blog.circusgeek

a personal blog with nerdy bits thrown in

Category: Food

  • Turkey day

    Yesterday I had the day off of work, and had the downstairs carpets cleaned by a local service. What a difference! After only three years in the house (and a few dozen parties, cat hairballs, and random spills) we had managed to build up quite the number of nasty stains. Now it looks like new. Wonder how long it’ll be before the first spill?

    Today Kelly and I went out to my parents place for Thanksgiving. I was able to exert some restraint and didn’t leave the house feeling uncomfortably full. I had a small-ish plate of dinner, and despite the 5 delicious pies (including two that Kelly baked today and brought along) I only had 2.5 slices worth. A record low all around.

    Right now I’m having a pint of Guinness from the kegerator. Mmmmm.

    Today I’m thankful for great friends, family, food, and beer. 🙂

  • Goose Hollow, and a long ride home

    This evening Kelly and some friends of ours had tickets to see 80’s goth-rock gods Sisters of Mercy play downtown on a reunion tour. I opted not to go. I like them fine, and wore my Floodland cassette out decades ago, but just not enough to pay for the rather spendy ticket.

    I did go along to dinner with everybody at the Goose Hollow Inn (mmm, reuben sandwich). Afterwards I drove Kelly to the venue, parked, made sure she was safe in the company of our friends, and then took the bus home so Kelly could drive home afterwards.

    On the way down to the bus stop I realized that I had to pee. Nothing urgent, just a bit of forewarning from the ol’ bladder. I pressed on thinking that maybe fortune would smile on me and a bus would arrive as I got to the bus stop. As I got there and checked the schedule I learned I had a good 30 minutes until the bus was scheduled to arrive. “Okay,” I thought, “I can do this” and then loaded up some music on my iPod and began my wait.

    Within about five minutes some tweaker girl (who introduced herself as Tony) started talking rapidly to me about how she was just up at another bar with friends and just had to leave because she wasn’t in a good place and had to catch a bus to Southeast to go to some party and how she was feeling punchy and blah blah blah blah blah… I just stood there listening to her (because she looked like she needed it) and smiling and responding with “uh huh” and “oh yeah?” and “ahh” a lot. It was a very long 30 minutes. Oh, and by this time, the bladder wasn’t hinting anymore, but starting to complain, loudly.

    Once I finally got on a bus I had another 25 minutes to wait, and because I got impatient (and wasn’t thinking clearly) I hopped on a bus that drops me off about 7 blocks further away from home than the one I’d wanted. Once off the bus I began the 14 block walk home, very quickly. It was a long walk, and every dark corner and row of shrubbery mocked me as I passed, daring me to do the wrong thing.

    I however succeeded in not urinating in a public (or in my pants). I am now comfortably sitting here sipping on a Guinness. Hooray!

  • Weekend recap

    Saturday after Kelly got home we had a night in (as poor Kelly was exhausted from partying ’til the break of dawn). So I went to the local Thai place and picked up some dinner, and then we watched some television before Kelly went to bed.

    Yesterday we went over to our neighbors to get the details on what we need to do to watch their dog next weekend while they’re out of town. We even went to the local park and played a bit with all the other neighborhood dogs before going to Concordia Ale House for dinner. Oh, I also played quite a bit of Team Fortress 2 yesterday. Hooray!

    Last night we watched a couple movies. First was the rom-com Blind Dating, which was my first exposure to the upcoming Captain Kirk actor Christopher Pine, who was actually pretty good despite the relatively cheesy flick. It also got me even more excited for the upcoming Star Trek film. After that we watched the British gangster flick Layer Cake, which I’d seen on a plane w/o Kelly and had forgotten how good it was.

    Back to work today. I think I’m coming down with something, or fighting something off at least. I felt exhausted all day, with a tiny bit of a stuffy head and sore throat. I think I’m just going to continue to ignore it, and hope it goes away without direct intervention on my part. Stupid fall.

