PlumbBob Market Research

It’s Sacramento Beer Week. Check out the roster of events at the Sac Beer Week site.  Lots of great stuff and something for everybody.  On Sunday I attended the brewing demo at the Folsom Brewmeister.  The Gold Country Brewers Association (a local brewers club) brought in a mobile brewing station and brewed up 45 gallons of Wort. This was a full-grain brew; we also got to see one of the GCBA members do a five-gallon extract brew. Both demos were interesting and fun, lots of great questions and answers, not to mention the odor of brewing was incredible.

On Monday (yesterday) I went to the Inaugural Gala at the Colonial Theater.  Lots of good beer and cheer, plus Ed Carroll gave a great short presentation on the history of local breweries, and Rick Sellers (of Odonata) talked about modern brewing history.  Turns out that in the last 20 years there has been an explosion of craft brewers (anecdotal evidence abounds — lots of brewpubs opening up, retail beer shelves have devoted an increasing share to small producers).  Also interesting that Northern California played a strong role in the emergence of craft brewers.  Thanks Rick and Ed for two great presentations.

Also want to say the crowd at the Colonial was enthusiastic.  If you know what I mean.

Cheers!  Thanks for stopping by.

I may have mentioned that I favor Belgian beers.  I tend to like Chimay Blue, but I’ve been known to drink Maredsous, Duvel, Affligem Dubbel to name a few.  Lately I’ve been drinking Kasteel Donker and Rouge.  And therein lies a story.  A story with castles, dogfish heads, IPA’s, cheeries, and intrigue.

Quite a while back I was at a local eatery called Burgers and Brew.  As you can tell from the beers I mentioned I like the bigger, heavier beers (Duvel is a bit lighter, but like the others has lots of flavor).  Now a place with the name “Burgers and Brew” wouldn’t seem to be a place that would have a great beer list, but they do.  I won’t say I’ve had every Belgian beer (not by a long shot!) but I’ve had a few so I’m a bit hard to surprise (or so I like to think).  Anyway I noticed they had something called “Kasteel Rouge” on their list; the name sounded familiar so I decided to give it a try.  It turned out to be a cherry-flavored ale, which I happen to like.  It was great.  A very big beer, port like, lot’s of flavor, dark and rich with 8% alcohol.  Good stuff.

Anyway I decided to stop in at one of my favorite purveyors of gourmet food, wine, beer and related items, which happens to be Corti Brothers. Darrell Corti is a local icon and an internationally known expert on wine, sherry and port.  His beer section is small but well stocked with some great beers.

But he didn’t have Kasteel on the shelf.  So I asked one of the managers if they could order it, and they did.  I stopped in about a week later and there it was: Kasteel Rouge. But wait, there’s more!  They ordered Kasteel Donker as well.  So I bought some of each and went on home.  It turns out the Donker is just as incredible as the Rouge — dark, 11% alcohol, big and port like, not much carbonation, malty.  Something you could have with a hearty beef stew, or a great round of bread and cheese.

But of course that really isn’t the end of the story.

A few months went by, I had forgotten about Kasteel Rouge and Donker, but I wanted a Chimay Blue, so I stopped back in Corti’s and grabbed one.  Now I should say that when shopping for beer I walk with determination and purpose.  I took hold of that beer like it had my name on it, stuck in my basket with practiced skill.  Which, as it so happens, did not go unnoticed.  I looked to my right and saw the Kasteel Rouge and Donker, so I deftly snatched them up and gently placed them in the basket next to the Chimay.  At that point I noticed a young man checking out some beers on the lower shelf under the Kasteel, using an iPhone to compare prices (or so I thought).   No matter, I went on with my shopping.

When visiting Corti I always browse the wines; I do this in much the same way people browse books at Powell’s — which is to say casually but with purpose.  I want to know what is available, I like to day dream about my next acquisition, plan my next tasting and etc.

So there I was, studying wine labels, and up walks the young man with the iPhone.  He has two beers in his hand,  a Kasteel Donker and a Maredsous.  He had seen me at the beer shelf, noticed my intensity and purpose and concluded I would have an opinion about beer.  And so I am, and so I do.

