blog.circusgeek

a personal blog with nerdy bits thrown in

Author: ryan

  • Happy Christmas

    Have a happy Christmas everybody! Kelly and I have come out to spend Christmas Eve and the Christmas day (most of it anyway) with my folks. Kelly loves coming out and staying here, so we've left poor Kitty all by his lonesome. That's ok, we're going to treat him with some yummy food when we get home tomorrow afternoon / evening.

    PS, I love amazon.com and getting wish lists early, I was able to do all my shopping weeks ago. Naturally however, I left all the wrapping of gifts until last night, but oh well, at least I wasn't doing my normal routine of running around like a crazy person two days before Christmas trying to find things to get people.

    Went to a Catholic mass service tonight. I'm not a churchgoer, but was raised Catholic (which might have something to do with why I no longer do the 'church thing'). For the past several Christmas's we've been going to a 'four-square' type church that my Mom goes to regularly. Compared to the rigid structure of Catholic Mass, going there is always a bit strange, but lively at least. It's been so long since I've been to a Catholic mass (funerals aside) that I've forgotten how dry they are. Oh well, It was still kind of nice to be there with the whole family, so I could occasionally be ornery, poking my brothers in the side, nudging kelly, making faces at the cute baby in the pew in front of us. 🙂

    Anyway, not sure if I'll post tomorrow but thought I'd get a head-start tonight. Hope you all have a good day and enjoy the day off work. 

  • A night out at Edgefield

    Yesterday Kelly and I joined our good friends Mr. & Mrs. Ghost Dog out at another fine Mcmenamins establishment, Edgefield. For those of you who've never been there (or don't live in the area), Edgefield is a great spot to spend time, whether an evening or a weekend. It was built in the early 1900's and served as a poor farm for many decades, later becoming a nursing home, and was shut down in the early 1980's. A decade later, McMenamins did what they do best, bought the vacant (and condemned) spot and did major rennovations to save a great piece of local history. Naturally, they also added restaurants, a brewery, a distillery, and a winery, along with golf courses, gardens, and a movie theater. It's really a perfect adult getaway, sort of a grown-up's Disneyland.

    We met there around 7:00pm (well, more like 6:30 since all of us arrived early) and had a very nice dinner, and had a few (perhaps too many) of their ESB, both in the 'Power Station' restaurant, and the 'Distillery Bar' had it on nitro, it was creamy and delicious. Be sure to check out Ghost Dog's post about the evening for more. After a few hours we all left for home, Kelly (bless her heart) drove home, and we watched some TV and fell asleep on the couch with kitty. 🙂 

  • Company Holiday Party

    Last night Kelly and I went to my company's holiday party, held at the Paragon Restaurant in NW Portland. They had rented out the Gallery Room, a large room for private parties, and supplied hors d'oeuvres, drinks, and dinner. Seeing the entire company (with their spouses / significant others) under one roof is impressive. Even the two 'out-of-country' employees flew out this past week and were able to attend. It was fun to get to meet many of my coworkers better halves, chat with coworkers who I don't see in the average day, etc.

    About an hour or so into the event however, the power went out, not just in the building, but a large portion of the surrounding area. I went outside to look around and from Paragon (NW 13th and Hoyt) north as far as I could see was out of power, but it seemed that south, east and west were only out for a handful of blocks. Still, it was a pretty large outage. The Paragon staff were polite and professional however, filling the room with candles and continuing to serve drinks (and later, the salad portion of our meals, since nobody was sure whether they could complete the main course without power). Also during the outage the CEO stood up, read a hilarious poem he had written about the company and employees, set to tone of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore, and then handed out gifts (each employee participated in a white elephant gifting scheme, and some of the gifts were hilarious, including what I received). The power finally came back on, and within a half hour dinner and then dessert were served.

    Due to the late dinner, many people continued drinking, on empty stomachs. Fortunately for me, I don't drink anything but beer, and my head cold kept me from drinking too much of that, so for the whole event I remained sober. Kelly has a different story, which I'll let her tell. 🙂  It was fun though seeing some of my coworkers getting a bit tipsy, standing outside with their manly drinks and manly cigars. I just stood there with them with my bottle of beer and a cigarette.

