Category: Beer

Nerds, Beers & Pubs

After a long and hectic work week (including some big news for SuperSweetCo), I had a day to myself.

Actually, it kind of started last night with my friend Miranda coming by to hang out, stopping me from working until the wee hours. She and Brian are in the process of buying a house just a few blocks away (hooray!) and she didn’t want to go home and pack (again) so she came by for a bit. Later last night I tried to watch some of the backlog of shows we’ve recorded on our PVR but I fell asleep around 11pm or so. I was pooped.

This weekend was Kelly’s ‘school weekend’ (classes on Friday night and all day Saturday) which generally means I sleep in late on Saturdays. Today however I woke up around 8:30am to the sounds of hammering, sawing, pounding, and yelling by the construction workers building a new house across the street. Fortunately I’d gotten a fair amount of sleep and wasn’t too cranky at being so rudely awakened on a Saturday morning. I got out of bed and made coffee before proceeding to do a bunch of little things around the house, like paying bills online, hanging some blinds in the master bath, cleaning the kitchen, etc.

Around 2:00pm I got out of the house to run some errands before Kelly got home. Prior to leaving town for our little vacation last week, I’d seen a flier for a nerdy computer expo in town held by a local Apple specialist shop MacForce, with a grand prize drawing for an iPhone, so I figured I’d go down there. Wasn’t very exciting, but it was free, and they were serving free BBQ. Since I’d arrived later in the day I had already missed the drawings for some software I’d have liked, but oh well, I had better things to go do…

After leaving the Mac expo thing, I went to one of Portland’s two “Beer Heaven’s”, Belmont Station, to pick up some beers for the weekend. I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t have a few things I was looking for (like Adnam’s SSB) but still picked up a Black Sheep Ale and some Abbot Ale. Such a great store, and I was glad to see it was pretty busy. Was able to snap one shot w/o a bunch of people in it.

I got home around 4pm and finished cleaning the kitchen before Kelly got home from her class. A bit after Kelly got home we decided to go check out an Irish pub that we’d been meaning to go to for a couple years now, the County Cork. Not a bad little spot, though when you first walk in it doesn’t seem too impressive, the bar area is rather plain, but the rest of the main room is nice enough. There’s also a little patio area out back, all enclosed with tables and umbrellas. Kelly got a Lagunitas Censored on cask (which was really really good) and I got a Murphy’s stout (it’d been a long time since I’d had that on tap anywhere). Overall a pretty decent spot, though we opted to move on.

Kelly and I both had a hankering for the Welsh Rarebit at Moon & Sixpence, so we headed on up there for some food. Had a nice time hanging out there, and the food hit the spot. After that we decided to get home, Kelly was tired from her day at class and wanted to relax in front of the television.

Oh, also, this post goes out to Aaron. You asked for it. 🙂

Beer General Work

Recapiness

Craziness, business, stressiness (yes, like Stephen Colbert coining truthiness, I hereby lay claim to stressiness)… that describes my week. After meeting my new nephew Hank (who is doing well) last week, Kelly and I have been busy. The work week was a crazed blur, with the first half of the week spent designing some new / enhanced features for SuperSweetCo’s flagship product, and most evenings spent either going out or doing things around the house.

Last night Kelly and I went out to the pubs, starting off at Rose & Thistle after I left the office. After that we went home to drop off the car and then took the bus to Moon & Sixpence to continue punishing our livers. Had a great time chatting, eating and sipping on beers.

Tonight I went over to a BBQ / party at my friend Jen’s house for an out-of-town guest/old friend and had a really fun time hanging out and meeting new people.

Tomorrow Kelly and I are getting up early and going to Lincoln City for the night. I’m looking forward to both getting out of town (even if only for one night) and going to the coast, which is something I don’t think I do often enough considering I live so close to such a major ocean. I hope to write about it on Sunday.

Beer Food

Mass-transit mess, Goose, Brewfest part 2

Post author By ryan
Post date July 28, 2007
1 Comment on Mass-transit mess, Goose, Brewfest part 2

Today Kelly and I went to the Oregon Brewers Festival… well, Kelly was headed straight there, I had to meet my friend Tim at the Goose Hollow Inn for a reuben sandwich first, since he’s in town from Arizona through the weekend. Getting into downtown was easy, getting to the Goose was a mess.

