Allow me to shed some light on wine judging and competition.

OK, I’ll admit it. Much as I love being outdoors, and nice as the weather has been, I’ve already started the transition to one important part of my winter routine: hanging out around the TV on Sunday and Monday nights. It’s football. I’d intended to resist until the weather changed, but then the 49ers were on the Monday night broadcast a few weeks back, and that was it.

In the past couple of years, it seems as if the political pundits and media have done a good job of alerting us to the ballooning federal budget deficits, with little focus on our collective retirement deficit — the shortfall of our present savings to meet our future retirement income requirements.

Acute bronchitis, an infection causing inflammations of the lung’s airways, is one of the most common of human ailments.

It’s time we take a positive attitude toward eating: Think in terms of more rather than less.

The first large northwest swell rolled through Monterey Bay with a vengeance. The buoys were reading 14 feet, and when the swells hit the beaches and local reefs, things got rolled up.

One of the more dastardly problems with laws is that they keep changing.

This is the one-year anniversary of my Talk About Money column in the Press-Banner, and I'd like to celebrate this august occasion by recapping my previous 12 columns.

There's nothing like a couple of garden tours to remind you that all things are possible with a bit of imagination.