We talked for about 10 minutes.  It turned out his name was Steve, he was picking out beers for a tasting, which was also a beer brewing party (an “American Red” was the brew to be brewed), and he wanted my opinion on the two beers he had picked out.  Which of course I was happy to provide. He actually knew quite a bit about beers; and at one point he said that he did not take me for an IPA man (correct!) but given that we had talked about the relative merits of Duvel and the floral qualities of Belgian beers, there was a particular IPA that I might like.  At this point it became clear that he had been using his iPhone not to check prices, but to check beer reviews.

The IPA he directed me to was Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA.  I had heard of Dogfish Head before, but never had any of their beer.  The 90 Minute IPA comes in a 4-pack, and it’s pricey.  But “it might just be the best IPA in America” according to the blurb on the carton.  Did I mention I don’t like IPA’s? Not for about 20 years.  Too bitter.  And this IPA was expensive. But there I was, standing in Corti Brothers, one of the best grocery and gourmet food stores ever, in a well stocked and well appointed beer section, talking about great beers with a bright young man who used an iPhone to track beer reviews while shopping.  This was fate talking to me. So I bought the 4-pack.

Now 5:30 pm comes every day, right about the same time.  And right about then, I tend to starting thinking about how wonderful a glass of beer would be, or which wine I would like.  On this day 5:30 was slow to come around, because I had that Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA waiting for me.  Did I mention it could be the best IPA in America?  Did I mention it wouldn’t make much difference because I don’t like IPA?

By 5:30 the beer was gently cascading into one of my wine glasses, making that wonderful gurgling sound that beer makes when it’s time for beer.  And as much as I don’t like IPAs, this one probably is the best IPA in America.  The nose is as complex as any Alsatian Gewürztraminer you’ll ever have, the color is pale straw, and it is one big, rich complex beer.  At 9% it has a lot of body.  As expected a tremendous hoppy flavor up front, but there is also a spicy middle and a slightly fleeting sweet finish, followed up by a final taste of hops.  One of the best beers I’ve ever had, bar none.  And I still don’t like IPA.

I bought a couple more 4-packs to have and share.

Thanks to Steve for the recommendation!  And best wishes with your brew.

And thanks to all of you for stopping by.  Have a great day and we’ll see you soon.

Happy New Year!  Hope you are well and in good spirits.  In my last two posts I talked about upgrading my computer systems, and so far I’m halfway there.  I have the Linux box up and running (which I have named “Atom-Smasher”). But I have not replaced the CPU in my laptop yet, but all in good time.

The main thing for today is to get to the discussion about Linux as a service.  If you read the previous posts you know that I was trying to set up a completely diskless low-cost PC to run Linux.  I wanted a low-cost way to try Linux, but in the back of all of this there was the idea that there is a viable business model waiting to be developed.

Diskless PC’s are nothing new.  The last issue of Wired had a breif discussion about the mid-90s “Internet PC” work done by Oracle.  And low end laptops for developing nations have been part of at least one global effort, and now we see “net-books” being almost free (if you sign up for the phone service).

But when I saw Tom Abel’s offer of a  $150 box, I started thinking about the possibilities.  Now granted Tom can’t offer those prices forever — if all he is selling is a box.  But ask yourself this: how many K-12, how many churches, vocational schools, community colleges, food-banks, NGOs, small businesses of all sorts need cheap, virus free, indestructible computing infrastructure?  All of them.  Think of how many opportunities there are for K-12 computer labs, adult education computer labs, disaster relief situations.  Opportunities are all over the place.

Many years ago I staffed a library reference desk and as part of the job I managed a computer lab.  Twenty or so computers with full installations of Windows (they had some setting that hid most of the Windows features, but it was easy to hack).  On any given night at least 8 reboots.  I said to my supervisor, why not go with Linux? A couple of weeks later the reply came back: “no support for Linux”.  I thought, well, your support for Windows is me rebooting the machines constantly, at a community college teacher’s salary.  Not very cost effective.

So I know something about the use model.  But how to create a successful business model?  One way would be to offer up the boxes at cost +5% (or something) and sell a service contract to maintain them.  Not one box, but 10, or 20 or however many.  Think of a community college computer lab as an example.  Let’s say 20 boxes, no optical drive, no HDD.  The students supply their own flash drive with their own computing environment. They step up, plug in the USB, go to work.  They manage their files on the USB, or use a cloud service (Amazon, Google), or both.  Heck, you could even have them bring their own keyboard.  You could set up the flashdrives for them with Thunderbird, Firefox, OpenOffice for a fee.  The point is they manage their own file services.

