blog.circusgeek

a personal blog with nerdy bits thrown in

Category: Beer

  • Valentine’s and Vendetta

    Last Sunday was Hallmark and chocolate maker’s day (aka Valentine’s Day). During the afternoon while Kelly attended a work event, I spent the day working in the yard and cleaning the house. Later that evening Kelly and I went to dinner at Bernie’s Southern Bistro on Alberta (mmm, meatloaf).

    Last night I met up with some friends at Vendetta for a couple of pints. Had a great time catching up with JB, T, and MB. Later Kelly met up and we (along with MB) went to 5th Quadrant for dinner (mmm, burger).

    Tonight has been a fairly relaxed night at home. And to my surprise, my keg ‘o Guinness wasn’t as empty as I thought it was; I’d expected to pull one or two pints and have so far pulled five. Hooray(!?), except I’ve ordered a new one to pick up tomorrow so I’m hoping the keg blows soon. Otherwise I’ll be in a bit of a quandary tomorrow. Or I’ll just have to keep drinking. I guess there are worse problems to have.

    Oh, and the weather has been positively Spring-like the past week. It was 60 and sunny today. It’s mid-February! WTF? I’ve got flowers blooming and Tulips coming up. It seems way too early for this. On one hand, it’s really nice to have some nice, sunny, warm weather, but it’ll mean a very flowerless Spring in my yard.

  • Recap: work, movies, games, etc

    Returning to work after 2 weeks of time off always means a lot of catching up to do. That means, as always, I fail to post. Sheesh. So here we go with more recappy goodness of the past couple weeks…

    Kelly and I have watched a few decent films; the animated film 9, Charlie Wilson’s War, and just this evening, Michael Clayton. We’ve also continued to hang out from time to time at a recently discovered bar a few blocks from my house, NePo 42. They’ve got a decent beer selection, good grub, and free pool on a table in the back. The only downside are game nights when the Portland Trailblazers are playing (the place fills up with dudes that get drunk and like to loudly holler at the TV).

    And today I freed up enough hard drive space on my PC to finally pick up Call of Duty: World at War off of Steam. Since I refuse to buy Modern Warfare 2 (no dedicated servers, no lean, etc – read more if you care), and I enjoyed the demo of World at War, I dropped my $39 on it and am currently gobbling up my bandwidth waiting for it to download and install. Game on!

  • OMG it’s 2010

    OK, so, I gave up for the past 3 months. Guess I lost the love. It’s not that I don’t love the 3 or 4 of you who actually read my blog, but I just lost the love for spewing out nonsense for no particular reason. It affected my Twitter-ing too. I just felt no need for it. I could barely keep up with consuming everything coming my way (outside of my work-related duties), and just didn’t care to add the burden to myself or anyone else.

    But I’m back, baby. (for now)

    Here’s a recap since my last post (when I was happily relaxed on the Big Island).

    At the end of October I had a birthday, and I turned 25 (again), and had the good fortune of having friends and family over to celebrate. I had a great time (I think, can’t quite remember since it was so long ago). Looking at the photographic evidence there was a lot of time spent bowling on the Wii, drinking beers, and eating fondu and other delicious treats that Kelly (and others) had made. Again, let me reiterate, I turned 25. Not 35. Nosirree. Nope.

    Around mid-November, my company sent the Engineering team down to Napa Valley and San Francisco for a day/night to celebrate the latest release of our software. Had a fun time, despite the fact that I don’t have any love for wine. However, some awesome coworkers had my back, and picked up some cans of Guinness and Boddingtons for me to gulp while on the bus. Thanks guys!

    Shortly after the trip to Napa, I got sick with what I can only assume to be the dreaded pigmanflu (given the fever, aches, etc). It wasn’t much fun.

    Guinness is back on tap on the Kegerator (yay!).

    Christmas time! Kelly and I got a nice tree this year from a daycare up the street from our house (proceeds go to help the daycare, so that makes it extra festive). Our evil cat Arthur Guinness took to climbing it repeatedly. Stupid cat. We went out to my folks place on Christmas day (as is tradition) and ate too much and opened gifts. A couple days later we went to my aunts and exchanged white elephant gifts and again ate a bit too much, and got to hang out with some of my cousins.

    A couple days later I got sick again, this time with a more common cold (I blame this on Kelly, since she had it first). Sniffles, cough, bleh.

    The other day, out of nowhere, it snowed a bit in PDX. And this one was unexpected and caught everyone off guard. It started around 2pm or so, and by 5pm, there was a little over 2 inches of snow in our neighborhood. Watching the news of the rush-hour traffic, the roads were a mess, especially since nobody was prepared for the conditions and loads of people got stuck trying to get in or out of town. People, including my brother, spent 8 hours or more trying to get from point A to B.

    That same night, Kelly and I attended a Squirrel Nut Zippers concert in Southeast Portland (at the Aladdin Theater) which she had bought for me as a Christmas gift. We weren’t sure if we were going to bother going out or not up until an hour before the show, however I’m glad we braved the roads because it was a really fun show. We hadn’t seen them in about 5 years (since their hiatus), and they put on a really good show, putting some stylistic twists some of their old songs, and performing them all with all the fun that I expected from a SNZ show.

