Category: Beer

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Beer Food Work

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.

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Beer Food News Work

Outing with work folk

Today SuperSweetCo launched a new version of the fancy new web-based collaboration software. To celebrate, the team who make it go went out after work for food and drinks. We started off walking up to Jake's Grill, which is on the ground floor of the historic Governor Hotel. The happy hour menu at Jake's is incredible, everything is $1.95, and it's not all small appetizers, but full meals such as the 1/2 pound cheeseburger with fries. I had a small hummus plate and it was delicious. After sitting around and sipping on a few pints of Guinness we walked down to Kells to meet up with a few more coworkers. Had a great time.

Kelly met up with us at Kells (she had a happy hour with a friend not far away) and we rode the bus homeward together. We ended up taking a bus that ends up pretty far away from home, but the weather was great so we decided it wouldn't be a problem. We get off the bus on the corner of 15th and Alberta, only to remember that it's Last Thursday, a monthly event held up Alberta for about 20 blocks, with art, crafts, musicians, hippies, yuppies, and everything inbetween (good blog about it with pics here). As we turned the corner we ran into our friends Ty & Aymie (Aymie had a table set up selling her bead works). Chatted with them for a bit before wading through the heavy crowds to get home. Apparently a couple hours later there was a brawl between some drunken idiots and cops, ending up with riot cops showing up. Some moron apparently threw a beer bottle at a cop, the cop tazer'd the moron, and then the moron's friends started fighting back, and it escalated from there. Sheesh. Bunch of morons.

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Beer Entertainment General Movies Work

Unghhh

What a week, and what a day.

The past week has been pretty crazy at work. SuperSweetCo is prepping a new version of the software that I worked on a few months back. The UI is changing a little bit, which means that there's quite a bit of work for me to do. I can only hope the changes are received as big improvements. Stress!

After work yesterday I decided to walk homeward for a bit, the weather was nice, and I needed the physical and mental break from the week. I ended up walking about halfway home (at little over 3 miles) before catching a bus. Once I got home I drank a few beers and watched some movies from Netflix that K had already seen during the week. One of them was a pretty good (and quirky) romantic comedy called Happy Accidents. In general, anything with Vincent D'Onofrio I like… and Marisa Tomei isn't hard on the eyes either.

Today I had to get up early to help my friend Jenn move. In general helping a friend move is relatively easy, not because I'm all that fit, but it's normally pretty straight-forward… move stuff from point A to B. However in this case my friend Jenn swapped houses with a friend who lived about 3 blocks away. This might sound simple, but it's not. It meant that myself and the 10 other hard-working blokes had to fill the moving truck for a couple hours (climbing and descending steps and stairs, weighed down with heavy boxes, furniture and appliances), only to get to the other house, unload all that stuff, only to refill the moving truck with the stuff from the other house… effectively starting all over. Despite a couple beers and a short pizza break, after four hours I was exhausted. I'm not used to that level of strain. Oh, and the best part was about half-way through it started raining. Whee! All my complaining aside, I was still happy to help Jenn move. Just hope I never have to help move a house-swap ever again. It's a bit like rubbing salt in a wound. 🙂

After getting home and washing the stink off, and spending a couple hours relaxing (and letting the soreness set in) K and I joined Mr & Mrs Ghost Dog at the Mash Tun for a fantastic meal and some delicious beers. One of the beers that both GD and I enjoyed was a brown ale called Turbodog from Abita Brewing Co. in Louisiana. It was a delicious, quality brown ale with a slightly sweet and bitter flavor. And, it's got a cool name! 🙂 Had a great night, but I'm feeling very sore. I suspect tomorrow is going to suck. 

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Beer General Travel

Ant report, beer, hotel, and a trip to Washington

I've been busy the past several days. Work has been very stressful. I have a lot to get done prior to a new software release (coming in a couple weeks). On Wednesday I worked from home, and had an "Orkin Man" come over and look into the ant issue. To my great relief, we don't have carpenter ants (whew!) but instead have a non-destructive nuisance called oderous house ants. Apparently it's pretty common in the area, and while they can be hard to get rid of, they're not a destructive. We'll see what we can do with store-bought ant-killing pesticides first before paying for an extermination treatment that's usually reserved for carpenter ants. Apparently the inspection was free, at least, unless we get a bill in the mail later.

