It has allowed me to finish converting my remining iso files to DSF so I can use them in Roon, but it cost me a lot of vertical feet of skiing.
the time of day has lost much of it's relevance. seems a bit disorienting to me. but i'm warming up to it.
- Thread starter Mike Lavigne
- Start date
It is called SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). A significant problem for people living in the higher latitudes.
Larry
In no particular order...
1) You know there's a big problem when a highlight of your day is changing from your morning pajamas to your evening pajamas.
2) Re wine: Larry, I'll gladly help you drink the '59 Lafite anytime. One of my all-time favorites! Your other wines aren't too shabby either!.
3) Chocolate. Let me start by saying I'm not a genuine chocolate fan. What I know about chocolate you can put on the fingernail of one hand. But I'll share this story of how Belgians view chocolate, on which they consider themselves authoritative as ordained by God, much like they do for their beloved Belgian beer. I'm on a board of a company in Belgium so I visit Brussels a few times a year. If you've been to Brussels, you can't help but notice that they have more chocolate shops on every block than there are Starbucks in Seattle. Several board members took it upon themselves to educate me about their precious chocolate and here are a few things I've learned. Apparently, my American chocolate palette is pitiful; actually beyond pitiful. A true chocolate connoisseur (in other words, any Belgian citizen) eschews anything that is sweet or semi-sweet in favor of the purest high cacao chocolate which is actually quite bitter. That discovery was eye-opening. We spent some time at a famous chocolatier named "Mary" who brought out sample after treasured sample of what they and my colleagues considered the "best" chocolate". I was essentially embarrassed to express my opinion, as I looked around the room desperately for a Snicker's bar. But "bitter" is where these folks are at. And not some of them. All of them. You think tubes vs SS is controversial? In chocoholic land, if it isn't pure and bitter, it's crap. End of discussion. Finally, I'll say that although you can look up the well known brands of Belgian chocolate that we can get in the US, the Belgians laugh at us for thinking brands like Godiva is a brand worth eating. In their book, it occupies a rung someplace between Bose and the 8th circle of hell (which Dante named "fraud"). The general consensus "best" brand of my hosts is Pierre Marcolini, which was only available until recently in their shops in Belgium and Paris, but is now available at 1 or 2 airport shops in the Brussels airport but you have to know where as it is not at the common retail boutiques. Based on the guidance of my so called "experts", I have been bringing in supplies of Marcolini chocolates for friends and family with each visit. The praline collection in particular, as well as the pure chocolates, seem to be big hits at home. As for me, I'd trade them all for vanilla Haagen Dazs since I really am a chocolate heathen and thus not worthy of Mr Marcolini's creations.
1) You know there's a big problem when a highlight of your day is changing from your morning pajamas to your evening pajamas.
2) Re wine: Larry, I'll gladly help you drink the '59 Lafite anytime. One of my all-time favorites! Your other wines aren't too shabby either!.
3) Chocolate. Let me start by saying I'm not a genuine chocolate fan. What I know about chocolate you can put on the fingernail of one hand. But I'll share this story of how Belgians view chocolate, on which they consider themselves authoritative as ordained by God, much like they do for their beloved Belgian beer. I'm on a board of a company in Belgium so I visit Brussels a few times a year. If you've been to Brussels, you can't help but notice that they have more chocolate shops on every block than there are Starbucks in Seattle. Several board members took it upon themselves to educate me about their precious chocolate and here are a few things I've learned. Apparently, my American chocolate palette is pitiful; actually beyond pitiful. A true chocolate connoisseur (in other words, any Belgian citizen) eschews anything that is sweet or semi-sweet in favor of the purest high cacao chocolate which is actually quite bitter. That discovery was eye-opening. We spent some time at a famous chocolatier named "Mary" who brought out sample after treasured sample of what they and my colleagues considered the "best" chocolate". I was essentially embarrassed to express my opinion, as I looked around the room desperately for a Snicker's bar. But "bitter" is where these folks are at. And not some of them. All of them. You think tubes vs SS is controversial? In chocoholic land, if it isn't pure and bitter, it's crap. End of discussion. Finally, I'll say that although you can look up the well known brands of Belgian chocolate that we can get in the US, the Belgians laugh at us for thinking brands like Godiva is a brand worth eating. In their book, it occupies a rung someplace between Bose and the 8th circle of hell (which Dante named "fraud"). The general consensus "best" brand of my hosts is Pierre Marcolini, which was only available until recently in their shops in Belgium and Paris, but is now available at 1 or 2 airport shops in the Brussels airport but you have to know where as it is not at the common retail boutiques. Based on the guidance of my so called "experts", I have been bringing in supplies of Marcolini chocolates for friends and family with each visit. The praline collection in particular, as well as the pure chocolates, seem to be big hits at home. As for me, I'd trade them all for vanilla Haagen Dazs since I really am a chocolate heathen and thus not worthy of Mr Marcolini's creations.
