5 years in Air Force, 50 in the Wine Industry

Following on, the first afternoon in McLaren Vale tour was started with Shiraz and Shiraz Blends Tasting at Kangarilla Road. 40 different samples from the region where on show, further to those that stood out in the Master Class, my picks were:

• 2009 d'Arenberg Laughing Magpie Shiraz Viognier
• 2008 d'Arenberg Footbolt Shiraz
• 2008 d'Arenberg d'Arry's Original Shiraz Grenache
• 2005 Geoff Merrill Reserve Shiraz
• 2008 Kay Brothers Hillside Shiraz
• 2008 Kay Brothers Basket Pressed Shiraz
• 2008 Maxwell Ellen Street Shiraz
• 2008 Mitolo Jester Shiraz
• 2009 Mitolo Savitar Shiraz
• 2009 Paxton MV Shiraz
• 2009 Paxton AAA Shiraz Grenache
• 2009 Penny's Hill The Skeleton Key' Shiraz
• 2007 Yangarra Ironheart Shiraz

but by this stage the most impressive drop was the 'hail mary' from McLaren/Vale Beer/Company and their Vale/Ale and Vale/Dry.

After a chopper flight over the region and quick refresh at the McLaren Vale Motel, it was off to Willunga. The dinner plans were at Russell's Pizza accompanied by Aged Wine, Fortified and Stickies.

Now Russell's Pizza is quite the institution around the Vale, only opening Friday and Saturday evenings. In a rustic shed with big trestle tables, the pizza coming out of the wood-fired ovens leaves no doubt why it is a regular sell out. If you get the chance, eat there!

My opening drop was a 1998 Coriole Chenin Blanc that was simply sublime, the difficult job of staying on the wine after such a big day was made much easier by such a fine drop. But that was as far as I got before Scott from Woodstock had found me to show off a few of his craft.

His opening gambit was the 2008 Pilot's View Shiraz, an ode to Douglas Collett A.M. Douglas was a Spitfire and Hurricane pilot over Europe in WWII, the views from which was said to influence his decision to enter the wine industry on return to Australia. It is from his autobiography that the title of this post is taken. In 1973, he purchased Woodstock Wines which is now in the hands of his son Scott, who had some more plans for me in the name of 1999 & 2001 The Stocks Shiraz. True to the Woodstock name, you could probably pull the splinters out of your tongue even after a decade in the bottle. Great big tannins that are unique to this singular winery.

My other special mention for the evening goes out to Kay Brothers Rare Muscat, which was the last wine for me... till the morning...

On Sensemaker

I am drafting this in the QANTAS Lounge in Melbourne as I wait for my flight back to Adelaide in an 90mins. 

The reason I am in Melbourne is that I have spent Thursday evening and Friday at the Victorian Police Academy doing the Cognitive Edge Practitioner network catch up and Sensemaker Session which was fantastic to discuss some of the lessons identified from applying the Cognitive Edge Methods with new 'graduates' and also to meet some faces behind the blogs.

The Sensemaker session, I found to be quite straightforward and expect that the real learning points will be in playing with the data. I have in my mind a few applications in mind that I will be seeking to exploit (for want of a better word), the key will be getting funding to pay the licence fees.

A couple of criticisms of the day would be that the demo data had a major flaw which detracted from the logic in the conclusions in the case study. The other would be that the Ritual Dissent was limited in value due to the predominance of inexperience with the methods and software, thus not allowing much in the way of meaningful criticism. This latter criticism is of course the minor factor as it is merely a demonstration of concept.

All in all, a worthwhile event and I will definitely add my case study to the Ning Site, Steve

Multiple Ontologies

I found this and this through Skepchick (though I am not sure how I got to her blog).

The issue of education of children (and extrapolate as you will) is one that I hold dear. As a child I fought tooth and nail to not be forced to attend Religious Education. Now in retrospect, I was only ever fighting the fact that I was being forced to attend. I had chosen not to attend because the presenters of the material were unable to satisfy my curiousity about inconsistencies.

So how do these tales tie together? My $0.02 would argue that the role of educators is to provide balanced education in as many fields as the professional educators can provide. I think the role of the parent in this is to guide how a child interacts with the knowledge. Surely, no censorship but guided education is far more worthy in the pursuit of excellence?

I think that by providing rounded education de-politicises the curriculum and encourages everyone to their role. Thus religion in education is 'studied' not practiced allowing exposure to the gamit of Dahmic, Abrahamic, atheist and other schools of thought (faith) which would surely assist intuiting tolerance.

Maybe the real fear here is that children may find joy in the multiple moral tales available to them...

On the Cognitive Edge Course...

Through the Blogsphere I stumbled across a Course mate which inspired me to Blog in a similar vain.

I really liked Brad's list but I modified it slighly to a list of thought fragments inspired by the course:

• Politicians intuitively get complexity but expect Categorisation and Analysis from Public Servants
• Communities of Practice need to emerge not be formed
• Treat Data like a Crime Scene
• Formulate the hypothesis from the data
• Don't Pareto-ise
• Thoughts are stored as fragments but through telling and re-telling of experiences links
  (tags) grow with other fragments - leading to retrospective coherence.
• Training Stories form the ID of the organisation
• Replicate the Starting Conditions not the End
• Encourage positive trends and dampen the negative
• Manage the workplace not the work
• Consider the Roles (Crews) in an organisation (Loki, Journeyman, Master, Apprentice, White & Black Knights)

I have quite a good set of notes for my disordered mind and many ideas for application and development. I am keen to try the extant methods but can't help but to think that everything has changed. The principles of the Cognitive Edge experience have formed a strange attractor...

And finally, to vehemently agree with Brad (paraphrased):
my favourite line, “cynics are the people who care about the organisation”, since they are the ones looking for a better way to improve their organisations (ere, ere!).