If each box has to have it’s own OS, drive it off the network.   The network OS server itself could be run off an ISO image (e.g., a CD).  The maintenance can be done remotely.  It won’t matter if it’s a bit slow, because the use model we’re talking about is not high performance.  What matter is that it’s low, low maintenance, virus free and nearly hack-proof.

This business model would require quite a few boxes under contract to be a meaningful source of income.  And I know there are some technical issues — running the OS off a flashdrive is problematic (more on this later), you need a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor all of which drives up the cost.  But I think the technology will catch up to the use model quite soon (roll-up keyboards, cheaper LCDs, or for that matter maybe micro-projectors).  I think small companies like ICL could make a success out of this.

Like razors and printers, offer the hardware cheap and charge for the service.  It might be possible to sell other services (e.g., webmastering)s along with the maintenance contract.  Lots of possibilities.

Well that’s it for now.  Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Well here we are post Christmas, pre New Years. Happy Holidays!

If you read my last post you know I set out to find a small-form factor PC on a tight budget, as well as upgrade the CPU for my laptop computer.  And I did: the upgrade CPU cost me $30, and I found a seller on eBay who was offering a small PC with an atom dual-core processor, 2gb memory installed, an optical drive, all for $150.  This is from Tom Abel at The Independent Computer Lab.  Tom was originally offering the box for a bit more, but since I don’t need a hard-drive or an OS he lowered the price, and he wants to get his business going and get some reviews, so he offered a steep discount.  I had done quite a bit of research on the Intel Atom Dual Core;  I was convinced after about a week of off-and-on research that for my purposes the device that Tom was offering would be enough.  Not a screamer, not exactly cutting edge, but enough.

Tom responded quickly to my request for information and specs, and we worked out a deal.  Tom was quick to grasp what I was after, and in fact he had a Linux box auction going on eBay right after we started corresponding (even though he, by his own admission, is not a Linux guy). He also followed up with offering to supply the HDD at a low price, but with all the network storage I have it was not needed. Plus I wanted to experiment with setting up a simple device driven by a USB flash drive.  We’ll go over that in Part III.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind as we go forward here: one, life is not very convenient, and secondly, Tom’s business model is to deliver an assembled bare-bones small form factor PC.  More about business models and opportunities in Part III.

So the stage was set: get the PC from Tom, set it up (keyboard, mouse, LCD), power it up, boot off the Kubuntu CD, and optimize as needed.   Then install the new CPU for my laptop (the sequence was meant to insure I had at least one computer alive in case one got bricked).  I have to say I was pretty excited.

Tom had the PC delivered within 3 days (Tom covered the shipping costs).  As it so happens I was having a working lunch with my local partner so we decided to get the box up and running.  He happens to be a Linux expert, so I figured it would be good to have him helping out.

The first thing we noticed was the memory had not been installed, which was no big deal, but we also noticed we couldn’t get the CD drive to open.  We discovered that the case was malformed — the optical drive simply would not fit correctly in the opening allowed.  We also noticed the wrong screws were used to lock the optical drive into place.  I figured I could solve the case problem later, so we simply set the front cover aside and booted up using the Kubuntu CD.  Which worked: the unit was in fine working order as near as we could tell.

Remember what I said about life being inconvenient? So be it.  My response was, and is, given that life is full of problems the main thing is responding effectively and appropriately.  I gave Tom an update on the situation, and he apologized and explained that he hadn’t tested the system because, unlike the others he sold it didn’t have a HDD (e.g., no OS).  He used the wrong screws because he didn’t have the right ones and he wanted the unit to be shipped to me as quickly as possible.  Which I understood; how the manufacturer could goof up a standard like a case cover is beyond me, and had that not been the “case” (ha!) the screws would never have been seen. (As it happens I found the correct screws in the accessories).

Like I said, it’s all about appropriate responses.  I was still OK with everything; a bit behind schedule, but that is nothing new.

