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By pfuetz, October 31, 2006 12:06

I do live in Darmstadt, Germany, as mentioned before, and here we do have a renowned “provider” or “supplier” of mainly southern european good foods, including olive-oil, and wines: E. Molina in the Adelungstr. 3. They also do provide, twice a year, a customer winetasting event in the so-called Prinz-Emil-Schlösschen, which is an open event during two days. Last weekend was the fall re-occurence of this for this year. They charge 15,- EURO to try to cover costs, but looking at the amount of available stuff, I do doubt, that the money covers the costs. They even offer a refund, if you buy some of the stuff later on in their shops (you can do so for a month) for more than 60,- EUR. In total, there were about 220 wines, proseccos, oils, grappa, etc. available for tasting.

We went there with some friends, and started with a prosecco. As I’m more the dry wine drinker, I also choose a dry one, namely the Prosecco Spumante Brut from Nino Franco from Valdobbiadene. I’m not a great fan of proseccos, so I can’t really comment on this one. It was fine, is all, I can say.

We then went over to one of the spanish tables to grab a couple of spanish wines to go with the dinner-snacks: bread with cheese, salami, olives.

After the snack, we continued with some italian red wines, and then returned to spanish ones. After a long series, we finally decided to finish with Grappa and/or Brandy. I did not note the order, I only made short notes. And, we all knew quite well, what we wanted, so overall, we didn’t have many failures.

We had a nice long evening, with many wines tasted. The next day, we didn’t have headaches, so, we really enjoyed the evening!

Overall, I did taste (short comments in brackets):

• Villa Pigna, Offida, Marken
  • Vergaio, Rosso Piceno Superiore DOC, 2001 (good!!)
  • Rosso Vellutato IGT marche, 2003 (good for meals!!)
  • Briccaio, Vellutato IGT Marche, 2001 (very good!)
  • Rozzano IGT Marche, 2003 (very good!!)
• Azienda Agricola Pecchenino, Dogliani(CN), Piemont
  • Quass, Barbera D’Alba, DOC, 2004 (very good, but still needs to rest some time)
• Fontanafredda, Serralunga D’Alba e Barolo, Piemont
  • Raimonda, Barbera D’Alba, DOC, 2003 (good, but still needs some time to rest)
  • Barolo Serralunga D’Alba, DOCG, 2001 (very good!!)
• Alessandro De Conciliis e figli, Prignano, Kampanien
  • Donnaluna Aglianico, IGT Paestum, 2005 (good, but smells very good!)
• Fattoria Villa Matilde, Cellole, Kampanien
  • Falerno del Massico Rosso DOC, 2003 (good with meals, light)
  • Aglianico, IGT, Rocca dei Leoni, 2005 (this was not my taste, and it was too new)
• Azienda Agricola Maculan, Breganze, Venetien
  • Palazzotto, Cabernet Sauvignon Breganze DOC, 2004 (very good!!)
  • Torcolato, DOC, 2003 (very good, also as a desert-wine)
• Cantina Cortegiara, Cortegiara, Venetien
  • Amarone della Valpolicella Classico, DOC, 2003 (very good!!)
  • Recioto della Valpolicella DOC, 2002 (very good, also as a desert-wine)
• Tenimenti Angelini, Montepulciano, Toskana
  • Val di Suga, Brunello di Montalcino, DOCG, 2001 (very good!!)
• Bodegas Castaño, Yecla, D.O. Yecla
  • Pozuelo Crianza D.O. Yecla, 2003 (well-known, this is the 2003, good!!)
• Bodegas Sierra Salina, Villena, D.O. Alicante
  • Puerto Salinas, D.O. Alicante, 2003 (good!!)
• Selección de la casa: Vinos Paco Molina
  • PACO MOLINA “Prestigio” D.O. Yecla, 2004 (good!)
  • PACO MOLINA “Expresión” D.O. Yecla, 2003 (very good, but only with meals)
• Bodega Casa Juan, Laguardia, Rioja Alavesa
  • Cuarteto, Tinto Crianza, D.O.C. Rioja, 2002, Selección Molina (tastes similar like the next, but only costs half!)
  • Cuarteto, Tinto Reserva D.O.C. Rioja, 2001, Selección Molina (good!)
• And we finished with: Rocca delle Macie, Castellina in Chianti, Toskana
  • Here we had a Grappa and a Brandy, very, very, very good. I didn’t note the names… ;-(
• And we started with:
  • Prosecco Spumante Brut, Nino Franco, Valdobbiadene, DOC

Comments (1)

By pfuetz, October 31, 2006 03:22

Folks,

there no longer is an excuse not to at least check out Solaris on your random x86 hardware.

Just check the availability of the drivers for your hardware by simply running a small Java Applet. It even lists non-Sun drivers and provides the links to the appropriate pages.

