A View from Elsewhere

It's been a while since I gave the local wine update. Mostly this is because I haven't spent enough time blogging, and that's mostly because I was swamped at work (the Longhorn announcement and its implications on various products and marketing activities...

Being that today is Labor Day, I decided to do some labor. So I got up and set about doing all those horrible cleaning chores that nobody likes to do. Of course, I got to use power tools, so that made things better. Specifically, I went up into the attic...

Yesterday when we were out food shopping, I picked up a $16 bottle of Willamette Valley Pinot Noir -- "H" from Hamacher. Wow. Lots of nice fruit and a good finish. Back to back with the Firesteed, my other $15 Pinot Noir, I'd have to say that the H shows...

After a few hours down in the basement (the first few dedicated to eradicating the dust that had been building up, the last few dedicated to real work) I finished a wine rack. It will hold nine cases of wine. And all it cost me was a sheet of plywood...

Sometimes, I'm an idiot. (There are those who would argue that it's more often than sometimes.) It turns out that the MSDN blogs are moderated. Here I was thinking that nobody was replying to my blogs, and there was a backlog of comments I was supposed...

I just polished off a bottle of Raptor Ridge 2003 Yamhill Counte Pinot Gris. Yum. Nice fruits, a little sweet, a little tart. Just the thing to finish up a long day of plumbing. Ah yes. The plumbing. I've decided that plumbing is not my strong suit. So...

Last week was an impressive example of Microsoft in action. After the RTM of XPSP2, Brian Valentine, Jim Allchin, and David Treadwell (among others) spent a tremendous amount of time looking hard at Longhorn and what it would take to ship. The result...

It's been a slow week and not a particularly good one for wine, at least for me. At the start of the week, I clearly had whatever the wine equivalent of a black thumb is. To start, I opened a bottle of the Wooldridge Creek 1998 Applegate Valley Cabernet...

Google got it right with Froogle (the site for searching for the least expensive products), but missed the opportunity with news, creating news.google.com instead of noogle. Here is my list of proposed names for sites Google could run: Google: the...

Last night, we tasted ten more wines -- eight Zinfandels, a Pinot Noir, and a Riesling icewine. Based on this tasting, I'd have to say that Zinfandel is not a varietal that I can really say I like. Of the eight Zins we tasted, only two stepped forward...

Since yesterday's post, I've gotten a bunch of questions about wine and why I bother tasting it. Here are some highlights. Q: Do you really know anything about wine? A: A little. Not as much as some of my coworkers and friends like Nick Abbott...

Yesterday I went to McMinnville, Oregon with Chuck Humble for the International Pinot Noir Celebration. We tasted nearly every wine there (totallying something like 75), had some great food (who knew buffalo could be so tender), and generally enjoyed...

It turns out that MSN just acquired Lookout . And Lookout is written in managed code. MSN is now using the .NET Framework!

Every year Microsoft has its sales and technical conference (called MGB for Microsoft Global Briefing, I think) for Microsoft employees. It lasts around 10 days all told (both the sales/marketing and technical parts put together) and, in theory at least...

What would happen if Microsoft created a security training and certification program kind of like the MCSD program? Security is clearly something we're focusing on right now and Rick Samona on my team is going to devote a huge amount of time for the next...

Right now, ClickOnce is a code name. We need a real name. What should it be?

I'm working on a document that is supposed to capture the wonder of the .NET Framework 2.0 in a page (or so). I'm having problems getting the list down to one page, but at this point, I'm soliciting input and help. Feel free to comment on your favorite...

Every year since 1987, a group of wine enthusiasts and vendors has gathered in Oregon for a chance to indulge in their closet alcoholism while appearing erudite. It used to be called the International Pinot Noir Convention , but I gather it's more like...

http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/001440.html#more So my obsession with coffee can be justified on health grounds. I'll be sure to tell my trainer. If I can work pizza and beer into this equation, I've covered about 90% of what I eat.

The other day, I was wine tasting in Portland with Chuck Humble, a friend of mine. In general, it was a great trip -- I wound up coming home with several cases of delicious wine and had some great conversations with wine makers and wine literati in the...

Start with something from Orff's “Carmina Burana,” then Bach Violin Sonata movement, Bach French Suite movement, something from West Side Story, a variation from Frederic Rzewski's “The People United Will Never Be Defeated,” and...

I'm just going to pull his entire comment into the main blog because I thought it was interesting. Basically, economics is about decisions made to rationalize scarce goods against relatively unlimited human desires. It also suggests that in the...

Economics is for people who are smarter than I....

A few days ago, Jon Udell wrote about the transparent society . I remember having a conversation with him a long time ago about this idea -- the idea that none of us has any secrets. We all can know each others' financial situation, relationship situation...

Recently, someone reforwarded me this CNet article on the “smart“ client -- a client that's not just rich, but also uses local processing power wisely, local resources (like the disk drive or peripherals), and can go online and offline smoothly...