Author: ryan

Categories
General

Still snowing

Here’s some more snow pics from my house, taken at around 1 PM today.

Had a nice, relaxing day. Slept in nice and late, got up and realized I didn’t have creamer for coffee (yeah, I use creamer, wanna fight?) so I got cleaned up and braved the snowy weather and walked to the local grocery store. The snow is that really fine, powdery stuff that you get when it’s very cold, and the wind was blowing, which meant that my clothes were covered white by the time I got home.

The powdery snow makes it difficult to get a clear sense of how much snow we’ve gotten (it blows into piles as deep as a foot, and then blows some spots nearly clear), though I’d guess we’ve gotten about 4 inches so far. Maybe more. Not sure. Doesn’t matter because it’s still nice to look outside and see everything covered in a blanket of white.

Categories
General Work

Wintry weather, and some well earned vacation

Snow in NE Portland, 2008The past week has been very wintry here in Portland, unusually so. We had snow over last weekend (as Kelly mentioned), some 24 degree days, and again over the past day or two, more snow! I always love the snow, makes the world feel a bit softer somehow. We had more yesterday, a bit of a warming today, and then more snow tonight. I got home to a white neighborhood again. Love it.

Work has kept me insanely busy over the past few weeks, which explains why I’ve been ignoring the blog. I’ve been working late hours (more than a few 1 AM night, and one 16 hour up-til-4 AM code-fest, urgh), trying to get a bunch of feature work done for SuperSweetCo’s upcoming release. The late hours were partially because I really wanted to get something added that wasn’t officially planned for, so the only way to do it was to work late nights. We did a demo today, and the release is really coming together and looking fantastic. Mad props to everybody involved. I’m super excited to see this next version launch in a couple months.

Fortunately (for my sanity) I’ve got the next two weeks off of work. I look forward to lots of sleeping in, gaming (Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty, here I come!), and generally doing nothing (except the usual holiday season activities). Hopefully I can get some shopping done, finally.

Categories
Beer Entertainment Food Movies

A day at home, a night at Goose & Moon

Yesterday I got a few Blu-ray discs I picked at Amazon.com for fairly cheap (on black friday). Watched two last night, Batman Begins and Sunshine. Can’t wait until Dark Knight is delivered in a week or two, I’ve been waiting to see that again since I saw it in the theater.

I woke up early today and got quite a bit done around the house. It was a nice sunny, and cold winter day, and was good for puttering about the house while Kelly was out shopping with friends. Among all the housework and bill-paying and other nonsense, I discovered how easy Handbrake makes it to convert DVD’s to iPod-friendly files, and added a movie to my iPod Touch. Hooray!

Tonight Kelly and I went back to the famous Goose Hollow Inn for dinner and drinks with friends. Had a great time out, eating reuben sandwiches, drinking beers, and chatting the night away out on the heated patio. After we left for home, Kelly and I stopped at our local pub (Moon & Sixpence) for a couple more pints before heading home.

Had a great day, and a great night out.

Categories
Beer Food Work

Winter brewfest, and Moon

After a few days of very intense and focused work (meetings galore!), today several coworkers and I went to the Portland Holiday Ale Festival at around 3pm to sample some tasty, malty, and strong holiday ales. The Santa Baby Stout from McMenamins was my favorite, but I sampled a few stronger, smokey stouts that were also pretty darned good.

I was going to go to dinner with my coworkers at Clyde Common, which I hear is fantastic, but I had a prior engagement with my brother T at Moon & Sixpence to have a few more beers and some dinner. I hope to go to Clyde Common soon, however. A coworker says that even their burger is fantastic, and well worth a visit. Fortunately it’s right up the street from my office.

Categories
Entertainment Food

A second turkey day, and some bowling

Last night Kelly prepared our own Thanksgiving dinner, cooking a 11 lb turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing. While the turkey prep and cooking was a bit involved it turned out delicious. After an early dinner we plugged ourselves into the living room furniture for an evening of movie and television watching. Nice relaxing night. I ate too much.

Tonight we went out to Beaverton for my friend Eric’s birthday, meeting at a McMenamins for dinner, and then heading over to Sunset Lanes for some Cosmic Bowling (you know, music played loud with videos projected above the lanes, black lights, etc). It’d been quite a while since I’d bowled, and I never have been very good, but it was fun anyway. Top score: a pathetic 128. That was almost double the first game (70), so I figure that if we’d played a third game, I’d have gotten 240. Or, more likely, I would have gotten another 70. But again, whatever, it was fun.