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Thanks, Marty. It was great. I was able to share it with one of my college roommates who was visiting - oh so many years ago. The advantage to be the same age as our esteemed WBF founder, Dr. Williams, is that back in the '60's, wine, especially great French wine, was quite affordable, even for a poor grad student and beginning teacher. The '59 Lafite had been touted as the wine of the century and it was $50, by far the highest priced wine around. The case (12 bottles!) of 1970 Chateau Latour futures was $140. And the two bottles of '67 La Tache were (in 1973) $15 each. During the late '60's when I started drinking wine (and making about $9500 a year as a starting teacher), I was able to buy second growth Bordeaux, like the Ducru Beaucaillou, for $3/a bottle. We were drinking great white Burgundies, not just Chablis Grand Crus, but Batard Montrachet, about $6. Red Burgundies like Chambertin Clos de Beze for the same $6/bottle. My big splurge in 1968 (as a first year grad student) was buying two bottles of 1961 Chateau Margaux for $8.95 each. I passed on the 1961 Chateux Lafite for $15.95 - too rich for my pocketbook.
I also passed on a 1947 Ch. Cheval Blanc, the holy grail wine mentioned in the great wine movie 'Sideways'. IIRC it was $30. In Sideways, Paul Giamatti drinks his 1961 Cheval Blanc out of a styrofoam cup at the end of the movie. Any wine enthusiast knows it is the wrong wine - Giamatti's character loves burgundies, not Bordeaux, particularly not ones from St. Emillion with lots of Merlot.
Larry
I've been retired since 2004.....this is a whole different animal. I go out and it is surreal,like being part of the movie "on the beach". Not quite ready to do a Fred Astaire imitation. I don't like it.
I passed on a case of Chateau Petrus at $75 a bottle. At least my rich friends shared a 1966 Romanee Conti with me. Now if I find some pre phylloxera wines I jump....the rest isn't worth the price...just my experience with most high priced French Grand Crus.
Larry, you're killing me here! I don't know how much you keep with the current wine market, but a bottle of village level burgundy will cost you over $100 on most days. Barolo, BDX.... ???? I need to go back to the beer, lol! Some friends that I drink wine with are older collectors and they like to talk about what they paid for certain bottles back in the day. It makes me wish I had a time machine for sure.
It's funny you noticed the bottles on the shelf in the pic I posted. Most of those are birth year wines that I have saved the bottles from. A '66 La Tache would be a fun drink right about now - chocolate be damned!
The wine prices you quoted nearly drove me to have an apoplectic stroke, particularly the $15 La Tache! I didn't start collecting seriously until the 1982 Bordeaux vintage and although not dirt cheap, the first growths were still somewhat affordable. Fortunately, I still have a few left. The 59s remain my most cherished vintage for first growths- I've had them all with Mouton being the desert island wine for me from that vintage. As you know, the memories of consuming these treasures is not just about the wines, but the occasion, the meals and friends with whom it was shared. That said, I'd drink the '61 Cheval out of a dog food bowl (although I might leave it for another day if the 61 Palmer was available as well!). Oddly, one of the best things that happened to me as a wine lover is that I never really fell in love with red burgundies although I am fortunate to have friends who are genuine burgundians and generous. That handicap actually allowed me to spend more discretionary income on audio throughout the years. If I was a burgundy lover, I'd be lucky to still have my original Advents at this point! The great burgundies are insanely expensive now and mostly unaffordable. Not to mention that their life expectancy only lasts a few hours once the bottle is opened. At least one can get a hell of a lot more use out of a $10K cartridge!! Audiophilia wins again!
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Nice to be able to have the experience of imbibing in the ne plus ultra Romanee Conti one time (I never have).
Back in the late '60's after having studied Alex Lichine's French Bordeaux book, I found myself buying some great wines at Jackson's a wine store in Berkeley. They were an East Bay Area chain, with the Berkeley store being their flagship. I visited several of the stores in the chain to see what they had. Usually, nothing, but occasionally there would be a find. I was out in Walnut Creek, not finding anything, but then in a rack of bottles, I spotted a 1948 (not the great 1947 vintage) Ch. Petrus. I think it was $7.95, definitely less than $10. That was the only Petrus I ever had. Fast forward to the late nineties, and Petrus was the most sought after and expensive Bordeaux. I was in Hong Kong and went to a local fine wine store (which had a library collection of Ch Mouton Rothschild prominantly on display). Chatting with the owner, he told me that one of the uber wealthy customers had ordered three cases of Petrus for his daughter's wedding reception! Many Chinese did not have an appreciation for fine wine and would either put ice in the glass or mix it with Seven-Up.