  • Time off ends.

    I didn’t blog quite as often as I thought I would over the past few days… distractions distractions. So here’s a recap of my short holiday.

    Thursday was Kelly’s big Mac & Cheese contest finale at Kells, and I ate way too much food. Some of the finalists recipes were really good, and the ones I thought should have won top awards didn’t. Hrmph!

    Friday Kelly and I had a small party at our house for my birthday, had a good time hanging out with friends and neighbors, snacking and sharing my keg of Guinness with everybody. I suspect that night made a dent. 🙂

    Saturday I went to dinner with my family at the Ringside Steakhouse. Mmm, meats.

    Sunday (yesterday) I was lazy, but I did go and pick up an iPod Touch. Shiny.

    Today I was very lazy. The most exciting thing I did was to get the oil changed in the car, and play some Call of Duty 4. Oh, and of course play with the new iPod.

    Anyway, tomorrow I go back to the office. *sigh*

  • Time off begins…

    So after a rough week last week, tonight I begin some well-earned time off. Starting now, I will NOT be working again until next Tuesday. Hooray!

    Kelly got back from New York yesterday. Last night we made dinner and nearly got caught up on Heroes before Kelly passed out, since she was so exhausted. Tonight (and tomorrow night) she’s staying in a hotel in downtown Portland with her coworkers leading up to her big work event on Thursday night. Basically I’ve seen her once since last Wednesday, and I probably won’t see her again until Thursday night. Hrmph!

    Oh well, the important part is that I’m at home, chillin’ out listening to music, sipping on beers, and generally relaxing. Ahhhhh…

  • Happy birthday Ty

    Tonight Kelly and I went over to our friends Ty and Aymie’s place for Ty’s birthday party thingy. Happy birthday man! Had a great time hanging out and catching up with all the crew.

    Been a while since the last post, so since then:

    • Saw Hellboy II: The Golden Army (finally), liked it quite a bit
    • Been working my ass off, lots going on
    • Been fighting a sickness this past week, ughhh
    • Saw Dogville, what a depressing flick
    • Saw Doomsday, what rubbish
    • Went to the Goose last night with Mr & Mrs Ghost Dog, brilliant!
    • Bought a Blu-ray player today, brilliant!
    • Bought Iron Man on Blu-ray, also brilliant!
    • Still pouring Trumer Pilsner in the kegerator, alsø alsø brilliant!

  • Lazy day, Goose night

    Today I had all kinds of plans to get outside and get something done in the yard. However, none of that worked out, as I ended up spending (wasting?) my day at the computer, browsing music, playing games, and generally not getting much done.

    Tonight Kelly and I went to the Goose Hollow Inn to have dinner with some friends. On our way we visited one of my coworker’s for a little bit (who was having a small BBQ gathering). We had a fun time even though we were only there for about an hour… the Goose and their delicious sandwiches beckoned.

    The friends we were meeting had never been to the Goose before, so the evening was largely planned due to my raving about their reuben sandwich. Had a fantastic time, and our friends were soon praising the Goose reuben as well. I think I won the Goose a couple more converts. Amen! Goose Hollow reuben be praised!

  • Server rebuild, office move, family weekend

    Server rebuild
    Last weekend (Labor Day weekend in the states) I spent my time rebuilding my linux server (circusgeek). The poor machine had been running non-stop for 4 years, 2 months, 27 days. The primary system drive was showing some signs of impending death, so it needed to be replaced. I also figured I’d add a bunch of memory since I was in there performing surgery. After meticulously backing everything up, I swapped out drives, added the memory, and began restoring everything. The new OS install was fast and painless (I chose Ubuntu this time around), but the process of getting all the server services running and configured took a bit more time. However, everything’s back and running better than it had been.