    Tonight we celebrated New Years at our good friends T & S’s place (who fortunately live just over a mile away from us) which meant for the first time in many years we didn’t host the party. This was good primarily since both Kelly and I are still recovering from our illnesses. However we came home pretty quickly after midnight, and here I am.

    Here’s to hoping that 2010 will be a better year all around than 2009.

    And for some Way Back Machine-ing, here’s a quote from the Counting Crows song ‘A Long December‘ (watch the video for a younger Courteney Cox, back when she dated Adam Duritz in 1997):

    And it’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe
    Maybe this year will be better than the last

    Happy New Years all!

  • Lava, more snorkeling, and the end

    The other day (Tuesday) Kelly and I drove to the 2.25 hours to Hilo on the other side of the island so we could take our helicopter tour we’d booked. We booked it there for two reasons, one, they didn’t offer just the volcano tour from the Kona side (so it would have been a longer more expensive trip) and two, we wanted to see Hilo. It rains a lot in Hilo, and it rained most of the time we were there, but we had a nice lunch, wandered through a farmers market, and explored some of the shops for a bit. Oh, and we also went to the tasting room of the brewery at Hilo (Mehana Brewing). Pretty tasty stuff.

    Then it was time for our helicopter tour. I’d never been in a helicopter before, and it was both fun and a bit scary. The tour south over the volcano flows was really cool though, and I was able to snap some shots of flowing lava. The tour was 50 minutes, and while they claimed it was both a waterfalls AND volcano tour, we were shown all of one waterfall, at a distance. It would be my only complaint about the tour. Say it’s a volcano tour and be done with it, don’t lead people to think they’ll see majestic waterfalls (plural) as well.

    Afterward came time for the drive home. It was 5:30 PM as we drove away from the Hilo airport, and we decided to drive across the island instead of over the north of it (which is how we drove to Hilo earlier in the day). That meant going over Saddle Road, which we’d heard can be pretty treatcherous, but it’d save us time. Oh, it’s important to note sunset is at 6:20 PM or so, so we didn’t have much time to get over Saddle Road before dark. Long story short, it was a winding, hilly mess most of the way, with blind turns and single-lane bridges, and then we ran into rain, and then fog, and the sun had set. My knuckles were white, and my face went pale during a few sections. There was a section in the middle where it went wider and more straight, but it was very very foggy. Fortunately we made it back to the house safely, but only ended up saving 15 minutes. Oh well.

    Yesterday morning we went snorkeling again at this spot about a mile south of the house, and again saw a sea turtle, and of course many brilliantly colored fish. Kelly and I also spent about 2 hours swimming in the pool beside the house, and generally relaxing our last day away. For dinner I had this mammoth burger at a place called Splasher’s Grill, and was full the rest of the night. I had a couple of beers and then I was so full and exhausted that it was time for sleep.

    Today we fly home. Yesterday we cleaned the house up a bit (I want my deposit back dammit!) and started a bit of packing. I was up before dawn (which is about 8:30am PST) and made coffee. Here pretty soon I might jump in the pool one last time before getting packed and starting the long day of airports and airplanes on the way home.

    And again, photos are in the gallery. Aloha!

  • Snorkeling and swimming with dolphoins

    Since my last post, Kelly and I found a really good snorkeling spot about a mile south of our rental house, we took a drive north to see the magnificent Waipi’o Valley, and this morning we went out on a boat tour and swam with dolphins. It’s been a blast, however today’s 4 hour boat tour left me with quite the sunburn. Ouch!

    Now we’re relaxing near the pool, looking out at the ocean just past sunset (which is before 6:30 pm), and I’m enjoying a fine lager from Kona Brewing. Hooray!

    All the photos are on the gallery (same link as previous posts).

  • Day two on the Big Island

    Yesterday Kelly and I drove south to Kealakekua Bay to go snorkeling (after an early morning swim in the pool at the house). The drive took about an hour, and the first spot we went to some locals told us that the visibility was poor and to head a bit further south. When we got there the snorkeling was pretty good, and while the visibility still wasn’t super clear, we managed to snap some photos of some fish and I managed to get a bit of a sunburn. Joy.

    Afterwards we drove to the southern-most point of the island (and the southern most point of the United States) in an attempt to get to Green Sands beach. As a result of both time of day, and weather (started to rain) we had to abandon a 2.5 mile hike to the beach itself so we could get back to the house before dark.

    Last night we went to the Kona Brewing Company a few miles up the road from our house for dinner. The food was really good, and I had a delicious stout that they pour onsite (had a slight hint of coffee flavor to it). Sadly don’t bottle the stout, but we’ve had plenty of their golden and lager while at the house. Mmmm. Beer.

    This morning (like yesterday) we got up early and made coffee. We walked down to a couple beaches just south of the house and swam for a bit, and later we’re thinking of driving north to the valleys and seeing some waterfalls and such.

    More photos are in the gallery.

  • The past month (a slacker’s recap)

    I have once again managed to ignore my blog, this time for a whole month. Oops. I was going to post-date a bunch of individual posts, but I’m too lazy to do that, so in true slacker form here’s a recap of the events from the past month.

