Category: Entertainment

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News Television Work

The sudden ‘KABOOM’

While at the office today, I think I found Marvin the Martian’s KABOOM.

There I was, sitting at my desk working away in peace and quiet, when suddenly came a very loud and earth shaking explosion somewhere nearby. The east-facing windows were instantly lined with coworkers, watching a tall stream of black smoke that was steadily rising a couple blocks away. About a minute later, white vapor and then nothing.

Then I recalled what some coworkers had said earlier in the day; there was some kind of filming going on at the corner of Burnside and Broadway. A-ha! (and whew)

I later learned that the hubbub was apparently for the TNT show Leverage, which recently moved it’s production to Portland. It’s a pretty decent show actually, and now I’m kind of excited to watch some episodes filmed in and around my hometown. Including the one with the KABOOM.

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Beer Entertainment Food Movies Technology Work

The past few weeks

Yeah, it’s been a few weeks since my last post, which means it’s recap time!

Work has been keeping me plenty busy. Many long hours and late nights. It’s been good, but very exhausting.

We had a petty nasty wind storm a couple weeks back. The large tree in front of the house lost about five 8-9 foot long branches. The front yard looked like a war zone. Branches, twigs, and needles blanketing everything. It took a good few hours of sawing and raking to get it mostly cleaned up.

On the morning of Obama’s inauguration I had to rush into a dentists to get a filling replaced (one that’d started breaking loose from a molar a few months ago). It wasn’t what I would call fun, but it’s all good now.

Portland got a bit more snow earlier this week. Just enough that my bus got stuck trying to go up an incline (the bus wasn’t chained up). After getting stuck, I got off and walked back home and worked from there for the rest of the day. The strangest part was by 5pm it was 40 degrees and all the snow was gone.

My kid brother C turned 24 this week, and he and brother T came over to my pub (my garage) for a few beers, some pizza, and some dart throwing. Happy birthday C!

Tonight Kelly and I met some friends at the Goose for some dinner and beers. Yum.

I picked up a Roku (used for $80) earlier this week. So far I’m pretty impressed, the streaming quality is pretty good. Kelly’s watching An American in Paris as I write this. She’s quite excited.

Oh, and I got another keg of Guinness today (after the last one ran dry about two weeks ago). I swore I was going to get something different, but I couldn’t help it, Guinness is just too delicious. Yum!

Other than that, I’ve been watching Lost and Battlestar Galactica now that those are both back on, and as I said above, working.

That pretty much covers it, I think.

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Beer Entertainment Food General

Hey look, it’s 2009!

Last night Kelly and I had a small group of frinds over for our annual New Years Eve party. It was smaller than expected, but that didn’t stop Kelly from making enough food for a small army (as usual). I was unable to get a keg of the beer I wanted (Guinness) in time, so the kegerator was sad, but it all worked out fine. We ended up spending a couple hours playing with our new Wii, and while we were playing Wii Bowling, I learned that my friend J is something of a Wii Bowling master, and that Ghost Dog has some nice spin technique. We had a great time, and thanks to those who were able to make it. For everybody else, Happy New Year.

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Beer General Music

Christmas at home

Due to the unusual amount of snow that’s hit the greater Portland area this past week, Kelly and I were unable to make the usual trek out to my folks house today.

My hometown, which is nestled in the foothills of the Oregon coast range, had more than two feet of snow. This is the most snow my folks have ever seen, and that’s saying something. When I was young we’d fairly regularly get about a foot of snow, though over the past 15 years getting more than six inches of snow, especially before Christmas, has been a rare thing.

This meant that this was the first Christmas that my family hasn’t spent together opening gifts, eating breakfast, eating pies, and gorging ourselves on far too many cookies. It had my family pretty bummed out, especially my younger brothers.

If it warms up and the snow continues to melt (which is the forecast) we’ll be out there in a few days (maybe Saturday) to celebrate Christmas. It’s only a few days delay, no big deal. Fortunately I have family who all live in the same area, and nobody has had to travel long distances. I can’t imagine the hell it must have been for people trying to get into (or out of) Portland the past few days. The inconvenience of postponing Christmas a few days isn’t that big a deal.

Tonight Kelly and I met Snooks at Kennedy School for a couple beers, which was a nice break away from home. On the way back Kelly and I helped a cab get un-stuck. Poor fella tried to turn from a relatively cleared street onto a snow & slushy mess and got stuck. It’s still a mess out here.

Anyway, Happy Holidays everyone. Hope you all had a great day. And only a week away from 2009. Maybe this year will be better than the last.

Categories
Beer Entertainment Food Movies

A day at home, a night at Goose & Moon

Yesterday I got a few Blu-ray discs I picked at Amazon.com for fairly cheap (on black friday). Watched two last night, Batman Begins and Sunshine. Can’t wait until Dark Knight is delivered in a week or two, I’ve been waiting to see that again since I saw it in the theater.

I woke up early today and got quite a bit done around the house. It was a nice sunny, and cold winter day, and was good for puttering about the house while Kelly was out shopping with friends. Among all the housework and bill-paying and other nonsense, I discovered how easy Handbrake makes it to convert DVD’s to iPod-friendly files, and added a movie to my iPod Touch. Hooray!

Tonight Kelly and I went back to the famous Goose Hollow Inn for dinner and drinks with friends. Had a great time out, eating reuben sandwiches, drinking beers, and chatting the night away out on the heated patio. After we left for home, Kelly and I stopped at our local pub (Moon & Sixpence) for a couple more pints before heading home.

Had a great day, and a great night out.