Category Archives: Travel

Sage Summit 2012

Posted on by
Reply

So here I sit at BNA, which is the airport in Nashville Tennessee. It’s just after a near week-long stint at a work conference here for our database vendor, Sage. The conference went very well and I got enough out of it to feel like I got my organizations moneys worth. There were high points and low points but looking back on the entire experience the good far outweighs the bad. The next time I have to do this will be when this event moves to Washington DC on July 21st 2013.

I haven’t blogged in a while and mostly it’s because the conference and socializing pretty much grabs you right after you wake up and won’t let you go until you drop in your shoes. I got to laughing that the only real moments of privacy I had was when I was in the bathroom, only because people won’t follow you into the john to talk – thank god for that! It actually became rather tragicomic. Each time I would get ready to start working with my email, or Instapaper, or well, anything else really there would be someone who would hail me and we’d start talking. Now, don’t get me wrong, I would far prefer to be interrupted and engage, after all, that’s what I’m here for, so this isn’t a complaint. This is more of an idle observation. The only time I wasn’t engaging with peers was when I was in the bathroom. So, in a way, the bathroom is the last frontier. 🙂

As I attended sessions and get-togethers the same themes kept on appearing with an unusual regularity. That people kept on referring to their IT staff as “them” and the sense of their feelings were that their IT really didn’t understand or appreciate their needs. I’ve written about this before, about what I do in my job and that I really have never understood how other people run their shops. It has been a concern of mine that whenever I introduce people to how I run my shop I get very similar responses. It’s shock, that an IT shop is open and receptive and welcoming enough to engage with their supported staff. In many ways I suspect that these other organizations have never read the “Good Book” when it comes to running an IT shop, which is “The Practice of System and Network Administration”. There is nothing I can do for these other organizations and I’m kind of pinned at Western. During the conference it struck me that I could very well start to write about some of the philosophies that I have developed in my little tiny niche. So in the spirit of that, I will be writing more about my job and the technical things that I do in the day-to-day operation of my job.

I often times sit back and wonder how many of my work peers read any of this drivel. Much of what I write will be dry-runs for some topics I plan on presenting during the next Sage Summit in Washington, DC.

So with Nashville functionally in my past, if not positionally, the blog posts coming up next will be more about my work. I wouldn’t blame anyone if they stopped reading for a while. It’s going to be dull. 🙂

Erik Rhodes: "A Romance with Misery"

Posted on by
Reply

Erik Rhodes: “A Romance with Misery”.

When I got home from work today Scott called up from where he was enjoying the cool of the basement that Erik Rhodes had died in his sleep, of a heart attack. He was 30 years old.

Erik Rhodes, or James as his true name would turn out to be, was a adult performer and after reading his tumblr, which I linked to this post above, I noticed what anyone could. This person was very sad and in a way going to pieces. Post after post saturated with tone that was screaming out to anyone who would listen that he needed help. But nobody apparently noticed. I have to admit that I didn’t even notice myself until the blog was pointed out to me. I feel sorry for him and his family, what a loss.

Throughout all the sadness I can’t help but spy the Adonis Complex lurking in the background. All men have this darkness lurking somewhere in their psyche. Just like girls have their own self-image and self-worth issues, being razor thin and looking-near-death-is-so-hot, but the Adonis Complex is really a very male thing. It starts out when we compare ourselves against each other. This man has a full head of hair, 3% body fat, muscles galore. We feel envy, then we approach the envy in a very male way. We try to fix what is wrong with us. Some workout endlessly, struggling for a body that may always elude them while others seek shortcuts, usually one drug or another. Anything that’s a stimulant can lead to abuse of a shortcut. Sometimes it’s a naive shortcut like nicotine abuse, sometimes it’s cocaine or heroin. Sometimes it’s anabolic steroids.

The Complex is like a fog on the brain. It colors everything. Comparisons pile up on comparisons and as we start reaching our goal our self-worth and self-image can (not will) go right into the toilet. What you end up with is a beautiful specimen of masculinity that is wretchedly depressed. Once Adonis arrives, his only real destination is to drown in the pool of water that he sees his reflection in. Yes, I’m mixing my mythical metaphors, the tragedy is of Narcissus, not of Adonis, but it’s for Adonis the Complex is named after and it’s Narcissus that holds the tragedy.

