Between Meetings & Meals 002

The Pour

I don’t even remember exactly how this wine thing started. I just remember Anisa being kind of hesitant and saying she didn’t really like wine. But she loves a good steak, and we kept hearing how well steak and cabernet go together. So we figured we’d explore a little.

Now somehow it’s become our thing.

When I walk into the wine section at HEB, Total Wine, or Specs, I immediately look for the wine guy or wine girl. I’m not embarrassed to ask for help. I actually enjoy it. I tell them what we’ve been drinking, what we liked, what we didn’t like, and whether we’re feeling adventurous. I’ve hit some homeruns this way.

There’s something fun about telling a stranger we’re just starting our wine journey. They light up. It turns into this quick little shared interest moment. A couple smiles. A recommendation. Appreciation on both sides.

Right now we’ve been sticking to cabs and blends. They feel smooth but still strong. I’m not big on sweet foods, and apparently I’m not big on sweet wines either.

We’ve been using CellarTracker to keep up with what we have at home. You can scan barcodes or take a picture of the bottle and it pulls everything up. It’s been cool to see our little inventory build and to look back at our notes.

I use Vivino too. A wine guy recommended it. The AI photo recognition is actually better than CellarTracker. It pulls up a clean image of the bottle, gives it a rating, and breaks down taste characteristics — bold or light, smooth or tannic, dry or sweet.

I like seeing if I pick up the same characteristics while I’m drinking. There have been times I’ve taken a sip, felt impressed, scanned it, seen the high rating, and thought, okay… maybe my palate is developing.

We’re not experts. We’re just paying attention.

And it’s been a fun way to unwind together. Who knows — maybe we’ll stumble onto a new favorite this week.

The Table

A couple of weeks ago my friend Alex told me about garlic confit. First of all, just saying garlic confit is fun. It sounds like you know what you’re doing in the kitchen.

He makes it regularly and swears it elevates everything. Eggs. Meats. Anything. I tried it and immediately texted him pictures when it came out of the oven. I felt like I had unlocked a new level in my culinary journey.

It’s stupid how easy it is.

Garlic cloves sitting in oil with rosemary, thyme, pepper, red pepper flakes. When it’s done, the oil smells insane. You can see the herbs floating in the bottle. It looks like something that belongs in a fine dining restaurant.

And it’s just sitting on my counter.

It changed how I cook steaks. What used to be salt and pepper now starts with a garlic confit oil rub before I even season them. It feels like a cheat code.

The bonus is a tray of buttery soft garlic cloves.

It reminded me of something I had at a local restaurant once — goat cheese with soft garlic and flatbread. So I did what I’ve been doing more and more lately. I opened ChatGPT and asked for a goat cheese and garlic confit recipe.

Midweek, I ran to HEB, grabbed what I needed, and baked it. Goat cheese. Garlic confit on top. Into the oven. Finished with honey and red pepper flakes.

Anisa and I sat down with a bottle of wine and I think I literally said, “We’re fancy now.”

It felt like we were running a tiny wine bar in our kitchen for about twenty minutes.

Not over the top. Just upgraded.

The Edge

Some calls you plan for. Some you don’t.

This one came out of nowhere. A developer asking detailed questions about industrial park property while I was nowhere near my desk. No notebook. No screen. Just me and a phone call full of nuance.

There’s always that split second where you think you’re going to forget something important.

Then I remembered I had my Plaud device.

I hit record and let the conversation flow. Land size. Use case. The little tangents that usually disappear once you hang up. Everything captured.

When the call ended, I transferred the transcription into my real estate GPT thread, which is connected to what I call my digital brain. All the property specs, PDFs, video tours, templates. Organized and ready.

And this is where it turned into jazz.

I hadn’t seen anyone combine a live Plaud recording with a fully built AI knowledge base like this. There wasn’t a playbook. I just started stacking tools together in real time.

It felt like improvising a solo. You know the structure, but you’re layering notes as you go and hoping it lands.

I told it: Here’s the transcription. Pull the details. Combine it with what you know about the property. Draft the follow-up.

Five minutes later I had a detailed, personal email referencing the nuanced parts of the conversation and lining up next steps perfectly.

I sat there for a second and just said, we live in the future.

What used to take 30 or 45 minutes of remembering, drafting, and hunting down attachments became five minutes of refinement.

That’s the kind of thing I want to share here. Not hype. Just real use cases.

Sometimes you just stack the tools and see what happens.

The Lesson

Life just shifts.

Everyone is in a different stage. Including me.

What I appreciate more than ever are the friends who understand that. The ones where you don’t have to explain the gap. You sit down, and it’s like nothing changed. The random text check-ins. The lunch invites. The golf rounds. The pickleball games.

Carlos texted me to play pickleball, and I almost didn’t go. Busy week. Easy excuse. But I’m glad I went. There’s something about being outside, moving, laughing after a bad shot, and talking trash between points. It resets you. Not everything has to be productive to matter.

I’ve got good people. And I’m also aware that everyone else is navigating their own version of busy. So this year, I want to be a little more intentional. Fewer accidental run-ins. More actual plans. Maybe organizing a mini reunion or two. Making the first move instead of waiting for schedules to magically align.

That’s part of why I started writing this. It’s a way to let old friends see what’s going on in my world. It’s a way to build something consistent. And maybe it becomes a small bridge between seasons.

Anyway, that’s the week.