    After the event, my manager wanted to go to the Moon & Sixpence, which I would have gladly done, but Kelly was ready to go home so we thought we'd share a cab there, then call one from there home. The company provided taxi vouchers for the evening, which was great, except that the cab company's phones were either busy or not answering. The few of us (seven total) who were going to go out decided to find something walkable from Paragon rather than stand out in the cold, somebody (I believe it was my manager's wife) directed us around the corner to a club/restaurant called Apotheke (Portland Murcury review here) for a drink and, well, warmth. The place itself, which, nearly all white, had a very angular, rounded-corner, 'plastic' look (most of it was either plastic or fiberglass), with minimalist artwork decorating the walls, and a couple of guys (one on a laptop, the other with a sampler) creating 'crunchy' electronic music completed the atmosphere.

    The restaurant serves what it calls 'Scandinavian and Northern European Cuisine', and has a better-than-usual beer selection (including a couple bottled Scottish beers [1, 2] I hadn't had, or even seen, before). The server behind the bar was very friendly and knowledgeable about the beer offerings and accurately described the flavors of the things I tried after they ran out of one of my favorite English ales, the Adnams SSB. It was a very interesting place to go, and given the friendly staff I'd be curious to go back and try out some of their food menu (the patat, wurst with potato salad and sauerkraut, and Westmalle stew all sound delicious). Kelly and I finally got a cab home sometime around 1:30am, then Kelly, I, and Arthur all dozed off on the couch around 2:30am. I woke up (still on the couch) sometime around 4am, and sleepily shuffled my way upstairs to bed. Fun night. I'm sleepy.

  • New circusgeek.com

    Today I decided to retire the old (and stinky) circusgeek.com site, which hadn't been touched in over 3 years (and you thought a month between blog posts is bad, heh)… and launched a new one that serves as an index of the three more interesting (and more active) sites that I have on the server. I thought about just dumping people directly to this blog, and perhaps one day I'll get around to merging everything into one site (at least my blog and photo sites)… but for now I think this is a bit better, and doesn't have content that I need to keep 'fresh'. Whew. 🙂

  • The Shins

    The Shins on stage at the Crystal BallroomTonight Kelly and I (along with our friends Miranda and Brian) saw The Shins perform at the Crystal Ballroom. We all met up at McMenamins Ringlers Pub for dinner and drinks before the show. When Kelly and I first arrived, our server listed off some new beers they were serving (brewed at Ringlers, not sure if any of the other McMenamins carry them or not), one of which cought my attention, a Scotch-style ale on nitro. I had one and it was fantastic. Dinner was also very good. The show started at 9pm, so shortly before we went on upstairs to a packed Crystal Ballroom. I'd forgotten until that moment that the show was a sponsor-filled event put on by the local radio station 94.7 FM. It was full, very very full.

    The opening act was a great local band Viva Voce, who I'd been wanting to see for a while. Miranda, Brian and myself had seen The Shins once before, about a year ago (Kelly missed out due to a work event, if I remember correctly), and again, they were fantastic. They played a lot of new material from their upcoming album (released on January 23rd), Wincing The Night Away. The stage was decorated with Christmas lights, and their 'entry' song was the Vince Geuralid song "Christmas Time is Here", from the cartoon A Charlie Brown Christmas. Kelly was smiling a very big smile, as Christmas time and that film (and song) are closely intertwined and always put a smile on her face. The whole show was great fun.

  • Loser

    Hey all. Well I've done it, I went an entire month with no new blog posts. I'm even having to post-date this because I was too busy during the week to actually post on December 12th. Urgh.

    Here's a quick recap: kitty is getting big, fast… work has been keeping me very busy… I got my christmas shopping done early this year (amazon.com is the greatest thing ever)… saw a concert (see next post)… beer is good… and I've come down with a bit of a cold.  *sniffle*  That's the short version. Hopefully I'll return to posting a bit more often.

  • Meet Arthur Guinness

    Hey everybody, today Kelly and I brought home a new member to our family. Meet Arthur Guinness! Yes, that's his name, and no, it wasn't even my idea, Kelly was the one who thought of it. I didn't object though, I like Guinness, and with his coloring fits (black with a hint of brown). 🙂

    Kelly and I had gone out to visit my Grandma, who'd recently returned home after breaking her hip a month ago. Grandma's house always has kittens around, because there are several cats outside who breed like there's no tomorrow. Kelly has wanted a cat for years (and years), and while I was going to get her one for Christmas, we saw this little guy, Kelly fell in love, and I couldn't say no. So we brought him home. He's about 3 months old, and his mom is a part siamese, but that's about all we know. He's incredibly sweet, loves to cuddle, and is very well behaved.

