vineyards and wineries

Deck the Halls! Exploring Dog-Friendly Vineyards Around Seneca Lake, New York

This may be a surprise to you (it was to us): New York state is a top wine producer in the United States -- coming in 3rd behind California and Washington. Much of the grapes used in New York wine, are grown in the Finger Lakes region -- 11 narrow lakes located

vineyards and wineries

Every Dog Has Its Day at Barrel Oak Winery

Vineyard owner champions new Virginia law allowing dogs inside tasting rooms. It’s 11:00 a.m. on a summer Saturday in Delaplane, Virginia. At Barrel Oak Winery (BOW) the staff is gearing up for another packed weekend of wine tasting, music, festivities and dogs. Cars already line the hilltop

vineyards and wineries

Exploring Dog-Friendly Vineyards Around Napa

Over the summer, Cork Hounds [finally] ventured west to the national [and arguably world] epicenter of wine -- Napa, California. For this trip, my co-founder Jeremy and dog Greta, stayed home. But my mom, who was out in Sacramento visiting family, joined me for this whirlwind adventure. It was a

technology

Part 2: Containerizing and Running Foursquare's TwoFishes with Persistent Storage

In Part 1 of this two-part series, I looked at Forward and Reverse Geocoding using FourSquare's TwoFishes. I provided some background on TwoFishes, and shared some lessons that I learned on building the geospatial database/indices for forward and reverse geocoding. Building the TwoFishes database/indices takes

technology

Part 1: Forward and Reverse Geocoding using FourSquare's TwoFishes

Last year, I created the Amazon Alexa Skill for Cork Hounds which takes a City/State, and responds with the nearest fully dog friendly vineyard. When I first started that project, I re-read Google's Geocoding API terms of service, and confirmed that without a Business/Enterprise account

vineyards and wineries

Exploring Dog-Friendly Vineyards Along the Outer Banks of North Carolina

I grew up in a large family living in Michigan surrounded by lakes. But we never spent time vacationing at them because my mother distrusted lake water. Therefore, every summer my family would pile into our early 80’s model Chevrolet Suburban and drive a day and a half to

vineyards and wineries

Drink What You Like At These Dog-Friendly Wineries in Arkansas

When you think of Arkansas you probably don't think of 'wine country,' but I'm here to tell y'all... We ain't just moonshine and banjos! Since the late 1800's immigrants from Germany, Switzerland, and Italy have been attracted to

vineyards and wineries

Exploring Dog-Friendly Vineyards in the North Georgia Mountains

I lived in Atlanta, Georgia for 12 years, and in all that time I never ventured north toward the mountains, despite being able to see them from my condo in Midtown. But recently, Jeremy (my Cork Hounds partner), and I visited Atlanta for a family wedding with my dog Greta

vineyards and wineries

Exploring Dog-Friendly Vineyards Near Prince Frederick, Maryland

My Cork Hounds co-founder Jeremy, recently had friends in town for the weekend and we decided to spend some of the time exploring a dog-friendly vineyard in southern Maryland. So, with Greta in toe, we headed out to the Prince Frederick area. From northern Virginia, the drive is

technology

Changes to our Web and Mobile User Interfaces

You may have noticed a recent change that we made to our search results having to do with Ratings. If you are curious as to why, this blog is for you. Before, we provided Google Ratings for all search results immediately. Now you will need to click on a search

technology

Migrating from Self-Managed Docker to AWS Elastic Container Service

I recently migrated our four containerized microservices from self managed Docker to AWS ECS. We are adding a lot more vineyards (the addition of California more than doubles the number of vineyards we currently have in our database, and a slew of other states aren't too far behind)

vineyards and wineries

Virginia to Welcome Dogs (Back) into Tasting Rooms this Summer

Just this past January the Virginia state legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill to amend Virginia’s Law to officially allow dogs inside vineyard/winery tasting rooms (and breweries). The governor, Ralph Northam, signed the legislation and the new law will go into effect on July 1, 2018. The law does

technology

Design and Test Considerations for an AWS Serverless Architecture

This post is a companion blog to a recent post on Building a Hybrid Mobile Application with Adobe Phonegap that I published in January. We recently released our Mobile Application on the Apple App Store. To supply the mobile application with a performant, scalable and elastic backend, I decided to