So I filed the front case cover to accommodate the optical drive, got it to fit just fine.  (took about 10 minutes, it’s plastic, just had to be careful to vacuum everything carefully as I went).  Booted back up with the CD, did a bit of surfing using Konquerer,  and got happy again.  Next step: use the Kubuntu USB boot wizard to create a USB boot drive.   (Another topic that required a bit of time to research: but the end result is that the Kubuntu team created a wizard to format and install the OS to a flash drive).

Well, when I went to reboot the PC, it wouldn’t. No beep, no fan, nothing.  I could diodes lit up, but nothing useful.  I didn’t see any loose wires, nothing out of place.  I spent about an hour looking at it, reading various web pages, hoping to discover it was some simple thing.

Tom and I exchanged a couple of emails, and concluded that the unit was dead.  He sent me a replacement, which arrived in a couple of days (again he paid the shipping).

The new unit had a slightly larger from cover opening, so I was able to squeeze in the optical drive.  Once the memory was installed, the unit booted right up.  I’m using it now to write this post.

The sum total is this: Tom Abel delivered as promised, and responded quite well to a bad situation.  He stepped up and did what was needed, with no complaint or equivocation.  My 11 years at HP included reading lots of research on satisfaction, and everybody — HP, Dell, Gateway, IBM — took their fare share of dissatisfaction.

Would I recommend Tom Abel? Sure. I give him 5 out of 5 stars for customer service, and 3 for the product.  I’m guessing the mistakes we’ve seen won’t happen again.  What I also recommend, which is what my blogs are about, is to your research first.  Look around, ask around. If you can’t deal with a bare-bones computer, pay the extra $100 and buy a brand name.  For me that $100 was an important savings.  (More about why that is important in Part III).

The unit Tom sent has been up and running for several days; I installed Firefox, Thunderbird, got a printer set up, figured out to access the network storage. It’s not perfect, but it’s working.  Right now Tom and I are working on finding a simple way to update the BIOS (simple on a DOS machine, not so much in this case).

My next step is to install the Dothan CPU into my laptop.  With that, I will have (essentially) 2 new computers for less then $200, plus the cost of a keyboard and some spare parts.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Well I hope everybody had a great Holiday Season!  It’s still going on for me; I don’t call it quits until January 1.  Among other things I wanted to get done in the new year was to upgrade my computer systems.  I’m running a Presario notebook, an HP Media Vault, and a Slimserver across a simple network using a Linksys router.  Not much to it really.  But the old notebook, never very fast, seemed slower and slower.

As it so happens I’ve been wanting to transition to Linux for quite a while (several years) but for various reasons didn’t.  Mainly because my work environment was Windows, and so over time it became somewhat scary to think about switching.  Friends of mine had been telling me for years to make the switch “cold turkey”.  I tried various CD-Boot disks, thought about creating a dual boot system, etc.  What I really wanted was a dedicated Linux box, and a dedicated Windows box.  But I was afraid of the price.

But I kept thinking about it, and since I was already using one Linux device (the Slimserver), and another (the HPMV), and they were rock-solid (the HPMV has been up for a year with no downtime except once, the other day, when I accidentally unplugged it), and I am rebooting Windows every day to start fresh, and the Linux guys just seem to having so much fun, I felt I had to do something.

So I decided to start using as many Linux applications on Windows that I could find.  First Thunderbird (and the Lightning extension), and then the Sun OpenOffice Suite.  And of course Firefox.  So I had all the basics going with respect to office productivity, no reason not to switch. Right? Well I just was not going to do it. I had iTunes, I had other things, whatever.

So I thought well I’ll get a new computer and use the old one as a Linux box.  Then I said, well, why not buy a used laptop? Something still useful, something that had some life left with a bit of care and an upgrade or two.  The bottom line was I wanted small footprint, and better then what I have now.  But I didn’t see anything I wanted, or what I wanted was not available at my price, and when I looked at new equipment I could not find the right balance of price and utility.  Ah yes, the magic product triad: utility, price and availability!

I was stymied.  Ah but necessity is the mother of creative thinking.  I asked myself this: could I get my hands on SFF computer with no OS and no hard-drive, and what would it cost?  I didn’t need the OS because I could install it myself, I didn’t need a HD because I had the HPMV, I didn’t need wireless, I didn’t need a high end device to run Linux, and I was thinking 2GB would work fine.  All this thinking was over the course of the last couple of months.

