I'm headed out to have dinner with friends I first met when I joined the company I work for now. One of them interviewed me for a contracting job. I think I got it when we started talking about Captain Crunch and some of the earlier days when computers were very young and the people who played with them did it for the joy of the thing and not much else. I was a CNE and had a lot of hands on experience with PC's, servers and the rest, but I wasn't sure that's what got me the job. Captain Crunch. Simpler days, those.

I would hope to post some pictures when I get back. These guys are all web developers and understand the trip: Shoot digital pictures of everything and send them out to the world.

I picked up a bottle of Champagne today at noon. I'd promised one to my host for his birthday, but missed the party. It gave me a chance to see what Champagnes cost these days. In the wine business I had a chance to try most of the wines I'd ever heard about and spent one fall season in particular drinking and tasting Champagnes and sparkling wines with some new found friends who were wine geeks, what else? (Champagnes are from the Champagne district in France, sparkling wines are from everywhere else.)

The best of the Champagnes was, to our mutual agreement, Krug. Dom Perignon was up there as well, it is the Champagne with the most name recognition and it deserves it, it's a great wine, but Krug was something else. The best known isn't always the best. In this case its close.

The prices we paid for Dom Perignon in the early eighties ranged from $60 to $70 a bottle. Krug was somewhat more. The prices I saw today were $110 a bottle for Dom Perignon and $160 for Krug. I might buy a bottle like that for New Year's Eve 2000, but I doubt it.

I had my fling in the wine business and those Champagnes are really very good, but I'm in no place to be spending that kind of money on wine. No regrets, it was fun and I at least learned some of the realities of what that thin necked bottle is about, but, on to better things, geeky things, no doubt, doing them to the extreme, with bubbles or without.