Women suffer similar body-image pressures, but the genders are very different. A fish can’t teach a bird to swim and so trying to explain it to a woman is really something I’m not capable of doing. The feelings, the pressure, the drive, and above all else, the mechanical aptitude that males bring to “fix” what is wrong ends up spiraling out of control.

So we get back to this poor soul. Narcissus died of a heart attack in his sleep. They’ll find an overdose of steroids, he wrote about how that was his plan after all, and the rest of us will be left behind, some will have lost an idol, some will have lost a family member. We all will lose someone that could have been rescued if more people knew and reached out.

And then that leads to the almost obvious analysis waiting at the end of all of this. Are the people who do such things, adult entertainment, pornography, all on a path similar to the one James walked? Are these people “terminally pretty”? And then people will start to point their fingers at the porn industry itself for perpetuating mental illness, body dysmorphic disease and self-image crises that lead to self-inflicted abuse that is just a stones throw from suicide.

There is always hope, there is always someone to reach out to. Just get in a car and drive away from your pain. Walk up to a house, anywhere there are decent people and knock on their doors and tell them you need help. Good people are agents of hope. They will help, no matter who they are. That is what good people do.

Lepers of East Main

Posted on by
Reply

Kalamazoo has a section of road that I absolutely detest. The road in question is at the foot of Eastwood Hill. It’s East Main Street as it drops with an almost twenty percent grade downhill. The reason why I hate this section of road so much is because just to the left, as you are going downhill, there is always (or at least it seems so) a cop waiting in the unused parking lot just in front of the DQ on the corner of East Main and East Michigan. What makes this road so awful and uniquely suited to attract cops? The entire downward slope is set at 25 miles per hour and the cops are very fond of detecting oncoming cars with radar and pulling them over if they were in excess of this limit.

For those that are wondering, yes, I did get caught going 35 down the hill. It’s an evil hill because to go down it at 25 you have to chew up your brakes the whole way down. This got me to thinking about alternatives to this route, heading downhill. I started to explore the local roads and discovered that if I select Humphrey Road instead of East Main to make my way downtown I have three choices to make from that point and they all have minimums of 40, except for one which doesn’t matter. If I turn on Bixby then I’m guaranteed a red-light-signal which may or may not give me clearance to make an easy left onto Gull Road and head downtown. If I don’t do that, I can run to the end of Humphrey and brave a left onto Gull from that position further along, it’s more dangerous because there is no controls on the flow of traffic on Gull Road from there. Another path I’ve found is to turn right and head into the residential areas. If I turn right on Charlotte, then I can turn left on Bridge Street and that has just one dangerous intersection. The safest path is Bixby with the light, the quickest is actually a split between the end of Humphrey and Bridge Street.

Throughout all of this it bears noticing that I never once suggest following East Main downtown. It’s just not worth the trouble. The worn out brakes, the aggressive cops and their speed traps, or the stop light that always seems to catch me at the most time-consuming parts of it’s cycle. As I traverse these roads every morning I get to thinking just how much that particular section of East Main is kind of a taboo section of road now. Nobody should use it, it should be a one-way heading away from downtown. That would eliminate the brake wear and make it that much harder for cops to set up their damned speed traps. It’s much easier to have to scale a hill starting out slow, noticing the cop, and progressing slow with an assiduous use of the accelerator pedal instead having to endure watching dollars peel off your brakes as you use them up to slow yourself down.

If anyone else who reads this blog likes this intersection, all you have to do is get caught once in the speed trap and you’ll change your tune. If the city turned the entire affair into a one-way, that also would solve the issue. One can hope.

GLMUG, with the Lead Pipe, at NIU.

Posted on by
Reply

Just returned from a work-related mini-conference. Every year all the sites that use Sage Millennium gather together in their regions and meet with Sage representatives and talk about the database, how we use it, how we get other people to use it, and to socialize between each other. For us, we are a part of the Great Lakes Millennium Users Group, GLMUG for short. Over the years we have gotten together at WMU, where I work, and other years we have gone to St. Olaf University in Minnesota, Medical College of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and this year Northern Illinois University.