I went search for a small form factor device, no OS, a basic mother board and CPU.  As it so happens the first thing I ran into was the fit-PC. A neat little device that fits in the palm of your hand.  I saw a few other SFF devices that were contenders, but none were quite right.  About then I got the idea that one thing I could do would be to upgrade the processor to my laptop.  So the Linux box thing took a back seat for a couple of days while I tracked down information on a CPU for my laptop.  This turned out to be a Dothan CPU, which I ordered from MDParts.

Now I had the plan: install the new CPU, set up a small Linux box, and make the transition.  The research i was doing on small form factor PC’s convinced me I could get by with an Intel Atom Dual Core.  I should point out I did hours of reading to nail down what I wanted — doing the research up front saves a lot of headache down the road.

My budget? $200 bucks plus change was the target.  The CPU, being old technology, was cheap ($30).  And I figured I could find a bare-bones deal out there somewhere to fit my needs and budget — and I did!  All that and more in part II!

Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by.

You may recall last week I wrote about tasting the 2004 Schild Estate Barossa Shiraz.  Quite an experience.  Among the important points was that the 2004 was intense, somewhat like a Zinfandel, while also having some of the elegance of a good Pinot, with hints of Roses, Chocolate, Vanilla, Tobacco.   Like many big wines, it had a port-like feel to it.

I wanted to follow up with the 2005 while I could still remember the 2004, so my wife and I invited our erstwhile friend and tasting champion for a second go.  Same venue: good food, music, friends and wine.  This time pork tenderloin, roasted potatoes, and a salad.  I rubbed the pork with some Herb De Provance and a bit of brown sugar, wrapped it foil to keep in the flavors.  The potatoes were quartered lengthwise and basted with olive oil.  All in the oven at 380 for 40 minutes and there you have it,  toss the salad, and PlumbBob is your uncle.  And of course don’t forget the baguette and triple-cream Brie.

As last time the wine was tasted blind.  But with a difference: our friend brought along a Cabernet — Martellotto 2006 Reserve, Paso Robles.   This added quite a challenge, even though we knew in advance the identity of one wine (of course I knew both, but you’ll see what I mean).

The Martellotto is a great cab.  I didn’t look closely at the label before I tasted; by glancing briefly at the back label I took the wine to be from Italy (rather then Paso Robles).  It’s not all that rare to get a foreign wine labeled with the varietal these days,  and the wine did have that “old world” quality — not super-jammy, or candy like but more earthy, with a hint of roses, figs, and oak. Very balanced (which to me means alcohol, acidity and sweetness all come together).    At only 17 barrels produced it won’t be easy to find.  I did not ask the price.  Serving temperature was ambient (in our house that means 68 degrees F.).

After a bit of the Martellotto we poured the 2005 Schild, which I had decanted about half the bottle an hour before.  Temperature at serving was about 17 centigrade.

The 2005 Schild is a very different wine then the 2004.  By comparison it is muted, reserved, not nearly as big.  It was more like elegant — like the Martellotto.  Had I not known what it was, I would not have made the connection.  It took quite a while before our friend arrived at the Australian connection — Barberra, Sangiovese, Petite Syrah, Cabernet were all suggested.  The Barberra/Sangiovase guess was not a bad call, because around here we have some great wineries producing some very sophisticated Italian varietals (Vino Noceto, Youngs, to name two).  But eventually, the verdict was Australia.

The 2005 Schild Shiraz has the same roses, licorice, vanilla overtones, the same great balance as the 2004, but it takes a while to open up.  And that’s an important point: the 2005 actually does open up, while the 2004 doesn’t, it’s  big and stays big.  The 2005 has a bit of mahogany going on at the rim, so I’m guessing it is at it’s peak now.  I would suggest not decanting it either (the 2nd half from the bottle seemed to hold up better for me).  If I had to pick one and only one of the two Schild’s, I would pick the 2005.  I think it has a bit more finesse.  But of course that is strictly a matter of preference.