    Last day in the old offices
    This past week was the last for myself and many others in the old SuperSweetCo offices on 3rd and Alder. First thing tomorrow we’ll be joining the rest of the company who have been in the new office building for some months now. I’ve been in the same corner of the same floor of the same building since I started over 2 years ago, so it’s going to be a bit bittersweet. I’m looking forward to the change of work environment, but I’m definitely going to miss the location of the old offices, and it’s proximity to the waterfront, the MAX and bus lines, the restaurants and the shops. The new office however is very close to Powell’s Books and Kenny & Zuke’s, so that’ll be good. 🙂

    Family weekend
    On Friday after work Kelly and I drove out to a tavern in Beaverton to celebrate my dad’s retirement. My mom had arranged for a large group of his now-ex-coworkers to join, and they all got up, embarrassed him with old stories, and gave him gag gifts. It was actually pretty fun, even though I didn’t really fit in with a bunch of linemen. The thing that struck both myself and my brother was the camaraderie, the feeling of family, that the group had. They all work hard, they all risk their lives together, and they all rely on one another. Oh, and I found out that they put his hard hat on top of a pole to honor him, and it will stay there, even if they replace the pole. Pretty cool.

    Yesterday Kelly and I went to a BBQ at my aunt’s house because my cousin Julie was in town. I got to see a few other cousins (Kris and Dana) who I’d not seen in many many years. It was both a fun and weird BBQ. 🙂

    After I got home, I did some yardwork, sipped on some beers, and then dozed off watching TV with Kelly at around 11pm. Shuffled up to bed when I woke up at about 1:30 (Kelly was still up watching something). Woke up at 8am this morning, and am coffee-ing up so I can go out and do more yardwork today. Whee!

  • Anniversary, and dinner at a friends

    Ciao VitoLast night Kelly and I went out to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. Our anniversary was technically Thursday, but we went out for dinner after work yesterday instead. Kelly picked me up from work after a work happy hour (last one in the current office, I move to a new location in a couple weeks), stopped at home, and then walked down Alberta Street to the restaurant Ciao Vito. We arrived a bit early for our reservation so we went next door to Mash Tun for a beer and a visit with their friendly staff. Dinner was delicious, I had the Sugo of Pork dish, which was very good (and very filling) and Kelly had some kind of fried cheese thing (can’t find on the online menu) and a caprese salad for her dinner. Everything was wonderful, and the staff were friendly and welcoming. It was a very nice and low-key dinner experience, I recommend the restaurant. After dinner we went back to the Mash Tun for another couple pints before walking home.

    After getting home Kelly wanted to watch Serenity (I love her!), though sadly I was exhausted and fell asleep on the couch with the cat about halfway through, waking up at 2 or 3 in the morning and shuffling upstairs to plop in bed.

    Tonight we went out to dinner at a friends place in Hillsboro. Had a great time out… chatted, ate fajitas, drank beer, and got to see Battlefield Bad Company in action. The game looks like fun, too bad it’s not out for the PC. Grrr.

    In related gaming news, I’ve rediscovered OpenArena recently. It’s free and works on Mac, Linux and PC, check it out and get your frag on! 🙂

  • Camping (Bernie Man)

    This weekend Kelly and I went camping at a friend’s property a little way south-east of Salem. The host (Bernard, aka Bernie) has a house and several acres along a clean, mountain-fed river, and invited a group to join him camping, swimming, and drinking beer. Both Kelly and I had a really good time catching up with friends, walking through the woods, swimming, and absorbing that campfire smell.

    Our first night sleeping in the tent, a deer or elk almost killed Kelly and I! I (unsurprisingly) slept through the event, but around 3am a fellow camper heard some crashing and saw a large shape run off. When I woke up I found a hole in our tent, and one of the polls out of it’s peg and the whole corner of the tent was smooshed in. Dunno, could have been sasquatch. All I know is we almost could have died. *gasp*

    Other highlights: people brought art (Bernie is an artist himself and has some space he set up as a gallery), the food people made and shared was excellent, and while cold, the swimming was fantastic. Had a great time, and hope to go again someday. More photos in the gallery.