For these events we are centrally located to pretty much every GLMUG member so for us, we pretty much always drive to wherever is selected to be our host for the meetings. We schedule a three day mini-conference, with the first day occupied by landing and socializing, then we dive into topics the next day, and the last day is mopping up any topics we missed on the second day and talking about the product and sharing notes between each other where one site does something unique and helps another site out. I always enjoy myself during these events because it gives me a ringside seat to some of the biggest changes to the software, brought to us by our Sage rep, as well as some of the biggest challenges to how we use the software. I am a DBA / System Admin so I see things in terms of IT, hardware, training, and the logical parts of how things are arranged. I also have a ‘unique viewpoint’ which often times is at odds with the more soft-pedal approach that most people prefer. I’m brash, sometimes vulgar, but I bring the same passion to these discussions that I do to my workplace. I don’t do anyone any good if I just shuffle along and mumble as a yes man. Fortune favors the bold. If nothing else, I am bold. Sometimes I’m a few other four-letter things too, but bold is nice and friendly.

This year we visited NIU, and it’s the first time I’ve ever been to Dekalb, Illinois. On the way up my coworkers and I got to talking about Illinois trivia that doesn’t have anything to do with Chicago, which is the obvious 800 pound elephant taking a figurative dump in the corner. The only thing that I could readily volunteer was that Illinois is the nation’s number one producer of pumpkins. Funny what you get from a John Carpenter’s Halloween movie trivia track on the DVD. 🙂 I am the movie generation. We see things in terms of movies that we’ve seen, and in a lot of ways we relate to our world through the vocabulary of cinema that we are fond of. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve recognized situations that come out of Airplane!, Clue, or Princess Bride. To say nothing of the endless quotes from those movies. People often times wonder where I get my oddball humor from and I tell them time and time again that those three movies are a great place to start to get to know me better. My mind spends a lot of time thinking about those movies.

Northern Illinois is to Dekalb in a way that WMU is to Kalamazoo. Both schools sort of hug their cities and bring a certain flavor to the area that otherwise wouldn’t be there. Western has our Bronco and the colors from the black-eyed susans that grow here – while NIU are the Huskies and much in the way that Chicago pushed painted plaster cows as a cute city theme, Dekalb pushed painted plaster Husky dogs. Every mascot is adorable in their own way. Cows are harmless herbivores. Broncos are exceptionally handy to ride (and not eat, or turn into glue, Frau Blucher!) and Huskies are arguably one of the most recognizable and adorable dog breeds there are, plus they can pull a sled. The University staff welcomed us warmly and went above and beyond to ensure that our get together was a success.

During these meetings we cover a lot of topics and the overarching theme that I kept on noticing isn’t so much technical issues but rather strategy questions about prospect management. Of course listening to all these schools talking about how they manage their prospects gets me thinking about ways to once-and-for-all solve the issues they all have. Many of them bring it up over and over again and many institutions really kind of muddle along. I see a divide between those that understand the technology and those that have to use the technology but often times aren’t really keen on understanding what they are using coming into conflict with each other. It’s a lot like the gulf that develops between IT staff and those that they support. I’ve written about incuriosity before, that it leads to a kind of prized ignorance and ultimately devolves into an unpleasant puddle of rank dependency. Those that cannot depend on those that can to help them do their jobs. It’s a whirlpool sucking at the overall efficiencies of an organization as nobody can really be said to be nimble when they are trapped in this unusual back-and-forth between executives who should use the system but do not and the support staff that help them by, in some cases, only achieving progress by applying blunt force to the situation.

Much of my exasperation, because that’s really what it is. It’s not irritation although I’m often irritated, but mostly I’m just exasperated. I was raised with a certain work ethic by my parents that has driven me my entire life. Take pride in what you do, be responsible for your actions, and be motivated enough to get your work done in a timely fashion. While my closest coworkers were with me on this trip, I was a party to several conversations which I won’t really go too deeply in on my blog because the thoughts that I harbor in my mind aren’t the most complimentary or charitable when it comes to some of the workplace issues that surround me. The only thing I can really write about is how I feel and what I would do in the situation that has been described to me. It’s mostly a part of my upbringing. I chafe strongly whenever I am a witness to certain entitled vanities. It’s the reason why I’ll never be regarded as senior management because I refuse to sugar coat my opinions. I am not a yes man, I am passionate and outspoken and sometimes exceptionally blunt. I think what really bothers me deep down is laziness. I feel awkward and ashamed if I’m just sitting around spinning my wheels and doing nothing for anyone. I feel driven to help, address issues, or at least try to make a difference in a project or someone else’s life for the better. This drive of mine is in direct opposition to my perceptions of indolence that I see from time to time. I also prize my bluntness. If people can’t or won’t do what is expected of them, then perhaps they should seek out something else to do that suits them better. There is a name for the kind of manager I would be if I had any power, that would be “Hatchet Man” as I would more likely fire someone for being willfully indolent rather than have them hoovering up resources and masquerading as human anchors. Whenever I hear “nobody listens” my nearly reflexive response is “Make their employment hinge on it. They’ll listen then.” which goes over like a leaded balloon. I spend a lot of time keeping quiet under the banner of “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Plus it’s a good thing I don’t have any power over anyone. I’d be a monster.