I have to admit it gets difficult to taste two really good wines side-by-side, because I find it a challenge to not over-analyze them.  Which gets in the way of actually tasting them!  By which I mean enjoying the flavors.  So we ended up with two empty bottles, wanting more.  Oh well.

Both wines were great.  I started out liking the Martellotto a bit more, but towards the end I came to prefer the Schild.  A tough call if I had to pick only one. Next day’s bottle test didn’t help, as both were still exhibiting wonderful fragrance.  But I would still go with the Schild.

Final verdict on the 2004 and 2005 Schild Barossa Shiraz: the 2004 is Zin-like, the 2005 more Sangiovase like.  The 2004 is intense, jammy (without being cloying), port-like, complex.  The 2004 is more subtle, but has the same flavors, and continues to open up throughout the evening.  Brian McGonigle at the San Francisco Wine Center says he has a few more bottles, but it won’t last.

Thanks for stopping by and Best Holiday Wishes!

About a month ago a friend of mind dropped off a recent copy of the Wine Spectator.   I confess  I’m really provincial when it comes to wine: mostly I drink the local wineries, of which there are several that I think offer great value (Vino Nocceto, Terra Rouge, Revolution Wines, Boeger to name a few).  So typically I don’t chase wines, and typically my price points range is $15-$20 per bottle, with a couple of $10 wines that I think are a great value (a wine from Lodi labeled Reds, and  Sobon Old Vine Zin from Amador).  So I don’t have any particular reason to read wine magazines.

But I have in front of me right now an empty bottle, consumed last night, the nose of which is still so good, so marvelous, that it makes me happy.  Roses, Chocolate, Vanilla.  The wine is Schild Estate 2004 Barossa Shiraz.  A beautiful thing. The bottle is empty, but still very much alive with the presence of wine.  And that is my metric for measuring a wine: smell the bottle the next day.  If it’s intriguing, if it’s alluring, if it makes you hungry, now that’s a great wine.

So  my neighbor dropped off copy of the Wine Spectator.  It had a list of several hundred ratings and tasting notes, which I read casually as time allowed.  Casually, but with an eye towards opportunity,  that being the opportunity to find a wine that might interest me enough to seek it out.  Which was not likely, because like I say I stay close to home. And in any case the WS can be a challenge, as many of their higher ratings are expensive, hard to get, or both.  But buried in there were some tasting notes about a wine from Australia, Schild Estates Shiraz.  Another confession: I don’t like Shiraz, mostly it reminds me of Petite Sirah — not a bad thing, but I think there are better choices in wine .  More then that, I don’t find Southern Hemisphere wines particularly interesting, not Australia, or South America, or South Africa.  Mostly I think they are a bit one dimensional.  So you see I have some really strong bias in play here (some might say preconceived, and myopic, determinations that limit my ability to experience life).

But the tasting notes on Schild hit on every quality in a wine that find worth pursuing: Tobacco, and Cherry, and Licorice.  Did I mention I love a good Pinot Noir?  Well, I love a good Pinot Noir. I love those rich colors, herbaceous flavors, the tobacco, the tea, the leather, the cherry/cranberry, that balance of oak, fruit, and earthy qualities that  great Pinot’s have in common.  The Sierra Foothills don’t produce those kinds of Pinot’s, so I have to go further out: Carneros, Sonoma, Santa Luica, Anderson Valley, and Russian River.  Sometimes France (can you imagine that?).

So you see, when it comes to wines, I don’t like Shiraz, I don’t chase wines very far, I’m in the $10-$20 range, and I’m bit cranky.  A bit difficult to please.

But I read those tasting notes and said you know that sounds like a Pinot.  The kind of Pinot I love. And priced at $20. So I had to lend myself to the chase.  I called my usual wine shops and they didn’t have it (no surprise).  So I went to the Schild Estate webpage, which led me to The Australian Wine Connection, who told me to call the San Francisco Wine Center, aka Big Wines Inc. DBA Indie Wine Co.  I spoke with a gentleman name Brian McGonigle.  By the sound of  his voice, a young man; by his demeanor, an entrepreneur, and by his expressions,  a man who “nose” his wines.

