Category: Beer

Categories
Beer Travel

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.

Categories
Beer Food Science Work

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.

Categories
Beer

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.

Categories
Beer General Technology Work

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.

Categories
Beer Food

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!