Another thing that pops up over and over again in my mind is the fable of “The Emperor Has No Clothes” and I find my mind dwelling on the story a lot. There isn’t anything that can be done because in some situations you simply have to endure the awkwardness of the situation. You should speak up, you should say something. You should grab the Emperor and shake him or her like a deranged british nanny and try to wake them up. But in the end you don’t. You just sit there, floating in an irritated miasma and over time it eventually wears down all your sharp edges into smooth dull rounded ones. I sometimes have little fantasies that I like to entertain from time to time, what I would do in certain situations. I end up imagining what I would do in other functional positions with what I know of my passion, my drive, and my work ethic. That I just can’t sit around waiting. That I’ve got to do something, anything, because not doing something would be hell. A good part of this all is that I’m an accomplishment junkie. I love the emotional rush of getting something finished. I don’t care about recognition, I’m quite happy being the ignored little cog in the great watchmakers design, but this cog will do something! I think that’s what I left with from NIU and this mini-conference. What would I do in some of these situations? I still have the idealism and energy of my youth and I’d make sweeping pronouncements and back it up with aggression nobody has ever witnessed. Again, it’s a good thing I keep my own counsel and stay silent.

Beyond some of this more aggressive stuff, we were able to help other people out with some issues they were having and sharing the plight of one institution almost always leads to other institutions either suggesting a new thing to try or accidentally fixing something for someone else who happens to be a semi-involved bystander. It also helps to know that you aren’t the only one, that other people are wrestling with the same kinds of things and in the way that you aren’t really alone offers a kind of consolation. You aren’t singularly damned, you’re just like all the others who are struggling with, well, whatever it may be.

At the end of our meeting we opened the floor to a general question about who might host next time. The fine folks from the University of Wisconsin Foundation leapt at the opportunity so next year we’ll be Milwaukee-bound. I am looking forward to it.

Chicago Comics and Entertainment Exposition – C2E2

Posted on by
1

I have looked into the gaping maw of the start of Con Season and lived to tell the tale. We have just returned from the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, forever known as C2E2 with a trunkful of treasures.

One thing we didn’t bring back with us is Con Crud. Perhaps people are more careful with their expectorations or perhaps it was a benefit of us traveling by car and not by airplane, so there was no prolonged exposure to bacteria or viruses that meant us ill-will. When I’ve been taken with the urge to sneeze I have made it a general rule that I will turn my head, and sneeze into the gap between my shirt and my undershirt, in the corner. It’s called a Dracula Sneeze because that’s really what it sort of looks like. Just like Bela Lugosi hiding his head halfway in his cape, except I swap out the cape which I don’t wear for my shirt, which I do. The mythbusters proved that sneezing that way greatly reduced the chances for the ejecta to reach anyone else. My sneezing isn’t carrying anything infectious, as for me it’s just a general low-intensity hayfever that I carry around with me pretty much at all times everywhere I go. A very mild allergic response to pretty much breathing.

I bought two new tees, the first with this image of Superman:

Superman
Superman

and the second with Nightwing:

Nightwing
Nightwing

I also sprang for a lead-cast figurine of my favorite Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner. I’ll be setting that up tomorrow at my desk and it will join a posable figurine already in place on my desk. At that point people should know that I like two things in this world very much, Polar Bears and Kyle Rayner. I suppose if I had enough money I could get a DC artist to draw me Kyle Rayner riding on a running Polar Bear. That would be hilarious.