I said, “2007 Schild Estates Barrossa Shiraz”.  He replied, with gentility, and a bit of humor, that the 2007 wasn’t in the country.  However, he had some (the last two pallets no less) of the 2004 and 2005 Schild Estates Barrossa Shiraz, which he said were incredible wines (high ninety ratings from WS).  The price was only marginally more then the $20 I was ready to pay for the 2007, so I said “done deal for the pair”.

The wines arrived as expected, well contained, and cool to the touch. That was Tuesday. I arranged for my wife and I to have dinner with a friend at our house — good food, friendship, good wine. That was yesterday.

I assumed the wine would be robust, still young, full of flavor.  I could have gone with Filet Mignon, but wasn’t in the mood for that.  So I decided on linguine with chicken sausage, a bit of garlic, some caramelized onions, with  Saffron and white wine as a base.  If the Shiraz was balanced, if it were really well conceived, the paring would work.  If not, well there was always dessert and port.

It worked.  The Schild Estate 2004 Barrossa Shiraz is still full of vigor, very young, but very balanced with licorice, tobacco, and cherry/vanilla  (in that order), and a smooth hint of cayenne on the finish. A very complete taste every time.  The nose was really enticing — roses, vanilla, cherry.  The oak cooperage really shows here.   I did not decant; I suspect a couple of hours (kept cool ) in a decanter would help the wine open up to reveal something of its future.  Temperature at consumption was probably 15 centigrade.  I would say the acid/sugar blend was correct, but this is a big wine (ripe fruit, and oak cooperage), somewhat like a port.  Now I’ve know that very “port-like”  quality (high alcohol, low acid)  in wines inspires a certain amount of debate, and frankly I think in most cases it is a flaw, but not in this case.  This is a really big wine, with lots of flavor and ambition.

As is my habit with new wines and old friends, the wine was tasted blind.  In those situations I like to ask what varietal, what region, what year, and what price point.   My friend, a man of many such tastings, nailed it right off: he said Zinfandel, which is really very close to what it tastes like. So to advance the game, I said what country, which was a dead-giveaway it was not a Zin, and he said Australia (on a hunch, keep reading), and my wife (who had not ever tasted the wine yet) said, well then it’s a Shiraz.  Had I was!  So I asked, what year?  My friend had recently been to Australia, and understood 2004 to be a good  year, so he said 2004.  He knew me well enough to know $20 or thereabouts was the price point. So now I was completely uncovered.  Nothing left but to enjoy the rest of the evening.

Which we did.  And as I write this, the empty bottle still smells true to it’s past.  Did I mention I still have a bottle of the 2005 yet to drink?  Exactly so.

Best wishes, and thanks for stopping by.

McGonigle

Well it’s been a while since my last post.  A very busy Summer, to say the least.  Lots of professional and personal happenings.  Many life events, small and large.  Too much for one post.

For now let’s apply our vertical toolset to RecallCheck and see how it looks.  The first version provided an elegant, if simple, solution to the problem of finding out if any given food item is subject to FDA recall.  Scan a barcode, and query the FDA website.  Easy, fast, and convenient.  The drawback? That version did not give a succinct “yes/no” answer; what it did give back was links to FDA notices (based on searches using a parsed UPC), or a message saying no pages returned.  Simple, but not as useful as it could be.  PlumBob says: a few degrees off of vertical.

So we redesigned RecallCheck, and version two is now supported by a very robust database and a very extensive data set.  We parsed through hundreds of 2009 FDA recalls, extracted thousands of data points, did our own research to track down data missing from the FDA notice, and created a new interface.  PlumbBob says: vertical!

Check it out on the Google Android market.  More details are available at TruNorth, and Agorasys.  And stay tuned, more to come.

Thanks for stopping by!

I suppose for a blog to really be a blog, it has to reflect the authors interests, tastes and favorite things, however peculiar or eccentric they may be.  You will find mine a bit mundane, but that may give some of you comfort. They are listed below, randomly presented, subject to change without notice.

I think Hedges Family Estate “Red Mountain Three Vineyards 2005” meritage is the best wine on the West Coast.  I’m not much of a Cabernet fan, I don’t chase varietals (I chase flavor and price), I’m mostly interested in Pinot’s and Rhones (and Alsatians sometimes). Red Mountain’s Three Vineyards really stands out for me.  I’ve had it four times now and enjoyed it each time.  It’s a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvingon and Cabernet Franc (the 2005 is 61%, 36% and 3% respectively).  It’s not available in California (as far as I know) so I only get when I’m in Seattle or Boise.  At $25 it’s a good buy, and I think it would hold it’s own at twice that.  One of my habits: after the bottle is empty for a while, take a whiff — the best wines will stand out.