technology

Building a Hybrid Mobile Application with Adobe Phonegap

This blog has been a long time coming, as I've been working on the Cork Hounds iOS Mobile Application for the better part of 2017. I decided to use Phonegap for several reasons: * Shortened learning curve using basic Javascript, CSS3, Html5 knowledge * Reuse of existing website code and

vineyards and wineries

Exploring Dog-Friendly Vineyards Along Virginia and Maryland’s Eastern Shore

On a windy fall weekend, Cork Hounds cofounder, Jeremy, our pups, Greta and Bentley and I, headed out from the D.C. metro area to visit Cape Charles, Virginia. Cape Charles is a small seaside town along Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The primary purpose of our trip was to visit

technology

Coding an Amazon Alexa Skill in Java Using Dialog Directives

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to look into writing an Amazon Alexa Skill using the Java SDK. Alexa was an early entrant into the voice service market, allowing users to interact with the Amazon Marketplace with only their voice, as well as control smart devices to automate your

technology

Geospatial Queries on AWS DynamoDB

I'm currently using Postgres/PostGIS for all our Geospatial queries. This works well with our microservices architecture. However, as I build out the backend for our Mobile app architecture using API Gateway and Lambda, I'd prefer not to use AWS RDS. Because I don't

vineyards and wineries

Exploring Dog-Friendly Vineyards Near Charlottesville, Virginia

My Cork Hounds co-founder, Jeremy and I recently took a road trip to Charlottesville, VA with our dachshunds Bentley and Greta. Naturally, we used the Cork Hounds app to discover some dog-friendly wineries in the area. We normally base our choices on dog-friendliness, proximity to other wineries,

vineyards and wineries

Traveling With Your Dog: 14 Tips For A Fun Trip

Want to hit the open road with your pup by your side? Nothing can be more fun than going on an adventure with your loyal companion (using Corkhounds.com as your guide to local dog-friendly vineyards and wineries, of course)! I have taken my miniature dachshund, Bentley with me

vineyards and wineries

Exploring Dog-Friendly Vineyards Near Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Mixed among rolling hills, Amish farms, Pennsylvania Dutch architecture and rural life, is Lancaster PA’s wineries. Pennsylvania may not be an obvious place for great wines but you’ll find them here in abundance. Cork Hounds suggests visiting Setter Ridge Vineyards with your pup/s. Table of Contents: Vineyards

technology

Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS in AWS

I wanted an easy way in AWS (e.g. using an Elastic Load Balancer) to rewrite/redirect a URL in Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) but had to find an alternate solution. Having the ability to do this is useful when you're setting up a website where you want

vineyards and wineries

Exploring Dog-Friendly Vineyards Near Annapolis, Maryland

Maritime traditions, colonial roots and crab cakes. Maryland’s capital, Annapolis, has them all. And in the area just outside the city, you can explore viticulture in action as wineries work to turn rich Chesapeake Bay soil into grapes. Cork Hounds recommends a trip out to Casica Vineyards & Winery

vineyards and wineries

Exploring A Dog-Friendly Vineyard Near Orlando, Florida

Florida may be best known for its oranges but there is another fruit that is gaining in popularity, grapes! The muscadine grows well in Florida’s heat and there are some adventurous cultivators turning grapes into wine. While there is no Florida wine-region, most of the wineries are dotted

technology

Building Cork Hounds in the Cloud (A Multi-part Series)

Welcome to the first tech blog on our Cork Hounds adventure. While building Cork Hounds has given Peggy and I an excuse to travel in search of dog friendly vineyards with our pups, it has also given me an opportunity to learn about Microservices, Google App Services, Amazon Web Services,

vineyards and wineries

Exploring Dog-Friendly Vineyards Near Leesburg, Virginia

Located 33 miles west-northwest of Washington, D.C., is Leesburg, VA. A rural, agricultural region that has become an outer suburb of the nation’s capitol. Drive the back roads and you’ll get a glimpse of old and new. Grand stables with cupolas sit comfortably next to dilapidated