Last but certainly not least I finally have a comic art commission that I hired an artist to complete for me back when I attended San Diego ComicCon in 2010. The artist’s name is Patrick Gleason and he’s one of DC’s mainstay artists. He did a lot of Green Lantern and drew a lot of my favorite GL, Kyle Rayner. Currently he does Batman and Robin for DC, but back in 2010 he had done a lot of Kyle. I hired him for a commission and time and life (and DC Comics) got in the way. I understand that work comes first, right alongside family, so I wasn’t piss-and-vinegar when it came to completion. I didn’t want my money back and I am a very patient fan, especially for artists that draw my favorite GL. So I waited. Yesterday I made contact with Mr. Gleason and I had fallen completely off his radar and he was very shocked and apologetic. He offered me my money back, or the sketch, and I reiterated my wish for the sketch and my willingness to wait, hopefully not so long this time. Today I got a call that he had finished my sketch and I went to fetch it. As always, his work is amazing. It was well worth the wait and I bear him no ill-will. As it turns out, I didn’t even notice that the sketch was extra-special on first glance. It took me a few moments to take it all in that I discovered that he had also included another GL (which I like a lot) named Mogo in the background. For those that don’t know, Mogo is a Green Lantern. Mogo is a sentient planet, and in the comics acts as a counselor for upset GL as well as the moral compass for GL rings to select new bearers. So not only did the sketch have my favorite GL, but it had really nice touches like various chiaroscuro GL symbols, and also Mogo! My next step is to have it framed and placed next to my other sketch of Kyle Rayner that I commissioned from Tyler Kirkham, another artist who does Kyle very well, for DC. This will be the second piece of artwork that I have on my walls from Mr. Gleason. A while back Scott commissioned him to render Kyle Rayner and Saint Walker standing back-to-back. That is hanging on the wall by my bedside and I go to bed and wake up appreciating his artwork every single day. Now that this commission is complete I do feel a sense of closure, and I do know that it won’t be the last bit of artwork I purchase from Mr. Gleason. The same sentiment goes for Mr. Kirkham, assuming he will be game for drawing Kyle in the future. Time will tell.

One thing that I do notice and I say this a lot, especially after conventions is a reminder to people on how to best handle their superhero tees after they get them home. These shirts seem like silly little things to most people, but for comic book geeks like us, they mean a lot more to us than a sport jacket or a fine suit. Remember everyone, that if you want your shirts to last you have to launder them carefully. Always turn them inside out, wash in cold water, and then right when they are done from the washer, turn them right side out and hang them up to dry. Never ever ever ever put them in the drying machine!

That all being said, most of the laundry is nearly done and I’m still up writing this blog entry. One of the curses of living in the eastern time zone and enjoying a con in the central time zone is that biologically speaking I’m off by an hour. This will continue until tomorrow morning when my internal clock is realigned with this time zone. Partially I’m waiting for laundry to finish, but really I’m relaxing here writing up the C2E2 blog post and being here for my boys, who both missed us terribly while we were gone. Now that we’re home, it’s time to plotz on daddy, whichever daddy ends up being plotzable. The condition to be plotzable has everything to do with sitting on a couch and not moving at all. 🙂

I will be taking more pictures and sharing them from the hall of honor for our comic book art. Scott has a commission in-progress from Jim Cheung, for Billy Kaplan, who is a Young Avenger in the Marvel comic book universe who’s codename is Wiccan. We already have a sketch of Billy in the hallway, but I’m looking forward to this new one from Mr. Cheung. I wonder if these artists ever expect their work to be framed professionally and hung so lovingly by their fans. It’s half the reason we go to conventions as it is, to meet the people who illustrate our favorite characters and put cold hard cash right in their hands. No middlemen, no DC, no Marvel, just artist and fan, and cash. A lot of cash. And each cent spent for this work is worth it. We have a lot of wall space and a lot of fandom.

LJ – Fear Itself

Posted on by
Reply

From 11/26/2003

ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey (Reuters) – Saying the threat of another terror attack remained high, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge urged Americans Tuesday to be vigilant as they set off on their travels for the Thanksgiving holiday.

So, what form should this call for vigilance take? Should I react as my government wishes, cowering under the covers before the big bad terrorists come to sucker-punch us all? Should we invest in plastic sheeting and duct tape, perhaps buy more canned goods and shotguns? And exactly which terrorist should we fear – the remote Osama-like one that we no longer really care about or the one much closer to home Bush, Cheney, Ridge >cough< ? Should my vigilance enable me to set random foreigners on fire with BBQ lighter fluid and a match or should I just let the air out of their tires and report their suspicious breathing habits to my local SS Officer FBI Officer (>cough<) ? While I'm wallowing in the new shiny Fear EverythingTM Module provided to me by my government, my vigilance will be keenly felt by all around me as I refuse to change my behavior just because some be-suited moron tells me to be afraid.

