Sat down at the computer today for the first time in a while and installed docker. I have it installed on most of my machines and got round to it on the vivomini today. Was a simple matter to run:

sudo apt install docker.io

enter my password and off it went. Docker containers include everything you’re likely to need to run a particular batch of software. Installing software is rarely simple and may rely on the presence of other packages which leads into a vicious circle of finding all the dependencies and installing them. In this case, I wanted to try the new-ish docker container for the Archives Unleashed Toolkit which, in earlier days and been a little challenging in a on docker environment. Whereas this version was dead simple via docker on a linux command line:

Step 1 sudo docker pull archivesunleashed/docker-aut
Step 2 sudo docker run --rm -it archivesunleashed/docker-aut

Both steps took a while but I think it was around 15-20 minutes altogether on my ADSL2 house wifi (my NBN option is HFC and that’s been delayed several months). When the second step finished I was greeted with the opening screen for the spark shell and ready to work. Very nice and will have more of a play later.

For now, I’m currently downloading Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds and rather looking forward to revisiting my favourite game of 2017, and possibly even my favourite game since Skyrim. Actually, I’m not sure on the latter and I haven’t actually stopped playing Skyrim. I have been playing a lot of Assassin’s Creed: Origins over the last couple of months and it feels like there’s still so much to explore. Some of it is a bit repetitive yet it’s wonderful exploring such a well realised version of Egypt, in the time of Cleopatra, and its surrounds. With that said, I’m at the point where I’m going to ease back and pop into it occasionally rather than have it as my primary game.

Then there was whisky. All the bottles I had opened in early November are now finished. Back then I had 9 bottles altogether with 5 open, now  9 bottles and 4 open. Actually I have an additional 7 bottles but they’re each 50ml and combined are equivalent to a single bottle. My partner bought me a box of 4 peated malts for christmas, and I picked up a taster pack of 3 Loch Lomond whiskies. Whiskies opened include:

• Hellyers Road 10 year old (46.2%) – a nice, soft dram from Tasmania. Usually retails around $90 and I think I’m on my second bottle.
• Ben Nevis 18 year old (single cask, 54.7%) – strong but delish, loving this one and on to the second bottle. This was $240 and is part of a fund raiser for a new distillery in Corowa, NSW.
• BenRiach Peated Cask Strength Single Malt (56%) – also strong and also delish. This was $150 and I have a suspicion that BenRiach is turning out to be one of my favourite distilleries after Highland Park and Overeem. I have also enjoyed their 17 year old PX cask.
• Glenmorangie: The Duthac (43%) – more yum. This was a christmas present and was released for travel retail and is primarily available at duty free places at airports, Singapore in this instance. Part finished in Pedro Ximinez casks. Sherry casks are my preferred and the Pedro Ximinez (PX) seems to raise that a notch or two.

Speaking of Pedro, I rather like sherry straight too. I used to prefer ports and muscats, and even had a port barrel maturing at one stage. I suspect if I ever do another barrel it will be for sherry. Of sherries, the Pedro Ximinez or PX (though it seems irreverent to shorten it such) is turning out to be my favourite. I have been trying out various releases from cheap to expensive, the most expensive being around $55 for 350ml! My favourite, while a little pricey, seems to be the Cardenal Cisneros at $56/750ml, though cheap compared to whisky.