It takes a great deal for me to wake up normally. Kelly has been known to come nudge me, more than once, to crawl my butt out of bed. I just sleep heavy.

So imagine my surprise when I suddenly wake up at 3am to some house-shaking thunder. And the rain. Egad the rain. It was pouring it down. I remained awake for about an hour, on the edge of sleep, until another flash flickered through my closed eyelids, followed by more house-shaking thunder. It was a wild thing to wake up to. However, now, I’m sleeeepy.

You can read more about last night’s events here. (photo credit to KATU)

The festival itself was a quite a bit of fun, and was fairly mellow compared to other brewfest’s held in Portland. It was held at Overlook Park, a spot I hadn’t been to before (though I’d been by many times over the years). On my way in (after having dropped Kelly off an hour or so earlier for her volunteer shift) I ran into a coworker and his wife, so we hung out for a bit, and later another coworker joined us. The weather here has been scorching hot, so we spent most of our time in the shade of a tree, between picking up samples of delicious organic beers.

After Kelly finished her shift, we went to Rose & Thistle to meet up with Mr & Mrs Ghost Dog, to celebrate GD’s birthday (”I’m 37, I’m not old”). Happy Birthday Ghost Dog!

Had a great time out, despite how disgustingly hot it was (through midnight). I really dislike 90+ degree days, and today was pretty nasty. Gimme 75 degrees and I’ll be happy. Urgh.

I’ll be back at the brewfest tomorrow (Kelly has another volunteer shift until about 5pm) in case any of you can join me. Hooray for delicious, organic beer! Oh, and the cups are made from corn, so they are biodegradable / compost-able. Neat!

Found this video just now, thought it’s a fitting way to end the post… some of George Carlin’s standup on the topic of death.

I was surprised at how quickly the keg went, but as I mentioned in my previous post, I was working at it harder than I normal would due to all the rumors of a one and a half, to two week lifespan. While I now have no conclusive evidence to dispell such rumors, I can say that a keg of Guinness on the Nitro/CO2 mix (with a slightly lower than specified PSI) will live at least 15 days. I was hoping to find out exactly how long it would last, and make Guinness-filled stews and cakes with what was left, but the rumors of a ‘life cut short’ caused me to both drink it, and push it on my friends and family, at such a rate that I wasn’t able to find out.

Maybe next time.

However for now, I’m switching back to a beer made for CO2, something that I know will last for a couple months. More importantly, something I won’t feel pressured to drink up so quickly. That’s a good thing all around.

Last Sunday Kelly and I watched the fantastic final episode (of this year) of Battlestar Galactica. To anybody who hasn’t seen the show, watch it. It’s a great reimagining of the original. We’ve also been getting caught up on this season’s Doctor Who, which is also good, if a bit more kid-friendly than BSG or Lost (oh, yeah, it’s season finale was also really good).

Last night we watched the film Jumper, which was also a fun film, despite starring an actor who I will always associate with the horrid Star Wars, Episodes II and III. The effects were well done, the story was interesting, and since I didn’t know much about it before watching it, had a couple twists (and an obvious, made-for-a-sequel ending).

Work continues to be crazy busy, but good. My stress and happiness levels go up and down, but it’s still all good. Lots of stuff I’m working on, and hope to get to do, in the coming months.

Anyway, sitting in my back yard with a beer and thought I’d write (finally). Mmmm… Guinness.

Last Wednesday Kelly and I had M & B over for dinner, to thank them for watching over our house and our cat, and I figured that would be as good a time as any to tap my keg of Guinness. The countdown begins. Tapping it proved to be more complicated than I’d thought. The first problem was that I hadn’t tightened the stout faucet all the way, and when I first went to lock the tap on, beer sprayed everywhere. Damn! Once I’d fixed that, the tap wouldn’t lock down easily (making me wonder for a bit whether I’d picked up the wrong tap). Finally realized that it just needed a bit more ‘elbow grease’ than other taps, and finally got the delicious black stuff flowing Yum!

Kelly and I went out to my hometown on Friday after work for a belated birthday dinner for Kelly. We went to this newly opened Chinese place, the food was mediocre, but it was still a nice dinner. Afterwards we drove to my folks place for dessert (ice cream cake, yum!) and I got to spend time playing with my rapidly growing nephew, Bart. After getting home I had a couple pints of Guinness (naturally) while getting distracted by this Comcast site Fancast, where you can watch full episodes of TV shows… I ended up watching some of the original Battlestar Galactica. I hadn’t seen it in many, many years.

Last night we went out with Mr. & Mrs. Ghost Dog to the Goose Hollow Inn for delicious sandwiches and beers, before coming back to our house for a bit. Had a great time, and it’d been quite some time since we’d seen the GDs.

Today, finally, the unseasonably cold and rainy weather broke, and Kelly and I were able to spend a few hours outside doing yardwork. Soon, we’ll be grilling some chicken kabobs on the barbecue. Hooray!

Between all this, was a crazy first week back to work. Loads to do in the next few weeks for the next software release. Gonna be nuts.

Oh, also, discovered a new web comic, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Enjoy.

Edited to add one more thing: My friend and coworker Aaron recently blogged about this news site The Big Picture, where I found this photo/article about an uncontacted tribe in Brazil. Really found the photos amazing, imagine not being in contact with the ‘modern’ world and having a helicopter buzzing around your tribe’s camp. What must have been going through their minds.

Today, due to the early rise, I got quite a bit done. All my laundry is done, spent a bit of time adding tags and captions to the photos from the trip. Have a lot more to go through, but it’s a start. Also today I went and picked up the Nitro/CO2 tank I needed, and a keg of Guinness. Finally. Got the kegerator all cleaned and set up, but not tapped yet. The Guinness will go flat in about 2 weeks. Yikes! Apparently the nitro interacts with beer in a bad way. Something CO2 does too, only it takes a keg tapped with CO2 like, 2 or 3 months to flatten the beer. Not two weeks. SO, I’m not sure when I’m going to tap it. I might do it tomorrow, making Friday the 13th of June a really scary day.

At Moon & Sixpence right now, waiting for my brother T (and maybe my other brother C) to show up. Gonna have a few pints and a meal with him before going home and probably dozing off early-ish again tonight. Stupid jetlag.

Yesterday we visited a few churches, the former location of a nunnery, and went to Rembrandt Huis, the former home of Rembrandt for many years here in Amsterdam. The weather was odd, starting off rainy, and after a short afternoon nap at the hotel, ended up sunny and beautiful.

Today we went to the Rijksmuseum, where we got to see paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer among other Dutch artists. It’s an amazing museum, and had been remodeled since our visit in 2001. Afterwards we walked through Vondelpark for a bit, before sitting at a restaurant in Leidseplein for some lunch. After a brief stop at the hotel in the afternoon we ventured out for dinner, and later ended up at this great pub called In de Wildeman, which was a beer cafe on the site of a former distillery that operated for over 250 years, and had been a beer cafe for the past 23 years. There were 17 beers on tap (from all over the world, though mostly focusing on northern Europe) and 200 bottled beers. While there we met a really funny and quirky expat Englishman who’d been living in Amsterdam for the past 12 years. We had a lot of fun chatting with him until we just had to get back to the hotel. We need to get up at 6:30am here, get packed, get breakfast, and be at the airport at 8:30am. It’s been a really good trip, and while I’m not looking forward to going home, at the same time, I am. You probably know the feeling.

Might blog before the flight, but probably not. Might when I get home, if I’m up to it and if there’s anything to say. In the meantime, there’s loads of photos in the gallery (and some being uploaded as I write this). Enjoy!