As a people, we’re supposedly more terrified than our founding father’s slaves ever were… it’d be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragically sad.

I can imagine that both George Orwell and Eugene McCarthy are spinning in their graves, in opposite directions, of course.

LJ – The Great North American Piece of Crap

Posted on by
Reply

From 3/8/2007

If I didn’t need to reiterate the lesson I’ve learned, I’ve just got a $1206.67 lesson just down the pipes. My POS American Car just ate it’s bearings and it’s 4th set of brakes. This piece of shit, built in Lansing, by General Motors is one giant proof-of-concept that American products are for the most part composed of bullshit bolted to sheet-steel and delivered by the slimiest most repugnant humans I know of, Auto Salesmen. Whats worse is that the repugnancy just gets smarmier when you go in for repair. I almost heard the repair reps talons clicking when she told me “Oh yes, you’ll need a boatload of repairs, tee-hee!”

New bearings at 60k, brakes at 15, 30, 45, and 60k… of course the joy to this all is GM claims that “Brakes are wear items and as such are not covered by any warranty”

Buying an American Car is like buying a giant money pit with which one shovels vast amounts of cash into the nethers of giant looming useless companies like Ford, GM, and whatever the third one is.

I’ve learned my lesson. Even if I wanted an American Car, I shall not buy one. Never ever again. The Saturn Aura looked appealing, but it’s GM, and therefore just another shiny turd.

From now on I shall only own a Japanese car, they are far better and I hail the day when GM and Ford, and whatever the third one is goes out of business for good. They deserve nothing more than to go hungry for manufacturing the abominations they sell to unsuspecting people. Is it any surprise why the Japanese and Korean companies are selling hand-over-fist, it’s because the American companies just put out “good enough to sell” while the Japanese put out quality.

This of course is for the most part rhetorical as most people know that American cars are rolling deathtraps built to the standards of play-doh and silly-putty.

I bitch and complain, but after all, I should pay, and pay dearly, for my mistake of owning an American piece of trash.

2011 Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsula Wine Explorations – The Wretched

Posted on by
Reply

Finally here is the list of wines that we didn’t care for at all. I don’t know why and I can’t explain it and I’m not even going to try to cover this one with platitudes. These wines had something deeply wrong with them.

  • Peninsula Cellars 2007 Dry Reisling – dump it in a field.
  • Peninsula Cellars Old School White – dull.
  • Shady Lane Cellars 2009 Cabernet Franc / Merlot Rose – Watery and weak.
  • Douglas Valley Bunk House Red – Vinegar.
  • Chateau Chantal Naughty Red – Burning bakelite, repellent.
  • Brys Estate 2010 Pinot Grigio – Hot and Blunt, best sacrificed in an earthquake.
  • Brys Estate 2007 Signature Red – Dull and flabby.

I hate writing these criticisms and hurting the winemakers, but these were absolutely awful. C’est la vie.

2011 Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsula Wine Explorations – Second List

Posted on by
Reply

Here is a list of wines that we tried that were very good on their own as we explored the Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsulas near Traverse City Michigan. Please note that this list is not exhaustive, we tried wine in nearly every winery and this list, while not sock-knocking-off were quite good.

This also bears to say that this is MY OPINION and in no way do I mean to demean the wines listed here. They were okay, not as good as the ones on my winning list previously. As always, my palate is unique and I really don’t want to hurt any of the vintners feelings with these next two lists.

  • L Mawby Sparkling Pinot Grigio – Too dry for me.
  • L Mawby Sandpiper – Pineapple city.
  • Peninsula Cellars 2008 Pinot Blanc – Rather plain.
  • Longview 2010 Chardonnay – Granny Smith apples and acid.
  • Longview 2009 Dry Reisling – Too acidic
  • Longview 2010 Rustic Red – Gentle and uninvolved.
  • Longview 2008 Cabernet Franc Barrel Reserve – Gunny sack, musty, pickles in the palate.
  • Chateau Grand Traverse 2009 Ship Of Fools – Nice, but didn’t get 4/5 marks, only 3.
  • Left Foot Charlie 2009 Stumble – Fruit bomb with acidic chaser
  • Shady Lane Cellars 2008 Dry Reisling – Pickles and vinegar on the palate. Sad.
  • Chateau Chantal Pinot Noir – Nose had asphalt sealer and burning electronics. I couldn’t escape the scent of dying technology.
  • Black Star Farms 2008 Arcturos Pinot Noir – Monotonous.
  • Shady Lanes Cellar 2007 Cabernet Franc – Flatfooted.
  • Bowers Harbor Vineyards Blanc de Noir – Way too hot.