    I'm sure there will be more photos to come, but for now, be sure to click on the thumbnail in this post to see a bigger version. Cute!

  • Borat, Burgers, and Beer

    What a busy week, so much so that I've neglected my blog… again. This past week, the company I work for treated the team I'm working with to two special days, back-to-back. On Monday we were taken to a mid-day showing of the new film Borat (which was both hilarious and disturbing), and then on Tuesday took us out to Stanich's, a local landmark of sorts, known for their artery-clogging "World's Greatest Hamburger" … a burger stacked with fried egg, ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions, relish, etc. It was absolutely delicious, though it made me feel dirty inside and out. 🙂

    Tuesday night my friend Jenn and I went to the Mash Tun to catch up, and got sucked into watching the CNN coverage of the midterm election results. At about 9pm PST it seems clear the Democrats had won the House of Representatives, though I was not optimistic that they'd take the Senate as well. However as things turned out, they did. And well, let's say I'm pleasantly surprised.

    On Thursday I met Snooks at the Horse Brass Pub for dinner and beers. While there I tried something new, a special beer (presumably for the place) by the New Old Lompoc Brewery, called the Horse Brass Bitter. It was quite tasty, slightly hoppy but not like an IPA, and was light in color.

    Like I said, what a busy week.

  • Dinner and… OK Go

    A few months back, Ghost Dog had mentioned this band, OK Go, and sent me this link to a video of theirs (which is super lo-tech, but brilliant). A couple weeks back he mentioned that they were coming to town and wanted to go. Tonight we went to the show!

    The show was at a venue I'd never been to before, The Hawthorne Theater, so Kelly & I, and Mr & Mrs GD drove over to the Hawthorne district and had dinner at the Bridgeport Ale House just down the street from the theater. I got to try a Bridgeport beer I hadn't had before, the Black Strap Stout, which was really delicious (slightly chocolaty and creamy). The meal was good, though nothing to go into too much detail over (kinda hard to screw up my meal, a chicken sandwich) :).

    After dinner we walked up to the venue, got in just in time to check out the first of two opening acts, The Mediam, who were… uh… loud angry youths (you know, loud distorted guitars and a screaming singer). Between the deafening noise and the sweat (it was like a furnace in the place), we didn't last long before we moved over to the bar area, where we could cool off and relax a bit more before OK Go took the stage. The bar was serving beers from Off The Rail Brewery (based in Forest Grove, Oregon) which I'd never had before. I tried the stout, which was very good, though less of a stout and more of a strong dark ale in flavor. We ended up hanging out there through the second opening act, Quit Your Day Job, so I don't know if they were good or not.

    OK Go put on a really fun show. Spiffy hi-tech stuff aside, such as entertaining video clips projected behind the band during songs (including those of live cameras that were stealthily placed around the stage, including a very small one attached to the singer's microphone, pointing at his face), and the smoke machines, and the confetti machines, etc., the band puts on a very good show and are excellent live. At one point, right in front of where we were standing (towards the back) some crew rolled out and assembled this small round platform, and then three of the band members walked through the crowd to the platform and performed two acoustic songs, right in front of us, before making their way back to the stage to continue the show. Overall it was a great show, though the venue isn't my favorite of the smaller concert spots in town. Hopefully next time they'll play elsewhere.

    Note: I hope to have photos from Kelly's phone, which I emailed myself, though only two have arrived and of those, they were two of worthless ones. Providing they ever arrive in my inbox I'll add them to this post. 

  • HalloBirthdayWeen 2006

    Had a great birthday / Halloween party this Saturday. My lovely wife Kelly invited my friends over, and secretly invited them to dress up for Halloween without my knowledge. I had known about the party, but only learned of the costume part on my birthday when Kelly gave me a Black Knight costume (from Monty Python and the Holy Grail). The party was loads of fun, and pretty much everybody dressed up. Special costume mentions go to Ghost Dog for his Space Ghost costume, Snooks (and his gf) for the zombie ickiness, and Ean for his pimp outfit. See the photo site for more pics. Thanks everybody! (NOTE: Posted late, because well, I was none too well on Sunday, and have been busy with work since.)