So, here it is: http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/hcts/device_detect.html

And here’s, what it looks like on my old “Aldi”-PC:

And here’s, what it looks like on my Toshiba Tecra M2:

The thing, that makes my curious with the M2 is the fact, that the M2 does contain more devices, which are ignored here:

• There is a PCIbased SD-Card slot (NO, it’s not USB based!)
• There is an InfraRed Device

Comments (2)

By pfuetz, October 18, 2006 07:40

You marry software, and only date hardware.

That’s been a comment at our DataCenter/Technical Systems Ambassador Conference some weeks back, and still, that phrase is so simple and appealing, that I do not need to add anything here… ,-)

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By pfuetz, October 18, 2006 04:55

I just discovered, that Greg had been writing about this over a year back… ;-)

Comments (4)

By pfuetz, October 17, 2006 05:33

Folks,

just got confirmation, that the 32-bit version of SunCluster is available (again). It’s not yet publicly, but if there is enough demand, Cluster Engineering will re-think. So, if you non-Sun people want to play around with a really stable, prooven, renowned HA-solution, send me an email, and I’ll collect, and hopefully, we will find SunCluster/x86 in 32-bit on the official download page (but currently without support, just as everything, that you can download there for free). If you then want that piece supported, we need to get Engineering to re-think the support strategy for this product.

So, applause to SC-Eng for again making it available!

Comments (0)

By pfuetz, October 17, 2006 04:49

Dan Berg has some interesting insights into the relevance of the iPod in the light of global wireless network coverage. Read his report here: http://blogs.sun.com/djberg/entry/will_networks_kill_the_ipod I did also provide some comments on his comments page.

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By pfuetz, October 17, 2006 04:31

Folks,

I just downloaded and installed GoogleMaps on my Palm Treo 650 GSM. That’s great! Highly recommended, just check it out at:

http://www.google.com/gmm/treo

A couple of recommendations for Google:

• Please add a “disconnect” button, in order for those, that do not have a flat-rate data-plan, so that they can stop the EDGE/GRPS/WhatEver dataconnection to save money.
  

• Please add an “overlay” feature, so that we can have satellite plus maps in one image!
• Just add a “Where am I?” Button, which could read the location info from the “cell” in which my cell-phone (aka I!) currently resides, and map that onto the map… ;-)

Still, I do love it, and it is Version 1.0.0, so there will be enhancements!

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By pfuetz, October 16, 2006 09:11

Thomas Hampson, my favourite living Bariton, shared his insights on public sharing of IP (in his case: music) and great american songwriters in an interview with WNYC. Really great listening, check it out:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/episodes/2006/06/02

In the same session, there also was a small episode on the greatest ever recorded album in america, Frank Sinatra’s “In the Wee Small Hours”. Also worth listening to!

Comments (1)

By pfuetz, October 13, 2006 12:36

On my flight back and forth to the DC Amb Conference and the CEC 2006 I spend my time on the plane reading books. You can find the list on my “old and traditional” web-presence at http://www.pfuetzner.de/matthias/Further.html. This time it was Steven Isserlis’ book for children on some great composers, the title of the book is: “Why Beethoven Threw the Stew” (I read the german translation “Warum Beethoven mit Gulasch um sich warf”). He describes, starting with Bach, finishing with Strawinski, in every single one of the seven chapters what kind of person the composer was, what type of music he wrote, and with which pieces to start listening to. The intent is to make it easy for children to get an understanding of the surroundings, that led the composers to compose the way they did compose, and then to get an easy entry point into listening to the various styles and pieces of each of the seven composers covered in this small book.

I enjoyed it, but have to admit, that it might be influenced in it’s selection of topics by the fact, that Steven is a renowned player of the violoncello, so he focuses on composers that did also write pieces (the important ones) for cello… ;-)

The second book on my round-trip was “Cross Bones” by Kathy Reichs. Although I did enjoy her earlier books more than this one, it still is a good read. My only caveat: I didn’t like the “up to date” topic on Christ’s bones (remember: That sadly, cruely, un-skilled book: The Davinci Code?), because it seems to me as just following a trend. She doesn’t need that, so that was, what makes me select this one as one of her less good ones… ;-)

The third book I started going back, and have not yet finished, is Patricia Cornwell’s “Predator”. She’s no longer as good a read as she was in her earlier books, but I might be caught by the fact, that I read this book directly after Reichs’. The problem I now have is, that Reichs writes in the first person, having the “I” perspective of the hero, whereas Cornwell is more distant in using the third person, writing “she does” instead of “I do”, which draws you less into the action… Review to follow… ;-)

tags: cec2006

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By pfuetz, October 13, 2006 12:11

As of today, I’m the third (there won’t be more!) german Sun employee to review the professional translation of Jonathan’s Blog into the german language. Tim N., thanks for accepting me!