On Thursday my brother Travis and I got together for our weekly beer drinking session. Had a good time, though made it an early night (due to the aforementioned work stress).

Friday after work I met Kelly and our friend Miranda at the McMenamins Back Stage Bar (mentioned before) and had a delicious spicy mac 'n cheese dish with blackened chicken, and a couple pints of Terminator Stout. Later we drove Miranda home to hang out, but not before stopping at Belmont Station to buy a few beers for the weekend (Smithwick's, Coniston Bluebird Bitter, Old Speckled Hen, and a few other things). 

Today was pretty productive, despite sleeping in a bit. Kelly and I finally booked a hotel for our upcoming trip London. We chose the Park Plaza 'Sherlock Holmes' Hotel. Despite the rather touristy name, and after digging around for probably 20 hours total in the past week (using a combination of Bookings.org, TripAdvisor, and a great Google Maps and hotel search mashup called MashedHotels) we found the Sherlock Holmes was in a good location for a "decent" price (I added quotes because pretty much everything in London is really expensive). After some knuckle-gnawing, I opted for the more expensive 'suite' room. I figured that since we will be there for 8 nights, I wanted to spend our nights in as nice a room as I could afford this time, rather than going for the low-end budget route we usually go for. After booking the hotel, and going to get a haircut, Kelly and I drove about a half-hour north into Washington to visit my longtime friend Sean and his family at their new house. They had just finished moving this morning to a house that sits on ten acres of land in a beautiful and secluded area. It was great seeing them again, and I'm glad they finally found the spot they'd been looking for (for the past several years). After getting back to Portland we hung out at the Mash Tun with our friend Jenn at the Mash Tun for a bit, before going home. What a day! 🙂 

Categories
Beer Food

Busy day, Goose evening

Due to an early evening last night (with me falling asleep on the couch at 11pm like some kind of old person) both Kelly and I got up just after 9:00 this morning.

As a result of having a full (and rainy) day ahead of us, we both got a lot done around the house. I got my finances in order (entered receipts into my personal finance app, paid bills online, etc), fixed a small bedroom closet issue (the weight of all someone's clothes broke the plastic holders of the hanger rod, for a second time, so I installed some metal ones!), and we did a massive refrigerator clean-up. What an icky mess a fridge can become after only two years of use. We pulled everything out (shelves and all) and wiped all the gunk out. We even pulled the fridge away from the wall to sweep underneath and finally disovered that there's a water hookup in the wall behind it… that means that one day we can get one o' them fancy fridges with the water & ice dispenser in the door. Hooray! After that, I took the bottles & cans that had been piling up to the local New Seasons, and did some grocery shopping.

After all that I ran by my friend Brendle's house for a smoke. While there, he mentioned he was going to Gartners to pick up some meat for some stew he going to make. Since moving into the neighborhood two years ago I'd heard about that meat mecca, so I offered to take him over there so I could finally check the place out. And what a place it was! Every kind, cut, and style of meat a carnivore's heart could desire, and all of it made my mouth water. I'm definately going to be making pilgrimages there throughout the summer for my BBQ needs. 🙂

After all that, Kelly and I met our good friends Jason and Jen at our old haunt, the Goose Hollow Inn, for some dinner and drinks. Had a fantastic time hanging out on the deck, catching up, eating delicious reuben sandwiches, and sipping beers. Great night, and the perfect way to end a busy day.

Tomorrow Kelly and I are going out to my hometown to meet up with my family at one of the few (and soon to shut down) restaurants in town, the Brown Derby, for an Easter brunch. I'm a little sad to hear the place will be shutting down, I've been going there since I was a little kid. It was really the one 'fancy' restaurant in town, and right next door to my grandparents old house. The signature Brown Derby Burger is something to behold. I'd put it far above anything Stanich's has to offer. *sniff* I can only hope I can get that burger tomorrow, before it's too late!