    July 17, 2009 – Portland International Brewfest

    Like the past 3 years, several coworkers and I kicked out of the office around 3:30 PM to walk over to the Portland International Brewfest to sample some of the finest beers from around the world. It was very hot that day, so we tried to stick to the shade whilst sipping our beers. I had a couple delicious Belgian ales, German lagers, and an English ale called Combined Harvest which was light and tasted really good for the hot day that it was.

    July 24-25, 2009 – Seaside, Warrenton, Fort Stevens

    Kelly and I joined our good friends A & R and their two kids for a night in Seaside. They have a timeshare deal, and we got to stay in the new-ish Worldmark resort hotel right at the end of Broadway. I hadn’t been to Seaside in about 10 years, not since the hotel had been built, and it was a very nice place to stay. We went to dinner at the Goose Hollow in Seaside (which is also new since I’d last been to Seaside), and had a delicious reuben sandwich. Later, we all went swimming and hot tubbing at the hotel, and spent the night out on the balcony of our room, sipping drinks and chatting. Spent saturday doing the things you do in Seaside, like eating elephant ears, playing some skee ball and other video games at the arcade, walking down the beach, and driving bumper cars.

    We left Seaside and drove to Warrenton to visit my Mom who was out at the coast the same weekend. Kelly, Mom and I spent a few hours wandering around historic Fort Stevens. I hadn’t been there in well over 10 years, and had a really fun time at the museum, exploring the forts and batteries. Loads of info here, if you’re curious.  Had dinner at a local restaurant called Bouy 9 (delicious fish & chips, btw) before driving home and back to the heat. The short vacation was a welcome break from both work and the heat.

    You can see all my photos here.

    July 29, 2009 – Holy fuck it’s hot!

    Heatwave strikes Portland, and holy crap is it hot! I don’t like it one bit. It doesn’t get this hot in Portland very often, but the last couple weeks of July were pretty much unbearable. Fortunately my friend Snooks lent me a window-mounted AC unit, which allowed for the upstairs to be tolerable for sleeping. Glad that shit’s over. At least, I hope we don’t get much more of that nonsense.

    Today

    Spent my day doing yard work, washing the car, running over to Belmont Station for an assortment of English, Belgian and German beers, and finally blogging. Having a nice relaxing day around the house. As I water the lawn and grill chicken burgers, Kelly is preparing a delicious potato salad that contains loads of onions and peppers. Going to eat well tonight. Hooray!

    Misc bits

    Got to witness the International Space Station zip across the sky on July 24th, pretty cool, and amazing how fast that sucker moves.

    My friend and coworker Icontra found this jem, (and yes, the voice work is none other than Patrick Warburton). All I can think about are delicious hamburgers now.

  • Kennedy School with an old friend

    Tonight Kelly and I met some friends at Kennedy School for dinner with our friend Martin (and his wife E), who is back in town visiting Portland from his current hometown of Champaign, IL. Had a fun time sipping beers and catching up. After leaving Kennedy School, Martin and his lovely wife spent a few hours in our back yard, continuing the beer sipping and chatting for a few hours before they caught a cab back to their hotel. Good times. And thanks to Martin and E for coming by and hanging out.

  • Damn, it’s HOT (and some excuses)

    Holy crap it’s hot out! Got to 95 here in Portland. Yikes!

    Anyway, been a while (nearly a month) since I’ve posted, and I’ve had stuff to write about. For those who subscribe to my blog’s RSS feed, you’re going to see a few posts that I’m going to back-date (because I want it dated correctly in the blog), so when you see some of these posts, the present tense I write will be referring to the real date, not today’s date. For everyone else, just ignore this entire paragraph, ok? Thanks.

    Two reasons for my lack of blogging activities of late: Work, and Twitter. The latter has successfully managed to usurp much of my “hey, this is what I’ve been doing lately” style transmissions. Combine that with a heavy workload, and the result is massive blog rot. To the 3 or 4 people who actually read this blog: sorry ’bout that. However, I’m pretty sure most people who read this also follow me on Twitter, so it’s probably not a big deal. I guess I’m just feeling guilty as I watch the date of the last post recede further and further into the past. Oh yeah, again, for anyone who doesn’t reads my blog via RSS, ignore this paragraph too, ok? Good.

    Today (yes, the real today, July 2nd) I took the day off of work, and spent the day just hanging around the house, keeping indoors due to the heat. I did manage to scan some more photos, sort some music, watch some TV and play a bit on the Wii. I spent the (now tolerable) evening writing the blog posts mentioned above, and sipping on beers. Never left the house, which was fantastic. Tomorrow is supposed to be as hot as it was today, but I’ll actually be doing some running around, so it will be less ‘chill’ than today. Anyway, that’s it for now. Keep cool folks.

  • Goose for Ghostdog’s birthday

    Tonight Kelly and I joined Ghostdog for his birthday at the Goose Hollow Inn. Had a fabulous time hanging out at my old haunt, sipping on Guinness, chatting with friends, and enjoying the best reuben sandwich on the planet. Good times. Happy birthday GD!