Dresden it was

The first time I went to Dresden was shortly after I met Vinney and I spent the entire time longing to be with her. The second time, we were happily married and got a chance to go together.

Obviously I was here on business, not vacation, so the focus of the short trip was 100% AMD. We landed in Dresden on Thursday morning, I attended the grand opening Friday, and we're headed back to the States early Saturday morning. I like to travel efficiently, so that usually means spending more time in the air than I'm on the ground for, but it helps me get back to work sooner (as well as back to a comfortable, non-hotel bed).

I enjoyed my first trip to Dresden, but it was very cold and the city was covered in snow. This time around, the temperature was very pleasant and there wasn't a drop of rain or snowflake to be seen. The city really is a completely different place when it is sunny and not freezing outside, and although I spent a limited amount of time appreciating Dresden, I enjoyed every minute of it.

Our flight to Dresden consisted of a nice 2 hour train ride to Newark, followed by a 7 hour flight to Frankfurt, a 3 hour layover and then a 1 hour flight to Dresden. We'll be doing the same, in reverse, tomorrow, which should get us home sometime Saturday evening.

Traveling through Europe is in sharp contrast to the US these days, mainly because airport security in Europe today is so much more lax than it is in the US. We were traveling with two laptops, a video camera and of course, we each were wearing shoes. In the US, that meant all three items had to come out of their bags, and of course the shoes had to be off. In Frankfurt, clearing security, meant absolutely none of the above. It was as simple as tossing everything onto the conveyer belt, sending it through the x-ray machine, and walking to our gate. It was refreshing to know how simple airline security used to be, although I'm not totally convinced that we're any more secure the way it is done in the US today.

I had the pleasure of discussing AMD, Fab 36 and just about everything else tech related with Scott Wasson while here in Germany. Scott is one of the most level headed folks out there when it comes to hardware, and he pretty much always can provide a very accurate, and correct take on any situation. We ended up tag teaming AMD's Phil Hester with questions, some of which you can see the answers to here, but for the most part I think I can speak for both of us when I say, the results were disappointing. I really want to know more about where AMD is going, from an architectural standpoint, but I'm just not getting the answers I want.

Maybe it's that I've been spoiled with how open Intel has been these past couple of IDFs, or maybe I'm used to a more open AMD, but whatever it is, I don't like it. Then again, maybe my perspective is warped, and I'm just looking for information to satisfy my own curiosities, maybe you all aren't overly concerned with what AMD has up next beyond the Rev F processors next year.

After Dresden, we're home for just under a week, then it's on another flight to NC for Vinney's Fall Break. It won't be a break for either of us, as we've both got a ton of work. I'm having a bunch of hardware shipped down to NC to work on during the week, so it'll be just like home, but warmer.

Now it's time to try and pack, and try and sleep, even though it's around 7:30PM in the timezone we're used to. Tomorrow will be an interestingly tiring day :)

Take care.