  • Brys Estate 2008 Merlot – Lazy tannins.

    • *

2011 Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsula Wine Explorations

Posted on by
Reply

This past season my friends and I visited Traverse City Michigan and explored the wine regions known as Old Mission Peninsula and the Leelanau Peninsula. These two land formations jut out into Lake Michigan and offer a marvelous vista and environment, especially one to winemakers.

The land itself is carved up, and since it resembles upstate New York so very much I can only assume it’s glacial carving that gave the land such compelling contours. Along with this, there are lots of hillsides and the land is good for growing grapes. There is also a very neat geographical component and that is that the 45th Parrallel runs right through these two peninsulas. There is at least one winery that uses that geographical fact as their namesake, and there even is a special place where you can learn all about the 45th Parrallel.

So what are the great wines of the region? I will list the ones that got special notes in my wine journal below. If you are reading this and your winery is on this list, I visited you and enjoyed what you had to offer. I can only hope that my recommendations help other people discover you as well.

  • Longview 2008 Riesling, noted honey, starfruit and pineapple.
  • Longview 2008 Pinot Noir, cherries and strawberries on the nose, plums, red fruit and chocolate on the palate.
  • Longview 2008 Cabernet Franc, nose has pickles, palate was of black cherries, cocoa and vanilla
  • Chateau Chantal Chardonnay, nose of pool water and meunster cheese, palate of grapefruits and pears with a fair acid kick in the teeth.
  • Left Foot Charlies Longcove Reisling, honey and sweet, very refreshing.
  • Black Star Farms 2009 Chardonnay, nose had vanilla, roses, apricots and peaches. Palate was acidic, oaky, loaded with vanilla. This wine surprised me with it’s mid-palate development.
  • Chateau Leelanau Semi-Dry Reisling, nose had pineapple and apple, palate had warm honey, apples and spice. This was one of my top picks during the tasting.
  • Bel Lago 2009 Auxerrois, nose was lightly floral, palate was buttery and creamy. I give this wine a score of 97. Every time I visit Bel Lago I buy a bottle, it’s that good. Was one of the most magnificent wines I tasted in the entire region. Bel Lago wins a Bravo for their wines.
  • 2 Lads 2009 Pinot Noir, nose of plums, cheese, meat. A very well rounded red and this one surprised me because it unfolded as I was tasting it, changing over time. Wines that do that almost always start at 90 and usually go up.
  • 2 Lads 2009 Cabernet Franc / Merlot, nose of plums, cassis, pine sol cleanser, antifreeze. Palate of pickles, rye, nicely acidic and wrenchingly tannic. This wines note indicates that this wine would be a perfect pair to a corned beef dinner with a beautifully sharp mustard.
  • Chateau Grand Traverse 2009 Gamay Noir, nose of bread crusts and peanut butter. Palate of red, plum, and tomato. This wine won high marks because it unfolds mid-palate.
  • Left Foot Charlie 2009 Uncle, nose of strawberries and raspberries and blueberries. Palate was very tannic and chewy. This wine won high marks because it continued to linger after it was consumed, the post-palate play was very shocking and welcome.
  • Chateau Leelanau Hawkins Red, nose of strawberry, red fruit, raspberries. Palate of spice, chewy, tannic.
  • Good Neighbor Organics Chardonnay, nose of road, pavement, plums. Palate of butter, apples, pears. The wine was excellent, the hosts were absolutely charming. Great salesmen.
  • Bowers Harbor Vineyards 2009 Cabernet Franc Rose, nose of strawberry and peaches. Palate of spice, caramel, dulce de leche. This wine won a note of “Delicious!!!”
  • Ciccone 2009 Pinot Grigio, nose of natural gas and sulphur. Palate of bright lemons, apple, tart blueberries.
  • Ciccone 2008 Cabernet Franc, nose of pickles, cheese, asphalt, and clay. Palate was very tannic and had quite a lot of acidity.
  • Ciccone 2009 Tre Rossi, nose of cheese, cream, vanilla and oak. Palate of cake, chocolate, smoke and tannins. I bought three bottles and this wine I reflexively buy in two bottles when tempted. It is magnificent.
  • 45 North Pear Cider, not really a wine, but if you like pears, you’ll love this.