Author: ryan

Categories
Beer Food

Turkey day

Yesterday I had the day off of work, and had the downstairs carpets cleaned by a local service. What a difference! After only three years in the house (and a few dozen parties, cat hairballs, and random spills) we had managed to build up quite the number of nasty stains. Now it looks like new. Wonder how long it’ll be before the first spill?

Today Kelly and I went out to my parents place for Thanksgiving. I was able to exert some restraint and didn’t leave the house feeling uncomfortably full. I had a small-ish plate of dinner, and despite the 5 delicious pies (including two that Kelly baked today and brought along) I only had 2.5 slices worth. A record low all around.

Right now I’m having a pint of Guinness from the kegerator. Mmmmm.

Today I’m thankful for great friends, family, food, and beer. 🙂

Categories
General

An afternoon at the park

Laurelhurst ParkThis afternoon Kelly and I decided to take advantage of the sunny afternoon and go visit a nearby park we’ve never been to before, Laurelhurst Park.

We spent about an hour walking around the park, circling the lake, walking to the far end before circling back around (with a short detour when we noticed some spires that looked intriguing, ended up being the Old Laurelhurst Church). One thing we noticed at the park, there were a lot of very chubby squirrels running around, all fattened up for winter. Cute, and chubby. 🙂

More photos can be found here (including chubby squirrels).

Categories
Food Music

Goose Hollow, and a long ride home

This evening Kelly and some friends of ours had tickets to see 80’s goth-rock gods Sisters of Mercy play downtown on a reunion tour. I opted not to go. I like them fine, and wore my Floodland cassette out decades ago, but just not enough to pay for the rather spendy ticket.

I did go along to dinner with everybody at the Goose Hollow Inn (mmm, reuben sandwich). Afterwards I drove Kelly to the venue, parked, made sure she was safe in the company of our friends, and then took the bus home so Kelly could drive home afterwards.

On the way down to the bus stop I realized that I had to pee. Nothing urgent, just a bit of forewarning from the ol’ bladder. I pressed on thinking that maybe fortune would smile on me and a bus would arrive as I got to the bus stop. As I got there and checked the schedule I learned I had a good 30 minutes until the bus was scheduled to arrive. “Okay,” I thought, “I can do this” and then loaded up some music on my iPod and began my wait.

Within about five minutes some tweaker girl (who introduced herself as Tony) started talking rapidly to me about how she was just up at another bar with friends and just had to leave because she wasn’t in a good place and had to catch a bus to Southeast to go to some party and how she was feeling punchy and blah blah blah blah blah… I just stood there listening to her (because she looked like she needed it) and smiling and responding with “uh huh” and “oh yeah?” and “ahh” a lot. It was a very long 30 minutes. Oh, and by this time, the bladder wasn’t hinting anymore, but starting to complain, loudly.

Once I finally got on a bus I had another 25 minutes to wait, and because I got impatient (and wasn’t thinking clearly) I hopped on a bus that drops me off about 7 blocks further away from home than the one I’d wanted. Once off the bus I began the 14 block walk home, very quickly. It was a long walk, and every dark corner and row of shrubbery mocked me as I passed, daring me to do the wrong thing.

I however succeeded in not urinating in a public (or in my pants). I am now comfortably sitting here sipping on a Guinness. Hooray!

Categories
Entertainment Food Movies Work

Weekend recap

Saturday after Kelly got home we had a night in (as poor Kelly was exhausted from partying ’til the break of dawn). So I went to the local Thai place and picked up some dinner, and then we watched some television before Kelly went to bed.

Yesterday we went over to our neighbors to get the details on what we need to do to watch their dog next weekend while they’re out of town. We even went to the local park and played a bit with all the other neighborhood dogs before going to Concordia Ale House for dinner. Oh, I also played quite a bit of Team Fortress 2 yesterday. Hooray!

Last night we watched a couple movies. First was the rom-com Blind Dating, which was my first exposure to the upcoming Captain Kirk actor Christopher Pine, who was actually pretty good despite the relatively cheesy flick. It also got me even more excited for the upcoming Star Trek film. After that we watched the British gangster flick Layer Cake, which I’d seen on a plane w/o Kelly and had forgotten how good it was.

Back to work today. I think I’m coming down with something, or fighting something off at least. I felt exhausted all day, with a tiny bit of a stuffy head and sore throat. I think I’m just going to continue to ignore it, and hope it goes away without direct intervention on my part. Stupid fall.

Categories
Beer Entertainment Movies

Kelly’s in Vegas, and I have more Guinness

Tonight Kelly left for Las Vegas, for one whole night. She had to fly out early this morning for an event this evening, and then comes home tomorrow afternoon. What a crazy thing to have to do. Wishing her luck!

Today I went to pick up a fresh keg of Guinness. Yeah, the previous keg is empty already. Actually it’s been empty for a week, making it a record-breaking 1.5 weeks. To be honest, between Kelly, Snooks, my brother, and the party on the 24th, I had a lot of help but I was still pretty surprised. I drove to work today, packing the empty Guinness keg with me so after I could go get a fresh one. It’s home and tapped and happy in it’s little fridge. And the pints are happy in my belly.

Tonight I’ve been trying out the new, Mac-friendly plugin from Netflix to watch sreaming movies. Works really well, and I’m pretty jazzed. I just watched Superman: Doomsday and am now watching Big Trouble in Little China which I haven’t seen in well over a decade, but it’s still a great cheesy 80’s John Carpenter flick.