Tonight Kelly and I attended my employer’s annual BBQ, held this year at the Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center (aka ‘The Ecotrust Building’) in NW Portland. We’d taken the bus into town, not sure what would happen but figuring this way we were safe in case we had too much to drink. That’s right, we’re responsible that way. 🙂 We arrived at 6pm sharp, when the event started, and made our way to the rooftop of the building. Pretty fun spot to have such a gathering, fully catered and hosted, with two kegs of beer (Black Butte Porter and Mirror Pond Pale Ale, both from Deschutes Brewery), along with wine and mixed drinks. The food itself was OK, but nothing worth really mentioning. The atmosphere was however really nice. It was a cool day today, and an even cooler evening, but the skies were clear, and the view over the Pearl was great. Had a really fun time chatting with coworkers, and introducing Kelly to a few of my many new coworkers that had been hired over the past few months.
We left the party at around 9pm, walking down to take the MAX train towards home, with a “short” trip to the Moon & Sixpence. We ended up hanging out there for quite a while, chatting about art, travel, and my continued annoyance of how many tourist destinations in Europe don’t allow photography (I’ve determined that it’s all to force you to buy the books that they sell at the gift shops on way out, not about protecting the art / sculptures from the dangers of flash photography like they claim).
After getting home, I got to try a beer I’d bought earlier today from the local grocery store to celebrate Oktoberfest, something from Bayern Brewing (oddly, from Missoula Montana) called Oktoberfest Lager, which wasn’t so much a lager as it was a dark, malty märzen style beer. But it was pretty tasty though.
After one of those “why can’t things go my way?” work days, I went and got a haircut and met Kelly at 