My favorite beers are Belgian (Chimay Blue is my current favorite).  My favorite chocolate (right now) is Newman’s Own Organic Dark (54% Cocoa I think it is).

Putting forth a favorite band is tough, because I have wide ranging tastes in music, but I would say Soul Coughing.   That said I really enjoy covers of old tunes generally (I think I have three versions of “Someone to Watch Over Me”). My favorite television program is “Biggest Loser“.

My favorite scotch has become Lagavulin.  When I first tasted it, I thought it smelled like bandaids and tasted like charred wood, more like a medicinal (think Angostura Bitters).  I much preferred Aberlour or Glenn Rothes, both of which tasted smoother and fruitier.  But the Lagavulin grew on me, the same way cilantro did.  Which leads me to my favorite teas, both from Peets: Ancient Pu~erh and Lapsang Souchong.  The Lapsang smells just like Lagavulin, tastes smiliar; my neighbor says it tastes like gunpowder.  The Pu~erh is a very dark tea, almost like coffee, but very smooth.

I’m not sure I have any favorite movies.  I see 2-5 movies a month, but I can’t say I have an all-time favorite.  I think some movies are important (Casa Blanca for example).  But I would have to think about it.  So we’ll save that for later.

Sites and blogs I frequent are TechCrunch, EcoGeek, Ecoplum and Gary Cohen.  Also Google and Blog and Android Tapp.  I’ll be setting up a blogroll and soon and you will see more sites.  I use Firefox as my browser with a whole host of add-ons.

Well that’s all for now.  Thanks for stopping by!  And remember, keep your vertical reference tools close at hand.

Got a sinking feeling that something isn’t right? Something stinking up the joint? Well check your cupboards for some market share.

If you read my post about sizing up the mobile phone market, you may have gathered that I treat market share cautiously.  So the topic today is how to handle market share without soiling your hands, or your co-workers hands, or your boss, or loved ones.  Get out your vertical reference tools and read on.

Over the years we’ve all been bombarded by articles and reports and analyst commentary that said Microsoft’s IE browser has the most “market share”.  It’s so pervasive, I’m not even going to bother to site a link to a report.  It’s axiomatic, it’s common knowledge, it’s part of our heritage.  Keep that in mind for a second.

Today’s example of research comes from our good friends at TechCrunch.  MG Siegler wrote a piece today about a company called Wakoopa.  The gist of the story is that Wakoopa has a user base of 75K users, and they track how much time those users spend on activities and applications (according to the article the data is gathered from desktop tracking software users install).  I think it’s a great article, really interesting, and of course it provides a bit of grist for our mill here.  So after you’re done here, I recommend you read it.

Along with various other data cited in the article, the Wakoopa data shows that “Mozilla’s Firefox browser … is the number one app on both Windows and Mac platforms. And in every continent besides Africa, it’s over 60% usage among web browser“. The article goes on to say, “… Africa is the only continent where Internet Explorer finishes as the second most-used browser. On every other continent,  IE is in third place among browsers — or worse“.

Now wait just a minute!  That cannot be true.  We all know, with certainty, that IE has the most market share.  So (as Elaine would say), “get out of here!”.

Well, IE probably does have the most market share.  But the key question is, “share of what”?  And that one question is the most important question you can ask when presented with market share data.  Share of what? The TC piece on Wakoopa forces us to ask that question.  The “market share” IE has is really about installations on desktops, not about usage.  A very important distinction.

I cannot say this enough: “share of what”?  There are other questions, like for example is the Wakoopa data statistically relevant, what regions are covered (WW in this case), how does the desktop tracking actually work, what platforms does it sit on, how often is the data updated, and so on. And without reading the Wakoopa data in detail, and the methodology that drives it, you really don’t know what you have. So when dealing with market share, be careful to make sure you are standing upright.

Thanks for stopping by!  And remember to keep your vertical reference tools handy.