Due to TriMet‘s work to add a new MAX line that will go north-south, the old east-west MAX service was disrupted, heavily. Coming from the east at around 12:30pm, Kelly got off at the Skidmore stop and met up with Ghost Dog and others at the brewfest, and I kept going. Well, I kept going for two more stops where everyone was forced off the train, herded into a packed bus that was to shuttle folks up and around the construction area to a waiting train on the other side that would continue west. When I got off the bus, the train wasn’t there yet, and rather than wait, I decided to walk to the Goose. As I started walking, a train backed down the line towards the waiting station, but I figured it would take a while to get everybody on and get moving so I kept walking. I ended up making it all the way to the Goose (from 10th and Morrison to 19th and Jefferson, about a mile) and had been sitting down for 10 minutes before the train came by the Goose Hollow stop. Glad I walked.

While at the Goose, my ‘friend’ Tim gave me gifts, and embarrassed me in the process (as usual)… tons of small items wrapped in pink Disney wrapping paper (featuring all the female characters of the animated Disney films). I tore into them as quickly as I could, trying to make the horrible wrapping paper go away, opening item after item of hot sauces, powdered pepper seasonings, salsa mixes, and even a bottle of German curry ketchup. After we ate and sat for a bit, I packed everything up, and walked back to the waterfront (both my backpack and myself weighing more than when I’d arrived).

Once I got to the brewfest (probably around 2:30pm) the line to get in was huge, and when I finally got inside it was packed full. It took Kelly and I texting back and forth for a bit until we found each other. Between the transit delays, the walking in the heat, and then the massive crowd of people I wasn’t exactly in the most festive of moods. The event was as packed as it had been last night, and just as annoying (long lines for beer, annoying people, every 30 seconds everybody in the tents would scream and yell in unison for no reason, like a much more obnoxious version of the wave). Kelly very sweetly went and got me a beer, and we found a couple spare chairs under the south tent to sit in. I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to be there long, and when we briefly met up with Mr. and Mrs. Ghost Dog and discovered that they were on their way out the door, I knew I had to leave.

After one more beer Kelly and I ran away and did the MAX + bus thing to get back home. After getting in (around 5:30pm) and unloading my pack, Kelly and I decided to stay home and relax for the rest of the night, so I went to the store, picked up some beer and some things to grill, and am enjoying the peace and quiet of the back yard. Ahhhh. Much better.

Beer

Brewfest and Moon

Today after work I met a few friends at the Oregon Brewers Festival, the big shindig held at waterfront park filled with, oh, how shall I say this… many of the kinds of people I wouldn’t ordinarily associate with. You know the kind; loudmouthed, backwards baseball cap, muscle shirt wearing, girl oggling neanderthals. The lines were long, people cutting in front of people, and once you got to the end and got your spendy little beer, nobody made way so you could get out of the line.

All my complaining aside, I did have a couple good beers, namely Terminal Gravity Brewing‘s TG Tripel, a nice, roughly Belgian style that was balanced and tasty. I also had a really tasty golden and a dark ale that I liked quite a bit, though I was so busy fighting the crowds that I wasn’t paying close enough attention.

Hopefully when I go back tomorrow (yeah, I’m going back, meeting GD again) it will be more like last year and not today.

Afterwards, Miranda and Brian and I went to Moon & Sixpence… Brian wanted (needed) food badly, and fish & chips sounded good to him, so we took the MAX out there and hung out for a couple hours before I hopped the bus home. Fun night overall, and relaxing at the Moon was what I needed both after the work week and the waterfront brewfest experience. 🙂

Beer General Work

Lion and Shanghai

Went to the Thirsty Lion pub for a work event (same one as last year, see this post) after work. Ran into both some ex-coworkers as well as some ex-employers (from the first web nerd job I got, way back in 1996). Also spent time hanging out with a couple coworkers that I don’t know quite as well, which was fun. Overall I had a fun time.

Kelly met me at the Thirsty Lion towards the end of the event, just as my brother Chad sent me a text saying he and his girlfriend were nearby at the Shanghai Tunnel (again, the pattern is almost the same as last year, just without the concert). So we went down there and were met by a couple of coworkers. Had a blast hanging out. Happy birthday Katie!