useful stuff and met fantastic people. I call that a good day @ the office.

No photos posted quite yet. Will have some soon enough. And I almost forgot. If I hear someone say “Ruby” one more time I am going to start swinging.

Full gallery after the jump.

Props to team Geekvolution for an impressive spur of the moment Zombie showing.

Why should I use Brightkite?

If you’re like us, you’re tired of the rise of social networks that take away from your real life. Sure, it’s great to have a gazillion friends on MySpace, but really, how many of them have you actually met? Brightkite connects people based on the places they visit in the real world. With Brightkite you can see where your friends are, what they’re up to, see what’s going on around you, and meet real-world friends.
How does Brightkite work?

The basic idea is simple. When you’re out and about in the real world, you tell Brightkite where you are by checking in at places (you can do this on your phone). Brightkite can then tell you who else is there, who’s been there, what’s happened there, who is nearby etc. Additionally you can post notes and photos at places that others nearby will see.

Everything you do in Brightkite is accessible on the website. You can choose who gets to see your stuff by adjusting your privacy settings, but by default everybody can (after all, the idea is to meet people).

A lot of red flags went up when I was reading about what this service was about and what it did. When I got down to actually using it those concerns went away. It has clear multi teared privacy controls to only allow sensitive data to trusted friends.

You begin by checking in. Let’s say I am watching a baseball game with Chris. I put my exact location in and it records it. Along with that I could write what is going on as a post and even take a picture of us watching the game and upload it. If someone is a trusted friend of mine and we are connected on BrightKite they can see instantly that I am at my house watching the game with Chis. Someone on the outside of that trusted friend loop would get a more vague update of my status and if I wished, no update at all. A friend that doesn’t have “trusted” status could get an update that I am in Kansas City. Not my exact location at XXXX Jefferson Street. It lets you provide as much or as little as you want to user groups that are very well defined and controlled. I like that someone can still be connected with me as a friend and not see everything.

I have friends that are constantly on the go and constantly moving around. This could be a great tool to try and plan things without the hassle of bothering someone with a phone call and the limited ability to communicate well through text messaging.

There have been a lot of people I have been lucky enough to meet just based on the internet. Springfield Bloggers Group, Photography Meetups, ChiefsPlanet gatherings. The list goes on. This could be a great way to see what is going on with Kansas Citians. I can sit and look at a feed of what is going on around me. My status updates are published for anyone who wants to see them. Maybe I make some photography connections from someone seeing my work or maybe you run into someone who has work you have read or seen going out one night.

The interface is clean and easy to use. There are a lot of options to make updates easy through computer, phones, and an iPhone application that is in alpha. There is a lot more to it but I am trying to throw out the Cliff’s Notes in this post.

The whole thing is in private beta so you can’t jump on yet without an invite. I hope this is something people get into because it would make organizing and planning nights out with groups of friends much easier. It also has a lot of possibilities for interesting discoveries around the place you live. The only thing I can think of that is close to this is a service called Meetro. Their plan was going about all of this as a messanger app and it all just felt too much like MySpace for me. Pretty weak overall.

Just lately I have been really getting into some of the fresh things going on in these social media sites. The opportunity for marketing and discovering quality information and people that you wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise is an exciting thing. I also like the emphasis on “real” life. I want these services to aid my actual real world activities not keep me glued to a computer screen.

I have a very small number of invites. If you are really interested drop me a line and hopefully I will still have one to hook you up.

The more success these paying gigs have the more it seems momentum is building with my photography and the goals I have set for it. Really exciting time.