Author: ryan

BBQ and Arcade Fire

Yesterday I spent most of the day doing general maintenance: cleaning up the house a bit, returning bottles and cans and doing some grocery shopping, going to Gartner's for some delicious meat products, and doing several hours of yardwork. That meant that I was exhausted and crashed early after watching some TV. That turned out to be a really good thing.

Awoke at 8am, tried to fall back asleep but couldn't, so I got up and made coffee and some breakfast. I cooked up eggs and some english bacon that I'd picked up the previous day, which wasn't as good as I'd hoped, but still decent. I spent most of the morning tinkering around on the computer, killing time before going to my friend Sean's Memorial Day BBQ / Birthday / Housewarming in Washington. Had a great time visiting with old friends, meeting new folk, and of course, hanging out with my buddy Sean and his family.

Just before 9:00pm Kelly and I decided to head back to Portland, wanting to get home somewhat early. About 10 minutes into the 35 minute drive back I get a text message from a coworker asking "Are you here?"… this coworker had picked me up some tickets to the 'upcoming' Arcade Fire concert about two months ago, and given them to me last Friday… and all of a sudden, it occurs to me that the show (which I thought was tomorrow) was tonight! Oh shit! Kelly and I drive as fast as we dare into town, rush to find a parking spot, and run to the venue. Fortunately we arrived shortly after Arcade Fire took the stage (missing only a couple songs). Whew!

The show was incredible. There were ten people on stage (there are eight core members, the other two were touring members), a few of them changing roles throughout the show (keyboards one song, drums the next, etc). A prime example was founding member Régine Chassagne who played the hurdy-gurdy one song, sang beautifully on In The Backseat the next, and then played the drums for a few songs before going to the keyboards. They sounded fantastic, and it was probably one of the best shows I've seen in a LONG time. Damned near a religous experience, between the sonic power from the band, and the mood of the crowd. Just incredible. If you haven't heard of them (much less seen them live) I highly reccomend you check them out. Hallelujah!

I'm just glad I'd gotten a full night's sleep before this day & night, since I'd mistakenly thought the Arcade Fire show was tomorrow. This means I can hopefully have a nice, relaxing evening at home before going back to work on Tuesday. Hooray!

Beer Food Work

The holiday weekend begins

Post author By ryan
Post date May 26, 2007
4 Comments on The holiday weekend begins

It's Memorial Day weekend, and I'm glad I've got an extra day off, as the past week has been pretty exhausting.

Thursday (Kelly's birthday) Kelly spent the afternoon downtown. We went and had a delicious lunch at Mother's Bistro & Bar and then I went back to work while she wandered around town and shopped until I was free. After work we drove out to my parents house for a little birthday dinner for her, and then at around 9pm we left for home (about a 45 minute drive) so we could watch the season finale of Lost finally. However, we get home and discover somewhere between 30 and 50 little ants on our kitchen counter, specifically (and oddly) in and around the coffee maker. This meant about an hour of killing and cleaning, including a trick a friend of mine told me about; put liquid dish washing detergent on your finger and mark a line, they won't cross it. I was able to trap a few near where I thought I saw a hole by marking a circle with detergent, and then I placed some Terro within the barrier I'd created, hoping they'd be forced towards than and then retreat to their lair, unwittingly carrying their deadly package with them… cue evil laughter. A little after 11pm we were finally able to put on the 2 hour Lost season finale, which was really really excellent.

Yesterday I was a bit tired all day. Kelly had made dinner plans with some friends at around 7pm, so after work I took the bus to Belmont Station to meet up with Kelly and pick up some things for the weekend. Dinner was at Wild Abandon, where I had a really top-notch hamburger (a thick, half-pound patty of free-range beef, with a lemon-garlic aioli, mmmm). Dinner was long though, my patience level for sitting at a restaurant for three and a half hours watching courses come and go is a little low. This is because I'm a very simple and direct person when it comes to eating: go to place, order meal, eat meal, done. 🙂 That said, it was a nice place, and the food really is excellent. We sat out on the patio which was nice, until dusk settled in and the mosquito's and spiders came out.

After dinner a few of us went up the street to the Horse Brass for a pint or two. I was designated driver, so I was taking it easy all night, though I did have to have 2 pints at the pub, especially when I discovered what they have on tap now: Old Speckled Hen, and Bluebird Bitter, two really delicious English beers. Oddly, I'd picked up bottles of these while at Belmont Station earlier in the evening, but on tap they're so much better. Anyway, it was a nice end to a nice evening out.

General

Happy Birthday Kelly!

Happy Birthday to Kelly! Everybody go 'round to her blog and say hi. 🙂

General

The Return of the Ants

3:15am. Awake suddenly, moments later, I hear a smoke detector sound downstairs and notice light flooding up from the stairway. I rush out and downstairs, finding Kelly standing on an end table while the detector screams intermittently. I jump up and help disconnect it while ants are crawling up my arms and across the ceiling above me. Run to the sink and shake the detector while trying to quickly open the battery compartment door so I can disconnect the battery and end the horrible sounds. Finally disconnected, but the more I shake the thing the more ants fall out into the sink. Kelly tries to vacuum up the ones on the floor and by the ceiling where the smoke detector is embedded into the ceiling. This is the same thing that happened just over a month ago. Same location.

Needless to say, after Kelly killing the ants that were crawling on my back as I was trying to empty the detector, we finally went back to bed. However, after an event like that, I found it very difficult to fall back asleep. My sense of touch was on high alert. Everything felt like there was an ant crawling on me. Took me a good 40 minutes to finally doze back off. Though ruining my chance at a full nights sleep.

Going to cover the top of the detector with Terro and screw it into position in the ceiling, see if the ants take the bait up there. If this doesn't work I'm going to HAVE to pay Orkin for the exterminator service, because this can NEVER happen again. Ever.

General Travel Work

Finally, a post

Finally a followup to my last post since returning from London. The cold I got at the end of the trip lasted quite a while, much longer than I'd hoped (and then, sadly, I gave it to Kelly), and since then I've been getting back into the normal life.

Over the past couple weeks I've gone out with friends, visited with family, and have been very busy catching up with work.

I'm still working on adding captions to my photo site from the trip, though at this rate it's going to take forever to get it all sorted. I also want to set up a sub-gallery of the 100 or so 'top' photos of the trip. However, I suspect it may be a little while until I get it set up, so hopefully you all don't get too bored with the mess of photos that I posted.

Some potential good news (trying not to jinx things), Kelly's had a couple really positive interviews for a job opening that would be perfect for her. I'm keeping fingers crossed (and you should too!). 🙂