Larry
I'm glad I'm not the only Petrus orphan. Great story.....I remember watching an old movie on TCM. A older millionaire in the 30's asked his butler to bring him the best Bordeaux in his cellar. He wanted to share it with new found young friends. His friends disliked it and added soda pop to it. I laughed ! The old guy almost cried.
I had a good friend that owned a wine store in Reno.....he forgot more about wine than most know. I've been lucky and have drank some great wine. I still think Frank Schoonmaker's book is a book everybody wanting to learn should read. Thanks and enjoy.
well .. no petrus but like scores on a prison wall I am marking the days - I think the lockdown is going on longer than my liver can stand
Finding it hard to have our usual alcohol free days - it is a slippery slope ...
Phil
I see a bottle from Domaine Faiveley. It just reminds me that I still have a few Corton « Clos des Cortons Faively » bottles in the cellar.
3 weeks ago i was in algeria for work , i saw this whole lock down thing coming so i asked my company if i could stay and make a vacation instead.
I was in Oran and i wanted to go south to tamanrasset ( hoggar mountains ) and then to djanet ( tassili Najjer).
I ve been to djanet before , the sahara is absolutely fantastic , touareg people are great people ( they have great musicians as well )
No it was nt possible unfortunately , i m now waisting my time at home doing some work and do a bit of sports everyday .
Plus eat good , keep the immune system healthy
Retirement isn't something I think about or have an objective to make happen on any kind of schedule. I prefer working coming up on 66. I work in software and have a team of 35 people distributed across nine states + four countries outside the US. Before SARS-CV2 I used to go to my WeWork office in Santa Monica once or twice a week, either for in-person meetings or when I wanted to use the 80" video conferencing system. With the virus shutdown, our productivity is boosted. I have nobody, including myself, losing 2-3 hours a day commuting. I have the full demographic stack working in my company, Boomers, GenX, Millennials, and now GenZ is creeping in. I was an early connectivity adopter. My first academic email account debut was 1976 via screenless (teletype) mainframe access in graduate school. My first private account was via Compuserve in 1980 right after they offered consumer dial-up via 300 baud modem. Yes, s-l-o-w but it was a miracle at the time. So I've been online in some form ever since, using increasingly accessible network technology to be able to coordinate dispersed teams. I filled the short years between proprietary email and internet email with early adoption of Lotus Notes in 1989. When the web hit, I built my first corporate web site in December 1993. I string that out to say that how companies like mine work is part of a continuum, not a sudden revolution.
So WFH is second nature to all of us because we, even the oldest and youngest among us, became accustomed to being able to work productively from anywhere our notebooks and an internet connection coincide.
External necessities like selling are definitely slowed by this lockdown. But our internal work is accelerating. My innovation team is working at a blistering pace, solving machine learning and AI problems faster than ever -- and they were sprinting before. I notice just in three or so weeks of self-isolation that people who never before really settled into life online are rapidly and profoundly comfortable with it. And effective. And people forgive the errant dog, child, roommate, spouse, significant other. Business is proceeding. Relationships are maintaining.
Long-delayed hifi and guitar projects are reviving without the commute time. We miss our regular restaurants/bars routine dining out, a major social outlet and connector. Whiskey is finding its way into a glass (in reasonable moderation) seven days a week instead of four or five. I have to consciously remind myself to be more motile every day and eat in moderation too. But I also reclaimed some time to dig into deep cuts from my vinyl and digital music collection. Gosh, I don't think I pulled that Jaime Brockett album from 1973 in 15 years. I wrung some noise out of my main hifi system over the weekend and tracked down and rectified some problems with some of the prototype tube amps I've had built and been modifying (slowly) lately. I did some neck adjustments on a few guitars and replaced two broken pickups. I sold and shipped some idle gear. And my wife and I have started working through a backlog of missed movies over the last few years.
Every day has a nearly identical pattern. Instead of trying to keep a weekend reasonably free of work, we settle into work spread into seven days but a little more time is taken from each day for things that aren't work. Is that better? Can't say yet. You would think the days would seem to go slowly, but for me they are accelerating. There's still too much to do and the morning is a step onto a banana peel that glides me into the darkened evening before I know it. We've lost the demarcating lines in life. Will be glad to get them back. And we will.
