The Mash Tun (local brewpub on Alberta) has their first couple batches flowing (finally)! The fist batch is what they describe as an English-style IPA, and the second is a pale ale. Both are quite good, though the ‘IPA’ (I would almost describe it as an ESB) is really quite good. The pale ale is also good, though it’s less a pale ale and more a regular ale. Still, quite excited to finally see (and taste) their beers.
Category: General
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Jive at Holocene
Had a pretty fun evening. I was invited to the Jive Software 5 year anniversary party, held at Holocene, a rather swanky spot in SE Portland. Fun gathering, they had the place to themselves until 9pm, after which had their own private room. At 9pm a DJ showed up spinning 80’s records (though, gotta admit, he wasn’t much to talk about, the beat-matching was terrible, but the tunes were OK).
Was pretty fun. Gotta say, Jive is a cool company, Dave and Matt rock. If you’re in the market for good forum software check ’em out. All-in-all Kelly and I had a great time, had some drinks and snacks, rubbed elbows, etc. Check out Holocene if you’re in the mood for some swank.
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Kid brother’s 21st birthday!
My brother Chad turned 21 today! Had a really fun night out too. Fortunately it was a Sunday, so we hit a lot of spots that would have been sucky busy otherwise (Kells Irish Pub, Shanghai Tunnel, Tube, Dante’s, and the Ash Street). Here’s to you bro. Hope you had fun! 
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Busy “not working”
Well, I had my first day of being unemployed yesterday, and wasn’t able to relax one bit. I know, I know, poor me. But I had hoped that my first day of not being employed (virtually since I was 15 when I got a job at the local grocery store counting cans and bagging groceries) would be a bit more relaxed. Oh well.
Got up at 9:45, filed for unemployment, took care of a rather pressing auto insurance matter, talked to clients about potential freelance / contract work, and did a little bit ‘o work, went to the store for groceries. Heck, I did more yesterday than a normal work day.
Today I have to finish up a little freelance project, and maybe tomorrow and Friday I’ll have nothin’ to do. Of course I know I’ll find some project to keep me busy, I’ve got bunches of them in the back of my mind. -
Busy night out
Had a rather busy evening tonight. First I did the mass-transit shuffle (Bus 72 to 9 to MAX) to the best spot in the whole wide world (no, seriously) the Goose Hollow Inn to meet my friend Tim for one of their famous reubens sandwiches. After that, Kelly and I went to the Concordia Coffee shop not too far from where we live, on NE Alberta, to see our friend Tyson play at the open mic night. Lastly, ended up down the street at the Mash Tun brew pub with a big gang of folk.
All in all it was a good night, got to have the worlds best reuben, some fun music, and some delicious onion rings all in one night… oh yeah, and BEER!
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No more double-decker busses in London
Found something in a roundabout way (was reading a post on the blog Paris Daily Photo, which linked to a post on London Daily Photo) about one of the icons of London, the Routemaster double-decker busses, have been decommissioned. Glad Kelly and I got to ride on one in 2001 when we were there. I guess I can understand why though, the busses were not handicapped-friendly.I imagine that the open-top tourist busses will still be around, at least I hope, bug gone are the normal red double-deckers.
For more info (and some cool pictures, including the source of the one used in this post) see here: www.routemasters.co.uk
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Happy New Year
Happy new year everybody! Here’s to a better year than last (and to hoping I find a new job, hehe :))
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Going to the U.K. again!
Kelly and I just booked plane tickets to the U.K.! We fly out May 14th and return May 31st. Kelly was eager to go on another trip before she started back to school for her Master’s degree, and although I’m facing unemployment in my very near future, the tickets were the right price ($691 each, round trip) so we figured "what the heck!"The plan is to start off in the Exeter area (in the south west of England) to visit our friends Joanna and David. Exeter is in Devon county, near Cornwall, and for those of you who know your Monty Python "Coronworl… ah yes know Coronworl very well. Went to school there, mother and father live there." (Cycling Tour sketch)
After that we’ll drive north through England to Edinburgh Scotland, taking our time along the way to visit Stonehenge, Bath, and who knows where else. Then, on the way back we’ll visit York and the surrounding area, ending back at London.
More details to come as the time draws near, but that’s the big news for now.
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Closing time…
Well, recieved some bummer news this week, guess I’ll be jobless in a little over a month. The company I’ve been working for the past few years has decided to close up shop. Stunned me, considering how busy I’ve been with all the work. Sucks now that I have a house to pay for. Would have been a lot easier to stomach a year ago.
Thinking of taking a month to regroup, figure out what I want to do. That is unless something really sweet happens to land in my lap between now and January 16th 2006.
Going to delay the publish date of this post until December 1 though (it’s mid-november now) since the news of the company closing is still a secret.
I suspect however that one side-effect of this is that I’ll have more time to post, which if you look you’ll note my posts are erratic and very infrequent.
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Cool name site
My friend Tim sent me an interesting site that gives stats in a spiffy Java graph of names from 1900 to 2003. Interesting to find my name’s popularity peaked about ten years after I was born, and is still twice as popular as it was when I was born. Cool!
Check out the NameVoyager here (babynamewizard.com)
*requires Java