But we will emerge into a changed world. True normalcy will not return by decree. People who are lucky enough to keep their incomes will emerge with a greater appreciation -- and demand for -- flextime, WFH, relief from long, unproductive commutes. Popular demand for a reflated healthcare system, accessible to all and not capacity-calculated to within an inch of catastrophe will rise. And rise. Tolerance for restricted access and gated checks for live events -- pioneered post-9/11 and about to surge, will rise as well. America isn't really a rugged individualist culture. It is a safety for me culture even if that means danger to you.
Hardly anyone has enough cash set aside to weather 4-6 months of this if they lose their income. Congress and the administration just threw a bucket on a forest fire, and true to form, $2T incrementalism will cost vastly more than if they had just done it right the first time. But we don't have that kind of imagination in American governance anymore. So we're going to learn a lot about American culture and the United States this year, about the swept-under-the-rug things. And how long the kids are going to put up with calcified politics and entrenched Boomerism. I didn't want or expect this to be our circumstance in 2020. But now that it is, we have a front-row seat on the social experiment of the century. Well, until the next one. Like the 500 year storms that hit every 30 years, I think we have more coming.
Phil
So WFH is second nature to all of us because we, even the oldest and youngest among us, became accustomed to being able to work productively from anywhere our notebooks and an internet connection coincide.
External necessities like selling are definitely slowed by this lockdown. But our internal work is accelerating. My innovation team is working at a blistering pace, solving machine learning and AI problems faster than ever -- and they were sprinting before. I notice just in three or so weeks of self-isolation that people who never before really settled into life online are rapidly and profoundly comfortable with it. And effective. And people forgive the errant dog, child, roommate, spouse, significant other. Business is proceeding. Relationships are maintaining.
Long-delayed hifi and guitar projects are reviving without the commute time. We miss our regular restaurants/bars routine dining out, a major social outlet and connector. Whiskey is finding its way into a glass (in reasonable moderation) seven days a week instead of four or five. I have to consciously remind myself to be more motile every day and eat in moderation too. But I also reclaimed some time to dig into deep cuts from my vinyl and digital music collection. Gosh, I don't think I pulled that Jaime Brockett album from 1973 in 15 years. I wrung some noise out of my main hifi system over the weekend and tracked down and rectified some problems with some of the prototype tube amps I've had built and been modifying (slowly) lately. I did some neck adjustments on a few guitars and replaced two broken pickups. I sold and shipped some idle gear. And my wife and I have started working through a backlog of missed movies over the last few years.
Every day has a nearly identical pattern. Instead of trying to keep a weekend reasonably free of work, we settle into work spread into seven days but a little more time is taken from each day for things that aren't work. Is that better? Can't say yet. You would think the days would seem to go slowly, but for me they are accelerating. There's still too much to do and the morning is a step onto a banana peel that glides me into the darkened evening before I know it. We've lost the demarcating lines in life. Will be glad to get them back. And we will.
But we will emerge into a changed world. True normalcy will not return by decree. People who are lucky enough to keep their incomes will emerge with a greater appreciation -- and demand for -- flextime, WFH, relief from long, unproductive commutes. Popular demand for a reflated healthcare system, accessible to all and not capacity-calculated to within an inch of catastrophe will rise. And rise. Tolerance for restricted access and gated checks for live events -- pioneered post-9/11 and about to surge, will rise as well. America isn't really a rugged individualist culture. It is a safety for me culture even if that means danger to you.
Hardly anyone has enough cash set aside to weather 4-6 months of this if they lose their income. Congress and the administration just threw a bucket on a forest fire, and true to form, $2T incrementalism will cost vastly more than if they had just done it right the first time. But we don't have that kind of imagination in American governance anymore. So we're going to learn a lot about American culture and the United States this year, about the swept-under-the-rug things. And how long the kids are going to put up with calcified politics and entrenched Boomerism. I didn't want or expect this to be our circumstance in 2020. But now that it is, we have a front-row seat on the social experiment of the century. Well, until the next one. Like the 500 year storms that hit every 30 years, I think we have more coming.
Phil
Praise yourself lucky that you are in a country with good healthcare, just in case you get sick, You can always travel when it is a little safer3 weeks ago i was in algeria for work , i saw this whole lock down thing coming so i asked my company if i could stay and make a vacation instead.
I was in Oran and i wanted to go south to tamanrasset ( hoggar mountains ) and then to djanet ( tassili Najjer).
I ve been to djanet before , the sahara is absolutely fantastic , touareg people are great people ( they have great musicians as well )
No it was nt possible unfortunately , i m now waisting my time at home doing some work and do a bit of sports everyday .
Plus eat good , keep the immune system healthy
My father had 2 heart operations in Holland, and he is 83 and still around !
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As a person of letters said in recent memory, the US is about to become a very interesting place.
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